10

At Force HQ in Pitt Street, Lou Perlman went to Sandy Scullion’s office. The kiddie drawings on DI Scullion’s bulletin-board had a cheering effect, all those innocent yellow suns and square houses and matchstick figures waving from windows and funny doglike things running on lime-green lawns. Sometimes he wished he had a life like Scullion’s. Would he know what to do with it? I’m home, love. What’s for dinner? My day was a nightmare, darling … I’d die for a G&T. He scanned the drawings while Scullion finished a conversation on the telephone.

When he hung up, Scullion asked, ‘How is Colin?’

‘Impatient. Champing at the bit. Thinks his life is over. Colin loves control over events, and one thing you can’t control is a serious cardiac arrest. Or its consequences. So he’s flattened and a wee bit angry. You haven’t met him, have you?’

‘No. What’s the prognosis?’ Sandy Scullion frowned, ran a hand across his thin ginger hair. He was a genuine man, and when he was concerned about something he couldn’t hide it.

‘Doctors don’t say a lot.’

Scullion said, ‘I’m sorry, Lou. Really. Still. Might have been worse. A total eclipse.’

‘Might have been, right enough,’ Perlman said. He thought of Colin and how, before he’d married Miriam, he’d been through a stream of girlfriends, dumping them ruthlessly. He had charm, which he used as a weapon. Master of heartbreak. Miriam seemed to have tamed that cruel streak long ago. She had strength, and Lou admired her for it.

‘Are you close?’ Scullion asked.

‘Not as much as I might have wished. He went his way, I went mine. He liked banking, sitting in his big London office and wheeler-dealing obscene sums of money from one numbered account to another. He thrived on that stuff. When he quit the bank business and returned to Glasgow, he set himself up as a financial consultant. Hordes of clients. They came in greedy droves. Make me rich, Colin, they cried.’

‘And did he?’

‘I imagine he did.’

‘Will he retire?’

‘Might not have a choice,’ Lou said. Fatigue dimmed his mind. How many hours had he slept? He thought of the bridge, and the dead man’s identity; he also thought about other cases demanding his attention – a charred skeleton that had been found in a sewage-pipe under a building in Stobcross Street last week, and a young wino clubbed to death in Sighthill Park three nights ago – all things he ought to get focused on. But Miriam’s appearance had knocked him off-balance.

‘I got some pics of our hanging man, Lou.’ Sandy Scullion opened a folder on his desk. Lou found himself looking at photographs of the corpse’s face. He sifted the assorted black and whites, and listened to office noises seep into his consciousness: phones, clackety-clack of conversation, banter between cops, a kettle boiling, somebody humming ‘Those were the Days, My Friend’. This face. This guy. I know him, I’ve seen him. Where oh where? His memory was too often a wayward instrument. He had to coax it to work, and sometimes it took too long. He removed his coat and tossed it across a chair.

Scullion, in dark suit, neat white shirt and dark tie, went back behind his desk and said, ‘By the way, Lou. I love the threads. Planning an ocean voyage? Got your sextant packed, and your hardtack bickies ready?’

‘You’re a right chucklefest. It’s a fucking blazer, Sandy. An old fucking blazer. I got dressed in the dark. Okay, so it’s got brass buttons. So what. I make no excuse for the flannels either.’

‘I’m not the fashion police, Lou. I’m only slagging you –’

‘I don’t have somebody to iron my shirts and see I’m turned out all neat and tidy, do I?’

‘Oh Lord. Remind me to hang a sign on my door. No Curmudgeons Need Apply.’

‘Bloody winter depresses me, Sandy. Dead trees, nothing growing. It gets longer every year. Roll on spring.’ Perlman swatted a hand through the air in a gesture of irritation, sat down, longed to smoke. One reason he hated the confines of Pitt Street. Tobacco-Free Zone.

‘Anyone reported missing lately?’ he asked.

‘Usual runaway kids, sad stories, anxious parents. A woman who said she was going to the corner shop for cigarettes, never came back. Nobody matching the face in the photographs, Lou. Not yet.’

Perlman stood up. He had to get out. This place was overheated, he was sweating, and the sirens of nicotine were ululating. ‘I’ll pop over to Mandelson’s,’ he said. ‘Take one of those glossies with me.’

‘We can send a uniform, Lou. We’ve got the Stobcross Skeleton on the desk. And that kid who was beaten. It’s not like we’re looking for something to do –’

‘I know, I know. I need a walk, Sandy. Clear my head.’

‘Is your mobile powered on?’

Perlman patted his pockets, searched his coat, couldn’t find his mobile. Then he remembered seeing it last on the kitchen table.

Scullion said, ‘Take mine. And remember not to switch it off. I want to be able to call you in case McLaren’s finished the P-M before you come back.’ He slid a slimline royal-blue gizmo across the desk. Perlman shoved it in his pocket, then struggled back into his coat.

‘See you shortly, Sandy.’

Scullion, who’d worked his way up through the ranks under Perlman’s guidance, watched him step out of the room. He was very fond of Lou; he couldn’t imagine a time when Perlman would retire, any more than he could conceive of him ever leaving Glasgow. The sometimes abrasive nature of the city, the often melancholy countenance of the place, found correspondences in Perlman’s character. And just as the city could be good-natured and gregarious, so could Lou Perlman – a scratched gem of a man, and too often alone for his own well-being.

Scullion’s wife Madeleine adored Perlman, although she’d once famously remarked that, like Lagavulin, he was an acquired taste. Sandy made a little note on a slip of paper. Invite LP to dinner soon.