The Good Provider (46 page)

‘I suppose,’ said Doctor Godwin, ‘that you did not mistake the date of first conception or of the first absent period?’

‘I – I don’t think so.’

‘How severe is the pain?’

‘It comes an’ goes.’

‘On stooping?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘On pressing at stool?’ Doctor Godwin seemed to roar out the question and Kirsty’s cheeks glowed.

‘No.’

‘Does your husband treat you well?’

‘He’s a policeman,’ said Kirsty.

Doctor Godwin nodded, as if he needed no more assurance than that. ‘Internal gases. Not uncommon.’ He reached for his prescription paper, uncapped a fountain pen with his teeth. ‘I’ll give you a bottle, Mrs Nicholson.’

‘Is that all it is?’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing. However, if the pain – the discomfort, shall we call it – persists, then come back next week. I’ll make no charge.’

‘Oh, I can pay.’

‘I suggest that you call upon Mrs Fernie. She’s the best midwife in Greenfield and handles many of my cases. Registered, of course.’ He scribbled away, turned the paper. ‘I’ll put her address on the back.’

‘What have I got to see her for?’ said Kirsty.

‘To inform her when she may expect to be called.’

‘I thought that you—’

‘I will attend, of course, if it’s necessary.’

Again Kirsty said, ‘I can pay.’

‘Do you really want me at the delivery, Mrs Nicholson? If you wish, I’ll come. But I do assure you that Mrs Fernie is completely reliable and experienced in home births.’

Kirsty felt betrayed. The atmosphere of the Banff Street consulting-room was so different from that of the elegant house in Dowanhill. Though his examination had been thorough, as far as Kirsty could tell, she could not accept Doctor Godwin’s casualness or believe that he was telling her the whole truth about her condition. He gave her the prescription and was out of his chair and stepping to the door before she could fumble the half-crown from her purse.

‘Oh, yes, thank you, Mrs Nicholson.’ The silver coin disappeared into a cashbox in a drawer of the desk. ‘Now don’t worry about a thing. You’ll be in good hands.’

Without more ado he ushered her out into the waiting-room. It was lit by a smoky oil-lamp suspended from a beam, heated by a paltry wee coal fire. Some patients paid her not the slightest attention, absorbed in their own aches and pains. Others, though, glowered at her as she steered her stomach between them and pulled open the outside door.

The street glistened with the day’s rain. Now that night had come there was a snell wind off the river.

Kirsty turned up her coat collar, shivering. To add to her other woes she had a frayed welt on her shoe and water had seeped in and made her stocking damp. She felt thoroughly miserable and abandoned as she waddled down Banff Street to a gas-lamp where, holding up the paper, she squinted at the address the doctor had given her.

It was streets away, in the opposite direction to Canada Road. Besides, she had to have the doctor’s bottle, needed relief from her discomfort – and she still had to buy something for Craig’s supper. She would call on Mrs Fernie some other time. After all it was thirty-five or -six days before the baby was due. All she wanted was to be at home by the fire with Craig.

She set off towards Dumbarton Road and the hot-pie shop, shuffling, a nagging sort of pain under her ribs and one foot wet. Within minutes it began to rain again.

The Madagascar was the worst slum in Greenfield. It was not on Craig’s beat and he had been there only once in all his months on the Force. He knew it by reputation, though; a delta of decaying eighteenth-century tenements and cottage rows that protruded out into the Clyde at the head of a timber quay where once the Madagascar Coal Company had ferried in its wares from Ayrshire’s coastal pits. The Madagascar Coal Company had long since gone bust but the name remained and the earth was still black with ancient leavings and nothing but weeds grew on the packed black mounds from which not even the coal-pickers could sift out a harvest. The Madagascar Tavern had put up its shutters years ago. There were two or three shebeens in operation in the hovels and no legitimate publican could hope to compete with the appeal of dirt-cheap alcohol, a raw and colourless distillation that could drag a man or woman into oblivion faster than a clout with a crowbar. Now and again Sergeant Drummond would muster a team of six burly constables and make a raid on the illicit distillers but not even Mr Organ had the heart to insist on it, for drink was all that most of the denizens of that district had and oblivion their only pleasure.

It was Craig’s first ‘investigation’. He was handed it – an Incident Report – from the fair hand of old Drummond when he tramped in at shift’s end. He had planned on going on to the gymnasium that evening. He could not abide going home early these nights, could not stand the sight of Kirsty all bloated and pale, could not put up with her uncomplaining misery. Archie Flynn was to accompany him on the investigation. Normally it would have been a more experienced constable, the night-duty man, Armour, whose beat it was, who would have picked up the report. But Armour was off with a whitlow on his foot and three other men had gone off the roster sick.

Craig was not displeased to be entrusted with an enquiry. He glanced at the slip of paper.

‘What’s the name?’

‘Austin Galletti,’ said the sergeant.

‘Queer handle, Sergeant Drummond,’ said Archie.

‘Queer handle or not,’ said the sergeant, ‘Mr Galletti’s entitled to call on our services.’

‘Theft of what?’ said Craig, peering at the slip.

‘The tools of the trade.’

‘What trade?’

‘He’s a professional hunchback,’ the sergeant said.

It took Craig and Archie the best part of half an hour to locate Mr Galletti. He lived in a dwelling that had no number in a lane that had no name. If he had been less well-known in the Madagascar the policemen might not have found him at all for the folk on the streets of the delta scurried off at first glimpse of a uniform and refused to open their doors to polite enquiry. It was only by nabbing a small bedraggled girl child, too stupid to flee, that Archie elicited the information that ‘hunchie’ lived in the old pig mews behind the ruin of the public house.

Even on a cold night after a day’s rain the stench from the mews was overpowering. The pigs were long since gone and the sties had been taken over by families and the place glimmered with candles and dim lanterns like something out of a grim old fairy-tale. Hands on their sticks Craig and Archie walked shoulder to shoulder along the lane.

‘No muchee likee,’ said Archie, from the corner of his mouth. ‘I’m no’ knockin’ on any doors here.’

Craig said, ‘There he is.’

Mr Galletti lived in the last room in the mews. It was, Craig thought, like a farm bothy; a single apartment with a door that opened straight in from the cobbles. The stench here was particularly strong for the mews ran on to a slope of rank earth where a sludge pile filtered its foul wastes down through dross into the river. Austin Galletti was almost a dwarf and a small lump rose from his left shoulder. He had thick white hair, salt stubble on his rounded chin and could have been any age over sixty. Craig felt no pity for the wee chap for in his face was a fire of bitterness and hatred.

‘What bloody kept ye?’ Galletti demanded.

He had been loitering at the door of his home. He was not dressed for February, wore only a shirt, a ragged leather vest and a pair of breeks made out of patchwork.

Archie said, ‘Are you Mr Galletti?’

‘Jesus an’ Joseph, would there be two like me?’ The man danced with rage and peered up into Archie’s face. ‘Were ye no’ told what happened?’

‘Did you make the report in person?’ said Craig.

‘Aye. Who’d leg it t’ Ottawa Street for the likes o’ me? Him wi’ the stripes told me you’d be here directly.’

Craig said, ‘I believe you had some property stolen.’

Archie backed away from the prancing little chap and glanced nervously down the mews. Men had slithered from shelter and slouched in shadowy doorways watching the coppers with sullen malevolence.

‘Property!’ Galletti said. ‘Jesus an’ Joseph, he calls it property. It’s my bloody livelihood, that’s what was stole.’

‘What exactly?’ said Craig.

‘My cart, my drum, my mouth harmonium, my bloody flags,’ Galletti answered. ‘Even my guns.’

‘Guns?’

‘What I use for firin’ in my performances. Have ye no’ seen me perform? Jesus an’ Joseph, what kind of coppers are ye if ye haven’t seen Galletti’s act?’

‘Tell me about the guns,’ said Craig.

‘
Pop. Pop. Pop
,’ said Galletti. ‘Toy guns. Three o’ them. He took them an’ all. He took every bloody thing.’

‘Hold on, Mr Galletti,’ said Craig. ‘You talk as if you know the thief.’

‘Aye, I bloody know the thief.’

‘Did you impart this information to our sergeant?’

‘What?’

‘Did you tell the stripes?’

‘Aye, ’course I did.’

‘What did he say to it?’

‘Said he’d send men t’ investigate my alginations. Here, all he sends is a couple o’ weans.’

Craig said, ‘How was the theft carried out?’

‘I told him all that already.’

‘Tell us again, Mr Galletti.’

‘The bugger broke down my door an’ took all the stuff away in my cart. He went over the stink-pit wi’ it – that way.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Saw him, so I did.’

‘Why didn’t you try to stop him?’

‘I’d just come back from up the road. I’d been for a wee refreshment. I saw him comin’ out my house wi’ my cart. I shouted but he ran away.’

‘Did ye no’ give chase?’ said Archie.

‘Me? Look at me. Jesus an’ Joseph,’ Galletti shouted as if poor Archie Flynn had cursed him with deformities. ‘It’s no bloody mystery who stole my stuff. I want it back. I need it, see, if I’m t’ earn my daily bread.’

‘Can you name the person who stole your gear?’

‘Name him, aye: Sammy Reynolds.’

‘This person, Sammy Reynolds, is known to you?’

‘Christ, he should be known to me. He’s been trailin’ me about for bloody years. He sits by the railin’ o’ the park when I’m doin’ my act. He hides in a close opposite the Palace when I’m turnin’ for the queue. He even dogs me up t’ the Groveries when I go there, summer nights.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He watches me.’

‘Does he annoy you in any way?’

‘Naw; just watches.’

‘But why, Mr Galletti?’

‘He’s jealous.’

‘Jealous?’

The fierce contorted little visage thrust out of hunched shoulders. Short arms sawed the air as if beating an invisible drum. ‘The bastard wants t’ be me.’

Craig paused. ‘What age is Sammy Reynolds?’

‘Twelve, thirteen.’

‘Where does he live?’ said Archie.

‘In Rae’s tenement.’

Craig nodded; he knew the building.

He said, ‘Let’s look at your broken door, Mr Galletti.’

‘For what?’

‘So I can put a report in my notebook,’ said Craig.

‘An’ then?’ Galletti shouted.

‘An’ then,’ said Craig, ‘Constable Flynn an’ me will walk over to Rae’s tenement an’ fetch your stuff back.’

‘All of it?’

‘All of it,’ Craig promised.

They did not have to track him down or root him out of hiding. Sammy Reynolds did not have the wit to hide. They heard him, unmistakably, as they picked their way across waste ground that surrounded the solitary habitation. Rae’s tenement was the last survivor of a clump of workers’ dwellings, a century old. Once it had sheltered the Madagascar’s loaders and heavers but not a breath of their labour remained. The brickwork was pitted, holed and scarred as if it had endured bombardment under siege. There was little evidence of present occupation, only a flickering candle or the wan glint of a lantern in the windows, more life among the rats that scampered over the middens that fronted the place on what had once been a cobbled street.

‘Hear it?’ said Archie.

‘Aye, I hear it.’

‘Where’s it comin’ from?’

‘Over there,’ said Craig. ‘Down there.’

‘God!’ said Archie. ‘The cellar.’

They skirted the big midden. The effluvia of the dump, dampened by rain, mingled with coke fumes and the low smoky reek of fried meat. Inside the building a dog snarled viciously and a voice, guttural and androgynous, barked back, made the animal yelp and be still. The constables reached a doorway in the base of an oval tower up which a staircase tottered. Gas had not been piped to this tenement and the close behind the stairs was as black as pitch. The policemen needed no light to guide them, however, for the tinny strains of a mouth harmonium and the dull thud-thump of a drum floated up from the well that led to the cellar.

‘Does he live down, there, do y’ think?’