All the Colours of the Town (26 page)

Three summers running I’d come here as a boy, and now I did with James and Roddy what my father had done with me. We walked the hills and the beach and squatted to poke through smelly rock pools and climbed the Point to the old ruined fort. And every lunchtime at the harbour we watched the lobster boats come in. Some of the local boys came too and we all stood in a line on the concrete quay, like the front row of the stalls, while the crew rinsed and sorted their catch. Sometimes, a stray, unusable haddock was trapped among the
langoustines
and when this happened a crewman would take it to the stern and dangle the fish by its tail. Presently a seal – it was always the same one, a marled,
bone-coloured
fellow with stubby whiskers and wet black eyes – would lift his chin above the black water and then dive to come curving up as the fish dropped.

The days bled into each other, blissfully empty of news. The only excitement came on the morning of the second day. We were down at the bay, scouting for jellyfish, when Rod found a bomb on the beach. It was a canister bomb from the Second World War and no one seemed terribly fussed. It sputtered and hissed in the outgoing tide. The police arrived and loaded it into a strongbox and drove off, their Land Rover gouging deep tracks in the sand. Back at the hotel our landlady explained. There’s a huge MOD munitions dump in the North Channel between Scotland and Ulster. From time to time a phosphorous bomb turns up on an Ayrshire beach or gets trapped in the nets of a trawler but nothing gets done. The stuff is too volatile. It’s more dangerous to move it than to leave it where it is.

It spoiled things a little, tilting a gin on a clear
summer’s
night, watching Arran become its silhouette, to know that beneath the twinkling firth, rolling and
bumping
in the salty dark, was a mess of rotting ordnance.

On our last day I packed the bags and loaded the car and we took a last walk to the harbour. The day was fresh, with a salt lick of wet in the wind. One of the boats had come in, the
Clyde Valley
, its scarlet hull the
brightest
thing in Carradale. The boys ran ahead down the quay and I followed after, shouting them to stay back from the edge.

A man and a teenage boy were on deck. The boy had fetched a hosepipe from the quay and was rinsing the catch. A great red muddy plastic basket, big as a dustbin, brimful of langoustines. They flexed weakly, waggling their feelers, as the water sluiced over them, back and forth. The hotels would serve them that night, to tourists from the south and golfers from the city. The skipper stood at the gantry with another basket, sorting lobsters by size.

The seal wasn’t there. We scanned around but the
harbour
basin, choppy despite the breakwater, was empty. The boys stared out to sea, James laughing at the strong blasts of wind that rocked him on his heels.

The reedy peep of my mobile pierced the air.

‘Mr Conway. It’s Hamish Neil.’

I walked a few yards down the quay.

‘Hamish Neil. I was beginning to think you’d left the country. Or maybe you were a ghost.’

He laughed.

‘Oh I’m real all right. And I’m not going anywhere. Congratulations, anyway, is what I’m phoning for. On the piece. It was something of a triumph.’

‘I’m not sure if losing your job is much of a triumph. But thanks.’

‘Oh come on, Mr Conway.’ His voice seemed fuller than I remembered, tonier and more sure of itself. ‘No false modesty now. You’ll hardly be idle for long. A man of your proven abilities.’

The boys were playing tig, jouking back and forwards on the quay.

‘I hope you’re right,’ I said. ‘Listen, I meant to ask you. Now that you’re on. What was your angle in all this? What was your beef against Lyons?’

‘Peter Lyons? I’ve no opinion of Peter Lyons, black or white. No, my interest lay with the other principal.’

James was straying too close to the edge. I motioned him back.

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘Let me put it like this. Have you ever worked for someone who didn’t know when to go? Someone who just keeps on, when the time has come to hand over the reins, keeps on and keeps on, taking all the credit for the work you do?’

‘We’re talking about Maitland? You work for Walter Maitland?’

‘He left me no choice. I couldn’t
move
against him. Imagine the mess. And as long as Peter Lyons was in his pocket, I knew the police wouldn’t move either. No, I needed someone to bring it all out, bring it into the open.’

‘Wait a minute. You think I did this for you?’

‘Don’t feel bad,’ he said. ‘You did a good thing. It’s
better
this way. Better for business. Better all round. I’m sorry about our friend in Justice. I’m sorry about your job. But believe me–’

‘You think I did this for you? You think it was a favour. I did it for–’

‘What
did
you do it for, Gerry?’

‘I did it for the truth. I did it for the girl. I did it for, I don’t need a reason. I did my job. That’s why I did it.’

‘And you did a good job. That’s what I’m saying. I just wanted to thank you for your help, Gerry. I won’t forget it.’

He rung off and darkness rinsed the air as a cloud crossed the sun. A cold wind rose off the water and
rippled
my shirt. I zipped the boys’ fleeces.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We’re going.’

I had James by the hand when Roddy spotted him, out near the middle, the doglike head erect above the water, the world’s unconcern in the round black eyes.

The boy on the boat had seen him too. He laid the hosepipe on the gunwale and stooped to lift something from the deck. We looked round for the seal but he was gone. James tugged at my jacket and pointed at the empty water.

‘Hold on,’ I told him. ‘Look.’

The boy stood at the stern, holding a long silver fish by the tail. He dropped it. The fish hung in the water,
spiralling
brightly, and the dark shape curved up from below, the great pale belly just breaking the surface, and carried it down to the depths.

I am grateful to Lindsay McGarvie and Stephen Khan for sharing their knowledge of the journalist’s trade. Lee Brackstone and Derek Johns provided crucial editorial guidance. For help and advice of various kinds I would like to thank: Patrick Crotty, Helen Francis, Doris and Ronnie Fyfe, Eamonn Hughes, Hugh Jordan, Henry McDonald, Jim McDowell, Valerie McIlvanney, William McIlvanney, Catherine and Ian Nicol, Fiona Rennie, Ray Ryan, Ian Sansom, Linda Shaughnessy and Graham Walker.

Liam McIlvanney is Stuart Professor of Scottish Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books.
All the Colours of the Town
is his first novel.