The Good Provider (26 page)

‘How can you be certain it’s genuine sterling silver?’

‘It has marks on it; the stamp.’

‘Who owns the house?’ said Malone.

‘Her name’s Frew. She lives there alone, except for a servant,’ said Craig. ‘What’s more, she’ll be out all night on Friday. The place’ll be empty.’

‘How do ye know that?’

‘My – my wife, she goes to the same kirk as the Frew woman.’

‘An’ the Frew woman told your wife the house would be empty?’

‘Nah,’ said Craig, ‘but she told her she was goin’ to visit her sister in Greenock an’ wouldn’t be at the prayer meetin’ on Friday, this Friday.’

‘So your wifie goes t’ prayer meetin’s, eh?’

‘Aye, sometimes.’

Craig squirmed a little on the hard wooden chair. He hated it when Danny Malone mentioned Kirsty, even casually, for Malone pronounced the word ‘wife’ in a dragging, leering tone. Craig had heard stories, some envious, about Malone and his women, how he bedded a young thing in a house in Regina Street while keeping a wife and weans tucked away downriver in the village of Cardross. Craig did not find such behaviour admirable or manly and he did not envy Malone his women; one wife was more than he could handle.

‘Does it on her knees, eh?’ said Malone.

Craig said, ‘It’s an empty house wi’ a load o’ silver plate in it. Number nineteen, Walbrook Street, opposite the bowling-green.’

‘You said there was a servant.’

‘She goes home every night.’

‘What for are ye tellin’ me all this, Craig?’ said Danny Malone, still squinting through cigar smoke.

‘Because it’s there for the takin’,’ said Craig.

‘Take it then.’

Craig forced a grin, got up. ‘That’s fine, Mr Malone. I was hopin’ you’d say that. See, I didn’t want you to think I was queerin’ your pitch or anythin’.’

‘You’ll get nabbed, sonny.’

‘I’ll chance it.’

Malone swung his feet to the floor and leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the desk and even put down the cigar, balancing it carefully in an empty tobacco tin.

‘How will you move it?’ he said.

‘I’ll only take what I can carry,’ said Craig.

‘Aye, an’ maybe leave the best o’ it behind.’

Craig shrugged. ‘It’ll be enough for me, whatever I get.’

‘How will ye get in?’

‘Through the back kitchen window.’

‘Barred, I’ll wager.’

‘Not barred,’ said Craig.

‘How—’

‘I looked, didn’t I?’

‘You’ve a right insolent mouth on you, Nicholson.’

‘Look, Mr Malone, why do you think I left Carrick?’

Puzzled, Malone frowned.

‘Because I had to,’ Craig said. He shrugged again. ‘It was gettin’ just a bit too hot down there, if ye know what I mean.’

‘You mean—’

Craig said, ‘Let me just say, Mr Malone, that I know a bit more about night work than I learned drivin’ a cart for you.’

‘Your wife, your “prayer meetin’” wife, I’ll bet she doesn’t know what a bad lad you are?’

‘Think I’m daft enough to tell her?’ said Craig.

It hung, at that point, in the balance. Craig knew that he had been inspired in his performance, was pleased with his invention about his reason for fleeing from Carrick and he had sense enough not to embellish it. He tried to appear close and tough, to encourage Malone’s doubts about him.

Malone plucked up the Delmonico between finger and thumb and took a long pull at it, sucking smoke into his lungs.

‘If you had it done proper you could clear the whole house,’ said Malone at length. ‘You could have a cartful. Aye, an’ a sure market for the silver, if it’s any good at all.’

‘Is that a proposal, Mr Malone?’

‘Aye.’

‘That’s what I came for,’ said Craig.

‘I could see that the job’s done properly.’

‘Right you are.’

‘I could see that it’s done wi’out you bein’ put at risk.’

Craig grunted, said, ‘An’ have you tell me later there was nothin’ in the bloody house worth sellin’? Nah, nah, Mr Malone. I’ll be there to earn my share.’

Malone laughed loudly.

It was done, accomplished; the bait had been swallowed.

Malone got up suddenly, came around the desk and draped his arm over Craig’s shoulder, hugged him, laughed again.

‘I got caught like that once,’ Malone said. ‘God an’ Jesus! It was a lesson well learned, though, I’ll tell ye. I was only about your age too when I was taken for green.’

‘I’ll bet you weren’t taken twice, though, Mr Malone.’

Malone’s laughter was dense and unaffected. It would probably be heard in the yard, in the stables; Craig wondered what the men would think of it and if they would respect him for becoming so ‘pally’ with the boss.

‘I’ve never been taken since,’ Malone said. ‘An’, by God, I’ll never be taken again.’

Craig said, ‘What about this job on Friday night?’

‘Easy-peasy,’ Malone said.

‘Is it on, then?’

‘It’s on,’ said Danny Malone.

Although the baby was not due for months, Kirsty imagined that she could feel it stirring in her womb and, in the course of that weekend, developed a fear that was almost a phobia that she might somehow be hurt and that the health of her child would be affected. She became tense and jumpy. At Oswalds’ she shouted at Letty for tugging her playfully by the arm. In the street she was tense and alert, afraid of barking dogs, neighing horses and rough-and-tumble urchins. She was also suddenly and acutely aware of all the poor, daft, big-headed bairns that trailed about, noses running, on their mothers’ hands and, in the night, suffered restless dreams about them.

In the end, on Monday, she went to the consulting-room in Banff Street and tearfully blurted out her fears to Doctor Godwin who patted her arm, gave her a tiny bottle of brown syrup – four drops in water daily – and assured her that she was strong and healthy and that her baby would be equally sound in wind, limb and mental faculty.

The impending ‘plot’ weighed heavily upon Kirsty. She was short with Craig and hated herself for not offering him sympathy for the dangerous ordeal that lay at the week’s end. Most of all, oddly, she experienced a tremendous weight of guilt at having missed Sabbath worship at St Anne’s. She felt that God would strike a black mark on her attendance record and hold it against her, punish her for her omission.

Pagan superstitions, old wives’ tales, rose and mingled with her other oppressive worries. She did not know who to blame for any of it – and so blamed Providence, promised in her prayers to be honest and kind and loving if only nothing bad happened to her husband and her baby.

She wanted no part in the deception that would lead the man, Malone, to prison; but she could not stand back from it now.

Mr Affleck was waiting inside Mr Kydd’s corner shop on Tuesday afternoon. How long he had been there or whether he had followed her, unseen, from Oswalds’ gate Kirsty could not be sure. He loitered by shelves of tinned biscuits and gave no sign that he recognised her when she stepped over the threshold from the street.

Two old women, strangers, were gossiping with Mr Kydd, a slim effeminate man with thin sandy hair and gold-rimmed glasses. Kirsty sidled past them, past the counter’s tray of brass weights, past the scales on which the potatoes were weighed, past thick soft sacks of oats and brose meal and dark sea-green racks of kail and cabbages; stood staring at tins of tea and bottles of coffee essence.

Mr Affleck’s voice, a murmur in her ear: ‘Has your husband heard anything definite?’

Without turning, Kirsty answered, ‘It’s to be Friday.’

‘What time?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Malone didn’t say?’

‘Craig didn’t tell me. He’ll not know.’

‘All right, lass. Listen; tell your husband to remain outside with the van if he possibly can. When he hears the first blast of a police whistle he’s to drive off as fast as he dare, commensurate with safety, of course. Got that?’

‘Yes.’

‘If, by any chance, he’s forced to enter the house, tell him to make sure he remains on the ground floor, near the door. As soon as my men appear he’s to run out into the street. If he’s stopped by one of my men tell him to put up no resistance. I’ll see to it that he’s released. Got that?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll be stationed in number nineteen by dusk, so he need have no fear if Malone elects to come early.’

‘What,’ said Kirsty, ‘what if somethin’ goes wrong, if the plans are changed?’

‘In that event go to Ottawa Street police station and give a message to Sergeant Drummond. Only to Sergeant Drummond, not to anybody else, in uniform or out of it. Got it?’

‘Will the sergeant—’

‘Yes, he’ll get in touch with me immediately.’

‘Is there anythin’ else?’

‘That’s it,’ said Mr Affleck.

He stepped away and selected a long tin of Bath Olivers from a shelf. As he squeezed past her on his way to the counter, however, he gave her elbow a squeeze and murmured, ‘Thank you, lass.’

Kirsty bought a quarter pound of loose tea, two wan-looking kippers from the enamel tray by the ham-slicer, four eggs and a pat of fresh butter. As she paid for her purchases and Mr Kydd wrapped them she heard one of the women behind her say, ‘Know who that was?’

‘Who?’

‘Him that just went out.’

‘Naw, I never saw him right.’

‘He used t’be in the polis, in Ottawa Street. I heard he was up in Glasgow now.’

‘In the polis?’

‘Aye.’

‘Get awa! Wonder what he wants in here.’

Without glancing up, Mr Kydd said, ‘Bath Olivers,’ and leaning over the counter carefully slipped the provisions into Kirsty’s shopping bag and, as he withdrew again, gave her a little knowing wink.

By Thursday evening Craig’s nervousness had reached such a pitch that Kirsty relented, put aside her own dread and found herself cosseting him as if he were an invalid. She bought a piece of frying-steak for his supper, carried a jug of beer from the Windsor Road off-licence, paid for with money that she had been saving to buy baby clothes.

Craig came home early. He was not his usual boisterous self but, cowed and furtive, slipped into the house and seated himself at the table in silence.

He asked Kirsty if she had been in touch with Affleck that day. Kirsty shook her head. Craig gave a little growl and put his hand over his eyes. ‘I don’t know how I got into this.’

‘You took money, Craig.’

‘Who in their right mind would turn down money?’

‘It’ll soon be over, dearest,’ Kirsty said.

He looked so youthful, dark hair tousled, eyes dark and perplexed, his skin with a sallow tan. She put her arms about his neck and hugged him.

‘Where’s my supper?’ he said.

She had fried potatoes to go with the steak and broke an egg on top of the meat. She served the plateful up to him, poured him a glass of beer from the jug. He did not seem to notice that she had taken trouble to please him. He ate in dour silence.

‘I’ll get no wages this week,’ he said, at length.

Kirsty said, ‘Why won’t you?’

‘Malone’ll be in the bloody clink, won’t he?’

‘I hope he will,’ said Kirsty.

‘An’ Maitland Moss isn’t goin’ to pay me for puttin’ him there.’

Craig mopped his plate with a piece of bread, lifted the beer glass and carried it to the chair by the grate. He lit a Gold Flake and seating himself stared, scowling, into the fire.

‘We couldn’t have gone on,’ he said. ‘Affleck’s right; sooner or later I’d have been nailed along wi’ Malone. It wouldn’t have been right, not wi’ a baby comin’.’

She had saved a piece of steak for herself and ate now, standing, forking the pieces into her mouth without appetite. She could not be sure if Craig was apologising for his foolishness or if, somehow, he was accusing her of collusion in his misfortune. His tension was palpable. She hoped that he would not crack, would not blurt out the truth to Bob McAndrew or Daniel Malone and spoil Mr Affleck’s well-wrought plan.

She put the plate on the table, wiped her lips on her handkerchief and hugged him once more. Craig sighed and patted her hand; and, at that moment, a fist thudded loudly on the outside door.

Kirsty started away and Craig stiffened.

‘Who can that be?’ Kirsty said.

‘Maybe it’s Affleck to tell us it’s all off.’

‘I’ll go an’ see.’

Kirsty opened the door with trepidation and confronted the man on the landing with a welling of pure fear.

‘So you’re the wee country wife, eh?’ said Danny Malone.

‘Who – who—’

‘Is he in, sweetheart?’

‘It’s only – only Thursday.’

‘Aye, I know what day it is,’ said Danny Malone. ‘Is he out?’

‘No, but—’