The Papers of Tony Veitch by William McIlvanney Page B

if he knew where Eck might have been hanging out lately. Only fragments seemed to register.
    â€˜One of our favourite spots,’ the man said and started to walk. Laidlaw and Harkness went with him while the others straggled behind.
    They didn’t have far to go. He stopped on a waste lot where the ashes of a dead fire suggested an abandoned camp-site. The man was nodding. The others joined them.
    â€˜Did anyone get in touch with him that you saw?’ Laidlaw asked. ‘A stranger.’
    â€˜A young man perhaps. A benefactor perhaps.’
    Harkness understood Laidlaw’s expression. The questionswere probably no more than the spurs to creative fantasy in the man. He had the drunk’s disconcerting technique of hibernating between remarks.
    â€˜Yes. There was a young man. John? David? Alec? Patrick?’
    â€˜Thanks,’ Laidlaw said. ‘Do you remember his second names as well?’
    â€˜We don’t use second names here.’
    â€˜He wouldny share,’ the small man said.
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜Had a bottle. Wouldny share. Basta.’
    Laidlaw gave the dignified man a fifty-pence piece.
    â€˜Many thanks. At the moment I’m slightly devoid of funds.’
    They dispersed as vaguely as fog.
    â€˜Useful information,’ Harkness said.
    They were standing aimlessly on the waste lot.
    â€˜Let’s look,’ Laidlaw said.
    â€˜What for? A visiting card?’
    â€˜Anything. Just bloody look!’
    They did. After a dusty half-hour, Harkness turned up a bottle in a niche of the wall and hidden with loose bricks. It was a Lanliq wine-bottle with a screw top. It contained something dark.
    Lifting it gingerly by the neck, Laidlaw unscrewed the cork and smelt. It meant nothing he recognised. He looked at Harkness.
    â€˜We’ve got to go in and get a car anyway. Let’s take it with us.’
    â€˜Sure,’ Harkness said. ‘We might get something back on the bottle.’
    â€˜But I’m not humphing this. We’ll get a taxi.’
    It seemed a simple enough idea but it led to one of those impromptu moments of Glaswegian cabaret in which the city abounds. Having flagged a cab down, Laidlaw, with a sense of camouflage that was instinctive to him, gave a destination near Pitt Street. And things began immediately with a green car pulling out without warning in front of their driver.
    â€˜Away, you!’ their driver bellowed. ‘Ah hope yer wheels fa’ aff.’
    He was a man who looked in his late thirties with thinning, curly hair and he was obviously an extreme sufferer from that contemporary ailment, urban choler.
    â€˜Bastards,’ he said, jerking his head as if he was riding the world’s punches.
    He was one of those taxi-drivers who do up their cab like a wee house on wheels. There was fancy carpeting and instead of advertisements on the base of the fold-up seats he had pasted on pictures of a couple of Highland scenes, the Three Sisters of Glencoe and the Ballachulish Ferry before the bridge was built. He had woollen baubles hanging from the inside mirror and plastic footballers, Rangers and Celtic, over the dashboard-switches. It was like taking a ride inside someone’s psyche.
    â€˜Ye fancy some music, boays?’
    His eyes in the mirror suggested refusal might be a capital offence. They murmured non-committally and he switched on a tape.
    â€˜Magic him, intae? James Last, eh? Ye need somethin’ soothin’ in this job.’
    There was an almost full bottle of Irn Bru wedged upside down between the meter and the luggage-door. As he talked,it began to seem that its purpose might be more than a thirst quencher.
    â€˜Tell you two places Ah’ll no’ go.’ He said it as if they had turned up especially to enquire about his taboos. ‘Not any more. Blackhill and Garthamlock. No chance. Know why? Garthamlock. Take a bastard out there. In the back wi’ the biggest Alsation