The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

by Craig Russell

  Willie said he would and I took the keys of the Wyvern.

  I sighed when I climbed in behind the wheel. I had a bad feeling about where I was heading – and not just because I was going to Govanhill, which was enough to depress me at the best of times. Over the last three years I had made a real effort to stay on the vaguely legal side of the business. I had risked cashflow and physical wellbeing by turning down work from the Three Kings – other than the odd and mainly legal job. I knew only too well that my copybook was never going to be spotless, but I had done my best of late to keep my slips to smudges, rather than blots.

  And now I had screwed it all up by getting greedy and taking part in a break-in for a complete stranger. But Quiet Tommy Quaid had been killed and that just wasn’t right, and I had to do something about it.

  *

  If there was one positive aspect of my previous life, it was that if I were ever in a fix, then I had a host of underworld contacts I could call on. It was something I tried to do less these days, but if I needed, I knew and could call on an array of thugs, gang lords, housebreakers, prostitutes, pimps, pickpockets, fraudsters, and even one professional killer. And I knew exactly who I needed to go to now.

  A greengrocer.

  3

  Tony Grabowski – also known, for obvious reasons, as Tony the Pole – had been Scotland’s most successful post-war peterman. He was famed as an incomparable seducer of safes: they would yield themselves to his lightest touch, opening up for him and offering their treasures without resistance.

  Like Quiet Tommy Quaid, Tony the Pole had always been very careful about with whom he worked; and also like Quiet Tommy Quaid – perhaps even more so – he had kept his own counsel wherever possible. Being tight-lipped was probably the best of all defences against detection and conviction and it had served Tony well: he had never once been caught. But the police had come close that one time too many, and devoted family man Tony had decided the risk of lengthy behind-bars separation from his wife and kids was too great: Scotland’s best safecracker had retired from the safecracking business.

  But in going straight, Tony the Pole had made a fundamental error of judgement: he had become a greengrocer. In Glasgow.

  Selling fruits and vegetables to Glaswegians was comparable to selling kryptonite to Superman or crucifixes to Dracula, so Tony the Pole supplemented his income by moonlighting as an illegal bookie and all-round fixer. It was low-key, low-risk stuff that boosted a carefully managed nest egg from his safecracking days.

  I had called Tony after I’d 'phoned Archie, and we had arranged to meet at a greasy spoon transport café near his greengrocer shop on Cathcart Road. I hadn’t been to the café nor heard of it before, so I allowed extra time to find it and arrived about ten minutes early.

  The café was in a new-looking large wooden shed-type building, painted an inappropriately cheery duck egg blue and tucked into the corner of a scrubby square of wasteland between darkly looming Govanhill tenement blocks. It looked to me like a cleared bombsite; I didn’t know if any bombs from the Clydebank raids had ever strayed this far, but truth was anywhere in Glasgow could have a naturally war-torn look, and it was clear that there had been tenements here. The sky was a bright, pale blue, paradoxically making the setting bleaker, as if someone had sketched the buildings in gritty charcoal on pale blue-coloured paper.

  Part of the site had been roughly tarmacked to allow heavy goods vehicles somewhere to park, and I manoeuvred the Wyvern next to where four or five lorries sat.

  In Glasgow, as with probably everywhere else, if you saw that long-distance drivers chose a particular transport caff to stop, then you were pretty much guaranteed a clean place and decent, if none too healthy, food.

  I sat in the car and smoked while I waited for Tony, staring at the tenement gable end facing me. ‘Magic Moments’ played on the car radio and Perry Como’s mellow jollity seemed totally out of place here. The tenement gable bore evidence of its now demolished neighbour: like fossils impressed into stratified rock, the outlines of fireplaces, of wiring conduits, of floor and ceiling edges, even tattered rectangles of wallpaper, were etched in bas-relief. Six geometric impressions of the cramped living of long-gone families; six reminders that other families still lived that way in the remaining tenements on the other side of the gable wall.

  I took the time waiting for Tony to go through the diary-cum-address-book Jennifer Quaid had given me. It didn’t take long: as I suspected, there weren’t many contacts related to Tommy’s professional life and most seemed to be women; there were no entries in the diary, even cryptic, alluding to jobs Tommy did. The first thing I’d done when I got the diary was to check the Sunday night we had gone to the foundry: the pages were reassuringly blank.

  One name cropped up regularly in the diary: Nancy. Every week either on a Tuesday or Wednesday, sometimes at seven p.m., sometimes half an hour or an hour later. The name was written out full to start with, then just appeared as an N, each week. I guessed that ‘Nancy’ was the same one listed – without a surname – in the diary’s address section.

  Another half a cigarette’s length later, I saw a small, stocky man approach across the lot on foot. He wasn’t wearing a hat and his bald head – the ring of remaining hair trimmed so short as to be almost shaven – gleamed bullet-like in the sunlight. I got out and waved to him.

  ‘Hi, Tony . . . whaddya hear, whaddya say?’ The Cagney line from Angels with Dirty Faces had been our way of greeting each other since our first meeting, Tony always getting a kick out of what he considered my ‘American’ accent.

  ‘Hey, Lennoggs, yah ould bazzdahrd. Vaht dayah hear? Vaht dayah zay?’ And there it was, Tony the Pole’s trademark: a blend of Glaswegian dialect and the thickest possible Polish accent. It was like listening to the love-child of Harry Lauder and Bela Lugosi. ‘Vaht aboot a vee cuppa govvee an’ a vee blether?’ He indicated the café.

  ‘My treat.’ I smiled. I liked Tony the Pole. He was continually cheerful and friendly, despite the fact that most of his family back home in Poland had been wiped out during the war; the ones who had survived now living beyond his reach behind a curtain of iron. What’s more, I trusted him.

  ‘Zere’s naw need furr you to pay,’ he beamed back. ‘Zizz vun vill be oan ze houze . . .’ He led the way into the transport caff. The air inside was thick with cigarette smoke and the odour of hot meat, more than half the tables and booths occupied. When we walked in, the cook and the female server behind the counter waved and Tony waved back.

  ‘On the house?’ I asked. ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘Aye, Lennoggs . . . I own ze bazzdahrd. Greengrozzer bizzinezz iz a pile o’ shide. I’m keepin’ it going, but zizz iz verr money iz.’ As we passed a lorry driver seated at a table and bent over his plate of sausages, eggs and bacon, Tony slapped him on the back. ‘Hey, Boaby – hooz it goin’?’

  There was an exchange of banter and we moved on, Tony the Pole joking, laughing and waving to customers in acknowledgement as we passed them: it was clear that the café had already built up a regular clientele and I guessed that Tony’s huge personality and good-naturedness played a big part. He led the way to a booth by the wall.

  The inside of the café was spotless, the wood-panelling painted in pale pastel blues and greens and yet to pick up its final permanent nicotine glaze. The booths along the walls were fitted with Formica-topped tables and red leatherette benches; the free-standing tables and chairs in the middle of the café were of matching materials and design. The linoleum floor was clean and brushed and had picked up only a few scorch marks from ground-out cigarette stubs. I could see Tony hadn’t skimped on decor.

  ‘Lorry driverz iz bazzdahrds for everyzink tip-top . . .’ Tony read my mind. ‘Venn you dinnae get it right, venn ze food iznae up to zcratch, or ze place iznae clean enough, zay no’ come bagg. And ze toilets! You’d zink zay vuddnae be fussy, zat ze big hairy-arzzed bazzdahrds vould shide in a bucket, but naw – ze toilets muzz be zpottless. I’m delling yo
u, Lennoggs, zey’re mehr vugging choosey zann Egon vugging Ronay. Vaht you vant? You vant bacon an’ eggs? Zome zquvare zauzage?’

  ‘No thanks, Tony, just a coffee.’

  ‘Okay-dokey . . .’ Tony turned round in his seat and yelled to the woman behind the counter. ‘Hey, Senga dahrlink . . . go an’ geez uzz two govvees . . .’ He turned back to me, smiling. ‘I’m taking it ziss izznae a zocial call . . . Vaht can I do vorr you, Lennoggs?’

  So I told him. If there was one danger about Tony the Pole, it was that you told him too much: he was one of those people who invited confidence to the point of carelessness. There was something about the broad Slavic smile in the broad Slavic face, and the broader – and I suspected hammed-up – Slavic accent that broke down your guard and made you feel like spilling every bean you had ever had to spill. It was like when you were a kid talking to your favourite uncle – the one who was like your dad but not your dad and who you could tell things that you couldn’t tell your dad. If, that is, your favourite uncle was a bald, Glaswegian Bela Lugosi.

  Leaning forward with my elbows on fresh-wiped Formica and dropping my voice under the café’s buzz so that only he could hear me, I told Tony more than I had told anyone else, which wasn’t difficult. I didn’t tell him everything, of course, leaving out the pretty essential facts that I had hired Tommy, that I had been riding shotgun on the job the night he died, and that a spook with a lopsided face called Mr McNaught had orchestrated the whole thing and had since dropped off the planet.

  But I did tell Tony that I was sure Tommy’s death was no accident. I told him about Tommy’s sister and what she had said about his wartime service and his post-war avoidance of his commando buddies; about the night I had been jumped in the street for no reason and had started to suspect it was because I had been mistaken for Tommy; I told him about the blue van following us on the bank run and that I’d swapped my car for the Wyvern because of the Ford Consul persistently in my rear-view mirror.

  The good humour fell from his face and Tony listened solemnly as I spoke. We paused when Senga, the waitress, brought over our coffees, squinting against the smoke from the cigarette angled between her thin, bright crimsoned lips. Senga was stick-thin and aged somewhere between fifty and a thousand, with a wrinkled complexion a vampire would have described as ‘pasty’: a pallor accentuated by her artificially red hair. She obviously shopped for hair dye in the same place as ’Pherson the barber. As she placed my coffee on the table, I could have sworn she winked at me, but it was maybe just the smoke in her eyes.

  ‘Bad bizzinezz.’ Tony shook his head. ‘Quiet Tommy waz good boy. Good boy. Zo vaht you vant from me? I do anyzing to help.’

  ‘Listen, Tony, I know you keep your cards close to your chest and you’ve never talked about the jobs you did. But I’m lost here. I believe Quiet Tommy Quaid was killed on that rooftop and pushed off to make it look like an accident, but I’ve got nothing to back that up. I’ve been asked to make sure the right thing is done by him, but I’m struggling. You were the best peterman in Scotland and Tommy was one of the best planners and roofmen. I’m guessing that you probably worked together on more than one occasion. If there’s anything – anything – you can tell me that would help, then I’d owe you a huge favour. I’m also guessing that there’s a chance you were offered the same kind of deal as Tommy during the war and you can maybe give me something more to go on. And I know you know Jimmy Wilson, who I’ve heard worked with Tommy sometimes and I guess worked with you. Jimmy has disappeared off the face of the earth and I think it’s got something to do with Tommy’s death – or at least his disappearance coincided exactly with it. Anything you can tell me to point me in Jimmy’s direction would be a huge help.’ I stopped, leaving it all laid out on the table between us, waiting for Tony to respond. He sat quietly for a moment, his lips pursed while he thought through what I had said.

  ‘Okay – let’s take ze zing viz Jimmy virst. Ze problem iz zat you zay you’zz bein’ followed. You could lead whoever’z following you right to Jimmy.’

  ‘So you know where he is? And why he’s hiding?’

  ‘Naw – I didnae zay dat. But I could maybe tell you who does.’

  I made an open-handed gesture. There were no guarantees I could make, but Tony knew me well enough, I hoped, to trust me to be as discreet as possible. He took a small notepad from his pocket and scribbled something into it, tearing out the page and handing it to me.

  ‘Zat Jimmy’s brudder. He runs garage in ze Gallowgate. Ozzer name iz Jimmy’s bezd pal. Bit of a pizz-hied, if you ken vaht I mean. But I don’t know how much zey be of uze to you. If Jimmy vahnt to ztay hidden, he ztay hidden.’

  I thanked Tony, but made another gesture, inviting more. He sighed, then started to answer my questions. As he spoke, I noticed he toned down a little both the Glaswegian patois and the East European accent. It was still thick, but I started to suspect that Tony played a part – adopted a character. The strategy of the immigrant wanting to be liked, to find acceptance.

  Tony explained that he had never been approached to do the same kind of war service. He had never been convicted of an offence, so there was no evidence of illicit skills. In any case, he’d already been in the Polish Free Army when he arrived in Scotland in August nineteen-forty, one of thirty thousand Poles who, after their own homeland had fallen, had come to Scotland to protect it with their lives from an expected German invasion launched from Norway. The relationship had been so close that many of the Polish Army units had adopted Scottish motifs into their insignia. After the war, many – like Tony – had stayed on in Scotland. Now, the Polish-Scot, like the Italian-Scot, was an accepted part of Scotland’s culture. It seemed that the Irish – their closest cousins – were the only immigrant group the native Scots struggled with.

  ‘But I did know of zuch units,’ Tony explained. ‘Laycock vent about recruiting zafecrackers and burglars vor his new commando zervice. I knew Tommy vaz in von, but you knew Tommy, he not talk much about zuch zings.’

  And I had known Tommy. I guessed Tony was telling the truth and that Tommy had confided in him no more than he had in me.

  ‘But you did do jobs with him?’ I asked.

  ‘And you know zat I don’t talk about zuch zings.’

  There was a silence and I let it ride.

  Eventually Tony gave another sigh and said, ‘I’m no’ zaying vee did, I’m no’ zaying vee didnae. But Tommy vaz good, really good. Ze best at vaht he did. Naebody dezerved the name “cat burglar” like Tommy – zat vaz vaht he vaz like on a roof – like a cat. Zere’s no’ vugging way he vell ovv that foundry roof. Tommy vaz too careful.’

  ‘Did he ever talk about other people he was involved with? Or even his wartime buddies?’

  ‘Not him, no. But I know he do lot of vork for Hanzome Jonny Cohen. More than for ozzer Kings. I did hear zomezink else vonce,’ he said, ‘a rumour about Tommy . . .’

  ‘What kind of rumour?’

  ‘You know ze vay it goes viz crooks, Lennoggs – zay have zere own legends and myths. Zere vaz a rumour about Tommy: zat he had a pile of treasure zomewheres – zat venn he vaz commando hiz unit steal big pile of Nazi loot.’

  I remembered what Jennifer had said about Tommy’s ‘special’ unit, and suddenly the memory came to mind of the small, wiry mourner with the rat-like movements at Tommy’s funeral.

  ‘Was the rumour that Tommy had this Nazi loot stashed?’

  ‘Zome zaid he had it buried zomewhere. But you know zeze zings – stories crooks tell each ozzer to pass time in prison. All just pile of shide.’

  ‘Thanks, Tony. Could you ask around? At least keep an ear to the ground and let me know if you hear anything about Tommy or of Jimmy Wilson’s whereabouts?’

  He nodded. Then the seriousness left his face and he beamed a smile at me, held his arms out to indicate our surroundings.

  ‘Zo, Lennoggs – vaht do you zink of my new plaze?’ The accent and the volume were fully restored. It was a signal that our e
xchange of confidences was over.

  ‘It’s fine, Tony. It’s really fine.’

  4

  The Scottish summer frustrates larceny and generally any shenanigans that demand the cover of dark: the night comes late – in August, daylight lasts nearly seventeen hours – and when night does come its presence is half-hearted.

  I was hoping for a blanket of cloud, but the still-bright afternoon sky remained clear of cover and I could see I was going to have to wait until near midnight before doing any serious skulking.

  In the meantime, the imagined urgent weight of the two Yale keys in my pocket – one to Tommy’s apartment, the other to the lock-up – nagged at me. But I knew I had to be patient: if my tail was waiting to pick me up again, then it would either be at one of those locations or outside my office.

  Even though I was driving the Wyvern, I kept checking my mirrors for the Ford Consul or any other persistent presence behind me. There was none that I could see, but I still kept my guard up.

  *

  Burdened as I was with the curse of the migrant or displaced person, there were the odd fleeting times where I lost my bearings. Sometimes the weather, the light, would play tricks on me, mixing moment and memory and taking me back to a different place, a different time, a different me.

  Because of the length of summer days in Scotland, sunsets were often gradual, lengthy affairs. That evening, the gold-tinged sky was mimicking a different season and a different continent. I found myself remembering fall sunset evenings before the war, growing up on the shores of the Kennebecasis River.

  Unlike here in Glasgow, where the distinction between the times of year was fudged, I’d grown up in a markedly four seasons climate: New Brunswick winters were long, lasting through March, and were perpetually snow-muffled, but punctuated with blue-sky days of snow-reflected brilliance; springs came late and were short, the ground burnt brown once the snow finally disappeared. For me, the only enduring memory of Canadian springs was the relief from snow and the taste of fiddleheads and maple syrup. The summers were intense: a heat stretching into September, far hotter than anything in Scotland. But above all it was the falls I missed: fall in New Brunswick was bright and mellow with the forests around Saint John exploding with colour. But it was nature aided by industry: the high-altitude drift of pollution from the Rust Belt – the US industrial heartland of Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana – was swept up by the jet stream and scattered across the New Brunswick sky, invisible except at sundown. The result was the most spectacular sunsets.