CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
That itch was still there between my shoulder blades. I was pretty sure I hadn’t been followed and I had avoided using the rental car anywhere I would be expected to be seen. I even took circuitous routes back to the hotel from my office, often taking me far out of my way. My meeting with Hopkins had shaken me, added to which was the odd feeling I had that I was trying to shake off my old life before starting a new one. The fact remained, however, that I still got an uneasy feeling that I was being watched. Stalked.
Jock Ferguson didn’t need to go to such extremes to find me. He called into my office the following morning, just before ten and just after I’d finished talking through the caseload with Archie. I had an old hunting knife that I’d had since I was a kid in Canada, and when Ferguson walked in, I was opening the mail with it.
‘I hope you never walk around with that on your person,’ said Ferguson, nodding to the hunting knife.
‘This? No, Inspector… that would be against the law. It was a gift from my Dad for weekend hunting trips, but I’ve given up the outdoor lifestyle since I moved to Glasgow. I only use it as a letter opener these days. ’
Ferguson and Archie spent a few minutes chatting while I boiled up the electric kettle I kept on top of the filing cabinet. It had been Ferguson who had put me in touch with Archie in the first place and I knew that, somewhere along the line and before Ferguson had begun his ascent of the ranks, the two had served together as beat coppers.
After Archie left I sat drinking black tea with Ferguson and chatting casually; which was a ploy, because Ferguson wasn’t the type of friend, or copper, just to drop in on you while passing. Or chat casually.
‘What happened with my buddy, Sheriff Pete?’ I asked, as much to divert him as anything: I didn’t give a damn about the bad little bastard.
‘He’s locked up nice and tight, for the moment,’ said Ferguson. ‘We’ve got him for a theft from a colliery in Lanarkshire. Smalltime stuff but enough to keep him under lock and key. While we’re on that subject, the night you got into a tussle with him, who was the woman involved?’
‘The girl he was manhandling?’ I asked, confused. ‘I haven’t a clue. I don’t even know if he actually knew her or if they’d just bumped into each other in the ballroom or on the way out. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just wondered if you knew who she was.’
‘I’m aware I have a certain reputation in Glasgow, Jock,’ I said, ‘but, believe it or not, I don’t actually know every beddable woman in the city.’
‘Sure…’ he said and we danced about a little more. It took him five minutes of carefully aimless chat to get to the punchline, which he went out of his way to make sound as casual as possible.
‘We’re just putting the initial report to bed on the Dewar murder-suicide,’ he explained. ‘Tying up any loose ends.’
‘Oh?’ I said with equally forced casualness. I couldn’t think what ends I had left in my statement, loose or otherwise.
‘Yes…’ He stretched the word. ‘Remind me… you got the call from Dewar just after lunchtime, and he was distraught… agitated… is that right?’
‘Like I told you before, Jock. Several times, if I remember. He told me he didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I said I would come up and discuss his case with him that night.’
‘How did he get your name and number?’
‘That I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’
‘But you didn’t know him previously?’
‘Nope.’
‘What about his wife? You never met her before?’
‘No. Why? What’s this all about?’
‘Like I said…’ Ferguson stood up, leaving the tea I’d poured him half-drunk, ‘… just checking up on all of the details, that’s all. See you…’
And that was it.
The ’phone rang shortly after Ferguson left.
‘This is Matyas,’ said the Mittel-European-tinged voice. ‘I have discussed your suggestion with Ferenc Lang and he has agreed to meet you. With certain conditions.’
‘Oh he has, has he?’ I said, leaning back in my chair and putting my feet up on the desk. ‘A little birdie told me that I should have nothing to do with you or Ferenc Lang.’
‘A little birdie?’ The voice at the other end of the line sounded confused, but maybe more at my choice of expression than what I was saying. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Do you want to meet Ferenc or not?’
‘Not. It turns out that your Frank, or Ferenc, Lang is not the Frank Lang I’m looking for and, anyway, I’m no longer working on the Ellis case. So thanks for getting back to me as we arranged, but I no longer have a professional interest in meeting you or Ferenc Lang.’
‘I see…’ There was a pause while he processed the information. ‘That is unfortunate. It was you who pressured me to arrange this meeting for you and I have done so at no small inconvenience.’
‘Then I apologize for your trouble, but I am no longer employed by that client and, like I said, I therefore have no professional need to meet with Mr Lang. To be honest, this has all been a matter of mistaken identity. Like I said, Mr Lang is not the Frank Lang I was after.’
‘Well, that is of course up to you, but I think it may have profited you to talk to Mr Lang. It is a great pity that you have become involved in our business and Ferenc wanted the opportunity to set you straight on a few things.’
‘Well, like I said, I’m not involved anymore, so I don’t need setting straight.’
‘If you change your mind, Mr Lang will meet you at the coffee bar in Central Station, across from your office, in exactly one hour. He will give you ten minutes. If you don’t turn up, that’s up to you. But I really think you should hear what he has to say.’
‘I’m sorry, but don’t you understand what I’ve explained? This is no longer any of my business.’
‘One hour, Mr Lennox. Mr Lang will make himself known to you.’ He hung up.
I held the receiver out for a moment and examined it, shaking my head in disbelief. Maybe Matyas’s English wasn’t as perfect as I had thought.
I sat with my feet still up on my desk and smoked a couple of cigarettes while I thought through where I was with everything. The three issues most prominent in my mind were finding Frank Lang for the union, my preparations for getting back home, and distancing myself from the events at the Dewar home in Drumchapel and all of the red tape that could go along with them. Getting tangled up in that was the one thing that could delay my escape from the Second City of the British Empire.
Smoking and idly looking out of the window across Gordon Street to the frontage of Central Station, I thought back to my ’phone call with Matyas and how he simply would not take the hint that I was no longer interested in whatever his little group was up to. By the time I had finished my second cigarette, I really felt like a cup of coffee. I took my hat and coat from the stand, locked the office behind me and headed down the stairwell and across the street to the station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
If she had been wearing a red cape and I had been on my way to her Grandma’s house, my smile would probably have been less wolfish.
‘If you are Ferenc Lang,’ I said, ‘then I would seriously consider changing my affiliation.’
She frowned in puzzlement. ‘I do not understand,’ she said. Her voice was deep, rich, rolled and foreign in a way that weakened your knee joints. Walking across the concourse of the station, I had recognized her instantly as the woman I had seen Ellis with that night in the fog and whose curves I had followed unsuccessfully to the taxi stand.
She was dressed in exactly the same mismatched coat and toque-type hat I had seen her wearing on both previous occasions. Her black hair wasn’t loose as it had been the last time, but was swept up and fastened with a clip, and again her face was naked of make-up other than the crimson that emphasized her full lips. In the smogless, illuminated environment of the station, her nut-brown eyes were even more captivating than they
had been that night in the fog.
Up close, her beauty was intoxicating. I sobered up from it pretty quickly, however, when I remembered how following her curves had led me directly into the clutches of Hopkins and his Rich Tea biscuit interrogation techniques. I scanned the station for anywhere a tail might be lurking, which was of course everywhere.
‘I can assure you I haff not been vollowed…’ she said huskily. If I hadn’t been right next to her when she spoke, I would have looked around to see where Marlene Dietrich had concealed herself.
‘Where’s Lang?’ I asked.
‘Something has come up and it is not safe for him to come here. He asked me to meet you and explain.’
We were standing on the main concourse and, taking her by the elbow, I steered her towards the coffee bar where there would be fewer eyes on us. Whatever Matyas’s little emigre group was up to, and despite all of their attempts at subterfuge, it seemed mad to use a woman like this as a courier. She was less than inconspicuous: no matter how dowdy her outfit, there would not be a man with a pulse and within visual range who would not have given anything to get inside it.
It was maybe something she was aware of, because she insisted that she went into the coffee bar first. She would find a quiet table and when I came in I could buy two coffees and bring them over. I went along with her little dance and ordered the coffees at the counter from a cute little blonde in a waitress uniform.
It took me a moment to find my Hungarian beauty; she had chosen a table right at the back, tucked into a corner and out of sight of the counter, and was sitting with her back to the rest of the patrons. She knew her business all right.
‘So is Lang coming or not?’ I asked as I placed her coffee before her.
‘You have to understand,’ she purred Continentally, ‘that we have to be very careful. Ferenc particularly. He fully intended to be here, but we realized he was being followed. I was nearest so they ’phoned me and told me to meet you and explain, if you turned up.’
‘And what’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Magda.’
‘Okay, Magda, perhaps you can tell me what Lang had to tell me.’
‘That I cannot,’ she said. ‘I do not know what he was going to tell you.’
‘Well, maybe you can tell me a little bit about your little sewing club.’
‘Sewing club?’
‘Sorry,’ I said, realizing I was going to have to park the metaphors, and the humour. ‘Your group. What can you tell me about your group?’
‘Nothing. I’m afraid that I am not authorized to discuss anything about our group, as you describe it. Please understand that this is difficult times for us.’
‘But Ferenc Lang is your leader?’
‘No. Not really. Ferenc has lived here many years, and offered to help us when we escaped from Hungary. We don’t have a leader, as you put it. But I suppose Matyas would be the closest thing to that.’
‘Well, as I told Matyas on the telephone, I no longer have a professional interest in your group. But maybe you can tell me something specific — just for my personal curiosity, you understand — are you involved with Andrew Ellis? I mean, romantically involved?’
‘Again, please excuse… I do not understand…’ She frowned. Beautifully.
‘I mean you, personally, Magda. Were you having a romantic affair with Andrew Ellis?’
The clouds began to gather in her expression and the nut-brown eyes darkened.
‘No, Mr Lennox, I have had no such involvement with Mr Ellis.’
‘Well, I don’t know if you remember me, but I was the mug lost in the smog in Garnethill that night. I saw you both together.’
‘I remember.’
‘So what were you to up to if you have no personal relationship with Mr Ellis?’
‘That is not anything of your business,’ she said, the dark fire still in her eyes.
‘Fair enough,’ I said. I smiled as disarmingly as I could. ‘May I ask if you are involved with anyone else? At the moment, I mean.’
Again it took a while for the significance of my question to sink in.
‘Again, this is not anything of your business,’ she said defiantly. ‘And no, I am not interested in any such… entanglements.’
‘I see,’ I said philosophically. ‘Then I think we are pretty much done here, Magda. Nice as it was to meet you, I don’t think either of us has benefited much from the experience.’ I stood up. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’
‘I have something for you…’ she said conspiratorially. She sure did have something for me, but our little exchange had revealed I wasn’t going to get it. Nor had Andrew Ellis, apparently. ‘I’ve been asked to give you this.’ She reached into her handbag and laid a package on the table. It was a slab about four inches by six and an inch or so thick, wrapped in brown parcel paper and bound with string.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘I honestly do not know,’ she said. ‘It is from Ferenc, and I was told to tell you that he will be in touch to discuss its significance.’
I picked it up. It was light and had a little give in it, like it contained paper. I made to untie it when she laid a hand on mine. A warm, firm hand that sent an electric current through me.
‘Do not open it now. Ferenc tell me that you must open it only in private. It explains everything…’
‘Okay…’ I slipped the package into my coat pocket. ‘But my mother always told me never to accept presents from pretty girls…’
She looked at me blankly. Magda was one of the sexiest women I had ever clapped my eyes on — and my eyes really were clapped on her — but she had absolutely no sense of humour. For some reason I could never understand, a sense of humour in a woman was important to me. Maybe because she’d needed it to go to bed with me.
I shrugged. ‘Well, Magda, we seem to have run out of things to say. It’s a pity Ferenc couldn’t have showed up in person, and I will have a look at what he sent me, but I don’t see that we have any more business together.’
‘You stay here,’ she said, rising from her chair. ‘Drink another coffee. It is best that we are not seen leaving together. I will go first but I suggest you wait at least ten minutes before you follow.’
‘Okay…’ I resisted the temptation to smirk. It was all too Orson Welles for me. This was Glasgow, not Vienna or Budapest.
I watched her go. She had the kind of figure you watched go.
As soon as she was out of sight, I looked at my watch and decided I had better things to do than play secret agent. Without waiting, I drained my cup, got up and headed out of the station and darted through the chill rain and across the street to my office.
The stairwell that led up to my office was narrow; wide enough to allow two people to pass each other if they angled shoulders appropriately. The two large figures who came charging down the stairs did so so fast that I had to flatten myself against the wall. Even with that, the shoulder of the second one slammed painfully into me. I expressed myself loudly and in eloquent Anglo-Saxon and grabbed his raincoat as he passed. I am pretty quick on my feet and I was ready to get chummy but he moved with professional speed, arcing his arm up and around mine and locking it, the heel of his other hand hammering home into the side of my jaw. His buddy joined in and within a second I was down on the steps with blows raining down fast. I was stunned but not out and it gave them the time they needed to get down the stairs and out of the door. I pulled myself up into a sitting position and put a shaking hand up to my face. My nose was bleeding but not broken.
There was no point in chasing after them. They could have headed in any direction when they hit the street and, anyway, there was always the danger I might catch up with them.
And, looking up the stairwell towards my office landing, I decided it might be more beneficial to find out where they had come from, rather than where they were headed.
The last person I expected to find waiting for me when I returned to my office was Andrew Ellis. After all, it had bee
n his wife who’d been my client, not him.
But, on balance, that wasn’t the most discomfiting thing about Ellis’s presence in my business premises.
Alarm bells had begun to ring as soon as I found my office door unlocked. Not jemmied or forced, unlocked. Archie had a set of keys, of course, but I wasn’t expecting him back until later that afternoon. As I had suspected, this was where my stairwell dance partners had come from.
I stepped into my office and found it trashed. Not as if someone had been rifling through it, more as if Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott had decided to hold a rematch there.
And then there was Ellis.
I heard him before I saw him: short, shallow urgent breathing. I found him behind my desk, next to where my captain’s chair had been tipped over and paper and the shattered glass shade of my desk light lay scattered on the bare boards of the floor. He was staring up at the ceiling, the expression on his face one of intense concentration, like a track athlete focusing on the race. But Ellis wasn’t going to win a Melbourne gold. This was a race he was going to lose.
There was blood everywhere, welling up from the wound on his chest, a vast bloom of crimson on the white of his shirt-front. The weapon lay next to him: a broad-bladed hunting-style knife. The sight of the knife did nothing to cheer me up; not just because the size and type of blade would have done the maximum damage.
It was my knife.
The one I kept in my office drawer and never used for anything more violent than rendering open my rent bill.
I knelt down beside Ellis and applied some pressure to the wound with a handkerchief that I folded into a pad. I looked around for the ’phone; it lay thrown across the room, the lead ripped from its connection box on the skirting board. Not that that mattered much. I probably wouldn’t have made the call to summon an ambulance then anyway. In the war, and on one occasion after, I had stayed with a man to ease his way out; and that was my job here. But I needed to know something first.
‘Who did this to you, Andrew?’ I asked.
Dead men and broken hearts l-4 Page 18
