41

Eddie Mallon met Christopher Caskie in a café a couple of blocks from Force HQ. It was a fashionably relaxed place with ferns and high arches and pretty waitresses, unlike the mutton-pie and strong-tea brigade of grim aproned matrons Eddie remembered from Glasgow restaurants years ago. The girls who served you were good-looking, moussed hair, modishly pale complexions. Eddie ordered a bottle of mineral water, espresso and a chocolate croissant. Caskie, with a prim little nod of his head, asked for tea.

‘Nice room,’ Eddie said.

‘I come here now and again,’ Caskie remarked. ‘Is that a bruise on the side of your neck?’

‘I had an upset,’ Eddie said. ‘I lost my footing.’

‘Sorry to hear that. I hope it’s not too serious.’

‘It’s fine.’ Did he know? Had McWhinnie told him? Eddie seriously doubted McWhinnie would make a report of their encounter.

‘Been shopping?’ Caskie nodded at the bag.

Eddie set it on the floor and said, ‘Just something for Claire.’

‘Nice thought,’ Caskie said. ‘You phoned, so am I forced to assume you have more tricky questions for me? See if I can guess. It’s about Tommy G.’

The waitress, a lovely trim girl in short black skirt, had a good-natured face. She set coffee, croissant, Strathmore water and tea on the table. ‘If you need anything else, let me know,’ and she was gone discreetly. Eddie swallowed the mineral water instantly, then tasted his coffee and bit into his croissant.

Caskie said, ‘I ran the name, Eddie. The computer has no record of Tommy G.’

‘I’m surprised,’ Eddie said.

‘I am too.’

‘You’d expect –’

‘I always try to avoid expectations,’ Caskie said. He tasted his tea and made a face. ‘I don’t remember asking for herbal …’

Tommy G: a blind alley. Eddie swallowed the last of his croissant. ‘Did you run it as Tommy G or Tommy GEE?’

‘Both.’

‘Are there other sources you can try?’

‘They take time.’

I don’t have time, Eddie thought. A funeral, then home. The end. Back to Queens. Back to a dead junkie in an abandoned house. ‘You heard about Billy McQueen?’

Caskie said, ‘On the radio.’

‘You knew the guy?’ Eddie asked.

‘Barely.’

‘Friend of Jackie, they tell me.’

‘I believe there was a vague fiscal relationship over the years,’ Caskie said.

‘Why would anyone murder him?’

‘Has it been confirmed that he was murdered?’

‘Come on. You think he had some freaky thing about scaling unfinished buildings in the dead of night? Like a dangerous hobby that just got out of hand and he slipped? Maybe he dressed in some Spiderman get-up and went out across the scaffolding to look for handy dangling places.’

‘A touch theatrical,’ Caskie said. ‘I can’t begin to guess, Eddie. If I knew the man better, maybe I could proffer an opinion.’

Caskie had a small half-smile on his face: Detective-Inspector Enigma. This man might have been involved in the death of my father, Eddie thought. He gripped the edge of the table and felt his hands tighten, and he saw the inside of his head change colour – as if emotions were tints – and the pattern of his thoughts went this way and that, and he suddenly wanted to reach out and grab Caskie by his striped necktie and drag his head down to the table and pound it and pound it. Then he let the feeling go, and he tried to relax, and he pushed his chair back from the table a few inches. Complicity in a brutal murder. What if you’re wrong, Eddie? What if you’ve miscalculated? But your heart, sometimes reliable in the past, and occasionally impetuous too, says you’re right. Believe in it now.

He leaned towards Caskie and said, ‘Tell me about safe houses.’

‘What houses?’

‘Safe. Places where cops put witnesses for security reasons.’

‘I’ve never had any use for such places personally, Eddie. I assume they exist. I may be wrong.’

‘But you don’t know for sure.’

‘Why are you so interested in the subject?’

‘It popped into my head, Chris.’

‘Without reason?’

‘All kinds of things pop into my head without reason.’

‘You ought to control that tendency.’

‘I try, Chris, I try. Here’s another one. For example: Do you think it’s possible for a cop – a senior officer, say – to run a kind of private fiefdom inside a force? Like his own little kingdom, I mean, where he could do what he liked, he could make his own personal use of manpower, use police property – like safe houses – any way he wanted, he could decide what was right and what was wrong without involving his fellow officers. This guy would be unaccountable. Up to a point.’

‘The man who would be king, eh?’ Caskie smiled. ‘It’s hard to imagine an officer abusing his power to such an extent.’

‘Sure. But it could happen, right?’

‘Is there some reason behind this little fantasy, Eddie? Or does it simply amuse you?’

‘Is it a fantasy, Chris?’

‘I imagine so.’

‘Come on, Chris. Give me a better answer than that.’

Caskie pushed his cup aside and sighed, a long sound. ‘When did you first decide you disliked me, Eddie?’

‘You changed the subject, Chris. Didn’t enjoy the last one?’

‘I had a feeling it wasn’t going anywhere. Now it’s my turn to be curious.’

‘Fine,’ Eddie said. ‘Dislike you? Funny, I can’t decide if it’s simple dislike or a more complicated contempt.’

‘Contempt is strong. Where does it come from, Eddie? Do you despise me for being closer to your family than you? Is that the root of it? I knew your own father better than you ever did. Is that it, Eddie? I’m this stranger, this outsider who got to know your dad and your sister and you can’t cope with that.’

‘You wanted to sling Jackie’s ass in jail, Caskie.’

‘If I’d had the chance. Jackie knew that. He understood the rules. It didn’t stop us being close.’

‘The best of pals,’ Eddie said. ‘I doubt that. You didn’t even trust each other.’

‘We had a working arrangement. We were friends despite the obstacles. Which is more than you ever achieved.’

‘And that was my fault? I was taken away, for fuck’s sake. What chance did I have?’ Eddie gazed past Caskie to the far side of the room where one of the waitresses was watching him in the glazed manner of the daydreamer. His eye travelled beyond her and into a shadowy place. He could have shown Jackie his home in Queens. Toured him around Manhattan. Empire State Building. Staten Island Ferry. The whole works. He could have taken him to a soccer game. Jackie might have liked that, hotdogs, cold beer in waxy cups, the passion of the Hispanic fans. Lost ambitions. Such simple ones.

Eddie pushed his chair back from the table. Dislike. Contempt. He wished he had the kind of dignity that didn’t allow him to yield so easily to these feelings. Claire would have said something like how we’re only human after all and that means weakness as well as strength, vanity as well as humility, but right now Eddie could only think of the fact that his mind was smoking and the smoke smelled of sulphur. Claire had a world of her own, where charity and understanding reigned.

He got up from the table and looked down at Caskie. ‘Tell me, Chris, how long have you known Haggs?’

‘I believe I answered that question before,’ he said.

‘Why the fuck are you lying?’

Caskie asked. ‘I don’t remember lying to you, Eddie. You asked if I knew the man, I told you I didn’t.’

Eddie smiled. ‘You’re cool, Chris. You’re a fucking cucumber on ice.’

‘I’ve been called worse. Don’t forget your bag.’

Eddie picked up the paper bag. Outside he blinked in the unrelenting sun of this pink and blue city. Tarmac shimmered. Starlings flocked above rooftops, a glossy black swarm. He looked this way and that, thinking how clumsily he’d cut the ribbon of polite pretence between himself and Caskie, then decided his destination.