The Deep Dark Sleep

by Craig Russell

  Three thousand miles and a wartime before, about the time that Gentleman Joe Strachan’s criminal career was already well underway, I had been an eager-beaver schoolboy in the prestigious Boys’ Collegiate School in Rothesay, New Brunswick, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, where Glasgow was far, far away. Mind you, no further away than Vancouver. One of the subjects at which I had excelled at school was History. Then, without pause or hesitation, I’d answered the King’s call and rushed to defend, against a small Austrian corporal, the Empire and a Mother Country I had left before I’d been toilet trained.

  The funny thing about the reality of war was that you suddenly lost your enthusiasm for history. Watching men die in the mud, screaming or crying or calling for their mothers, blunted your appetite for memorizing the dates of battles or for learning the glories of past conflict. If the war had taught me anything about history, it was that there was no future in it.

  That was probably why, despite there being an impressive wad of cash in my desk drawer, I put off delving into the history of Glasgow’s most audacious robbery and the colourful if dangerous character behind it. It was true, of course, that I really needed the list of names that Isa and Violet had promised me before my delving could have any clear direction, but the truth was I knew where I could get started and I was putting it off for a day or two.

  The day before the twins had turned up, I had received a telephone call asking for an appointment to see me. The male voice on the line had had that accent that was normally associated with Kelvinside: nasally and vaguely camp, with the tortuously articulated vowels that over-compensated to hide a Glasgow accent. I had lived in the city for a couple of years before I’d worked out that Kay Vale-Ray wasn’t some obscure nightclub chanteuse, but referred to a company of mounted soldiers.

  The voice spoke in multi-syllabically dense sentences and told me that it belonged to Donald Fraser, a solicitor, and that he would appreciate me calling out to see him at his office in St Vincent Street on ‘a matter of not inconsiderable delicacy’. More than that he was ‘unprepared to divulge telephonically’. I let it go and agreed to meet with him: as an enquiry agent, I had learned that some people desperately wanted to tell you their story – and their whole reason for contacting you was to tell you their story – but nevertheless needed time to open up; and they expected you to coax it out of them. I was rather good at it, and had often contemplated that my talents would have been equally well employed if I’d qualified as a doctor of venereal diseases. The truth was that I would probably have had to listen to less sordid stories.

  In any case, I hadn’t pushed Fraser for more information. The other reason was that he was a lawyer in a firm whose name I recognized. Being an enquiry agent, the city’s lawyers were a key source of legitimate jobs. Mainly divorces, which under Scottish law required some upstanding member of society such as myself to testify that some other member of society had been upstanding when, where and with whom he shouldn’t have been.

  After Isa and Violet left, I had a couple of hours before my appointment with Fraser. I picked up the phone and asked the operator for Bell 3500, the number of police headquarters in Saint Andrew’s Square, and asked to be put through to Inspector Jock Ferguson.

  ‘Fancy a pie and a pint?’ I asked him.

  ‘What is it you’re after, Lennox?’ I could hear the chatter of a typewriter in the background. I imagined a burly, ruddy-cheeked Highlander in uniform tapping away with two fingers, tongue jutting sideways from his mouth, frowning in concentration.

  ‘What do I want? The pleasure of your society, of course. And a pie and a pint. But don’t pin me down too soon … I need to view the Horsehead Bar’s à la carte options, first.’

  ‘The Horsehead?’ Ferguson snorted.

  ‘For some reason I’m harbouring a grudge against my digestive system.’

  ‘Aye … and mine, it would seem. Why don’t you save us the indigestion and just tell me what you’re after?’

  ‘Just a chat. See you there in half an hour?’

  Ferguson grunted his assent and hung up. Small talk was not his forte.

  Scotland had two national pastimes, the only subjects that awoke profound passion in the Scottish breast: football and the consumption of alcohol. The funny thing was that they were as spectacularly bad at the first as they excelled at the second. Like the Irish, the Scots seemed to have a prodigious thirst woven through the fabric of their being. But being Presbyterian, the Scots felt the need to temper, contain and regulate anything that could be deemed pleasurable and make it run to a timetable. Midday drinking was therefore restricted by law to between eleven a.m. and two-thirty p.m. Bars were only allowed to open between five and nine-thirty in the evening. Sundays were dry.

  There were, of course, all kinds of social clubs that found their way around the licensing laws but, generally, the Scots had learned to consume impressively large quantities of alcohol with breathtaking speed. So when I walked into the Horsehead Bar at one, it was shoulder-to-shoulder packed and the air was eye-stingingly dense with cigarette smoke. It was a typical Glasgow city-centre-pub lunchtime: mainly flat caps but a fair smattering of pinstripe. I saw Jock Ferguson at the bar and squeezed my way to him through the sea of drinkers. I washed up on the shore of the counter, resting my elbows on it.

  ‘How’s it going, Jock?’ I asked cheerfully. And loudly, to be heard above the din of the other drinkers. We didn’t shake hands. We never shook hands. ‘Waiting long?’ I noticed there was no drink before him. He had been waiting for me to buy the first round. I reckoned I’d be buying the second and third.

  ‘A few minutes,’ said Ferguson, again exhausting his repertoire of small talk.

  Big Bob the Barman was behind the bar, wreathed in cigarette smoke and working the beer pumps like a railwayman pulling levers in a signal box. As usual, he had his shirtsleeves rolled up above his tattoo-swirled Popeye forearms. I caught his eye and he pulled two pints of heavy.

  ‘Give us a couple of pies to go with that, Bob,’ I shouted across the bar when he brought the beers.

  ‘Okay,’ said Ferguson, taking the first sip of his beer and savouring it for a moment. ‘What is this all about?’

  ‘Does there have to be a reason? Purely social. Maybe partly thanks for helping me land that wages run.’

  ‘You’ve already thanked me.’ Ferguson looked at me suspiciously, which, given that he was a Detective Inspector with the Glasgow City Police, was pretty much the way he looked at everyone.

  ‘You involved in this Joe Strachan thing, Jock?’ I asked as casually as I could. ‘You know? Those bones dredged up from the Clyde.’

  Ferguson put down his beer.

  ‘Now, why would Gentleman Joe Strachan be of interest to you, Lennox? He was long before your time.’

  ‘Well, he seems to have resurfaced. Literally. Or am I wrong? How sure are you that the remains are Gentleman Joe’s?’

  Ferguson twisted to face me full on. He turned up the volume on his suspicion and my wrists itched with a premonition of handcuffs.

  ‘Okay, Lennox, now I know that this is more than idle curiosity. Whatever your interest in Strachan is, I would bury it somewhere very deep. This is a subject close to a lot of Glasgow coppers’ hearts.’

  ‘Oh, I understand that, Jock,’ I said, putting on the ingénue act. ‘But it’s a perfectly innocent and reasonable question: was it Strachan or not?’

  Ferguson sighed. ‘Yes, the body was Strachan’s.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been much of a body, after nearly twenty years at the bottom of the Clyde,’ I said, again as casually as I could. Laurence Olivier wouldn’t have felt threatened.

  ‘There was enough to identify him. Now, do I have to repeat myself? Officially?’

  ‘Take it easy, Jock. It’s just that I’ve been asked to confirm that it is Gentleman Joe you’ve got in a shoebox at the City Mortuary.’

  ‘And who’s been doing the asking? I thought you were putting that shite behind you. You working
for the Three Kings again? Listen, Lennox, I vouched for you with that job. If you’re …’

  I interrupted him with an emphatically held-up hand and an indignantly shaken head. ‘No, Jock, nothing like that. I can’t tell you who my client is, but it isn’t any of the Three Kings and it isn’t anyone remotely colourful.’

  ‘Client confidentiality, eh?’ Ferguson snorted. ‘Just tell me that whoever it is isn’t of interest to us.’

  ‘Trust me,’ I said disarmingly. ‘The only records my clients have were recorded by Jimmy Young.’

  ‘The twins …’ Ferguson frowned for a moment, trying to pull their names into his recall. ‘Isa and Violet?’

  I looked at him blankly for a moment.

  ‘I’ve got to learn to make my wisecracks more cryptic,’ I said. ‘I’m that easy to see through?’

  ‘If you’re not working for a crook, then it has to be family. And Joe Strachan’s daughters are the only family that would give a shit. They have the advantage of not having had to grow up with Strachan. Listen, Lennox, be warned: drop this one and drop it fast. Whatever Strachan’s kids are paying you, it’s not worth it.’

  ‘What’s the big drama?’

  ‘A dead copper, that’s what. That and the fact that the name Joe Strachan carries a lot of history. Bad history. You’ve had dealings with Superintendent McNab in the past …’

  ‘Willie McNab? You know I have. He’s the president of my appreciation society, but he’s not been forwarding my fan letters lately.’

  ‘Aye … very funny. Let me tell you this, Lennox: if Superintendent McNab finds out you’re sniffing around the Strachan thing, you’ll be wearing your balls as earrings.’

  ‘Why? What’s his special interest?’

  ‘Police Constable Charles Gourlay, that’s what. The young policeman who was shot and killed by the Empire Exhibition robbers. You know McNab, and you know about his sense of eye-for-an-eye justice when it comes to coppers being attacked or killed.’

  ‘The word biblical comes to mind,’ I said. ‘His sense of vengeance makes Moses look like he took it easy on the Pharaoh.’

  ‘Exactly. Well Gourlay wasn’t just any bobby on the beat. This was Nineteen thirty-eight and Willie McNab was a young PC himself. Gourlay was a friend. A drinking buddy at the Masonic Lodge and Orange Hall and Christ knows where else. Willie McNab took Gourlay’s murder to heart, and it became a personal crusade for him to find Strachan and watch him drop through the hatch at Duke Street or Barlinnie. Now that Strachan has been found at the bottom of the Clyde, Superintendent McNab feels that both he and the hangman have been robbed of their chance to put things right.’

  ‘But maybe it wasn’t Strachan who killed the policeman. Maybe whoever did the copper, did Strachan too.’

  Ferguson’s expression darkened. ‘Listen, Lennox, you and I have both seen our share of shite during the war. We both know what it’s like to be in a place where life is cheap. But never, ever talk to me about the murder of a police officer like that again. No one did PC Gourlay. He was murdered in the course of his lawful duty, in cold blood by scum who knew he was unarmed and unable to defend himself. I’m not Willie McNab, but I do have loyalty to my fellow officers.’

  ‘Okay, Jock … no harm meant.’ I held my hands up. It was a stupid way for me to have put it. The City of Glasgow Police were a tight-knit bunch and touchy about their own. It didn’t matter if your colleague was on the take, on the bottle or on the level: if he was a Glasgow copper you looked after your own first and foremost and expected the same in return.

  ‘But you do see how it is possible, don’t you, Jock? Strachan maybe wasn’t the killer.’

  ‘But he was behind the whole thing. Planned it, put the crew together, led the raid. He was in charge. Guilty before and after the fact. When that constable died there was a rope around Strachan’s neck, no matter who pulled the trigger. Anyway, there was a witness. Said it was the tallest of the gang who did the shooting.’

  ‘There was a witness?’

  A couple of other drinkers jostled past Ferguson and he frowned. Our conversation had been half-shouted to be heard and Ferguson overdid a weary expression, but I guessed he was using the interruption to decide if or how he was going to dodge my question.

  ‘The van driver,’ he said eventually. ‘He said there were five robbers. They all wore stocking masks, but one was tall and all the others were no bigger than five-six, five-seven. In my book that fingers Strachan as the shooter. So maybe there’s no mystery to Gentleman Joe taking the deep, dark sleep: he put a rope around the neck of every man in that gang. Maybe they made him pay the price.’

  ‘How do you know that it was Strachan at all? I thought that the identities of the Empire Exhbition Gang were all unknown.’

  ‘Strachan …’ Ferguson paused again, this time while Big Bob placed two plates in front of us, each with a small, round meat pie centred in a pool of viscous grease. ‘Strachan went missing right after the robbery. Dropped out of sight. And Joe Strachan wasn’t one to keep a low profile.’

  ‘That’s it? God, Jock, we now know that Strachan was at the bottom of the Clyde. That’s the lowest profile I can think of. It could be a pure coincidence that he was topped about the same time as the robbery.’

  ‘You’re right, we don’t know who the other gang members were. But that in itself points to Joe Strachan. He was a stickler for security. We could never get the bastard because no one talked about a job if they were doing it with Strachan. No one knew in advance what was going to be hit or when or who was in the team. If there’s one thing I can say in his favour, it’s that when it came to planning and executing bighaul robberies, he was the best. No one came close. Even if he hadn’t gone missing he would have been at the top of a list for the Empire Exhibition job. A list of one. Anyway, the Empire Exhibition robbery was only part of it. The Triple Crown.’

  ‘The Triple Crown?’ I knew the story, but sometimes being an outsider to Glasgow helped: you could plead ignorance and people told you more than they had intended to.

  ‘That’s what the older boys call it. The ones with enough years under their belts to remember it. Three massive robberies, committed in fast succession, but planned right down to the last second and penny. And there’s a very good chance that they’re linked to a series of other, smaller robberies that took place a few months before. Trial runs, they reckon, to sharpen the team for the big ones.’

  ‘And the biggest of the big ones was the Empire Exhibition robbery?’

  ‘Totally different targets but carried out with the same military precision. The first was the National Bank of Scotland in St Vincent Street. Twenty thousand pounds in wages and God knows how much else from the safe deposit boxes. Then a van on its way with wages cash to the Connell shipyard in Scotstoun – the kind of run you’re doing now. The bastards actually wore police uniforms for that one. Thirty-two thousand. Then they hit the real jackpot: the Empire Exhibition. Fifty thousand.’

  I blew a long whistle and probably looked more impressed than I should have in front of Ferguson. One hundred and two thousand in total was a massive amount of money, particularly in pre-war Glasgow. It was no surprise that everyone assumed that Gentleman Joe had done a disappearing act. It was, after all, the kind of money that could buy you a new, luxurious life anywhere and have enough left over to buy the silence of others. It was also, I realized, more than enough to post off three thousand a year from small change.

  ‘And you’re convinced it was the same crew?’

  ‘Absolutely convinced. I don’t want to badmouth your social circle, but I don’t see Hammer Murphy or Jonny Cohen having that amount of brains or style.’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t have many dealings with them any more. And less as time goes on. But I know what you mean.’

  And I did: Jonny Cohen’s mob were the most successful when it came to hold-ups, but it was small-league stuff compared to what Ferguson had described. I noticed that he hadn’t mentioned Willie Sneddon. O
f the Three Kings, Sneddon was the one with the biggest ambitions. And the biggest reach. Sneddon had never been successfully convicted of a single crime, and his personal empire now had as many straight enterprises as crooked ones.

  ‘Like I said, Lennox, there’s a lot of history attached to the name Joe Strachan. And a lot of grudges and scores to be settled. If you know what’s good for you, stay clear. Tell Isa and Violet that it really was Daddy sleeping the deep, dark sleep, then take the money and get clear of it.’

  ‘But what if it wasn’t?’ I persisted. ‘What if it’s somebody else’s bones you’ve got?’

  ‘It’s Strachan all right. But if it isn’t, then that’s even more reason for you to stay out of this business. If Strachan is alive, then you don’t want to be looking for him and you definitely don’t want to find him. Joe Strachan is a legend amongst Glasgow’s scum. All of this “Gentleman Joe” crap? Trust me, I’ve heard all about the real Joe Strachan and read the case files: he was a merciless bastard of the first water. Just take my word for it, Lennox, stay out of this one if you know what’s good for you. Some skeletons should be left in their cupboards … or at the bottom of the Clyde, for that matter.’

  ‘Listen, Jock, I’m not interested in pursuing this any further than I have to. I just want to establish for his family that it was Joe Strachan they found. That’s all.’ I didn’t make mention of the fact that I was also on the trail of whoever was sending large sums of cash to the twins. ‘Just give me something to go on. Someone who might be able to point me in the right direction.’

  Ferguson looked at me for a long time. That cold, empty stare of his. You could never tell if he was appraising you, seeing deep into your soul with his copper’s gaze and unlocking your darkest secrets, or if he was simply thinking about whether he was going to have pork chop or fish for dinner.

  ‘What I will do for you,’ he said at last and wearily, ‘is give you a name. But don’t bring me into this, Lennox.’ He took out a notebook and scribbled something on it with a stub of pencil.