Hee tee hee, yes. It’s him.
Manuel recognises the guy now. He works behind the bar at the Oak Hotel. He was working the bar on the New Year’s Day after the Smart murders. Peter was in there but the guy doesn’t dress as a Teddy when he’s working. He just looks normal then. Manuel remembers being very drunk that day. He remembers reading out the numbers to the barman. He was showing off, showing that he had money but pretending that he was just noticing the notes because the numbers followed on from each other and that was unusual. He tipped the boy five bob.
As if acknowledging this, the barman mutters a sorry as he is taken back out of the door.
Manuel steps out of the identity parade but Goodall tells him to stay where he is. All of you just stay where you are.
Another witness comes in. This one is a small angry man. He’s been wound up by the buzzies and storms straight over to Peter.
‘This one,’ he shouts, staring in Peter’s face. ‘It’s this one.’
‘This is one of the men you saw driving down from Sheepburn Road on New Year’s Eve?’
‘Yes!’ shouts the angry man. ‘This is one of the two men.’
One of two men. Peter hears that. He’s taken back to the cell. Again, no one will speak to him. Finally, after another two hours alone, in silence, he is taken to an interview room.
DI Goodall and William Muncie come in.
They sit down opposite him. Goodall is CID: a city cop. Muncie is country, local to Lanarkshire. They are having to work together and neither one is pleased about it. Goodall and his bosses think the Lanarkshire cops are a bit Home Guard, basically a Masonic Lodge with truncheons.
DI Goodall acts calm and neutral. He is a watcher. He is tall and sallow-skinned.
Chief Inspector Muncie is a beefy, square-jawed man. He has a military bearing and speaks like an angry sergeant major. He hates chaos and disorder and things not going the way he wants. But most of all he hates Manuel. His men call it ‘Manuelitis’. He tries to arrest Manuel for every major crime that happens on his patch. In fairness he hates all the little scrotal criminals of South Lanarkshire, but Manuel is a special obsession of his. Muncie first arrested Manuel on a domestic burglary charge when Manuel was just nineteen. Muncie hates Manuel because he stubs cigarettes out on the arms of chairs, he eats his victims’ food and grinds it into the carpet, he climbs into clean linen beds wearing muddy boots. He desecrates the houses he has broken into.
Muncie is here as a courtesy but he is not in charge. Goodall is calling the shots here. Muncie is made to sit and listen.
Peter asks after his father. Samuel was taken away by the cops this morning during the search of the house. He kept threatening the cops with his MP, with the papers, disrupting the search until they found the gloves and used it as a pretext to huckle him out to the car. Manuel doesn’t know what happened then. They ignore his questions and confront him with the eyewitness statements.
You were seen driving away from the home.
Mr Smart was paid his wages on New Year’s Eve. He was paid in sequentially numbered notes. We have a list of the numbers. You spent those very notes in the Oak. We have a witness.
Peter says nothing to that. He asks after his family.
Peter, says Goodall, we’ve arrested your father for going housebreaking with you. He’s in Barlinnie. Imagine how your poor mother feels about that? She’s in the house there, without your daddy.
Muncie smiles. Goodall smiles. They love the effect that has on Peter.
‘Poor lady,’ smirks Muncie, relishing being in charge.
Goodall says, ‘You were seen driving away from Sheepburn Road on New Year’s morning by an eyewitness.’
‘I wasn’t alone.’
Goodall sits up. Muncie clears his throat. His cheek twitches, as if he wasn’t supposed to speak but he has swallowed the bait and can’t stop himself. ‘Who was with you?’
Now Peter is in charge and they are listening to him.
‘I was with someone. He asked me to help him scout the area for houses to break into. I live there. I know the area. He was with me in the car. On New Year’s Day he paid me those sequential notes for doing that.’
‘Who is this man?’
‘Someone you know,’ he tells them and Goodall and Muncie look at each other. Muncie is excited. Goodall’s top lip is beaded with sweat. They drop their voices confidentially.
Goodall asks, ‘Peter, d’you think you could pick him out of a line-up?’
It is ten thirty at night. Peter Manuel is behind the door, having the identification process explained to him. You have to touch his arm, do you understand? He understands perfectly well. It’s almost a joke, them explaining it to him. Muncie is breathing funny, as if he’s going to laugh any minute. Goodall is smirking and even DS Brown, the CID high heidyin, has come down to watch from the corridor. Manuel doesn’t understand why they think his accusation is funny. The door opens and Peter walks into the concrete basement.
Five men standing in a row, a drunk, a cop and three other people. Manuel walks sombrely along the line and stops at the flurry of colour and patterns. He puts his hand on Dandy McKay’s shoulder.
Muncie, eyes shining, barks: ‘Are you alleging that this man asked you to show him the bungalow in Sheepburn Road for the purposes of housebreaking?’
‘I am,’ says Manuel.
Muncie steps away, giving off a little nervous gasping titter. It’s as if he’s tricked a naive classmate into swearing in front of a teacher.
Dandy is angry. ‘YOU SPASTIC BASTARD SON OF A CUNT. WHO THE BUGGERING SHITE ARE YOU TO FINGER ME?’
Dandy’s shouting is painfully loud in the small concrete room. It booms so loud it doesn’t just hurt the ears but the eyes. The cop and the drunk in the identity parade scurry out of the open door, their shoulders at their ears. Outside the door DS Brown leaves, laughing. A press of uniforms gather around the door to watch. The two spare men in the line-up linger for a moment, neither police officer nor habitual drunk, unsure whether they can leave. Goodall nods them out.
Muncie tries to disguise his glee by speaking with excessive formality. ‘Mr McKay, Mr Manuel is alleging that he drove you around Uddingston scoping for houses to rob on Ne’erday last.’
‘THE FUCK I DID. I’m Dandy McFuckingKay. The fuck am I doing stealing jewellery from fucking bungalows?’
‘Do you own a gun, Mr McKay? Say, for example a Beretta automatic?’
It’s an incendiary question. A Beretta has been mentioned in the papers with regard to the Smart murders. Dandy understands the implication.
‘ME?’ His voice rises to a roar. ‘ME OWN A BERETTA?’
Muncie smiles at Manuel, his voice calm and creamy. ‘Is that a “no” from yourself, Mr McKay?’
‘COURSE IT’S A FUCKING “NO”. What is this? I was never in Uddingston.’
‘Would you know anyone who does own a Beretta?’
Dandy reads Muncie’s expression. It takes a minute for him to get the prompt but then–‘Aye. I do. This cunt owns a fucking Beretta.’