by M C Beaton
∨ Death of a Macho Man ∧
10
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
—William Shakespeare
Charlie Stoddart’s last known address was in a depressing block of tower flats on the south side of the city.
Bill said it was due for demolition, and it had such a cracked, rusted, deserted air that it looked as if the demolition process had already started. Children did not play on the scrubby, balding, litter-strewn grass outside. At some point an attempt had been made to plant trees, but they had been savagely destroyed and only a few cracked, white shattered stumps lay around for mangy dogs to pee against.
The entrance hall was covered in graffiti. The lifts did not work and Bill said gloomily that they probably had not worked for some time. From checking the flat number in his notes, he said with even more gloom that Charlie lived on the top floor. They climbed onwards and upwards. There were occasional sounds of life to show that some flats in the block were still tenanted: a baby cried, a dreary, lost wail of sound; a man swore suddenly and violently; a woman shouted abuse. Nobody wanted to live in these tower blocks, and so gradually the decent people had left and the flotsam and jetsam of humanity stayed behind, corrupting each other with their violence and misery and filth. No one, reflected Hamish, had such a talent as the bottom rung of the Scottish social ladder for sheer filth and decay. There were smells of urine and vomit, stale beer, and the cooking diet of the poor fish fingers, chip and baked beans.
By the time they reached the outside of Charlie’s flat, Hamish was beginning to feel light-headed with fatigue. He took off the late Mr. Sinclair’s glasses and tucked them in his pocket. The lenses were beginning to give him a headache. The balconies outside the flats with their rusted railings were open to the salty, muggy, wet air blowing up from the river Clyde. Litter blew along the passageways. A dirty newspaper wrapped itself around Hamish’s legs and he impatiently tore it away.
“Well, here it is,” said Bill, stopping outside a chipped and scarred door. “But if there’s anyone still here, it’ll be a miracle.”
He knocked loudly on the frosted glass of the door and they waited while the wind shrilled through the metal railings. Hamish leaned against the wall and wished it were all over and he was back home again.
Bill knocked loudly again and shouted, “Police! Open up!”
The door next to the one he was hammering on opened suddenly and a woman looked out.
“You’ll no’ get anyone in there, Jimmy,” she said. “Hisnae been anyone there for a bit. Mrs. Stoddart left wi’ the weans last month.”
Hamish found the Glaswegian way of addressing everyone as Jimmy highly irritating. “Where did she go?” he asked.
“Ower Castlemilk way, Jimmy,” said the woman laconically.
“And what about Charlie?” asked Bill.
“Och, that one went off a few years ago. Meant for better things.” She screeched with laughter.
“Have you an address in Castlemilk?”
“Wait a wee bit. Sharon, come here!” The woman was small, stunted and ill-favoured. Sharon, on the other hand, was a giantess with dyed blond hair, thick lips, and vacant eyes. “Whaur in Castlemilk did Jeannie Stoddart go?” asked the woman, who seemed to be Sharon’s mother. “Lenin Road,” said Sharon. “Nummer 52. I ken ‘cos I wrote it doon. I always remembers what I write doon.”
Bill and Hamish left and made their way down the miles of stairs and back out again. On the road to Castlemilk, Hamish fell asleep in the car, and when he awoke for a few moments he did not know where he was or what he was supposed to be doing.
♦
Lenin Road did not seem to be any improvement on the tower block. Although it consisted of a row of two-storey houses with gardens, most of the windows were boarded up and the gardens were untended, and practically all had either no fences or the ones that had had wooden ones were contained now by only a few smashed pieces of wood. They knocked at Mrs. Stoddart’s door. To Hamish’s relief, there were sounds of movements inside. Bill shouted, “Police, Mrs. Stoddart.” The door opened suddenly. A woman stared at them. She was middle-aged with thick hair dyed yellow-blond. She was heavily made up, wearing ski pants and a low-cut cotton top. A tom, thought Hamish. Whatever she was before, Jeannie Stoddart is on the game, a prostitute. “What d’ye want?” she asked sullenly.
“Where’s Charlie?” asked Bill.
Two women stopped behind them at the garden gate and stared curiously. “Come inside,” said Jeannie. She led the way into an overcrowded, fussy living room which seemed at first glance to be full of stuffed toys, magazines, and dolls from different countries.
She sat down and lit a cigarette and then said evenly, “I don’t know where Charlie is and that’s a fact.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Nineteen eighty-nine.”
The year of that bank robbery, thought Hamish, waking up.
“Where did he say he was going?”
“I’m telling you, Mac, by that time he wasnae even speaking to me. I wasnae good enough for him any more. Went off with his posh friends.”
Bill looked at her cynically. “Charlie with posh friends? Pull the other one.”
“It’s true! Man wi’ a big Mercedes used tae drop him off.”
“And who was this man?”
She gave a half-ashamed sort of laugh. “It seems daft now. But I believed it at the time. Charlie said he was working for British Intelligence.”
“Why would British Intelligence want to employ a toe rag like Charlie?” Bill’s tired voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“He made it sound very convincing,” she said defensively. “He said they got hold of him during his last stretch in prison, and they said if he worked for them, they’d shorten his sentence. There wus a play on the telly about that.”
“Probably where Charlie got the idea from,” said Hamish. He was sitting opposite Jeannie, his knees nearly touching hers. “Look,” he coaxed, “you must have got a glimpse of the man in the Merc.”
“Whit’s in it for me?” she demanded truculently, her accent thickening.
“A hundred,” said Hamish, cutting across Bill’s exclamation that it was Jeannie’s duty to tell the police everything that she knew.
“Let’s see it.”
Hamish turned away and peeled five twenties from the prize money in his inside pocket. She reached for it but he held it away. “Description first,” said Hamish. “And make it a good one.”
“Charlie told me never to look. He said the man in the posh car was the big boss. The boss dropped him back late one night when I couldnae sleep. I took a peek out o’ the window. As Charlie got out, the man lit a cigarette. He had black hair, going grey, face like an executive.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Bill impatiently.
“Sort of tanned, well shaved, good suit, silk tie.”
“Any distinguishing marks?”
She shook her blond head. “Nuthin’ important. Big duck gold wrist-watch, cream shirt.” She looked hungrily at the money. Hamish slowly passed it over. The beginning of a dreadful idea was forming in his brain. He nodded to Bill and got to his feet. Bill followed Hamish out. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
Hamish leaned against the car and said slowly, “Look here. Think about this. I’ve described all the suspects to you. But there’s one I didn’t really concentrate on. At the time of the murder, there was this banker, John Glover, staying at the Tommel Castle Hotel. He said he was the bank manager of the Scottish and General Bank in Renfrew Street. Credit cards matched, car registration matched. Phoned the bank. Yes, Mr. Glover was on holiday in the Highlands. Nothing to worry about there. Fiancée called Betty John arrives. Romances me and tells me stories about the bank. Seems to know what she’s talking about. But we never called at John Glover’s home or asked for a photo of him.”
“You think Charlie’s posh boss could be someone posing as this banker?”
“
It could be, and his boss could be this mysterious Gentleman Jim you’ve all been looking for.”
“Hamish, Hamish, this is all a wee bit far-fetched. Och, I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go to the Scottish and General and put your fears to rest. If I could nail this Gentleman Jim before I retire, it would be the height o’ my career, and things like that just don’t happen.”
They drove in silence back into the centre of the city and stopped outside the bank.
They were received by me deputy manager, a Mr. Angus, a small, portly man with a pompous air.
“You’ve already asked all the questions,” he said impatiently. “Mr. Glover is due back Monday. He always holidays op north and no, he doesn’t leave an address, says he doesn’t want to be bothered. I am perfectly able to handle things here in his absence.” Mr. Angus looked as if he believed that he could ran things better than Mr. Glover any day.
“And you have his fiancée, Betty John, as an employee?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Angus testily, dashing Hamish’s hopes.
Faint but pursuing, he said, “We would like to see a photograph of Mr. Glover.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I don’t carry photos about with me.”
“Perhaps,” ventured Bill, “there might be one taken at a staff function?”
“Oh, one of those.” Mr. Angus’s face cleared. “There’s one taken at the Christmas party on the wall of his office next door.”
He led them through and into a wood-panelled room with a large desk and the gloomy air of a million rejected bank loans. He lifted a framed photograph down from the wall and held it out to them.
Hamish looked at it and then said in a voice sharp with alarm, “Which is John Glover?”
“Why, there, next to Miss Betty John.” It was Betty all right, but the man next to her was thin and looped, with glasses and a tentative smile. “That’s not the John Glover who’s been holidaying in Lochdubh,” said Hamish bleakly. “Get us his home address, now!”
“You mean someone’s been impersonating him?” said Mr. Angus, looking flustered.
“Just get the address,” howled Bill.
“Are you going to call for back-up?” asked Hamish. “We’ll do that from the car on the road there.” Mr. Angus came back with an address in Hyndland Road in the west end of the city.
Priscilla, thought Hamish, as they raced through the streets. As soon as we see what’s happened, I’d better warn Priscilla.
♦
“There’s your bill, Mr. Glover,” Priscilla was saying. “Thank you.” He handed over a gold credit card. “We’ve enjoyed our stay. We’ll just have a last cup of coffee and then we’ll be on our road. Back to the unexciting life of banking, hey?”
Betty, standing beside him, let out a snort of laughter. Then both headed in the direction of the restaurant, looking, thought Priscilla suddenly, more like conspirators than lovers. Maybe lawers look like conspirators, jeered a voice in her head. How would you know, Priscilla?
She gave a little sigh. Still short-staffed, rain still falling. She may as well check their rooms and see if they had left anything behind. She took down the pass key and went upstairs. She went into Betty’s room first. A suitcase and hold-all stood packed and ready on the floor. She went into the bathroom. Nothing there. She went next door to John’s room with a certain reluctance. She had an uneasy feeling John had used her. But why should she think that? They were obviously an immoral couple. Just think of Betty and Hamish. No, better not think of that. John had two suitcases – very expensive, Gucci – packed and ready. Nothing left in the bathroom. He had made his bed. How odd! He did not look the sort of man to bother making up his bed. And so neatly too. Hospital corners. He must surely know the beds would be stripped the minute they had left. And who was to strip the beds? Me, thought Priscilla grimly, thinking of the abseant maids. Might as well make a start.
She wrenched off the duvet and threw it on the floor, took off the cover, and then tugged at that firmly tucked-in under sheet. She placed it on the floor. Then the pillowslips. She went to the linen cupboard at the end of the hall and took out a fresh duvet cover, sheet and pillowslips and returned to John’s room. She knew she was being over-efficient. The next person who would take this room was not expected to arrive until the following morning. She knew she was playing the martyr, Some of the missing maids would surely soon be back on duty. Still, may as well use martyrdom to get some necessary jobs done.
And it was this wretched martyrdom of hers, Priscilla was to think later, that had made her decide to turn the mattress as well.
She heaved it up and over and then drew in her breath in sharp exclamation of surprise. For under the mattress lay two leather gun cases. She backed away from the bed, her eyes flying to the phone on the bedside table.
And then a voice behind her said grimly, “Leave the phone alone, Miss Halburton-Smythe.”
♦
Hamish and Bill arrived outside John Glover’s flat, which was in a tall sandstone building. They rang all the bells until the buzzer went on the door. “Who is it?” called a voice from the top of the stairs.
“Police!” shouted Bill. “Which is Mr. Glover’s flat?” There had been no cards next to the bells.
“Number one, ground floor,” quavered the voice from above.
“I hope to God we’re right about this,” said Bill, “for I’m about to smash in a good piece of Victorian stained glass.” He look a small, unofficial truncheon out of his trousers pocket and smashed at the glass. Brightly coloured shards flew everywhere. He reached through the hole he had made and removed chain and clicked the safety catch off the lock. “Easy,” he said. “You’d think a bank manager would be more security-conscious. Jesus! Smell that, Hamish!” There was a rank, sweetish smell, only too familiar to both men. In the distance they could hear the wail of police sirens. They did not have far to look for the real John Glover. Recognizable – just – from that photograph in me bank, he lay dead on his living-room floor among the ransacked debris of emptied drawers and cupboards. He had been strangled.
“Where’s this fake John Glover now?” asked Bill.
“Tommel Castle Hotel. I cannae wait,” said Hamish. “I’ve got to get there.”
“Man, you may as well take a back seat now,” said Bill. “They’ll call out Strathbane.”
“I’ve got to try,” said Hamish. “There’s someone I know might be in danger. I’m in enough trouble as it is. Give me the keys to your car, Bill. I did this for you.”
Bill tossed him the keys as police burst into the room. “Let him go,” snapped Bill as the police tried to grab hold of Hamish. “He’s one of us.”
♦
“So what do we do with her?” Betty John was asking. Priscilla was gagged with sticking plaster and bound to a chair in the fake John’s room.
“We wait,” said ‘John’ easily. “You go downstairs and tell that manager that Miss Halburton-Smythe has taken off for Inverness, then we wait until the lunch is over and the hotel is quiet again and then we take her out.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
“Take her up in the hills and lose her,” he said. “By the time she finds her way back and alerts the police, we’ll be long gone.”
“Why didn’t we just clear off after you had got rid of Duggan?” fretted Betty.
“Then they would have guessed right away. Don’t worry, we’ll still get clear.”
Betty’s next words horrified Priscilla.
“When Glover doesn’t turn up at the bank on Monday, they’ll start searching for him.”
“I thought of that. I’ll phone in sick on Monday and then we’ll disappear for a bit.”
Priscilla listened with her eyes half closed. There was no Hamish to ride to the rescue. She did not believe for one moment that ‘John’ meant to let her go. He would kill her as callously as he had killed the real bank manager and Duggan.
All she could do was wait and pray for a miracle. Betty went out. �
�John’ surveyed her with a smile. “You’re a silly, interfering bitch,” he said. “It amused me to stay on here and play games with you and that loon of a boyfriend of yours. No one crosses me and gets away with it. You know what Duggan did?”
And you’re going to tell me, thought Priscilla, because you’re going to kill me, so it doesn’t matter what I know now.
“He was told to stash a haul from a bank robbery and then report to my house for the share-out. We waited and waited. His name isn’t Duggan, it’s Charlie Stoddart. I couldn’t believe the little bastard had made off with the money, but that’s what he did. I kept a wait and watch. I traced him as far as America. I had all the planes watched, all the flights from America. There was a rumour he’d gone in for weight-lifting and plastic surgery. Then, by some fluke, the bastard got drunk one night in Houston, Texas, and shot off his mouth. The fellow he talked to knew I had a reward out for information, phoned me up and gave me his new name. He’d sobered up the next day and taken fright and got on a plane to Scotland. I missed him in Glasgow, but picked up his trail north. Probably thought the last place I would look for him was back in Scotland. I’ve got my reputation to think of. The underworld has to know that no one, no one, crosses Gentleman Jim and gets away with it.”
He is nothing but a common criminal, thought Priscilla bleakly. How could I be so stupid!
Betty came into the room. “Okay,” she said. “Thank God for the rain. No one will be hanging outside when we take her out. But to make sure, I’ve parked the car at the foot of the back stairs. Listen, you are going to let her go? I mean, there’s been enough killing.”
“Of course,” said John. “Now, let’s wait.”
♦
There was a mobile phone in the car but Hamish decided not to phone Priscilla. If she knew the real identity of the murderer, she might betray herself. Anyway, Strathbane would soon be racing over to the hotel, but just in case there was any hold-up, he had to try to get there.
He phoned the airport manager and asked if there was any plane about to take off to Inverness and was told only a private, jet belonging to Mr. Motion of the Hillington Electronics Company. Hamish asked to be put through to him and Mr. Morton listened intrigued to Hamish’s urgent Highland voice telling him why he had to get north in a hurry. “I’ll take you,” said Mr. Morton. “Come straight out on the runway. Then can take you up by helicopter from Inverness.”
