Barnier was my way to Largo. If I kept tabs on the Frenchman, there was a chance he would lead me to Largo. Or at least take me a step closer. I needed an address. Again I blessed homely, unfriendly Miss Minto, who had channelled all of the sexual and social frustration of the spinster into a fanatical efficiency. Her address book was not tabulated or indeed a proper address book. Instead it was a hardcovered notebook into which she had written all of the company’s most important contacts. It was impressively obsessive: not a name was out of perfect alphabetical order. Barnier lived some distance out of town on the Greenock Road, in Langbank. He was on the telephone and I noted both address and ’phone number. I found myself wondering about the mysterious M. Clement, and after I got the address of the Barnier et Clement French office in Cours Lieutaud, Marseille, I looked up and found the name Clement: Claude Clement lived somewhere called Allauch. I wrote down both addresses and put my notebook back in the bag. A worthwhile night’s work.
It was just as I had put everything back in my bag that I heard the footsteps outside the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I had already switched off the bicycle lamp and put it back in my bag. I dropped down behind Miss Minto’s desk and tucked myself into the knee-hole. There was no point in trying to go out through the door: whoever it was I had heard was out there. Again, I played out all my options in my head. It could simply have been the watchman again, making a second round of this part of the bonded area; or it could have been that the watchman had noticed the missing padlock and twisted bar on the door and had called the police.
I slowly unzipped my holdall. Just enough to put my hand in and rummage around until I found my sap. This was potentially a situation where I couldn’t win; if it was the elderly watchman, I’d have to use my sap judiciously. Too hard a blow and I’d end up facing a murder charge. Added to which, although I had an unpleasant propensity towards violence, I avoided using it against the totally innocent. If it turned out to be a copper, then I’d have to hit him hard and run for it. Hitting a City of Glasgow copper usually turned out to be a much more painful experience for the attacker; the boys in blue liked to hold a little reception for you in the station. Allegedly, it normally involved being stripped naked and wrapped in a soaking wet blanket. For some physiological reason beyond my ken, the wet blanket stopped bruising when twenty or so Highland lads set in about you with their boots and truncheons. The second painful element came judicially: police assault usually combined a prison sentence with corporal punishment. The birch. You would be tied to a table and thrashed with some dried foliage. Quaintly traditional but incredibly painful.
I considered my options and huddled beneath the desk. I heard the door opening. A torch probed the recesses of the Nissen hut for a moment. It switched off and the neon strip light above me fizzed and crackled into life.
‘You was right, Billy.’ The voice had a Highland lilt to it. A copper. Option two. I guessed ‘Billy’ was the elderly night watchman. ‘Someone’s broken the lock.’
A pause. I remained absolutely still beneath the desk, controlling my breathing, ignoring the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears. All my time in Glasgow, I had avoided being charged with a criminal offence. I would do time for this. Unless I dealt with the copper and the night watchman.
‘All right…’ the unseen Highlander called out into the Nissen hut. ‘This is the police. I know that you’re in here.’ No you don’t, I thought… I could tell from the tone of his voice. ‘Show yourself now and don’t make any bother.’
Silence. I sat tight and silent. The sap was gripped so tight in my hand that I could feel the heartbeat in my fingers keeping time with the pulse in my ears.
‘Come on now… let’s not be having any silliness…’ Again the voice had the sound of someone who thought they were speaking to an empty room. I heard wood on wood: the lid on the reception counter folding over. He would be stepping through it, his baton drawn. Scottish police batons were made of Caribbean lignum vitae — one of the densest and strongest woods on the planet. Bone-crackingly and muscle-deadeningly hard. Whatever I did, I was going to have to avoid a blow to the head. I heard his boots now. He was at the desk in front of mine. He moved forward. One step. Two. His breathing, slow and deliberate. Not frightened. He moved something around. A chair or something. Three. Four. He was next to my desk, but couldn’t see me. Yet.
‘Nothing looks like it’s been disturbed,’ he said. ‘Maybe you frightened them off, Billy. Don’t look like there’s anyone here now.’ His boots ground grittily on the floor. He was looking around himself. Don’t look under the desk, I beamed the thought to him. Whatever you do, you big Teuchter bastard, don’t look under the desk.
‘Billy, you go and telephone the number you’ve got for the proprietor,’ he lilted. ‘I’ll stay here until he arrives.’
‘All right, Iain… I’ll do that.’ An older voice. Eager. Acquiescent to authority. Good, I thought, one less to worry about. But I’d have to make a break for it past the copper.
I heard the night watchman close the door as he left. The copper was still standing there only inches away from me. My mind sped through the options open to me. Barnier would take at least half an hour to get here, but there was no guarantee that another copper wouldn’t arrive in the meantime.
Suddenly, the desk above me creaked. I almost bolted from my hiding place but kept calm: he was sitting on the edge of the desk. There was the sound of a match being struck, then the smell of cigarette smoke. I heard a muted ping: a telephone being picked up. Dialling. The unseen policeman asked to speak to the duty sergeant and told him that he was attending an attempted breakin and gave the address. An attempted breakin. The idiot hadn’t searched the place properly but had decided there was no one on the premises. I silently offered heartfelt thanks to the City of Glasgow Police for recruiting from the Highlands.
My heart picked up a pace. I knew that I had to act as soon as he put the receiver down. He didn’t think there was anybody here and I could catch him off guard. But I was in the worst possible position from which to launch an attack. I hung onto every word he said into the telephone.
‘All right, Sergeant,’ he said. I heard the Bakelite clunk of the receiver in its cradle.
I was about to make my move when I heard the sound of pencils hitting the floor. There was a creak as the cop stood up from the edge of the desk. I guessed he had knocked the pencils off the table. Instead of rushing, I eased myself out from under the desk, making no sound. I turned and straightened myself up slowly. He was a uniform all right, and he was bent over, cursing poetically as only Highlanders can, gathering up the pencils. He stood up again and turned towards me.
He didn’t even have the time for surprise or shock to register on his face. I fetched him a blow across his left temple with my sap and he dropped to the floor. There was more calculation in that blow than Einstein had put into the theory of relativity: if I killed a copper then I’d hang. And if they couldn’t trace me, some other mug would swing for it. Justice had to be seen to be done. By the same token I needed him incapacitated long enough for me to make a getaway.
Looking down, I saw that he was stunned, rather than out cold. Perfect. I grabbed my bag, vaulted over him and out of the door, switching off the lights as I did. Anything to confuse my dazed sheep-botherer.
I saw ‘Billy’, the flat-capped night watchman, illuminated by the single lamppost, about a hundred and fifty yards off. He froze when he caught sight of me. I turned in the other direction and shouted to an imaginary associate already out of sight.
‘Run, Jimmy! It’s the watchy!’ I yelled, doing my best Glaswegian impersonation. I raced off towards where I’d cut the hole in the fence. I lobbed my bag over and commando-crawled through the gap I had cut.
I checked behind me: there was no sign of the constable and the elderly watchman would not risk chasing after two Drumchapel desperadoes.
I sprinted along the cobbled road and dived behind the bushes next to
the railway alcove. One more check backwards: nothing. I took off the sweater and wiped my face with it, getting as much burnt cork off as possible. I threw my burglar kit into the boot of the car, put on my suit jacket and jumped in behind the driver’s seat. Keeping my lights switched off, I reversed out onto the main road. I drove slowly, with the lights still off until I reached the end of South Street. Only then did I pick up speed and switch the lights on. I drove into the countryside and out of the City of Glasgow Police jurisdiction. Ironically, I took the Greenock Road and passed only one car travelling in the opposite direction. At that time of night it was no surprise that the roads were dead and I wondered if the car I’d passed had been Barnier on his way in from his home in Langbank.
An idea flashed through my head: I would be passing Langbank and it was the one time I knew for sure that Barnier would not be at home. And I did have all of my housebreaking kit with me. I shook the idea from my head. I had no idea if Barnier lived alone or not, added to which I had had quite enough jolly japes for one night. I drove past Langbank and turned south onto a single track road that led through woods and fields. I found myself on the edge of a reservoir, its silky, still water reflecting the velvet clouds. There was a farmhouse at the head of the reservoir and I drove along the water’s edge until I was at the opposite end. Parking the car under some trees, I made a pillow out of the sweater I had worn. Despite the discomfort and the adrenalin still pumping through my system, I was asleep within minutes.
When I woke up I bad-temperedly tried to plunge back into sleep and recapture the dream I’d had: something about me and Fiona White and a new life in Canada. Or had it been me and Sheila Gainsborough? The aches in my neck and the insistent jabbing of the handbrake in my side forbade my return to my dream.
I creakingly unfolded myself. Looking in the mirror in the too bright morning light, I could see the burnt cork still ingrained in the creases and lines of my face: I looked like I was wearing Donald Wolfit’s stage make-up. Rolling up my shirt sleeves, I walked across the road to the reservoir’s edge. I scooped up some water and rubbed vigorously at my face and neck.
Once I was sure I was clear of all traces of my nocturnal adventures, I drove back into town. As I did so, I was pretty smug with myself. It was no small thing to have clobbered a copper, but I was convinced that by now Billy, the elderly night watchman, would have sworn on his mother’s grave that he had seen two burglars and one had been called Jimmy. The bobby I had tapped would only have gotten a fleeting glance of my cork-blackened face; and I was sure he would be only too willing to swear that ‘there must have been two of them’ to take him down.
Obfuscation could be such a satisfying pastime.
But the smug smile was wiped off my face as I passed my digs in Great Western Road. There was an immaculately polished, black Wolseley 6/90 parked outside, gleaming in the morning light. I was particularly impressed by the super sheen the garage had managed to get on the rectangular plate across the car’s radiator: silver letters against a dark blue background, spelling out the word POLICE.
I drove on and around the corner until I reached the newsagents, where I bought a copy of that morning’s paper before driving back, parking just around the corner. I dumped my jacket in the car, took off my tie and rolled my sleeves up. I ambled towards my flat, trying to look as casual as I could. It was probably the innocent act that the coppers had seen a thousand and one times, but I needed to make it look as if I had been at home all night and had just taken a morning stroll to pick up the paper. It all fell down, of course, if the police car had been there for anything more than half an hour.
As I drew near, both rear doors of the police car swung open. Superintendent Willie McNab emerged from one side, Jock Ferguson from the other. I put my best surprised face on, which was probably as convincing as the last time I had used it, when on my birthday my mother had presented me with the sweater I’d seen her knitting for three weeks.
‘Gentlemen… what can I do for you?’
‘You’re an early riser, Lennox,’ said McNab sourly.
‘You know what they say: birds and worms and that sort of thing.’
‘Get in the car, Lennox.’ McNab stood to one side and held the door open. I imagined it would be the first of many doors that would be closing behind me. My mouth was dry and my heart pumped madly, but I kept as much of an outer cool as I could.
‘Can I get my jacket?’ I jerked a thumb in the direction of my lodgings. As I did so, I could see Fiona White’s face at the window of her flat.
‘Go with him…’ McNab said to Ferguson, who shrugged and followed me in.
‘What’s this all about?’ I took the opportunity of having Ferguson on his own as we climbed the stairs.
‘You’ll see…’ he said. And I knew I would.
We didn’t head towards police headquarters in St. Andrew’s Square. Instead, as I sat crushed between McNab and Ferguson in the back seat of the police car, we headed out towards the river and the bonded warehouses.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, as if I had no idea. We took a turn down onto the cobbled road and past the railway arch where I’d hidden the Atlantic.
We didn’t stop.
Instead, we drove on until we saw a uniformed constable with zebra-striped traffic cuffs over his tunic. He seemed to be standing on an unbroken piece of grass verge, but as we drew nearer he signalled us to turn in. The barely discernible mouth of a largely overgrown, cobbled access road, just wide enough for the Wolseley, opened up for us and we bumped our way down to the shore. The lane widened into an open area as we reached the water. This had obviously been a working quay, but the Luftwaffe had made a good job of making it inoperable for the rest of the century. Vast concrete blocks, like broken teeth, thrust out of the overgrown grass, rusting metal cable projecting, twisted, from their broken ends. At one corner of the site an earthmover sat, its shovel resting heavily on the ground. On what looked like it had originally been the quay’s loading area, four police cars and an ambulance, which must have struggled to negotiate the lane, huddled close to the water. Whatever this was, it didn’t look like it was about my breakin to Barnier’s office.
McNab and Ferguson led me over to where the other vehicles were parked.
‘He was found here this morning by workers clearing the site for more bonded warehouses,’ said Ferguson. ‘We reckon he’s been dead a day at least.’
‘Who? What’s this got to do with me?’ I asked, genuinely confused. I saw that the rear of the ambulance was open and there was a body inside, covered with a grey blanket, lying on the ambulance stretcher.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ McNab sneered at me. ‘That’s what I want to know. According to our leads, you’ve been looking for this fellah for the last week or so. Now he turns up dead.’
My gut gave a lurch. I did a little time travelling into the future and imagined myself in front of Sheila Gainsborough, trying to find the words to tell her that I’d found her brother all right. Dead.
So John Largo was no spook. No shadowy figure without substance. And he had caught up with Sammy Pollock at last.
McNab pulled back the blanket. ‘You know him, I take it?’
‘You take it right,’ I said with quiet resignation as I looked down at the body. The quiet resignation was to disguise my surprise. And my relief. ‘That’s Paul Costello.’
Costello’s eyes were wide open. There were grains of dust and dirt on them and looking at them made me want to blink. His face was bleached of colour and his hair dishevelled. The paleness of his skin was in stark contrast to the vividness of the gaping wound that arched, like a clown’s smile, across his throat. He was very, very dead.
‘Why were you looking for Costello?’ asked McNab. He snapped the blanket back over the dead face.
‘His father Jimmy asked me to,’ I answered honestly, if not wholly. ‘Paul Costello went missing a few days ago. Without warning and, more importantly, without cash.’
‘Aye,�
�� said McNab, his voice loaded with suspicion. ‘Inspector Ferguson here said you told him that when he came up to see you with that Yank, Devereaux.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And that was because you were bandying the name Largo about. So tell me, is this Largo’s work, d’you think?’
I looked at the blanket-draped corpse. ‘I honestly don’t know. But if Largo is as big and as dangerous a crook as Dex Devereaux seems to think, then my guess would be yes.’
‘Aye? Well thanks for your valuable insight, Lennox. Next question: who the fuck is this celebrity client of yours? The relative of the other missing person?’
I sighed. ‘Like I told Inspector Ferguson, I can’t compromise client confidentiality.’
‘Client confidentiality my arse…’ McNab took a step closer to me. I didn’t need to look to know his hands had already balled into fists. Whatever happened here would be only the beginning.
‘If I tell you, will you keep her out of it? Unless there’s a direct involvement, I mean?’
McNab laughed. An ugly, mocking laugh. ‘Do you think that I have to negotiate with the likes of you, Lennox? I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, talk to whoever the fuck I want. This is a murder enquiry, you clown.’
‘And then some. Let’s face it, Superintendent, someone is playing a very big game in this town. Bigger than anything the local talent is capable of putting on. Now you can walk all over me and feel like the big bollocks, and I’ll do exactly what you want and walk away from the whole thing. No skin off my nose. But if we work together you could end up getting the credit for breaking the biggest case this city’s seen in years. Remember that Dex Devereaux can’t make the arrest here
The Long Glasgow Kiss l-2 Page 25
