The Good Provider (48 page)

Sergeant Drummond removed his tunic jacket, hung it neatly on the wooden triangle, though that was not its purpose, not at all. Deedes, meanwhile, proceeded to examine the victim.

‘How did you acquire these bruises?’

Sammy did not answer the surgeon.

‘Did somebody do this to you?’ Deedes said. ‘Your father, perhaps?’

‘I fell,’ said Sammy.

‘You fell,’ said Deedes. ‘You weren’t struck?’

Sammy remained loyal, mute.

‘As you wish,’ said Deedes. ‘Sergeant, be careful to strike the buttocks only.’

‘Aye, Mr Deedes, I’ll be very careful.’

From the cupboard Deedes brought out a tray upon which nestled three birch rods. Craig did not know what he had expected the weapons of punishment to look like but their crudity surprised him. They were just that – birch rods. They resembled the switch brooms that tinkers sold for sweeping out awkward corners, bundles of twigs thonged to a wooden handle. Deedes placed the tray on the chair and beckoned to Sergeant Drummond, who, with sleeves rolled up, examined the objects.

Deedes said, ‘How old is the boy?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘Then it must be that one,’ said Deedes, pointing. ‘Forty inches in length and nine ounces in weight. Do you wish me to put it on the scales, Sergeant?’

‘It will not be necessary, sir.’

Drummond lifted the rod that Deedes had indicated and, turning discreetly away from Sammy, gave it a testing swish.

Sammy, making no sound, was weeping.

Deedes said, ‘Proceed then, Sergeant Drummond. I don’t have all day, you know.’

Drummond came to Craig. He held the rod discreetly by his side. He had strong forearms, thick with muscle and downed with dark hair.

He whispered, ‘I have a notion of what is on your mind, Constable Nicholson, and I might tell you that it is not my wish that this thing should be done – nor do I take any pleasure in doing it.’

‘I didn’t suppose—’

‘Just listen,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘I’m needing you to hold him steady. Put his head between your thighs and your hands on his shoulders. Brace and support the poor lad for he will surely buck and squirm and I intend only to hurt him a wee bit and not to injure him. You must do your part and hold him still so I can strike accurately.’

‘How hard will you hit him?’

‘Hard enough. But not as hard as I can,’ the sergeant said. ‘Now, Constable Nicholson, secure him, if you please.’

However brave or daft Sammy Reynolds might be he did not surrender without a show of resistance.

Craig hated having to lay hands on the naked boy, the scuffle that ensued before he snared him and forced him into position; hated the position itself, the intimacy of it. Once Sammy’s head was firmly clasped between Craig’s thighs, though, the lad stopped wriggling and braced himself to receive his punishment like a man.

‘Hold on,’ said Sergeant Drummond.

He measured the stroke and swished the spray of birch twigs downward across the boy’s buttocks. Sammy yelped and jerked. Craig pressed his thighs together, hands gripping the soft cold flesh.

‘Two,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hold still.’

The twigs did not break the skin but left a series of thin cat-claw welts across the narrow hips and, after the third blow, a glowing flush that had Craig wincing in sympathy.

‘Wait,’ said Deedes.

Panting, Sergeant Drummond stepped to one side and allowed the surgeon to examine the boy without having him released.

‘Very well,’ Deedes said. ‘Continue.’

Drummond’s eye met Craig’s for an instant. He shook his head slightly, frowning. A tiny bead of sweat clung to the corner of his eyelid and he brushed it away with the hand that held the rod. Taking his stance and aim he brought down the spray for a fourth time and, swiftly, for a fifth. Sammy had by now gone silent. He uttered not a whimper and did not flinch as the last blows fell. He was stiff as statuary and he did not lose rigidity even when Sergeant Drummond announced, ‘It is all done and over with. You may let him go now, Constable Nicholson.’

Stepping back, Craig lifted Sammy up from his fixed position. Freckles were livid on the boy’s ashen cheeks and his hair, damp with perspiration, clung in auburn kiss curls to his forehead.

‘Sammy, it’s finished,’ said Craig; and to the sergeant, ‘What happens now?’

‘You escort him home,’ said Drummond.

‘What? Right away?’

‘As soon as he can walk,’ the surgeon said.

Sammy Reynolds limped by Craig’s side along the Greenfield’s pavements and said not a word no matter how Craig coaxed him to converse. Sammy had been made to wash his tear-stained face and Sergeant Drummond had seen to it that he was tidily dressed and his bootlaces tied before he was taken from the basement and released into Constable Nicholson’s care to be returned to his father.

It was a long hoof to the Madagascar from Percy Street. Craig did not hurry. He made a little detour to take in Dinaro’s Café and, from the back door, bought two mugs of hot tea and a couple of jam doughnuts. It was still only mid-morning. He gave Sammy one of the mugs and one of the doughnuts and the boy, though he did not speak, accepted them. Craig and the boy leaned on the wall at the back of the café, ate and drank and stared at the traffic, such as it was, that flowed along Morrison Street. All the questions that Craig asked of Sammy – did he not go to school; could he read and write; would he become a labourer like his father – remained resolutely unanswered. The act of punishment had estranged the boy from the man who had given him attention. Craig let him sulk. In ten minutes or a quarter of an hour Sammy Reynolds would be off his hands and would no longer be his concern, unless he transgressed the law again. They drank tea together and licked their sticky fingers and, leaving the mugs on the back doorstep, turned right for the Madagascar.

There was still little sign of life to the tenement, though mongrel dogs and several large cats had taken possession of the summit of the midden and a pack of very young children could be seen on the crown of the waste ground, silent and still, watching the distant figure of the copper as if they planned to swoop upon him.

The boy stopped suddenly.

‘Here’s where I live,’ he said.

‘All the way home, Sammy,’ said Craig.

‘Nobody there.’

‘Right to the door.’

The cellar door was still ajar but there was not even the flutter of a candle to give a touch of warmth to the room. Nothing, at first, seemed to have changed, except that the cat was gone; then Craig noticed the man on the straw. He was motionless, curled up, his back to them.

‘Is that your dad?’ said Craig.

‘Aye.’

‘Mr Reynolds.’

The man did not respond. For a fleeting second Craig wondered if he was dead, had succumbed to drink and dissipation, if poor Sammy was free to become a ward of the state and enjoy its disciplines. He went down on one knee and shook the man’s shoulder. The man rolled over but did not waken. He was drunk as a lord, a bottle without a cork clutched to his chest like a baby. He had vomited down his front and the hair on his chest and the dark stubble on his chin were matted with the stuff. The stench was foul. He opened his mouth, gave a belch and a blubbering snore, rolled on to his side once more. Craig got to his feet and stepped back.

What more could he do? He had carried out the Bailie’s instructions to the letter. Sammy Reynolds had been arrested, charged, sentenced and duly punished for his crime and had now been delivered safe home and put into the custody of his parent. He, Constable Nicholson, must leave him here, turn and walk out, walk back to his regular beat, fulfil the duty, go home come evening to his loving wife, his supper, his clean warm bed. Sammy knew it too. Sammy watched him from the corners of his eyes, his face pale as fungus in the cellar’s half light, his freckles plainly visible.

Craig cleared his throat. ‘No more pinchin’ things that don’t belong to you, Sammy. It’ll be jail the next time or the Bad Boys’ school.’

‘If the sun shines later,’ Sammy said, ‘he’ll be up in the park wi’ the drum.’

‘Sammy—’

‘Dancin’.’

It was an impulsive gesture, quite wrong, not a thing for a grown man to do. Craig could not help himself. He put an arm about the boy and hugged him. Sammy winced as if kindness hurt him like a seventh stroke of the birch, and tore himself away.

Craig turned on his heel and went out. He climbed three or four steps noisily, paused and stealthily returned to the cellar door.

Sammy was on his knees at the side of the straw bed. He had clasped a handful of the drunkard’s hair and was shaking the man’s head gently from side to side, trying vainly to rouse his father to sensibility.

‘I was good, Paw. I tell ye, the mannie said I was good.’

Without a word, Craig stole upstairs and hurried out into daylight once more.

With money that Craig had given her she had bought a comfortable loose-flowing house-robe and a pair of low-heeled slippers, and padded about the kitchen with the waddling gait of a woman three times her age.

‘Were you in court this mornin’, dear?’

‘Aye.’

‘Was it that boy who stole the drum?’

‘Aye.’

‘What did he get?’

‘Ten-bob fine,’ said Craig without a pause.

‘How did he manage to pay it?’

‘His father was there. He paid it.’

‘I’ll bet he got a lickin’ when he got home.’

‘I’ll bet he did,’ Craig said. ‘Listen, I’m thinkin’ I should take a jaunt to Dalnavert.’

‘Oh!’ said Kirsty. ‘When?’

‘Soon,’ said Craig. ‘I’m worried because I haven’t heard a word since Gordon went back.’

‘She’ll be mad at you.’

‘I know,’ said Craig. ‘I want t’ see how the land lies.’

‘The baby’s due—’

‘Aye, it’ll be before that.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘What for?’

‘I thought—’

‘It’d be better if you stayed here,’ said Craig. ‘I’ll only be gone one night or two. I’m due three days’ leave in early March. Before I start night duty.’

‘Night duty?’ said Kirsty. ‘You didn’t—’

‘It pays more,’ said Craig. ‘Anyway, I’ve no choice. It’s my turn. We’ll be goin’ on to three shifts in May an’ that’ll make a difference. Anyway, I thought I’d go to Dalnavert the first weekend in March. If you don’t fancy stayin’ here alone—’

‘I could always go to Walbrook Street.’

‘If you like,’ Craig said.

She hesitated, hovering heavily behind his chair.

She said, ‘Craig, you will – I mean, you won’t stay there?’

‘Stay where?’

‘Dalnavert. I mean, you will come home again?’

‘Don’t be so bloody daft,’ Craig said.

The Prince Consort peered blearily up at him for a final moment across the garden of Charlotte Square before swaddling North Sea haar wrapped up the city for the night. Edinburgh haar was not at all like Glasgow fog. It had no body to it, was ghostly and wet and clinging, a sea-fog that stole up from the Forth at all seasons and, that evening, swiftly consumed the statue that gave a landmark to travellers along George Street and provided David Lockhart with a focus from the window of his rooms in Albany Place.

It was a lodging of quality in one of the more salubrious parts of the capital. Uncle George had found them for him and footed the bill without a moan. Uncle George was a downy bird who knew that while a young fellow might spend his student days sleeping in a shoebox and living on ale and ambition, a Doctor of Medicine deserved better, that advances in age and station required advances in gentility and comfort. The house in Albany Place was divided into four suites and was governed by a certain Mrs Fotheringham, a woman in situation similar to Mrs Frew but in temperament far more refined. Indeed Jack had once observed that when compared to the formidable Fotheringham old Aunt Nessie seemed like a
fille de joie
.

David lowered the curtain and returned to the long table that served him as a desk. It was positioned before a cheerful fire and had upon it a double-bracket oil-lamp in green glass and polished brass. A hexagonal cabinet on castors kept his current library close to hand and a little slope-front bureau held pens, inks and sheaves of legal foolscap. Here David composed his essays on matters spiritual. Here too, once each month, he fulfilled his obligation to his father and wrung out two pages of bland facts. Tonight, however, he must write another sort of letter, set down facts that were barbed, that would wound and that would bring a volley of recrimination from far-off Fanshi.

Perhaps this letter would do what nothing else had done – induce his parents to return to Scotland on furlough from the mission. No, he thought, his father would not come. His father would not leave China for any reason, not if Noah’s flood swept over Europe and left Jack and him adrift in a basket on the dreary tide, not if the seven trumpets of St John all sounded in unison. His father was tied to China not by bonds of selfless love but by an addiction to the status that he had found there, the Good White Man.