The Good Provider (30 page)

‘Does it look like a mistake?’ Craig nodded at the half brick. ‘We’re on the bloody top floor, Kirsty. It took a man to throw that, not a mischievous wean. The bastards have it in for me.’

‘Me too,’ said Kirsty.

‘What d’you mean?’

She told him about McVoy’s daughters and their assault upon her person, about the silent treatment she had received from the girls in the Cakery. Craig climbed carefully from the chair and put his good arm about her to offer a modicum of comfort.

‘Are you injured?’

‘I’m hurt,’ said Kirsty, ‘but not injured. How long will they keep it up, Craig?’

‘Christ knows!’

‘I’m beginnin’ to see why Sergeant Drummond urged us to get out o’ the Greenfield.’

‘Bugger Drummond. Bugger them all,’ said Craig. ‘We’re not leavin’ here – an’ that’s flat.’

Shortly after seven o’clock that same evening Colin McCoig turned up. He did not come alone. He was accompanied by a hulking brute of a man in a half-tile hat and Gladstone coat who, though not formally introduced to the tenants, was clearly another cousin of the landlord.

‘What are you doin’ here, Mr McCoig?’ said Craig. ‘Our rent’s no’ due until next Friday. Have you made a mistake?’

‘No mistake,’ said Colin McCoig. ‘Broken window.’

‘How did you know—’

‘Damages must be made good or paid for.’

‘It’ll be repaired,’ said Craig.

The sheer size of the man in the Gladstone overcoat frightened her and Kirsty retreated to the sink.

‘Repaired by next Friday at the latest,’ said McCoig.

‘Next Friday?’ said Craig. ‘It’ll be done tomorrow.’

‘Next Friday: I’m servin’ notice,’ said McCoig.

‘Notice?’

‘To quit.’

‘What!’ Craig shouted. ‘What reason have you got for tossin’ us out? We’ve aye paid the rent on time.’

‘Landlord’s privilege,’ said McCoig. ‘Read the lease agreement.’

‘Christ!’ Craig shouted. ‘You’re another one o’ Malone’s toadies.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Colin McCoig stiffly.

Livid with rage, Craig stepped towards him.

The cousin shuffled quickly forward to interpose himself between landlord and tenant. Fists planted on hips he flipped back the folds of his overcoat. Stuck in his broad leather belt was an iron bar similar to the one that Danny Malone had wielded. Surreptitiously Kirsty put her fingers around the handle of the frying-pan. The cousin frightened her in a way she had never been frightened before.

Craig checked but did not back away. He folded his arms and squared up to the big man.

‘I suppose you’re another o’ Malone’s chinas too?’

‘Danny’s got your mark, sonny,’ said the cousin. ‘Danny knows it was you got him nicked.’

‘Danny got himself nicked.’

‘You’re in thick wi’ the blue boys.’

‘Beside the point,’ said Colin McCoig. ‘I need this room for – for other tenants. You’ve got seven days’ grace, Nicholson. I’ll be here to check the inventory next Friday.’

‘Stuff your bloody inventory,’ said Craig. ‘We’re no’ goin’.’

‘Aye, but you are, sonny,’ said the cousin. ‘By God, you are.’

Craig took the tobacco tin from under the board under the bed and prised it open with a knife. He spilled coins on to the table, stirred them with his palm and immediately began to separate silver from copper.

Kirsty was seated at the table, hands tucked into her lap to hide her trembling.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least we’re not penniless.’

‘How long d’you think this lot’ll last?’

‘I’ve still got my pay from Oswalds’.’

‘Six bob a week’ll no’ even feed us, Kirsty, let alone put another roof over our heads,’ said Craig. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t surprise me if Malone managed to put the arm on somebody at Oswalds’ an’ you wound up bein’ sacked.’

‘How can Malone—’

‘It’s no’ just Malone. He’s got powerful friends.’

‘Craig, I’m—’

‘Christ, woman, don’t tell me again that you’re sorry.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘
Jesus!
’

‘How much have we saved?’ said Kirsty.

‘Sixty-six shillin’s.’

Eight months ago such a sum would have seemed like a king’s ransom. Living in Glasgow had taught her the value of money, however, and two months and a town rent would soon gobble up their savings.

‘We could pawn things?’ she said.

‘What things?’

‘The clock?’

‘The clock would hardly raise the price of a pint,’ said Craig. ‘What I need is another job, one that pays better than cartin’. And I need it quick.’

‘Craig, are you certain that Maitland Moss will pay you off?’

He laughed. ‘Pay me off? God, I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t string me up.’

‘It’s not right.’

‘It’s the way the world wags, though,’ said Craig.

‘Perhaps we should go home, back to Carrick.’

She was testing him, the strength of his determination to stick it out, to stay with her here in the city. His hesitation suggested that he had not entirely put the idea from his mind. He frowned.

‘Look, Kirsty, there’s no sense in steppin’ backward, is there?’

She shook her head.

He went on, ‘Or in lettin’ ourselves be pushed. I’m man enough to resist that, at least. There are things I miss about Dalnavert, a lot o’ things, but it’s a dull life there wi’ your feet in the mud an’ little prospect of change.’

‘At Bankhead, though, you could—’

‘I could be a head ploughman, aye, in ten years. Nah, nah.’

She felt relieved, vastly so, though her anxiety about the future remained.

Craig said, ‘Here we are, Kirsty, an’ for better or worse it’s here we’ll stay.’

‘But what’ll we do for money?’

‘Leave all that to me,’ said Craig.

It was no sort of day to fire the blood. Rain drizzled from gelatinous clouds and the city and its suburbs lay grey and still and sullen as Craig trudged up Kingdom Road towards the gates of Maitland Moss carriers’ yard. He kept his hands out of his pockets and his chin up, though rain beaded his hair and formed a drip on his nose and he felt anything but aggressive and determined.

Nothing appeared to have changed in the yard. There was no visible activity and most of the carts had gone out. Indeed the only sound came from the forge where old Willy and a lad were repairing a set of springs. Craig marched boldly to the shed, marched boldly inside.

The reek of burnt hoofs and coke fumes caught at his throat. It was all he could do not to cough. He closed his throat on the choking sensation and waited, arms by his sides, until the lad spotted him and nudged old Willy.

Tongs in hand, bulky leather pad strapped to his forearm and a scarred apron covering his nether region, Willy turned.

‘You, Nicholson!’ he exclaimed. ‘By Jove, you’ve a brass neck showin’ your face here.’

‘I’ve come for my wages.’

‘It’s no’ Sunday.’

‘I’m not waitin’ for Sunday,’ said Craig. ‘Who’s in charge now Malone’s gone?’

‘If you’re caught here, son,’ said the horse-man, ‘they’ll bloody flay you, so they will.’

‘Let them bloody try.’

‘Danny made money for half the men here,’ Willy reminded him.

‘By theft, by robbery, by smashin’ old widows in the mouth.’

‘He was pals wi’ everyone, was Danny.’

‘How many o’ Danny’s pals did the coppers lift?’ Craig asked.

‘Och, the blue boys come wi’ warrants all right, but they found not a blessed thing. Danny was too smart for them. Danny would never shop his pals.’

‘I want my wages,’ said Craig.

‘Did the polis no’ pay you, eh?’

‘So you think I’m a nark, Willy; well, I’ll tell you, I got nothin’ from the coppers,’ Craig said. ‘Not a damned penny.’

‘You’ll get nothin’ from Maitland Moss either.’

‘Mr Moss?’ said Craig. ‘Is he managin’ the yard himself?’

Behind the horse-man, stuck in the jaws of the forge, a length of iron had turned from dull red to molten white. Craig stared at it, expecting it to melt completely and drip into the bed of hot coals even though the lad had ceased to pump the foot bellows and there was no draught to create heat.

‘Mr Moss has t’ do it until he can find somebody else,’ said Willy. ‘He’ll never get nobody like Danny Malone, though.’

‘So Mr Moss had to get out o’ his bed, did he?’ said Craig. ‘Where is he, Willy?’

‘Upstairs.’

‘Right,’ said Craig turning.

‘Aye, you’d better get what you can an’ clear out o’ the Greenfield, son,’ said the old horse-man. ‘Word’s out that Danny intends t’ get you.’

‘How can he get me?’ said Craig. ‘He’ll be in the bloody clink for ten years at least.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure o’ that,’ said Willy.

It was not Malone that worried Craig, but Malone’s influence. The brick through the window, the attack on Kirsty, the landlord’s cousin in the daft tile-hat; his betrayal had become public knowledge and it would serve no purpose at all to deny it.

Craig turned and, without another word to the horse-man, left the shed and crossed the yard to the stairs that led up to the rackety wooden office. He climbed them quickly, before his nerve could fail him, and knocked upon the door.

‘What is it?’ a voice called out.

‘I’ve come for my wages.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Craig Nicholson.’

The door flew open.

Craig had half expected to be confronted by the sporting gent he had glimpsed at the Belltree that April morning in Renfrew but Maitland Moss, though out of the same drawer, had no whiskers, only a small bristling moustache. His jaw was blunt, his nose aquiline, his eyes as cold and grey as the Glasgow sky. He wore chequered tweeds of fine wool and finer cut and a high hard collar with a red silk cravat in the vee.

‘Are
you
Nicholson?’

‘I am, sir.’

‘What the devil do you want?’

‘My wages, sir. Four days.’

‘By God, you’ve got gall!’

‘My tally will be recorded in the day book, sir.’

‘I know where the tally will be,’ said Maitland Moss. ‘You’d best step inside.’

He was younger than Craig had supposed him to be, not much over thirty. The office appeared unchanged, except that there was more paper scattered about and, in an ashtray on the desk, a slender cheroot smoked where once Danny Malone’s fat Delmonico had rested. A gill bottle of Glen Grant whisky and a single glass were on the desk too. The fire and an oil-lamp were lighted. Maitland Moss did not invite Craig to sit down. He poured a dram into the little glass and drank it in a swallow. ‘Do you know what you’ve done, Nicholson?’

‘I haven’t done anythin’, Mr Moss.’

‘How do you know my name?’

‘Old Willy told me.’

‘Have you not seen me before?’

‘No, sir, never.’

Moss went on, ‘Not only did you cost me the services of a most excellent manager but you brought a gang of policemen to my house in dead of night and thoroughly frightened my wife and children.’

‘I did no such thing, Mr Moss.’

‘You were responsible for it.’

‘Am I not to get my wages?’ said Craig.

‘I’ve no stomach for your sort, Nicholson.’

‘My sort?’

‘An ingrate. Mr Malone was generous enough to make you a place here and you reward him by telling some tall tale to the police.’

‘Tall tale! Malone was a thief.’

‘Yes, I thought you’d try to put the blame on Danny.’

‘He brought it on—’

Maitland Moss poured another dram and drank it too, taking it like a swift indrawn breath, hardly pausing in his harangue. ‘Look, Nicholson, I’m not interested in your sorry story. The truth is that you do not comprehend the delicate balance that exists between a man trying to earn an honest crust of bread and the tyrannical forces of a government that wishes all men to be made slaves to the state.’

Craig shook his head in bewilderment. He had heard such stuff spouted around the yard but had not expected the master to uphold the same philosophy as his men.

Craig said, ‘What makes y’ think I narked on Malone?’

‘You were there on the night in question,’ said Maitland Moss, ‘yet you are not behind bars. Why would you be allowed to walk free unless you co-operated with the police?’

Craig said, ‘Have I been sacked, Mr Moss?’

‘By God, Nicholson, you
are
a fool. Danny Malone liked you. He would have made a great deal of money for you if only you’d trusted him.’

‘Aye an’ bashed old women on the head.’

‘You exaggerate.’