The Good Provider (31 page)

At that moment Craig realised that he had no awe of Maitland Moss, only a certain cold contempt for the toff. He felt quite proud of himself and, with swelling confidence, heard himself say, ‘I’m here for my wages, sir, at Superintendent Affleck’s suggestion.’

Without even looking down, Maitland Moss yanked open a drawer in the desk, lifted out a cash-box and placed it before him. He flung open the lid.

‘How much?’

‘It should be about eleven shillin’s, but the day book—’

Maitland Moss selected coins from the box and tossed them on to the desk where they rolled and flattened; four half-crowns and two sixpences. ‘Take your damned money and clear out.’

Craig hesitated. He had been enjoying a feeling of equality with the toff, the novelty of being backed by a powerful authority. It was almost as if Mr Affleck and the Highland sergeant were in the room with him, standing silent but approving just behind his back. It was strange that he should think of them now without resentment or bitterness. This man, this rich man, was afraid of the police and, by inference, a little afraid of him too.

‘Take it, damn you,’ Moss cried.

Craig smiled and slipped the coins from the desk and pocketed them. He had gained more than cash from this visit, though. Moss had yielded to him, had crumpled before his threat. It was beginning to seem that he was not so alone as he had thought himself to be.

Moss said, ‘Oh, yes, you think you’ve been smart, don’t you? But you haven’t heard the last of it. Danny won’t forgive and Danny won’t forget. Not all your pals on the police force will be able to protect you when Danny or Billy comes for you.’

‘More bricks through my kitchen window, eh?’

‘That treatment will be very mild compared to what will happen when Danny and Billy are released.’

‘I’m told they’ll be put away for years,’ Craig said.

‘What did they promise you?’ said Maitland Moss. ‘A wage, a house, a job? Was that the bargain? God, you’re just the type; a sly young devil, wet behind the ears.’

‘I’m no copper,’ said Craig.

‘Oh, don’t lie. You didn’t co-operate with Affleck for nothing. You’re not that much of a fool.’

‘I just did what I thought was right,’ said Craig.

‘God Almighty,’ Maitland Moss exploded. ‘Get out of my sight.’

Craig was filled with a most peculiar sense of confidence, an arrogance that made him bold. He pointed his forefinger at Maitland Moss. ‘I think you’d best keep your nose clean, Mr Moss. It could be you that goes to clink next time.’

‘What the devil do you—’

Craig gave no answer, let the threat hang. He turned and left the office, went downstairs and crossed the empty yard. He hesitated at the gate, glanced back. He felt light-headed, almost faint with the thrill it had given him. He had got the better of a man like Maitland Moss, had made ‘right’ triumph. He needed no justification for his behaviour and had not had to prove that he was other than a daft country boy. Connection, however tenuous, with the forces of law and order had given him stature and strength. The more he thought of it, the better he liked it.

What had Moss said –
a wage, a house, a job
?

These were acceptable realities, things that he wanted and needed, things that would serve without question as motive and explanation for what he was about to do. The other aspects of it he did not dare dwell upon, though they, perhaps, were the factors that really steeled him to call his dues from Hugh Affleck, that gave form to his desire to ‘get on’, respectably, in life.

Strutting a little, Craig quit the carriers’ yard and set out at once for Ottawa Street.

It had been one of those nights and, without doubt, it would be one of those days too. Hector Drummond had allocated himself extra shifts as Duty Sergeant for he could not afford to miss the visits of the big-wigs from the Burgh Watch Committee and high-rankers from Greenfield’s Police Headquarters. The nabbing of Danny and Billy had set the cat among the pigeons with a vengeance and the sergeant was glad that they were being held in cells in Glasgow and not here, for he could not be quite sure that there would not be some sort of minor riot, a protest against ‘police methods’, though he doubted if it would come to that. In any case Skirving and Malone were housed in the big jail in the city and McVoy, under police guard in the Royal Infirmary, was in no fit state to make a dash for it.

Everybody was afraid that Danny and Billy would turn canary, would sing their black hearts out and bring scandal to the burgh and the force. Sergeant Drummond did not believe that corruption ran deep. Nonetheless two of his constables had failed to report for muster that morning and two more were acting very shifty. If they were wise they would resign rather than sweat out the weeks in the hope that Danny and Billy would not divulge their names as receivers of bribes. It was the bribery that had the place buzzing.

Lieutenant Strang, acting directly for Chief Constable Organ, had turned up late last night and asked a number of pointed questions. He had warned Sergeant Drummond and his cohort, Sergeant Stevens, that he would not be surprised if the individuals who comprised the Watch Committee decided to inspect the station in the next day or two and to keep all ‘the lads’ on their toes. Lieutenant Strang had not been wrong. Councillors had been in and out all morning, nosing and poking about, fishing for information on the arrests, even though Sergeant Drummond told them emphatically that the whole thing was being handled by the City of Glasgow and had nothing to do with Greenfield Burgh.

Though it had been almost thirty-six hours since young Nicholson had limped away, swathed in bandages, from Ottawa Street, in that time Sergeant Drummond had spared not a thought for the boy whose courage or duplicity – depending how you looked at it – had put the fat in the fire in the first place. He was surprised, and not a little dismayed, to glance up from work on the night-shift roster to find Nicholson standing before him, minus the bandage and with a simpering sort of grin on his face.

‘Aye, young man, and what is it that we can be doing for you?’

‘Tell me,’ Nicholson said, ‘am I to be charged with any crime?’

‘I have heard nothing to that effect.’

‘Will I have to appear in the court?’

‘Court?’

‘To speak out against Malone?’

‘I doubt if it will come to that,’ said Sergeant Drummond cautiously. ‘Superintendent Affleck would not be wishing it.’

‘So,’ said Nicholson, ‘there’s nothin’ against me.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I want to join.’

‘Join?’

‘I want to join an’ be a policeman.’

Sergeant Drummond drew back, as if the lad had threatened him with violence. ‘But – but—’

‘You just said there was nothin’ to hinder it.’

‘Why do you want to be a policeman?’

‘Because it’s secure.’

‘Secure?’ Sergeant Drummond was aware that he was beginning to sound like a poll parrot. ‘I mean, what makes you imagine that it is secure?’

‘I’m nobody’s pal out there,’ said Nicholson. ‘Mr Affleck neglected to mention that fact when he conned me into shoppin’ Danny Malone. Everybody seems to think I’m a bloody copper’s nark – so I may as well be a real copper an’ get paid for it.’

‘There is,’ said Sergeant Drummond, ‘a small matter of aptitude and basic educational requirements.’

‘I’m not scared o’ hard work,’ said Craig Nicholson. ‘Anyway, I helped catch some criminals already, did I not?’

‘Can you read?’

‘Aye, of course.’

‘Write?’

‘Aye.’

‘Add up sums?’

‘Arithmetic; certainly,’ said Nicholson. ‘Even fractions.’

‘Are you sound in wind and limb?’

‘Except for temporary cracked ribs, aye.’

‘No infectious diseases, lung trouble, bad feet, madness in the family?’ said Sergeant Drummond hopefully.

‘No, nothin’ like that.’

‘Still, there are procedures.’

Nicholson said, ‘How do I go about it?’

‘You fill in a form, and send a letter.’

‘Have you got the form here?’

‘Hold the cuddy a wee minute, son,’ said Sergeant Drummond. ‘First you must write to the Chief Constable and request an interview.’

‘I’ll be doin’ that,’ said Craig Nicholson. ‘Would it help me if I got a recommendation?’

‘A reco—’ Sergeant Drummond bit his lip.

‘If Superintendent Affleck was to write a letter sayin’ he thought I’d make a good copper?’

‘Does Superintendent Affleck know you well enough?’

‘He should,’ said young Nicholson.

‘That nice young wife of yours,’ said Sergeant Drummond, ‘is this her idea?’

‘Nah, it’s my idea. I’ve tried it the other way an’ it’s not for me,’ young Nicholson said. ‘Now I feel I should try it your way.’

‘What are all these blethers?’ the sergeant said, scratching his ear.

‘It’s honest employment, well enough paid, with prospects.’

‘That much, at least, is true.’

Sergeant Drummond leaned his elbows on the counter and studied the young man thoughtfully. Perhaps it was not such a daft idea after all.

He sighed. ‘It is not an easy job, though.’

‘No job’s easy,’ said young Nicholson.

‘It has its own special difficulties.’

‘Such as?’

The sergeant sighed again. It was incumbent upon him to try to put the boy off, to tell him of the grinding monotony of the beat, of the routines of the station, spit and polish and self-discipline. Perhaps he should take him by the arm, lead him down to the holding-cells, show him old Tommy Watts who had not been sober in thirty years and who turned up regularly every Friday night to vomit all over the station floor, who would be charged at the Police Court come Monday, would vanish for thirty days, and would be back vomiting, cursing and pissing within twenty-four hours of release.

Perhaps he should put on his helmet and walk the boy along to the mortuary in Percy Street, show him the corpse that Constable McCrae had scraped off the railway line in the dismal light of dawn, a body without a head or feet, victim not of murder but of despair, just another suicide. Perhaps he should make young Nicholson camp on the bench for the rest of the day and observe the parade of grotesque and pitiful creatures that would shuffle through the station; men, women and children twisted by drink and violence, bigotry, poverty and neglect. But Sergeant Drummond knew that he was no good advertisement for any preaching that renounced the police force and, in lieu of sermons and lessons, he gave Craig Nicholson a copy of the application form and jotted down the address of Burgh Headquarters and the name of the lieutenant to whom he must write for interview.

‘Now, it all depends whether there are vacancies,’ the sergeant warned, knowing perfectly well that recruits would be required within the week. ‘And it all depends on whether you are considered a good candidate. We only take the best in Greenfield, son.’

‘A letter from Mr Affleck, that would help, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would, it would – if he’ll give it.’

‘I think he should,’ said young Nicholson.

‘My, but you’re bold, young man.’

‘I have to be bold,’ Nicholson said. ‘I’ve a wife at home, with a wean on the way. I’ve been sacked from my job and turned out o’ my house, all because I assisted the polis.’

‘Because you got into bad company,’ said the sergeant.

‘Maybe,’ Nicholson said. ‘If that’s the case, I want into better company. What better company than the Burgh Police?’

At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, Sergeant Drummond caught sight of Mr Green, the Watch Committee’s most vociferous critic, as he emerged from the corridor, beady and alert as always, saw too the braid of Lieutenant Strang behind him.

Sergeant Drummond straightened, said brusquely, ‘That’ll be all, Mr Nicholson. We will be in touch in due course.’

‘Not too long, I hope,’ young Nicholson said.

‘Not too long,’ the sergeant promised and directed him towards the exit door.

Craig lay on his back on top of the bed with a Gold Flake stuck in his mouth. Comfortably full of dinner, he had removed his boots and unbuttoned his trousers and he watched Kirsty lazily as she moved about the kitchen.

‘They won’t dare turn me down if I get a reference from a superintendent, from Affleck,’ he said. ‘If he snaps his fingers I could be in uniform an’ drawin’ a wage in a fortnight.’

‘I can’t quite see you as a policeman,’ Kirsty said.

‘Can you not? By God, I think I’m perfect material for a copper; tall, dark, fearless an’ handsome – eh?’

‘What does the job pay?’

‘For the first month only fourteen bob a week but as soon as I’m out o’ probation an’ on to a beat then it earns twenty-three bob. Boot allowance on top, free uniform, a police house at a fiver a year rent.’

Kirsty paused and glanced round. ‘Are you sure?’

‘If you don’t believe me, read the print on the back o’ the application form.’