The Quaker. Liam McIlvanney

building? Do we know the layout?’

      ‘Jenny’ll get one.’

      Paton nodded. The others said nothing, they were waiting for the verdict. He twisted his whisky glass on the tabletop, turned back to Cursiter. ‘This your girlfriend?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Your insider. The secretary.’

      ‘She’s the cashier. No, she’s not my girlfriend.’

      ‘You’ve fucked her, though, right?’

      ‘Yeah. I mean, twice. Three times.’

      Paton was nodding. ‘So they can link to you from her.’

      ‘Naw, that’s—’

      ‘And they can link to us from you.’

      ‘No! Look. It’s not like that. Nobody knows.’

      ‘Nobody knows what – that you fucked her?’

      ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

      ‘Explain it to me. What’s your name – Brian? Explain it to me, Brian. How did you meet her?’

      Cursiter looked at Dazzle; Dazzle nodded. Cursiter planted his elbows on the table. ‘Jenny McIndoe she’s called. Nice lassie. She does the day-job at Glendinnings but works nights in a hotel out near Drymen. Used to have lock-ins. I took her upstairs a couple of times.’

      ‘When the bar was empty?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You said nobody saw you. You took her upstairs when the bar was empty?’

      ‘Not empty. But nobody knew who I was. It was just mugs. Old guys from the village. Some hikers maybe. They didn’t know me from Adam.’

      ‘And you never met her outside the hotel?’

      ‘Never.’

      ‘Who said romance was dead? And how did she know you were in the market for information, Brian? Information about jewellery auctions. Since nobody knew who you were.’

      Cursiter shrugged. ‘We got talking.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Paton drained his whisky. ‘That’s what I figured.’

      The others were quiet. There was a scratching at the inner door, the high tragic whine of a lonely dog.

      Paton smoked his cigarette. ‘She know what kind it is?’

      ‘What kind what is?’

      ‘The safe. What make.’

      ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

      Paton looked round the table. ‘Well, you boys certainly know your business.’

      ‘Fuck you then.’ Cursiter reared back, one arm swinging loose behind his chair. ‘Mister Bigtime fucking London. You don’t want in? There’s the door.’

      ‘Hey, now. Come on.’ Dazzle was on his feet. Paton was grinning at the floor and shaking his head, stubbing his smoke out in the ashtray. He stood up, lifted his jacket.

      ‘Well, come on, Dazzle.’ Cursiter was pouring himself another shot. ‘We need this kind of attitude? We need this kind of shit?’

      ‘Nice meeting you fellows. Mr Dalziel: I’ll see you again.’

      Paton was ruing it all. The trip from London, the hotel room, wasting time with these losers. Ice heist at an auctioneer’s? A sub-post office was more in their line. Screwing meters. Fucking bubble-gum machines. He shrugged into his jacket.

      ‘Hold on, Alex. Brian.’ Dazzle was pointing at Cursiter. ‘Number one: shut the fuck up. You’re not running this job: I am. Number two—’ he pointed at Paton – ‘Alex: hear the man out. You’ve come this far.’

      Paton picked at something on the shoulder of his jacket. He shrugged, took his seat, reached for his smokes. ‘What’s the take, then?’

      ‘Big.’ Cursiter was still rankled, touchy. ‘Big. Don’t worry about that.’

      ‘They might be different things, friend. Your idea of big. My idea of big. You got a figure?’

      ‘Hundred grand. Minimum.’

      They all looked at Paton.

      Paton smoked.

      ‘We’d need another man.’

      Dazzle frowned, looked around the others in turn. ‘It’s a four-man job, Alex. It’s all worked out.’

      ‘Is it?’ All the glasses were empty now and Paton stood up and moved them into the centre of the table. ‘Stokes is in the car, right?’ He moved one of the glasses to the edge of the table. ‘The rest of us go in through the basement door. We need a man on the door. In case someone decides to stick their nose in.’ He lifted another glass and smacked it down in the centre of the table. ‘We move down the corridor and deal with the watchman. Lover Boy here’ – Cursiter was the whisky bottle, and Paton slid it along the table a foot or so – ‘stays with the watchman. Or watchmen. That leaves Dazzle and me.’ Paton pinched the final two glasses between his finger and thumb and lifted them with a trilling click and placed them down at his side of the table. ‘We go on to the office. I do the safe. Dazzle’s spare, in case something comes up. Troubleshooter. But we need another man on the door.’

      Dazzle looked at the other two with his eyebrows raised and Cursiter pouted and Stokes shrugged and Dazzle spread his arms. ‘Fine, Alex. Good. We get another man. Anything else?’

      ‘Aye.’ Paton moved the glasses back to their original positions. He sat down and reached for the bottle and filled his own glass. He pushed the bottle into the centre of the table. ‘The timing’s wrong.’

      ‘Timing’s not – there’s no leeway, Alex. Stuff only gets there the day before. It has to be the tenth.’

      ‘I don’t mean the date. I mean the time. We don’t go in at midnight. We do it in the morning. Before anyone arrives.’

      Cursiter reached for the bottle and filled the glasses and waited for Paton to explain.

      ‘You don’t need all night to do a safe. Do it in half an hour if you can do it at all. We’re wearing boiler suits, toolbelts, we’re a crew of sparkies, plumbers, whatever. When it’s over we walk out the front door, to the van parked down the street. This way, we’re only over the railings on the way in, not the way out. Cuts down the risk.’

      Stokes was playing with the zipper on his Harrington jacket, running it up and down. ‘So, you’re saying we wear masks? Is that the idea?’

      ‘No masks. We don’t need masks. We’re a crew of workies. We’re four guys in boiler suits. We’re invisible. We’re not trying to hide, we’re not skulking about looking dodgy, so no one’s paying attention. It’s like four cops: you remember the uniform, you don’t remember the faces or the hair or anything else.’

      At this point the door handle clanged and the kitchen door swung open. The dog came skidding triumphantly into the room and stopped, its head raised, abruptly self-conscious, like a bull entering the bull-ring. It looked at the faces and trotted straight over to Paton and plumped its chin down on his thigh, twitching its brows. Paton drew his hand across the animal’s head, feeling the smooth curved cap of the skull under the fur, and flattened the ears. Then he scratched the loose skin under the dog’s jaw and the tail whacked against the carpet.

      ‘Looks like we’ve found the fifth man,’ Dazzle said.

      Paton stroked the dog as he talked.

      ‘We need a van. We need walkie-talkies. We need boiler suits, workboots, toolbelts. Balaclavas. We need some sort of decal or paint job on the side of the van, Such-and-such Electricians or Plumbers.’

      Dazzle was writing it down.