‘And you think that they found out?’
‘If they did,’ said Baines, ‘and if, like you say, Tommy’s fall off that roof wasn’t an accident, then that would make Tarnish and the others the prime suspects in his death. In my opinion, anyway.’
‘So you’re not here to do the right thing by Tommy, after all,’ I said. ‘Just like Tarnish, you’re out for looted Nazi treasure. That’s why you’ve been following me.’
‘A bit of both, if you like. If it was Tarnish who killed Tommy, then I don’t want him getting the loot whatever happens and I want to get even for Tommy. And if we find the loot I’ll split it with you. You can do whatever you want with your half. But I want you to know that I’ll get it, with or without your help.’
‘There’s a flaw in your logic,’ I said. ‘If Tarnish killed Tommy, then he must have found out first where the loot was hidden. Otherwise he would be killing the goose before it laid the golden egg.’
‘Except you have the key. And you have the shed number. And even if they’ve already got it, I don’t want them keeping it. Believe it or not, I want to help you find out who killed Tommy. Maybe there is no loot. Maybe Tarnish went away empty-handed. But Tommy Quaid was my friend and the only person I trusted in the army. At the least I want to find out for his sake.’
I was less than convinced by the nobility of his motives, but I didn’t have a gun in my ribs any more, so I played along. If we did find a cache of war loot in the lock-up, then I didn’t fancy my chances of walking away with half of it, or walking out alive. For the moment, I was winging it.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We split what we find. My half goes to Tommy’s sister, agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
I started the car, switched on the headlights, reversed out and headed down the main avenue between the sheds. They all were the same design, double-doored and a similar construction to a domestic garage, only about twice the size. I guessed you could park a truck inside each. Baines reached into the glove box and took out a flashlight. Each shed had a square wooden plaque above its doors, each plaque with a number and letter. As we crawled along, he shone the light onto the numbers. I counted down until I reached the shed number I’d been given.
‘Shed seventeen, row B,’ I said. ‘This is it.’
I killed the lights and we got out, Baines taking back his car keys and pocketing them. The shed, like the others, was varnished almost black under layers of creosote, an angular black shadow against the lighter deep blue sky. I took the key from my pocket and Baines shone the flashlight onto the heavy-gauge padlock – new and bright against the dark age of the storage shed doors it secured. ‘Not much protection if he has stashed in here what you think he has,’ I said. ‘A tyre lever would open this as easily as a key.’
Baines, small and dark in the night behind the glare of the flashlight, said nothing.
I took the blue-fobbed key Jennifer Quaid had given me, unlocked the padlock, hooked it back onto the loop, and swung open the double doors.
‘Give me the flashlight,’ I said. Baines did nothing. ‘The torch, give it to me. While I look, you keep a watch for someone coming.’
He handed me the flashlight and I hoped he wasn’t complying just to have his hands free. I didn’t like Baines; I didn’t trust him; I didn’t believe the whole wartime-buddies-bound-by-hoops-of-steel crap about his friendship with Tommy. For all I knew, it really could have been Baines who had killed Tommy on the roof of the foundry.
We could be a matter of feet away from a hoard of Nazi loot: maybe the light of the flashlight would suddenly be reflected by a twenty-four-carat gold bust of Eva Braun’s tits or a pile of diamond-encrusted swastikas. Then my lights would go out for good.
I shone the flashlight around the shed. Shelving units, the kind garages used to store car parts, lined the walls. A very small car sat parked in the middle of the space between the shelving units: a grey Austin A40 and the last kind of car you would expect to see Quiet Tommy Quaid driving. I guessed that, like the van on the night of the foundry job, this was stolen, renumbered and ready to provide anonymity when on his next job.
Personally, the Wyvern was bad enough: I wouldn’t be seen dead in something like the A40.
The shelving units were full of stuff, very carefully arranged and organized. Boxes of small items that Tommy Quaid had obviously stolen but not yet fenced: china ornaments, low-value jewellery, three television sets and a row of radios. What surprised me was the number of tools that filled some of the shelves. By the door there were five large metal petrol cans, a kerosene lamp with spare bottles of kerosene – paraffin as the Brits called it – and stacks of boxes, dozens of boxes, all neatly arranged.
‘This is going to take a while,’ I said to the small dark shape at the doorway. I took the kerosene lamp, struck a match and lit it. ‘I’m going to have to shut the doors over or everyone’ll be able to see the light. You keep watch.’ I swung the doors closed but Baines jammed a foot in so I couldn’t get them completely shut.
‘I’ll keep an eye on you from here as well,’ he said.
‘Just make sure you look out for anyone coming. I have to tell you that this isn’t exactly Aladdin’s cave – I don’t see Tommy stashing stolen Nazi loot in here.’
‘Just keep looking. And don’t think about playing me for an arse, mate – you find anything valuable, you’d better tell me.’
I sighed and went back to searching. The boxes were full of documents and other stuff that Tommy had stolen and obviously thought might be of some future value. From what I could see, there wasn’t any single thing of great value in the storeroom, but altogether there would have been several hundred pounds’ worth of stuff. Still, it was a disappointment. This didn’t look like Tommy’s retirement fund, and there certainly was no sign of any loot, if it existed at all, from the wartime raid behind enemy lines.
But there was enough to incriminate Tommy, and I worked out that the cans of petrol weren’t just there to fuel the A40: if Tommy had had to destroy evidence in a hurry, he could set the place alight in a few seconds.
I found the keys to the A40 hanging on a wall hook. Using my handkerchief on the handles – chrome was a gift to the coppers when looking for prints – I opened the car up. Other than a handbook in the glove box and a tyre lever, jack and spare wheel in the trunk, there was nothing. I tapped the panels and they sounded hollow, the way they should have; again no evidence of Teutonic treasure packed into voids. I decided, however, to suggest to Baines that we take the A40 with us when we left and take it apart.
I turned my attention to the shelving units, working top to bottom, and along the wall from the door to the far end of the shed.
By the time I had worked my way to the bottom shelf at the far end of the storeroom, I had given up hope. I still had the other wall to do, but it didn’t look promising. A last three boxes had been stuffed into the corner. I took the kerosene lamp with me to see better but also to move it as far away as possible from the gap in the doors. I took the lid off the first box and it revealed nothing more than a pile of old newspapers. I was about to move on to the next box when I decided to start lifting the papers to check if there was anything underneath.
I mouthed the word paydirt.
Cash. Bundles of sterling banknotes neatly fastened with rubber bands. I reckoned there was no less than a thousand pounds. The second box revealed another large quantity of banknotes, probably in the region of another two thousand, and some gold jewellery.
This, I knew, should go to Jennifer. It wasn’t any Nazi loot and Baines had no claim on it, but that was where things were going to get sticky. Keeping my back to the door, I replaced the newspapers into both boxes, trying to work out what I should do next. Baines slipped into the shed, closing the doors behind him.
‘Kill the light . . .’ he hissed urgently.
I did what he said, turning the flame on the kerosene lamp down low, but using the flashlight to find my way back to where Baines stood. I killed
the flashlight too. ‘What is it?’
‘Someone’s coming . . .’ He opened one of the doors a crack and peered out. I could hear the sound of metal on cloth and guessed he’d taken the Webley from his pocket. I was not at all happy about that.
‘Can you see—’
‘Shhh!’ Another urgent hiss. He eased the door closed further, a vertical stripe of pale light painted on his face. I could hear footsteps outside the storage shed. Baines eased the door fully shut.
‘Looks like some night watchman or caretaker . . .’ he whispered. ‘If he sees the unlocked padlock . . .’
I felt my heart pick up pace. The idea of some elderly night watchman didn’t scare me, but the idea of him having his rounds, and his life, cut short by a blow from Baines did. My new chum struck me as the kind of man who dealt with peacetime situations the same way he had in the war.
The footsteps passed by without pausing. After a few seconds, Baines eased open the other door, again just a crack.
‘He’s heading off.’
‘I didn’t think they had a night watchman here,’ I said. ‘Are you sure he’s gone?’
‘He’s turned into the next row,’ said Baines. ‘Stick with the torch.’ He paused a moment, obviously thinking things through. ‘No, it’ll be quicker if you put the lamp on again. I’ll go outside and keep watch with the doors shut. If you hear me knock quietly, kill the lights again. And Lennox – remember what I said.’
‘I remember,’ I said. The truth was I was already concealing something from him.
Once he was outside, I went back to the far end of the shed and opened up a third box. Again there were papers on top of another small treasure, jewellery this time. That was no use to me or Jennifer. It was stolen stuff and, unlike the cash, potentially traceable. But maybe that was the deal I could strike with Baines: he takes any jewellery and gold he can find and I keep the cash for Jennifer.
I set the box down on the ground beside me instead of back on its shelf. I was about to head back for Baines, still unsure of how best to handle him, when I noticed a section of the lower wooden shelf, exposed when I lifted the box out, looked different from the rest. I couldn’t make it out with the kerosene lamp alone and shone the flashlight on it. Rubbing away dust with my fingers, I could feel a joint in the wood. I took out my penknife and, jamming it into the joint, wiggled and levered the section of wood up.
There was a large, oilcloth-wrapped bundle underneath, in the three-inch-deep space between the shelf and the floor. I pulled it out; unwrapping the oilcloth exposed a thick, expensive-looking leather folio case, embossed with the initials FF. I unzipped the folio case and could see it contained a thick, five-year diary and a buff foolscap envelope. I flicked through the diary and saw it contained entries for specific dates and times, each with a row of initials next to it. Nothing written out in full. I put the diary to one side and opened the envelope, tilting it so its contents, mainly photographs, spilled out. I picked up the first photograph, a large-scale print, and angled it to the light.
‘Christ!’ I said, despite the need to be quiet. The image burned me; seared every detail into my brain. I felt suddenly sick. Really sick to my stomach. I looked at the second picture and felt the same physical revulsion as it branded itself forever into my recall. A third picture. There were faces I recognized. Important faces. Powerful faces. What else I saw was beyond my recognition; completely beyond my belief. Things I could not accept existed.
My head spun. I still couldn’t believe what I had seen. I couldn’t believe it and I couldn’t understand what something like that was doing in Quiet Tommy Quaid’s possession. After four years of war and thirteen years of Glasgow, I thought I had seen everything, was beyond the capacity to be shocked: but what I had just seen had shaken my world to the core.
I didn’t want to look at any more of the photographs, but there were some other documents and I picked one of them up. It was a list of names and I guessed the names corresponded to the initials I had seen in the diary. Names, like some of the faces, I recognized.
I stopped breathing.
A strong arm had looped around my neck from behind and my throat and neck were caught in a vice of forearm and bicep. I had been so horribly transfixed by what I had seen that I hadn’t heard him approach. It was a professional job, a sleeper hold cutting off air and blood supplies to the brain. The kind of thing they taught commandos.
Through my panic I worked out that Baines had sneaked back in behind me and was now sealing the deal the way he had planned from the start. No Nazi treasure. No loot. What I had just seen had been the prize all along: the vile, evil, loathsome prize.
I was in a fight for my life, but half that life had already been squeezed from me. I grabbed and pulled at the arm crushing my neck, reached up to claw at the face, but my attacker knew what he was doing and had his face down and tight against my neck. I slammed my elbows backwards and into the body behind me, but he held me so tight that I couldn’t get enough steam behind the blows.
As I started to black out, the thought that struck me was that the arm gripping me was too heavy and muscular, the body to which it belonged too big and solid, for it to be Baines.
Sparks and flashes danced before my eyes for a moment. Then someone turned out all the lights.
8
I drifted from one darkness into another.
It took a few seconds for me to gather up the scattered pieces of my consciousness, a process confounded by the complete darkness around me. My first thought was that I was grateful to have a consciousness at all: a little bit more enthusiasm and that expert sleeper hold could have put me to sleep for good. And it had been expert.
I remembered that I was in Tommy’s storage shed and fumbled about for the flashlight. The next thing to fall into my mind was the memory of what I had seen: those images. As my brain slugged its way awake, I became aware I had something in my hand, something that wasn’t the flashlight. And my hand was wet. Sticky.
I called out Baines’s name, but there was no answer.
With my other hand I went to take my cigarette lighter from my pocket but couldn’t find it: someone had stuffed my pockets with what felt like banknotes and jewellery. Eventually I dug out my lighter and the small flame dazzled me for a moment, searing into the raw nerves of my oxygen-deprived brain. I could now see the thing in my other hand was the haft of a knife. A long, slender handle and blade created out of a single piece of metal. A Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife. A commando knife. And the wet stickiness on my hand was blood.
Using the meagre flame of my lighter, desperately relighting it every time movement snuffed it out, I eventually found the flashlight, about two feet from where I’d come to. I swapped the lighter for the flashlight and scanned the shed. There were streaks – red-black on the pale grey cement – stretching across the floor. I followed them with the beam of the flashlight until I found their source. Baines was lying propped up against the Austin A40, his back against the front tyre in almost exactly the pose he’d propped me up in to recover my breath after he’d ju-jitsued it out of me outside the warehouse.
Except Baines wasn’t going to get his breath back any time soon. Or ever.
Someone had put a knife through his neck, behind his windpipe, and sliced forwards and outwards. It was an old commando specialty for silencing guards. You did it from behind and they died unable to utter a sound. A quiet death. I guessed that the knife that had been used was the one I now held. And that the blood on my hands was Baines’s.
I heard the faint ringing bells of police cars, some distance off. More than one. And the sound was slowly increasing in pitch.
Getting closer.
Still groggy from having been strangled half to death, I struggled to make sense of my situation. When I did, it didn’t bring me joy. I almost felt admiration for the professionalism with which I’d been framed for Baines’s murder. My assailant had used a sleeper hold to make sure there was no injury with which to substantiate my claims
of innocent unconsciousness. I was in the middle of a murder scene, my pockets filled with banknotes and jewellery, my hands and clothes covered in blood, the murder weapon in my hand.
The picture it painted was so convincing I almost believed it myself: me – Lennox – a known associate of Quiet Tommy Quaid and someone of dubious morals, and more dubious connections, had come with Baines to raid the dead burglar’s hoard. But there had been a thieves’ falling out and I murdered my accomplice. The police would surmise that I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for some public-spirited – but anonymous – citizen who had made a 'phone call, probably reporting the sounds of a violent fight in the lock-ups by the river.
That was the way it had been meant to play, but it’s difficult to calculate just how much pressure to apply to keep someone out just long enough for them to be caught, literally, red-handed. Too much and your victim’s brain is mush, or they don’t come around at all. Thankfully, my assailant had erred on the side of caution, reckoning I’d still be out or just coming round when the boys in blue arrived.
I had only minutes, maybe even seconds, to get myself out of this fix. I went through Baines’s pockets, taking his car keys, wallet and lighter. I checked the lock-up as quickly as I could to make sure there was nothing else incriminating. Pocketing the commando knife, I took out my handkerchief and made sure anything else I touched didn’t pick up fingerprints. I rushed to the back corner to where the leather folio with the photographs lay. It was gone. Everything else lay where it had been, but the folio and its contents had been taken.
The bells were louder now and I reckoned the police had turned into the storage yard. I hadn’t time to wipe clean everything I had touched: something more dramatic was called for.
The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5 Page 17
