FOUR

Night Work

Summer was marred by persistent rain and blustery winds. Steamer cruises on the Clyde, trips to the seaside, band concerts, minstrel shows, Masonic picnics, twilight dances in the parks and most annual Gala days fell victim to unseasonable weather. Even folk like Craig and Kirsty who had not yet discovered the pleasures of the summer city felt cheated by wet grey skies and, before August was out, Kirsty found herself looking forward to winter’s crisp cold days, dry frosty evenings and nights spent before a cosy fire.

The span of time between April and autumn, measured out in occupational and domestic routines, seemed long and monotonous. On the last Friday in every month Mr McCoig would call for the rent. Every Wednesday evening Jack Dunn would clump up the stairs with two bags of best coal and hold out his grimy black hand for payment. Every Tuesday night Kirsty would sweep out the stairs and close from top to bottom and scrub out the lavatory on the half-landing. It did not seem so terribly different from the routine of farming, except that it was more diverse, and that it was shared; and in the sharing of it Kirsty learned that there were worse things to be than a Baird Home orphan or a farm servant, that there were levels of despair and poverty below any that she had imagined.

Mr Kydd of the corner shop allowed tick but only to the tune of three shillings and would grant no extension to that limit no matter how a woman begged. Charlie Phillips, whose cart carried milk in the mornings and fish in the evenings, gave no tick at all, not even on Thursdays, not even to Mrs McAlister who had eleven mouths to feed off one wage and would have taken a dish of fish-heads if she could have had them on credit, who would even have gone round the backcourt with Charlie if he had fancied her which, of course, he did not since she was as skinny and pop-eyed as a filleted cod.

‘That woman,’ Mrs Bennie would snarl, ‘is dirt. Give her the loan o’ nothin’, Mrs Nicholson, or you’ll have her scratchin’ an’ clawin’ at your door mornin’, noon an’ night.’

But Mrs McAlister never ‘scrounged’ from Kirsty or from anyone in the close and Kirsty’s sympathy was kept to herself, separated by the height of the building, though she observed with shame the hungry state of the children that crouched about the door of her ground-floor neighbour, heard them wail and whine like little banshees when Mammy was ‘busy’ with the marble-white infant that had been born in March; wept tears for her lack of charity when, late one Friday night in July, the marble-white infant died in its sleep and was taken away in a box by Doctor Godwin. Mrs Bennie claimed that it was to make sure by examination that murder had not been done but Kirsty felt that Doctor Godwin had removed the tiny corpse only to ensure it had a decent burial at no cost to the McAlisters.

The landing on the top floor of Number 11 was shared with Mr and Mrs Mills, models of rectitude, whose children had long ago gone off to seek fame and fortune elsewhere. The wife was snow-haired, plump, deaf as a post. The husband was fat, bandy-legged and smug as an owl. They existed on a wise little fund that Mr Mills had accumulated through the Northern Life Insurance Company during his forty-six years as a janitor in their offices in Gordon Street. In Mr Mills’ book any person who had not possessed his degree of perspicacity, who had not used his youth and prime to make ready for old age, was a fool and a wastrel. Mr Mills’ reaction to news of the death of the McAlister babe was to declare that if the child had been insured at birth then its passing would not have been in vain.

Alone in the kitchen Kirsty would listen to the noises of the tenement, an orchestra of small strident sounds, and wonder just how soon she would be absorbed into it, no longer protected by her youth and her daily job at Oswalds’. She was not chained by children to the house in the tenement now, but soon, in all likelihood, she would be. The prospect frightened her.

She confided her fears to Mrs Frew one dreary afternoon in August when she had gone to take tea with the widow in Walbrook Street.

‘It’s the way of the world, my dear,’ said Mrs Frew. ‘It’s a woman’s lot to suffer.’

‘Have you—?’

‘No, I could not carry a child,’ said Mrs Frew. ‘It was Andrew’s dearest wish, of course, that our union might be blessed. But the Lord did not see fit so to do. Andrew had five by his first wife before she fell into her final, fatal illness and, after many years of pain – borne with fortitude, I might add – was called to her rest.’

‘What happened to the children?’

‘Andrew saw the boys to school, found husbands for the girls as soon as they were of an age.’

‘Where are they now?’

‘I hear nothing from them.’

‘That seems a bit cruel, Mrs Frew.’

‘It was not my doing. They were too well cared for. Spoiled, if you ask me. I was not “accepted”, you see.’

‘Did they resent you?’

‘They resented the fact that I was their father’s only source of comfort and consolation during those years of trial.’

Kirsty cleared her throat. ‘You – knew him before—’

‘I was a friend, a church friend, that’s all,’ put in Mrs Frew quickly. ‘We shared mutual interests. There was nothing indecorous done between us, I assure you. We waited three years after Evelyn’s death before we took the plunge into marriage.’

‘I thought Mr Affleck said—’

‘Hughie’s a born liar; the bane of my life since the day he was born.’ Mrs Frew switched from wistfulness to sharpness in an instant. ‘We come from good stock, you know, though you’d never guess it to hear our Hughie talk.’

‘What does Mr Affleck do?’

‘He’s educated, I’ll say that for him. He was always more learned than he looks. He could have gone far as a scholar, but he had no taste for the sedentary life.’

‘What job did he find?’

‘He works in the City, for the City.’

Kirsty waited for embellishment but Agnes Frew said no more on that score, reached instead for the big silver teapot and returned to talking of her husband and the position she had once held in society.

 

By the second week in September Kirsty was convinced that she was pregnant. She said nothing to Craig but ‘stole’, if that was the word, ten shillings and sixpence from the purse that Craig kept hidden under a board under the bed and, on a Monday afternoon, as soon as she was released from Oswalds’, walked to Dumbarton Road and climbed the steep hill to the handsome sandstone mansions of Dowanhill Gardens.

She had decided weeks ago that if her suspicions were correct she would not put herself into the hands of the district’s midwife, Mrs Curran, though the woman had a good reputation and had been trained in her profession, nor would she creep into the tiny damp waiting-room in Banff Street where Doctor Godwin, the same practitioner who had attended the infant McAlister, took his ‘down town’ surgery three nights in the week.

Kirsty had learned from Mrs McNeil that Doctor Godwin’s main practice was conducted from his house in Dowanhill Gardens, had learned too, from listening to all sorts of gossip, that anyone who valued their privacy did not entrust themselves to the Banff Street place with its thin walls and ill-fitting inner door but struggled to scrape up the half-guinea fee that Doctor Godwin charged those who made the climb uphill in search of a consultation.

She was admitted by Doctor Godwin’s wife, a woman of severe aspect but with a kindly voice, and taken directly through an echoing hallway to a room at the rear of the house.

Doctor Godwin was disconcertingly youthful, very clean and very slender, smooth-shaven and might, if he had had any hair at all upon his head, have been judged handsome.

‘And you are?’ he asked, from behind his polished desk.

‘Kirsty Nicholson.’

He wrote the name down upon a pad of paper with a fat pen, looked up, smiled reassuringly.

‘Address?’

Kirsty told him.

He said, ‘That’s just round the corner from my room in Banff Street.’

Kirsty said, ‘Yes, Doctor. I know that.’

He nodded, made no mention of the half-guinea fee. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

She said, ‘I think I’m expectin’ a baby.’

He lifted the pen again and, without awaiting her answer, made an amendment to the note upon the paper pad, saying, ‘Ah, so it’s Mrs Kirsty Nicholson, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘First pregnancy?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have you been married, Mrs Nicholson?’

‘Five months, an’ a half.’

Smiling, he opened a drawer and took out a rubber-limbed instrument. ‘Well, let’s see what’s what, shall we?’

His examination was thorough, his questions frank.

Kirsty responded with equal candour, tried not to blush or hesitate but was too embarrassed to feel much pleasure when, at length, the doctor confirmed that she had conceived and was indeed some nine weeks into a normal pregnancy.

While Kirsty dressed, Doctor Godwin returned to his desk, made more notes and then, with pen still poised, told her what to expect by way of ‘changes’ in her bodily functions and in physical discomfort. Rising, he went to a deep cupboard at the back of the room and, still talking, busied himself within it. He enquired about her husband, the nature of his occupation, talked about the ‘responsibilities’ a mother-to-be had to an unborn child, warned her against lifting heavy weights, against ‘straining’ and, still out of sight, against allowing her husband to be too ‘strenuous’ after the lights were out. He came out of the cupboard with a brown bottle in his hand, gave it to her, took her half-guinea, told her that the peppermint mixture would relieve any inclination to sickness, told her to call upon him again if she should feel it necessary, here or in Banff Street as she preferred, and assured her that, if she wished it, he would attend her personally during the final weeks of her confinement and deliver the baby at home.

‘Is there somebody who can look after you for a day or two?’ Doctor Godwin asked as he ushered her towards the door.

‘My – my husband.’

‘I meant a woman; your mother, say.’

‘No.’

‘Nobody?’

She thought fleetingly of Mrs Frew but discarded that notion immediately.

‘Nobody,’ Kirsty said, ‘except my husband.’

‘I’ll have a word with him,’ Doctor Godwin promised.

‘When?’

‘In due course,’ the doctor said and, reaching past her, opened the door and turned her over to his wife who saw her politely out into the Gardens once more.

Puzzled by her lack of any very definite emotion, Kirsty walked carefully down the long hill into Partick.

She thought, strangely, of her own mother, her real mother, wondered if she too had experienced this odd sort of nothingness when she had first discovered that a baby was on the way; if she had been filled with joy or with rage. By the time she reached Canada Road, however, her emotional vacuum had begun to fill with trickles of doubt and apprehension. She seemed to see the streets clearly for the first time, the squalor that lurked behind dowdy curtains and unwashed windows, to scent the stink of poverty from the closes. She hated the thought that her baby would be born to this inheritance, into such a world. Why such snobbish nonsense should impress itself on a brat from the Baird Home who had known nothing but slavery to a farmer in the wilds of the Carrick hills was a puzzle in itself. She fretted over that question too as she entered the close of Number 11 and climbed, puffing a little, upstairs.

The moment she got indoors she brewed a pot of tea, buttered a slice of bread and, still wearing her coat and hat, seated herself at the table.

She examined her feelings cautiously; not tearful, not sorry for herself, she felt, if anything, annoyed that everything would be changed by the baby’s coming, turned again on its head. She felt secretive too, not ashamed but possessive; yet through her grievance came little twinges of fear, like the pains in a tooth touched by cold air.

The job at Oswalds’ would be sacrificed. She certainly did not regret that, but with it would go the six shillings that helped lift them above the line of most of their neighbours. There would be an extra mouth to feed and, even with occasional ‘night work’ from Danny Malone, Craig brought home no more than twenty-two shillings a week. She should have been happy this day of all days but all she could think about was money or the lack of it, and how, after the baby arrived, they would be pushed to make ends meet, would become like everybody else in the Greenfield.

She drank a second cup of tea, ate a second slice of bread and butter then got up and fished the doctor’s brown bottle from her shopping basket and hid it behind the pipes in the box below the sink. She did not want Craig to find it, to ask questions before she was ready to give answers. No doubt she would have to tell him the glad tidings soon but she would choose the time with care, catch him in just the right mood.

She did not imagine that Craig would desert her even though she was protected by nothing more legally binding than a wedding ring. No, she was afraid for Craig, of how he would stand up to the burden of responsibility, to fatherhood; afraid too that he would write to Dalnavert and that Madge Nicholson would come hot-foot to Glasgow to snatch away her grandchild.

Suddenly impatient with her own silly imaginings Kirsty buttoned her coat again, found her purse and shopping basket and, with a deep settling sigh, went out to walk down to Mr Kydd’s to buy something nice for tea.

 

August was a quiet month in Mrs Agnes Frew’s boarding-house. The academic year had not yet begun and a majority of parish ministers had gone off on ‘exchanges’, seeking a breath of country air or a sea breeze to blow away the cobwebs. Nessie Frew would not, of course, entertain her brother’s suggestion that she open her doors to city visitors or holiday-makers pausing in Glasgow before heading out to the coast.

There was no meat upon the table that night but the dish of macaroni-and-cheese was tasty enough and the fig pudding to follow was positively delicious. Sister and brother ate at a dropleaf table in the kitchen, for Cissie, who had never shaken off her winter’s bronchitis, had been shipped to an uncle’s farm on Islay in the hope that two weeks of fresh milk, sea air and rest would quell the wheeze once and for all and restore her to full health.

Sister and brother ate and talked and, in due course and roundabout fashion, Mrs Frew informed Hughie of her young friend’s altered state.

Hugh Affleck did not so much as raise an eyebrow.

He said, ‘I think you’ve developed a soft spot for that girl, Nessie.’

‘She’s decent, well-spoken, and a Christian.’

‘Can the same be said for the husband?’

‘I’ve heard nothin’ to the contrary. He seems to treat her well enough.’

Hugh Affleck applied a dollop of Worcester sauce to a second helping of macaroni and spread it carefully with the blade of his knife.

‘Is it Canada Road they live in?’ he asked.

‘Yes, in a single-end,’ said Mrs Frew, wrinkling her nose.

‘Bottom side?’

‘Number eleven, I believe.’

Hugh Affleck made mental note of the address.

He had met the Nicholsons only once, in April. He had not clapped eyes on either the girl or boy since. Nonetheless he had been kept abreast of their progress by his sister to whom other folks’ affairs were a substitute for a lack of activity in her own. He regretted that Nessie and his wife, Beatrice, did not rub along and that he could not persuade his daughters, Gladys and Patricia, to visit their forlorn old aunt. The girls bitterly resented her ‘preachiness’, referred to her, cynically but not without wit, as ‘Auntie Modern’. Nessie, in turn, regarded her nieces as frivolous and flighty and, though she did not say it in so many words, as downright sinful in their lack of Christian fibre.

Hugh Affleck said, ‘How long until her baby arrives?’

Why he should feel that the girl’s pregnancy made any difference to his plans for the Nicholsons Hugh Affleck could not be sure. But it did. He recalled the girl vividly; freckled, cheerful, pretty, candid but not silly. Though the boy had not seemed to him to be the stuff from which criminals are made, Hugh was wary of snap judgments; in his time he had bumped into many charming characters who hid murderous natures behind their smiles.

Nessie Frew answered, ‘March, I believe.’

‘Is she also employed?’

‘I told you, Hughie – in Oswalds’ cake place.’

‘Rather her than me,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘I wonder what miserly pittance they pay her there.’

‘I have not had the temerity to enquire, Hughie.’

‘Have a guess.’

‘Ten or twelve shillings a week, I suppose.’

‘Less.’

‘Less?’

‘Oswalds’ is another of those damned—’

‘Hughie!’

‘Well, it is; a slave market, a sweat-shop.’

‘It suits Kirsty. She is not required to work all day for her wages, she can attend to her housekeeping in the afternoons.’

Hugh Affleck did not argue the point. He finished off his macaroni, watched his sister slip on a pair of cotton gloves and, stooping, bring the fig pudding all brown and steaming from the oven. Discreetly he took a little notebook and the stump of a pencil from his pocket and, while Nessie was busy with serving, jotted down the Nicholsons’ address.

 

Sergeant Hector Drummond knew better than to do his drinking in public houses within a five-mile radius of Ottawa Street police station. He had been a bachelor in Barracks far too long to be blind to the disasters that overtook coppers who could not wean themselves from the whisky bottle. Besides, the mere whiff of a constable in a Greenfield drinking-parlour was enough to send half the customers scuttling for the exit and push the other half into pugnacity, for the police were unloved and unappreciated by all and sundry. The rank and file of the Greenfield force nipped up to a cosy public house in Glasgow for company and a quiet pint, in mufti, of course. But he preferred to spice his drink with a breath of fresh air and popped down on the train to The Railway Arms at West Kilpatrick, a rural hamlet fifteen miles down the Clyde shore. It was here too that Superintendent Affleck might be found when he was in the mood for a dram and an evening of shop talk with his old companion from the Burgh.

If the weather had been kinder that late August evening the pub would have been packed but with dusk coming early on melancholy grey rain there was only a handful of agriculturals at the bar. They paid not the slightest attention to the sergeant who, though he sported not one item of uniform, still managed to look, somehow, like a policeman. His taste in plain clothes had been shaped by a thousand hours in heavy serge and he did not feel comfortable in anything less sober and confining. He wore a high-collar, off-the-peg suit from the Greenfield Co-operative Society’s warehouse and boots with soles like boiler-plates and a cap as flat as a cowpat that sat, without tweak or rake, dead level on his cropped grey head. He had been in the pub for half an hour, nursing a pint of draught bitter and a dram of Old Highland, before Hugh Affleck arrived.

Hugh Affleck took off his coat and hat, hung them where he could keep an eye on them, and carried his drink from the bar to the little table by the window.

‘So it’s yourself, Hughie, is it now?’

‘It is indeed, Hector.’

Drummond and Affleck had been young beat-constables together back in the dim and distant, though even then it had been obvious that Hughie, with his ‘background’ and education, would rise to better things. Off duty, however, rank was set aside and the men met on equal terms, friendly and easy.

Hugh Affleck wasted no time on casual chat but got down at once to business; and the business on hand concerned those notoriously ugly villains William Skirving and Daniel Malone.

It was common knowledge to detectives in the City of Glasgow as well as Greenfield Burgh that Malone and Skirving were ‘the brains’ behind a whole parcel of robberies, housebreakings and assaults, but it had so far proved impossible to lay them by the heels and muster sufficient evidence to bring a case to court. They were not much smarter and no less vicious than the brutes who nobbled tallymen in dark closes or bashed in the heads of bookies’ runners but they had, somehow, bought the loyalty of their accomplices and had even spread corruption into the ranks of the police. Behind Skirving and Malone were clever and unscrupulous gentlemen who provided a ready-made market for gold, silver and works of art, stolen treasures beyond the scope of the average burglar and one which made Skirving and Malone’s criminal endeavours highly lucrative. One of those gentlemen, Hugh Affleck believed, was none other than Maitland Moss.

Because Danny and Billy did not now prey on ‘average’ citizens but concentrated on the mansions of the well-to-do, all sorts of idiotic tales were put about concerning their derring-do and they were regarded with awe and admiration; a nonsense, of course, for Malone and Skirving were and always would be nothing but violent, ruthless men who would cut anybody’s throat for ten bob.

Hugh Affleck hated them, coldly and professionally. It galled him that he had not been able to lay a glove on either of the villains in spite of several years of effort and endeavour. He was sure that the carriers’ quarters in the Kingdom Road was the capital of Malone’s shadowy empire and on two occasions had placed plain-clothes detectives in work there. Though they had been groomed for the job and were experienced in such operations, Danny had sniffed them out almost at once and had given them marching orders without apology or explanation. It was murmured that somehow or other Danny had known what was going on and had been on the look-out for ‘narks’; and that meant that a copper in Glasgow or the Greenfield had been paid for the information, and relations between the officers of Greenfield Burgh and the City of Glasgow had become somewhat strained because of it.

At last, though, fate seemed to have dealt Hugh Affleck a high card and he had brought the sergeant here tonight to advise him on how he might best play the hand.

‘Is it sure you are, Hughie, that the youngster is deeply enough involved in Malone’s dirty work to be of use to you?’ said Sergeant Drummond.

‘I’m not that sure of anything, Hector, but he’s got eyes and ears and he might be persuaded to use them on our behalf.’

‘How might that be done?’

Hugh Affleck shrugged. ‘In my opinion the young man is fundamentally honest. He’s a country lad, not long in Glasgow and I’ve the feeling that he knows right from wrong.’

‘Will you threaten him, is that it?’

Again the detective shrugged. ‘I might do a bit of that, yes, but I think I can persuade him where his duty lies.’

‘If it’s done badly,’ said the sergeant, ‘the youngster will simply tell Malone and we’ll have stepped back instead of forward.’

‘I’m well aware of that, Hector,’ said the detective. ‘But I have to take the chance.’

‘What can the lad tell you?’

‘How Malone transports stolen goods about the streets, for one thing.’

‘Which policemen are being paid to turn a blind eye?’

‘Improbable that the lad will be privy to that sort of information,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘What he might be able to do for us is put the finger on Malone, tell us in advance when a job is to be done.’

‘If you could catch either one of them red-handed,’ said the sergeant, ‘they might blow the gaff on all the rest.’

‘It’s possible,’ Hugh Affleck said, ‘but I doubt it. Danny and Billy have both served time—’

‘No,’ the sergeant corrected. ‘Malone has never been in prison. He has been up on three charges, when he was younger, but nothing has ever stuck.’

‘Yes, of course. I always tend to think of them as a pair.’

‘They are separate individuals,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘I feel that loyalty might evaporate if only they could be caught with blood on their hands. Billy and Danny might not be daunted by a stretch behind bars but the thought of the rope might loosen their tongues.’

‘Murder?’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘Oh, they’re capable of it. In fact, I’m damned sure that Billy has killed more than one man in his day but I wouldn’t want to set a trap that put any life at risk.’

‘Och, no,’ said the sergeant.

‘And I would much prefer to have them arrested within the jurisdiction of the City of Glasgow.’

‘It would be a High Court trial in any case.’

‘Probably,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘But I’d like to make sure.’

‘What do you expect from this youngster, from Nicholson?’

‘I’ll have to talk to him.’

‘Would you use him as a witness?’ said the sergeant, frowning.

‘Only if I could be certain that he would be safe.’

‘If I were a youngster I’d be too scared of retribution to put my nose in a witness box, even if Danny and Billy were locked up tightly.’

‘Nicholson may not know that he’ll be in danger.’

‘Will you not tell him?’

For a moment Superintendent Affleck did not answer, seemed to ponder his reply.

The sergeant said, ‘Look what happened to your last informer.’

‘I’ve no wish to discuss that matter.’

‘You never even told me his name.’

‘I told nobody his name,’ said Hugh Affleck.

‘Where is he now?’

‘Vanished.’

‘Vanished into the Clyde in a weighted barrel?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know about Malone,’ said Hugh Affleck, ‘but Billy Skirving would certainly knife a nark as quick as winkie.’

‘So it’s dangerous.’

‘I don’t deny it.’ Hugh Affleck sipped his whisky and stared bleakly out across the river, shrouded in rain and almost dark. ‘What sticks in my gullet, Hector, is that Skirving and Malone are so damned cocky. They strut about as if they were above the law, as if they owned the Greenfield. By God, but they must have made a packet of money from sale of the stuff they’ve stolen.’

‘Aye, the Ming stem cup – what was it valued at?’

‘Four hundred pounds.’

‘And yon Dragon vases?’

‘Five,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘The solid silver wine-cooler from Lord Cunningham’s house; God, you could hardly lift it with a crane. I mean, it’s not all being melted down. It’s being sold intact to foreign collectors, I’m sure.’

‘By Maitland Moss?’

‘Oh, probably,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘And I find that very ugly, very ugly indeed; the idea of a couple of brutes like Skirving and Malone thieving precious articles on the instructions of a so-called gentleman, and none of them caring a jot whose head gets smashed in the process.’

‘In my personal opinion,’ said Sergeant Drummond, ‘I think you will be very fortunate to bring Mr Maitland Moss to trial at all.’

‘I know it, Hector. I’ll settle for putting Skirving and Malone behind bars for a long, long time.’

‘Catch them in the act?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Use the youngster – Nicholson – to help you set them up?’

‘It’s the first real bit of luck we’ve had.’

‘Aye, but will this young man agree to help us?’

‘I won’t know until I’ve talked with him.’

‘When will that be, Hughie?’

‘Soon,’ Hugh Affleck answered. ‘Very, very soon.’

 

It came as a great shock to Kirsty to find Mr Affleck on the doorstep. There was no twinkle in his eye, no teasing in his manner. He seemed taller too, and younger. When he informed her that he had come on business and not as a friendly visitor, Kirsty’s apprehension increased.

‘What sort of business?’

‘I’m a policeman, Mrs Nicholson.’

He held out a black book the size and shape of a postcard; his name was prominently printed upon a certificate of identity attached to the book’s forepage.

‘I have credentials,’ he said, ‘as you can see.’

‘Mrs Frew didn’t tell me what you did,’ said Kirsty.

‘Nessie’s somewhat ashamed of my profession.’

‘What do you want, Mr Affleck?’

‘To talk to your husband.’

‘You’d – you’d better come in.’

She led him into the kitchen. She noticed how he glanced about the room, casually but with intent, as if he were looking for something.

‘My husband – Craig’s not home yet.’

‘How long will he be?’

‘I’m expectin’ him soon.’

‘May I wait?’

Kirsty could contain herself no longer. ‘What’s Craig done, Mr Affleck? Tell me, please.’

‘He’s fallen in with bad company.’

‘It’s that man, that Malone, isn’t it?’

‘Why do you say that?’ Mr Affleck said.

‘He gives Craig money, extra money. Money for night work.’

‘Night work?’

‘Moonlight flittin’s, shiftin’ furniture for folk who don’t pay their rent. Is that a crime?’

‘A misdemeanour,’ said Mr Affleck. ‘Nothing serious.’

‘Are you an inspector, Mr Affleck?’

‘Superintendent.’

‘Is that not a high position?’

‘Fairly.’

‘Then you’re not here because of moonlight flittin’s?’ said Kirsty. ‘What are they movin’ in the night-time? Is it stolen goods?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Oh, God!’

He patted her arm consolingly and put other questions to her.

Kirsty answered him as best she could. She tried to hide the fear that she was being disloyal to Craig. If she was calm and truthful she might somehow save Craig from punishment, from prison. The quarter of an hour before Craig arrived was like a bad dream. Rain pattered on the window, the clock ticked, pots bubbled on the range just as they had done before Mr Affleck had knocked upon the door, but everything had changed; her existence was suddenly threatened. She was not sure how much uncertainty she could stand.

It had been bad enough screwing up her courage to tell Craig about the baby. He had not reacted with delight, had backed away, had eaten his supper with hardly a word. When they had gone to bed she had wanted him to make love to her but he had backed away, sat up, arms folded, and had talked in a stern voice about money. He had barely mentioned the baby. Kirsty had cried, in spite of her resolve not to, and Craig had got up and made her tea and brought it to her and had sat by the side of the bed and held the cup for her and murmured to her to turn off the waterworks, that he didn’t really mind about the baby, after all. Eventually he had climbed back into bed and had put his arms about her and held her, awkwardly, and, at that moment, Kirsty did not know whether he loved her at all or, what was worse, whether she loved him.

‘Is that your husband now?’ said Mr Affleck.

She heard the clump of boots on the stairhead, got up quickly and ran to the door to open it before Craig could use his key, to give him warning.

‘What’s up wi’ you?’ Craig said. ‘You’re white as a bloody sheet.’

‘There’s a man here to see you.’

‘A man? What man?’

‘Mr Affleck.’

‘Mister who?’

‘From the boarding-house.’

‘Oh, aye. What does he want?’

‘Craig, he’s a policeman.’

In that split second Kirsty had seen guilt in Craig’s eyes, a flash of panic, and realised that he had not told her the truth about what went on at the carriers’ yard or what things he was required to do for Daniel Malone. She clutched at his arm as if to prevent him from bolting out of the house.

‘What have you told him, Kirsty?’ Craig hissed.

‘I didn’t tell him a thing.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Craig said, under his breath.

He squared his shoulders and went into the kitchen where Hugh Affleck waited, seated on a kitchen chair with his back to the bubbling pots in which the dinner was wasting. To Kirsty’s surprise Mr Affleck rose and offered his hand and Craig, nonplussed by the gesture of friendship, shook it.

‘Sorry to call on you at this late hour,’ said Mr Affleck, ‘but I’m making enquiries into a certain matter that I think you might be able to help with.’

‘What certain matter?’

Kirsty removed the pots from the range and took an ashet pie from the oven and set the dish on the side of the hob to keep warm. Behind her she heard the man and her husband speak, haltingly but without heat.

‘Concerning what goes into and out of Maitland Moss’s yard.’

‘All sorts o’ things come an’ go,’ said Craig.

‘Late at night, Craig.’

‘I don’t know nothin’ about that.’

‘Come on, Craig, let’s not waste time beating about the bush,’ said Mr Affleck. ‘You do some of these night runs.’

‘Did she tell you that?’ Craig turned angrily to Kirsty. ‘Did you tell him that?’

‘Your wife didn’t have to tell me,’ said Mr Affleck. ‘Good God, son, I’m a policeman. I know a lot about a lot of things.’

‘Why are ye askin’ me then?’

‘Just how well do you know Danny Malone?’

‘He’s the boss o’ the yard where I work.’

‘Does he ride with you?’

‘Nah.’

‘Who is your regular driver, Craig?’

Craig hesitated. ‘Mostly it’s Bob McAndrew.’

‘Does McAndrew take the reins on late-night jobs too?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes I do the drivin’.’

‘Who else?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’ said Craig.

‘Peter Gilfillan?’

‘Nah.’

‘Jock Middleton?’

‘Nah.’

‘Have you ever met a man – not a carter – named Skirving?’

‘I have not.’

‘All right, Craig, now tell me what you carry on these night jobs.’

Craig drew in a deep breath. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Craig—’ said Kirsty.

He rounded on her furiously. ‘It’s the bloody truth; I don’t know. All I do is collect the cart or the van at the gate o’ the yard an’ drive it to – well, to some place.’

‘What sort of “some place”?’ said Mr Affleck.

‘A corner, or outside a shop.’

‘What happens then?’ said Mr Affleck quietly.

‘Somebody comes out an’ loads it.’

‘“Somebody”?’

‘Mr Malone; or Bob.’

‘Bob McAndrew?’

‘Aye.’

‘And then?’ said Mr Affleck.

‘I drive the cart to where I’m told.’

‘Who rides with you?’

‘Sometimes it’s Bob. Sometimes it’s Mr Malone.’

Mr Affleck paused before he put the question. ‘Where do you go with the cart?’

‘Different places.’

‘Different places; not to the carriers’ yard?’

Craig said, ‘Sometimes we stop outside a close an’ the stuff is off-loaded.’

‘Do you help with the loading?’

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘Never. I’m no’ allowed.’

‘All right; where are these places?’

‘All over.’

‘In Hillhead, say, or Partick, or—’

‘In the Greenfield,’ Craig answered.

‘Could you tell me where they are?’

‘Streets. I don’t know rightly.’

‘All right. Now what’s carried?’ said Mr Affleck. ‘You must have had a glimpse of cargo at some point.’

Craig shook his head emphatically. He had not removed his duffel and sweat beaded his brow and upper lip. He was, however, talking more freely now, as if he could not check the need to unburden himself.

‘I haven’t,’ Craig said. ‘Look, it’s always in boxes or wrapped in tarpaulin.’

‘How much of it?’

‘Usually no’ much at all.’

‘How large?’

‘All shapes an’ sizes,’ Craig said.

‘Are you never stopped by the police?’

‘Aye, quite often.’

‘Really!’ said Mr Affleck. ‘In the Greenfield?’

‘On the Dumbarton Road, in Partick.’

‘And what happens?’

‘The copper looks in the back o’ the van, shines his lamp an’ that’s it. He signals us on. Bob an’ me.’

‘He signals you on. Lets you leave?’

‘Aye.’

‘Where is Danny Malone?’

‘He goes away, walks away. He hardly ever rides on the cart or the van.’

‘Craig, why do the police constables let you go?’

Craig said, ‘Because there’s nothin’ to see in the bed o’ the van.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ said Mr Affleck.

‘When you lift the back canvas, the van’s empty.’

Hugh Affleck opened his mouth and raised his eyebrows and, slumping back in the wooden chair, slapped his fist down lightly on the table. ‘Good God, of course! It’s got a false bottom.’

‘I think so,’ Craig confirmed. ‘On the small van an’ on the deep cart. Neither vehicle’s used durin’ the day.’

‘Good God!’ said Mr Affleck again. ‘I wonder who dreamed up that ruse?’

‘Mr Malone, I expect,’ said Craig.

‘What payment do you get for night work?’

‘Five bob, usually.’

‘Didn’t it strike you as strange that Malone pays that much for – what – three hours’ work?’

‘I never thought about it.’

The quiet manner was gone immediately. The transformation startled Kirsty. Mr Affleck’s hand shot out and gripped Craig’s wrist and he was drawn forward, unresistingly, until his elbows were braced on the table and Mr Affleck’s face was only inches from his own.

‘You did think about it, Craig. You thought about it all the time. What you did not do was face up to the fact that you were abetting criminals. Am I not right?’

Craig swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He did not try to free himself from the superintendent’s grasp.

‘Five bob’s a lot o’ money,’ he said.

Mr Affleck said, ‘Five bob could land you ten years in jail.’

‘All I did was drive a van.’

‘All you did was pretend to be ignorant.’

‘I’m not bloody ignorant.’

‘You’re doing a fair imitation of it, I can tell you,’ said Mr Affleck. ‘Now this is your lucky day, Craig. This is your one and only chance to extricate yourself from what might well turn out to be a right old mess.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I want your co-operation.’

‘Co-operation?’

‘You know damned fine what I mean,’ said Mr Affleck.

‘You want me to nark.’

‘More than that.’

‘More?’

‘I want you to help us catch your pal Malone.’

‘Catch him yourself,’ Craig said, defiantly but without conviction.

‘Oh, don’t think I can’t,’ said Superintendent Affleck. ‘Don’t think for one minute that because your pal Malone has evaded the law until now he’ll evade it much longer. Next time one of the Moss vans gets stopped it’ll not be some daft copper. Oh, no, no! It’ll be a very smart inspector and a couple of detectives that’ll be there. Believe me, they won’t be fooled by false bottoms. They’ll have that cart stripped and in pieces – and then where’ll you be?’

‘What,’ said Craig, ‘if I tell Mr Malone?’

‘God, you’re more ignorant than I took you for,’ said Mr Affleck. ‘I come here to give you a chance to save your neck and all you do is side with this brutal villain. Do you know anything about Danny Malone?’

‘Not much,’ Craig admitted. ‘The men like him, though.’

‘Don’t be such a damned fool, Craig. The men are afraid of him. And they have cause, believe me.’

‘It’s your lot, the polis, that folk are scared of.’

‘No, no,’ said Hugh Affleck. ‘The police may not be popular but it’s not fear that makes it so.’

‘What is it then?’ said Craig.

Hugh Affleck considered his reply. ‘A kind of power, I suppose. It’s the strength of the society that we impose, the discipline that people don’t even know they need.’

Craig gave no sign that the man’s words had impressed him or even that he had grasped their significance. ‘Listen, you’re not goin’ to tell Malone we’ve talked like this, are you?’

‘Do you see; you are frightened of Malone. Why don’t you rid yourself of that fear?’

‘Christ, are you jokin’?’ said Craig ruefully.

‘You can help. Help me, the police force, and yourself into the bargain.’

‘I can’t see how it would help me one wee bit.’

‘As it is you’re one step from becoming a real criminal.’

‘Get away wi’ you,’ said Craig. ‘I’m not fallin’ for that one.’

‘Would you not rather be on the right side of the law?’

In spite of himself Craig was impressed by Hugh Affleck’s manner even if the logic of his plea cut little ice. There appeared to be something vital at the core of the man’s argument, an authority that reminded Craig, just a little, of Mr Sanderson. He experienced a sudden tilt of attitude, a grudging respect.

Hugh Affleck was quick to spot the change. ‘Come on, Craig. Be sensible.’

Kirsty moved towards Craig and put her hand on his shoulder. He twisted round and glanced at her enquiringly but he did not draw away. Indeed he leaned into her a little and covered her hand with his to hold her there, close by him.

He cleared his throat. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Help us catch Malone.’

‘How?’ Craig said.

 

The scratch and flare of a match wakened Kirsty at once. She rolled over. Craig was crouched in a corner of the bed recess, blanket up to his chin, a tobacoo-tin lid on his knees. He puffed on a cigarette, hiding the glow in his cupped hand.

‘What’s wrong, dear? Can’t you sleep?’

‘Nope,’ he told her.

‘What time is it?’

‘’Bout three, I think.’

‘Will I get up an’ make tea?’

‘Just go back to sleep, will you?’

She struggled into a sitting position, too sleepy yet to judge his exact mood.

‘Are you worried?’ she said.

‘I’m worried in case Malone realises I’m lyin’ to him.’

‘If he does,’ said Kirsty, ‘we’ll just have to move.’

‘Aye,’ Craig snorted, ‘wi’ me in a coffin.’

‘Is Malone as bad as Mr Affleck says he is?’

‘Worse.’

‘If you want to,’ Kirsty said, ‘you can hand in your notice; or not show up at the yard again.’

‘If it wasn’t for the baby, I would,’ Craig said.

‘The baby’s not due for months,’ Kirsty said.

‘How can you know what Malone’s like?’ said Craig. ‘Christ, the very way he eyes you up.’

‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’

‘Don’t you bloody start.’

‘Why did you ever get mixed up with him in the first place?’

‘For the bloody money, o’ course.’

It always came down to money in Craig’s book. Even so, she felt closer to him than she had done for months. He seemed to have no basis for pride, and no pride in anything worthwhile and in consequence needed her more.

Craig said, ‘I wish she’d write to me.’

Kirsty was taken aback. He was thinking of home, of his mother. She should not grudge him that, perhaps, under the circumstances.

She said, ‘I’m afraid she hasn’t forgiven you, Craig.’

‘Knowin’ her, she never will,’ Craig said. ‘I wish Dad would write, though, or Gordon.’

‘They know we’re all right.’

‘Aye, but we’re not all right, are we?’

Kirsty drew up her knees. Her breasts were less tender this past week. She could feel the gradual quickening of the child inside her, though. She had no words to tell Craig what it felt like, what it meant to her, how the texture of her feelings was changing with its growth.

‘Are you sorry you came away wi’ me?’ Kirsty said.

‘I’m sorry we ever went to that damned boardin’-house,’ Craig retorted. ‘Sorry we ever clapped eyes on bloody Affleck.’

‘It’s not his fault.’

‘It’s not my bloody fault either.’

‘Craig, is it the baby? Do you not want the baby?’

‘Aye, of course I do.’

She slipped an arm about his waist. He did not draw away as she had expected him to do. He was shuddering, though it was not cold in the kitchen. She laid her cheek against his shoulder.

He said, ‘Are you cryin’ again?’

‘No.’

‘You are,’ he said. ‘You’re cryin’ again. Why the hell’re you always cryin’ these days?’

‘I canna help it.’

‘It’s me should be doin’ the cryin’,’ Craig said.

‘I’m frightened too,’ said Kirsty.

‘You don’t have to do it, what Affleck asks.’

‘We could – could run away.’

‘No.’

‘Craig—’

‘No.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if we—’

‘I made a mistake, all right. But I’ll live wi’ it. Even if it means losin’ the job. Even if it means gettin’ my neck broke.’

‘Craig—’

He disentangled his arm and stabbed out the cigarette into the tobacco tin, grinding at it until not a grain of the coal remained alight. He slumped back, head thudding against the corner wall.

‘God, but I’m tired,’ he said. ‘So damned tired of it all.’

‘It’ll be over soon,’ Kirsty whispered.

‘One way or the other,’ said Craig.

 

It was that time of a Saturday evening when at the end of a hard week’s work Glaswegians were at play. The streets were loud with the last of the shoppers and the first of the boozers, and factory girls and the office girls dolled up in warpaint were on the loose in search of sweethearts, and young men, by no means unaware of their value, were downing a few sweet pints before sauntering forth to the Temple or the Tivoli or up town for a taste of blood-and-thunder at the Grand or the Hippodrome; or, for those who hadn’t two bawbees to rub together, a ramble for free to the fish-fry at Anderston Cross where lots of liberated lassies congregated in the hope of swapping kisses for a poke of lukewarm haddock or a bag of peas and vinegar.

Even in Walbrook Street there was a certain Saturday clatter with cabs and carriages clopping off to concerts or supper parties or carpet dances or to ‘grand stag banquets’ at the Bodega or the Silver Grill.

Mrs Frew, all alone in her back parlour, was only dimly conscious of the hum of traffic from the streets outside, and of her loneliness. For a year or two after Andrew’s death Saturday had been a difficult and tearful day of the week until she had hit upon the idea – Hughie’s suggestion, in fact – of taking in guests, a favoured few with impeccable credentials, and had thus found purpose and a not-too-demanding routine. But that particular Saturday night her guest had eschewed the taking of dinner at her table in favour of a chop-house snack.

She had sent Cissie home. Later she would poach herself an egg, would go early to bed with a glass of sherry, perhaps, to help her sleep. Meanwhile she sat at ease by the fire, an old Kashmiri shawl draped across her thin shoulders, and immersed herself in the latest ‘Ouida’ to come her way, a two-shilling edition of Puck. Mrs Frew was as addicted to reading as was her brother but unlike Hughie, who displayed his library proudly on shelves all over the house, she kept her collection hidden in the left-hand side of her wardrobe. She was embarrassed by the fact that she enjoyed sensational, sentimental novels, and authors like Wilkie Collins, Justin McCarthy, Sarah Tyler and Walter Besant.

She had just reached a chapter entitled ‘His First Betrayal’ when the jangle of the doorbell made her start. Shedding her shawl, she hid it under the chair, went along the gloomy corridor and into the hall.

She called out, ‘Who is it?’

The answer came, ‘It’s me, Nessie. It’s Hughie.’

She opened the door and admitted him.

‘What is it? What’s wrong? Is it one of the girls?’

‘No, no, Nessie. Nothing like that.’

‘What is it, then? What are you doing here?’

‘I was just passing. Thought I’d drop in.’

He closed the door carefully and followed her down the hall and into the parlour.

‘Have you had dinner?’

‘I’m expected at home for dinner, Nessie.’

‘Oh!’

‘Sorry, old girl. I’d stay if I could.’

She turned, hands folded at the level of her waist and gave him the steady penetrating stare that all Afflecks had inherited from their formidable dam. ‘Not even takin’ off your coat, I suppose?’

‘You’re right, Nessie. It isn’t a casual visit.’

‘What is it, then? Come along, out with it.’

‘Now I don’t want you to worry—’

‘Worry? About what?’

‘About what I’m going to ask you to do—’

‘Ask me to do?’

‘– because it’s only a precaution and there’s no need to get yourself all upset about—’

‘All upset?’

‘Will you listen to me, Nessie, please?’

She pursed her lips. ‘I’m listening.’

‘In my professional capacity—’

‘Huh!’

‘Nessie! In my professional capacity it has come to my ears that a gang of villains has sussed out—’

‘In English, please, Hughie.’

‘A gang of villains has it in mind to rob this house.’

‘What!’

‘Be calm, be calm, Nessie, please.’

‘There’s nothin’ of value here.’

‘Oh, but there is, Nessie. It’s the silver they’re after, I think.’

‘Papa’s silver; I didn’t think it was particularly valuable.’

‘Take my word on it, Nessie, please.’

‘Am I to be murdered in my bed for Papa’s old soup tureen?’

‘That’s why I’m here, Nessie.’

‘How did you come by this information, Hughie?’

‘Via an informant.’

Mrs Frew understood perfectly well. From Wilkie Collins and other writers she had acquired a sizeable vocabulary of underworld terms and a knowledge of criminal methods that would have surprised her brother. The matter was clearly serious. She nodded curtly.

‘I can’t, of course, tell you my informant’s name. That isn’t on. But I can tell you that I have found this chap to be very reliable with his information in the past.’

Nessie Frew said, ‘The panels.’

Hughie frowned. ‘Eh?’

‘Not the silver, Hughie. It’s Andrew’s stained glass they’ll be after.’

‘Of course,’ Hughie said, smacking a fist into his palm. ‘That’s it. You’ve struck it. It isn’t the silver at all – though they’ll take that too if they do gain entry – it’s the stained glass they’re after.’

‘Worth a great deal more than silver.’

‘Yes, oh yes,’ Hughie agreed. ‘I should have thought of it. However, the important thing is that we have a very fair and accurate idea of their intentions. We know when they will make their strike, and how.’

‘Modus operandi.’

‘Exactly,’ said Hughie.

‘What do you require me to do?’

Nessie Frew had no great opinion of her brother’s character and had nurtured a grievance against him since he had dropped out of Edinburgh University and had chosen to be a policeman rather than a minister of the Gospel, but she was not altogether daft. Hughie had not risen to his present august rank without brains and the ability to apply them. She trusted him implicitly.

Hughie said, ‘I want you to go away for a night or two.’

‘Leave the house unguarded?’

‘Of course not; I’ll be here.’

‘Alone or with colleagues?’

‘With colleagues.’

‘To catch the crooks red-handed?’

‘That’s it, Nessie.’

‘Where shall I go?’

‘Beatrice will—’

‘I could go to Greenock and call upon Edith.’

‘I thought you didn’t rub along with Edith either.’

‘She is our sister, and she is old. Yes, I’ll go and visit Edith.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be pleased,’ said Hughie.

‘I’ll write to her tonight. When do you expect this – this thing to happen?’

‘On Friday.’

‘Will there be shooting?’

‘Good God, Nessie, no.’

‘Won’t they come armed?’

‘Not with pistols,’ said Hughie.

‘Shall I move the stained glass?’

‘I doubt if it’s necessary,’ Hughie said. ‘They’ll be grabbed and nabbed before they can do any damage, I promise.’

Mrs Frew sniffed. ‘I’ve heard your promises before.’

‘Look, we’ve been after this gang for months. Now we have a chance to catch them and put them behind bars. You would be doing a great service not only to the Glasgow Police but to the public at large.’

‘Friday? Next Friday?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll go to Greenock on a morning train and stay over with Edith.’

‘Guests?’

‘Only one.’

‘Will you find him alternative accommodation?’

‘You may leave that to me, Hughie.’

‘Don’t tell him – whoever he is – the truth; I mean, make an excuse, Nessie. I want no hint of this to leak out, not to anyone.’

‘What about Cissie?’

‘Tell her only that you’re going away for a couple of days. Send her home.’

‘Yes, that’s best.’

‘Not a word, now, not to a living soul.’

‘I’ll move St Andrew, I think,’ said Mrs Frew.

‘Good idea,’ said Hughie. ‘Put him in the attic for a while.’

‘Will you help me?’

‘Of course.’

She managed, one way and another, to keep Hughie with her until after eight o’clock. He was patient and obedient and, if she had pressed him, might even have risked the wrath of his wife, Beatrice, and taken off his coat and sat down and had supper with her. But she did not ask it of him. St Andrew was safe away in an upper room and the tall panel that dominated the drawing-room, which depicted in wonderful detail Jesus walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee, had been manhandled upstairs too.

Eventually Hughie had taken his leave, reassured that she would do all he asked.

She poured herself a little thimble of brandy as soon as her brother had gone. She was pleased with herself, pleased that she had given him no sign of the dreadful excitement that was in her at the thought that she would participate in bringing a ‘gang’ to justice, that her quiet sanctuary would become a battlefield in the war between good and evil.

Excitement fizzed and bubbled inside her and she did not return to ‘Ouida’ but sat, nursing a second thimble of brandy, and gazed into the parlour fire. She was flattered that Hugh had confided in her. She would not, of course, breathe a word about it to Cissie, to anyone; except perhaps to Kirsty who was her friend and could be trusted. She might just mention it in passing to Kirsty on the way home from church tomorrow.

But next morning Kirsty Nicholson did not turn up at St Anne’s though Mrs Frew waited by the steps until the last possible moment and, disappointed, had to keep the intriguing secret to herself.

 

Raw and rattled, Craig climbed the steps to the ‘office’ above the yard like a man going to the gallows. He was not in the least flattered that he had been chosen by Hughie Affleck to play a leading role in the capture of Danny Malone. His feelings towards Malone had been ambivalent all along and he still had respect for the man’s daring defiance of the law. As it was he had been forced into an alliance with the law. At least Affleck’s plot would keep him out of jail, though he could not imagine that Danny Malone would fall for it or be caught by plodding blue boys from the burgh.

If it hadn’t been for Kirsty he would not have shown his face near Maitland Moss, might have scurried back home to his mammy and told nobody his reason for returning to the life of the farm. But he could not take Kirsty back to Dalnavert, not in her condition, and he could not bring himself to abandon her.

Taking a deep breath Craig rapped on the weathered door.

Mr Malone was alone inside the office. Craig had watched and waited all morning for the boss to go up the steps and unlock the door. Now that he stood on the rickety wooden landing, though, he felt as if every eye in the yard was upon him and that Treachery was printed on his back in letters of fire.

‘Come in.’

It was a shabby tumbledown sort of room with a desk, a table, a high cabinet of open pigeon-holes, a wooden armchair and a kitchen chair. The fire, unlighted, was packed with cold ashes and the place stank of gas and horses. Danny Malone, puffing on a Delmonico, was seated in the wooden armchair behind the desk, feet upon the window ledge.

‘Can I talk to you, Mr Malone?’ Craig said, gruffly.

‘I’m all ears,’ Malone said. ‘Take a pew.’

Craig licked his dry lips. He had rehearsed what he was going to say but the words stuck in his throat now like dry oats.

‘What’re you so bloody scared about?’ Danny Malone swung his feet from the window ledge, the swivel chair shrieking, and planted them on the desk. ‘I’m not goin’ to eat you, lad. Out wi’ it.’

‘Remember,’ Craig began, ‘remember how I stayed in a lodgin’ in Walbrook Street, before – before I moved to the Greenfield?’

‘Aye, a posh place.’

‘I’ve been thinkin’,’ Craig went on.

‘About what?’

‘Silver.’

‘You mean money?’

‘I mean silver plates.’

‘In this house in Walbrook Street?’

‘Aye.’

‘What reason have ye got for tellin’ me this?’

‘I’m – I’m green, Mr Malone, but I’m no cabbage. I’ve an idea what goes into the vans I drive on those night jobs.’

Malone seemed neither surprised nor dismayed by Craig’s acumen. He puffed on the cigar, blew a wave of thick blue smoke over his nether lip. He squinted at Craig quizzically through the haze.

‘Has Bob been talkin’ out o’ turn?’

‘Nah,’ said Craig. ‘Bob never had to say anythin’.’

‘Have you seen the silver plate?’

‘Where?’

‘In this house in Walbrook Street?’

‘Aye. I never thought much about it at the time. But—’ Craig hesitated.

‘But what?’

‘I – I thought you might be interested.’

‘How can you be certain it’s genuine sterling silver?’

‘It has marks on it; the stamp.’

‘Who owns the house?’ said Malone.

‘Her name’s Frew. She lives there alone, except for a servant,’ said Craig. ‘What’s more, she’ll be out all night on Friday. The place’ll be empty.’

‘How do ye know that?’

‘My – my wife, she goes to the same kirk as the Frew woman.’

‘An’ the Frew woman told your wife the house would be empty?’

‘Nah,’ said Craig, ‘but she told her she was goin’ to visit her sister in Greenock an’ wouldn’t be at the prayer meetin’ on Friday, this Friday.’

‘So your wifie goes t’ prayer meetin’s, eh?’

‘Aye, sometimes.’

Craig squirmed a little on the hard wooden chair. He hated it when Danny Malone mentioned Kirsty, even casually, for Malone pronounced the word ‘wife’ in a dragging, leering tone. Craig had heard stories, some envious, about Malone and his women, how he bedded a young thing in a house in Regina Street while keeping a wife and weans tucked away downriver in the village of Cardross. Craig did not find such behaviour admirable or manly and he did not envy Malone his women; one wife was more than he could handle.

‘Does it on her knees, eh?’ said Malone.

Craig said, ‘It’s an empty house wi’ a load o’ silver plate in it. Number nineteen, Walbrook Street, opposite the bowling-green.’

‘You said there was a servant.’

‘She goes home every night.’

‘What for are ye tellin’ me all this, Craig?’ said Danny Malone, still squinting through cigar smoke.

‘Because it’s there for the takin’,’ said Craig.

‘Take it then.’

Craig forced a grin, got up. ‘That’s fine, Mr Malone. I was hopin’ you’d say that. See, I didn’t want you to think I was queerin’ your pitch or anythin’.’

‘You’ll get nabbed, sonny.’

‘I’ll chance it.’

Malone swung his feet to the floor and leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the desk and even put down the cigar, balancing it carefully in an empty tobacco tin.

‘How will you move it?’ he said.

‘I’ll only take what I can carry,’ said Craig.

‘Aye, an’ maybe leave the best o’ it behind.’

Craig shrugged. ‘It’ll be enough for me, whatever I get.’

‘How will ye get in?’

‘Through the back kitchen window.’

‘Barred, I’ll wager.’

‘Not barred,’ said Craig.

‘How—’

‘I looked, didn’t I?’

‘You’ve a right insolent mouth on you, Nicholson.’

‘Look, Mr Malone, why do you think I left Carrick?’

Puzzled, Malone frowned.

‘Because I had to,’ Craig said. He shrugged again. ‘It was gettin’ just a bit too hot down there, if ye know what I mean.’

‘You mean—’

Craig said, ‘Let me just say, Mr Malone, that I know a bit more about night work than I learned drivin’ a cart for you.’

‘Your wife, your “prayer meetin’” wife, I’ll bet she doesn’t know what a bad lad you are?’

‘Think I’m daft enough to tell her?’ said Craig.

It hung, at that point, in the balance. Craig knew that he had been inspired in his performance, was pleased with his invention about his reason for fleeing from Carrick and he had sense enough not to embellish it. He tried to appear close and tough, to encourage Malone’s doubts about him.

Malone plucked up the Delmonico between finger and thumb and took a long pull at it, sucking smoke into his lungs.

‘If you had it done proper you could clear the whole house,’ said Malone at length. ‘You could have a cartful. Aye, an’ a sure market for the silver, if it’s any good at all.’

‘Is that a proposal, Mr Malone?’

‘Aye.’

‘That’s what I came for,’ said Craig.

‘I could see that the job’s done properly.’

‘Right you are.’

‘I could see that it’s done wi’out you bein’ put at risk.’

Craig grunted, said, ‘An’ have you tell me later there was nothin’ in the bloody house worth sellin’? Nah, nah, Mr Malone. I’ll be there to earn my share.’

Malone laughed loudly.

It was done, accomplished; the bait had been swallowed.

Malone got up suddenly, came around the desk and draped his arm over Craig’s shoulder, hugged him, laughed again.

‘I got caught like that once,’ Malone said. ‘God an’ Jesus! It was a lesson well learned, though, I’ll tell ye. I was only about your age too when I was taken for green.’

‘I’ll bet you weren’t taken twice, though, Mr Malone.’

Malone’s laughter was dense and unaffected. It would probably be heard in the yard, in the stables; Craig wondered what the men would think of it and if they would respect him for becoming so ‘pally’ with the boss.

‘I’ve never been taken since,’ Malone said. ‘An’, by God, I’ll never be taken again.’

Craig said, ‘What about this job on Friday night?’

‘Easy-peasy,’ Malone said.

‘Is it on, then?’

‘It’s on,’ said Danny Malone.

 

Although the baby was not due for months, Kirsty imagined that she could feel it stirring in her womb and, in the course of that weekend, developed a fear that was almost a phobia that she might somehow be hurt and that the health of her child would be affected. She became tense and jumpy. At Oswalds’ she shouted at Letty for tugging her playfully by the arm. In the street she was tense and alert, afraid of barking dogs, neighing horses and rough-and-tumble urchins. She was also suddenly and acutely aware of all the poor, daft, big-headed bairns that trailed about, noses running, on their mothers’ hands and, in the night, suffered restless dreams about them.

In the end, on Monday, she went to the consulting-room in Banff Street and tearfully blurted out her fears to Doctor Godwin who patted her arm, gave her a tiny bottle of brown syrup – four drops in water daily – and assured her that she was strong and healthy and that her baby would be equally sound in wind, limb and mental faculty.

The impending ‘plot’ weighed heavily upon Kirsty. She was short with Craig and hated herself for not offering him sympathy for the dangerous ordeal that lay at the week’s end. Most of all, oddly, she experienced a tremendous weight of guilt at having missed Sabbath worship at St Anne’s. She felt that God would strike a black mark on her attendance record and hold it against her, punish her for her omission.

Pagan superstitions, old wives’ tales, rose and mingled with her other oppressive worries. She did not know who to blame for any of it – and so blamed Providence, promised in her prayers to be honest and kind and loving if only nothing bad happened to her husband and her baby.

She wanted no part in the deception that would lead the man, Malone, to prison; but she could not stand back from it now.

Mr Affleck was waiting inside Mr Kydd’s corner shop on Tuesday afternoon. How long he had been there or whether he had followed her, unseen, from Oswalds’ gate Kirsty could not be sure. He loitered by shelves of tinned biscuits and gave no sign that he recognised her when she stepped over the threshold from the street.

Two old women, strangers, were gossiping with Mr Kydd, a slim effeminate man with thin sandy hair and gold-rimmed glasses. Kirsty sidled past them, past the counter’s tray of brass weights, past the scales on which the potatoes were weighed, past thick soft sacks of oats and brose meal and dark sea-green racks of kail and cabbages; stood staring at tins of tea and bottles of coffee essence.

Mr Affleck’s voice, a murmur in her ear: ‘Has your husband heard anything definite?’

Without turning, Kirsty answered, ‘It’s to be Friday.’

‘What time?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Malone didn’t say?’

‘Craig didn’t tell me. He’ll not know.’

‘All right, lass. Listen; tell your husband to remain outside with the van if he possibly can. When he hears the first blast of a police whistle he’s to drive off as fast as he dare, commensurate with safety, of course. Got that?’

‘Yes.’

‘If, by any chance, he’s forced to enter the house, tell him to make sure he remains on the ground floor, near the door. As soon as my men appear he’s to run out into the street. If he’s stopped by one of my men tell him to put up no resistance. I’ll see to it that he’s released. Got that?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll be stationed in number nineteen by dusk, so he need have no fear if Malone elects to come early.’

‘What,’ said Kirsty, ‘what if somethin’ goes wrong, if the plans are changed?’

‘In that event go to Ottawa Street police station and give a message to Sergeant Drummond. Only to Sergeant Drummond, not to anybody else, in uniform or out of it. Got it?’

‘Will the sergeant—’

‘Yes, he’ll get in touch with me immediately.’

‘Is there anythin’ else?’

‘That’s it,’ said Mr Affleck.

He stepped away and selected a long tin of Bath Olivers from a shelf. As he squeezed past her on his way to the counter, however, he gave her elbow a squeeze and murmured, ‘Thank you, lass.’

Kirsty bought a quarter pound of loose tea, two wan-looking kippers from the enamel tray by the ham-slicer, four eggs and a pat of fresh butter. As she paid for her purchases and Mr Kydd wrapped them she heard one of the women behind her say, ‘Know who that was?’

‘Who?’

‘Him that just went out.’

‘Naw, I never saw him right.’

‘He used t’be in the polis, in Ottawa Street. I heard he was up in Glasgow now.’

‘In the polis?’

‘Aye.’

‘Get awa! Wonder what he wants in here.’

Without glancing up, Mr Kydd said, ‘Bath Olivers,’ and leaning over the counter carefully slipped the provisions into Kirsty’s shopping bag and, as he withdrew again, gave her a little knowing wink.

 

By Thursday evening Craig’s nervousness had reached such a pitch that Kirsty relented, put aside her own dread and found herself cosseting him as if he were an invalid. She bought a piece of frying-steak for his supper, carried a jug of beer from the Windsor Road off-licence, paid for with money that she had been saving to buy baby clothes.

Craig came home early. He was not his usual boisterous self but, cowed and furtive, slipped into the house and seated himself at the table in silence.

He asked Kirsty if she had been in touch with Affleck that day. Kirsty shook her head. Craig gave a little growl and put his hand over his eyes. ‘I don’t know how I got into this.’

‘You took money, Craig.’

‘Who in their right mind would turn down money?’

‘It’ll soon be over, dearest,’ Kirsty said.

He looked so youthful, dark hair tousled, eyes dark and perplexed, his skin with a sallow tan. She put her arms about his neck and hugged him.

‘Where’s my supper?’ he said.

She had fried potatoes to go with the steak and broke an egg on top of the meat. She served the plateful up to him, poured him a glass of beer from the jug. He did not seem to notice that she had taken trouble to please him. He ate in dour silence.

‘I’ll get no wages this week,’ he said, at length.

Kirsty said, ‘Why won’t you?’

‘Malone’ll be in the bloody clink, won’t he?’

‘I hope he will,’ said Kirsty.

‘An’ Maitland Moss isn’t goin’ to pay me for puttin’ him there.’

Craig mopped his plate with a piece of bread, lifted the beer glass and carried it to the chair by the grate. He lit a Gold Flake and seating himself stared, scowling, into the fire.

‘We couldn’t have gone on,’ he said. ‘Affleck’s right; sooner or later I’d have been nailed along wi’ Malone. It wouldn’t have been right, not wi’ a baby comin’.’

She had saved a piece of steak for herself and ate now, standing, forking the pieces into her mouth without appetite. She could not be sure if Craig was apologising for his foolishness or if, somehow, he was accusing her of collusion in his misfortune. His tension was palpable. She hoped that he would not crack, would not blurt out the truth to Bob McAndrew or Daniel Malone and spoil Mr Affleck’s well-wrought plan.

She put the plate on the table, wiped her lips on her handkerchief and hugged him once more. Craig sighed and patted her hand; and, at that moment, a fist thudded loudly on the outside door.

Kirsty started away and Craig stiffened.

‘Who can that be?’ Kirsty said.

‘Maybe it’s Affleck to tell us it’s all off.’

‘I’ll go an’ see.’

Kirsty opened the door with trepidation and confronted the man on the landing with a welling of pure fear.

‘So you’re the wee country wife, eh?’ said Danny Malone.

‘Who – who—’

‘Is he in, sweetheart?’

‘It’s only – only Thursday.’

‘Aye, I know what day it is,’ said Danny Malone. ‘Is he out?’

‘No, but—’

‘Here, I’ll see for myself.’

Malone brushed past her and went into the kitchen.

Shocked, Kirsty hesitated. She looked out of the door, saw nobody on the landing, on the stairs. She hurried back into the kitchen, leaving both doors ajar.

She had missed the first exchange but was not long in the dark about Malone’s purpose and intention.

Craig was on his feet, protesting. ‘But it’s only bloody Thursday, Mr Malone. You said—’

‘I know what I said, sonny, but I’ve changed my mind. Get your clobber on. We’re goin’ now, right now.’

‘I bloody told you it had to be Friday.’

‘I know what you bloody told me,’ said Malone, ‘an’ that’s why we’re pullin’ the job tonight.’

Craig did not move.

Kirsty said, ‘Craig, what – what is it?’

Malone said, ‘Did you no’ tell her?’

Craig said, ‘Nah.’

Malone chuckled. ‘Well, sweetheart, it’s a spot o’ night work, that’s all. Nothin’ for you to wet your drawers about.’

Malone perched himself on the table and, uninvited, poured himself a glass of beer from the jug. He wore a pullover of dark brown wool, a quilted vest buttoned tightly over it. He was not as Kirsty had pictured him, was smoother, less physically coarse. She began to understand why Craig had fallen under Malone’s spell.

‘Come on, sonny. Clobber up. The van’s waitin’.’

Kirsty took a deep breath. ‘Hurry up, Craig. Mustn’t keep Mr Malone waitin’.’

Malone turned his head and studied her, a grin kinking the corner of his lips. ‘No prayer meetin’ tonight?’

‘What?’ said Kirsty.

‘Naw, it’s Friday for prayers, right?’ Malone said, still grinning. ‘If you lived in my house, sweetheart, I’d make sure your prayers were answered. Be more than the Holy Ghost would come upon you, eh?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr Malone.’

‘Aye, sure you do.’

She saw him clearly, revealed by sexual assertiveness. He did not doubt that he could, if he wished, have her. Malone was a bully in a society that had grown accustomed to being bullied, that associated aggression with power and power with masculinity. The very size of his fist, as he clasped the beer glass, seemed larger than life now. He had no fear that she would tell anyone in authority that he had called here; Malone assumed that Craig was man enough to keep his wife under control.

Craig, seated, was lacing his boots.

‘Come on, sonny, shake it a bit. We haven’t got all bloody night,’ Malone said, kicking the spar of Craig’s chair.

Craig said, ‘She’ll be at home tonight, ye know, the widow woman.’

‘Ach, it’ll no’ matter.’

‘There might be guests an’ all.’

‘Guests?’

‘Men stayin’ there,’ Craig answered.

‘What,’ Kirsty forced herself to say, ‘are you talkin’ about?’

‘Nothin’, sweetheart,’ Malone told her. ‘Nothin’ to bother your head wi’.’

One minute later, without farewell, they were gone.

Kirsty had no opportunity to tell Craig of her intention. Malone had skilfully kept them from being alone together even for a moment. Malone had strong suspicions that Craig was in cahoots with the police but not strong enough, apparently, to cause him to turn his back on the robbery.

Kirsty pulled on her shawl and shoes and hurried out of the kitchen on to the landing. She leaned over the banister and listened, heard no sound at all from below. She locked the house door and ran downstairs, paused at the close mouth, hugging the wall. She could not be sure that Danny Malone or one of his henchmen was not positioned outside ready to pounce on her the moment she left the close.

She slipped back from the close mouth, down four shallow steps into the backcourt. Light fell from the tenement windows but wash-houses and middens were pits of pitch-black shadow. She made her way between them, found a gap in the railings that divided one court from another, squeezed through it, darted across the Windsor Road backs, out into the road itself, turned right and headed, running, for Ottawa Street.

The police station was a handsome sandstone structure that should have soared up like a church or department store but seemed to have been chopped off by a roof of black slate and an apologetic little coping. Its windows showed the shadows of interior bars and the glass was etched to obscure the cells within. The steps that led up to the door were bathed in stark white light from an arc over the transom. For all her panic and urgency Kirsty drew up before the forbidding doorway and hesitated before pushing through it.

Directly to her left was a half-open door; Kirsty had an impression of a packed room beyond it, men’s voices and a haze of blue tobacco smoke. On a long bench in the main chamber two big constables flanked a tiny waif of a man who, far from being intimidated, twittered curses with the desperate anger of a habitual offender who feels he deserves special treatment.

‘Put a sock in it, Jimmie. Ladies present,’ said one of the constables. ‘What are you after, miss?’

‘Sergeant Drummond?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Aye, that’s bloody him, hen,’ the waif shouted and might have added more by way of character reference if one of the flanking constables had not extended a large arm across his gullet.

Kirsty made her way across the empty floor to the desk.

The man there wore no hat and his grey cropped head made him seem less daunting. His cheeks were smooth and ruddy, as if he had shaved recently. An open ledger and a stand of inkwells were on the desk before him.

‘Sergeant Drummond?’

‘Aye, miss, and what can I be doing for you?’

‘I’m – I’m Kirsty Nicholson.’

One eyebrow cocked. The sergeant flicked his gaze from her anxious face to the constables on the bench.

Kirsty whispered, ‘Mr Affleck said I was to talk to—’

‘Wheesh, lass,’ the sergeant murmured. ‘Step this way, if you please.’

He opened a gate in the counter-top and admitted Kirsty to the inner sanctum, ushered her before him into an office furnished with a small table and two wooden chairs. He did not close the door but stood by it, from which position, Kirsty fancied, he could spy on the constables on the bench and also keep watch on the desk.

‘You may talk now,’ Sergeant Drummond said.

‘You know about Mr Affleck an’ Danny Malone?’

‘I do, I do.’

‘Malone came tonight—’

‘Tonight?’

‘Yes,’ said Kirsty. ‘He came unexpectedly about a quarter of an hour ago an’ took Craig – took my husband – away with him.’

‘To do the job?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see,’ said Sergeant Drummond quietly. ‘Very well, Mrs Nicholson, if you will be good enough to wait here I will place a telephone call to the City of Glasgow headquarters in the hope that Superintendent Affleck is still upon the premises.’

‘What if he’s not?’ said Kirsty.

‘One bridge at a time,’ said Sergeant Drummond, and went out again.

Kirsty stepped to the half-open door. She could see the constables across the counter-top. One had muffled the prisoner completely by cupping a fist over his mouth while the other, the elder, had gotten to his feet in something bordering alarm. They were hissing at each other angrily, but she could not hear what they were saying. Distantly she heard a bell ring. She assumed that it was something to do with a telephone, though she had never used such an instrument. After a minute or so the elder constable whirled and headed for the station door, passed out of her sight. A minute after that Sergeant Drummond, apparently unruffled, reappeared.

‘Fortunately,’ he told her, ‘I was able to make contact with Superintendent Affleck. He will attend to the matter personally. I take it, Mrs Nicholson, that it was to Mrs Frew’s house in Walbrook Street that Malone was headed?’

‘It couldn’t be anywhere else, could it?’ said Kirsty.

‘Did Malone say it, in so many words?’

‘Yes,’ Kirsty answered. ‘Yes, he did.’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Go on home then, Mrs Nicholson.’

‘But – but what can I do?’

‘You can do nothing, lass,’ the sergeant said. ‘The rest of it is up to us.’

 

The van was a trim affair only six feet in length and forty inches wide at floor level. The brass lamps that were mounted on each side of the half-cab were unlighted and the whole rig, including the canopy, was painted black and jade, the horse dun-coloured. In the shadows the van was almost invisible.

To Craig’s relief Bob McAndrew was not on the board. He had heard of Billy Skirving, though, and gathered that this was the man. He wore dark brown moleskins, a duffel jacket and stocking cap and carried an Indian exercise club. He had a thin, pinched, vicious face and eyes as hard as iron rivets. Lingering respect for Malone melted when Craig looked into Skirving’s eyes, and he knew that all the fine tall tales he had heard about Billy Skirving and Danny were lies. He wished that Mr Affleck had warned him about Billy too for he sensed that here was a man without pity or any drop of compassion.

‘You,’ Skirving told him, ‘drive.’

Craig climbed nervously on to the board and took up the reins. Skirving was by his side and Malone was in the rear of the van, crouched, his face only inches from Craig’s ear. Malone told him in a hoarse whisper to keep the pace easy until they got into New Clyde Street and then to let it out. Neither of the men spoke again as Craig steered a course out of Greenfield and on towards Walbrook Street.

He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. He had separated himself from them by agreeing to help Mr Affleck. He did not regret it for he saw now that Hugh Affleck had been right, that he would have slipped down inch by inch into an association with men of this calibre until he either became like them or was broken by his own weakness. He did not want to be exposed as a coward. On the other hand he was cut off from both sides. He was being used by Affleck just as he was being used by Malone, and nobody cared a damn about him or what might happen to him.

The resentment gave Craig a peculiar kind of strength and he tried, vainly, to formulate a plan that might prevent them reaching Mrs Frew’s house. He did not even know where the police stations were or how to summon aid. He had been drawn into this mess out of ignorance and he vowed, as he tugged and flicked the reins, that he would not be so stupid again, never again. All he had wanted was a better life for himself and for Kirsty but he realised now that he had been deluded; there was no easy route to fortune. He wished to God he had been more patient and wiser in the ways of the world. But it was too late now. He was stuck with Skirving and Malone, embroiled at last in a situation that demanded courage and control, even if it was a deception, a treachery.

It was only about half past nine. Glasgow’s citizens were still out and about, shops and pubs full lit, the streets, even back streets, were busy. They seemed to reach Walbrook Street suddenly. Suddenly the van was running along it towards Number 19.

Malone said, ‘Keep drivin’. Don’t stop.’

Craig did as instructed without protest. He drove on past the sober façade of Mrs Frew’s boarding-house; a dim light in the dining-room, all other windows dark; no sign of Superintendent Affleck or his constables, of course, and not a person within a hundred yards of the step.

‘Turn in here,’ Malone told him.

‘Turn where?’

‘Into the lane,’ Skirving snarled, ‘by the bloody kirk.’

Craig braked carefully, reined, positioned the van and ran it into the narrow gap between the wall of St Anne’s and the terrace gable. It was a place of smells and darkness which the horse liked no more than Craig did. The beast whinnied and would have shied if he had not predicted the movement and forestalled it with the rein.

‘There’s somebody here,’ Craig said huskily.

‘Sure, there’d better be,’ said Danny Malone.

From the shadows a voice hissed, ‘Is that yoursel’, Danny?’

‘Who in hell’s name would it be?’ Malone clambered from the back of the van. ‘How long have you been here, Tom?’

‘Like you told me, Danny, since half past six.’

Craig recognised the watcher; Tom McVoy, a carter from the yard, one of Malone’s pals. He too was dressed in a seaman’s jacket and stocking cap.

Malone said, ‘Did you see anybody go in or out?’

‘Not a bloody soul.’

‘Back and front?’

‘Keppit an eye on both, Danny,’ McVoy answered, then said, ‘Is that young Nicholson up there?’

‘Aye, it’s me,’ Craig heard himself say.

‘Are ye holdin’ your water, son?’

‘Aye, Mr McVoy.’

Malone said, ‘You get off now, sonny.’

‘Am I not drivin’ the van tonight?’ said Craig.

‘I thought it was your tickle?’ said Malone.

‘Aye, you’re going t’ be in there,’ said Skirving and prodded Craig in the ribs with the handle of the Indian club.

‘Tom?’

‘Aye, Danny?’

‘Take the reins.’

Reluctantly Craig climbed to the ground and handed charge of the vehicle to Tom McVoy.

He hesitated, thought of making a break for it then and there, glanced down the lane to the open street. Malone’s fist closed on his arm and drew him roughly aside as McVoy skilfully turned the horse in the corner of lane and church wall, nosed it back towards the street and drew to a halt once more.

‘Right,’ said Malone. ‘No sense in dawdlin’. You’ll take the back, Billy. The window’ll yield, won’t it?’

‘Aye,’ Skirving said. ‘I scouted it last night.’

‘Nicholson an’ me, we’ll take the front.’

Craig said, ‘The front door! But she’ll recognise—’

‘Wrap this round your chops, sonny.’ A woollen scarf was thrust at him. ‘Anyway, she’ll have precious little chance t’ see your face.’

‘What d’ you mean?’ said Craig, but received no answer.

Skirving was by his side, breathing into his face. He smelled of onions. ‘Look, you, just do what Mr Malone tells ye. I’m beginnin’ t’ think you’ve a reason for no’ wantin’ in on this tickle at all.’

‘I’ve never done robbery before.’

‘High time ye learned then,’ Skirving told him.

‘Come on, come on.’ Malone caught Craig by the arm, dragged him past van and horse and out into Walbrook Street.

To Craig the street seemed to teem with people; a couple strolling with a dog on a leash, three gangling boys kicking a cloth ball against the bowling-green fence, a hansom clipping towards the city with the driver, high and alert, staring down at him.

‘Walk casual,’ Malone told him.

In the uncurtained window of a terraced house Craig saw a pair of young girls in pretty floral frocks standing before a music stand and singing their hearts out. By the mail-box, where he had posted his first letter home, a fat girl in a servant’s cape loitered flirtatiously in the company of a kilted soldier. Exposed and ashamed and scared, Craig kept step with Daniel Malone as they walked along Walbrook Street and mounted the steps to the door of Number 19.

It was Thursday; Craig clung to the fond hope that Hugh Affleck might be dining with his sister; then he remembered that Tom McVoy had been on scout since dusk, had seen nobody leave or enter the boarding-house.

‘What the hell’s wrong wi you?’ Malone hissed. ‘Pull up the muffler I gave you an’ chap on the door.’

Fumbling, Craig took the scarf and wrapped it about the lower part of his face.

‘The bell; ring the bloody bell,’ Malone snapped.

Malone too had wrapped a scarf about his nose and mouth and, with cap pulled down, was effectively masked; only his eyes showed, fierce and red in the catch of light from the gas-lamp.

Craig rang the bell.

The couple with the dog had gone. The servant and the soldier had vanished too. The gangling boys had drifted away from the fence and were punting the ball along the gutter, heading for Partick.

The wool, wetted with warm breath, clung to his lips.

‘Again,’ said Malone impatiently.

Craig closed his fist on the wrought-iron handle of the bell-pull and gave it another strenuous tug. He stared at the plain black door and then lifted his eyes to the dove-grey transom in which a light showed.

Malone’s fist pinched his arm above the elbow, holding him rigid and motionless directly in front of the door.

It opened.

Mrs Frew confronted him.

She blinked.

Malone pushed Craig past the woman and, in almost the same motion, struck her, cuffed her economically with a short sweep of his right forearm. He stepped after her as she staggered against the interior wall, and kicked the outside door shut with his heel.

‘Bolt it,’ Malone shouted.

Mrs Frew was gagging, contorted features turned in Craig’s direction, eyes wide. It was light in the hall; she had brought a lamp with her and had left it on the stand by the umbrella rack.

‘Don’t,’ said Craig in a soft pleading whisper as Malone, with the same economy of effort, struck the old woman again.

She slumped on to the iron rack and pitched headlong to the floor, the rack crashing with her. She rolled over, flopped on to her back, twitched and was still. She did not look like Mrs Frew any more.

‘She never recognised you, sonny,’ Malone said. ‘I told you you’d nothin’ to worry about.’

‘Is she dead?’

‘Snoozin’,’ said Malone. ‘Now will you bolt that bloody door.’

Craig fumbled with the long bolt, would have left it loose if Malone had not been watching. He shot it into the lock. He was trapped in the house with the thieves, had become an accomplice to violence.

‘Right, where’s this bloody silver?’ said Malone in a normal, natural voice, not a whisper.

Craig did not answer. He was fascinated by the sight of the old woman on the floor. She had no shred of dignity in that position. Her false teeth jutted out hideously and her skirts were thrown up to expose wrinkled stockings and skinny bare thighs.

Malone grabbed him, shook him. ‘The silver stuff, where is it?’

From the rear of the house came the muffled sound of breaking glass – Skirving. Why, Craig wondered, had it been necessary to smash into the kitchen? Why had Malone not simply strolled through the hall and unlatched the kitchen door?

At that moment Cissie, shrieking, shot from the shadows at the top of the basement steps. It had not occurred to Craig that the servant girl would still be in the house at this hour of the night for she was usually dismissed about eight. Pursued by Billy Skirving, Cissie darted towards the main staircase. She made but three steps before Skirving caught her round the waist and threw her down. He pinned her, his knee in the small of her back, and closed a hand over her mouth. Craig could still hear her muffled screams.

‘Stick the bitch a good ’un Billy, an’ shut her up,’ said Malone.

‘Leave her alone,’ Craig said.

‘Never mind about her, you, where’s the damned silver?’

‘She’s only a servant,’ Craig said.

‘I’ll have your friggin’ guts, sonny if you—’

‘I said not to hurt her,’ Craig shouted. ‘Leave her alone.’

Skirving had taken the Indian club from the breast of his jacket and held it poised. Knee still embedded in Cissie’s spine, he looked down and grinned. ‘Fancy her, son? Alive an’ kickin’?’

Tearing himself free of Malone’s grasp Craig stepped nimbly across the hall and caught the upraised club. He seemed to do it in spite of himself; once he had broken the inertia, however, had acted of his own free will, deception was over.

Malone, of course, understood.

‘You bastard!’ he snarled.

Craig held tightly to the Indian club. He had no notion of where his strength came from; a second ago he had been weak and limp. But that feeling was gone. Flushed by outrage, his body felt hot and powerful. He dropped to one knee and snapped Skirving’s arm across it. He heard Skirving cry out. Cissie, released, screamed piercingly and scrabbled up the staircase. Craig thrust his hand into Skirving’s face and pushed the man’s head back, forcing him down with one hand, then rolled to one side and got to his feet. He saw Skirving’s hand on the stair, like something severed. He stamped on it with all his force; and Cissie, still shrieking, scrambled on to the first landing out of his sight.

‘Christ!’ Malone said, ‘I should’ve known you were one of them.’

If he could get past Malone he might make it to the door. Once he was in the street he could surely raise the alarm. Cissie was out of reach of the robbers now. Squirming on the landing stairs Billy Skirving was too occupied with pain to pose a threat.

Malone lashed out at him. Craig stepped back.

Everything seemed lucid in the light of the lamp on the hallstand, pristine in its clarity. Even so he did not see the short iron bar in Danny Malone’s hand until it struck him on the crown of the shoulder. Numbing fire spread down his arm. He heard himself utter a throaty grunt of astonishment. He shrank from the weapon that was poised to smash in his skull.

Numbness seemed to spread into his brain, a cloudy sensation, red and sick. He ducked. The iron bar struck hunched muscles on his upper back. He charged into Malone, hands outstretched. He found Malone’s face, the scarf, dug his fingers into it and squeezed, squeezed as he might squeeze the heart of a great soft cabbage. The iron bar flailed against his back and buttocks without leverage or force. He rammed Malone into the wall. A strange plaintive yammering came from Malone’s lips but Craig did not let go. He bunched his fists until his wrists ached and his arms trembled.

‘Open up, open up.’

The voice was deep.

The long bolt on the door rattled furiously in its socket.

‘I am an officer of the City of Glasgow Police.’

Pounding fists sounded on the door. Involuntarily Craig slackened his hold on Malone who, with a sudden surge, threw off the young man and ran for the kitchen.

Craig reached the door, found the bolt and shot it open. Hugh Affleck charged past him, yelling, ‘Where is he? Where is the bastard?’

‘There,’ Craig pointed. ‘Both of them. That way.’

Hugh Affleck charged on into the kitchen. Three burly uniformed officers followed him and, ignored, Craig slid out of the house. Shoulder, arm and neck were knitted with pain but he no longer felt cloudy and sick. He stood on the top step, looked right then left along Walbrook Street.

Directly opposite Number 19 a hansom cab was drawn up, its door flung wide on its little hinges. Close behind it was a high-sided two-horse black van with the City of Glasgow arms painted upon the side, and a policeman seated on the lofty board. The black horses were lathered and panting. Both cab and police van were pointed towards Partick, away from St Anne’s corner.

Craig wiped his mouth with his knuckles. He had lost his scarf in the scuffle, but did not care who saw or recognised him now. He was still sizzling with the thrill of the fight. Heart hammering, he watched the corner by the church, saw the horse emerge from the lane with a feeling, almost, of relief.

Discreetly the van turned into Walbrook Street and headed towards the maze of lanes and streets that led to Dumbarton Road. Craig watched with amazement; the rig moved so slowly and sedately that it hardly seemed to be there at all. If it had come plunging out of the lane it would have attracted immediate attention and pursuit by the constables. As it was, in three or four minutes it would be out of sight and once more Danny Malone would have escaped the law. Craig had no doubt at all that Danny Malone was crouched down under the canvas canopy.

The arrival at speed of a hansom cab and a police van had brought the good folk of Walbrook Street hurrying to windows and doors. On one step the pretty singing girls clung to the arm of a bearded man in a silk smoking-jacket. Servants peeped up through the railings of half-basements while an elderly gent in tasselled nightcap craned from a bedroom window and demanded an explanation of the racket that had wakened him from slumber. Craig was oblivious to all of them. His gaze was fastened on the distant rig. Once into Harbour Road or Portside Street, Malone would slip from it and be lost and McVoy would swing the van on to Dumbarton Road all innocently, for he carried nothing to tie him to the scene of the crime.

Craig vaulted the iron railing and was running before his feet touched the pavement. He uttered no sound and gave no signal to the police to follow him.

Onlookers gasped, shouted, ‘See, there’s one. There he goes,’ but no one attempted to stop him.

Bristling with energy, Craig ran as he had never run before. McVoy did not seem to notice him or hear the hue-and-cry. The little van appeared through white patches of gaslight, vivid for a moment then shadowy again. It picked up speed. Craig cut sharply left at St Anne’s corner, pushed through a cluster of boozers at the door of a pub, pushed through a knot of Freemasons who had stepped out of their lodge, and cut sharply right down a narrow lane that brought him out at the very end of Walbrook Street just as the van came clopping round the curve that would carry it out of sight of witnesses.

Craig ran straight at the horse’s head.

The animal shied and reared in the shafts. Craig ducked under the flying hoofs. The whip cracked about his ears. He side-stepped and came in again, too quickly for McVoy to react. Confused, the horse reared and pranced, shook the fly-weight van from one wheel to the other. Craig caught the horse’s cheekstrap and, throwing all his weight into it, dragged its head down. The van tilted dangerously.

Standing up on the board McVoy yelled at and struggled to control the animal.

Craig tightened his grip on the strap and, by sheer brute strength, dragged the horse about. The van’s wheels screeched on the cobbles. Suddenly he let go of the strap, drove his boot into the horse’s belly, tripped and fell back. The van lurched and swayed violently and the horse bucked and plunged madly in the shafts, then, with eyeballs rolling white and its mane flying, went off at a gallop across the pavement corner and back into Walbrook Street. McVoy lost all control. Malone had had no opportunity to throw himself clear, of that Craig was sure. On his feet again, he limped after the runaway, saw the black police van thundering down Walbrook Street, two coppers clinging to its footboard, saw too that Superintendent Affleck had come out of Number 19 and was sprinting towards him.

The horse charged between the wall of a cottage and an old iron horsepost upon which the van sheared a wheel. It slumped on to the stump of axle, dragged to a partial halt, and slewed round. McVoy was thrown, not cleanly, the leathers twisted round his wrists. He was plucked from the board, dragged against the cruppers and shafts and, screaming, was jerked down on to the cobbles and dragged, dragged along the street until at last something gave way and his body was left still and elongated in the gutter.

Craig ran past Tom McVoy. He still expected Malone to jump for it and wanted to be ready for him. But Danny Malone had had no opportunity to gather himself and leap out of the careering vehicle. Finally the vehicle heeled over on to its side, the unfortunate horse pitched to its knees, and the van broke apart.

Superintendent Affleck reached the wreckage at exactly the same moment as Craig Nicholson, though neither acknowledged the other. Both were intent on the canvas flap, on the hand and arm that groped from the torn tarpaulin.

Dazed and bloody-faced, Danny Malone crawled out on to the cobbles.

Hugh Affleck gave a queer little laugh, breathless and panting. He dropped a knee upon Malone’s spine, caught his ears in his fists and banged the man’s brow down upon the stones, just once.

‘Got you, you bastard,’ he said.

 

Sergeant Drummond sent a constable to fetch her from the house. The constable was a young man with a strange accent. He was truculent and unfriendly and gave Kirsty no word of comfort and only a minimum of information and stubbornly refused to answer any of her questions as they tramped back to Ottawa Street police office.

Craig was seated on a stool in a narrow half-tiled room in the station’s basement. He was naked to the waist. An elderly man with a face like a fox-terrier was attending to his injuries. The man scowled when Kirsty was shown into the room and waved a warning hand to prevent her throwing herself on the patient in a fit of sentiment. Wincing, Craig glanced over his shoulder. He had a Gold Flake stuck in his mouth, was chalk pale, his eyes huge. She felt such a wave of pity for him that she longed to wrap her arms about him but waited obediently by the door until the surgeon had finished strapping Craig’s shoulder with heavy cotton bandages.

At length the surgeon said, ‘He’s got a cracked rib but no important bones are broken. He’ll heal in no time.’

‘It’s damned sore,’ Craig said.

‘Bound to be sore,’ said the surgeon. ‘It’ll be worse tomorrow, I promise you. Best stay in bed if you can.’

The surgeon dropped scissors and a roll of wadding into a black leather bag, picked up the bag and locked it and then, without another word, went out, leaving Craig and Kirsty alone.

Awkwardly Craig took the cigarette from his lips. He coughed, winced, gave a groan. Kirsty cautiously approached him.

‘It’s all right,’ Craig told her. ‘They got Malone. Skirving too. Affleck took them away in the black van to the cells in Glasgow. It was best that I was brought here, apparently, since Affleck didn’t want me near the prisoners.’

‘But what happened?’

Craig shuddered, winced once more. ‘She, your pal, she got a knock on the head.’

‘Mrs Frew? Is she all right?’

‘Aye, she’s no’ dead or anythin’. Affleck took her to the hospital for attention. It was Malone hit her. Hit her twice.’

‘Could you not stop him?’ said Kirsty.

‘Huh!’ Craig exclaimed, almost under his breath, and shook his head.

Kirsty had not touched him yet. Her initial impulse to comfort him had diminished into a strange kind of reticence. His nakedness and the neat cream-coloured bandage alienated her. Craig put the Gold Flake carefully back into his mouth and, at that moment, the door swung open and Sergeant Drummond came into the room.

‘How are you feeling now, Nicholson?’ the sergeant enquired.

‘All right,’ Craig said. ‘Can I go?’

‘Shortly,’ said the sergeant. ‘Finish your gasper first.’

‘What’s the idea?’ Craig twisted on the stool to face both Kirsty and the sergeant. ‘Am I goin’ to be charged?’

‘Och, no. No, no, nothing at all like that.’

‘Will I have to go into the court, be a witness against him?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘But I cannot give you my guarantee at this stage, you understand. It will be depending on what the charges are and what the lawyers say.’

‘They didn’t get away wi’ anythin’,’ said Craig. ‘I mean, they didn’t steal any silver.’

‘Did they not?’ Sergeant Drummond raised an eyebrow. ‘I think you must have missed it in the confusion. You see, silver plate was found in the van, and a gold chain on the person of Billy Skirving.’

‘It must have been taken when I was lookin’ the other way,’ said Craig, understanding the method at once. ‘What about McVoy?’

‘Injured but not fatally.’

‘That’s somethin’, I suppose,’ said Craig.

‘You will be pleased to learn that I am not required to take a statement from you at this time,’ said Sergeant Drummond.

‘Is that another of Mr Affleck’s clever tricks?’

‘The Superintendent does not wish you to be seen to be involved.’

‘Bit bloody late, isn’t it?’ said Craig.

‘He also suggests that you don’t go back to work at Maitland Moss.’

‘What the hell am I supposed to do then? Starve?’

‘Perhaps you could go home for a wee while.’

‘I live in Canada Road,’ said Craig.

‘Back to your family, to the farm?’

‘I’m not a charity case,’ said Craig. ‘I can’t sponge off them. Anyway, I like it in Glasgow. I want to settle here.’

‘A holiday?’ said Drummond, mildly.

‘No holiday,’ said Craig, also without heat.

His anger seemed to have waned into a kind of stubborn resentment but Kirsty could not decipher his present mood at all. She did not know whether his pain was mostly physical or whether some great wound to his pride had been opened by the events of the evening. She had no true understanding of masculine pride, of its shapes and changes and its subtle manifestations, but she was learning almost day by day not to ignore its effect upon Craig’s character and behaviour.

She caught him now, unaware of her scrutiny, as he studied the police sergeant with a sort of calculation, though what thoughts were clicking in her husband’s mind she could not begin to deduce. He pushed himself to his feet, shook off an offer of assistance and struggled into his shirt. He left it unbuttoned, draped and loose over his left arm, and shrugged on his jacket, stuck his cap on his head.

‘We can look after ourselves, thanks,’ Craig said, then, ‘Come on, Kirsty, it’s time we were off home.’

‘Are you sure you can manage?’ Kirsty said.

‘I can manage,’ Craig answered.

He went before her to the door but the sergeant did not immediately stand aside.

‘Will you not be changing your mind?’ Sergeant Drummond said.

‘About what?’

‘Go home for a week or two; home to your farm, I mean.’

‘Stuff it,’ Craig said. ‘I’d be a laughin’ stock. An’ nobody’s goin’ to laugh at me any more; nobody.’

The sergeant pursed his lips and gave a little sour nod before he stepped to one side and ushered Craig and Kirsty on to the stairs.

There were no prisoners in the office, no constables. But two sergeants, both bearded, both cold-eyed, stood behind the long desk. They watched in icy silence as Craig and Kirsty left the station and stepped down into Ottawa Street.

It was cold now, the sky clear, stars showing.

Craig shivered, wriggled deeper into his jacket.

‘I’m starved,’ he said. ‘Bloody starved.’

‘There’s ham,’ said Kirsty.

‘Eggs too?’

‘Aye.’

‘That’ll do.’

He began to walk, stiff and upright. Kirsty fell into step beside him.

‘Craig—’

‘What?’

‘It’ll be all right.’

‘By Christ it will,’ Craig said. ‘I’ll make sure o’ that.’

He reached out suddenly, caught her wrist and brought her closer to him and, hand in hand, Craig and Kirsty Nicholson walked home through the cold night streets, back to their single-end in Canada Road.