The Last Darkness

by Campbell Armstrong

  ‘It’s a bloody tough one to take in,’ she said. ‘He was such a … well, a sweetheart. A nice man.’

  Sandy Scullion, solicitous, said, ‘I’m sorry. I wish I had an easier way of telling you.’

  ‘A man’s been murdered. How can you rephrase that so it’s digestible? You can’t.’

  They were in Joseph Lindsay’s office, high-ceilinged, corniced, over-elaborate plaster plums and cherries and apples. The window looked directly down into Bath Street. Perlman glanced down at the streetlamps; fresh snow began to drift into the lights.

  He surveyed the room as Billie Houston pulled Kleenexes from a pop-up box on the desk and pressed them to her eyes. He absorbed the surroundings – peach walls, cutesy little prints of mushrooms and toadstools he attributed, rightly or wrongly, to Billie’s influence, certificates attesting to various legal qualifications and memberships of this or that society, or good citizenship awards. Joe Lindsay had been civic-minded, a trophy-gatherer.

  Perlman wondered if Billie had been one of his trophies. Nubile secretary, sixtyish solicitor, throw them together into the cauldron of an office – had Lindsay been set alight by Billie? Ageing men could be such idiots, he thought. All the remembered appetites of youth they tried to recapture. Hunt the Erection. No more Mister Softee.

  ‘Was anyone bothering him? Was anyone threatening him?’ Scullion was asking. He was just so bloody good at putting questions in a mild way that you half-expected him to whip out a prescription pad and write you a script for Librium.

  She said, ‘No, I don’t think so …’

  ‘Would you have known?’ Perlman asked.

  ‘I knew a lot about his business, Sergeant. I can safely say he wasn’t being … menaced by anyone. To the best of my knowledge.’

  ‘Did he seem, um, oh, troubled?’ Scullion asked.

  ‘No …’

  ‘Any strange phone calls, or unusual visitors you might remember?’

  She shook her head, blew her nose. The bracelets chinked. ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘You can’t think of a reason why anyone would want him dead?’

  ‘No. Really. He was a decent man.’

  ‘Tell us about his life,’ Perlman said. ‘Hobbies. Friends. Anything you can think of.’

  ‘He grew vegetables,’ she said. ‘He occasionally played bowls.’

  Vegetables and bowls, Perlman thought. This wasn’t what you’d call a keg of dynamite.

  ‘He specialized in growing different types of broccoli.’

  Perlman wondered if his heart could take these revelations. ‘The problem is, Miss Houston, broccoli and bowls aren’t the kind of things that get men killed. Drug deals, theft, revenge, aye, definitely. But growing broccoli isn’t a dangerous pursuit.’

  ‘You’re looking for something underneath, right? Solicitor’s sleazy secrets, stuff like that. I can’t think of any, Detective.’

  ‘Forgive me for this, but I have a personal question –’

  ‘You’re going to ask if we were an item, right?’

  ‘You’re a mind-reader.’

  ‘We were friends. Nothing more. We sometimes had dinner. He behaved very well towards me. He didn’t try to grope me under the table. Are you satisfied?’ She looked at him with some hostility, as if he’d wrongly attacked her virtue.

  ‘Lou said. I’m sorry. I had to ask. Look at it from my point of view. What if you had a boyfriend who was jealous of your relationship with Joseph Lindsay, say, and what if this boyfriend, in a fit of insane jealousy, decided to kill the lawyer?’

  ‘But I don’t have a boyfriend –’

  ‘Fine. So we eliminate that possibility. One less road to explore. Saves time.’

  ‘You always suspect the worst of people?’ she asked.

  ‘Not always,’ Perlman said.

  Sandy Scullion interrupted. ‘What about his clients, Miss Houston?’

  ‘Generally old people with too much money and property. Mr Lindsay handled a lot of wills.’

  ‘I’ll need a list of them,’ Scullion said.

  ‘I can do that for you.’

  ‘I’m also going to need access to his house.’

  She hesitated. Scullion said, ‘It’s necessary.’

  ‘There’s a spare key in his desk.’

  ‘His family. What do you know about them?’

  ‘His wife died sixteen or seventeen years ago. A stroke, I think. His daughter Michaela lives in Australia. His son David is in Canada. Both married. They don’t come back to Scotland often.’

  ‘Do you have phone numbers for them?’

  ‘They’re in Mr Lindsay’s address book. I don’t envy you the job of calling them with news like this.’

  Scullion said, ‘You haven’t mentioned friends.’

  ‘He wasn’t an outgoing man. I’d say he had acquaintances more than close friends. He used to do work for a committee that had something to do with Palestine, but I don’t know a whole lot about that part of his life. He’d drifted away from it, though.’ She fell silent, buried her face in a clump of Kleenex, and sobbed quietly.

  Lou Perlman’s instinct was to comfort her, because he was a sucker for a weeping woman; show him a woman crying and he’d rush to the nearest flower shop and buy out the whole lily supply and have it wrapped and ribboned, toot sweet.

  Scullion was already uttering sympathy. ‘Take your time, there’s no hurry.’

  Billie Houston dropped the tissues into the trash and looked up at the ceiling and sniffed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘When you’ve worked for a person for eight years you …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Scullion said.

  ‘I can’t believe somebody killed him. And the way he died … Where were we? Friends. Right. He had dinner once a month with a man he’d known for years. An old friend from university.’

  Scullion asked, ‘Do you have a name?’

  ‘Yes. Artie Wexler.’

  Perlman was instantly intrigued. ‘Artie Wexler? Fellow of about sixty, sort of square jaw, hair like a wig?’

  ‘I only saw him once,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember what he looked like. Once a month he and Mr Lindsay had dinner at La Lanterna.’

  ‘You know this guy, Lou?’ Scullion asked.

  Perlman said, ‘Unless there’s another Artie Wexler I never heard of.’

  Scullion was quiet a moment, then he looked at Billie Houston and said, ‘I’d like you to keep our conversation completely confidential, Miss Houston. For the time being at least.’

  ‘I will. Don’t worry.’

  Artie Wexler, Perlman thought, and remembered the man’s smile as he’d escorted Miriam out of the reception area at the Cedars and into the corridor beyond. That smirk. No, Lou, you only imagined it that way. It was a straightforward smile, maybe even sympathetic: Sorry about your brother, Lou. You could read all you liked into an expression. And quite often you read the wrong things – especially, it seemed, when it came to Miriam.

  Forget her. Think of something else.

  This new coat, say. Bloody brilliant. It suits me. I feel well-dressed. Raised in class and status. Spend a great wad of money and it uplifts you.

  Scullion’s mobile rang and he fished it out of his pocket, answered it. ‘For you, Lou.’

  Perlman took the phone and heard Miriam’s voice. ‘I don’t mean to disturb you, Lou. Can we meet later?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is seven suitable? Outside the Art School?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’ He was about to ask the purpose of the invitation, but she’d hung up. He gave the phone back to Sandy Scullion and thought: What does she want with me?

  What did that question matter?

  She could have asked for a meeting in an igloo in Greenland or an assignation on a dying space station and he’d have gone anyway, with or without explanation.

  16

  Marak saw the blonde woman step out of the building, but as he prepared to cross the street and squeeze through traffic he realized she had co
mpany. Two men, one tall and straight-backed with hair the colour of sand, the other bespectacled and a little round-shouldered, escorted her along the pavement. They stood on either side of her like guardians. Marak had a feeling about these two, that they represented some branch of officialdom – lawyers, perhaps, tax or immigration inspectors, policemen, he wasn’t sure. They had a certain air, almost a watchfulness, such as he’d seen on the faces of bodyguards.

  They all stopped on a corner and exchanged a few words, and then the woman walked away. She was alone now. He watched the men continue to move along Bath Street.

  The woman went south into West Campbell Street and Marak hurried between slow traffic lest he lose sight of her. She walked about ten yards in front of him. There were no Christmas decorations along this street. She turned a corner, and Marak went after her and saw her step into a building with the letter P outside. P, Parking, yes, of course, she was going to fetch her car. He moved behind her, closing the distance, aware on the edges of his perception that there were no pedestrians, only a few cars coming down the exit ramp, and there was nobody waiting outside the lift where the woman had paused.

  She pressed the call button and Marak noticed she wore pink fingernail varnish. The lift hissed in the shaft and the door opened and the woman stepped inside. Marak entered behind her. The door slid shut. The lift began to climb.

  Marak said, ‘I don’t intend to hurt you.’

  The woman looked at him. ‘Hurt me? What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Tell me what I want to know, and I will leave you alone. You’ll never see me again.’

  ‘And what could I possibly know that you’d like to hear, you creep?’

  ‘Where to find Joseph Lindsay.’

  ‘Wait a minute. You phoned today, didn’t you? I remember your accent.’

  ‘Just tell me where he is.’

  ‘Why don’t you piss off,’ she said. ‘You don’t scare me. I don’t have to tell you a bloody thing.’ She stretched out a hand and held the tip of her index finger over a red button marked ALARM.

  He said, ‘No, don’t do that.’

  ‘Then back off. And if you want to know anything about Joseph Lindsay, I suggest you call the police. Talk to a detective called Perlman. Or Inspector Scullion. I’m sure they’d be delighted to answer your questions. I hate this – a woman can’t go anywhere in this bloody city without some fucking perve annoying her. Bugger off.’

  ‘Please,’ he said.

  ‘This is where I get out.’

  The lift slowed, halted. The door opened. The woman moved to exit, Marak stepped in front of her. He pressed a button and the door closed again.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to the police,’ he said. ‘Tell me where I can find Joseph Lindsay. This is all I am asking.’

  ‘Open that fucking door,’ she said.

  He struck her. He hit her once with the flat of his hand and her nose bled. The blood ran down her overcoat. Marak was devoured by shame. He’d never hit a woman before. He’d always respected women, always. He took off his scarf and reached towards her face to stem the blood and she misinterpreted his movement – perhaps she saw herself strangled – and she backhanded him, a sharp ring on her right hand piercing the skin of his upper lip. The pain stung him. His range of vision was filled a moment with all kinds of disturbances. The lift door opened, the woman shoved him and moved past, and he stepped after her, catching her as she hurried towards a rank of parked cars. He swung her round to face him. He was furious with himself. Shame and anger and pain. In his mind he’d seen this all differently. He’d ask the question. The woman would answer. A civilized exchange. He’d go away. That was it. Distilled and simple. Not like this.

  ‘I am sorry, the blow, I didn’t intend …’ he said. ‘Just tell me what I want to know, please.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you the time of day if you were on your hands and knees and begging. Go on, hit me again, I dare you,’ and she turned her face up to him, offering him the target, taunting him. She knows how to fight, he thought. She’d fought before. This was nothing new to her.

  ‘Go on, smack me again, big man, what’s stopping you?’

  He took a step back. It had all gone wrong. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  ‘Well, you bastard? Can’t work up the balls, eh? Well, fuck you,’ and she turned and walked in the direction of the cars and Marak was about to chase after her again when he was aware of a man in a navy-blue uniform emerging from a doorway to his right. Security.

  He turned and ran towards a stairway that led to the street, and he clattered down the steps, slipping where pedestrians had left slicks of melted snow, and clutching the handrail to break his tumble. He heard the guard shout Hey you and the voice echoed in the stairwell. Marak made it outside, but it wasn’t the place where he’d first entered the building. He found himself in a narrow alley, and he ran until he reached the main street again where the illuminated letter P hung in the dark sky. He used his scarf to wipe blood from his mouth: the wrong approach, but how could you know she’d act like that? You have no powers of prediction. You thought she’d be scared enough to tell you what you wanted to know. And that would be the end of the matter. You’d be polite, firm, but not violent. He thought about the Moroccan in the Haifa restaurant, and remembered what he’d said: you have courage, and you have been patient, and now you are doing a wonderful thing –

  A wonderful thing, yes. Hitting a woman. And running away like a jackrabbit. He raged against himself. His dead father rose in his head, furious as a thunderstorm. This is not the way. Violence is never the way forward. He tossed the scarf over his mouth and walked, thinking, no, I can’t yield to panic, cannot, people are depending on me.

  He spotted the little man in the baseball cap slip deftly into the doorway of a darkened shopfront a few yards along the pavement. He thought, this is who I want, exactly, this man who watches me hour after hour, this damned dwarf in black leather jacket, does he think I don’t know he’s been trailing behind me all day?

  Marak walked until he came to the doorway and he reached quickly into the dark space and his hands came in contact with the man’s neck and – forgive me, God forgive me, this is madness – he squeezed hard, thumbs digging into windpipe while the little man stammered N-n-n, but Marak, trapped in the impetus of violence, kept pressing hard, then harder, his fingertips throttling the throat, squeezing shut the passage of air, N-n-n-n, the little man’s breath smelled of spoiled things, cheese left in the sun, old meat hanging in a marketplace too many days. Appalled by himself, he let the man go, and his hands slithered down the smooth front of the leather jacket. The man slid slowly against Marak’s coat to the ground and lay there like a bundle of refuse dropped by somebody who didn’t give a damn about litter, or a package nobody wanted to sign for – a limp heap in a black doorway in a bitter-cold city where Marak felt displaced and abandoned.

  17

  Outside Force HQ Scullion asked, ‘Who’s Wexler?’

  ‘Somebody I knew once,’ Perlman said. ‘I saw him this morning at the hospital. First time in years.’

  ‘Small world.’

  ‘If you’re a Jew in Glasgow it’s even smaller than that.’

  ‘What does Wexler do?’

  ‘Last I heard he had a finance company. Borrow ten grand and pay off all your debts in one swoop, you know the kind of racket – but the small print says you repay Artie Wexler’s company twenty grand over three years, or whatever the going rate is. Fucking Shylock. He’s probably retired, living off the fat he accumulated in a lifetime of moneylending.’

  ‘I gather from your tone of voice you’re not a big fan of the man.’

  Perlman stood still, as if reluctant to enter the building. The lights from windows illuminated slow-falling snowflakes. Three uniformed cops went past in their long coats. One of them said, ‘Okay here’s what really happened,’ and the other pair laughed in anticipation. When you only hear the start of a story it makes no sense, Lou thought.
When you’re at the beginning of an investigation, likewise, nothing is clear. He was trying to draw a line on an imaginary graph, joining Colin’s heart attack and Joseph Lindsay’s murder, and extending this series of dots in the direction of Artie Wexler. But it didn’t take him anywhere, nor did he expect it to. It was head doodling, a brain game, playing with names and associations.

  He looked at Sandy and said, ‘I was remembering when I didn’t belong. I had my nose pressed to the window, looking in. Always looking in.’

  ‘Are you confiding something in me?’

  ‘Ach, just thinking aloud, Sandy. I was the wee brother who was sent to fetch bottles of lemonade and sweeties for Col. Now I remember having to run to the shop and pick up a bag of soor plooms or sherbet for Artie Wexler as well. It wasn’t just Colin who bossed me around, I was Artie’s runner too.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’

  ‘Just old stuff I’d totally forgotten. I resented being the errand boy. I kept hoping somebody would pass a Wee Brothers’ Emancipation Act and set me free. Then one day Colin and Artie grew up, Colin went to London, Artie to St Andrews University … and my little world was empty for a while. Then I joined the Force when I was twenty-two and suddenly I had a whole new purpose.’

  Scullion smacked his gloved hands together and frowned. Sometimes Lou could go off into a thicket of apparent digressions, and there was no point following him. ‘You coming inside, Lou? It’s freezing.’

  ‘I’d like to get a hold of Artie Wexler. Talk to him about Lindsay.’

  Scullion had resigned himself long ago to the fact that Perlman kept to a schedule of his own. If you let him run loose, he sometimes got results, sometimes not. You took a chance on him because he’d never knowingly let you down. ‘Okay. But remember to keep me posted. Here, take my phone again. I’ll pick up Bernigan and Bailey and we’ll run out to Lindsay’s house.’