‘George?’
‘Mr Handel? He’s handcuffed to a bed in the cottage hospital. Important people coming down from Glasgow to see him – my chief constable won’t like that.’ He probably wondered why the words made us smile.
‘Chris whatever’s-his-name? If that was his name.’
‘Crawling all over Sheildaig’s hill with a bomb disposal squad and some scientists from AWRE, happy as the day is long – he’ll probably get a reward.’
‘And Charlie?’
‘I’ve to put him on a train, with an escort to keep him straight . . . all the way to London. Somebody wants to talk to him.’
‘Fabian of the bleeding Yard,’ I muttered gloomily.
‘No,’ Alex said. ‘Not as it happens. Mr Fabian has been outbid. An English twit from the Foreign Office has exercised some obscure privilege, and has first shout on you.’ Then he asked, ‘Where’s the money, by the way? I spoke to Mr Fabian and he was very keen on the money.’
I opened my mouth, but Doris got there first.
‘We don’t know. George must have it. He took it away from me when he came here.’
Alex pushed his chair away from the table. He gave her the old eye lock.
‘Last night Charlie told me not to believe a word you said.’
She held her room key up to him, and let it swing from side to side.
‘You can search my things if you like.’
He shook his head, but took it. Then he held out his hand for mine. After he left us I leaned over the table to Doris and hissed, ‘Where is it?’
‘In one of the boats on the shingle, under a thwart, under a cover. Don’t worry, honey, he won’t find it. I took enough out to pay off the Galbraiths and you. I’ll smuggle the rest back into my stuff before we leave. They won’t search me twice.’ Where had I found a girl who could suddenly use words like thwart?
‘What else haven’t you told me, Doris?’
‘Anything actually, honey – not even my name.’
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, so I stood up.
‘I think I’ll just go for a short walk, and smoke a pipe or two.’
‘OK, hon, but stay away from the boats until I tell you . . . or I’ll drop ya.’
You need a short walk and a couple of pipes to accustom yourself to the idea that you’ve been had over. I’d been guarding against entirely the wrong person for the last week. I had been so concerned about George the maniac, that I’d failed to notice Doris the mobster in my arms. My father would like this story, and laugh at it. I’ll rephrase that: he’d laugh at me.
We took the back seats in the Land Rover. Alex sat alongside his driver up front. Doris shivered and thrust a hand into my flying jacket pocket to keep it warm. She said, ‘They didn’t build these buggies for comfort, did they, hon?’
‘They built them because we were giving too much of our money to America in exchange for Jeeps.’
‘I’m going to lean against you and close my eyes, is that all right? It’s the only way I don’t get carsick.’
‘Sure.’ I smelt her hair. If smells have colour her hair smelt a chocolatey brown. Rich and very sweet. I wondered if I’d ever smell it up close again. When she withdrew her hand from my pocket I knew I wouldn’t. She’d left a flat lumpish packet in there – I’d been paid off. Doris was cute. Yeah: the way the Yanks use the word. She gave me a kiss on the police station steps when we said goodbye. She kissed me on the lips, but it wasn’t a soul sucker. Alex looked away embarrassed.
As I went to get back into the Land Rover for the trip to the railway station Alex pulled me aside and said, ‘You’ve got a pistol in your pocket, Charlie, and a box of bullets in your kit. I found them when I searched your room. Have you got a licence for them?’
‘You know I haven’t.’
‘Then bloody well get rid of them as soon as you can. I don’t want to arrest you for something as silly as that!’
Yeah. Alex was my pal again, and I supposed that one good turn deserved another. I shook his hand.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a great hairy policewoman hiding in your police station by any chance, have you?’
‘We call them police offices up here, Charlie, and yes, we have. How did you guess? Her knuckles drag along the ground as she walks, and we try not to let her out without her trainer. Why?’
‘You’re being very unkind. I could report you to the animal protection squad.’ I waited for a nine-beat intro – Jelly Roll Morton’s ‘Ballin’ the Jack’ – gave him the innocent wide-eyed look, and asked, ‘I suppose you still want all that money back?’
‘Yes. Do you know where it is?’
‘I’d find an excuse for your feral colleague to body-search Little Annie Oakley, and turn over her bags again . . . before you let her get away. You never know, you might get lucky.’
Alex nodded at me. Slowly. He got the message. Doris was at the top of the steps to rather an impressive old building behind us. My voice was low, so she was more or less out of earshot. She smiled and waved. She was a touch of the exotic in this austere town. I smiled and waved back, and climbed into the wagon. I felt a lot better after that.
The young detective who accompanied me to London was named Angus. Actually it wasn’t. It was something like Aonghas. He said it was the Gaelic for Angus. We had seats in an otherwise empty First Class smoker – coppers don’t sit with the plebs unless they’re sitting on top, knocking the shit out of them.
