The Low Road (17 page)

“It is that.” Mary smiled back. She took a seat on a nearby bollard, watching as he mended his nets, the wooden shuttle wound with thin twine moving fast and sure along the tear.

McAllister leant on the seawall, leaving the conversation to her.

“I'm not going to spin you a line,” she started. “I'm a journalist, and him over there”—she jerked her head in the direction of McAllister—“he's a colleague. We're looking for a man who's on the run from some pretty nasty Glasgow folk. This man's a Highlander, of the Gaeltacht, and bound to be noticed in a wee place like this. So we're wondering where he might hide out.”

“There's some pretty rough folk in Glasgow,” the fisherman agreed. “Not that I've been there, mind. No. You'll no' catch me in thon city.” He tied off a piece of twine and cut it with a short deadly-looking blade, then started on the next tear in the net. “I've been to Buenos Aires, mind. Now that's a grand place. Stopped off there on the way back when we wiz at South Georgia for the whaling. I was the only one o' the crew who wasn't a Highlander, or an Islander. Mostly from Lewis and Harris the whaling boys, so I have a bit o' the Gaelic.”

Mary knew to wait. Say nothing except an “aye” or “really?” and nod often.

McAllister offered a cigarette, which was accepted, his only contribution to the exchange.

Through a stream of smoke the fisherman kept working, then said, “There's no one much here the now. They'll come back from the fishing around mid-morning, around eleven, but I'll see what I can find out.” He looked at Mary. “This Highlander, he's in trouble you say?”

“Big trouble.”

The fisherman finished mending and began to pack up his tools into a folding layered wooden toolbox, with metal handles. “See you later.”

Mary and McAllister said thanks and made their way to the promenade, Mary saying, “I hope to God the tearoom is open, I'm starving.”

It was. The waiter was the same lad. His vocabulary hadn't improved, and the breakfast was excellent.

It felt like Sunday morning, which it was. From the Cathedral of the Isles, the smallest cathedral in Europe, according to the locals, a bell tolled. Neither Mary nor McAllister felt like moving, and they enjoyed an hour of calm. More tea. More cigarettes. Little conversation. But lots of people watching.

Families, laden with children, buckets and spades, tartan rugs, and wearing silly hats, were beginning to make their way to the sandy part of the seafront. A six-man Salvation Army band marched past, the trombone player marking out the beat with an oom-pah, oom-pah that McAllister always found comical. They were heading for a prime spot on the grassy strip above the sand to hold the Beachside Sunday school.

McAllister remembered them from his childhood holidays; “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was a song he could never forget.

From the opposite direction, in procession, towards the small hut where they kept deck chairs for hire, came a man in a hat that from a distance seemed to match the hat on the donkey. He was leading a string of ponies and donkeys to the part of the beach with packed hard sand, where they would ply their trade for the rest of the day. With him was the blind man, but no sign of the woman.

McAllister's prayer was that the donkey would join in with the band. It was one of his favorite memories of another Sunday morning decades ago.

His mother and father were on deck chairs. He and his wee brother were playing in the sand. The Salvation Army band
started up. One of the donkeys started to bray. His mother was shushing him and his brother. “Don't laugh,” she was saying. But her hired deck chair was shaking.

The band kept playing. The donkey kept braying. His dad was laughing and eventually had to take the hankie, knotted at the four corners, off his head to wipe away the tears. It was the best holiday McAllister could remember.
I must remind Mother
, he thought.

“Come on, McAllister, time to go.” Mary took his stillness, from being caught in the memories of that holiday, as reluctance. “You're here to find your pal. I'm here for a story. How else will we get our expenses past the editor?”

He had no intention of claiming expenses for a single room in a boardinghouse in Millport with Mary Ballantyne as his roommate. Not if he ever wanted to live down the teasing from Sandy Marshall.

Mary took her shoes off and began walking amongst the people on the sand, stopping now and then to ask questions. McAllister doubted she would find out anything useful. The whole trip was feeling like a waste of time. The sound of children singing to the beat of a tambourine drifted over him. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so . . .”

The squawk of seagulls as they fought for the crusts from the egg sandwiches that a wee lassie near him was throwing up in the air, was another evocative seaside sound reminding him of childhood.

He heard shouts. Then a scream. A donkey ran towards the line of sunbathers in deck chairs, then he saw Mary running towards the hut and the ponies.

Two men, with what looked like clubs raised above their heads, were hitting out at the ponies.
No
, McAllister saw,
they're attacking the man in charge of the pony ride.
He ran to help.

A pony broke loose, cantered over the grass, then galloped down the street. A third pony was bucking and kicking, reins loose, saddle askew. Its hind legs caught one of the men, who fell down in a ball, clutching himself and screaming like the women on the beach.

McAllister almost cheered.
That kick was right in the family jewels.

More screams. And yells. The blind man was waving his stick in the air but keeping out of the fray, sheltering in the entrance to the hut.

Mary had grabbed hold of the bridle of a bucking pony. She was talking to it, trying to calm it down. The man in charge was struggling with another pony, trying to keep it between himself and the second gangster, who was trying to dodge between the terrified animals. His right hand held high, he didn't care that the razor was glinting in the sun. He was oblivious to all the onlookers and about to slash down and across the face of Jimmy McPhee, when McAllister yelled, “Watch out!”

A whistle blew; it was the woman in charge of the Sunday school. Everyone stopped, except the animals. But only for a moment. When no policeman appeared, the fight resumed.

Mary screamed a banshee wail and slapped a pony on the rump. She swung her satchel at its companion, shouting, “Shoo, shoo, get away with you.” She hadn't realized they were tied together. Kicking and baring their teeth, eyes flaring, they pulled one way, then another, tangling the reins and stirring up the sand.

The second assailant became caught up between them in the tangle of reins and slipped. He fell, rolled into a ball, hands over his head to protect himself from flailing hooves.

Mary grabbed Jimmy's sleeve. “Jimmy?”

“Aye?” He was too surprised to ask more. But he had seen McAllister.

“I'm with McAllister. Come on! Run!”

They ran. And as they ran past a man with a Brownie camera pointed at the mêlée, she shouted, “Hey, mister! Get those pictures to the
Herald
, we'll pay for them.”

They ran past the band, now playing a loud ferocious oom-pah-pah, hoping to keep the children distracted, and the woman with the tambourine kept banging away, yelling, “Jesus loves me, this I know . . .” The rest of the hymn was inaudible, as the distressed donkey kept running around in a circle, braying loudly and long, drowning out all but the tuba.

McAllister watched Mary and Jimmy running towards the harbor, dodging in and out of the startled pedestrians. He lost sight of them behind the seawall.

A trio of men, locals by the look of them, advanced on McAllister, all in a line. They called out to the blind man, “Aa' right, Jock?”

The blind man reached a hand out for McAllister's face. McAllister obliged. The man quickly patted it, and said, “He's wi' me.”

The local men moved towards the fellow lying in a ball, hands over his crutch, rocking and moaning, “Mary, mother of God, help me, help me.” The other fellow had vanished.

“Get up, ye bastard,” a man in waterproof trousers and braces said. But the injured fellow couldn't stand. Not yet.

“Mrs. Cruickshank's tearoom would be best,” the old man with the white stick said to McAllister.

“Aye,” he agreed.

They made their way across the esplanade, McAllister holding his companion's elbow to guide him through the milling, chattering, excited crowd, leaving the injured man and the discarded weapons—razors and clubs—to the locals.

In the tearoom, McAllister and his companion sat in a window table.

“A pot of tea, please, Robert,” the blind man called out.

“Coming up,” the boy waiter replied.

McAllister was watching the beach over the lace half-curtain. A group of men were trying to untangle the ponies. Others were righting the deck chairs. Children, escaped from Sunday school, were darting around like flies in the aftermath of a battle. As the adrenaline drained, McAllister relaxed. Then he gave a half-smile. A small lobster boat was heading out to sea. Silhouetted against the silver horizon, he could make out three figures, perhaps two men and a child.
Two men and Mary,
he decided.

“Looks like Jimmy got away,” McAllister said.

“Good,” his companion replied.

“John McAllister,” he said, wondering as he introduced himself what the protocol was. Did you lean over and take the man's hand to shake it, or wait? He waited.

“Jock McBride.” The man held out his hand.

McAllister shook it. “Not Wee Jockie McBride?” This was a legendary name amongst boxing aficionados.

“The same.”

Now it started to make sense. Of course Jimmy would hide out with friends from his time in Glasgow, and Wee Jockie was another of those boxing stars of the thirties—this time from the badlands of Govan.

“After I was injured I ended up here wi' ma daughter. A right miserable cratur she is, too, but I've nowhere else to go.” He was looking around for his tea, which was slow in coming. He didn't see McAllister watching him but guessed. “I can see a wee bittie. Movement, shadows . . .”

“The referee should have stopped that fight.” McAllister recalled the scandal of the match that was allowed to continue long past the point of safety.

“Aye, but the fight was fixed—I was meant to go down by round
eight, only they forgot to tell me.” The tea came. And scones, already buttered. “Thanks, lad.” Jockie took a long noisy slurp of the tea and sighed, saying, “That's grand.” He took a bite of scone and, satisfied, sat back. “So Jimmy tells me you're a friend.” He said this with the amazement of a man hearing of a lamb lying down with a lion.

“Does he, now?” McAllister was pleased to hear it. This chase was costing him dearly. With Mary gone and obviously handling everything with little help from him, he knew he should be home. With Joanne. With her daughters. With the newspaper he was neglecting. But he was here. And he was curious. “One thing, Mr. McBride . . .”

“Jockie . . .”

“Aye, one thing puzzles me. This is a lot o' effort on someone's part to get at Jimmy McPhee. Why?”

“Ah dinny know and Ah didney ask. All I know is that after Kenny was murdered in thon fire . . .” He sensed McAllister's surprise. “I mayn't be able to read, but I keep up wi' the news. Anyhow, Jimmy arrived, asked if he could hide out here till it quietened down, so . . .” He reached for the remainder of the scone.

McAllister speculated, “Jimmy hasn't lived in the Lowlands for years. All his business dealings as far as I know are strictly Highland affairs.”

“Some folk will nurse a grudge for years.”

“ ‘Nursing their wrath to keep it warm.' ” McAllister misquoted a favorite line from “Tam o' Shanter.”

“Dad, what the hell's goin' on? Where're the ponies?” The woman, an embodiment of the Burns quote, was standing in the doorway, her face as dark as an imminent thunderstorm.

There was no need to guess where the donkey was; although decreased in volume and frequency, the plaintive hee-haw could
be heard from the beach, where a girl was holding the reins and trying to comfort the poor creature.

“I told you thon tinker'd bring trouble,” she was yelling. There was no need to say whom she referred to. Not expecting a reply, she gave McAllister a death-wish glare, then left, banging the door shut, sending the bell clanging.

The tearoom was beginning to fill with families desperate to discuss the excitement or just thirsty for a decent cup of tea. McAllister looked up as a shadow appeared on the left side of the window. Outside, a big man, his hat pulled down shading his face, stared at him. Then shrugged. Then left. Gerry Dochery.

As though sensing the presence of the hard man, Jockie said, “Leave all this be. It's not your trouble. Jimmy'll sort it, and make his way home. Eventually.”

McAllister wondered how much Jockie McBride knew. “Have you any idea who's behind all this?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “And why?”

“That's Jimmy's business.” Jockie was turning his head around, listening. “You'd best be off afore the polis arrive. And afore ma daughter comes back. She'll want to blame someone, and you're handy, so . . .” He held out his hand. “Give Mrs. McPhee ma best when you see her.”

McAllister shook the offered hand. He should have been surprised at him knowing Jenny McPhee, but he wasn't. Nothing surprised him when it came to Jenny. “I'll do that.”

He settled the bill. He asked for the time of the next ferry. He took the bus to the pier, passing a police car racing towards the town.
A bit late
, he thought, and was pleased to have missed the policemen.

When the ferry docked on the mainland, he walked to the station, caught a train, this one almost empty. Emerging at St.
Enoch station, he debated whether to go home or go straight to the
Herald
.
Home first, a wash a shave clean clothes and a dram.