Peacock's Alibi by Stuart David

Author:Stuart David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

8

McFadgen was a good fifteen minutes late for our tête-à-tête. I’d found myself a seat up against the back wall of the café, ordered myself a roll and sausage and a pot of tea, and demolished the greater part of them both before he had the good grace to show himself.

By rights, I should have been using the extra time to work out what the fuck I was going to say to him, but before the waiter even dumped my order down on the table in front of me, I’d noticed that a few of McFadgen’s pals were dotted about the place at tables on their own. Different numpties from the ones who’d helped him demolish my flat, granted, and dressed up to look like the average tool that would be sitting about on their tod in a café like this, at this time of day. But they were familiar faces to me. I’d seen them here and there over the years, in uniforms and in squad cars, throwing their weight about in a typical manner, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were doing here.

They were all avoiding looking at each other, and they were all avoiding looking at me, but that only served to make their presence more obvious. And I suppose all my speculating about what the fuck they were up to kept the back bit of my brain fully occupied – cause absolutely nothing was delivered regarding what I was going to do about Vince Cowie when the detective inspector arrived.

Wandering about the town, after I’d left John Jack’s office, I’d had the vague notion that as long as I could keep McFadgen in the dark about Vince till the wedding took place, I’d be home and dry. As long as Wilma and Vince tied the knot, Brian Caldwell’s alimony obligation would be null and void, and I’d be up and running with my business. True, I’d probably have played a part in hooking my wife’s best pal up with a murderer, but I suppose there are winners and losers in any business venture. And I could always give McFadgen a tip-off about Vince before the honeymoon took place, if my guilty conscience got the better of me.

If you looked at things optimistically, it was entirely possible that all Vince had done wrong was whip a painting to cover the expenses he was bound to accrue in starting up a new life. There was every possibility it was the Chaz Anderson guy he’d sold it to that had done for Dougie Dowds, or even one of the painting’s later patrons, desperate to cover up whatever it was they’d used the painting to fund. When you really thought about it, all those guys had a lot more to lose than Vince if the painting got traced back to them. There was no point in me prematurely hanging Vince for the theft of a cart. Live and let live, that’s always been my overriding philosophy.

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