The Good Provider (29 page)

The horse charged between the wall of a cottage and an old iron horsepost upon which the van sheared a wheel. It slumped on to the stump of axle, dragged to a partial halt, and slewed round. McVoy was thrown, not cleanly, the leathers twisted round his wrists. He was plucked from the board, dragged against the cruppers and shafts and, screaming, was jerked down on to the cobbles and dragged, dragged along the street until at last something gave way and his body was left still and elongated in the gutter.

Craig ran past Tom McVoy. He still expected Malone to jump for it and wanted to be ready for him. But Danny Malone had had no opportunity to gather himself and leap out of the careering vehicle. Finally the vehicle heeled over on to its side, the unfortunate horse pitched to its knees, and the van broke apart.

Superintendent Affleck reached the wreckage at exactly the same moment as Craig Nicholson, though neither acknowledged the other. Both were intent on the canvas flap, on the hand and arm that groped from the torn tarpaulin.

Dazed and bloody-faced, Danny Malone crawled out on to the cobbles.

Hugh Affleck gave a queer little laugh, breathless and panting. He dropped a knee upon Malone’s spine, caught his ears in his fists and banged the man’s brow down upon the stones, just once.

‘Got you, you bastard,’ he said.

Sergeant Drummond sent a constable to fetch her from the house. The constable was a young man with a strange accent. He was truculent and unfriendly and gave Kirsty no word of comfort and only a minimum of information and stubbornly refused to answer any of her questions as they tramped back to Ottawa Street police office.

Craig was seated on a stool in a narrow half-tiled room in the station’s basement. He was naked to the waist. An elderly man with a face like a fox-terrier was attending to his injuries. The man scowled when Kirsty was shown into the room and waved a warning hand to prevent her throwing herself on the patient in a fit of sentiment. Wincing, Craig glanced over his shoulder. He had a Gold Flake stuck in his mouth, was chalk pale, his eyes huge. She felt such a wave of pity for him that she longed to wrap her arms about him but waited obediently by the door until the surgeon had finished strapping Craig’s shoulder with heavy cotton bandages.

At length the surgeon said, ‘He’s got a cracked rib but no important bones are broken. He’ll heal in no time.’

‘It’s damned sore,’ Craig said.

‘Bound to be sore,’ said the surgeon. ‘It’ll be worse tomorrow, I promise you. Best stay in bed if you can.’

The surgeon dropped scissors and a roll of wadding into a black leather bag, picked up the bag and locked it and then, without another word, went out, leaving Craig and Kirsty alone.

Awkwardly Craig took the cigarette from his lips. He coughed, winced, gave a groan. Kirsty cautiously approached him.

‘It’s all right,’ Craig told her. ‘They got Malone. Skirving too. Affleck took them away in the black van to the cells in Glasgow. It was best that I was brought here, apparently, since Affleck didn’t want me near the prisoners.’

‘But what happened?’

Craig shuddered, winced once more. ‘She, your pal, she got a knock on the head.’

‘Mrs Frew? Is she all right?’

‘Aye, she’s no’ dead or anythin’. Affleck took her to the hospital for attention. It was Malone hit her. Hit her twice.’

‘Could you not stop him?’ said Kirsty.

‘Huh!’ Craig exclaimed, almost under his breath, and shook his head.

Kirsty had not touched him yet. Her initial impulse to comfort him had diminished into a strange kind of reticence. His nakedness and the neat cream-coloured bandage alienated her. Craig put the Gold Flake carefully back into his mouth and, at that moment, the door swung open and Sergeant Drummond came into the room.

‘How are you feeling now, Nicholson?’ the sergeant enquired.

‘All right,’ Craig said. ‘Can I go?’

‘Shortly,’ said the sergeant. ‘Finish your gasper first.’

‘What’s the idea?’ Craig twisted on the stool to face both Kirsty and the sergeant. ‘Am I goin’ to be charged?’

‘Och, no. No, no, nothing at all like that.’

‘Will I have to go into the court, be a witness against him?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘But I cannot give you my guarantee at this stage, you understand. It will be depending on what the charges are and what the lawyers say.’

‘They didn’t get away wi’ anythin’,’ said Craig. ‘I mean, they didn’t steal any silver.’

‘Did they not?’ Sergeant Drummond raised an eyebrow. ‘I think you must have missed it in the confusion. You see, silver plate
was
found in the van, and a gold chain on the person of Billy Skirving.’

‘It must have been taken when I was lookin’ the other way,’ said Craig, understanding the method at once. ‘What about McVoy?’

‘Injured but not fatally.’

‘That’s somethin’, I suppose,’ said Craig.

‘You will be pleased to learn that I am not required to take a statement from you at this time,’ said Sergeant Drummond.

‘Is that another of Mr Affleck’s clever tricks?’

‘The Superintendent does not wish you to be seen to be involved.’

‘Bit bloody late, isn’t it?’ said Craig.

‘He also suggests that you don’t go back to work at Maitland Moss.’

‘What the hell am I supposed to do then? Starve?’

‘Perhaps you could go home for a wee while.’

‘I live in Canada Road,’ said Craig.

‘Back to your family, to the farm?’

‘I’m not a charity case,’ said Craig. ‘I can’t sponge off them. Anyway, I like it in Glasgow. I want to settle here.’

‘A holiday?’ said Drummond, mildly.

‘No holiday,’ said Craig, also without heat.

His anger seemed to have waned into a kind of stubborn resentment but Kirsty could not decipher his present mood at all. She did not know whether his pain was mostly physical or whether some great wound to his pride had been opened by the events of the evening. She had no true understanding of masculine pride, of its shapes and changes and its subtle manifestations, but she was learning almost day by day not to ignore its effect upon Craig’s character and behaviour.

She caught him now, unaware of her scrutiny, as he studied the police sergeant with a sort of calculation, though what thoughts were clicking in her husband’s mind she could not begin to deduce. He pushed himself to his feet, shook off an offer of assistance and struggled into his shirt. He left it unbuttoned, draped and loose over his left arm, and shrugged on his jacket, stuck his cap on his head.

‘We can look after ourselves, thanks,’ Craig said, then, ‘Come on, Kirsty, it’s time we were off home.’

‘Are you sure you can manage?’ Kirsty said.

‘I can manage,’ Craig answered.

He went before her to the door but the sergeant did not immediately stand aside.

‘Will you not be changing your mind?’ Sergeant Drummond said.

‘About what?’

‘Go home for a week or two; home to your farm, I mean.’

‘Stuff it,’ Craig said. ‘I’d be a laughin’ stock. An’ nobody’s goin’ to laugh at me any more; nobody.’

The sergeant pursed his lips and gave a little sour nod before he stepped to one side and ushered Craig and Kirsty on to the stairs.

There were no prisoners in the office, no constables. But two sergeants, both bearded, both cold-eyed, stood behind the long desk. They watched in icy silence as Craig and Kirsty left the station and stepped down into Ottawa Street.

It was cold now, the sky clear, stars showing.

Craig shivered, wriggled deeper into his jacket.

‘I’m starved,’ he said. ‘Bloody starved.’

‘There’s ham,’ said Kirsty.

‘Eggs too?’

‘Aye.’

‘That’ll do.’

He began to walk, stiff and upright. Kirsty fell into step beside him.

‘Craig—’

‘What?’

‘It’ll be all right.’

‘By Christ it will,’ Craig said. ‘I’ll make sure o’ that.’

He reached out suddenly, caught her wrist and brought her closer to him and, hand in hand, Craig and Kirsty Nicholson walked home through the cold night streets, back to their single-end in Canada Road.

FIVE

The Good Provider

Most of all it was their ferocity that surprised her. There were two of them, sisters, one not much above twelve and the other no older than fifteen. Their attack was sudden, an ambush near the gate of Oswalds’ in the early morning hour. It was a dry dawn and the oblong puddles in the gutters had at last drained away, which was just as well for the girls’ rush bowled Kirsty over and she sat down hard upon the pavement, arms wrapped instinctively across her belly.

The younger of the little harridans swiped a kick at her.

‘Bitch, so ye are. Bitch, bitch.’

Kirsty struggled to rise but the elder had danced around behind her, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back. If she had not been so afraid of straining herself Kirsty would have fought back but her pregnancy made her vulnerable and the spitting fury of the girls had about it a tone of moral outrage.

‘Because o’ you, my daddy’s deein’.’

Understanding flared like a gas jet; they were the daughters of one of the villains, Skirving or McVoy.

Kirsty reached out and caught the younger girl a stinging slap upon the cheek. The child’s rage turned at once into self-pity. She burst into tears. Wailing like a she-cat she stepped back from the affray while her big sister renewed her efforts to drag Kirsty on to the ground.

Letty came to the rescue. She had just turned into Vancouver Street – late too – when the commotion started. She came haring up the street, grabbed the assailant by the arm, yanked her away from Kirsty and, for good measure, administered a good round slap on the face that changed rage into hysterical tears.

The girls backed away.

Letty helped Kirsty to her feet. ‘Who the hell’re they?’

‘What do you want wi’ me?’ Kirsty shouted.

‘Your man done it. He done for ma daddy.’

‘Their daddy? What’re they bletherin’ about, Kirsty?’

Kirsty did not answer Letty’s question but shook her fist and advanced on the pair. Tears stained their faces and their noses ran. They looked pitifully dishevelled as they backed away from her, still mewing. When Tam Alexander, the Oswalds’ gateman, came out of his shed into the street the girls turned tail and ran off around the corner and out of sight.

Solicitously Letty brushed Kirsty’s skirt with the flat of her hand. ‘Are ye hurtit?’

‘No, just winded.’

Tam Alexander had come over too, not to enquire after Kirsty’s welfare but to chase the young women into the sheds to their work.

‘Who are they, Mr Alexander? Do y’ know?’

‘The McVoys,’ the gateman told her and, by his grim expression, indicated that he too knew of the night’s arrests.

Kirsty limped into Oswalds’, hanging on to Letty’s arm.

Letty was all agog but Kirsty told her nothing.

At the tables, though, the girls swung round when she entered the room, glowered at her or shunned her with broad, obvious gestures. Kirsty could hardly believe that it was possible for news to travel so quickly, before shops were open, before men congregated at their lathes or benches or on the slipways of Hedderwick’s yard. It was as if the tenements of Greenfield were connected by some sort of invisible wire along which news of Malone’s arrest had throbbed, news too of Nicholson’s treachery.

‘Get on wi’ your work,’ Mrs Dykes barked.

Tommy Dykes brought two bakers to the door of the flour store and pointed out Kirsty as if she were a specimen in a cage.

‘Oh-oh!’ said Letty. ‘You’ve been up t’ somethin’ naughty.’

‘Husband,’ said Mrs McNeil curtly. ‘Her husband’s a nark.’

‘What?’ said Letty, eyes like saucers. ‘A nark?’

‘Sold Danny Malone an’ Billy Skirvin’ t’ the coppers.’

‘Kirsty, is that true?’ said Letty.

But Kirsty just shook her head and withdrew to the end of the packing-table. She was disgusted by the injustice of the situation and the community’s reaction to it, a persecution, she reckoned, that would get worse before it would get better.

Broken glass was stashed in a tin bucket and Craig was perched on a chair by the window attempting to fit a piece of plyboard over the gaping hole. He had put the half brick, like a trophy, on the mantelshelf and had untied the surgeon’s bandages to give himself more freedom of movement. He glanced round when Kirsty entered the kitchen.

‘Happened about half an hour ago. Near took my bloody head off,’ he informed her.

‘But why, why are they doin’ this to us?’

‘Because I got off,’ said Craig.

‘Malone was a criminal. Surely everybody knows that.’

Craig said, ‘Everybody hates the polis.’

‘Are you sure it’s not a mistake?’