“It’s a very great medical school,” said Stuart. “Many famous doctors have trained there, Bertie. You could even go there yourself.”
“That would be nice,” said Bertie. The thought had occurred
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to him that perhaps Dr Fairbairn had trained there, but then that would have been a long time ago. Glasgow did not seem like a good place for psychotherapists, Bertie thought. It was difficult to say exactly why this should be so, but Bertie certainly felt it. Edinburgh was better territory for that sort of thing. And he had not seen a single floatarium during the taxi drive, not one; a large number of Indian restaurants, of course, but no floataria.
Once they reached the Dumbarton Road, Stuart began to sit forward in his seat and peer out at the roads going off to either side.
“It’s pretty near here,” he said to the driver.
“Ayeitspruttybutwhauryuzwantintogetaff ?” the driver replied genially.
Stuart stared at a road-end which was approaching them on their right. Yes, this was it. There had been a church at the end of the street because he had remembered its odd-shaped tower.
“Right here,” he said to the driver. “This is where we want to get aff.”
The driver nodded and drew into the side of the road. Stuart paid the bill, and then he and Bertie strode across the busy Dumbarton Road and began to walk slowly down the quiet resi-dential street to the right.
“It was along here,” said Stuart. “Further along on this side.”
Bertie skipped ahead of his father, looking for the familiar shape of their red Volvo station wagon. It was not a long street, and before he had gone very far he realised that he had cast his eyes down the line of cars parked along the street and there was no sign of a red Volvo. He turned to face his father.
“Are you sure, Daddy?” he asked. “Are you sure that this is the right road?”
Stuart looked down towards the end of the road. He was sure that this was it. He closed his eyes and imagined that afternoon. He had taken his files from the back of the car and had locked the door. And then he had begun to walk towards the Dumbarton Road and the place where the meeting was to be held. And there had been a dog crossing the road and a motorist 174
had braked sharply. There was no doubt about it; this was the place.
“This is it, Bertie,” he said quietly. “This is where the car was. Right here.”
Stuart pointed to a place now occupied by a large green Mercedes-Benz. Bertie stepped forward and stared into the car, as if expecting to find some clue to the disappearance of their Volvo. And as he did so, they heard a door open in the house directly behind them and a voice call out:
“Yous! Whit chu doin lookin at Mr O’Connor’s motor?”
Bertie sprang back guiltily from the green Mercedes-Benz. He had not so much as touched the glittering car, but the voice from behind him, more of a growl really, would have been enough to frighten anybody, let alone a six- year-old boy on his first trip to Glasgow.
Stuart was taken aback, too, by the accusatory tone of the voice. “My son hasn’t done anything,” he said. “We were just looking.”
The man who had appeared at the door of the house had strode down the path and was now facing Stuart, staring at him belligerently. “Looking for what?” he asked. “Yous never seen a Merc before, eh?”
“I’ve seen one,” said Bertie brightly. “Mrs Macdonald, who lives at the top of the stair, has got a custard- coloured one. She offered to take me for a ride in it.”
The man looked down at Bertie. “Whit you talking aboot, son?”
“He’s just saying . . .” began Stuart.
“Shut your gob, Jim,” said the man. “Whit’s this aboot custard?”
“Oh really!” said Stuart in exasperation. “This is quite ridiculous. Come, Bertie, let’s go.”
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The man suddenly leaned forward and grabbed Stuart by the arm. “Not so fast, pal. You’re coming in to have a word with Mr O’Connor. He disnae like people hanging aboot his street.
You can come in and explain yourself to the man hissel.”
The man’s grip on Stuart’s arm was too powerful to resist, and Stuart found himself being frog-marched up the garden path, followed by an anxious Bertie, his duffel coat flapping about his crushed-strawberry dungarees. Propelled by his captor, Stuart found himself in a sparsely-furnished hallway. “Through there,” said the man, nodding in the direction of a half-open door. “Mr O’Connor will see you now.”
Stuart glared at the man, but decided that the situation was too fragile for him to do anything but comply. He was concerned for the safety of Bertie, who was standing at his side, and he thought that the best thing to do would be to speak to this Mr O’Connor, whoever he was, and explain that they had had no intentions in relation to his car. Perhaps they had experienced vandalism in the past and had, quite unjustifiably, thought that he and Bertie were vandals.
They entered a large living room. The floor was covered with a tartan carpet and the walls were papered with red wall-paper. The room was dominated by a large television set, which was displaying a football game, but with the sound turned down.
On a chair in front of the television set was an extremely over-weight man, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal fleshy, tattooed forearms. As they entered the room, this man half turned round, glanced at them, and then flicked the remote controls of the television set. The football match died in a fading of light.
