8

Sun burned fiercely on the mouth of the Clyde. A launch, a thirty-footer, was anchored about a quarter of a mile from shore. Christopher Caskie stood unsteadily on deck and watched small boats sail towards Ardrossan, Ayr, the Isle of Arran. Sails dazzled yellow and white in the hard light.

Caskie was a card-carrying landlubber. The sea affected his stomach. The rise and fall of water was gentle but it made him queasy anyway, and he had to sit down. He closed his eyes, felt the sun on his eyelids. His short white beard was warm.

He heard footsteps on the stair that led from the lower deck. The man who appeared was six feet six inches tall. He had a tubercular appearance, circles the colour of grape juice under his eyes. His pear-shaped face was too small for the rest of his body. He wore a black silk shirt and white slacks. He farted quietly, sighed with pleasure, then sat down beside Caskie.

‘There’s nothing in the world as satisfying as a good healthy expulsion of gas,’ the man said. His name was Roddy Haggs.

Caskie said, ‘I suppose that depends on your priorities.’

‘Ah. Are bodily functions off-putting to you? Note to self: do not discuss gases with Caskie.’ Haggs studied other boats in the vicinity with his binoculars. ‘Look at that. Look at that. Fuck me. I know what I’d like to do to her. Ooo.’

The object of Haggs’s lust was a tanned blonde teenage girl in a neon lime bikini who dived from a small yacht about three hundred yards away. She vanished underwater, then surfaced laughing. She climbed back into the boat. She had a melodic laugh. Her water-flattened hair was pressed to her skull.

‘Very nice,’ Caskie said. He felt Haggs expected an appropriate response. They were members of the same club: men of the world. But different worlds.

‘Nice? Show some enthusiasm, Caskie. She’s completely shaggable. What they call a babe. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t fancy a poke at that crumpet.’

A high-powered speedboat passed, sending waves towards the launch, which trembled a little. Caskie felt his stomach tighten.

‘Beer?’ Haggs asked.

‘I’ll pass.’

Haggs popped a lager and slurped it. ‘I’m fascinated by the idea of squeezing out whatever deep secrets the former jockey knows about good old Jackie’s mysterious enterprise. I’ll pop him like a bloody flea. Talk to me about the daughter.’

Caskie shrugged. ‘Divorced. Intelligent. She had a fondness for amphetamine a few years back but she kicked it. I seriously doubt she knows anything. She was close to her father. But I don’t imagine for a moment he discussed his business with her.’

Haggs said, ‘Which leaves Senga.’

‘Senga’s a good-hearted sort, but probably hard as bloody nails if you step on her toes the wrong way. I don’t think she’s privy to anything either … I’ll tell you one thing, Haggs. Her heart may be good, but it’s broken right now.’

Haggs was silent for a time, cracking his knuckles. Caskie wondered if the silence was some form of sympathy, then decided it was more likely that Roddy Haggs didn’t have a clue what to say about grief. He just wasn’t good with little sounds of commiseration, the so sorrys and the oh dears that were the basic currency of response to human tragedy.

‘I bet she kept her ears open,’ Haggs said eventually. ‘I bet she knew Jackie’s business.’

‘Even if she did, which I doubt, it doesn’t mean she’d be willing to repeat anything she heard,’ Caskie said. He stroked his white beard. He thought it made him look almost nautical, like an admiral. How ironic.

‘Sod it,’ Haggs said. ‘It doesn’t matter who tells us what. We’ll get it in the end anyway. There’s just too much buzz vibrating along the grapevine for this to be a bag of hot air. That old tosspot Mallon was up to something, and it was big, and I’m not being left out in the fucking cold. Nothing passes me by.’

Loose talk in the criminal fraternity, Caskie thought; but enough to convince Haggs something profitable was in the wind. Caskie decided to risk standing up. He leaned carefully against the handrail and looked down into the water. Reflected light hit his sunglasses. His mouth filled with sticky saliva. He was going to throw up. His moment of courage passed and he made his way shakily back to his seat. I’ll never be a seagoing man. No life on the ocean wave for me.

Haggs said, ‘Jackie Mallon left Glasgow last Wednesday from Central Station. You any idea where he went?’

‘It’s news to me,’ Caskie said.

‘My man saw him enter the station, then he was gone in a flash.’

‘Maybe he didn’t go anywhere. Maybe he was playing games with your man.’

‘He was seen buying a ticket,’ Haggs said.

‘And then your man lost him? Downright careless.’

‘You know nothing about this jaunt?’

‘Nothing. Anything else on the agenda, Haggs?’

Haggs gestured loosely. ‘We’re almost finished.’ He ticked off the names on his fingertips. ‘Matty Bones. Joyce. Senga Craig. I’ll deal with Matty when he’s had a few more hours to sweat. You can cope amiably with Joyce. And Senga – do you want me to leave her to you?’

‘Yes,’ Caskie said.

‘You’re the expert on the Mallon family, after all. You’re the authority. You’re the historian.’

‘Up to a point,’ Caskie said.

‘What you don’t know about the family isn’t worth knowing.’ Haggs stretched his long arms until his elbow joints cracked. He smiled. The expression made him appear ugly and unwanted, like the solitary bruised Cornice left in a greengrocer’s display after all the others have been sold. ‘It’s a bloody shame Jackie was such a stubborn fucker –’

‘I don’t think he’d have told you anything in a million years,’ Caskie said. ‘He was never easily intimidated. If he didn’t want to tell you something, that was the end of it. You could pull out his fingernails one by one, he still wouldn’t tell you if he didn’t want to.’

Caskie remembered Jackie Mallon the last time he’d seen him – Jackie’s ruined looks, the glossy hair, the sunken cheeks that might have belonged to an old trumpeter. A chance encounter on Argyle Street on a busy Saturday afternoon last Christmas, the shops festooned with tinsel and light, an army of Santas everywhere, a kiddy choir singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, and Jackie walking one way, Caskie the other, and they’d collided. They shook hands vigorously, men who tolerated, perhaps even liked each other, despite the fact they worked different sides of the street.

What are you up to these days, you old rogue? Caskie asked.

All I do with my time is play dominoes in the senior citizens’ centre. You didn’t hear this from me, but we actually play for money. It’s illegal, I know, I know. But where’s the harm in gambling for a few quid, eh? Such are the innocent pleasures of sorry old men. I was never a reprobate. Jackie had smiled then, the easy-going smile that made you feel he was sharing an enormous confidence.

Caskie laughed. And I believe in Santa.

Aye, everybody should believe in Santa. Where’s the spirit of Christmas if you don’t believe in the gaffer?

They wished each other seasonal greetings. Jackie Mallon had patted Caskie’s arm and walked away, bent forward a little against the wind that came rushing up from the Clyde and shook the decorations in the streets. Caskie thought he had a quality few rogues possess; he could make you believe he was incapable of the lawlessness attributed to him. He had about him an unsettling air of innocence. Charm, Caskie thought. All charm.

He blinked against savage sunlight. Unsteady as the launch shivered again, he wanted to tell Haggs – look, we didn’t need to meet on this boat, we could have talked over a glass of wine somewhere nice and private outside the city; but no, you have to drag me out to this bloody vessel because you know I don’t have the stomach for water. Haggs had a mean-bastard streak and enjoyed other people’s discomfort.

‘There’s a son,’ Caskie said.

‘He lives overseas. So I hear.’

‘In New York,’ Caskie said. ‘He may come back for the funeral. He’s a cop, incidentally.’

Haggs did another stretching thing with his arms. He looked like a figure made out of pipe-cleaners twisted by a child. ‘So what? Is this a cause for concern or something? An American cop, is that supposed to worry me?’

‘I mention it in passing,’ Caskie said. He thought of Flora Mallon. Had the years been good to her? When he first met her he’d been more than a little smitten by her beauty; she had the kind of presence that would turn heads at parties, the rich black hair and the square jawline that suggested pride and self-assurance and an element of ferocity, the mouth that defied you to kiss it, the dark chocolate eyes that saw straight through you. He’d felt clumsy and inadequate in her presence, he remembered. But he’d been kind to her at a time when she needed somebody.

How was she taking the news of Jackie’s murder? Had she ever stopped loving Mallon? Her notes never made any mention of him. The last time she’d written it was to say how very sad she was to hear of Caskie’s wife Meg dying. Meg had been sick for a very long time, clinging to an existence that seemed worthless to Caskie. Slow death had been a lonely experience for her. And for him too. That pathetic solitude. You sit in a room and hold the sick woman’s hand but you might be the only person on the planet. You want her to die. You pray for it.

Then you wonder if you want her to die for all the wrong reasons.

Haggs scrutinized Caskie for a moment. ‘You don’t like this, do you, Caskie? You and me involved in this. It makes you feel dirty. You think I’m a fucking lout, don’t you? Beneath your station in life. You’ve always looked down your fucking nose at me. For years you’ve made me feel like a turd.’

‘I’m cooperating with you,’ Caskie said. ‘Isn’t that all you’ve ever needed? Feelings don’t enter into it.’

‘I could buy and sell you and it wouldn’t make a fucking dent in my bank account,’ Haggs said. ‘In one month I probably go through more than your entire net worth. You know what this boat cost me? You any idea what I paid for my house in Rouken Glen? Did you know I have a villa in Lanzarote with a swimming pool?’

Caskie said, ‘I’m deeply impressed, Haggs.’

‘Fuck you. I have a real estate company that covers the entire city. I own six full-service garages and a car-rental firm with a fleet of forty. So don’t turn your nose up at me, mister. Don’t talk to me like I’m slime. What have you got, Caskie? Let me tell you. Qualms, right? You’ve got qualms.’

‘I certainly don’t have a fleet of damn taxis,’ Caskie said.

‘Qualms, for fuck’s sake,’ Haggs said. ‘I never trust a word that doesn’t sound the way it looks.’

‘Can we go ashore now?’ Caskie asked.

Roddy Haggs said, ‘Why? Don’t like the water?’

‘I get seasick, Haggs.’

Haggs said, ‘Note to self: Mr Caskie does not like sailing. Don’t ask him again. It makes him want to vomit.’

Caskie stared at the shore. He thought: I have one year until retirement. I’ve never looked forward to it before now. One year and then I’m beyond Haggs’s reach. Gone. All this will be a dream hurriedly dissolving: you hope. He couldn’t wait a year. He didn’t have that kind of patience. He sucked sea air into his lungs as if to cleanse them and thought, I need to get Haggs out of my life soon. Today. Tomorrow. The day after. First chance I get. He’d had dreams of killing Haggs. In one, he dropped Haggs from a great height into a vat of acid and Haggs, screaming, was skinned within seconds. In another he’d strangled Haggs with an old bicycle chain. These dreams always left him drained.

Roddy Haggs unlocked a small cabinet and took out a plastic Tesco bag which had been rolled over and wrapped with very thick rubber bands. He thrust the bag into Caskie’s arms and said, ‘Before I forget. Evidence for the prosecution.’

Caskie, whose heart thumped, and who felt gluey saliva rise again in his throat, took the bag with great reluctance. What have I done? he wondered. What in God’s name?