“Yes, Sergeant,” Eddie said miserably. “I’ll keep the old hackney.”
Leaving Eddie, Watters tried his next informant. Arbroath Betty ran a public house she called Betty’s Welcome in Dock Street, with the masts and spars of the shipping a biscuit toss across the road. Betty was busy behind the bar when Watters pushed open the door and walked in, passing the man with the moleskin trousers and navvy boots with barely a glance.
“Good afternoon, Mr Watters,” Betty was a widow in her early fifties. She did not smile as she polished a glass. “What trouble are you here to cause?”
“No trouble, Betty,” Watters said. “I’m looking for information.”
“I didn’t think you came here for the pleasure of my company,” Betty put down her glass and attacked the bar counter as if she were trying to scrub it t
