The Papers of Tony Veitch (29 page)

‘The jig's up, son,' he said. ‘You're going to have to admit more than you did that night in East Kilbride. You're not going
out for a fancy meal now. Not for a long time. Like a lot of people who've done bad things, I think you wanted to get caught. Know why?'

Dave was staring carefully ahead.

‘That lounge-bar. I caught you just outside the lavvy door. There's another exit from that lavvy into the rest of the building. Why didn't you use it?'

In his mirror Harkness saw Dave's eyes thinking about that.

‘You don't have to say anything,' Laidlaw said. ‘We can save you the trouble. We've got a bottle of vintage paraquat with your prints on it.'

Dave's eyes softened for the first time into doubt.

 

 

 

 

36

H
anging about the main office, Bob Lilley was glad that he saw Harkness first. Harkness sent his eyes to the ceiling in admission of what they both knew would have to be acknowledged. Bob looked at his left lapel and took in enough breath to launch a zeppelin.

‘It's what they say, is it?' he said.

Harkness nodded.

‘Has he burst yet?'

‘Aye,' Harkness said. ‘He's burst. His fingerprints were on the bottle. That's what did it. He's writing his memoirs now.'

‘Jesus,' Bob said. ‘Old Jack gets it right now and again, though. Doesn't he? Sometimes I wish he didn't.'

‘No,' Harkness said. ‘I'm glad he does. Sometimes I don't like him. But people like that deserve to get it right.'

Laidlaw came in with a paper cup of coffee, looking for sugar. He had no problem finding it, being popular for the moment. He stirred his coffee and looked at Bob.

‘Ernie Milligan's not around, is he?' Laidlaw said.

The room winced. Laidlaw smiled at Bob.

‘Naw,' he said. ‘I'm only kidding. He did it according to his lights. Which are about two-kilowatt.'

Harkness was about to defend Milligan when Laidlaw looked at him. It was a hard look, as sore as your father finding you out in a lie at the age of seven. Harkness knew what was coming.

‘Brian. There's something I better say. I'm disappointed in you. I like you but you're a slow learner. So you gave Big Ernie the photo. Fair enough. But you should've said. That's all. It was fair enough giving it to him, if that's what you felt. But you should've said. I felt a bit betrayed. When Macey let that slip. He didn't know what he was saying. But I did. Aw, Brian.'

‘I was going to tell you.'

‘Going to's what they put on the headstone. Be quicker next time. Friends should share.'

‘Come on, Jack,' Bob said. ‘Maybe friends should share. But did you share with Ernie?'

‘Friends? I don't see Ernie Milligan as a friend. “A thing devised by the enemy.” That's what he is.'

Laidlaw was testing his coffee, put in more sugar. He lit a cigarette.

‘Jack,' Bob said. ‘You've done well. Don't crow.'

‘I'm not crowing. Because I didn't do well enough. Tony Veitch is dead. This case was a failure. But it could've been a bigger one. That's all. I want to admit the failure but I don't want to flagellate myself with it. You know?'

Bob was pushing back his shoulders and putting on his the-world's-my-junior face.

‘I still say you should've told Big Er—'

‘Bob. Don't say. You've had your say. I sat in the Top Spot and listened to you a long time. And apart from the Fenwick Fury here, you're the closest thing to a friend I've got in this
place. And I took it because I couldn't prove otherwise. But now I can. I've just proved it. So don't tell me again. That I should've told Big Ernie. Because I shouldn't. You accused me of careerism. Bob. I'm still here because I think it's where it really matters. But only if you do it right. This time I haven't done that. I just came closer than some. That doesn't mean much. But
maybe
it could exempt me from your advice for a wee while. Eh? As auld Eck used to say.'

Bob sculpted his face into impassiveness.

‘Okay, Jack. I was maybe out of order—'

‘Bob. I think you were definitely out of order.'

‘I was
maybe
out of order. But I don't see any need to dig up Brian. He did what he thought was the right thing.'

‘Nobody's digging up Brian. Brian. Am I digging you up?'

‘Well. I feel as if my second name was Pompeii.'

‘Ya bastard,' Laidlaw said.

‘See what I mean, Jack?' Bob said complacently. ‘You dig people up even when you don't know you're doing it.'

‘But I should've said,' Harkness said.

‘Why?' Bob said. ‘Jack would probably've needed tranquillizers if you had. I mean, what was wrong with telling Ernie?'

‘I'll tell you,' Laidlaw said. ‘Because this thing isn't finished yet. I'm sorry, Brian. But it's what wee Frankie Millers sings: “You mighta brung brains to the show”. You know what you've done? Just by giving a photograph to Big Ernie. You've extended the problem.'

‘Oh Christ,' Bob said. ‘Here we go again. Jack and his amazing crystal ball. Tell me, Jack. Why was that a problem?'

‘Because people like Ernie Milligan are dangerous. He knows this city, he says. Brian. You have to learn where to put your
trust. He's like a lot of policemen here. He knows the names of streets. He doesn't know the city. Who does? Walk down a side-street on your own, you're finding out again. Who ever knew a city? It's a crazy claim. And those who make impossible claims are always going to cause more trouble than they solve.'

‘Aye, all right, Jack.' Bob was trying to be patient. ‘But could you be more exact.'

‘Certainly. Somebody else is going to die. Like tomorrow or the next day.'

‘That's a safe bet,' Bob said. ‘In China, you mean?'

‘Brian. I'll talk to you. Bob's head's on holiday. Milligan doesn't solve bother. He manufactures it. Because he
is
a careerist. If trouble wasn't there, he would invent it. He feeds on it, he needs it. You listened to Dave McMaster there. But did you hear him? He was telling us two things. He killed three people. And. There was Ballater. Hook Hawkins. John Rhodes. Cam Colvin. And Macey. You know what “volatile” means? That's what that mixture is. I mean, Cam and John. They don't await the fullness of time. They're looking for someone. Because they know this deal was gerrymandered. They may not know how. But they're going to decide they do. Because they're angry. And their kind of violence is just anger declaring independence from reason. That's what Ernie Milligan's helped to do. He puts his X into the equation and doesn't give a shit how it affects the final calculation. Knows this city? He couldn't get a bargain at the Barras.'

‘That's nonsense, Jack,' Bob said. ‘All that seeing into the future. You using Tarot cards?'

‘We'll wait and see,' Laidlaw said. ‘Anyway' – he was staring into Harkness's quietness – ‘what about more normal
things? The stuff of life and that. How's the women situation, Brian?'

Harkness looked up at him, winked.

‘I'm getting engaged.'

‘Congratulations,' Laidlaw said.

‘Same from me. I think,' Bob said. He looked at Laidlaw's face. ‘Some bruise that. It's a good thing Mickey Ballater was half-dead when you fought him.'

‘I know.' Laidlaw was finishing his coffee, gruing at how sweet the dregs were. ‘My hands are lethal weapons. They could get me killed.'

 

 

 

 

37

L
aidlaw's usual problem with funerals was complicated this time. Always unable to bear the reduction of the dead individual's complexity to a paint-by-numbers icon, his method was to clench as hard as he could on the sense of the person he remembered, like a rag for his mind to chew on. But all he had of Tony Veitch were the image of that grotesquely barbecued body and a few fragments of his writings like crazy paving that led nowhere.

He wasn't the only one who didn't know what he was paying respect to. The minister seemed to be reading from the Book of Profound Platitudes. About as much as a stranger might have deduced about Tony Veitch was that he had eyes (‘a student not just of books but of life's lessons'), a mouth (‘always anxious to discuss the world with his friends') and that it had stopped breathing: ‘God took him to his bosom' – some bosom, an embrace like kissing a shark.

Laidlaw sympathised with the minister. How do you say the unsayable, especially when you're talking about someone you never knew to people most of whom probably don't want to know? It made it tricky. Added to that, the ceremony he was trying to perform had its origins in something for which people
were prepared to walk into the mouths of lions but which had since often been processed into spiritual Valium that reduced God to the role of a celestial chemist. Why blame the minister? People got the religion the honesty of their confrontation with death entitled them to.

Laidlaw compensated for the anonymity of the service by including Eck Adamson in the minister's words as well as Tony. It wasn't hard. Both of them could be seen as orphans of the same society, one disowned because he couldn't pass the test of its ideals, the other because he took those ideals too seriously. Both their lives were not easily acceptable. Laidlaw felt the event not as an admission about someone's life but as an attempted conspiracy against admitting it. What was going on in him and what was happening outside only converged at the end, when the frozen ritual thawed again into a painful humanity.

He was waiting near the end of the line that was filing past Milton Veitch. There was someone Laidlaw assumed was a family friend with him. Passing in front of Mr Veitch was a group of young people, presumably students who had known Tony. They were casually dressed but in subdued colours. Inconspicuous among them was Lynsey Farren.

As each shook hands with him, Mr Veitch was checking the faces as if he were looking for something. Whatever it was, he obviously wasn't finding it. In the bewilderment that made an accident of his face the way weather can erode sculpture, Laidlaw recognised a kinship with Eck dying. He seemed looking for lost reassurance. He wouldn't find it in the small, passing parade that must have been to him like a celebration of the fact that there comes a point in our lives when the
world seems younger than we are and determined to unlearn what it has taught us.

In that moment he could be seen to be lost, his money just so much paper, his status a terrible irony. With luck, he wouldn't be able to buy himself more illusion. Laidlaw felt a brute gladness in observing him, a weird gaiety in sadness. The feeling had nothing of revenge in it, didn't happen because Laidlaw had felt contempt for his spurious self-assurance. It was about hope, the way Milton Veitch seemed almost capable of trying to begin again because he had no option.

It was like the possibility of growth from wild Tony's death, from Eck's bleak living. The odds were such growth would never happen, but the renewed affirmation of belief in its possibility was the best you could hope for from life. Laidlaw was moved. He was also glad to see Alma Brown beside him, like a wife.

He remembered Dave bursting like a haemorrhaging tumour in the police station, spilling the pus of his guilt, his compulsive need to share himself with someone, anyone. Once started, he couldn't stop.

‘Ah liked Tony, though. Ah liked him. But Ah couldn't have respect. Ah jist couldny. He was a mug. Ye know whit Ah mean? He didny know the way it was. He didny know. He was livin' in Disneyland. He had no right to be so stupid. Nobody has. Collins was a shite-head. He thought the world was his piss-house. He's healthier dead. When he did that to Lynsey, I knew it was time. Ah mean, who did he think he was? He was out of touch. So Ah put him in touch. An' Eck knows Ah've done it. So he has to go. Jesus, he wisny a bad auld man. But he wisny a great loss, either. Not even to himself. Ah thought at
the time maybe Ah done him a favour. Then Ah knew Ah wis in bother. But Tony. Ah shouldn't have done that. But he was askin' for it. He was, ye know. Tony wanted to pay for everybody. Ah needed somebody to pay for me. Ah cashed the lot in on him. Oh Jesus, Ah did. That was the bad one. Collins, Ah was angry. Ah'd do it again tomorrow. Eck Ah didn't even see. But Tony was slow and sore. We talked a bit. Ah knocked him out, ye know. Jesus, killin' him was hard. But Ah did it. An' faked it up. Nobody else knew. Ah liked Tony. But Ah liked me more. But Ah liked Tony.'

Laidlaw reached Mr Veitch and shook hands with him. They both said, ‘I'm sorry' simultaneously. It seemed to Laidlaw like the most authentic communication they had had with each other, perhaps the most authentic communication two temporarily honest men could have.

Outside, the sunlight didn't know Tony was dead. Some groups of people stood on the steps of the crematorium. Gus Hawkins detached himself from one of the groups and came across.

‘Hullo,' he said. ‘How does it feel to be right?'

‘I wouldn't know,' Laidlaw said.

‘I mean about Tony.'

‘I wasn't right. I just didn't believe anybody else was.'

‘I didn't know policemen came to the funerals of people who were murdered.'

‘I don't know if they do. I just came to this one.'

‘Why?'

‘It felt like something I should do. Your girlfriend. What's her name?'

‘Marie.'

‘She didn't come?'

‘She couldn't face it. She went through to see her folks today. She'll be back tonight.'

‘Where are you going now?'

‘Straight into a depression.'

‘You want to share it?'

‘You not working?'

‘Day off. I'll stand you lunch.'

Gus looked at him, looked back at the students he had been talking to. His next remark seemed inspired by his identification with them.