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CHAPTER 1

Laidlaw sat at his desk, feeling a bleakness that wasn't unfamiliar to him. Intermittently, he found himself doing penance for being him. When the mood seeped into him, nothing mattered. He could think of no imaginable success, no way of life, no dream of wishes fulfilled that would satisfy.

Last night and this morning hadn't helped. He had finally left Bob Lilley and the rest still on the surveillance in Dumfries. On the strength of solid information, they had followed the car from Glasgow. By a very devious route it had taken them to Dumfries. As far as he knew, that was where it was still parked — in the waste lot beside the pub. Nothing had happened. Instead of catching them in the act of breaking in, three hours of picking your nose. He had left them to it and come back to the office, gloom sweet gloom.

It was strange how this recurring feeling had always been a part of him. Even when he was a child, it had been present in its own childish form. He remembered nights when the terror of darkness had driven him through to his parents' room. He must have run for miles on that bed. It wouldn't have surprised him if his mother had had to get the sheets re-soled. Then it had been bats and bears, wolves running round the wallpaper. The spiders were the worst, big, hairy swines, with more legs than a chorus-line.

Now the monsters were simultaneously less exotic and less avoidable. He was drinking too much — not for pleasure, just sipping it systematically, like low proof hemlock. His marriage was a maze nobody had ever mapped, an infinity of habit and hurt and betrayal down which Ena and he wandered separately, meeting occasionally in the children. He was a policeman, a Detective Inspector, and more and more he wondered how that had happened. And he was nearly forty.

He looked at the clutter on his desk. It was as if on the desert island of his feeling this was all that chance had left him to work with: the two black-bound books of Scottish Criminal Law and Road Traffic Law, the red MacDonald's, establishing precedents, and the blue book on stated cases, the telex-file on British crime, the folder of case-reports. He wondered how you were supposed to improvise fulfilment out of that lot.

He was aware of the neatness of Bob Lilley's desk across from him. Did neatness mean contentment? He glanced over to the pin-board on the wall facing the door: shifts, departmental memoranda, a photograph of 'The Undertaker'— a con-man Laidlaw liked — overtime payments, a list of names for a Crime-Squad Dinner Dance. 'These fragments I have shored against my ruin.'

Guilt was the heart of this kind of mood, he reflected, and it surprised him again to realise it. The need to be constantly sifting the ashes of his past certainly hadn't been inculcated in him by his parents. They had done what they could to give him himself as a present. Perhaps it was just that, born in Scotland, you were hanselled with remorse, set up with shares in Calvin against your coming of age, so that much of the energy you expended came back guilt. His surely did.

He felt his nature anew as a wrack of paradox. He was potentially a violent man who hated violence, a believer in fidelity who was unfaithful, an active man who longed for understanding. He was tempted to unlock the drawer in his desk where he kept Kierkegaard, Camus and Unamuno, like caches of alcohol. Instead, he breathed out loudly and tidied the papers on his desk. He knew nothing to do but inhabit the paradoxes.

He was looking through the Collator's Report when the phone rang. He looked at it for a moment as if he could stare it down. Then his hand picked it up before he wanted it to.

'Yes. Laidlaw.' The hardness and firmness of the voice was a wonder to the person crouched behind it — a talking foetus!

'Jack. Bert Malleson. You did say anything of interest that came up, you wanted to know. Well, I've got Bud Lawson here.'

'Bud Lawson?'

'Remember a case of severe assault? It's a while ago now. But it was in the city-centre. It was a Central Division case. But the Squad was in on it. In the lane between Buchanan Street and Queen Street Station. The victim almost died. Bud Lawson was suspected. But nothing was proved. There was a connection. Some kind of grudge.'

'Yes.'

'Well, he's here now. Seems a bit strange to me. He's reporting his daughter missing. Because she didn't come back from the dancing last night. But it's only a few hours. I'm wondering about that. I thought you might want to speak to him.'

Laidlaw waited. He was tired, would soon be home. This was Sunday. He just wanted to lie in it like a sauna-bath, scratch his ego where it itched. But he understood what Sergeant Malleson was wondering. Policemen tended not to see what was there in their anxiety to see what was behind it. Zowie, my X-ray vision. But perhaps there was something in it.

'Yes. I'll see him.'

'I'll have him brought up.'

Laidlaw put down the phone and waited. Hearing the noise of the lift, he brought Bob Lilley's chair across in front of his own desk and sat back down. He heard the voices approaching, one frantic, the other calm, like ravaged penitent and weary priest. He couldn't hear what they were saying. He wasn't impatient to find out. There was a knocking. He waited for the inevitable pause to pass. What was he supposed to be doing, hiding the dirty pictures? The door opened and Roberts showed the man in.

Laidlaw stood up. He remembered Bud Lawson. His wasn't a face for forgetting. Angry, it belonged on a medieval church. Laidlaw had seen him angry in outrage, demanding that they bring out their proof, as if he was going to have a fist-fight with it. But he wasn't angry now, or at least he was as near to not being angry as was possible for him — which meant his anger was displaced. It was in transit, like a lorry-load of iron, and he was looking for someone to dump it on. His jacket had been thrown on over an open-necked shirt. A Rangers football-scarf was spilling out from the lapels.

Looking at him, Laidlaw saw one of life's vigilantes, a retribution-monger. For everything that happened there was somebody else to blame, and he was the very man to deal with them. Laidlaw was sure his anger didn't stop at people. He could imagine him shredding ties that wouldn't knot properly, stamping burst tubes of toothpaste into the floor. His face looked like an argument you couldn't win.

'Sit down, Mr. Lawson,' Laidlaw said.

He didn't sit, he subsided. His hands were clenched on his knees, a couple of smaller megaliths. But the eyes were jumpy. They were trying, Laidlaw decided, to keep track of all the possibilities that were swarming through his head. In that moment Laidlaw was sure Bud Lawson's concern was genuine. For the first time, he admitted Sergeant Malleson's suspicion explicitly to his mind, in order to reject it.

With that realisation, Laidlaw felt a twinge of compassion for Bud Lawson. He remembered the pressure they had put on him before, and he regretted it. So Bud Lawson was a mobile quarrel with the world. Who knew the grounds he had? And doubtless there were worse things to be. Whatever else was true, he seemed to care about his daughter.

Laidlaw sat down at his desk. He brought the scribbling-pad nearer to him.

'Tell me about it, Mr. Lawson,' Laidlaw said.

'It might be nothin', like.'

Laidlaw watched him.

'Ah mean Ah jist don't know. Ye know? But Sadie the wife's goin' off her head wi' worry. It's never happened before. Never as late as this.'

Laidlaw checked his watch. It was half-past five in the morning.

'Your daughter hasn't come home?'

'That's right.' The man looked as if he was realising it for the first time. 'At least when Ah left home she hadn't.'

Laidlaw saw a new fear jostle the others in the man's eyes — the fear that he was making a fool of himself here while his daughter was home in bed.

'How long ago was that?'

'Maybe a couple of hours.'

'It took you a while to get here.'

'Ah've been lookin'. Ah've got the auld motor, ye see. Ah cruised around a bit.'

'Where?'

'Places. Jist anywhere. Around the city. Ah've been demented. Then when I was in the centre anyway Ah remembered this place.' He said it like a challenge. 'An' Ah came in.'

Laidlaw reflected that something like a stolen bicycle would have been more concrete. Bud Lawson had got away ahead of the probabilities. What he needed wasn't a policeman, it was a sedative. The main purpose of what Laidlaw was going to say next would be lay therapy.

'You'd better tell me it from the beginning.'

The man's confusion funnelled through a filter onto Laidlaw's pad.

Jennifer Lawson (age 18). 24 Ardmore Crescent, Drumchapel. Left the house 7.00 P.M., Saturday 19th. Wearing denim trouser-suit, yellow platform shoes, red tee-shirt with a yellow sun on the chest, carrying brown shoulder-bag. Height five feet eight inches, slim build, shoulder-length black hair. Mole on left temple. ('Ah mind that because when she wis wee, she worried aboot it. Thocht it wid spoil her chances with the boys. Ye know whit lassies are like.') Occupation: shop-girl (Treron's). Stated destination: Poppies Disco.

It looked neat on paper. On Bud Lawson's face it was a mess. But Laidlaw had done all he could. He had been a pair of professional ears.

'Well, Mr. Lawson. There's nothing we can do at present. I've got a description. We'll see if anything turns up.'

'Ye mean that's it?'

'It's a bit early to declare a national emergency, Mr. Lawson.'

'Ma lassie's missin'.'

'We don't know that, Mr. Lawson. Are you on the phone?'

'Naw.'

'She could've missed a bus. She wouldn't be able to inform you. She could be staying with a friend.'

'Whit freen'? Ah'd like tae see her try it?'

'She is an adult person, Mr. Lawson.'

'Is she hell! She's eighteen. Ah'll tell her when she's an adult. That's the trouble nooadays. Auld men before their feythers. Ah stand for nothin' like that in ma hoose. Noo whit the hell are yese goin' to do aboot this?'

Laidlaw said nothing.

'Oh aye. Ah might've known. It's because it's me, isn't it? Ye wid jump soon enough if it wis somebody else.'

Laidlaw was shaking his head. His compassion was getting exhausted.

'Ah refuse tae be victimised. Ah want some action. D'ye hear me? Ah want something done.' His voice was rising. 'That's the trouble wi' the whole bloody world. Naebody bothers.'

'Here!' Laidlaw said. His hand was up. The traffic stopped. Laidlaw was leaning across the desk towards him. 'I'm a policeman, Mr. Lawson. Not a greaseproof poke. You put your philosophy of life on a postcard and post it anywhere you like. But don't give it to me.'

Laidlaw's silence was a confrontation.

'Look,' Laidlaw said. 'I can understand your worry. But you'll have to live with it for the moment. She may well be back home this morning. I think you should go home and wait.'

Bud Lawson stood up. He turned the wrong way in his attempt to find the door. For a second he looked oddly vulnerable and Laidlaw thought he saw through the cleft of his indecision another person flicker behind his toughness. He remembered his own foetal fragility of some minutes ago. A tortoise needs its shell because its flesh is so soft. And he felt sorry for him.

'Come on,' he said. 'I'll show you out of this place.' He had torn the page off his pad, still had it in his hand. 'It's like doing a crossword just getting out of here.'

At the door Laidlaw remembered that Bob had a Production on his desk — a labelled cassette to be produced soon as evidence in a case. He locked the office and put the key above the door.

Bud Lawson let himself be led. They went down the three flights of stairs. As they passed the desk, Laidlaw was aware of the sergeant looking at him, but he didn't look back. In the street, the morning was fresh. It should be a nice day.

'Look, Mr. Lawson.' Laidlaw touched his arm. 'Don't rush to any conclusions. Let's wait and see. Maybe you should concentrate on helping your wife just now. She must be out of her mind with worry.'

'Huh!' Bud Lawson said and walked across to his 70 Triumph, a mastodon in a football-scarf.

Laidlaw was tempted to shout him back and put it another way, say with his hands on his lapels. But he let it pass. He thought of what he had seen inside Bud Lawson's armour-plating. It was as if he had met him for the first time. He shouldn't spoil the acquaintance. He breathed the absence of exhausts and factory-smoke, and went back in.

At the desk the sergeant said, 'Nothing, Jack? Well, you asked for it. I could have dealt with it. I hope you don't mind me asking. But why do you sometimes want to deal with whatever comes up?'

'When you lose touch with the front line, Bert, you're dead,' Laidlaw said.

'You think you have?'

Laidlaw said nothing. He was leaning on the desk writing on his slip of paper when Milligan came in, a barn door on legs. He was affecting a hairy look these days, to show he was liberal. It made his greying head look larger than life, like a public monument. Laidlaw remembered not to like him. Lately, he had been a focus for much of Laidlaw's doubt about what he was doing. Being forcibly associated with Milligan, Laidlaw had been wondering if it was possible to be a policeman and not be a fascist. He contracted carefully, putting a railing round himself and hoping Milligan would just pass. But Milligan was not to be avoided. His mood was a crowd.

'What A Morning!' Milligan was saying. 'What! A! Morning! Makes me feel like Saint George. I could give that dragon a terrible laying-on. Lead me to the neds, God. I'll do the rest. Did I see Bud Lawson on the road there? What's he been up to?'

'His daughter didn't come home last night.'

'With him for a father, who can blame her? If she's anything like him, she's probably been beating up her boyfriend. And how are things in the North, former colleague? I just popped in from Central in case you need advice.'

Laidlaw went on writing. Milligan put his hand on his shoulder.

'What's the matter, Jack? You look as if you're suffering.'

'I've just had an acute attack of you.'

'Ah-ha!' Milligan laughed loftily, astride a bulldozer of wit. 'I hear an ulcer talking. Look. I'm happy. Any objections?'

'No. But would you mind taking your maypole somewhere else?'

Milligan was laughing again.

'Jack! My middle-aged teenager. Sometimes I get a very strong urge to rearrange your face.'

'You should fight that,' Laidlaw said, not looking up. 'It's called a death-wish.'

He put the piece of paper folded in his inside pocket.

'Listen. Anything you get on a young girl, let me know.'

'Personal service, Jack? You feel involved?'

The sergeant was smiling. Laidlaw wasn't.

'Yes,' he said. 'I know her father.'

His hands, illumined in the lights he passed, rose and fell helplessly on the steering wheel. They were enormous hands that had driven rivets on Clydeside for thirty years. They weren't used to being helpless. Just now they signalled an anger that, lacking a focus, took in everything. Bud Lawson was angry with Laidlaw, the police, his daughter, his wife, the city itself.

He resented the route by which he was having to go home: along the motorway to the Clyde Tunnel Junction, right into Anniesland, left out Great Western Road. The first part of it reminded him too strongly of what they had done to the city he used to know. Great loops of motorway displaced his past. It was like a man having his guts replaced with plastic tubing. He thought again of the Gorbals, the crowded tenements, the noise, the feeling that if you stretched too far in bed you could scratch your neighbour's head. To him it felt like a lost happiness. He wished himself back there as if that would put right Jennifer's absence.

He knew it was serious simply because she wouldn't have dared to do this to him if she could help it. She knew the rules. Only once before had she tried to break them: the time she was going out with the Catholic. But he had put a stop to that. He hadn't forgotten and he never forgave. His nature ran on tramlines. It only had one route. If you weren't on it, you were no part of his life.

It was that inflexibility which trapped him now. In a sense, Jennifer was already lost to him. Even if she came back later today, she had done enough in his terms to destroy her relationship with him. With a kind of brutal sentimentality, he was thinking over past moments when she had still been what he wanted her to be. He remembered her first time at the shore when she was three. She hadn't liked the sand. She curled her feet away from it and cried. He remembered the Christmas he had bought her a bike. She fell over it getting to a rag-doll Sadie had made for her. He remembered her starting work. He thought of the times he had waited for her to come in at nights.

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Excerpted from "Laidlaw"
by .
Copyright © 1977 William McIlvanney.
Excerpted by permission of Europa Editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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