Laidlaw

20

For Harkness lunch in the city-centre meant a pub. There were plenty to choose from. But ‘Miranda’s’ was an old-fashioned unlicensed restaurant. He hadn’t been in it before. He wasn’t sorry. There were a lot of women with shopping-bags and a few businessmen who looked as if they weren’t doing much business. The waitresses wore black with white collars and cuffs.

Harkness drank a glass of grapefruit juice that was oily enough to cook with, and said, ‘So what’s the idea?’

Laidlaw looked up from his soup. Harkness looked round the restaurant.

‘The eating-house that time forgot. What’ve you got against yourself?’

‘Some women,’ Laidlaw said, ‘take Sweetex in their coffee after a five-course meal. This is my pathetic token gesture. The best thing on the menu here’s no drink. Any word?’

‘There’s nothing yet. I saw Bob Lilley. Says to tell you they nailed those blokes at Dumfries. Know how they were doing it? Very cute. Left their own car, stole two others. Drove into England, did the jobs. Met, transferred the stuff into one car, abandoned the other one. Brought the lot back to Dumfries, did the final transfer, abandoned the other stolen car.’

‘Simple,’ Laidlaw said. ‘I wish we were up against something as straightforward as that.’

‘We didn’t get much this morning, did we?’

‘How could we? Just now we’re plumbing puddles.’

‘Not a thing.’

‘You don’t know that. We’ve got to keep all the possibilities in the air just now. Don’t let any of them fall out of mind. We just keep walking and talking.’

‘Asking questions.’

‘It’s the questions you don’t ask that count. People don’t give answers. They betray them. When they think they’re answering one thing, they’re giving an honest answer to something else. Our problem is we don’t know enough yet to work out what they’re saying. So we have to try to remember everything till some kind of shape emerges. All we’ve got so far is that Harry Rayburn is too inefficient, too casual, too hard. That’s maybe something, it’s maybe nothing.’

Their waitress put down Laidlaw’s roast beef, Harkness’s fish.

‘What is your secret, great man?’ Harkness asked.

‘Brains. Let’s eat.’ He looked at his roast beef. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

After a couple of forkfuls, Laidlaw said, ‘John Rhodes. That’s who we’ll go and see. He’s an honourable thug. He won’t like this kind of thing. He might lend us his eyes and his ears for a week.’

‘I’ve heard of him.’

‘I would hope so. Have you met him?’

‘No.’

‘You were talking about hard men. I’ll show you hard. When he’s in a bad mood, you phone the army.’