The Dead Hour

The round cost her more than four pounds.

They sat and smoked and Meehan talked, telling his story. He started when he was arrested for the Ross murder. She didn’t want to hear about that but he wanted to talk about it.

“I was particularly interested in your time behind the iron curtain,” Paddy said at last.

He gave her a slow, warning blink. “As I was saying, the lineup was a fix.” And he continued from where he’d left off. By the time of the trial McVie got up and left, leaving Paddy to listen to the end.

During her painfully earnest childhood Paddy had read and reread every article and book ever printed about the Meehan case. She recognized some of his phrases from articles. He’d clearly given the speech often before. His eyes clouded over, and at times, even he didn’t seem very interested.

Finally he came to a stop and they looked at each other. His beer glass was half-empty. It would have been polite to offer him another but she didn’t have enough money.

Paddy explained that she wanted to write a book about the case, not focusing on the Rachel Ross murder, but on his time as a spy, the year and a half behind the iron curtain and his part in the Blake escape.

“I told them how to do it-”

“I know.”

He gave her a slow blink, a curl in his lip that meant it would be a bad idea to interrupt again.

“Yeah, I told them the way to get the radio in to him. You knew that, did ye?”

He was a man used to being listened to and Paddy spent her professional life appeasing men like that. “I did, kind of, but I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me again.”

He had drunk half his beer and taken a sip from his whisky. He picked up the shot glass and dropped it into the beer glass. It was a perfectly measured maneuver: the beer fizzed a little, rising to the brim of the glass and bulging over, threatening to spill but contracting back down again.

“Old man’s drink,” said Paddy thoughtlessly.

Meehan liked that. He smiled at her. “I was in a prison in East Germany. They wanted me to tell them how they could get a two-way radio in to a prisoner and I thought about it, mulled it over in my mind. I’d drawn them maps of every prison I knew. It’s easier to get about in a prison than most people think, you know. A lot of screws are corrupt, you can move around all you like. But the problem is high-security prisoners, and that’s what they were talking about.

“I told them: send a radio to the high-security prisoner. Just a normal radio, nothing to attract attention.” He leaned across the table. “Get a radio that looks the same in to a low-security prisoner but make it a two-way radio. They wouldn’t check it, he’s low-security, see? Do you see?” He waited, making her say yes. “D’you know what a pass man is? A pass man is someone the screws trust, a prisoner who’s an inside man.” She thought of Tam Gourlay. “Get two radios into the prison, then swap them. That was my idea. Get the pass man to swap them, see what I mean?”

She did see. She understood perfectly.

“When George Blake escaped from prison what d’ye think they found in his cell?”

Paddy nodded. “A two-way radio.”

“A two-way radio,” Meehan agreed, “hidden in a tra

Paddy stood up abruptly. “I’m sorry. I have to go. I need to call someone.” She shuffled out from behind the table.

Meehan looked up at her, offended.

“Mr. Meehan, I want to write a book about you.”

“There’s been enough books about me.”

“No, not a trashy book about the Ross murder, just a book about you. About the Communist Party and the agent provocateur who sent you to East Germany and the life of a professional criminal in the fifties. A good book. Will you let me buy you lunch one day next week and we can talk about it?”

He hunched his shoulders. “But I’m here now.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to make a call.”

Meehan looked at his half-empty glass. “I don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll write my own book.”

“I’ll phone ye.” Paddy pulled her coat on as she opened the door to the street. “I’ll call ye.”

II

She took her place at the news desk and lifted the phone, calling McCloud at the Marine.

“Cloudy? I need to talk to Colum McDaid.”

“Ah, wee Meehan, is it yourself?”

“Aye, it is. Any chance I could get his home number?”

“McDaid’s? Here, he’s not your boyfriend, is he?” McCloud laughed at the thought until someone came to the desk to ask him for something. “Aye, aye. Not now, no. Hello? Meehan?”

“Still here.” She had her pen poised above the page.

McCloud gave her the number, a local Partick number.

She called it and got Mrs. McDaid. “Aye, he’s here, dear.”

She called out in Gaelic and McDaid came on the phone.

“PC McDaid. Paddy Meehan here. The note’s still in the safe.”

“Eh?”

“Gourlay didn’t take it out at all. It’s in the safe and I’ll bet it’s tucked inside another production.” She could hear him grunting. “What are ye doing?”

“Putting my coat on. I live around the corner from the station. Can ye wait by the phone for an hour or so?”

“Aye.”

“I’ll call ye back.”

III

The newsroom was busier on a Friday. The calls car relief shift were playing cards over by the picture editor’s office, eating fish suppers and drinking indiscreetly from a half bottle of whisky. When she first started everyone drank at the News but she hadn’t seen a bottle in the office since Farquarson left. She read a book while she waited, aware that Dub would be introducing the open spots now, that Burns would be sweating at the back of the dark room, nervously ru

McDaid phoned back on the direct line after forty minutes. He didn’t even greet her. “Got it. The bugger tucked it in the back of another envelope. The shits were going to wait until I’d given the keys over and tidy up the cupboard themselves.”

“Will you phone Sullivan?”

“I would be delighted.”

“Have a good night, PC McDaid.”

“And yourself, Miss Meehan.”

IV

The club seemed busier than usual. Lorraine wasn’t guarding the door and it had just been pulled shut, not secured at all. Paddy slipped down the stairs and watched the stage. Dub was on and the atmosphere was bristling; his voice was high and he was talking fast, pointing at the audience, riding a wave of love.

Lorraine was standing by the bar and sidled over, forgetting to pretend she didn’t recognize Paddy.

“He stormed.”

“Dub?”

“Burns. He absolutely fucking stormed.”

Dub came off to a roar of applause, ru

When he saw Paddy he threw an arm around her neck, pulling her roughly over to the far end of the bar. She gri

He let go of her and she stood up. Burns was standing at the bar with his long, suburban policeman’s drink, smug and wired at the same time.

“You did well?” said Paddy.

Burns looked her up and down. “I looked for you, in the crowd. You weren’t here.”

Paddy waited for a punch line that never came. Finally she muttered, “Sorry about that. I had a lot of work on.”

He poked her in the chest, and let his finger linger there, making a slow climb up her long neck. “I wanted you to see me, could have done with your support.”

She took hold of his hand and pushed it away. “I’m not much support, Burns. I’m a jinx for open spots anyway, you didn’t want me here.”

“That’s right.” He fell back a step. “You’re a headliner, not a sideshow, are you?”