It was then that Fiona did something that took me by surprise. She reached up and placed her hand on my cheek and looked at me for a moment, wordlessly, the fire gone from her eyes. It was a gesture that should have reassured me, put my mind at rest, but the tide of sadness that washed across her expression did exactly the opposite.
‘I can’t talk about this just now, Lennox. There are more important things, bigger things than you and me to be thought about. To be sorted out. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, I really am, but there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘Fiona, I don’t understand…’
‘Nor do I. I don’t understand either. But sometimes things are the way they are and there’s nothing we can do about it.’
‘Things? What things?’
She let her hand drop and stepped back from me. ‘I want you to know that this has nothing to do with Jim. You’re wrong to think that.’
I shook my head. No matter how she dressed it up, I knew what was going on.
‘I’ve got to get back to the girls…’ she said. I made to stop her but checked myself. She turned and went back down the stairs, and I stood, arms hanging at my sides, watching her go.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
While Jonny Cohen was checking out his places, I did a tour of the remainder of Glasgow’s dance halls. For a century, Glasgow had been the workshop of the British Empire. As the Empire had grown, so had Glasgow to become the second most populous city in Britain and by far the most densely inhabited. It had been a city that, for most of its history, had rung with the sound of iron and steel being hammered, bent, moulded and fused. An expanding Empire had meant the shipyards and the factories had belched ever more smoke into the air as they swallowed ever greater numbers of workers. And to feed the factories and yards, the city had piled people on top of each other — literally — in rows of soot-black tenements. Glasgow had been a city of hard, grimy toil. And on a Saturday night, it liked to wash the grime off for a few hours and pretend it was somewhere more glamorous. On a Saturday night, Glaswegians danced.
They also drank, vomited and fought, but at least they cleaned up nice first.
It was a ritual in Glasgow to dress as much like a movie star as you could and head off to one of the various dance halls. All of which meant knowing Frank Lang liked to dance was as much use as knowing fish liked water. But, in the absence of news from Jonny and with no other lead to follow, other than the long shot that Lang was the Hungarian Donald Taylor had found in the records, I decided to do the rounds of the halls. If nothing else, it would take my mind off all of the other crap that was going on in my life at that moment.
I did the Grand Tour, starting with the city centre ballrooms: the Playhouse in Renfield Street, the Berkley and St Andrew’s Hall in Berkley Street, the Locarno and the Astoria in Sauchiehall Street, the Albert in Bath Street. Nothing. I knew a few of the doormen and swapped the odd lewd remark and off-colour joke, as you do, and, if nothing else, my rounds helped maintain a network of contacts I’d built up over the years. The dance hall staff had been useful in many of the cases I’d worked on of wandering husbands or wives. It never failed to amaze me how some men — and women for that matter — believed that for infidelity to go unnoticed, all you had to do was conduct your illicit courting in a different dance hall less than a mile and a half away from your home and in view of a couple of thousand fellow Glaswegians.
But no luck tonight. Lang’s photograph didn’t spark any flames of recognition.
The Locarno was probably the most popular of the dance halls and I asked the doormen if it was okay for me to take a five-minute walk around the place, just to see if my luck would change. They agreed, and I weaved my way between tables and around the dance floor. The place was packed and fumed with cheap perfume and pomade while the big band on stage did violence to Love is a Many Splendored Thing. The Locarno was like an alien planet, its atmosphere thick and blue-grey with smoke under the sparkle of a glitterball sun. Adrift in an ocean of cheap suits and imitation Perry Como and Liz Taylor hairstyles, I realized that I was on a fool’s errand: even if Lang was in here, I stood no chance of spotting him.
I was making my way out when I spotted someone whom I did recognize, however: Sylvia Dewar was sitting at a table near the wall. She didn’t see me as she was engaged in intimate conversation with a man who was definitely not her husband. They must have been discussing the price of their next drink because, from the angle of her arm as it disappeared beneath the table and from the expression on her friend’s face, I got the impression she was checking his trouser pocket for small change. I decided not to go over and introduce myself, just in case she felt like shaking my hand.
I thought of Dewar, driven to the brink of reason by suspicions he chased like ghosts, and felt sick. Then I thought of myself and felt sicker.
The Atlantic began acting up and it took me a few turns to get it started before driving south, across the river, and down to the Plaza in Eglinton Toll. Same story: no one knew Lang.
Back across the Clyde I checked out the Palais de Dance in Dennistoun and finished up at the Barrowland.
And it was outside the Barrowland that the Atlantic decided to give up the ghost. The Gallowgate is not the kind of place you want to be stranded at night, or any other time of day for that matter, and when my repeated oaths did nothing to get the car started, I got out and opened the hood so I could swear at the engine more directly. When that didn’t work, realizing I’d exhausted my mechanical expertise, I locked up the car. I looked up and down the Gallowgate. It was nine-fifteen, and the street was empty. I decided to head back across to the Barrowland to ask if I could use the ’phone.
I was still on the other side of the street when I saw them.
The couple had spilled out from the ballroom and even from that distance I could see — and hear — that whatever the guy’s intentions were, the girl wanted no part of it. There again, Glaswegian courting rituals had an elegance and charm to make the average mate-clubbing Neanderthal seem like Charles Boyer; but I could see that this was all wrong and the girl was desperately trying to free herself from the man’s grip on her elbow.
A solitary car slowed down as it passed, but the guy yelled obscenities at it and it drove on. Other than me, there was no one else in the street. It was too late for people to be arriving at the dance hall and too early for the crowds to be spilling out onto the street. From what I could see, the guy was trying to drag the girl around the side of the dance hall. It was a distraction I could have done without, but the Canadian in me exerted himself and I walked purposefully across the road towards them.
The man had his back to me and I had just reached them when he slashed her across the face with the back of his hand. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.
‘Take it easy, friend,’ I said, but I was taken aback for a second.
‘Oh…’ I said. ‘It’s you…’
‘Aye… it’s me,’ said Sheriff Pete, without a trace of his cod-American accent. Snakes of oiled black hair hung across the pale brow and as his eyes locked with mine, they burned with a cold, dark fire. ‘Stay the fuck out of this. It’s not your business.’
I looked at the girl, still desperately trying to wriggle free from his grasp.
‘Help me, mister…’ she pleaded. ‘Please help me.’
‘Let her go.’ I crushed the cheap gabardine of his coat and pulled him away from her. Then, I said to the girl, ‘On you go, love. I’m going to have a little chat with Pete here.’
I watched her run all the way to the junction of Bain Street, where she disappeared around the corner. She had run as if her life had depended on it and I knew she had seen in Pete’s black eyes the same thing I had seen that night in the Horsehead. I let him go.
‘I think you need to calm down, fella,’ I said as soothingly as I could. But the dark fire still burned in his eyes.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he said, and I knew then how this was going to have to en
d. ‘Sticking your nose into my fucking business. You think you’re so fucking great, don’t you? Big man, are you?’
‘Well, truth be told I’m more of a man than you are,’ I said, still calmly. ‘I don’t feel the need to knock women about. And anyone who does is less than a man.’
‘What? Her?’ He jerked his head mockingly in the direction the fleeing girl had taken. ‘That hoor? She was in there, in the dance hall. That place is no more than a shagging shed and tarts like her go there for one thing and one thing only. They’re all sluts. They only want one fucking thing, then they make out they’re virgins.’ He stepped forward and looked up at me, doing his best to push his face into mine. I was tempted to ask if he wanted me to find a crate for him to stand on, but I decided it wouldn’t do much to defuse the situation.
‘You think you’re so fucking big, don’t you?’ he hissed at me. ‘A big fucking man. Let me tell you, you’re a nothing. A fucking nobody. But I’m somebody. No one is ever going to remember you. Nobody’s going to give a shit about you.’
‘But I suppose your name is going to be carved into immortality, is that it?’
‘Aye. That’s right. No one is ever going to forget my name. I’m going to have a big name all right. I already have, it’s just that nobody knows about it… yet. But they will. They’ll remember all right. People are going to remember my name and my face long after I’m dead. You can bet on it.’
‘Okay, fine. I get it: in my old age I’ll tell my grandkids I knew you. Now why don’t you go home and cool off, that’s a good boy. But take the opposite direction from your girlfriend.’
He sighed, took a step back from me and let the tension ease from his shoulders.
‘Okay…’ he said dejectedly, as if defeated. It was this sudden and complete change of demeanour, intended to put me off my guard, that alerted me to his real intention. But even with me being ready for it, when he made his move it was so fast and expert that he managed to catch me on the side of the head. Not just a fist, and I felt a trickle of blood from my temple. He swung again and I saw something metal flash in the streetlight.
I slammed a kick into the middle of his abdomen, just the way they’d taught me in the army, and he didn’t have enough weight to stay on his feet. I followed through on his fall and dropped down on top of him, squeezing the air out of him with my knee on his chest and pinning the hand with the weapon in it to the asphalt. I was relieved to see that it was a short length of steel tube and not a razor. I smashed the heel of my right hand into his nose and gouts of blood spurted from the nostrils. Then I started to punch him. Over and over and over. This wasn’t like the episode with Dewar in Sauchiehall Lane: I was dealing with a bad bastard here who walked around with a weapon in his pocket. So I kept hitting him.
I was still hitting him when the two uniformed coppers hauled me off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They threw me into a cell on my own, although the previous occupant was still there in spirit if not in substance. I sat on the edge of the bed contemplating how long someone would have to go without bathing and how much cheap hooch you would have to have in your system to stink a place out like that.
I was pretty pissed with the way things had turned out. Sure, they had chucked Sheriff Pete into a cell further down the block, and I could hear him giving forth in his fake American accent to the custody sergeant as if they were long lost buddies, but I knew things didn’t look too good for me. I’d banged Pete up bad enough for them to call out the police surgeon and, after all, it had been me they’d had to haul off of him, and I had no witnesses to back up my side of events. Even the girl Pete had terrified had disappeared into the night.
In all of my time in Glasgow, despite several brushes with the police and having gotten involved in all kinds of dodgy goings-on, I had managed to keep my dance card unmarked. And now, all because of a psychotic little loudmouth, I was going to chalk up an aggravated assault charge and probably thirty days in chokey.
But things never turn out the way you expect.
I had only been in the cell for an hour when the custody sergeant opened up and told me to follow him. That was confusing enough, but he had tied it up in ribbons: he had said please.
There were two other uniformed coppers waiting at the custody desk, one with inspector’s pips on his shoulders. Again, I got the polite treatment, and I formed the distinct feeling that the custody sergeant would have liked to shake my hand.
‘Have you found the girl he was harassing?’ I asked.
‘No, Mr Lennox,’ said the inspector. Mr. ‘Unfortunately we haven’t. But let’s just say your story is consistent with what we know about your chum. Unfortunately we can’t charge him with anything either, but we’ll keep the little shite overnight, anyway.’
‘He’s no chum of mine. Am I free to go?’
‘Aye… you are, Mr Lennox. But we have a favour to ask… would you mind coming across to St Andrew’s Square?’
‘You want me to go to police headquarters? At this time of night?’
The beefy custody sergeant leaned his stripes on the desk. ‘CID would like to talk to you. About chummy in there, if you don’t mind.’
‘It really is important…’ the inspector added. ‘I can’t tell you why, but it is.’
I shrugged. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Always happy to help…’
The streets were empty and shades of slate and black, sleek in the early morning rain, as we drove through them. I was dog tired, but nevertheless enjoyed the unusual experience of travelling in the back of a police Wolseley without the encumbrance of handcuffs.
When we arrived at St Andrew’s Square, I was conducted into a normal room, not a cell, with a table and four chairs. They left me in it for five minutes until a policewoman came in with a large china mug of tea for me. The five-star treatment was beginning to make me itch.
As I sipped the too-sweet tea, the door opened to reveal Jock Ferguson. I was genuinely surprised to see Jock. He was a nondescript sort of man, tall and lean and with a hooded look and tired eyes.
‘I hear you’ve been administering justice on our behalf, Lennox.’
‘What can I say? There was a maiden in distress and my armour was shining. You seem to be taking the chivalry thing a bit far yourself, Jock. You really turn out of bed at this time of night because I got myself lifted?’
‘Your celebrity isn’t that great,’ he said, offering me a cigarette. ‘It’s the fellow you roughed up that we’re interested in. Or to be more truthful, I’m interested in. I think he’s a killer. One of the kind that do it because they enjoy it. But my colleagues think I’m off down the wrong track because we’ve already got somebody else lined up for the murder.’
‘Well, that must be it,’ I said ingenuously. ‘I know that the City of Glasgow Police never make mistakes.’
Ferguson gave me a look.
‘I don’t know what I can tell you about him, Jock,’ I said. ‘I don’t really know him.’
‘I know, I’ve read your statement. You say you’ve only met him once before?’
‘Met, once; but I saw him in the Horsehead once or twice before that.’
‘And you say he bought you a drink? Why would he do that?’
‘Because I have ears, Jock. Sheriff Pete’s the kind of loser who’ll make friends with anyone who’ll listen to that fake accent. He claims he’s American. American my ass.’
‘Actually, he is. He was called up for National Service and he got out of it because the US Army have prior claim. So he ended up dodging both.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No kidding. He was born in New York then lived in Detroit till he was seven. Then his parents moved back to Britain. Coventry. Then he moved up to Motherwell. So the cod Yank accent is only half cod. Apparently he had a lot of it beaten out of him at school. What did he talk to you about?’
‘Just that he was a big shot. That he’s just done nine years in Peterhead. That he was a real tough guy and a bank robber b
ut that’s not what he’d been in for, that he’s been framed for something else.’
Jock Ferguson snorted, his expression the kind you had if you’d eaten a bad clam. ‘Our friend likes to sneak into women’s bedrooms, wake them up and beat them over the head with a metal pipe…’ He nodded to the weal on my temple. ‘Like the one he clobbered you with. Then he pulls their pants down. He’s a sick, sick bastard. He did the time in Peterhead for the beatings and indecent assaults and he’s been done for rape in the past. I tell you, Lennox, you intervening when you did saved that girl from Christ knows what.’
I took it all in. I remembered the custody sergeant’s approving look. Sheriff Pete was the kind of creep that everyone wanted to see get a hiding. Cops, citizens and crooks alike.
‘So what is it you have him in the frame for?’ I asked.
Ferguson leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and locking me with an earnest stare. ‘You and I have known each other a few years now and we’ve been reasonably straight with each other. Well, I’m asking for a favour, and if it sounds like I’m trying to warn you off, then I’m not. I’m asking you, as a personal obligement, to walk away from this and forget it ever happened. Don’t talk to anyone about it and, most of all, don’t have anything more to do with that piece of shit we’ve got locked up over there. I need to ask you a couple of questions that aren’t going to sound important but, believe me, they are. I need to get straight answers from you and afterwards I need you to keep your nose out of this whole business.’
‘Sounds big,’ I said.
‘You have no idea. Do I have your word?’
I had been warned off a dozen times by coppers to keep my nose out of cases, but my natural curiosity — and resentment of anybody telling me what not to do — had always gotten the better of me. This was different, I could tell.
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