Chapter Five

After two weeks Dominic still hadn’t shown up at the farmhouse. In fact he appeared so disinterested in Penny Weston’s welfare that Tony was beginning to wonder if Dom really had shipped in the girl just to keep him away from Polly. He’d telephoned Polly three times from a call-box in Breslin but had got the nanny on the line on each occasion and had hung up without uttering a word.

Last Monday he’d dropped in early at the Central Warehouse. Dominic had already been in a meeting in the top-floor office with two guys Tony had never seen before and Dominic had steered him hastily into the outer office and, after a word or two, had more or less sent him packing. On Friday he’d called at the warehouse again to pick up some household items for the girl. Dominic had been in the ground-floor stockroom with Sammy McGinn, the foreman, and the moment he’d appeared Dom had snapped, ‘What do you want, Tony? Can’t you see I’m busy,’ and turned on his heel and left without another word. Fifteen years of doing Dom’s dirty work, of being Dom’s confidante and counsellor entitled him to more consideration than that, he reckoned. If he was being sidelined there could only be one reason for it: Dominic had found out about the affair.

It was almost eleven o’clock before Tony arrived at the farm.

Rain obscured the hills, the wipers clicked infuriatingly, the windscreen was clouded with condensation and he could hear nothing but rain, hard country rain drumming on the car roof. The track was a quagmire, the yard awash. The girl was framed in the farmhouse doorway, looking out for him. She wore the yellow oilskins and sou’wester he’d bought for her yesterday, ankle-length rubber boots, green woollen stockings. Her knees were bare beneath the hem of the oilskin and for an unguarded moment Tony wondered if she was naked beneath the coat.

‘You are late,’ she said before he even got out of the car.

‘Yeah!’

‘Are the roadways flooded?’

‘The roads are fine.’

‘Well, you are here now, so we will get on with it.’

He leaned across the passenger seat and spoke to her through the half open window. Raindrops like steel bayonets struck the slates of the roof and cobbles of the yard. He had to shout to make himself heard above the drumming of the rain.

‘Get on with what?’

‘They said they would come today.’

‘Who did?’

‘Dominic did not tell you?’

‘I haven’t seen much of Dominic lately.’

‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked. ‘We have time for coffee.’

He got out of the car and splashed across the cobbles into the house.

The girl did not close the front door behind him but remained in the doorway, peering out into the rain. For all her aplomb she couldn’t disguise her anxiety but when she turned and caught him staring at her she gave him one of her cheesy Americanised smiles.

In the big, stone-flagged kitchen there was no evidence that Dominic had spent the night, no little clues or tell-tales. The kitchen floor had been scrubbed. Shiny new saucepans were arranged on the shelves, the new rug on the floor, the new plaid throw draped over an ancient armchair by the hearth. She had even filled the new brass coal bucket from the coal pile in the byre. Whatever else Penny Weston might be, she was certainly no slattern.

On the marble-topped dresser the new coffee-maker chugged and steamed. She had insisted that he find her a proper Italian coffee-maker. He’d collected it grudgingly from the warehouse on Friday. He could see sense in her request now, though. The machine was the most homely thing in the farmhouse and the aroma of coffee spiced with vanilla certainly made the atmosphere more welcoming.

She came into the kitchen and took off the oilskin hat but not the coat. She tapped coffee from the machine into a cup and gave it to him, poured another cup for herself. She held the cup in both hands and sipped from it, looking up at him through the fragrant steam.

‘What has he been saying about me?’ she asked.

‘Practically nothing since that night in Rutherford when neither of you were giving away a damned thing.’

‘Is that why you do not like me?’

‘Who says I don’t like you?’

‘Perhaps it is because you like me too much that you are nasty to me.’

‘I’m doing my job,’ Tony said. ‘If you think I’m not doing it well enough then complain to Dominic.’

She gave him the smile again, then laughed. When she laughed she did something with her body that he had never seen any other woman do, a lithe, wriggling lift of the shoulders that made her look like a naughty schoolgirl. ‘Oh, Anthony, you are not jealous of him, you are jealous of me.’

‘I’m not jealous of either of you,’ Tony said. ‘I just don’t know what the hell’s going on or what I’m expected to do.’

‘You have done it all already.’

He never lost his temper, not with women. He had been reared in a house with three sisters and had learned the hard way how illogical women can be. His sisters had clamoured for admiration not for what they did but for what they were, God’s little gifts to mankind. Penny Weston didn’t demand admiration, though; she sneaked it from you, in spite of yourself. He reminded himself that he had patience, lots and lots of patience. He could break her down with his patience the way he’d broken down Polly. He felt a sudden warm surge like a soft orgasm in the pit of his stomach at the thought of how he would get the better of this girl in the long run and what he would do to her then.

‘Look, kid,’ he said, ‘I don’t much care what fate has in store for you. I’ve put up with more boring stuff than this.’ He didn’t break stride. ‘Who’s coming today. Tell me, or don’t tell me. I really don’t give a toss either way.’

‘Soon you will be back collecting payments from the unions?’

‘Is that what you think I do?’ Tony said.

‘It is what all the Manones do, is it not?’

She had made an error, one little slip. He felt good about catching her out. If she thought that trade union manipulation was a viable racket in Scotland then she had been sadly misinformed. If she imagined that the tommy-gun would ever replace the broken bottle as a Scotsman’s weapon of choice then she was naïve. There were precious few guns on the streets here. Premeditated murder was a rarity, so rare in fact that it stayed in the mind like a great dark ink blot and nobody bragged about it afterwards. Compared to Chicago or Detroit or even Philadelphia this was Hicksville.

For a split second it occurred to Tony that because she didn’t know these things she might be an impostor. But no, he was the impostor, Dominic and he and all the other tuppenny-ha’penny hard men, whether they were Micks or Jews or Eye-ties or just plain bread-and-butter Jocks. It had been four years since he’d had to use any muscle at all to enforce a payment. He was a reasonable man, just as reasonable as Dominic. All the clients knew it, knew he’d negotiate if he had to, protect when he had to, bring down the big fist only as a last resort.

‘Did Carlo really send you over here?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘How is the old buzzard?’

‘He keeps good health,’ Penny said. ‘For his age.’

‘My old man will be pleased to hear it.’

‘You must not tell your father about me.’

Tony finished the coffee, took the cup to the sink.

Over his shoulder he said, ‘I wouldn’t know what to tell him even if I did feel inclined. Listen, kid…’

‘Do not call me “kid”. I am not a kid.’

She was annoyed now. He might have got something out of her right there and then if she hadn’t gone to the window and then to the door. He stood behind her in the doorway and watched the truck slither down the track.

It was a ten-tonner with a saturated tarpaulin lashed across the flat-bed behind the cab. He could make out two men in the cab. When the truck entered the yard he saw a third man perched miserably on top of the tarp.

‘Is this who we’re waiting for, Penny?’ he said. ‘Builders?’

‘They are carpenters.’

‘Are they here to repair the house?’

‘No, the stables.’

‘Really?’ Tony said. ‘Are you going into the riding business then?’

‘No, we are going into the business of making money.’

‘Making money? How?’

‘By printing it,’ she told him.

And at that moment Tony realised that it might be rather a long time before Polly and he ever got together again.

*   *   *

In the initial weeks of his courtship of Rosie Conway, Sergeant MacGregor loitered about Mandeville Square and tried to appear as inconspicuous as possible, which was a tall order for a six-foot-two Highlander with curly fair hair. In addition, he had a way of rocking back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back like a pantomime simpleton and even the canny pigeons that strutted on the ledges above Shelby’s windows were amused by the daft big boy and would peep down at him, heads cocked, and crroo-crroo advice in mock Gaelic.

Eventually Mr Robert took pity on the love-struck lump, yanked open the door and hissed, ‘For God sake, Sergeant, at least wait for her inside.’

Gannon, of course, was less sympathetic. Never having had a copper at his mercy before he was determined to make the most of it. ‘Hoy, Sergeant,’ he’d chirp from the doorway, ‘Detective Sergeant. Miss Rosalind’s gettin’ ready for to be searched. She’ll be with yah in just a moment. She’s just takin’ her knickers off, like you requested,’ to which piece of insolence the officer only nodded and looked glum.

Kenny wasn’t the only one who’d fallen foul of Cupid’s dart, of course.

Rosie spent half the morning bobbing up from her chair, surveying the two great squares of street-coloured daylight and the anonymous faces that flowed past, watching anxiously for Kenny. When Kenny did at last appear her heart beat faster and there was a sound in her ears like rushing water.

He would wait tentatively by the door and she would walk down the centre aisle. Customers skulking among the bookcases would glance up and observe the moment when the deaf girl and the Highland copper met. He would say shyly, ‘Fancy a bite to eat then?’ and she would shyly answer, ‘That would be very nice, thank you,’ as if it were all very off-the-cuff and not at all romantic.

The work of the Criminal Investigation Department didn’t grind to a halt because Kenny MacGregor was falling in love. On days when he failed to appear, Rosie would assure herself that he had been called away on business or that his shift had been changed without warning. Even so she suffered dreadful doubts, wondering if he had grown tired of her already and had thrown her over for some other girl, one who wasn’t deaf.

‘I’m sorry, Rosie, really I am,’ Kenny would say next time they met. ‘I was sent out of town. I couldn’t even get to a telephone to let you know.’

She longed to ask him where he had been and what crime he had investigated but she was well aware that she was Dominic Manone’s sister-in-law and that any questions on her part might easily be misconstrued. She stepped so warily around such thorny issues that it was only after eight café lunches that she learned that Kenny was thirty-four years old, shared a flat in Cowcaddens with his sister, and that his father and mother were tenant farmers on the Isle of Islay.

‘What does your sister do? Is she a teacher?’ Rosie asked.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know. I just thought she might be.’

‘She was a teacher, as a matter of fact, a teacher of languages. She works in police headquarters now in a civilian capacity. She translates foreign documents.’

‘Is there much call for that in Glasgow?’

‘More than you might think,’ said Kenny.

‘I have heard,’ said Rosie, ‘that preparations are being made for a war. I do not just mean talk about it, I mean practical stuff.’

‘It’s true,’ Kenny said. ‘Special departments and volunteer services are being set up all over the place. The Chief Constable’s in his element. You don’t happen to drive a motorcar, by any chance?’

‘I’m afraid I do not,’ said Rosie.

‘We’re looking for ladies who have a licence to drive.’

‘Drive what?’

‘Ambulances, tramcars, anything. Women’ll need to take over basic services when the rest of us are called up.’

‘The rest of you?’

‘Those of us fit to fight,’ said Kenny.

Rosie experienced a sudden icy pang. It hadn’t dawned on her that men like Kenny, like Dennis and Jackie Hallop, might be called upon to fight and possibly die as her father and Bernard’s brothers had done twenty years ago. She’d glanced at the casualty lists from the civil war in Spain from time to time but the brigades there were made up of volunteers not conscripts and, rather heartlessly, she felt somehow that they deserved whatever was coming to them.

‘Hey, don’t look so solemn,’ Kenny said. ‘I’m not packing my kitbag yet.’

‘I cannot help it,’ Rosie said. ‘I do not want you to be killed.’

‘Heck,’ said Kenny, ‘I’ve more chance of being killed at a Rangers – Celtic football match than by one of Adolf’s snipers. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’

‘You just took me aback,’ said Rosie. ‘I mean, my stepfather…’

‘That’s Bernard, isn’t it?’

‘Yes – Bernard says that a war is still some way off.’

‘Your father, your real father, he was lost in the Great War, wasn’t he?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I think you mentioned it.’

‘No, I did not.’

‘Mr Shelby must have let it slip then. Anyhow, your father went missing in action, didn’t he? Missing presumed killed. Why didn’t your mother claim a widow’s pension?’

‘They wouldn’t give her one,’ Rosie said. ‘She couldn’t prove that my father had joined up. He wasn’t using his own name so there was no record, you see.’ She paused. ‘Are you opening a file on me at the CID? Look, if there’s anything you want to know about my family all you have to do is ask. I cannot discuss Dominic Manone, though, because I do not know much about him and I’m certainly not going to pump my sisters for information.’

‘Whoa, whoa!’ Kenny put a finger to his lips. ‘I’m not fishing for information about Manone. I’m just curious how your Mam managed to raise three daughters without any financial assistance.’

‘Simple,’ Rosie said. ‘For ten or twelve years she worked her fingers to the bone. After my sister Polly left school and got a job things became a bit easier. Those years were no picnic, Kenny, especially since I needed special schooling. That is why I resent your implication that my Mam has done anything wrong. It’s not her fault that my sister Polly happened to fall in love with an Italian. Anyway, you may think what you like about Dominic but he is a good husband and a good father and takes good care of the family.’

‘Not you, though, Rosie. Don’t you take care of yourself?’

‘I – yes, I suppose I do.’

‘I’d like to take care of you some day.’

‘Are you proposing to me, Kenny?’

‘No, no. Oh, no, no.’

‘I thought not,’ Rosie said.

He hadn’t even kissed her yet, though he had held her hand once or twice. They weren’t lovers, never would be lovers, perhaps, not if the war came. Besides, she doubted if the CID would be too happy at one of their officers marrying Dominic Manone’s sister-in-law.

‘My job,’ Kenny said, ‘is not just an ordinary job, you know. It involves long hours and awkward shifts. A copper’s wife has a lot to put up with.’

‘How long have you been in the Force?’

‘I joined when I was eighteen, took the sergeant’s examinations when I was thirty and applied for a vacancy in the CID. I was backed for promotion by the Chief Constable, Mr Sillitoe.’

‘Is he your boss?’

‘Not directly, no.’

‘Who is your boss?’

‘Inspector Winstock. We call him “Wetsock”. He’s okay, really.’

‘Have you caught any murderers?’

‘I’ve been on several cases in which fatality was involved.’

‘Don’t you have nightmares – about bodies and things?’

‘I’m used to it now,’ Kenny said. ‘I didn’t like it much at first. Nobody does. Fishing corpses out of the river, collecting body parts off the railway line. Grisly stuff, Rosie.’

‘Folk who have been burned to death in house fires?’ Rosie said.

‘Yes, that too.’

‘Children suffocated by smoke and fumes?’

Kenny frowned and seemed about to ask her to explain herself but thought better of pursuing that line of inquiry.

He said, ‘Have you ever been to a pantomime, Rosie?’

‘What?’

‘Pan-toe-mime: have you ever…?’

‘I heard you the first time. No, I’ve never been to a pantomime.’

‘Because you can’t hear the music?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come with me to the King’s. They’re doing Mother Goose this Christmas. It’s very lively and there’s dancers to look at and I’ll tell you what the actors are saying. Would you like that?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because if I accept I’ll have to tell my mother that you’re a copper. I won’t lie to her, you know.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ Kenny said. ‘It’s Christmas, Rosie. Perhaps she won’t mind because it’s Christmas. Will you think about it?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Rosie said. ‘Mother Goose, is it?’

‘At the King’s,’ said Kenny.

*   *   *

‘A copper?’ Bernard said. ‘What sort of a copper?’

‘He is a sergeant.’

‘What division?’

‘He is a detective,’ Rosie said. ‘CID, St Andrew’s Street.’

‘Christ!’ Bernard said, and shook his head. ‘How long have you known this chap and how did you meet him?’

‘What’s wrong with you, Bernard?’ Lizzie said. ‘She’s twenty-four years old. Isn’t it about time she got out and about a bit?’

‘Oh, certainly,’ Bernard said, ‘but this isn’t just any old chap, Lizzie. She’s contemplating going out with a policeman.’

‘Look,’ Rosie said, ‘I do not need to ask your permission. I can go out with any chap I want to. Look at me, look at me: do you think I’m a prize?’ She opened her mouth and pointed her forefinger at her tongue. ‘I have never been out with a man in my life and I am not passing up the chance. God, it is only a night out at the pantomime, Bernard. He is not whipping me off to the casbah.’

‘The what?’ said Bernard, suspiciously.

‘If she isn’t going to be safe with a policeman,’ Lizzie said, ‘then who, I ask you, is she going to be safe with?’

‘Does he know who you are?’

‘Of course he knows who I am,’ said Rosie, angrily.

‘So how long has this been going on?’ said Bernard.

‘Going on?’ Rosie shouted. ‘Going on?’

Bernard cleared his throat, folded his arms. ‘All right, keep your hair on, Rosalind. I’m your father, I’m entitled…’

‘You are not my fah-fah-father.’

‘Bernard only has your best interests at heart, dear,’ Lizzie said. ‘What’s the cop— the young man’s name?’

‘Kenny.’

‘Is he nice, is he a big chap?’

‘Bigger than him.’ Rosie gestured disparagingly at Bernard. ‘Six feet if he is an inch. Fair hair. He lives with his sister in Cowcaddans. She is a translator of fah-fah-foreign languages.’

‘We’ll have to meet him,’ Lizzie said. ‘If it’s gettin’ serious, I mean.’

‘Serious?’ said Bernard. ‘It’s serious enough for him to ask her on a date.’

‘Mah-mah-Mother Gah-goose,’ Rosie got out. ‘At the Kah-King’s.’

Her tongue was tied in knots even though she’d known that Bernard would take it badly. She’d always been sure of his love but the comfort it brought her had diminished over the past weeks and he had begun to seem selfish and possessive. Look at him now, seated in the chair with a ghastly expression on his face as if she’d announced that she was expecting a baby to Kenny MacGregor and not just going out to the theatre with him.

‘Thursday,’ she said. ‘Kenny has already bought tickets.’

‘That,’ said Lizzie, ‘will be lovely.’

‘You won’t be able to hear a thing,’ Bernard said.

‘Oh, thuh-thank you,’ Rosie spat out. ‘Thuh-thank you for reminding me.’

‘How does he know what you’re saying?’ said Bernard.

‘He KNOWS,’ Rosie shouted. ‘He KNOWS.’

‘Listen to you now,’ Bernard said. ‘Shouting.’

‘Bernard, stop taunting her,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘You should be pleased that a nice young chap has asked her out.’

‘He can’t be all that young, not if he’s a detective sergeant,’ Bernard said.

‘Thirty-FOUR. Thirty-FOUR – if you MUST KNOW.’

Bernard hunched his shoulders and tucked his hands into his armpits. He had turned a strange grey shade and his features seemed suddenly gaunt. She had not expected his reaction to be quite so extreme. She almost felt sorry for him. Then she thought of Kenny, the beautiful warm lift in her heart when he entered the shop, the firm clasp of his hand, the gentle touch of his fingers on her cheek. Bernard hugged her, Bernard took her hand, Bernard accepted her kiss every morning – but Bernard never made her feel the way Kenny MacGregor did.

Bernard tapped her arm and signed, almost frantically, to get her full attention. She watched his lips shape the question.

‘Does he know that you are related to Dominic Manone?’

‘WHAH – WHAT does that huh-have to do with anything?’

‘Does he, Rosie?’

‘YES. YES, HE DOES.’

‘I thought as much,’ and Bernard. ‘Oh, dear God! I thought as much.’

And, to Rosie’s astonishment, rocked forward in his chair and covered his face with his hands.

*   *   *

Their lovemaking was noisy and rumbustious. Babs always had a sneaky feeling that her daughters were lying wide awake, fully aware of what was going on in the bedroom at the end of the corridor.

When it was over and Jackie had clambered off her, therefore, she got up at once and tiptoed into the children’s rooms, found the girls fast asleep and Angus snoring away like a piggy. Relieved, she hurried into the bathroom as soon as Jackie had vacated it and was back in bed beside him three minutes later.

She accepted a cigarette and lay back against the pillows, the quilt tucked under her armpits.

‘Good, eh?’ said Jackie.

‘Good,’ Babs dutifully agreed.

Good enough, she supposed. Satisfactory. She had matched his enthusiasm and responded without pretence. Now, though, was the best time with Jackie calm and drowsy. She glanced at him. By the light of the bedside lamp he had a raffish sort of handsomeness that wasn’t usually apparent.

He tapped ash into the metal bowl on his chest, blew another smug circlet of smoke, slid his left hand down between her thighs and patted that part of her that was his and his alone. Babs did not resent his casual familiarity.

She said, ‘Have you been talkin’ to Dennis lately?’

‘Sure, I talk to him all the time.’

‘I mean lately?’

‘About what in particular?’ Jackie said.

‘Dominic.’

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, smoked another half-inch of the cigarette before he asked, ‘What about Dominic?’

‘Has it occurred t’ you that Dom’s an Italian.’

‘’Course it’s occurred to me. Everybody knows he’s a bloody Eye-tie. I don’t need Dennis t’ tell me that, for God’s sake.’

‘What if there’s a war?’

‘What the hell’re you goin’ on about now, Babs?’

‘If there is a war an’ Mussolini sides with Hitler…’

‘Politics! Jeeze, when did you get interested in politics?’

‘They won’t let Dominic run a business if there’s a war on,’ Babs said. ‘That ain’t politics, Jackie, that’s common sense.’

He stubbed out the cigarette, put aside the ashtray and rolled on to an elbow. ‘They won’t let me run my business neither,’ he said. ‘Don’t you go worryin’ about Dom when you should be worryin’ about us.’

‘What d’ you mean?’

‘Four kids ain’t gonna protect me,’ Jackie said.

‘From what?’

‘Bein’ called up.’

She sat up abruptly. ‘They won’t call you up, will they?’

‘Not if I can bloody help it,’ Jackie said. ‘But what they definitely will do is drag me away from the garage an’ stick me in some bloody dead-end job.’

‘Like what?’

‘Send me down the pit or into a factory or the ambulance service.’

‘What’ll happen to the garage?’

‘Dunno.’

‘What’ll we live on?’ Babs said.

‘Bread an’ bloody water, I expect.’

‘Dennis – Dennis an’ Billy, will they…?’

‘Soldier boys for sure.’

‘I never thought o’ that,’ Babs said.

‘There’s politics for yah,’ Jackie said. ‘They can do what they bloody like wi’ us when there’s a war on.’

He leaned against her and put an arm about her, folding it over her breast. He smelled of tobacco smoke and perspiration and she loved him for it and felt the soft stirring of desire again.

She wondered what it would be like not to have Jackie, not to have things as they were now and what would become of her children if Jackie and Dennis were far away or, come to think of it, dead. Her mind had been filled with calculations, a greedy anticipation of changes that would better her lot.

Now she saw how wrong she’d been, how stupid.

For once she closed her eyes when he kissed her.

‘We’re not gone yet, none o’ us,’ he murmured. ‘Anyhow, bloody Adolf’s got more sense than t’ fight the British. I mean, Jeeze, we’d scuttle the bastard in a bloody fortnight, he tries his tricks on us.’

‘Is that true, Jackie?’

‘Sure, it’s true. Everybody knows we got the best army, the best navy in the world an’ Jerry can’t stand up t’ us for long.’ He kissed her again, cuddled her while she held the cigarette at arm’s length and watched smoke crawl over the rampart of the bed-head. ‘You wanna ’nother one, honey?’

‘No, dearest,’ Babs said. ‘I just want you t’ hug me for a while.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he said and, without rancour, drew her against his chest.

*   *   *

The Wolseley was ten years old. It had been stolen in Sheffield, lifted in dead of night from the garage of a certain Lord Throgsten on a country-house estate on the edge of the city. It had passed through several hands before it wound up in the Hallops’ yard in Govan where Dennis and Billy stripped it, replaced most of the components and repainted it a handsome jade green colour that, as it happened, matched the registration details on another 1928 Wolseley tourer that had been come by honestly but had subsequently disappeared.

The Throgsten version was now a safe commodity. There was no previous record of sale to give the police a clue to its origins. Necessary paperwork was done at the salon, the car re-registered in Jackie’s name and duly sold by private bargain, cash down, to his brother-in-law Dominic Manone.

The Wolseley was less ostentatious than a new model van or estate car, given the sort of vehicles that were turning up on the roads these days; Dominic declared himself well pleased with the big 8-cylinder tourer, complete with all-weather equipment and, most important of all, a huge, detachable rear-mounted trunk that was ideal for the transportation of heavy goods.

A week before Christmas he collected the car from the salon and drove across the river and out to the farm.

He hadn’t been at Blackstone since the day he’d inspected the place with Bernard, nor had he had met Edgar Harker or the girl again. He had deliberately kept his distance, let Tony and Bernard take care of the arrangements. He regretted the necessity for keeping Tony in the dark but didn’t dare take Tony – or anyone for that matter – into his confidence until he had mastered the scheme’s intricacies and weighed up its dangers. The truth was that he enjoyed deviousness and secrecy, the return of a rapacious arrogance that had been all but smothered by marriage.

It was a clear day, the sky arctic blue, as he came up past Bonskeet’s site. Though he had invested heavily in Bonskeet’s he had little to do with day-to-day management. Nevertheless, he was gratified to see villas rising up against the horizon and general activity along the rim of the site where thirty-two trim little bungalows were being erected.

Smiling to himself, he tooled the Wolseley past the site and a mile further on steered it through the field gate that gave access to Blackstone Farm.

The Dolomite was parked outside the main building. The house door lay open. In the buildings to the right of the yard there was evidence of construction, a pile of fresh yellow sawdust and four big timber beams that had not been removed. He must phone Bernard and tell him to have the place cleaned up before the machinery arrived.

He parked the Wolseley next to the Dolomite and got out.

He expected Tony to be on top of him, the girl to come running out of the farmhouse to greet him and was irked when no one appeared. If Tony had taken the girl to shop in Breslin or Glasgow surely the house would be locked and the Dolomite wouldn’t be sitting in the front yard.

‘About time you got here, man,’ Tony said.

Dominic swung round, looking towards the stables.

‘Been waiting for you to show up for weeks.’

‘Where the hell…’

‘Up here.’

Dominic stepped back and looked up at the farmhouse roof. The skylight was propped open and in the opening were two faces. Tony and the girl. Tony had a telescope, the girl a rifle. The rifle, a .22 rabbit gun, was pointed at him. Resting on a tiny tripod, the telescope appeared to be trained on him too and seemed more threatening than the gun. Dominic slid behind the body of the car, rested an elbow on the soft-top, tipped back his hat, and stared up at the window in the slates.

‘Trespassers,’ the girl announced, ‘must be shot.’

‘Cut it out,’ Dominic said. ‘Come down. I want to talk to you.’

‘State your business,’ the girl said. ‘And repeat the password.’

‘For God’s sake!’

‘Better do as she says, Dom,’ Tony advised. ‘She’s lethal with that popgun at short range.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Dominic said.

‘Repeat the password,’ the girl told him.

They looked, he thought, like a couple of over-grown kids. Tony wore a heavy cable-knit sweater, the girl a pink blouse and an embroidered silk bolero that barely covered her breasts. They seemed ridiculously jolly and he knew then – or thought he did – that Tony had been to bed with her.

‘I do not think he knows the password,’ Penny Weston said.

‘Nope, I guess he doesn’t,’ Tony said.

‘Shall I shoot him?’

‘Wing him,’ Tony said, ‘to teach him a lesson?’

‘I will pick off his hat, yes.’

‘Sure,’ Tony said. ‘Why not? He’s got plenty of hats at home.’

‘What the hell’s got into you, Tony?’ Dominic said. ‘Come down from there at once. I’ve got business to discuss and I haven’t got all day to waste.’

‘Business?’ Tony said. ‘I thought I’d been retired.’

‘Oh, so that’s it,’ Dominic said. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself to teach me a lesson. For God’s sake, don’t be so childish!’

The rifle went off with a light crisp crack that sent echoes reverberating around the yard. Dominic ducked behind the Wolseley and shouted, ‘Bitch! You stupid bitch,’ and heard the girl’s laughter.

A moment later Tony appeared in the doorway.

‘She’s a bitch all right,’ Tony said. ‘Is this the kid you’re going into business with, Dom? Is this the kid who’s gonna front a counterfeit operation worth a million quid?’

‘So she told you, did she?’

‘She didn’t have to tell me. Soon as the chippies rolled up and started laying a floor in the hay-loft I figured you were getting ready to store something heavy. She let just enough of it slip for me to guess the rest.’

‘In bed?’

Tony had folded the legs of the telescope and carried it over his shoulder like small field mortar. ‘Hell, no!’ he retorted. ‘Penny might be gorgeous, Dom, but she ain’t my type. Anyhow, like you said yourself, this is business. Big business. You gonna tell me about it now?’

‘Where is she?’

‘In the toilet, putting on her face.’

‘What was all that stuff on the roof about?’

‘I’m keeping her amused, that’s all. We were playing soldiers.’

‘Where did she get the rabbit gun?’

‘I bought it for her in Glasgow. She’s a crack shot, you know. You should see her on targets. Deadly. She tells me she learned to shoot in the Vienna woods by knocking off woodpigeon. True or false? God knows! This kid lies like a trooper. Hey, I like the motorcar. Jackie do it up for you?’

‘Yes.’

He was disturbed by Tony’s sudden loss of discretion. Perhaps he had been wrong to put Tony in charge of the girl, but how could he have predicted that Tony would be so affected by her. Had the long-legged blonde bewitched him or was this some ill-advised strategy that Tony had devised to punish him for his neglect? There had been no such insubordination in the old days when there had been no women around to mess things up. He remembered why he had elected not to run girls and understood why even John Flint had pulled out of pimping: you brought in women, you dealt with women, everything went haywire.

‘She might be a fruitcake,’ Tony said, ‘but she can take care of herself. Come on in, Dominic. It’s your love-nest, not mine.’

‘Love-nest?’

‘Forget it.’

‘Did she tell you…’

‘You want her, you’re welcome.’

‘I don’t want her.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Tony patted the Wolseley’s soft-top and ran his hand down the side panel. ‘Dennis made a nice job of this one? How does it handle?’

‘Quick but solid.’

‘Good for a fast getaway,’ Tony said and, laughing, ushered Dominic into the farmhouse before him.

*   *   *

Meetings of the Special Protection Unit convened at half-past ten o’clock on the third Monday in every month. They were hardly formal gatherings for the office was downstairs in the basement in St Andrew’s Street and the walls were lined with dusty boxes of evidence of crimes long solved or long forgotten. There was a desk, five or six wooden chairs, a gas-ring, a kettle, a teapot, an array of chipped cups and a battered biscuit tin within which lurked a selection of stale cookies that not even Inspector Winstock’s hungry hunters would touch with a barge pole. Now and then Fiona MacGregor would bring in a batch of scones and a pat of butter in greaseproof paper and old Wetsock, before helping himself to a scone or two, would remind everyone that police work was not supposed to be a picnic.

Gareth Winstock had a small moustache – a butter-curler, Fiona called it – ferocious eyebrows and the sort of haggard features that seemed to be standard issue for senior detectives. He also had bad teeth and a stomach ulcer, not helped by his fondness for an off-duty dram. He was, and always had been, a worried man. He worried about his cases, his staff, his promotion prospects, whether he would live long enough to collect his pension and what he would do when retirement eventually caught up with him. His anxieties had increased with the arrival of the ‘New Broom’, Chief Constable Percy Sillitoe, who had dragged the City of Glasgow police force into the twentieth century by streamlining the divisions and sacking ranking officers right, left and centre.

Gareth Winstock had survived only because he was good at his job and, dare one say it, because he was a Brother in the Barns o’ Clyde Lodge where, off duty, he did most of his drinking out of reach of his wife. In recent months his nervousness had been expanded by a brief so vague that he had no idea whether his appointment to the Special Protection Unit signified a career move up, down or sideways, or what would happen to him if war with Germany did not materialise.

Fiona MacGregor was the only woman present, and the only civilian. She had prepared translations of articles from several of the foreign newspapers, mainly German and Italian, which landed on her desk every morning, random items that Winstock and the SPU’s three other detectives would try to fit into the big picture and relate to their current investigation of Dominic Manone and the caucus of Fascist sympathisers that he had gathered around him.

‘What are they up to?’ Gareth Winstock began. ‘What the devil are they doing that they haven’t been doing behind our backs for years. Any ideas, Stone?’

Detective Constable Stone shook his head. ‘Don’t know, sir.’

‘Galbraith?’

Constable Galbraith also gave a negative response.

‘What about you, MacGregor? Are you getting anywhere with that girl?’

‘I doubt if the girl knows much, sir, really.’

Fiona pursed her lips but did not contradict her brother. She was a redhead – auburn not ginger – with a milky complexion and a manner that was at best aloof and at worst hostile.

Five years of language study and six months residence in Germany had erased the sweetness of her native Gaelic and her voice now was as clipped and ‘snecky’ as the sound of the old Underwood typewriter upon which she produced her reports. She did not regard herself as inferior to the uniforms with whom she rubbed shoulders and in fact considered them rather beneath her. It was generally agreed that she must have been a holy terror as a teacher.

‘I take it you’re still in contact with Miss Conway?’ Winstock said.

‘I am, sir,’ Kenny answered.

‘So the bookshop thing did pay off?’

‘Not exactly, sir. I mean, she saw straight through it.’

‘She hasn’t held the deception against you, though?’

‘No, sir. I can’t say she has.’

‘What has she told you about Manone?’

‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ Kenny said.

Fiona gave a little grunt and lowered her auburn lashes.

The tasks allocated to Stone and Galbraith were more mundane than those given out to Kenny. They’d been out and about on the streets of Govan putting the arm-lock on small fry and fishing for information on John Flint, trying unsuccessfully to connect him to Manone. Even so, the list of Manone’s associates was growing longer week by week; Italian importers, restaurant owners, proprietors of cafés and fish-and-chip shops, the innocent distributors of religious statues. Names were dropped, names hinted. Gradually the links between Manone and certain respected citizens were becoming clearer.

Charges were possible even at this early stage, but Mr Winstock wasn’t after petty thieves, smash-and-grab merchants or pedlars of stolen goods. He could have yanked in the Hallops, for instance, and made them sweat but he’d laid hands on a few of Manone’s minions in the past and had suffered the humiliation of watching them walk free from court, thanks to the ingenuity of lawyer Carfin Hughes. Manone was a prime target now, though. Faceless men in dank offices in Whitehall were interested in Manone, which suggested that it had become a matter of national security, and he, a humble detective inspector in Glasgow CID, had a chance to make a name for himself by putting the fear of God in every traitor, every smart-arsed criminal who hoped to back the Fascist axis for gain and glory.

‘I’m taking her to the panto,’ Kenny MacGregor said.

‘Pardon?’

‘Mother Goose, at the King’s.’

‘Who? This girl?’

‘Rosie, yes.’

Fiona grunted again, a gruff sound from the back of her throat.

‘At your own expense, I trust?’ Winstock said.

‘Oh, aye, Mr Winstock, at my own expense.’

‘Do you think a bit of music or a drink at the bar at the interval will loosen her tongue, then?’

‘I don’t know, sir. It might.’

‘How do you talk to her? Can you do the hokey-pokey?’

‘The what, sir?’

Inspector Winstock waggled his fingers in the air, scattering crumbs. ‘The hokey-pokey. Sign language. She’s deaf, isn’t she?’

‘She can read lips and makes out what I say pretty well.’

‘When it suits her,’ Fiona put in.

‘What else do you have for me?’ Winstock said. ‘Have you been through the company registers again? Have you found out how large a slice of Bonskeet’s Manone really owns?’

Kenny said. ‘He has a thirty-two per cent holding.’

‘Legitimate?’

‘Nothing to prevent it, sir,’ said Kenny. ‘It’s my guess that if we obtained warrants and combed through every account book Manone keeps at Central Warehouse we’d find nothing. However,’ he paused, ‘Rosie’s stepfather works for the estate agency that Manone bought last year. And that, I think, is quite interesting and possibly significant.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Bernard Peabody appears to be an honest chap. Fine army record, no black marks against him.’

The inspector sat forward, arms on the desk. ‘If Peabody is honest then he’s definitely one to work on. Have you interviewed him yet?’

‘Not yet,’ said Kenny. ‘I’m working up to it.’

‘Well, be as quick as you can.’

‘I don’t want to alarm that branch of the family.’

‘No, you’re right. It’s one thing to let Manone know he’s under observation but we shouldn’t antagonise the rest of them at this stage. Do you think you can get the girl to talk?’

‘I can probably persuade her to introduce me to Peabody.’

‘That’s a start, I suppose,’ Winstock said. ‘Now, Fiona, what do you have for us this week? Anything we can sink our teeth into?’

Fiona shuffled a bundle of typewritten pages, pulled one out and passed it to her boss. ‘Only this, Mr Winstock.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a reply from the Immigration Department in answer to the letter I wrote them on your behalf six weeks ago.’

‘When did it arrive?’

‘By this morning’s post, sir.’

Winstock scanned the letter and scowled at the officers as if it was their fault that the information had been so long in arriving.

‘Harker?’ Winstock said. ‘Who is this chap Harker and what’s he doing in Glasgow, sucking up to Manone?’

‘He arrived in Liverpool off the Caronia from New York on the thirteenth of November,’ Fiona said. ‘I’ve a copy of the passenger list if you need it. He didn’t come alone. He travelled with a woman.’

‘What woman?’ Winstock said. ‘The woman in our photograph?’

‘That’s what we haven’t been able to establish yet,’ said Kenny MacGregor.

‘The woman Harker travelled with was, apparently, his wife.’ Fiona said. ‘At least they registered as a married couple and shared a cabin. Constable Stone has picked up on Harker since then, I believe.’

‘But not the woman?’

‘No, sir, not the woman.’ Stone consulted a battered notebook. ‘On the nineteenth of November Harker called on Johnny Flint at Flint’s office in the Paisley Road. That’s where I first saw him, Harker I mean. But I didn’t know who he was then. He had wheels at his disposal and I was on foot so I couldn’t follow him. However, five days later, on the twenty-fourth, Flint left the office and drove into Glasgow. This time I had the van and I was able to tail him. He went to the Athena Hotel in Glasgow in the late forenoon and spent two and a half hours up in one of the rooms with Harker.’

‘How do you know it was Harker?’

‘I checked at the desk, sir. He’d registered under his own name.’

‘Well, he’s either stupid or has ba … nerve,’ Winstock said. ‘The woman, the wife, was she there with him?’

‘No sign of her, Inspector. At least I didn’t see her.’

‘Are you sure she was ever there at all?’

‘No, sir, I can even be sure of that.’

‘So none of you have actually seen the woman Harker travelled with?’ All three officers shook their heads. Winstock regarded them balefully before he went on, ‘Harker, known to be one of Carlo Manone’s cronies from Philadelphia, steps off a transatlantic liner travelling on an open passport with his wife. What does that suggest?’

‘That he intends to stay in Britain for a while,’ Galbraith offered.

‘And he’s not shy about advertising his presence,’ Winstock said. ‘At a guess I’d say the action’s elsewhere.’

‘With the wife?’

‘Possibly.’

Galbraith said, ‘I think I’ll trot round to the Athena this afternoon and find out if Harker’s checked out and if he has, who paid his bill.’

‘Take Kenny along,’ Winstock said. ‘Show the desk clerks, waiters and chambermaids the photograph. See if we can find out exactly who this woman is and give her a name. I don’t suppose there’s even the remote possibility that she is Harker’s wife, but you never know, do you? So what’s our first priority?’

‘Find the wife,’ said Kenny.

‘That’s it,’ the Inspector said. ‘Wherever Harker’s lady is hiding, I want her located as soon as possible.’

‘And watched, sir?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Inspector Winstock said. ‘And watched.’