‘He–’ she points a lazy finger at Manuel then at Watt–‘Will help you. Your paths will cross again. He will pay the debt that hangs over him.’
Watt nods as Manuel seems to shrink by his side. Watt knows Moira is an idiot, he has met her before and she always does this. She thinks she’s psychic, that’s why she wears all the bangles and the headscarves. He turns to explain to Manuel. ‘Moira, here, is a spiritualist. A seer.’
But Manuel is grey and frozen. He’s staring at the floor, lost in the swirls of sawdust on the floor. He looks as if he might be sick.
The door opens. John is there. He nods to William but they still have drinks so William waves him over, trying to finish his while John makes his way across the room. John is not happy about any of this.
‘We should go,’ he says when he reaches them.
‘What did she mean?’ Manuel is asking Watt, as if John hasn’t spoken.
William has been told many things by Moira. He comes in here often to wait for John to finish the books. She says vague things, good luck, bad luck, debts, sorrows. Never anything concrete, never anything that couldn’t be sort of true.
‘Moira, dear, might we have two bottles of Scotch to take away please?’
Moira smiles at Watt, delighted he is paying bar prices for a takeaway. She didn’t see that coming.
Outside, John takes the truck and William and Manuel take the Vauxhall, and they all drive to John’s house in Garthland Street in Dennistoun. They park behind each other, and go up the close to John’s flat on the second floor. It is a nice close. All of the doors are painted to look like oak. The neighbours take their turn cleaning the stairs and doormats can be left outside without being stolen.
Nettie, John’s wife, is in the warm kitchen. The table is set for two.
Nettie isn’t at all pleased to see William with a drunk stranger in tow. She pinches her lips and says she only has enough stew for the two of them. John is making it clear that she is to welcome them though. Egg and bacon, he orders and she scuttles away and puts the frying pan on.
They sit around the kitchen table in the recess. She sits on the step stool at the table and gives the men the chairs.
Nettie and John are drinking tea with their dinner. Watt opens one of the two bottles of whisky he bought from the Gleniffer and pours himself and Peter generous mouthfuls. Peter Manuel eats his eggs by cramming them whole into his mouth.
When they have finished Nettie takes the dirty plates away and washes up. Then she leaves the kitchen.
The men stay at the table and Peter Manuel lights a cigarette. He looks at both of them. It feels like the start of a negotiation. John begins:
‘What are you offering? I know you’re an author but we need more than a good story at this point.’
Manuel blows a thick string of white smoke over John’s head.
‘I’m offering the gun. A named killer, the story and the gun.’
Watt waits for him to name a price, but Manuel doesn’t. The money doesn’t seem that important to him all of a sudden. John catches William’s eye. John has spotted Manuel’s mistake too. He’s forgotten to charge them before giving them the information. John thinks it is a drunken mistake. William is seeing a pattern of chaotic behaviour, an inability to control impulses, a lack of long-term planning.
John leans in. ‘How would we know it’s not just any old gun?’
Manuel smokes and smirks. ‘His name is Charles Tallis and he was after the Valentes.’
John and Watt look at each other. They speculated about the Valentes. The story sounds as if it might be plausible.
Manuel draws on his cigarette. He sits back and rests a knee on the side of the table. John and William sit forward, the better to hear.
‘The whole thing was a mistake.’
Unseen in the hallway, Nettie leans against a wall and listens.
8
Thursday 15 May 1958
ISABELLE COOKE’S FATHER IS telling the court about the last night he ever saw his daughter. Mr Cooke knows he is a footnote in this story. His loss, his daughter, his life, is an aside. He is only here because Peter Manuel pled not guilty so the Crown needs his evidence. He would rather be anywhere else than here but he is dutiful.
Mr Cooke is a solid, decent man with an unblemished work record and a handsome wife. He describes his daughter in terms that are bland. Isabelle was a sweet girl. A good daughter. She always helped her mother around the house. She worked at the telephone exchange. She loved the dancing. He describes her like this because he doesn’t want to talk about her openly, in front of other people, not the real Isabelle. They have looked at her underpants and fingered her underskirt. They dug her naked carcass up from the frozen January earth and saw her body, examined her private parts for signs of rape. Mr Cooke can’t allow them any more of his real daughter, a giggler, unsure of the world and her place, feeling her way. The deep sleeper, funny, nasty sometimes too, loose in her prayers, with a fondness for fritters, tending to fat.
‘For the benefit of the court, can you tell us about the last night you saw Isabelle?’
Mr Cooke clears his throat. He pauses.
‘Isabelle was going to meet her boyfriend at a dance. It was a cold night. After tea she packed her dancing shoes into her handbag and put on her coat and her muffler. She was getting new dancing shoes for her birthday in January. She was excited about that. She said she was going to dance the soles off her old ones that night.’
Mr Cooke drops his chin to his chest. He feels unexpectedly emotional, overwhelmed by an image of her in the living-room doorway, pulling her coat on and smiling at him. He didn’t pay attention to her because he was busy trying to starve the fire. The chimney needed cleaning, they’d been using damp coal, and the fire wasn’t hot. He was holding a sheet of newspaper over the hearth, heating it up to burn the flue clean. Isabelle looked in on him but he only glanced back. His attention was on the fire, didn’t want the middle of the newspaper to catch and burn.
‘Don’t be late.’
‘Bye, Daddy.’
And then the door slammed behind her and she was gone and it was forever.
‘But she didn’t come home that night?’
‘No, she didn’t come home.’
‘When did you realise she was missing?’
He draws a deep breath but the court is stuffy and it doesn’t help. He tries again and this one works.
‘We began to worry at eleven o’clock. She knows when she should be in and it was very unlike her to be late. I went out to look for her. I went to the bus stop and a bus came but Isabelle wasn’t on it. Then I went home. By then it was a quarter to twelve. She still wasn’t home. My wife telephoned the home of Isabelle’s boyfriend and his mother put him on the phone. Isabelle had never arrived at the dance.’