‘Get me Dowdall!’ says the apprentice boy, chinned for an unscheduled fag break.
‘Get me Dowdall!’ jokes the hostess who is running short of sherry.
Dowdall is a punchline, a softener in an awkward situation, but he’s also a legal genius; he can get you out of anything. It might irritate him but the catchphrase is good for business and Laurence Dowdall is all business.
Watt knows that having Dowdall for a lawyer makes him look guilty but Dowdall Houdini’d him out of prison. He wouldn’t have anyone else now.
The ma?tre d’ makes it over to them and Dowdall explains that they are here to see that gentleman. He points and Peter Manuel looks back at them.
Led by the ma?tre d’, the two men tack their way across the room. Manuel does not stand up to meet them but sits belligerently as they dock at his table. Dowdall effects the introductions. No one attempts to shake hands.
Watt and Manuel are in no way similar. They look as if they are in different stories altogether.
If this were a movie William Watt would be in an Ealing comedy. Watt is an inherently funny man. Six foot two in an age of small men, he is ungainly, rotund, especially in the middle where he wears his suit trousers belted. He is balding too, his thin hair smeared back on his big baby head. He has preposterously large hands. He is fifty and looks like an actor playing a bumbling authority figure in a gentle comedy of manners. In some ways he is. He was a police reservist during the war and his duties were essentially walking around while being taller than other people. It meant a lot to him, that time. Mr Watt likes power and being near powerful people. He likes respectability and being near respectable people. But most of all he likes being near powerful, respectable people.
Peter Manuel is in a very different film. His would be European, black and white, directed by Clouzot or Melville, printed on poor stock and shown in art-house cinemas to an adults-only audience. There wouldn’t be violence or gore in the movie, this is not the era of squibs or guts-on-screen, but the implication of threat is always there. Short and solidly built, at five foot six Manuel has the rough-hewn good looks of Robert Mitchum. He is thirty. His eyebrows are heavy, his lips quite broad and sensual. He wears his black hair Brylcreemed back from his square face, combed into thick glistening strips like oily liquorice. He glowers through his heavy brows. His sudden smile is rare and always welcome, a reassuring signal, perhaps, that nothing bad will happen after all. The smartness of his dress is often remarked upon and he is confident of the impression he makes on women. He always insists they be allowed to serve on the juries at his trials.
They pull back chairs to sit down. To Watt’s dismay, Dowdall takes his overcoat off. He means to stay, but Watt was clear back in Dowdall’s office, he said he wants to talk to Manuel alone. He thought it was agreed but realises now that the answer Dowdall gave him wasn’t definitive. Dowdall smiled. You may have been in prison, Bill, but you don’t know these people, not really. Dowdall became almost tearful. Some of these people, he said, they’re not even trying to be bad. They just are bad, everything they do is bad, and if it doesn’t start bad with them, they’ll turn it bad. Watt is a man of the world and said so but Dowdall smiled gently and told him, Bill, some of these men don’t seem to be of this world. These people are stained, their very souls are tainted. Then he patted Watt’s hand as if he regretted having to tell a child these dreadful things.
Dowdall is blatantly Roman Catholic. Most Catholics have the manners to disguise their leanings when they are in mixed company but Dowdall doesn’t. He doesn’t have a crucifix up in his office or ostentatiously name-drop priests or monsignors the way some aggressive Catholics do, but his everyday conversation makes oblique references to souls and stains and good and bad. Watt finds it rather outré. Unusually for the time, Watt is not a religious bigot but he doesn’t know why a man as sophisticated as Dowdall would keep bringing up something so controversial all the time.
Standing by Manuel’s table, Dowdall turns his expensive camel-hair overcoat inside out, showing off the shimmering orange silk lining. He folds it in half and lays it over the back of the fourth chair. He is trembling a little. It is unlike him. Watt doesn’t need Dowdall to stay and look after him. Watt isn’t the one who is trembling.
The ma?tre d’ takes their order. Dowdall orders a Johnnie Walker and soda. Watt orders a half and half for himself and another for Mr Manuel. He does it graciously. Manuel doesn’t thank him but nods lightly, as if to say yes, that’s something he will allow. His insouciance borders on insolence. This impresses Watt who has more money than almost everyone else he meets and knows how corrosive gratitude is to a person’s dignity. He’s impressed that Manuel has countered the gift with a gesture both regal and slightly belittling. He wonders how much money it will take to get the gun.
As Watt is thinking this he looks up. He finds Peter Manuel watching him, a cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes narrowed against the thin plume of smoke snaking across his face. Manuel draws on his cigarette and a smile creeps into his eyes. Watt wonders if they’ve met before but doesn’t think so. He doesn’t recognise the face but feels that he already knows him, somehow.
The salesmen are tittering, they’ve realised that the great Laurence Dowdall is here. But then they spot William Watt, recognise him from the papers too. Their grins fall sour. They whisper, serious things, sad things, nasty rumours about Watt and his daughter.
Watt needs a drink. He looks for the ma?tre d’ and spots him, behind the bar, looking away.
Dowdall and Manuel light cigarettes, one a Turkish hand-rolled from a wooden box, one a stubby Piccadilly from a crumpled paper packet. Dowdall smokes quickly, nervously. They avoid eye contact.
Watt sees this and wonders, fleetingly, if he is the mark, if they are working him together. But no. Dowdall would never jeopardise his reputation. Watt is Dowdall’s latest calling card, the Burnside Affair is high-profile and Dowdall has come out of it well.
Watt draws a breath to speak but Dowdall stills him with a shake of his head. The ma?tre d’ is near enough to hear them talk and the restaurant is quiet, despite the hissing wireless.
So they all three sit and wait in silence for their drinks. The symphony soars and the couple whisper to each other. The salesmen laugh and snort at what seems to be an off-colour joke. The waiter takes his time, laying the tray with napkins and ashtrays.
Watt looks up and finds Manuel looking at him.
‘D’ye take a smoke, Mr Watt?’ His accent is Lanarkshire, his face unmoving. The question feels like a test.
Watt thinks before answering. He actually smokes a lot but doesn’t want to say so. ‘On occasion.’