Prized Possessions (37 page)

‘Unless he was one of the men who tried to steal from you?'

‘I have been out of Glasgow for two days,' Dominic said. ‘I only found out about Tommy a couple of hours ago. I don't know what happened. I'll have to wait for the result of the Fiscal's report just like everyone else.' He slid his hand from chin to mouth, covered his lips with his forefinger. ‘Did Tommy Bonnar steal from me?'

‘How would I know?'

‘I think you do,' Dominic said. ‘I think that is why you are so upset about Tommy's death.'

‘Doesn't it bother you at all that two wee kiddies are dead an' another one's in the hospital?' Polly said.

‘It bothers me,' Dominic said. ‘It also bothers me that the mother of the children couldn't be found at the time. That she left six small children to fend for themselves while she went out drinking and to pick up men.'

‘Perhaps she had to.'

‘She did not have to,' Dominic said.

‘You know that for sure?'

‘I know that for sure,' Dominic said. ‘Incidentally, the sister turned up. She came back to Lilyburn of her own accord about one o'clock today. The police found her and took her into custody. She'll be charged with neglect or some such thing and imprisoned for a little while. He other children, the survivors, have been taken into the care of the local authority and are billeted at Randolph House Children's Home. The small child in hospital is not in danger.'

‘How do you know these things?'

‘I have a telephone.'

‘And friends in high places?' said Polly.

‘And friends in high places,' Dominic agreed. ‘If it was only concern for the children that brought you to me you may rest assured that they will be taken care of, that we will look after them.'

‘We?'

‘Tommy worked for us. We have an obligation to his family.'

‘Will you look after them the way you looked after us?'

‘The situations are not at all the same,' Dominic said. ‘Tell me what really brings you here today? You want to trade, do you not?'

‘Trade?'

‘I think you have information. I think you have decided on a price for it.'

She pushed her chair back a little and turned towards him, crossing her legs under the pleats of her skirt. The last of the light had drained from the sky and all she could see in the glass was a reflection of herself floating in a cube of half-light that seemed to come from no definable source. Dominic rested so far back in the dining-room chair that she could see nothing of him in the mirrored cube and for a split second had the impression that she was entirely alone. She inscribed a little circle with her shoe, looking down at it, while Dominic, finger still pressed to his lips, waited politely.

‘I don't want your money,' Polly said.

‘What do you want?'

‘I want – I need a promise I can trust.'

‘What sort of promise?'

‘Not to – not to do anything else to anyone.'

He sat forward suddenly, a shrug of the shoulders, almost a lunge.

Polly started in spite of herself. He leaned his elbows on the table and thrust his face towards her; no boy now, no meek and uncertain adolescent. His expression altered when he smiled; it was not a smile of amusement but of anger, or near anger, as if she had tried his patience too far. Polly held herself still, the foot still, raised her shoulders and met his angry gaze without flinching.

‘All right,' Dominic said. ‘Let's stop beating around the bush, Miss Conway. I think that you have guessed that I have lost money. Do you know who stole from me?'

Polly nodded.

‘Do you know where my money is?'

Polly nodded again.

‘Did Walsh send you here to make a deal?'

‘No,' Polly said. ‘He'd kill me if he even suspected I was talking to you.' She gave a tiny sigh, blowing out her lips. ‘Patsy's inclined to think I'm working for you as it is. If he knew I'd come here today…'

Dominic raised a hand, showed her the palm.

‘I can flatten Patsy Walsh if I choose to do so,' he said. ‘But I do not operate in that way. Whatever you may have heard, Polly, I do not resort to such methods if I can avoid it.' He placed his hand flat on the table, not violently, not slapping. ‘You're about to tell me that the safe's at the bottom of the river, aren't you? You're about to tell me that Tommy Bonnar set up the job and that your boyfriend Patsy Walsh pulled it off, or should I say did not pull it off, not properly. How much information are you willing to give me? Will you tell me that the Hallops are also involved? I figured that out long ago.

‘I also figured out that your sister Barbara told them where the safe was placed within the building. But' – he raised his hand again, showed her the palm again – ‘I cannot prove any part of it. Sure, I could send O'Hara to scare the living daylights out of Jackie Hallop, and Jackie would probably blurt out the whole idiotic story. But then I would be forced to do something about it. I do not want that. I do not want to have to act upon a certainty. Do you understand?'

‘Because of the police?'

‘Because I'm in
business,
Polly.'

‘Do you really believe that?' Polly said.

‘I do, absolutely I do.'

‘Taking money from innocent people is not business, it's extortion.'

‘Innocent people?' Dominic said. ‘I would be interested to hear how you define “innocent”. Let me put it to you this way: if it's proved that Tommy Bonnar's house was deliberately set on fire then that would be an act of murder, would it not?'

‘Of course.'

‘If the guilty party is found what would you have done to him?'

‘He should be hanged,' Polly said.

‘Fine,' Dominic said. ‘Let's suppose the guy who carried out the act, who set the fire that killed Tommy and the children, was obeying instructions from another party; would that other party be equally guilty?'

‘More so,' Polly said.

‘No matter what Tommy had done?'

‘Nothing Tommy did could justify killing him, never mind two innocent children. Surely you aren't going to tell me that the kiddies were somehow to blame as well?'

‘No, the children were entirely innocent.'

‘You see,' said Polly. ‘That's my point.'

‘An eye for an eye?'

‘In this sort of case, yes.'

‘You would have the person, or persons, executed?'

‘I would.'

‘Even if the question weren't hypothetical? Do you know what—'

‘Yes, I know what hypothetical means,' said Polly. ‘I just don't see what any of this has to do with me?'

‘It does have to do with you, Polly. It's the sole reason you're here. You believe in justice, in judicial revenge. You believe that a society should protect its own and seek retribution from those who offend against society,' Dominic told her, ‘provided decisions are made and punishments meted out by someone else.'

‘That's what courts are for, what judges are for?'

‘Certainly,' Dominic said. ‘But if you were the judge…'

‘I'm not. I don't know anything about the law.'

‘What law?'

‘The law of the land, of Scotland.'

‘Yet you would have this man, this murderer executed?'

‘If he was found guilty, yes.'

‘What if I told you that Patrick Walsh was responsible for Tommy Bonnar's death and the deaths of the children: would that make a difference?'

‘I don't believe you. Patsy wouldn't…'

‘I'm not saying he did,' Dominic told her. ‘But if he had, what then?'

‘He would have to be tried,' Polly said.

‘And if he was guilty?'

‘No,' she said. ‘No, you're trying to make me say things I don't mean.'

‘You would
not
have him executed? Because you know him, because you care for him, perhaps, you would bend the law just a little? You would plead extenuating circumstances, you would begin to dilute the notion of innocence, to water it down. No?'

There was more to it, Polly realised, than hypothesis, than mere debate. He was putting her on the spot and she felt again the precariousness of her position. These were matters that she hadn't considered, matters to which Dominic Manone had obviously devoted much thought. He sounded plausible in his argument but she could not be sure that he was not trying to trap her, to wring from her an admission that she might later regret. Was he trying to tell her in a round-about way that Patsy Walsh was Tommy's killer? Was he letting her down gently?

She said, ‘If a man's guilty of murder he should be made to pay for it.'

‘Unequivocally?'

‘If he's guilty I'd give the same answer, whoever he happened to be.'

‘It is, then, a principle with you?'

‘I suppose it is,' said Polly.

‘I see,' said Dominic. ‘I see. Now, tell me, do you still wish to trade?'

‘No,' Polly said. ‘In any case, what do I have left to trade with? You already know all about it.'

‘Sure, but I can't prove it,' Dominic said.

Polly looked down at her shoes. ‘They didn't get away with it. They didn't get away with the safe or the money.'

‘Is that what they told you?'

‘Yes, and I believe them.'

Dominic gave a little
huh
of amusement. ‘Then where's my cash?'

‘As you surmised,' said Polly, ‘at the bottom of the river.'

‘I should probably go fishing for it then?'

‘That's up to you.' Polly placed her feet upon the carpet, a thin, hard carpet with a russet design. She stood, not hurriedly. ‘There would be no certainly that you would find it, of course.'

‘Ah!'

‘In fact,' Polly said, ‘I doubt if you would find it.'

‘Because it isn't there at all?'

‘How do I know? They may be lying. I can't be certain.'

‘So' – Dominic eased himself from the chair – ‘after all our talk no resolution is possible, at least in the matter of the warehouse robbery.'

‘That's how it looks,' said Polly.

He stood close to her, not tall enough to be intimidating. He was, in fact, almost the same height as she was, no more than an inch taller. Nothing she had said seemed to have offended him. He was smiling, not broadly but with a little twist of the lip that lifted his sallow cheek into something like a dimple. That, she felt, was wrong, all wrong; a man like Dominic Manone should not have a dimple. But then a man like Dominic Manone should not engage in rational and logical discussion, should not concern himself with justice or even fair trade.

He laid his hand on her sleeve. She felt herself shiver. It was something she could not control. There were no words that could excuse what she felt at that moment.

‘I regret what happened to the kiddies,' he said. ‘I regret what happened to Tommy too, though he was not quite so innocent as you may imagine. There's usually a trace, a hint of collusion somewhere if you look hard enough for it.' He steered her towards the dining-room door. ‘I think we all collude in shaping our own destinies, don't you?'

‘I – I don't know.'

It was dark outside now, the last of the twilight gone.

He said, ‘I will drive you home.'

‘No, I can…'

‘It is the least I can do, Polly, after all you've done for me.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘In helping me make up my mind.'

‘To do what?'

‘To do nothing,' he said. ‘Nothing, that is, that will concern you.'

‘Or Patsy?' Polly said, quickly.

‘Or Patsy,' said Dominic Manone.

Chapter Seventeen

It seemed to Polly that the pace of life quickened in the first days of 1931. She had been reassured by Dominic Manone but not entirely taken in by his left-handed promises, if, indeed, they were promises at all, and she returned to the routines of the Burgh Hall office nursing an odd sense of accomplishment.

She reported to Babs most of what had been said at Manor Park Avenue. Babs in turn passed on a garbled version to Jackie Hallop who was so relieved to be officially off the hook that he shelled out ten shillings to take his rediscovered sweetheart to the Locarno in Glasgow where the world's champion ballroom dancers were giving an exhibition. Dennis went out and got drunk.

What Patsy Walsh did with himself that first weekend of the year nobody knew and, it seemed, nobody cared. The consensus of opinion was that he was still sulking because he had bungled the warehouse robbery. It didn't occur to anyone, not even Polly, that Patsy might be suffering guilt at the deaths of Tommy Bonnar and poor, shabby Maggie's two wee bairns.

Maggie herself appeared before the Fiscal Depute, answered a multitude of searching questions, was released on bail – put up by Dominic – and charged to appear before the Sheriff on Monday week. She was then escorted to the Victoria Infirmary by Irish Paddy and wept inconsolable buckets over the wheezing two-year-old in the cot in the children's ward before going off to spend the night not in Irish Paddy's bed, God no!, but on a mattress on the floor of Irish Paddy's mother's house in Cranston Street, across the river.

Spurred on by Tony Lombard, there was also much activity down at the Rowing Club; a devising of little white lies necessary to satisfy the authorities and regain for Maggie whatever pitiful possessions had been rescued from the fire, to ensure that the surviving offspring were found a good home somewhere out of the city, if, that is, the Panel saw fit to hand them back into Maggie's care; and, when the bodies were finally released, how to give Tommy and his kiddies some sort of a send-off, i.e. a decent burial.

Arranging the affairs of the late Thomas Bonnar wasn't foremost in Dominic's mind, however. He indicated to Guido what he was prepared to do – quite a lot – in that direction and let his uncle sort out the details with Tony, Irish Paddy and another Manone employee named Breslin whose brother was, of all things, a priest.