Laidlaw

39

Coming round from Stewart Street, Laidlaw negotiated the traffic with an absent-mindedness that was almost suicidal. In his head he was still talking to Commander Robert Frederick.

They had had these confrontations several times and always Frederick was at least as understanding as you could expect him to be, and always Laidlaw finished up depressed. The pair of them had the art of conjuring hopelessness together. They had managed it again. But at least Laidlaw had the melancholy satisfaction of feeling that he understood why, a little more clearly. Listening to Frederick’s advice, he had thought again of how much he disliked that room, the deodorised furnishings, the uncluttered desk, the smiling photograph, the ashtray that was never used. It was like a shrine to a God he didn’t believe in. It was the God of categories.

The way Frederick spoke was the key. His speech had a rhythm that had often puzzled Laidlaw. Now he understood. It was dictation. Everything was for the files. What didn’t fit on paper was just a nuisance. He went by statistics and reports. He believed in categories. Laidlaw had never been able to do that. There wasn’t one category that he could accept as being significantly self-contained, from ‘Christian’ to ‘murderer’.

It was a heavy thought, the kind that needed the help of everybody else to carry. He wondered if the depression he felt at times like these came from a seemingly irrefutable indication that there were those who would never share it. There were those for whom the divisive categories were cast iron. They would always be there.

In the heart of such realisations was the seed of an enormous tiredness. It was almost enough to make him accept the categories. He could almost envy Frederick his neat divisions. Certainly, he could understand Frederick’s doubts about his validity as a policeman, even agree with them. Most of all, he could appreciate the Commander’s determination to have his neat divisions adhered to. If you went beyond them, it was simply harder to go on living.

‘You mentioned earlier about our different terms of reference. Well, I’m afraid in this job it’s my terms of reference that are going to apply. Even to you. They are as follows. You have until tomorrow. Everything you find out between now and then gets fed back to us immediately. Through Harkness. After today, you’ll get your assignments from me. A day at a time. Any questions?’

‘D’you mind if I go now?’

‘Please.’

As Laidlaw was leaving, Frederick had said, ‘You know. It’s only when you actually appear in front of me that my hackles rise. At other times I can think of you quite calmly. Why is that?’

Laidlaw had looked ruefully at him, taking in the reprehensible sterility of the room, had thought about it sadly.

‘I’ve got such a charming absence,’ he had said.

At the top of Hope Street, the Top Spot presented a clutch of entrances. If you went left, as Laidlaw did, you came into a public bar. This was much used by policemen. It was a narrow bar and near the door a wooden partition came out from the counter, isolating a few feet from the rest, like the hint of a snug. That was where Laidlaw went, not being in the mood for fraternising. He needed some pain-killer.

‘An Antiquary and a half-pint of heavy, please.’

He didn’t know the girl. He didn’t want to.

‘What’s up with you, Greta Garbage? You want to be alone?’

He knew the voice. He had to smile. He turned into Bob Lilley’s big rosy face, a farmer in plain clothes. He took a mock punch at Bob’s stomach.

‘Aye, Bob,’ he said. ‘And how’s the man who gets the easy jobs? All right?’

‘Until you started insulting me again,’ Bob said. ‘I’d forgotten how much you did that. I must be missing you. So how was it?’

‘Like being beaten to death with medals,’ Laidlaw said. ‘What do you do when they accuse you of your virtues?’

‘Jack! You’re hallucinating again.’

‘Aye, maybe that. But don’t take bets.’

The girl came with his drink and Bob took a White Horse. He toasted Laidlaw with it.

‘I leave you for a day,’ Bob said. ‘And you land yourself in it again. Will you not take a telling?’

Harkness arrived, carrying a half-empty pint of lager.

‘How did it go?’ he asked.

Laidlaw clenched his teeth and shook his head. He became aware for the first time that there were other policemen further down the bar. He could hear them laughing.

‘Take it easy, Jack,’ Bob said. ‘It’s natural.’

‘So is shite. But I don’t have to eat it,’ Laidlaw said.

‘Behave yourself, Jack.’

‘I’m telling you, Bob. I’m pretty near to packing it in.’

‘Is that all?’ Bob Lilley said. ‘I thought it was serious. You’ve been going to do that every week since I knew you.’

Laidlaw laughed. Harkness realised how close Laidlaw and Bob Lilley were and was surprised. Laidlaw was less of a loner than he had thought he was. Milligan came up.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Did you shove a book down your trousers?’

‘Spare us,’ Laidlaw said.

‘Don’t take it so hard. Everybody’s been on the carpet. We’ve all had that experience.’

‘Milligan. You’re still waiting for your first experience. Send a cabbage round the world, it comes back a cabbage. What are you doing in the polis, Milligan?’

‘Come to that, what are you doing in it?’

‘Trying to counteract people like you.’

‘My God, Laidlaw. It must be wonderful to be you.’

‘I don’t know. I have to use the lavatory every day. And sometimes I get sore heads.’

‘No. I don’t believe it.’

‘Straight up. Especially after talking to you.’

Harkness was concentrating on the bottles arranged behind the bar. He could hear the murmur of pleasant conversations all around him and Milligan breathing heavy in the middle of it. He remembered visiting the flat where Milligan lived alone, and the emptiness of the place, the sense that nobody lived there, made him angry at Laidlaw’s antagonism. He thought how Laidlaw improvised every situation into a crisis. It was an exhausting trait, if not for Laidlaw, then for him. Who wanted to be a batman to a mobile disaster area?

‘Does it never cross your mind,’ Milligan was saying, ‘that a bunch of us could give you a kicking you’d never forget?’

‘Fine. Then all you’d have to do is travel roped together for the rest of your lives. Because you’re right. I wouldn’t forget.’

‘Your time’s coming,’ Milligan said darkly as he went away.

‘Read any good gantries lately?’ Laidlaw said to Harkness.

Harkness looked at him, none too friendly, and shook his head in disagreement with what Laidlaw had done.

‘I don’t know how much crime you solve,’ Bob Lilley said. ‘But you must cause plenty. You’re what they call extreme provocation. I’ll go down and pour oil on troubled Milligans. Do yourself a favour, Jack. Buy a muzzle.’

He went away. Harkness felt like joining him.

‘For somebody who doesn’t believe in monsters,’ he said, ‘you do your best to try to make Milligan into one.’

‘I don’t think so. I think he’s trying to do that to himself. I’m just disagreeing with his efforts.’

‘Listen! Have you any idea of the kind of life that big man’s trying to cope with? He lives like Robinson Crusoe in that house of his. Nobody comes, nobody goes. His marriage is finished. His only relatives are in the cemetery. Give him a break!’

‘Which arm? No, fair enough. But just because you’ve got a wooden leg doesn’t mean you’ve got to go about battering all the two-legged folk over the head with it. His problems I can sympathise with. But not his reaction to them.’

They drank, considering each other from opposite sides of an attitude.

‘What about Sarah Stanley?’ Laidlaw asked.

‘She says she’s never heard of Tommy. I managed to miss the gaffer. But she had nothing.’

The group of policemen were laughing.

‘Policemen,’ Laidlaw said, looking into the last of his beer, ‘have proprietary laughter.’