Chapter Twelve

It was one of those dull, cold, depressing February spells when all signs of an early spring had been crushed by hoar-frost and heavy, snow-laden cloud but Penny had done her level best to prevent Tony slipping into black, snarling moods and Dougie from freezing to death in the stables where he spent long hours matching up the printing machines.

Even Frobe seemed mournful and would trail in from hunting expeditions mewing plaintively, head first to the food bowl and then to the hearth where she would stretch out before the grate and ignore all Tony’s efforts to get her to move.

Penny cleaned and cooked, drank coffee – and ate too much.

She’d gained pounds since coming to Blackstone and her clothes pinched in all the wrong places. She’d tried to discipline herself to go for a walk every afternoon but the weather was awful and Tony refused to let her stray further from the house than the end of the pasture. She’d also tried limbering with the rhythmic exercises she’d been taught in League camp some years ago but she was no longer a nimble teenager and soon became breathless and disheartened. She was turning into a frumpy hausfrau whether she liked it or not, a wife without the consolation of a man to share her bed. Several times she’d tried to persuade Tony to make love to her again for she felt that if she could please him in that way he would stop despising her and perhaps even abandon his passion for Dominic’s wife.

Meanwhile, they read books and magazines, attempted crossword puzzles, completed intricate jigsaws, drank too much, ate too much, and talked as little as possible in the tedious hours between meals.

Penny didn’t even have the pleasure of shopping for groceries now, for Tony had forbidden her to accompany him into Breslin which, according to Tony, was crawling with tin-pot officials all far too nosy for their own or anyone else’s good.

Then one afternoon Tony informed her that he was going away for a day, possibly two, warned her not to wander far from the farm and told Giffard to keep out of sight if a Civil Defence volunteer or local copper showed and started asking awkward questions. Penny watched him drive away in the Dolomite, certain that he was going off to meet his lover, Polly Manone.

It was wearing on towards dark before Dougie came in from the stables with the cat hanging on his shoulder. He stroked the animal gently, tickled her ears and crooned to her before he set her down on the kitchen floor by the food bowl to scoff the mutton scraps that Penny had put out after lunch.

Penny was baking. Breslin was not short of cake shops but beating sponge mixture was good exercise and an excellent way of passing the time. She wore an apron over a blue twill skirt and had her hair bound up in a bandanna.

Dougie said, ‘Tell me, Penny, who does your hair?’

‘I do it myself,’ Penny said, glancing up from the bowl. ‘Why is it you ask?’

‘I could do with a trim, if you’ve got the time.’

‘You wish me to cut your hair?’

‘It’s clean. I had a bath this mornin’.’

Penny pushed the bowl away. She was pleased by the diversion but not at all sure that Giffard wasn’t flirting with her.

As if reading her thoughts, Dougie teazed his greying locks and said, ‘Tony won’t take me down to the barber in Hardgate an’ I’m beginnin’ t’ feel like the wild man o’ Borneo.

Penny laughed. ‘Oh, very well. Place a chair under the light and I will find my scissors and make you respectable.’

‘I doubt that,’ Dougie said. ‘Tidy’ll do.’

She washed sponge mixture from her hands and went upstairs and brought down her special make-up bag, took out a pair of long-bladed scissors, a little pair of clippers and a miniature razor with a sharp, fixed blade. She found a bath towel on the rack in the laundry room, swept it around Dougie’s neck and tucked it under his collar.

‘Sit,’ she said.

Obediently he seated himself on the upright chair directly under the light.

She moved behind him, lifted a comb and the long scissors and touched his hair lightly, flicking the comb and scissors through it. She had never touched Giffard before and she was surprised at how pleasant and consoling the intimacy was. She lifted a tuft of hair with the back edge of the comb and snipped it off.

‘Ah’m no’ wantin’ a Barlinnie special, remember,’ Dougie said.

‘What is that?’

‘A prison haircut, a baldie.’

Penny laughed again.

It was almost dark outside and she had a strange feeling that it might snow tonight. She found that prospect exciting. Behind her, almost at her heels, Frobe stretched out in front of the fire, purring loudly. She ran her fingers through Giffard’s hair and with her thumb tweaked down his right ear, snipped carefully, snipped again. He sat patiently under the bath towel, moving his head only when she told him. She pressed her breasts against his shoulder blades and lifted the fringe of thinning hair over his brow: snipped.

Dougie said, ‘Has he gone off for t’ be with his girlfriend?’

‘I expect that may be so,’ said Penny.

‘An all-nighter?’

‘Probably, yes.’

Dougie said nothing for a while.

Then, ‘You’re no Jew, Penny, are you?’

She stopped, scissors poised.

Dougie said, ‘An’ you’ve never been in Vienna in your life.’

She worked the comb, lifted hair, trimmed it away.

‘How do you know?’ she said.

‘Hummelstreek,’ Dougie said. ‘I just made the name up. There’s no such mountain that I know of.’

‘Oh, I see. It was a trick.’

‘Where are you really from? Germany?’

‘Yes,’ Penny said. ‘Berlin.’

‘This money we’re makin’, is it for the Nazis?’

‘That is not my concern,’ Penny said.

She felt no sense of shame and no panic at being caught in a lie. The story had not been watertight in the first place and the only surprise was that it had taken someone like Dougie Giffard to guess the truth. She bore no animosity towards the little Glaswegian, had no desire to hide from him or invent more lies.

She said, ‘Does it concern you who the money is for?’

‘Naw, not much,’ Dougie said.

‘You are wrong about the other thing, however.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It is true that I am not a Jew. I am a half-Jew. My mother is Jewish.’

‘So you weren’t chased out o’ Vienna?’

‘Of course I was not,’ said Penny. ‘I have never been to Vienna.’

‘What does your old man do?’

‘My old man?’

‘Your father? Is he a Nazi?’

‘My father is dead.’

She felt Dougie stiffen a little and knew that he would be frowning that deep, steep frown. She ran a forefinger down the nape of his neck and felt him shiver.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Dougie said.

‘You do not have to be sorry. It is nothing to you.’

‘Did your father engrave the plates?’

‘He was involved in making the plates, yes.’

‘So the plates are your inheritance, your legacy?’

Penny laughed softly. ‘What a fanciful person you are, Dougie. No, the plates are not my inheritance. My father was not an engraver. He was a banker. The plates were made by a team, a team that was taken over when he died.’

‘Taken over by the Nazis, you mean?’

‘By the party, a branch of the party.’

‘Was your old man murdered?’

‘Of course he was not murdered. He died of a disease in the kidneys.’

‘Is your mother still in Germany?’

‘You are very good at asking questions,’ Penny said. ‘My mother is in New York now, with her sister in New York. It was through my mother’s sister that Carlo Manone became involved in all of this.’

‘Why didn’t this Nazi “team” you talk about just take over completely,’ Dougie said. ‘Why did they bother wi’ Carlo Manone at all?’

‘They required the currency to be manufactured in England.’

‘I thought it was just a bit too well organised,’ Dougie said. ‘I take it you stayed on in Berlin t’ make sure your mother gets somethin’ out of it?’

‘That is correct.’ She busied herself with his hair and for several seconds neither of them spoke and there was no sound in the kitchen but the purring of the cat and the rapid clickety-click-click of the little steel blades. Then Penny said, ‘Are you going to tell Tony what I have told you?’

‘Naw.’

‘Will you not tell Dominic?’

‘Why would I want t’ tell Dominic?’

‘Because he pays you. Because he is your boss.’

Dougie gave a wry little grunt. ‘I don’t know who mah boss is an’ I don’t care much. There’s big money to be made off of this operation an’ all I want is a wee share. I owe somethin’ to Dominic for keepin’ me alive but all Dominic’s doin’ is payin’ off his father’s debt. If you ask me, Penny Weston, the bulk o’ the profits from the money we manufacture will go t’ finance agents.’

‘Agents?’

‘Nazi sympathisers in Britain. God knows there’s enough o’ them. There’s a new name for them now,’ Dougie said. ‘It’s called a Fifth Column; an army wi’ no uniforms or guns, but ready an’ willin’ t’ fight from the inside when the time’s ripe.’

‘Informers?’

‘Informers, saboteurs, spies; they’ll all need funds.’

‘Counterfeit money?’

‘The best counterfeit money that money can buy.’ Dougie fumbled under the bath towel and eased out an arm. He flung the towel back like a toga and, without turning, held up his hand. In it was a five-pound banknote. ‘Money like this.’

Penny put down the scissors, took the banknote reverently between fingers and thumbs, her blue eyes round as moons.

‘O Gott! O Gott!’ she whispered. ‘You have done it. You have truly done it.’

‘Aye, I have,’ Dougie said. ‘What’s more, it is damned near perfect.’

‘Perfect!’ Penny gave a hop of delight. ‘I knew that you would make it perfect.’ She leaned over the chair-back and kissed the printer on the brow. ‘When do you think you can begin the run?’

‘Two weeks, maybe three,’ Dougie Giffard said.

Leaning over him, breasts brushing his cheek, she held the note out.

‘Keep it, lassie, keep it as a souvenir,’ Dougie Giffard said. ‘Before the summer’s over we’ll have a hundred thousand more.’

*   *   *

She wore an elongated Rodex country style overcoat and a navy blue hat that rendered her almost invisible against the great mass of the privet hedge.

Tony fisted the steering wheel and slid the motorcar alongside the kerb. She scuttled out of the shadows so furtively that for an instant he was not entirely sure that it was Polly at all. She jerked open the door on the passenger side and flopped in beside him, did not reach for him, did not offer him a kiss: said, ‘Drive, Tony, drive away quickly.’

‘My place?’

‘No. No, around the park, just around the park.’

‘Is Dominic…’

‘For God’s sake drive, will you?’

He found gear, pressed the accelerator and shot the Dolomite forward away from the Manones’ driveway. Polly’s urgency, her lack of interest in anything but escape hurt him. He had been looking forward to the moment of meeting, to seeing her smile, to having her in his arms. Now he was roaring around the corner with tyres squealing as if this were a getaway and not a lovers’ tryst.

‘Why did you call me?’ Polly said.

‘I needed to see you,’ Tony said.

‘Did you have to leave a message with Leah?’

‘You never seem to be at home these days.’

‘If you gave me your number…’

‘I don’t have a number,’ Tony said. ‘There’s no phone where I am.’

‘I’m not one of your tarts, Tony. You can’t just ring me up and expect me to drop everything and come to you because you fancy it.’

She hadn’t looked at him yet, hadn’t met his eye. She sat with her head down, picking at the stitching of her glove.

He had no notion where they were and turned the steering wheel automatically whenever a corner presented itself: somewhere in the hinterland of Manor Park, on a tree-lined avenue among the mansions: disorienting to be cruising the Glasgow suburbs after weeks cloistered on the farm: strange to be with Polly, not the Polly he had yearned for night after night but someone else, someone different: had she changed, he wondered, had he? He glanced at her again. She turned her head away.

‘I hate being treated like a tart,’ Polly went on. ‘I hate being summoned just when you need a woman. I’m not at your beck and call, Tony. If that’s all you want from me then I suggest you find someone else.’

‘I’m love in with you, for God’s sake.’

‘I don’t think you are,’ Polly said. ‘If you were really in love with me you wouldn’t treat me like dirt.’

‘I’m not treating you like – like anything.’

‘Where are you, Tony?’ She swung round and clutched his forearm. ‘God, I don’t even know where you are? Why won’t you tell me?’

‘I did tell you.’

‘Breslin! Where in Breslin? What are you doing there?’

‘I can’t tell you that, Polly.’

‘In that case I’m afraid you’ll have to choose.’

‘Choose?’

‘Between Dominic and me,’ said Polly.

‘You’re crazy!’

‘No, you’re the one who’s crazy. You tell me you love me, snap your fingers and expect me to tumble into bed with you but you don’t even have enough faith in me, enough trust to tell me where you are and what you’re doing.’

‘I don’t force you, Polly. I’ve never forced you.’

‘I didn’t say you had.’

‘If you’re tryin’ to tell me you’re not – that you weren’t in love with me…’

‘You don’t know the meaning of the word, Tony.’ She let out a sigh and, taking her hand from his forearm again, looked pointedly out of the side window. ‘Where are we?’

‘I thought we might go to my place.’

‘No.’

‘Half an hour, Polly – just to talk.’

‘I’ve nothing to say to you, Tony.’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please, let me try to explain.’

‘There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.’

‘Is this it? Is it over?’

She did not answer him at once. She leaned her brow against the side window and he knew that she was weeping. Her tears hurt him more than her anger. He eased the pace of the car to a crawl and put an arm about her, holding her tentatively, hoping, still hoping, that she would turn back to him, beg his forgiveness and assure him she understood how it had to be between Dominic and him. She pressed her brow against the glass, sobbing, as unsettled by his tenderness as if this was the first step in their relationship and not, possibly, the last.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, her voice choked. ‘I don’t know whether it’s over or not. It’s – it’s up to you, darling, very much up to you.’

He turned the wheel gradually, prowling the Dolomite around a left-hand bend, and knew now where he was. He pressed down on the accelerator and put both hands on the wheel. There was a slow suffusion of gratitude within him, nothing so grand as elation, though. He needed her, wanted her – and Polly still needed and wanted him. He was sure of it, sure that he would not have to go through an ordeal of negotiation to prove just how much he loved her.

He drove briskly, swung the car into the sloping courtyard behind the block.

He made a circle and braked smoothly to a halt under the hanging light.

‘Come up,’ he said. ‘Half an hour, Polly, that’s all I ask.’

‘Is this your answer?’ She was angry again, her lips white in the slant of light from lamp. ‘Is this your only sort of damned idea of an answer, to drag me upstairs and have sex.’

‘Polly, don’t talk like that.’

‘Is it? Is it?’

‘I just need to be with you for a while, that’s all.’

‘That’s all? That’s all, is it? You say it as if it were nothing.’

‘What the hell more do you want from me?’ Tony snapped.

‘I need you to let me in.’

‘“In”, what d’ you mean “in”?’

‘To confide in me, trust me, share with me. I have to be sure you aren’t just using me, darling, for I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that you love me at all, love me properly, I mean.’

He stared out of the windscreen at the almost empty courtyard.

Frost was already sifting down out of the evening sky and the cold would soon become numbing. When the cold eased there would be snow, so Penny had told him, and he thought of her smile, her child-like eagerness for snow.

There were three motorcars and a van parked in the courtyard. Only half of the windows in the apartment block were lighted for the long trail back from businesses in the city had only just begun. He wondered exactly where Dominic was right now, who Dominic was negotiating with and just how much trust there had to be in a relationship to make it function.

He said, ‘I’m staying at a farm in the country, not far from Breslin.’

‘Why?’

‘I have to look after the girl.’

‘The blonde?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And the man, the little guy with the moustache.’

‘He isn’t there. I don’t know where he is.’

‘Does Dominic visit?’ Polly said.

‘Once, that’s all, not to visit Penny, for – for something else.’

‘Why does the girl need to be looked after?’

‘It’s money, Polly. Counterfeit money. She owns the printing plates.’

‘Oh!’ Polly said. For an instant there was fire in her eyes, a sudden flash of the passion that he remembered from their first sexual encounters. ‘Oh, I see. Forged notes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Banknotes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Dominic’s printing and distributing them, I suppose?’

‘He’s heavily involved in managing the scheme.’

‘Well!’ Polly exclaimed. ‘Well, well!’

He was suddenly alarmed at his lack of rectitude, at the ease with which she’d broken him down. She hadn’t even threatened him, just turned him around, roasted him in the name of love. He didn’t know if it was love any more or if it had transformed itself into something infinitely more corrosive.

‘Dom had to take it on,’ Tony said. ‘His old man wouldn’t let him refuse.’

‘His father? What does Carlo have to do with forged banknotes?’

‘I don’t know and can’t tell you,’ Tony said. ‘In fact, I’ve told you too much already. But I wanted you to—’

‘To know how much you love me?’ Polly said.

‘Yeah.’

He felt flat and deflated. In telling her even a small part of the truth, he had betrayed Dominic and tossed away his integrity. At that moment he hated Polly for demanding it of him, for not understanding what honour meant.

He twisted the ignition key and fired the engine.

‘I’ll take you home,’ he said.

‘Don’t you want to go upstairs?’

‘No, I’d better get you back before Dominic arrives home.’

‘He won’t be home for hours. Never is these days. Now,’ Polly said, ‘I know why. How much is involved, darling, and will you share in the profits?’

‘Yeah, I’ll have my cut,’ Tony said.

She touched his arm again. ‘Then you’ll be rich too.’

‘Sure I will,’ said Tony.

And before she could talk him out of it and into the bed upstairs, he flung the Dolomite into gear, drove past the cars and the van and down the slope that would take Polly back to the mansion in Manor Park and her husband, Dominic Manone.

*   *   *

‘In God’s name, why didn’t you follow him?’ Inspector Winstock said.

‘I did, sir. I followed him back to Manone’s house where he dropped off the woman but after that he lost me.’

‘Did he know you were trailing him?’ Kenny said.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Detective Constable Stone replied. ‘He just sped away along the Paisley Road, heading for Glasgow.’

‘Why didn’t you use the wireless to request assistance?’ Winstock said.

‘I can’t drive an’ operate the wireless, sir, not at the same time.’

‘You were probably out of range of the HQ receiver anyway,’ Kenny said.

‘Bloody new-fangled things!’ Inspector Winstock said. ‘More trouble than they’re worth. Are you certain the woman was Manone’s wife?’

‘Positive. I saw her very clearly,’ Stone said.

‘And they didn’t go up to Lombard’s flat?’ said Winstock.

‘No, sir. They just sat in the car an’ talked for a while.’

‘Did they kiss and cuddle?’ Kenny heard himself ask.

‘Didn’t see none of that,’ said Stone. ‘They were only there for about five minutes. Drove up, parked in the courtyard, talked, then drove off again.’

‘Perhaps she didn’t want to play ball,’ Winstock said.

‘Or he didn’t,’ said Kenny.

‘That’s daft,’ said Winstock. ‘I mean, why the heck would he take her to his flat if it wasn’t for a bit of how’s-your-father.’

‘She is Manone’s wife,’ said Kenny.

‘So what!’ said Winstock.

‘Lombard would hardly try it on with Manone’s wife.’

‘It might not be the first time,’ Winstock said. ‘Are you sure they weren’t at it in the car, Stone?’

‘I’m certain. I’d a good view from the van. All they did was talk?’

‘Did they argue?’

‘I’m not sure but I think she might’ve been crying at one stage.’

Winstock sat back, reached for the glass of stomach medicine which he downed as if it were whisky, then for a cigarette. ‘What,’ he said, ‘were they doing there and what were they talking about? I’d give a week’s wages to find out.’

Kenny did not attempt an answer. In the back of his mind was the notion that Polly Manone had been pumping Tony Lombard on his behalf. He would telephone her tomorrow on the off chance that his theory was correct. If only to keep the McKerlie woman at bay he needed to learn a whole lot more about the man who called himself Harker. She had given him a hard time in the fish restaurant and had revealed nothing about Harker alias Conway that had any value.

‘After I lost Lombard,’ Stone said, ‘I went back to the Manone house an’ sat outside for a while just in case the woman went out again, or Tony came back.’

‘Did he?’ Inspector Winstock asked.

‘No, sir. Manone arrived home in the big Wolseley about a quarter past eight. He went indoors and didn’t come out again. I packed it in about eleven. All the house lights were out by that time.’

‘You’ve logged all these observations, I take it?’ said Winstock.

‘I have, sir.’

‘Dictate your report to Janet and get it on file. Kenny?’

‘Sir?’

‘How well do you know Manone’s wife?’

‘I’ve only met her once, in company.’

‘Well, your sweetheart’s not liable to know if her sister’s havin’ it off with Manone’s right-hand man, but if she is that would be a real bonus for us.’

‘Would it, sir?’ said Stone.

‘Sure, it would,’ said Winstock. ‘Kenny, tell him why.’

‘I think we’re talking about blackmail,’ Kenny said.

Winstock chuckled and issued a stream of cigarette smoke from his nostrils.

‘Blackmail,’ he said. ‘Now wouldn’t that be nice.’

*   *   *

Penny had just stepped out of the bath when she heard the motorcar drive into the yard. She was pink and warm and perfumed from the salts she’d dissolved in the water and was looking forward to sliding into bed. She felt more relaxed now that she knew that Dougie was close to churning out money. In five or six months she would have earned enough to leave Scotland and sail back to New York, to pay her mother what was owed her and settle, as it were, the heinous debts that her father’s criminal activities had laid upon her.

She had one foot on the rim of the bath-tub, lazily towelling her leg, when the faint, grating noise of a car engine filtered through the steam. She reacted instantly, wrapped the towel around her waist, knotted it like a sarong, grabbed her robe from the hook on the door and wriggled into it then she flung open the door and dashed through the stone-floored laundry room into the kitchen.

Dougie had been dozing in front of the fire, the cat on his lap. He’d heard the motorcar too, however, and was on his feet before Penny entered the kitchen. He snatched the rabbit gun from the corner, the box of shells from the shelf, tossed the gun and then the shells to her. She caught the weapon cross-handed, fielded the box of shells and loaded the gun while Dougie went to the outside door and unlatched it.

‘Now,’ Penny said.

Dougie yanked the door wide open.

‘Who are you? What do you want with us?’ Penny shouted.

No answer. Headlamps switched off, the car stood in cold silhouette, darker than the darkness of the yard.

‘I have a gun,’ Penny cried shrilly.

‘I know you have a gun, for God’s sake. What you gonna do with it, kid, shoot me for the pot too?’

Tony swaggered into the light, hat tipped back, hands in his overcoat pockets. He was jocular and arrogant, like a man who’s succeeded in whatever he’d set out to do: Penny thought she knew what that had been.

‘Put the damned popgun away, Penny,’ Tony said.

‘Why are you back so early?’ Penny asked.

‘I just couldn’t stay away, ‘Tony said, ‘I missed you both so much.’

Shrugging, Dougie went back into the kitchen. He fished the startled cat from under the table and seated himself in the armchair again, Frobe on his lap. He had taken a half bottle of whisky from the cupboard and had drunk two small nips by way of celebration for a job well done. The bottle, corked, stood on the floor by the side of the chair, the little glass on the mantelshelf.

Tony took off his hat and coat and flung them on a chair at the table. He lifted Dougie’s glass from the mantelshelf, rubbed the rim with the heel of his hand, lifted the bottle from the floor and poured himself a dram. Holding the glass carefully between finger and thumb, he guided it to his lips and tossed back the contents. He swallowed, blew out his cheeks, sighed, poured a second shot and, leaning against the edge of the table, looked Penny up and down.

She held the rifle in one hand, barrel pointing to the floor.

Tony said, ‘Love the rig-out, kid. I can just about see your belly-button.’

Embarrassed Penny pulled the robe about her stomach and thighs.

He continued to stare at her, a cocky little smile on the corner of his lips.

He said, ‘Who’re you all perfumed up for, Penny? Are you gonna take old Dougie to bed with you. Gonna give him a lesson in love?’

‘You have been drinking, have you not?’ Penny said.

‘I haff indeed been drinking,’ Tony said. ‘I am dronk as a skonk.’

‘You should not have been driving the motorcar.’

‘Nag, nag, nag,’ Tony said. ‘Nag, nag, nag. Hell, I can drive a motorcar with my eyes closed. I can do plenty of other things too – eyes wide open.’

‘What other things?’ Penny said.

‘Plenty of other things, with or without a gas-mask.’

She blinked then glanced at Dougie who shook his head indicating that this was not an opportune moment to show Tony Lombard the brand-new counterfeit banknote and let him share their triumph.

‘Well, it’s past my bedtime,’ Dougie said. ‘I’ll be goin’ upstairs now if nobody’s got any objection.’

‘How about you, kid,’ Tony said, ‘you goin’ upstairs too?’

‘How drunk are you?’ Penny asked.

‘Not that drunk,’ Tony said. ‘Just drunk enough.’

‘Night-night,’ Dougie said and with Frobe clinging to his shoulder made his way out of the kitchen and up the creaking staircase to the attic.

Penny propped the rabbit gun in the corner, took the box of shells from the pocket of her robe and replaced it on a shelf of the dresser. She knew that Tony was watching her, staring boldly and insolently at her legs. The ends of her hair were wet against the nape of her neck and the towel at her waist was slipping, slipping down, damp and bulky against her hips and thighs. She reached under the robe and loosened the knot, drew the towel out and draped it over her shoulder, tightened the sash of the robe and turned to face him.

‘You look like a damned cream cake,’ Tony said. ‘Pink sponge.’

‘Do you want me to fetch the mask?’

‘Nope, I want you just like you are, sweetheart. Anyhow, the gas-mask was a pretty sick idea, don’t you think?’

‘I do not know what you want me to think.’

‘I don’t want you to think at all,’ Tony said.

He drank the dregs of the whisky and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He was less intoxicated than she had supposed. He put the glass on the table and unbuttoned his trousers. He drew out the tail of his shirt, pure white against dark suiting, and pushed down the band of his undershorts.

‘I don’t want you to think about anything,’ he said, ‘except me.’

Parting the folds of her bathrobe, he drew her to him.

And later, much later, he took her upstairs to bed.

*   *   *

‘My! My!’ John Flint said. ‘This is a pleasant surprise, a very pleasant surprise. To what do we owe the honour, Mrs Manone – or may I call you Polly?’

‘Come off it, Johnny, you’ve always called me Polly.’

‘True, that’s true. I remember when you were just a skittery wee lassie in ankle socks and sandals. How’s your dear mother, by the way?’

‘My dear mother is fine,’ Polly said.

‘And this lady…’

‘My sister Barbara.’

‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ Flint said.

He strode around the enormous desk, kissed Polly on the cheek and Babs on the back of a gloved hand which she had sense enough to offer, wrist arched, as if she had entered a medieval court and not a room above the Stadium Cinema.

‘I’m Jackie Hallop’s wife, by the way. Maybe you know Jackie?’

‘By reputation. Aye, his reputation has preceded him.’

‘You can call me Babs.’

‘Honoured.’

‘Everybody calls me Babs.’

‘Still honoured,’ Flint, unruffled, said.

‘I thought Dominic might be with you,’ Polly said.

‘Dominic? What would Dom be doing here?’

‘Business,’ Polly said.

‘His business is round at the warehouse,’ Flint said. ‘Dom and me don’t see much of each other these days – not enough anyway. Don’t tell me you’re chasin’ your husband, Polly? Can’t give him peace even for a single minute, uh?’ He gestured to the banquette in the corner of the office. ‘Take a pew. I’ll order us up some coffee.’

‘Don’t bother,’ Polly said.

Flint’s feigned bonhomie vanished. He cocked his head and studied the sisters, Polly first then Babs. He found Babs sturdy and unpolished and the more attractive of the two. She didn’t intimidate him with airs and graces or patronise him with her supercilious intelligence. He’d fancied Polly Manone when she was younger but his taste in women had matured since then. Babs Conway Hallop was more his type, big-breasted, fair-haired, confident but probably none too bright.

‘At least take the weight off,’ Johnny Flint said. ‘Here, these chairs are more comfortable than they look.’

Polly and Babs seated themselves before the desk.

Flint hesitated, unsure quite what the women wanted and how, therefore, to dispose of them before Harker arrived. He didn’t dare use the intercom to pass word to Cherry to keep Harker from barging into the office. He would just have to trust to luck that Harker would turn up late.

He strode behind the desk again and sat down in the big chair.

‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s up, Polly? What’s the news?’

‘The war’s the news,’ Polly said.

‘War? What war? Been a war declared that I ain’t heard about?’

‘Tell him.’ Babs leaned towards her sister. ‘Go on, Poll, don’t beat around the bush. Ask him.’

‘Tell me?’ Flint said, raising his brows. ‘Ask me? What’s it to be, ladies? Asking or telling? What’s on your mind? You wanna place a bet on something?’

Polly picked at the stitching on her glove and said nothing for a moment. Flint feigned patience. He had no idea what was coming but had a sneaky suspicion that dainty Mrs Manone was about to step into deep water and that he’d better be careful that she didn’t drag him along with her.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Polly said, at length, ‘it is a gamble.’

‘Doesn’t Dominic know you’re here?’

‘No,’ Polly answered. ‘And I’d prefer to keep it that way.’

Flint nodded. ‘Confidential?’

‘Highly confidential,’ Babs put in. ‘Tell him, Polly, for God’s sake.’

‘Do you know what my husband does?’ Polly said.

‘I know what he doesn’t do,’ said Flint. ‘He doesn’t run book and he doesn’t dabble in insurance any longer. Don’t blame him. Too damned risky for an honest family man.’

‘That wasn’t the question,’ Polly said.

‘Well then, the answer’s in the negative,’ Flint said. ‘I don’t know what he does these days – just that it seems to be profitable and don’t interfere with anythin’ going on in my neck of the woods.’ He frowned. ‘Hey, you don’t imagine I’m threatening him, surely? Is that what you meant by war?’

‘I meant the real war, the German war; Hitler,’ Polly said.

‘Tell him,’ Babs said again.

The Hallop woman’s agitation was palpable, eagerness and guilt all mixed up. Her cheeks were flushed and she breathed high in her chest, her bosom rising and falling in a way that Flint found enticing.

He looked to Polly, though, for answers.

‘If,’ Polly said, ‘war does come and it behoves us…’

‘Behoves? What kinda a word is that?’

‘If it becomes necessary for my sister and me to sell off certain parts of my husband’s business, would you be interested in buying them?’

‘Necessary?’ Flint said. ‘Necessary, like in the event of a war?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ Flint said. ‘Cards on the table, Polly. You know there’s gonna be a war. Hell’s teeth, the car manufacturers are producing aircraft by the thousand and hard-workin’ entrepreneurs like me and Dominic are bein’ squeezed by extra taxes to pay for defence. War’s inevitable.’ He rubbed his long chin speculatively. ‘What’s your worry, Polly – that Dominic will be conscripted? Take it from me, Dom won’t be conscripted. How old is he? Thirty-eight, thirty-nine? Married with two young kids. They won’t scoop him up for military service until we’re fightin’ the Jerries hand-to-hand on the beach at Ardrossan.’

‘It’s not conscription that worries me,’ Polly said.

‘What does worry you then?’

‘Deportation.’

‘Deportation? Dom’s as Scottish as you an’ me.’

‘He’s not, you know. I think he’s registered under dual nationality.’

‘What!’ Johnny Flint exclaimed. ‘You mean he’s officially an alien?’

‘Possibly,’ Polly said.

‘Haven’t you asked him?’

‘If I did he would simply fob me off without an answer.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Flint said. ‘An alien, eh! Well, well!’

‘Do you see my predicament?’ Polly said.

‘Our predicament,’ said Babs.

‘I do, yeah, I certainly do,’ Flint said. ‘What about old Tony? Same boat?’

‘Same boat,’ said Polly.

‘You’ll just have to hope that Il Duce don’t sign a pact with Adolf then.’

‘If I…’

‘We,’ said Babs.

‘Yes, if my sister and I are left to fend for ourselves,’ said Polly ‘we’ll need someone we can trust to take over certain parts of the business and pay us our fair share or perhaps even buy us out.’

‘Buy what out?’

‘The best of it, the parts of it that will still make money.’

‘Black market goods?’ Flint said. ‘Is Dom importing those already?’

‘No, I mean special goods,’ said Polly. ‘Very valuable goods.’

‘Like what?’ said Flint.

‘I’m not a position to tell you just yet,’ said Polly. ‘All I require from you, Johnny, is an expression of interest in what I – what my sister and I – may have to offer if the worst comes to the worst.’

‘An interest in principle,’ Flint said, nodding. ‘Sure. Sure. I wouldn’t see you stuck, Polly, or you – Babs. I’m flattered to be asked. You can trust me to do right by you.’

‘Only if it becomes necessary.’

‘Pray God,’ said Flint, ‘it won’t. But if it does I’ll be there, ready and willing to do whatever I can to keep old Dominic’s flag flyin’.’

‘Won’t you be called up too?’ Babs asked.

‘Bad heart,’ said Flint, grinning. ‘Could go at any time,’ then, not grinning, said, ‘I can take over the collections easy, cream off his share from cafés and restaurants, particularly as we’ll most likely be dealin’ with inexperienced women. If Dom’s deported or interned half the Italians in Scotland will go with him. But the demand will still be there, folks will still want their ice-a-da-creams and fish and chips, places to drink coffee or go dancing.’

‘I was thinking of another sort of business, actually,’ Polly said.

‘What would that be?’ said Flint.

‘Money,’ Polly said. ‘Money as a commodity not a service.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ said Polly.

She got abruptly to her feet.

‘No, wait,’ Flint said. ‘Come on, Polly, don’t leave me in suspense. What’s all this about raw money? What’s your old boy got into that you can’t handle?’

‘In due course, Johnny,’ Polly promised then before Babs could open her mouth, caught her sister by the arm and yanked her to her feet too. ‘We’ve had a nice little preliminary meeting, but that’s enough for now. It’s comforting to know that we can count on your support in an emergency.’

John Flint rose to his full height. He seemed capable of stretching himself, of gaining inches, and towered over the two young women as he came around the desk again. He had switched off his curiosity and was all avuncular charm. He put an arm about Babs’s shoulder, a hand on Polly’s arm and escorted them to the door.

‘Nobody ever spares a thought for the likes of us, do they?’ he said. ‘I mean, does anybody have any idea how tough it’s gonna be for those of us who don’t walk the sunny side of the street when the country’s crawlin’ with special constables and wardens and every Tom, Dick and Harry who wears a uniform will be ready to pounce on us for every soddin’ infringement? Oh, yeah, it’s gonna be hard times for the likes of us, Polly, and we’ll just hafta stick together and co-operate. Dom will come to appreciate that in due course. Meanwhile, though, we’ll keep it strictly to ourselves for a while.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ said Polly while Flint steered her into the corridor and gave Babs’s waist a squeeze. ‘I’m relying on your discretion, John.’

‘Discretion,’ Flint said, ‘is my middle name,’ then blanched as the outer door opened and Harker stepped into the corridor.

*   *   *

They sat on a bench in George Square in the heart of the city. In summer the square was crowded with office workers eating lunch but in drab and chilly February few citizens cared to occupy the seats between the statues and the pigeons went hungry. The couple were too intent upon their conversation to pay much attention to the birds that flocked about them, begging for crumbs.

The girl was whey-faced with cold and looked younger than her years; the man, hunched and angular and awkward, looked older. There was something pathetic in the way she stared into his face and appeared to hang on his every word. Even the raggle-taggle band of vagrants who inhabited the square at all seasons were leery of the couple for a sixth sense told them that he was a copper and not to be tampered with.

‘I don’t mean now, Rosie,’ Kenny said. ‘I don’t mean this week or even next month. I mean if there is a war, once it becomes inevitable, will you think about it.’

‘You are going to join up, are you nuh-not?’

‘I’m giving it serious consideration.’

‘Will they not force you to stay in the police?’

‘I’m not sure I want to,’ Kenny said. ‘If I resign now they can’t stop me.’

Their contact was not of hands but of feet, legs loosely linked and touching.

Rosie faced him, gloved hands clasped in her lap like an illustration from a Hans Andersen fable. Kenny had his scarf wound round his neck, collar turned up. The bitter little wind that scuffed down Cochrane Street past the City Chambers and the Cenotaph teased his curly brown hair. I must buy him a hat, Rosie thought, a fedora: he will look well in a fedora. He could be married before the registrar in trenchcoat and fedora, more fitting than a uniform. She didn’t want to see him in a uniform of any kind, not even policeman’s blue.

‘What do you want to do, Kenneth?’ she asked.

‘I want to marry you, Rosie.’

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Do you wuh-want to go to buh-bed with me?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Enough to marry me?’

He sighed. ‘How can you ask such a question?’

‘There are a luh-lot of girls getting married because the war is coming and they do not want to be left on the shelf. They want to have a man make love to them before he…’

‘Dies?’ said Kenny. ‘Rosie, dearest, I’ve no intention of dying.’

She looked down at the pigeons strutting at her feet. There were tears in her eyes, watery little effusions that may have been brought on by the gritty wind.

‘Kenny, I hardly know you,’ she said.

‘I’m just what you see, Rosie – and you’ve met my sister.’

She glanced up to read his lips. ‘What does that have to do with it?’

‘I don’t need her approval, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Kenny said. ‘But it would be better if you liked her, under the circumstances.’

‘Better?’

‘When – if I’m away for a while she’ll look after you.’

‘I do not nuh-need your sister to look after me. I huh-have sisters of my own to look after me,’ Rosie told him. ‘And my Mammy. And my Daddy.’

‘Daddy?’

‘Bernard.’

Kenny stared bleakly across the square towards the monument. ‘Your brother-in-law too, I suppose.’

‘That is the problem, is it not?’ Rosie said. ‘Dominic Manone?’

‘I suppose it is, really,’ Kenny admitted.

‘You want to separate me from my family. And you can’t.’

‘It’s not going to be safe in Glasgow,’ Kenny said. ‘The minute we go to war with Germany bombs will start falling. Do you have any idea the amount of damage a single ton of explosive can cause?’

‘Stop it,’ Rosie said. ‘Stop trying to frighten me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Kenny said.

Rosie said, ‘I will have to get back to work.’

‘I know. Yes, I know,’ Kenny said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked, should I?’

‘No,’ Rosie told him. ‘It is too soon. And too difficult.’

‘Do you not want to marry me?’

She got up from the bench, stood before him.

‘I would marry you tomorrow, Kenneth, if I could.’

‘I love you, Rosie. If I want to go to bed with you, I can’t help that,’ Kenny said. ‘It’s all so damnably uncertain.’ He got up and stood in front of her, sheltering her from the cutting wind. ‘But I do love you and I’d do anything to keep you from being hurt.’

‘I do not think that is a promise you can keep,’ Rosie said, ‘not the way things are.’

‘Then I’ll change the way things are,’ said Kenny.

‘How can you?’

‘You’re right, of course,’ Kenny said. ‘I can’t.’

And then, in broad daylight among the pigeons and the tramps, he took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

*   *   *

There was something about him, something that Polly could not put her finger on, something that caused her to step back. Perhaps it was his aggression, the sheer force of his personality, a bullish rather brutal quality apparent in the way he stalked down the corridor between the cubicles. She had no time to examine her feelings, however, before the little man was upon her.

‘Harker,’ he said, gravel-voiced. ‘Edgar Harker. Pleased ta meetcha.’

Flint, nonplussed, stammered, ‘This – this – these are…’

‘I know who they are,’ said Harker. ‘Couldn’t be anybody else.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Polly said. ‘Have we met before?’

Flint had gone an odd colour, not pale but flame red.

‘Maybe.’ Harker said. ‘A long time ago.’

Collecting herself, Polly said, ‘I saw you at the racecourse in November.’

‘Clever girl.’

‘You were talking with my husband in the enclosure.’

‘Right on the button.’

‘There was a girl with you, a blonde.’

‘Sure was, usually is.’

He grinned and his moustache lifted to show brown, tobacco-stained teeth. For an instant Polly supposed that the upper lip had snagged then realised that the grisly smile was a scar, the result of a wound or an injury that had healed badly

She tried not to stare, and said, ‘She’s not with you today, however?’

‘Nope, left her home today.’

‘Is she your wife?’ Polly asked.

‘In a manner of speakin’.’

‘Eddie,’ Flint found his voice at last. ‘Eddie, why don’t you toddle down to the office and help yourself to a drink. I’ll be with you soon as I see the ladies out.’

‘Keepin’ them to yourself, are you, Flinty?’

‘Come on, Eddie, be nice.’

‘Not me, pal. Never been nice in my life. If you’re Polly,’ Harker said, ‘I guess you must be Babs. You look just like her.’

‘Like who?’ Babs said.

A dry, strident note in her voice indicated that Babs was more annoyed than charmed by Mr Harker’s familiarity. It occurred to Polly that perhaps her sister and the stranger shared an unfortunate characteristic – namely, a short fuse – and that the prudent thing to do would be to escape before tempers flared.

‘Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr Harker, but Babs and I…’

‘Like who?’ Babs stood challengingly before the stranger, a hand on her hip. ‘If you’re referrin’ to my Mammy you’d better watch your tongue, Mr Harker.’

‘Spiky,’ Harker said. ‘Very spiky. I like that in a woman.’

‘I do believe,’ said Flint, taking Polly’s arm, ‘the ladies have another appointment an’ must be on their way.’

‘Gimme a break, Johnny,’ Harker said. ‘I ain’t gonna blow it.’

‘Blow what?’ said Babs. ‘An’ who are you callin’ spiky?’

‘Easy, sweetheart, easy,’ Harker said. ‘Where I come from most gals would take that as a compliment.’

‘Where do you come from then?’ Babs said. ‘Mars?’

‘Close enough,’ Harker said. ‘America.’

‘Philadelphia?’ Polly heard herself enquire.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Harker answered: ‘New York.’

The strange proud light in his eyes hadn’t diminished. He seemed more amused than irked by Babs’s rudeness.

In a loud check overcoat and turkey-red scarf he looked less like a bookie than a variety-hall comic; Polly almost expected him to whip out a water-pistol and a raucous motor-horn and begin squirting and parping away.

‘Huh!’ Babs said. ‘You’re no more a Yankee than I am.’

‘Right you are there, sweetheart. I’m from these ’ere parts originally.’

‘So you did know my Mammy?’ Babs said.

‘Everybody knew Lizzie McKerlie. Fine big thumping woman.’

‘An’ I’m just like her, am I?’

‘The very spit,’ said Harker.

Polly felt the question rise into her mouth like water brash.

‘My father, did you know my father too?’

Flint fell away from her, a hand to his brow, palm covering his eyes.

‘Who was he again?’ Harker said.

‘Frank, Frank Conway,’ Babs said.

‘Yeah, old Frank.’

‘You knew him?’

‘Nope.’

‘But if you knew my mother…’ Babs began.

‘I was gone before Frank appeared on the scene, sweetheart, long gone,’ Edgar Harker said. ‘Whatever happened to him, anyhow?’

Out of a sick, hollow little space in her chest, Polly answered:

‘He died in the war.’

‘A hero’s death then,’ Harker said.

‘Yes, a hero’s death,’ said Polly and without even shaking hands, headed off down the corridor and out on to the balcony at the top of the steps where Babs caught up with her.

‘What’s wrong with you, Poll? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I just – I felt a little faint, that’s all.’

‘That guy…’

‘What?’ Polly said. ‘What about him?’

‘I think he fancied me.’

‘Oh God!’ Polly groaned.

‘Maybe ’cause I remind him of Mammy when she was young. I reckon he fancied Mammy, don’t you? Anyway, he’s old enough t’ be my father so he’ll get no change out of me.’ She placed a hand on Polly’s shoulder. ‘You okay?’

‘Yes, I’m all right. Really, I’m fine.’

They went carefully down the steep steps, arms linked, and walked around a corner of the cinema into Paisley Road West to find a taxi to take them home.

‘What d’ you think then?’ Babs asked as soon as some colour returned to her sister’s cheeks. ‘Will Flint keep his word when it comes to it?’

‘I doubt it,’ Polly said.

‘How come?’ said Barbara. ‘I thought you trusted him.’

‘I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anybody these days,’ Polly said.

‘Not even Tony?’

‘Not even Tony,’ Polly said, and was startled to realise that she meant it.