Chapter Five

In many companies the keeping of two sets of accounts was regarded as almost mandatory. The Manones, however, maintained not just two sets of accounts but several, for old Carlo and brother Guido knew that it was not the polizia who represented the biggest threat to the smooth running of a family business but court servants and inquisitive tax inspectors, and that Scots law, unlike the laws of Italy, was applied with Presbyterian rigour.

It was by no means impossible to bribe officials and make hand-outs to unscrupulous coppers but graft within the municipal administration was too expensive for even Guido and his nephew, Dominic, to invest in.

The Manones were not bookmakers; they merely financed bookmakers. The Manones were not house-breakers or bank robbers; they just happened to be able to make the loot from such enterprises vanish without trace. The Manones did not personally operate the loan sharking and protection rackets that flourished on the southside, though they were not opposed to arranging by proxy a little arson here or a beating-up there.

After all, in the wake of a stock-market crash, in the middle of a slump, who could blame you for protecting your interests.

Mr Shadwell, the Manones’ chief accountant, was instructed to keep immaculate records but he was paid a substantial sum not only for on-page arithmetic but also to keep his mouth shut about all the off-page arithmetic that occurred upstairs in Central Warehouse Company’s offices or on the deal table in the house in Manor Park Avenue.

The typewriter, adding machine and telephone – especially the telephone – were the tools with which Dominic controlled his urban empire and his time was taken up not with instilling fear or dispensing rough justice but with managing the men who managed the men who did.

Dominic was not discomfited by bloodshed but he was remote from it.

He spent much time lunching with bankers, lawyers and shipping agents and, in spite of his foreign origins, was accepted as part of the old boys’ network that controlled much of the city’s commerce: a caucus of well-heeled, well-educated Scotsmen whose greed far outstripped his own.

It was a man’s world, of course, a world of private rooms, fine tweed and wool worsted, of beefsteaks, brandy and cigars, all salted with the faint, earthy streak of proletarianism that even the most exalted Scottish blue-blood, let alone a jumped-up member of the middle class, could not quite shake out of his system, not in dear, dark, dusty Glasgow at any rate.

Of late, though, Dominic had experienced a strange hankering to leave the grim Scottish city in which he’d been born, to mingle with people who knew him not, to stroll in the sunshine, perhaps, and dance with sweet signorinas under a hot Ligurian moon.

Dominic was not permitted to visit Italy or travel to America to visit his mama, sisters and his father, who was no longer young. Old Carlo was for ever reminding him by letter that some things are stronger than blood ties and that he was a Scotsman born and bred and had no right to desire more than had already been given him.

Uncle Guido was sympathetic, Aunt Teresa too. They were of the old school, however, steeped in traditions that seemed vain to Dominic. No matter how much they loved him, they could not understand him.

Aunt Teresa did all the cooking and bossed the local girls who came to the mansion every day to dust and polish and assist with the laundry. She was not by nature a compliant woman but she had learned to pretend to be obedient.

To her shame she had never given Guido a child, not even a daughter, and Uncle Guido still sought consolation in the arms of lively young things whom he encountered in the cafés and factories over which he, through Dominic, held sway. He would take off for two or three days at a stretch to tour the Manones’ properties in the Alfa Romeo or, if discretion was called for, in a more modest Singer Senior Six. He would return from these trips sleepy-eyed and smug but with the work always done, the money collected and accounted for. Dominic didn’t know precisely what his uncle got up to with the girls in the resort towns but he heard rumours now and then and he wasn’t naïve enough to suppose that the friendships were innocent.

Given his position as head of the family he might have challenged the old man and demanded to be told what was going on – but that he would not do. It was enough that Guido returned with two black leather portmanteaux stuffed with cash and that, late in the evening after the maids had gone home and Aunt Teresa had retired to bed, his uncle and he, and Mr Shadwell too, would pour coins and banknotes on to the table, spread out ledgers, stock-books and great bundles of receipts and invoices and begin work, real work, making tallies and deductions and filling the plain brown envelopes by way of which the runners and scouts of the Manones’ dark little army were paid.

Once in a blue moon Dominic would slip off by himself. He’d drive unaccompanied down the coast to inspect the ice-cream factory or drop in unannounced at one of the cafés. He’d chat with managers and staff, would inspect the books, nod, and drive home again, just to keep Uncle Guido on his toes and prove that he trusted no one, not even his nearest and dearest. He didn’t take up on Uncle Guido’s advice, though, to find a nice piece of skirt who liked a good time and who would be amenable to spending the night in bed with a handsome Italian, if only as a favour to the family.

Dominic would have none of that. He might have been raised without any religious beliefs worth talking about but he couldn’t discard the ethics that had been dinned into him at high school. That odd, inimically Scottish system of values that made a virtue out of self-denial, that emphasised the meaning of respect without servility and honour, even among thieves.

Dominic’s life was constrained by duty to his family. He quietly paid his dues to the comunardo, made sure he never short-changed his employees, transferred his father’s slice of the profits to a bank in Philadelphia, USA, and, out of necessity, put in an occasional appearance at some of the Italian community’s less public events. He refused to stoop to exploiting the position of power that had been thrust upon him, however; a position that, as he had grown from boyhood into manhood, had become such a millstone round his neck that he felt bowed down by it, reduced, as Uncle Carlo had been, to someone who existed only to serve the family and whose worth beyond that was questionable.

In the winter of 1930, a bleak season of strikes, riots and rising unemployment, Dominic Manone reached the ripe old age of twenty-eight.

Apart from attending another testimonial dinner hosted for him by members of the Rowing Club, he refused to celebrate the occasion, for he felt that he was going nowhere, that his life, like the nation’s order books, was empty.

‘What is wrong with that boy?’ Aunt Teresa asked in the thudding dialect of the Genoese docklands by which she and her husband communicated when no one else was around. ‘He eats nothing I cook for him. All he does is read the newspapers, drink coffee and smoke his little cigars. He is becoming more like you every day, Guido. He should go out more.’

‘He has his businesses to attend to,’ Guido answered. ‘He has no time to be frivolous.’

‘Frivolous,’ Teresa Manone said. ‘You are the frivolous one.’

‘Shut your mouth,’ said Guido, politely.

Reluctantly Aunt Teresa did as she was told.

She was three years younger than her husband and bore a distinct resemblance to a plump Atlantic seal. In a last defiant act of vanity, though, she still plucked her eyebrows, a habit that had reduced them to two thin startled crescents. When she scowled the fringe of soft grey down that adorned her upper lip darkened and she looked, so Guido thought, not just plain but ugly.

He often told her so.

She said nothing to contradict him.

She sat at the kitchen table – that long table where her husband, her nephew and the Jew counted out cash – and gave Guido a penetrating stare that amply substituted for criticism.

‘What is it you would have me do?’ Guido said. ‘About Dominic, I mean.’

‘Take him dancing?’

‘Dancing?’

‘Take him with you when you go away.’

‘When I go – what? – when I go dancing?’ Guido might have laughed off the woman’s suggestion but he wasn’t given to showing weakness of any kind. ‘Do you want me to dance with him? Do you want me to teach him the steps?’

‘You have taught him everything else,’ Aunt Teresa said.

‘Dominic does not want to dance.’

‘He should want to dance. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘Where would I take him? To the Palais? How do you think that would look? A man of his stature turning up at the Calcutta?’

‘There are other places.’

‘What other places?’

‘On the coast,’ Teresa said.

‘What do you know about the coast?’

‘I’ve heard.’

Guido picked an olive from a bowl on the dresser, sucked on it thoughtfully, then spat the pit into his palm. He straightened the hump on his shoulders so that he towered over the tiny, seal-like woman. He didn’t ask where she had heard, or what she had heard. He knew that she would not betray her confidantes. It would be the girls, the day-maids from Govan, who had brought her gossip. They were sharp creatures, shrewd enough to keep out of his way but he didn’t doubt that they could be lippy when it suited them.

‘Ballrooms,’ Teresa said.

‘I do not know what you’re talking about,’ Guido said.

‘Girls,’ Teresa said. ‘Romance.’

‘You think that’s what your nephew needs – romance?’

‘He is too much with old men, like you. Boy of his age needs sweethearts.’

‘Is this your cure for a loss of appetite?’ Guido said. ‘Perhaps he’s only constipated and could be cured by a dose of senna.’

‘Why does he not like the girls?’ Aunt Teresa persisted. ‘Is there something wrong with him?’

‘There is nothing wrong with him,’ Guido said, bridling. ‘If he wants girls he knows where to find them. He can pick a nice Italian girl from the Community if he really wants romance. If it’s the other thing, the quick thing, he can find that too, without my encouragement or assistance.’

‘He is not favoured in the Community.’

‘No, he is too quiet for his own good.’

‘It’s because he is not a good Catholic, because he—’

Guido spat another olive pit into his palm and closed his fist. ‘Be careful, old woman. It is not for you to criticise Dominic, even if he is your nephew.’

‘I worry for him.’

‘Worry for yourself,’ Guido said. ‘Dominic does what he was put here to do. Right now it’s all as smooth as cream – but it may not always be so.’

‘Is there trouble?’ Teresa raised her brows. ‘Trouble with the police?’

‘Do not ask questions.’ Guido paused. ‘No, no trouble with the police.’

‘Then he needs a sweetheart,’ Teresa said.

‘Jesus and Joseph!’

‘He should not be so much alone.’

‘So I should take him dancing, uh? To one of these ballrooms, uh?’

‘Find him a sweetheart,’ Teresa said, ‘or better still, a bride.’

‘Sure, sure,’ said Uncle Guido. ‘I will order him up a bride.’

‘Why should you not?’ Teresa said. ‘It’s time he married.’

She watched her husband, wondering if her advice would strike home.

‘Yes,’ Guido said, after a pause. ‘Maybe, for once, you are right.’

And Teresa gave a little nod, and prudently said no more.

*   *   *

Stuart Royce and the Roysters had held on to the contract at the Calcutta Road Palais de Danse for going on a year and a half. That in itself was a feat that bordered on the miraculous, for the Brothers Grimm – actual name Grimsdyke – were notoriously slippery when it came to paying out wages. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of certain individuals like Jackie and Dennis Hallop, and the transfer of modest sums in ‘management’ fees, then poor old Stuart would probably have had to beg for his bread, or leave.

The Manones knew nothing of the arrangement between the Hallops, the bandleader and the Grimsdykes, although the Manones had put up big money to get the brothers started in the first place.

Rather to Dominic’s surprise, the loan, with interest, had been paid off in full within two years of the Palais opening its doors to the public. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to Dominic or Uncle Guido that it was almost impossible for a ballroom to fail even in the midst of a slump and that the Brothers Grimm, whatever their other faults, sure knew how to run a dance-hall.

The Calcutta was mobbed every night of the week.

It had a late-nite opening, with offical blessing, on Fridays, when trained dancers in swirling skirts and dinner suits competed ferociously for prizes. On Wednesdays pipers and accordionists played for devotees of teuchter – that is, Highland – music and you could work up a sweat flinging some old granny across the floor or be put out of the game for a week if some old granny decided to turn the tables on you. Monday was tango nite, all passion and pulled muscles. Tuesdays and Thursdays saw the advent of paid partners, young men and pretty girls who languished under a code of morals stricter than the Book of Leviticus. And Saturday? Saturday was ‘crush’ night when every Tom, Dick and Tabby who couldn’t afford to go hunting up town packed the floor, toilets, corridors and staircases and, by half past ten o’clock, when the hall was filled to capacity, even spilled out into Calcutta Street to dance on the cobbles there.

As a dancer Jackie held himself in high esteem.

He had whiled away many a dreary afternoon cruising the floor of the Palais with a paid partner or receiving lessons in deportment from the more aloof young ladies who earned their sixpences at the Albert, the Imperial or the Locarno. He knew all the latest tunes and had perfected a series of ornate steps to enliven the standard walk-through of waltz, foxtrot and quickstep, and his tango was, well, just astonishing to behold, especially if you happened to be a specialist in spinal injuries.

Even bandleader Stuart Royce thought Jackie was the bee’s knees and would snap his fingers and direct the overhead spot on to the couple who swept and swung and gyrated like true champions or who, when the lights were low, did a wonderful impersonation of mobile copulation hot enough to bring the house down, or the vice squad in.

It was all Babs Conway could do to keep up with him.

Sometimes she almost wished that she had taken up with Patsy Walsh instead of daft Jackie.

Patsy did not entirely approve of dancing. He regarded it as a bourgeois pastime and a distraction from life’s grim realities. He would rail against it as a waste of time even as he held Polly in his arms and tried to stop her from leading. Patsy was awkward and unsure of himself. He wouldn’t have been there at all if it hadn’t been for Polly, who could charm the birds out of the trees when she set her mind to it and who still felt a need to keep a close eye on Babs who was becoming just too fond of Jackie Hallop, or so Polly thought.

Babs had told her that he was very manly, her Jackie, and not just on the dance floor. Three or four times now, filled with terpsichorean energy, he had almost had her knickers off in the lane behind the Palais. He also had a habit of clapping a hand to her bottom without warning which was not, emphatically not, Babs’s idea of a romantic gesture. That said, she liked him, really liked him, and wouldn’t really have exchanged him for a sobersides like Patsy Walsh.

Jackie had money, Jackie had juice and, even if he was a bit too grabby now and then, Babs knew that he liked her, really liked her.

She was flattered to be his girlfriend. The only thing that worried her was that the Hallops were such near neighbours that Mammy was bound to find out that her dear wee daughter wasn’t popping out for an ice-cream or a bag of chips three or four nights in the week or that Saturday night wasn’t reserved for going to the flicks with Polly and her pals.

It didn’t take long for Babs to acquire a taste for deception. She soon discovered that ‘secret lives’ were rendered more satisfying simply because they were secret and even Polly had to admit that hanging out with the Hallops provided relief from predictable days in the office and tedious nights at home.

Anyway, Babs said, Mammy had no right to chide them for going out with boys, not when she was ploughing full steam ahead after Mr Peabody, who not only looked as if he didn’t know how to dance but who looked as if he didn’t know how to blow his nose without a woman to find his hanky.

So Babs danced with her carefree, blue-suited beau and Polly danced with staid Patsy Walsh, winter deepened, Christmas approached and, however you chose to interpret it, love of some sort was definitely in the air.

Sweating like a pig, Jackie had gone off to the toilet, not, as most young men did, to partake of a hasty swig of spirits or a pull at a smuggled beer bottle, but just to mop himself with a handkerchief and comb his hair.

The band were playing ‘Make Believe’, up-tempo.

Babs had glided out of the pack to find a seat by the long side wall.

She was dressed in a neat little frock of rather too heavy a material that Mammy had dug out of a second-hand store and had shortened for her. She was hot and sticky. She needed to cool down. She headed for a chair beside Polly but, just as the dancers closed around her, felt a tug on her arm and was pulled out on to the floor again, not by Jackie but by little Tommy Bonnar.

His suit was brown and shabby, the same suit he wore when he did business, and the hat was not jaunty. Half an inch of cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.

Babs said, ‘If you’re gonna dance wi’ me, Tommy, at least take the damned Woodbine out your mouth.’

He opened his lips, let the cigarette fall to the floor and, with odd grace, extinguished it with his heel as he turned her and glided away towards the far wall. He was hardly much bigger than Babs who, even for a girl, was not considered tall. He held her at a decent distance and was respectful enough to keep her from being trodden on in the crush.

Even so, she did not like dancing with Tommy Bonnar, did not like the smell of him, an ineradicable smell of nicotine and grease, not sharp but musty.

Babs said, loudly, ‘Jackie’s in the—’

‘I know where Jackie is.’

‘Oh!’

‘I want a word wi’ you in private,’ Tommy told her.

‘Private? Is this your idea of private?’ Babs had no respect for Tommy Bonnar, though Jackie had told her she should have. ‘Anyway, I haven’t seen you here before. Don’t you like dancin’? You’re not bad for a wee guy.’

He pulled her closer, the movement abrupt.

‘How’d you like t’ make a hundred quid?’

‘Whaaa-at?’

‘One hundred fins.’

‘If you think I’m that kinda…’ Babs began, then said, ‘How much?’

‘You heard.’ Tommy had his stubby little arm firmly around her, her breast trapped between his shoulder and armpit. He angled his face so that he could talk, and she could hear, even above the blare of the band. ‘Jeeze, you’ve a right high opinion o’ yourself if you think you’re worth that much.’

‘Thanks a million,’ Babs said. ‘What do I have t’ do for this mysterious hundred quid, then? Rob a bank?’

‘Not exactly,’ Tommy Bonnar said.

‘What then?’

‘Where you work.’

‘Where I work?’

‘Aye, Central Warehouse.’

Babs laughed nervously. ‘I hope you’re not suggestin’ I rob the Central Warehouse Company?’

‘Not you,’ Tommy said. ‘Not nobody.’

‘What the hell is this?’ Babs said.

She had become aware of the music, of the circulation of the spotlight, its slants and sly gleams across the heads of the dancers around her. She suddenly felt that they were all looking at her.

She tried to throw her head back and laugh again but Tommy had placed a hand on her shoulder. She could feel his fingers pressing the fringe of damp hair at the nape of her neck. She wanted to shout for Jackie to come and rescue her but she’d a feeling that Jackie would not be there, that Jackie knew all about Mr Bonnar’s proposal, whatever it might be.

‘We need a plan o’ the buildin’,’ Tommy said.

‘I’m not Polly. I can’t get you plans.’

‘We need to know certain things about the CWC.’

The band were lifting ‘Make Believe’ to a crescendo, dancers whirling and spinning. Tommy led her away, spinning too.

As a dancer he was lighter than Jackie, more in control. He slewed her round once, then again, fast enough to take her breath away. The music climaxed and stopped. Everyone clapped, whistled, cheered. Tommy put an arm about her waist and stroked her wrist just as if he had nothing on his mind but romance.

‘If you’re in,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell y’ what to do when the time’s right.’

‘Does Jackie know? Is he – in?’

‘With or without you, honey, he’s in it up to his neck.’

‘What if I don’t want in?’ Babs said.

‘Walk away an’ keep your trap shut.’ Tommy lifted his hand from her wrist to her throat and traced a fine, tender, tickling little line with the ball of his thumb from her earlobe to the point of her chin. ‘Because if you don’t…’

‘I get it,’ Babs said. ‘Okay, okay. I get it.’

‘You wanna think about it?’

She glanced across the dance floor.

Jackie was back.

Daft, carefree, dance-crazy Jackie was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. She was not inclined to wave.

She was calculating faster than she had ever done before.

She earned forty-eight bob a week. Mammy earned forty-two. Polly’s wage was fixed by burgh rates at forty-six shillings. What did all that that come to? Seven quid a week, give or take, for the labour of three working women, three honest working women. No wonder Patsy ranted on about injustice.

‘I don’t have to think about it, Mr Bonnar,’ Babs said.

‘Meanin’?’

‘Count me in.’

*   *   *

It grew cold in the Conways’ front room in the wee small hours. The glass in the window frame creaked with frost and, come morning, would be caked with white rime inside as well as out.

There would be no long lie-in either, even though it was Sunday. There was a tub wash waiting to be done and a fortnight’s ironing piled up in the basket. Before noon the kitchen would be filled with steam, the ceiling pulleys dripping with wet clothes and there would be nothing much for midday dinner except soup and bread. Later in the afternoon one of the girls would have to go and visit Gran because Mammy would be too busy, and too tired.

Babs and Polly lay side by side in bed.

Snuggled against Polly’s back, Rosie snored softly.

‘Did Tommy say what you’d have to do?’ Polly whispered. ‘I mean, they’re not going to give you a hundred quid for nothing.’

‘Didn’t Patsy say anythin’ to you about it?’ Babs asked.

‘Not a flamin’ word,’ said Polly. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know.’

‘Oh, he knows,’ said Babs. ‘I could tell by the look on his face.’

Polly said nothing for a while, thinking.

It had come upon them much quicker than she had supposed, yet at the back of her mind had always been the notion that sooner or later she or her sister would be drawn back into the fold, into that circle of criminal activity from which her father had escaped only by going off to die in the war. There was something fitting – no, not fitting, inevitable – something inevitable about the Conway girls being persuaded to follow in Daddy’s footsteps. In an odd way Polly was surprised that it had not happened before now.

Perhaps that was the reason she had drifted into a friendship with the Hallops and with Patsy Walsh. Perhaps that was the reason she could not dislike Patsy and that, even now, she was not repelled by the idea of being involved in what amounted to a crime.

‘A hundred pounds is a great deal of money,’ Polly heard herself say.

‘Yeah, I know.’

Babs pressed her forearms to her breasts.

She remembered how Jackie had touched her tonight, out in the lane behind the Palais. If they hadn’t been surrounded by other couples necking away like nuts then he might have gone the whole way, whether she liked it or not. She’d been so taken aback by his ardour that she hadn’t had any opportunity to interrogate him about Tommy Bonnar’s plan. She’d been too excited to settle for conversation. She’d wanted his mouth on hers, his tongue in her mouth. She said nothing about any of that to Polly, who would certainly disapprove.

Polly said, ‘Obviously they’re planning a break-in.’

‘I guessed that much,’ Babs said. ‘If they want me to get them a plan of the Central Warehouse you don’t have to be a genius to work out where.’

‘Tommy Bonnar’s no burglar.’

‘Patsy is.’

‘What’s in the warehouse that’s worth stealing?’

‘Plenty,’ said Babs. ‘Wireless sets, clothing, statues, cutlery. You name it, we got it.’

‘Cash?’ said Polly.

‘I never see the cash,’ Babs said. ‘I’m just an invoice clerk. But there’s a whoppin’ big safe in Mr MacDermott’s office on the second floor. You have to ask Mrs Anderson’s permission before you’re allowed in there. Her desk’s right outside. I’ve only been in once. I was scared.’

‘Scared? Why?’

‘Because he’s the big boss.’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘He’s not the big boss. That’s what puzzles me.’

‘Eh?’

‘Mr Manone’s the big boss. Dominic Manone owns the warehouse.’

Babs sat up. A stream of cold air infiltrated the bed. Polly grabbed at the blankets and pulled them to her, sealing in warmth.

Babs said, ‘I didn’t know that. How did you find out?’

‘Looked it up in the company register.’

‘What’s that?’

‘In the Burgh Hall we keep a register of company holdings, not just for the burgh, for the whole southside,’ Polly said. ‘When you got the job with CWC I looked it up. I mean, how do you think you got the job in the first place? There must have been fifty girls up for it, right? Dominic Manone probably used his influence. Lifted the telephone – and Bob’s your uncle.’

‘Why would he do that for me?’

‘Because Mammy asked him to.’

‘Jeeze!’ said Babs. ‘I really didn’t know that.’

Polly drew her sister down again. Heads together on the long pillow, noses almost touching, Polly said, ‘If Tommy Bonnar is setting up a break-in, what’s he doing robbing the CWC? He works for Dominic Manone, for God’s sake. Surely he’s not gonna steal from his own boss.’ Polly paused. ‘Is he?’

‘How would I know?’ Babs said. ‘Maybe we should tell the boys. Maybe they don’t know Mr Manone owns the warehouse.’

‘Don’t be so flamin’ daft, Babs,’ Polly said. ‘Of course they know.’

‘I suppose they must,’ Babs said. ‘Oh, hell! I told Tommy Bonnar to count me in. I wisht I’d known. I wisht I’d known.’ She kicked her feet, making the bed shake. ‘That bastard Jackie. I could cut his bloody throat, stringin’ me along. I thought all he wanted was – I mean, I thought he liked me.’

‘He does, Babs. I’m sure he does.’

‘It’s all right for you.’

‘It isn’t all right for me.’ Polly sighed.

‘Patsy Walsh?’

‘Yes, Patsy Walsh.’

‘Oooooh,’ Babs said. ‘Like that, is it? Serious?’

‘It’s not like anything yet,’ said Polly. ‘And I’m not sure it’s ever going to become serious.’

‘Because of what I just told you?’

‘Because of a lot of things,’ said Polly. ‘I’ll tell you this, Babs: if Tommy Bonnar had asked you to help him rob anywhere other than the Manones’ warehouse I would have been turning him over to the police.’

‘Squeal? You wouldn’t do that to Jackie, would you?’

‘I might. I probably would,’ said Polly. ‘But if they are just going to take money from a robber like Dominic Manone – well, I can’t see that it’s such a wicked thing to do. I imagine Patsy will consider it a justified redistribution of wealth. It’s dangerous, though, very dangerous.’

Babs rolled on to her back and crossed her arms over her chest. She stared up at the ceiling, at the wedge of frosty light that cleft a gap in the curtains. ‘Maybe we should tell Mammy what’s goin’ on.’

‘We can’t,’ Polly said. ‘She’d go crazy if she thought we were chummy with guys like Jackie and Patsy. She’d never let us out of her sight again.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re right,’ Babs said. ‘So – what do we do?’

‘Just hang on,’ said Polly.

‘To what, but?’ said Babs.

‘To what we’ve got.’

‘An’ what’s that?’

‘Not much,’ Polly said. ‘Look, leave it to me. I’ll talk to Patsy. I’ll try to find out exactly what they have in mind.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow, if I can,’ said Polly.

*   *   *

After nightfall the couple from the Calcutta Road wouldn’t have dared saunter along the old bridle path that hung above the river. It was well outside Patsy’s territory and he, and Polly too, knew only too well what would happen if they were spotted by one of the kids who patrolled the borders of the beat.

Gang members would gather like jackals out of the frosty haze that hung over the Clyde; eight, ten or a dozen ill-clad, ill-kempt lads who gave themselves status by protecting their nondescript patch from intruders, as if something valuable were to be found in the dank closes and rubbish-littered streets, something worth fighting for.

On Sunday afternoons, though, on the waste ground among the canting basins and graving docks there was activity of another sort. Here gamblers met to play pitch-and-toss or cards or once in a while pit two mastiffs one against the other, to wager on which dog, weltered in blood, would survive. Gamblers had their own look-outs, their own rationale, which was more than could be said for the strutting little tyrants whose pitiless lack of motive was legendary.

Even Polly knew they’d nothing to fear from the gamblers, provided they kept their distance.

She had located Patsy without much difficulty. He had been hanging around the Black Cat Café waiting for it to open at noon.

It was his habit to pretend that he was a Frenchman, to infiltrate the churchy crowd and drink black coffee and read the Sunday newspapers, not, unfortunately, at a table on the pavement but tucked away in one of the booths at the back where he could find some peace and quiet. Why he went there every Sunday noon was a little mystery, one of many that surrounded Patsy Walsh, but Polly had the feeling that it had to do with ‘business’ and did not ask him to explain himself.

That particular Sunday morning, however, there was no evidence to suggest that Patsy was waiting for a tick-tack man.

He seemed pleased enough to see her.

They drank coffee and smoked cigarettes in the chilly back booth until Polly had worked up enough nerve to raise the subject of the robbery.

‘Babs told you?’

‘Of course she told me,’ Polly said. ‘She’s my sister, after all.’

‘What do you think?’ Patsy said. ‘Will she co-operate?’

‘For a hundred quid,’ Polly said, ‘my sister will do almost anything.’

‘She won’t come to any harm,’ Patsy promised.

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘I imagine all you need from her is inside information. What’s Tommy Bonnar got to do with it, though?’

‘It’s his tickle.’

‘Robbing the Manones is Tommy’s idea of a tickle?’

Patsy shrugged. ‘It’s there for the takin’,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no scruples about robbin’ the Manones. They’re just capitalists, black-hearted capitalists like everybody else in this lousy world.’

‘Except the workers,’ Polly said.

‘Yeah.’ Patsy had the decency to grin. ‘Except the workers. You wanna take a walk, Polly?’

‘What? Now?’

‘No time like the present.’

‘I should be at home helping out with the washing.’

‘How excitin’!’ Patsy said. ‘I repeat, you wanna take a walk?’

‘Where?’

‘Down by the river.’

When she looked at him she felt a strange guilty thrill transmit itself through her. He wasn’t handsome, not conventionally handsome, but he was rugged in his own individual way. More important, he was intelligent, well educated and well travelled. He cared about things that mattered, things other than money and motorcycles, betting and booze. He was so different from most of the other men she had met that she felt oddly privileged to be his companion.

‘How long will it take?’ she asked.

‘Couple of hours.’

‘All right,’ Polly said. ‘Let’s go.’

She was hardly dressed for hiking and felt conspicuous in the empty wasteland behind the graving docks, even more so on the stretch of bridle path that perched over the river.

Unselfconsciously, she held on to Patsy’s hand.

Patsy was dressed in a tweed jacket, collared shirt and chewed-up tie that gave him an air of near respectability. He carried no weapons. He knew that if they were caught on the bridle path by one of the young gangs there would be no way to avoid trouble except by plunging into the Clyde.

He didn’t anticipate trouble this early in the afternoon. While respectable members of society trailed off to Sunday School or Bible Class or assembled for one sort of parade or another, most hooligans would be sleeping off hangovers or mooching about in front of the shuttered pubs or, if boredom had really taken hold, padding over to the park to kick a ball about or, better still, one of the drunken old down-and-outs who hadn’t had the sense to scarper.

It wasn’t where he’d have chosen to bring Polly Conway. It wasn’t the Tuileries or the Tiergarten or any of the places that he dreamed of taking her and might take her one day, one day soon. But there were compensations: the vague, slightly uncomfortable excitement of sharing his work with her, knowing that beneath her almost middle-class restraint she was still enough of her father’s daughter to understand, if not condone, what he was doing here and why he had brought her along.

‘Is that it?’ Polly said.

‘That’s it,’ Patsy answered.

‘Have you ever been inside?’

‘Nope.’

‘Thought you had been, dumping off stuff?’

‘Non permesso,’ Patsy said. ‘Impedire.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Not allowed. Taboo. Entry forbidden to guys like me.’ Patsy shrugged. ‘I don’t blame the Eye-tie, actually. The warehouse is part of a strictly legitimate business. Wouldn’t look right for somebody with my reputation to go lollopin’ in the front door with an armful of stolen goods, now would it?’

‘How does Mr Manone shift the hot stuff?’

‘No idea,’ Patsy said. ‘I collect my rake, that’s all that concerns me.’

‘You could collect more than your rake from this one,’ Polly said. ‘You all could, if you steal money from the Manones.’

‘That’s for Tommy to worry about.’

‘That’s what bothers me,’ Polly said. ‘Why is Tommy Bonnar setting up his boss’s warehouse?’

‘He needs fast cash,’ Patsy told her. ‘Tommy’s up to his neck in debt to Chick McGuire, a guy who won’t take no for an answer. McGuire’s not one of Manone’s bookies so Tommy can’t go cryin’ to Dominic to get him off the hook.’

‘Couldn’t he take out a loan?’ Polly suggested.

‘Maybe he has,’ Patsy said. ‘I don’t reckon he’d have the gall to ask Manone, though. Old Guido would be furious if he thought Tommy’d been placin’ bets with the opposition. I mean, hell, we all know what Chick thinks of the Manones. There’s been trouble before.’

‘Even so,’ Polly said. ‘Surely Tommy’s taking a big risk. How can he be sure that you won’t tell Manone?’

‘If anyone does, Tommy’ll just deny it,’ Patsy said.

‘How about after the event?’ Polly said.

‘After?’ said Patsy, as if he preferred not to dwell on consequences. ‘Well, I mean, afterwards we’ll have so much dough it isn’t gonna matter.’

‘What will you do with the money?’ Polly said.

‘Stash it away for a while, a long while,’ Patsy said.

‘And then?’

‘Travel.’

‘I’d love to travel,’ Polly said. ‘I’d love to see Paris.’

Patsy did not rise to the bait. She had lost his attention. He was focused now on other things, had, Polly realised, already begun work.

They had reached an elbow where the narrow path angled sharply away from the river and became a lane between the walls of Gerber’s clothing factory and the Manones’ warehouse. The warehouse stuck out ahead, a windowless gable blocked to a frontage that plunged straight down to the river.

The building had been erected on the site of a derelict cotton warehouse only twenty years ago. It had none of the quasi-Georgian or Gothic pretensions of other constructions that had been built before the Great War but was fashioned from plain-cut stone and red brick, more of the latter than the former. Delivery yard and reception area, tucked securely away behind black iron railings, faced out on to Jackson Street.

Patsy told her that he’d already reconnoitred the back of the building and had decided that while he might be man enough he certainly wasn’t mad enough to try to effect an entry in sight of a busy public road.

As yet he had no idea what Bonnar wanted him to steal. He just hoped it wasn’t half a dozen pianos or a selection of three-piece suites. He figured it would be money, though, cash out of a safe, the exact location of which Polly’s sister would be able to pinpoint without too much trouble.

‘I didn’t realise the building was so big.’ Polly tilted her head. ‘It makes you dizzy just looking up at it.’ She glanced at him. ‘What about the front?’

‘This is the front,’ said Patsy. ‘I could probably get inside from Jackson Street but I’d be lucky to get out again. The night-watchmen are stationed there. An’ if I can’t pull the tickle without stovin’ some poor bastard’s head in then I’m not pullin’ the tickle at all.’

‘What if it’s the only way?’ Polly enquired.

‘It’s never the only way,’ Patsy told her.

They walked back towards the river, to the point where the dirt path broke from the long blank windowless wall.

There was just enough clearance for Patsy to step out on to the wall and hold himself against it, straddling the corner of the building. He looked at the brickwork above, and down at the river that lapped and gurgled below his heels.

Then he laughed.

He stepped back and lowered himself to the pathway again.

‘Drainpipes, ventilation cowls, open windows. Dear God, I could lead an army battalion in there an’ out again.’ He shook his head in amusement. ‘If the safe’s where I think it is, upstairs, then there shouldn’t be any problem. Once your sister tells us exactly what office the safe’s in and what kind of safe it is then we can push ahead as soon as Tommy gives us the tick-tack.’

‘You’re kidding,’ Polly said. ‘Is it going to be that easy?’

‘Nope,’ Patsy said. ‘It’s gonna be damned difficult. But basically all I need to do the job is some inside information – an’ a boat.’

‘A boat? What sort of a boat?’ said Polly.

‘Any sort of a boat,’ said Patsy, ‘just so long as it floats.’

‘And presumably has sufficient capacity to hold a safe?’

‘You’ve got it in one, Polly.’

‘In and out by the river. Perfect!’ Polly said.

In spite of her apprehension at the idea of being involved – however indirectly – in the commission of a crime, the daring and ingenuity of it appealed to her and washed away her immediate doubts.

She leaned against him and kissed him on the mouth. ‘What a clever lad you are, Patrick Walsh.’

‘Ain’t I, though?’ said Patsy and, taking her hand again, led her hastily along the bridle path, back the way they had come.