The policemen looked keenly at Bertie. “What’s that, son?”
one asked. “What do you mean when you say that it wasn’t your car?”
96
“It wasn’t,” said Bertie. “Our car had five gears. That one had four. It was a car which Mr O’Connor gave us.”
“Interesting,” said the senior policeman. “A Mr O’Connor gave you a car. Then a firearm is found in it which I imagine you’re going to say you know nothing about.”
“I don’t,” said Stuart. “I had no idea.”
“It must have belonged to this Mr O’Connor then?” asked the policeman.
“Yes,” said Bertie. “It must be his. Or his friend Gerry’s.”
The senior policeman smiled. “I think I’d like to ask a few questions,” he said, adding, and looking at Bertie as he spoke,
“from you first.”
“Now then, Bertie,” said the policeman, as he took his seat in the kitchen. “When we talk to youngsters we like to check up that they know the difference between the truth and . . .”
He was cut short by Irene. “Of course Bertie knows the difference,” she snapped. “He’s a very advanced . . .”
The policeman glowered at her. “Excuse me, Mrs Pollock,”
he said. “I’m talking to this young man, not to you.”
Irene opened her mouth to say something more, but was gestured to by Stuart, who raised a finger to his lips.
“Thank you,” said the policeman. “Now then, Bertie, do you know what I mean when I say that you must tell the truth?”
Bertie, perched on the edge of his chair, nodded gravely. “Yes,”
he said. “I know the difference. I know that you mustn’t tell fibs, although Mummy . . .” He was about to point out that Irene told a whole series of fibs at the police station, but decided that it would be impolitic, and he stopped himself.
“Well,” said the policeman. “Perhaps you’d care to tell us about your car. Is it your car, or is it somebody else’s?”
“Well, really . . .” snorted Irene, only to be silenced by a warning look from the policeman.
97
“We used to have a car,” said Bertie. “Mummy and Daddy were always arguing about it.”
“Oh?” said the policeman. “Why was that? Was it anything to do with where it came from?”
“No,” said Bertie. “It wasn’t that. It was just that they used to forget where they parked it. Daddy left it in Tarbert once, and then he forgot that he had driven through to Glasgow and he came back by train.”
“Leaving the car in Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.
Bertie glanced at Stuart. “He didn’t mean to leave it there,”
he said. “He forgot. Maybe it’s because he’s forty. I think you begin to forget things when you’re forty.”
The two policemen exchanged a glance. Irene was staring at Bertie, as if she was willing him to stop, but Bertie had his eyes fixed on the buttons of the policeman’s jacket. It was easier talking to this policeman, he thought, than to Dr Fairbairn. Perhaps that was because this policeman was not mad, unlike Dr Fairbairn. It was hard to talk to mad people, thought Bertie. You had to be very careful about what you said. By contrast, you could tell policemen everything, because you knew you were safe.
He wondered whether the policeman knew Mr O’Connor.
He thought that the two of them would get on quite well if they met. In fact, he could just imagine the policeman and Mr O’Connor driving off together to the Burrell Collection in Mr O’Connor’s green Mercedes-Benz, talking about football, perhaps. Would they support the same football team? he wondered. Perhaps they would.
“So you went off to Glasgow?” prompted the policeman.
“Yes,” said Bertie. “Daddy and I went off to Glasgow together.” And for a moment he remembered; and recalled how he had been happy in the train with his father, with the ploughed fields unfolding so quickly past the window and the rocking motion of the train upon its rails, and the hiss of the wind. And they had talked about friends, and how important friends were, and he had not wanted the journey to end.
“And you found the car where Daddy had left it in Glasgow?”
asked the policeman.
98
Bertie shook his head. “No. Our car had gone. And that’s when Gerry invited us into Mr O’Connor’s house. And Mr O’Connor said . . .”
The policeman held up a hand. “Hold on,” he said. “This Mr O’Connor – can you tell me a wee bit about him?”
