The Long Glasgow Kiss l-2

by Craig Russell

  I noted. I nodded. Sagely. ‘You said his account is overdrawn — have there been any more withdrawals since he went awol?’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Suddenly she looked perplexed, as if she’d let him down — let me down — by not checking. ‘Can you find that out?’

  ‘’Fraid not. You say you were supposed to attend the meeting at the bank with him?’

  ‘I’m a co-signatory,’ she said. The frown still creased the otherwise flawless brow. With due cause, I thought. Her brother sounded like a big spender. A high liver. If he hadn’t been trying to pull cash from his already overdrawn account, then he wasn’t spending big or living high. Or maybe even simply not living.

  ‘Then you can check,’ I said. ‘The bank will give you that information, but not me. Even the police would have to get a court order. Have you been to the police, Miss Gainsborough?’

  ‘I was waiting. I kept thinking Sammy would turn up. Then, when he didn’t, I thought I’d be better getting a private detective… I mean enquiry agent.’

  ‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘I mean, who put you in contact with me?’

  ‘I have a road manager, Jack Beckett. He says he knows you.’

  I frowned. ‘Can’t say…’

  ‘Or at least knows of you. He said…’ She hesitated, as if unsure to commit the rest of her thought to words. ‘He said that you were reliable, but that you had contact with — well, that you knew people that were more the kind that Sammy has been mixing with.’

  ‘I see…’ I said, still trying to place the name Jack Beckett and making a mental note that if I ever did come across him, to thank him appropriately for the glowing character reference.

  There was a silence. A taxi sounded its horn outside on Gordon Street. A river-bubble of voices rose up from outside and through the window I had left open in the vain hope it would cool the office. I noticed a trickle of sweat on Sheila Gainsborough’s sleek neck.

  ‘So exactly what kind of people was Sammy mixing with? You said he had gotten involved in less than honourable businesses. What do you mean?’

  ‘Like I said, Sammy isn’t really in show business as such. But he does do the odd singing job. He’s not great, if I’m honest, but good enough for Glasgow. He’s been singing in nightclubs and mixing with a bad crowd. Gambling too. I think that’s where a lot of the money has been going.’

  ‘Which clubs?’

  ‘I don’t know… not the ones I started in. There was one he went to a lot. I think he sang there too. The Pacific Club down near the river.’

  ‘Oh… yes,’ I said. Oh fuck, I thought. Handsome Jonny Cohen’s place.

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘I know the owner. I can have a word.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of the Poppy Club?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t say that I have. Why?’

  ‘When I went to his flat there was a note by the telephone that said “The Poppy Club”. Nothing else. No number. I looked up the ’phone book but there’s no “Poppy Club” listed in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.’

  I wrote the name down in my notebook. Reassuringly. ‘What’s Sammy’s full name?’ I asked.

  ‘James Samuel Pollock.’

  ‘Pollock?’

  ‘That’s my real name. Well, it was my real name. I changed it by deed poll.’

  ‘So you were Sheila Pollock?’

  ‘Ishbell Pollock.’

  ‘Ishbell?’

  ‘My agent didn’t think that Ishbell Pollock had the kind of ring to it that a singing star’s name should have.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, as if confused as to why anyone would be blind to the charms of a name like Ishbell Pollock. They had done a good job on her. A Glasgow club singer, one amongst thousands. But they had had great raw material to work with. Sheila Gainsborough had the looks — she certainly had the looks — and the voice to stand out from the crowd. She’d been talent-scouted. Groomed. Repackaged. Managed. She maybe had the looks and the voice but the name Ishbell Pollock and the Glasgow accent would have been dropped faster than utility-mark panties on VE Day.

  I wrote Sammy’s full name in my notebook. ‘When did you last see Sammy?’

  ‘Lunch at the Tea Rooms, a week past Saturday.’

  ‘What about friends… girls… people he used to hang around with? And you said he has been associating with a bad crowd. Can you put any names to them?’

  ‘He has this friend, Barnier. A Frenchman. Sammy mentioned him a couple of times. I think they were friends, but it could have been a business thing.’

  ‘First name?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sammy always just called him Barnier. There can’t be that many Frenchies in Glasgow.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They probably come here in their droves for the cuisine.’ We both smiled. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘I was at his flat one day and he got a telephone call from a girl. They sounded intimate. All I got was her first name. Claire. But there were a couple of guys he knew who I really didn’t like the look of. Rough types.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Sorry. I only saw them once, waiting for Sammy outside the club. They had the look as if… I don’t know… as if they didn’t want to be seen. But they were a shiftless sort. Late twenties, one about fiveeight with dark hair, the other maybe an inch shorter with sandy hair. The one with the dark hair has a scar on his forehead. Shaped like a crescent.’

  I sat and looked at her, deep in thought. She looked back eagerly, obviously reassured that she had provoked some deep, investigative cogitations. What I was really thinking about was what it would be like to bend her over my desk.

  ‘Okay. Thanks,’ I said once the picture was complete. ‘Would it be possible for us to go to your brother’s flat… have a look around?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘I need to be on the sleeper to London tonight. I’ve a lot to do beforehand. Could we go now?’

  I stood up and smiled. ‘My car is around the corner.’

  The Atlantic had been sitting in the sun and I rolled down the windows before holding the door open for Sheila Gainsborough to get in. I found myself casting an eye up and down the street in the desperate hope that someone — anyone — I knew was there to see me let this beautiful, rich and famous woman into my car. Two youths passed without noticing, followed by an old man wearing a flat cap and, despite the temperature, a heavy, thick, dark blue jacket and a neckerchief tied at his throat. He paused only to spit profusely on the pavement. I didn’t take it as a sign of his being impressed.

  Even with the windows open, the car was stifling; the air heady in its confines: hot wood and leather mingled with the lavender from Sheila’s perfume and a vague hint of a musky odour from her body.

  Sammy Pollock’s flat was on the west side of the city centre, but not quite the West End. We drove without speaking along Sauchiehall Street to where the numbers started to climb into the thousands and she told me to turn right. A ribbon of park broke up the ranks of three-storey Georgian terraces. There were some kids playing on the grass and mothers, prams parked beside them, sat indolently on the park benches, beaten listless by summer heat and motherhood.

  Pollock’s apartment was actually over two levels of one of the semi-grand stone terraces. At one time the terrace would have gleamed golden sandstone. A once brightly coloured arch of stained glass and lead work sat above the door, almost Viennese: Charles Rennie Mackintosh style or similar. But Glasgow was a city of ceaseless work. Dirty work. The unending belchings of smoke and soot had blackened the stone and dulled the glass. It was like seeing a parson in frock coat and breeches after he’d been sent down a mine for a few shifts.

  ‘You’ve always had a key?’ I asked Sheila as she unlocked the door.

  She sighed. ‘Look, Mr Lennox, I can tell you’ve guessed the set-up. I own the flat. I own it, I furnished it and I let Sammy stay in it. I also give him an allowance.’

  ‘How old is Sammy?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

 
‘I see,’ I said. I thought of a twenty-three-year-old being handed everything by a sister who, herself, had yet to hit thirty. I thought about when I had been twenty-three, fighting my way through Europe with only a vague hope that I’d make it to twenty-four. Sammy Pollock was only thirteen years younger than me, but he was a completely different generation. Lived in a different world.

  She read my mind. ‘You disapprove of Sammy’s way of life?’

  ‘I envy Sammy’s way of life. I wish I’d had it when I was his age. You’re a very generous sister.’

  ‘You have to understand something…’ Letting her hand rest on the door handle, she looked at me earnestly with the bright blue eyes. ‘I’m five years older than Sammy. Our parents are both dead and I’m… well, I feel responsible for my brother. And I’ve been lucky. Got the breaks. And that’s put me in the position to help the only person I care about in the world. Sammy’s not a bad kid. He’s just a bit silly at times. Immature. I’m just worried that he’s got himself in with a bad crowd. Got into trouble.’

  ‘I understand.’ I nodded to the door she still held shut. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Someone’s been here.’ It was the first thing she said when we walked into the living room. Sure enough, the place was a mess. Some of the mess was clearly bachelor living at its best — over-full ashtrays, sticky-bottomed beer bottles, and whisky glasses bonding maliciously with the expensive walnut of the side tables, a jacket tossed carelessly on an armchair, a couple of dirty plates and a coffee cup. It was a vernacular I was familiar with myself. But there was another dimension to the disorder, a third-party, purposeful element. Like someone had been looking for something, and in a hurry.

  ‘Sammy?’ Sheila called out and moved urgently across the living room towards the hall. I took a couple of steps and halted her progress with a hand on her arm. The skin was warm; moist beneath my fingertips.

  ‘Let me have a look,’ I said. ‘You wait here.’ I had already closed my hand around the leather-dressed spring-steel sap I carried in my pocket. When I was in the hall and out of Sheila’s sight, I took the sap out.

  ‘Mr Pollock?’ Nothing. ‘Hello?’

  I moved along the hall. An ivory-coloured telephone sat on a chest-high hallstand, another full ashtray beside it. I noticed some of the butts were filters, not something you saw a lot of, and they were rimmed with crimson lipstick. I slipped one into my pocket. I moved on, checking each of the rooms as I passed. The flat was bright and expensively furnished, but each room had been turned over, with papers and other debris scattered all over the floors. I climbed the stairs and found the same on the upper floor. I came to Pollock’s bedroom. More clutter strewn across the floor. Something shiny caught my eye, glittering in the sunshine. Once I was sure we were the only ones in the flat, I called down and asked Sheila to come upstairs.

  ‘You said you were sure someone has been in here. I take it the flat wasn’t like this when you were last here?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sammy was never house-proud, but not this… this looks like he’s been burgled.’

  I nodded to the bedside cabinet. There was a lead crystal ashtray and a brick of a gold table lighter. ‘No house breaker is going to leave without that in their pocket. This hasn’t been a burglary, this was a search.’ I bent down and picked up from the floor the shiny item that had caught my eye. It was a small, polished, steel-hinged box, lying open on the floor. I looked around my feet and found the contents that had spilled out.

  ‘Does your brother have any medical condition I should know about?’ I placed the syringe and needle back in the metal box and held them out for Sheila to see. ‘Is he diabetic?’

  Sheila looked at the box and her expression darkened. ‘No. He doesn’t have any medical condition.’

  ‘But this means something to you?’ I asked.

  She looked at me hard for a moment before answering. ‘I’ve been around a lot of musicians. It’s part of my job. Musicians and artists

  … well, they experiment with stuff.’

  ‘Narcotics?’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t think… or at least I’ve never had any reason to think that Sammy would be involved in that kind of nonsense.’

  For a moment, we both gazed silently at the metal syringe box in my hands, as if it would surrender its secrets to us if we stared at it long enough.

  ‘It could have been Sammy himself, of course,’ I said. I could have sounded more convincing. ‘Maybe he came back to collect stuff. Pack a bag.’ I pocketed the syringe box.

  ‘I’ll check his wardrobes and drawers,’ she said dully. ‘Maybe I’ll notice something missing. If he’s taken clothes…’ She stepped past me. The room was hot and stuffy and as she passed, I again picked up a whiff of lavender and musk: the dressing and the flesh. Oh boy, Lennox, I thought, you’ve got it bad this time.

  There was a sound from downstairs and we both froze. Someone was opening the apartment door. Sheila had closed the snib over behind her and that meant whoever was coming in had a key. Again I stopped Sheila as she made her way to the bedroom door, clearly to call out her brother’s name. I put a finger to my lips, slipped past her and moved as quickly and quietly as I could back down the stairs, again unpocketing the spring-handled sap. I reached the bottom of the stairs just as a young man with black hair and a dark complexion opened the vestibule door and stepped into the hall.

  ‘Hello,’ I said with a friendly smile, keeping the sap out of sight. The dark-haired man looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ The eyes narrowed as surprise gave way to suspicion. I kept smiling and tightened my grip on the sap.

  ‘You know in these films,’ I said, ‘where someone says “I’m asking the questions here”? Well, that’s me. Let’s start with why you have a key for an apartment you don’t own or rent and seem to come and go as you please.’

  ‘Are you a cop?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s just say I’m investigating the disappearance of Sammy Pollock.’

  ‘But you’re not a cop…’ His eyes narrowed further. Suddenly he looked unsure of himself. ‘You sent by Largo?’

  ‘Largo?’

  He looked relieved, then the hardness came back to his eyes. His head lowered slightly into his shoulders and he slipped a hand into the side pocket of his jacket. Playtime.

  Upstairs, Sheila Gainsborough must have crept towards the stairs. A floorboard creaked. My dark-haired chum’s eyes cast in the direction of the sound and he looked less sure of himself. He clearly thought I had reinforcements in the wings. I was a little piqued that he thought I’d need them to deal with him.

  ‘If you’re not a cop, then fuck you.’ He turned and went back into the small tiled vestibule, moving swiftly but without panic.

  ‘Oh no you don’t…’ I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. ‘Just hold on a minute…’

  He was about three or four inches shorter than me and he misjudged the vicious backward jab with his elbow. Instead of hitting me in the face or throat, it slammed painfully into my chest and sent me backwards. It gave him time to open the front door and he was stepping through it when I ran for him. I slammed the door shut on him with the flat of my foot. All my weight behind the kick. The edge of the door caught him on the shoulder but glanced off and smashed into his cheek, jamming his head between the door edge and the jamb. He was stunned. A thick bulge of blood swelled up on his cheek, then turned into a torrent down the side of his face and neck, staining his shirt crimson.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ I said. ‘Did I catch you with the door?’

  His hand made for his pocket and whatever was in it, but his movements were sluggish and unfocussed. I snapped the sap at him hard. Twice. The first blow cracked something in his wrist and the second caught him on the nape of his neck. His lights went out and he went down, half in and half out of the door. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and dragged him back into the flat.

  I turned to see Sheila standing halfway
down the stairs, her eyes wide and a hand to her mouth.

  ‘Did you have to do that?’ she said, once she had recovered sufficiently.

  ‘He had a go,’ I said. ‘And he’s got some kind of weapon in his pocket. He was going for it.’ I bent down and pulled out a switchblade. I flicked the release and held the knife up for her to see. ‘See… self-defence.’

  ‘You seem to relish defending yourself, Mr Lennox.’

  I shrugged and pulled the slumped figure to his feet. He was still groggy but looked at me maliciously. I didn’t like that so I gave him the back of my hand. Twice and hard across the uninjured side of his face. Setting boundaries.

  ‘For God’s sake, that’s enough, Lennox…’ Sheila stepped forward staring hard at me. She was right. It was enough. It was too much. I had that hot, tight feeling in my chest. The desire to hurt someone else that I learned during the war slept in me. I could see Sheila didn’t like the person she was looking at. At least we had that in common: I didn’t like me much either.

  I steered our visitor back into the flat and dropped him into the armchair. Sheila followed us in and leaned against the wall. She lit a cigarette and smoked it urgently. Other than that she was calm and collected. Impressive. I gave the man in the chair the once-over: mid-twenties, the double-breasted blue pinstripe not cheap but not expensive, same for the shirt and tie. I noticed his shoes were not the newest and brown leather. I felt like giving him another slap just for that: black or burgundy shoes with blue pinstripe; not brown.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ he said sullenly, cradling his injured wrist.

  ‘There’s a lady present,’ I said, grabbing a fistful of pinstripe Burton. Watch your mouth or you’ll get a little more pampering from me.’

  He looked across at Sheila and muttered something apologetic.

  ‘So what’s your name?’

  ‘Costello.’

  ‘Very funny, I expect Bud Abbott is outside on lookout.’ I gave his mid-price tailoring a twist in my fist.