The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

by Craig Russell

  I parked opposite and looked across at the door of his dark-windowed ground-floor apartment, half expecting him to emerge from it.

  Like I had outside Davey’s, I sat and smoked for a while, making sure there was no activity in or around the flat. When I got out of the car, I checked the street in both directions. Something tensed in my chest when I noticed a car with two men sitting in it, parked on the same side of the road as mine, a few spaces back. But I could see they were talking and laughing, making no effort to be inconspicuous, and seemed to pay me no heed. In any case, they drove off before I reached the door of Tommy’s flat.

  I let myself in with the key Jennifer had given me. Everything was pretty much as it had been when I had last been there. Unlike the feeling I’d had seeing the flat from the street, once I was inside I had no sense of Tommy still being there, either in body or in spirit. The truth was he never really had been, even when he’d been alive, and I remembered the feeling of detachment and temporariness I’d had on that last visit.

  As soon as I stepped from the hall into the living room, I knew someone had been there.

  I didn’t know what it was that triggered the instinct, perhaps the slightest change in order, the kind of detail you remember but don’t know you’re remembering. It was nothing like the certainty with which I’d known that my own apartment had been gone through; and it wasn’t like the subtle invasion by shadowy agents of state that Nancy Ross, Tommy’s unlikely left-wing academic lover and unlikelier confidante, had described.

  It was simply the feeling of recent occupation: that someone had been in the apartment since Tommy’s death.

  Simultaneously the thought struck me that, for all I knew, they could still be there. Again I cursed my noble gesture of re-drawering Jonny’s Walther and Tommy’s commando knife. I didn’t have the guns I’d taken from McNaught’s goons, either: Twinkletoes had one and Jonny Cohen had taken charge of the other.

  I went over to the window and eased back the net curtain, checking the street outside. There were no signs of anything odd and the car with the two men hadn’t returned.

  I went through every room, checking there was no one around. I felt a jolt when I saw Tommy’s shaving kit in the bathroom, still looking like it was there temporarily and its owner would be back to pack it away any time. Except he wouldn’t.

  I decided that I would tell Jennifer that I would help her clear the place out. Once everything was sorted out. If I were still alive.

  I spent an hour searching the place. It was more than enough time to go through Tommy’s belongings and I was left with the same feeling of impermanence. As I expected, there was nothing there that would have given much of a clue about the apartment’s occupant, far less stolen documents.

  I sat on the chesterfield in the living room, as if waiting for something to come to me. I was waiting for something to come to me: as I had searched through the flat, I had been nagged by the thought that I already knew something important, but I had forgotten it. Something here, in Tommy’s place. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t come to my recall, sitting tantalizingly just outside my reach.

  I picked up the receiver of Tommy’s telephone and was surprised to hear the metallic burr of a connection. No one had yet thought to cancel the line. I made another mental note to mention it to Jennifer. I dialled Archie’s number and he told me that he had gotten all of the information I’d asked for on the trust that ran St Andrew’s School.

  ‘There’s one name that sticks out for me,’ said Archie. ‘You remember I told you about that priest I was warned off about when I was a beat bobby? Father Sean Sullivan – now Monsignor Sean Sullivan?’

  ‘Shit – he’s a trustee of the school?’

  ‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  After I rang off from Archie, I 'phoned Jonny Cohen. He asked me to hold on while he took the call in his study. Why a gangster who ran protection rackets, bookies, strip clubs and organized the odd armed robbery needed a study was beyond me, but I guessed he didn’t want to talk where he could be overheard by his family or Jennifer.

  ‘Those birds you left with us,’ he said when he picked up the extension. ‘I’ve had the vet look at them. The one with the broken wing is going to make it after all.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ I said. And I was.

  ‘Aye,’ said Cohen. ‘But I wouldn’t be too relieved. He’s going to make it, but he’s probably not going to fly that straight from now on.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ I said. ‘And the other one?’

  ‘I think he’s maybe a canary – he’s been doing all the singing you wanted him to do. But best not go into that on the 'phone. Where are you?’

  ‘At our late friend’s place. I’ll come down right away.’

  ‘Oh the birds aren’t here,’ said Cohen. ‘We didn’t have the right . . . cages for them. But if you meet me here we can go to see them together.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’ I hung up, ending our weirdly cryptic exchange. Cohen was right to be cautious, but anyone listening in would hardly have needed Bletchley Park to decode our meaning.

  I sat for another minute in an empty flat that had been empty even when Tommy had lived there, willing whatever it was that had eluded me to come to me.

  It didn’t, and I left the flat to its dark and emptiness.

  *

  The street outside was quiet and empty of people until two men came around the corner, laughing loudly and joking with each other. I guessed they’d had a few and were returning from a pub. I thought about the times Tommy and I had done the same. They were harmless but I decided to let them pass before crossing to where I’d parked.

  It was only when they were directly in front of me that I recognized them as the men I’d seen in the car earlier.

  By that time it was too late. I almost felt like expressing my admiration, it was all done so quickly and professionally: dropping the pretence of alcohol-fuelled jollity, one man grabbed my wrist and jabbed the pistol he’d drawn from his pocket into my ribs. The other wheeled round to the other side and grabbed my elbow, tight.

  ‘Now we’re not going to play silly buggers, are we?’ The one with the gun had a nondescript face and a nondescript English accent. ‘Play nice and no one needs to get hurt.’

  ‘You’re calling the shots,’ I said.

  ‘Now that’s a good boy . . .’ The Englishman smiled, and between them they steered me back towards Tommy’s flat.

  *

  Once we were inside, the Englishman kept his gun on me while his pal searched me, turning out everything in my pockets and setting it on the coffee table, including the two blue-tabbed keys: the one I’d let us into the flat with and the unmarked one for the lock-up that Jimmy had given me.

  From the brief exchanges between them, I could tell the other man was a Scot, sounding like he came from somewhere on the east coast. It was the Englishman who addressed me, telling me to sit down on the chesterfield ‘nice and quiet’, with my hands on my lap where he could see them.

  I knew I was in trouble: there was something about my two captors that was very cool, very assured, very professional; the casualness and familiarity with which the Englishman handled his gun, the quiet calm of both men. They were clearly in a totally different league from the muscle-bound goons at Davey Wilson’s garage, and certainly from the Victor McLaglen lookalike and chum who’d jumped me in the street. Maybe it had been one of these two, and not one of the goons Cohen now had on ice, who had killed Baines and put me to sleep in the lock-up.

  I sized my opposition up: the Englishman had pale grey eyes filled with cold calm, and his hair was receding at the temples; the Scot was thinner and a little taller, with reddish blond hair. Neither was in any way remarkable in appearance and neither was too tall and, although both had an athletic look, neither was heavily built – but there was something about them that told you they could handle themselves.

  Satisfied that I posed no risk, the Englishman put his gun back into his pock
et and went across to the telephone.

  ‘We’ve got him,’ is all he said before hanging up. So there it was: a trap had been set and I’d sprung it by walking blindly into it.

  The Englishman sat back down in the club chair opposite me while his taciturn Scottish chum leaned against the wall. Both watched me silently.

  I smiled. ‘Well, this is cosy . . .’ I said.

  The Englishman smiled back. ‘And it’s about to get cosier: the boss is on his way.’

  I nodded, leaned back in the sofa and waited for McNaught to arrive.

  *

  We waited for twenty minutes. My two silent warders watched me unwaveringly and patiently, but without interest, without any sense of heat. It was all very matter-of-fact: they were doing a job, and they didn’t feel stretched by it or tense about it. It didn’t matter, because I was tense enough for the three of us.

  Just like I had when Baines had made me drive to the lock-ups, I tried to think through what moves I could make; again it was a calculation that came out zero every time, no matter what scenario I ran through in my head.

  I had no option but to wait until McNaught arrived. When he did, I guessed the rest of my life would be very painful, but very short. I would probably end up envying the quiet death of Thomas Quaid.

  At least it would all be over. My life, I had often thought, had pretty much ended in the war. At least that was when the Kennebecasis Kid – the idealistic, ambitious youth from Saint John – had died. It was as if everything since had been on borrowed time; like I’d been a ghost in sharp tailoring overstaying its welcome.

  And McNaught was coming to exorcise me.

  I had wanted to sort this one out though. My one regret was those kids I’d seen in those photographs: the terror and the pain in their faces. I had made my own silent covenant with them, that the people who had done that to them would suffer. But now the justice I had promised would never come to pass.

  Truth was, it probably never would have, anyway.

  There was the sound of a car outside; after a while there was a gentle knock on the outside door. My new English friend took the gun out from his pocket and pointed it at me, almost wearily, and nodded to the Scot, who went to answer the door.

  There was no move I could make. The Englishman had his gun pointed across the coffee table at my gut. There was nothing you could do when you were gut-shot.

  I turned and watched as the Scot came back in, followed by a tall, lean man. Dressed in a lightweight houndstooth sports jacket, Tattersall shirt, knotted plum silk necktie, cavalry twills, and oxblood brogues, he had that landed, privileged look. His very dark hair was swept back from a widow’s peak and his features were sharp and angular, giving him a severe, vaguely devilish look – very oddly like an older version of me. No one else came in. No McNaught.

  Things fell into place: I realized that this wasn’t the game I thought I was playing and tried to disguise the huge sense of relief I felt. I started to rise, but the Englishman in the chair opposite gave a ‘tut-tut’ and waved the barrel of his automatic: I made an apologetic gesture and eased back into the red leather.

  ‘Good evening, Captain Tarnish,’ I said to the tall man in the country-set outfit.

  8

  The Englishman opposite me again pocketed his gun, got up and vacated the armchair so Tarnish could take his place.

  ‘Good evening, Captain Lennox.’ Tarnish returned the military courtesy in a cultured, somewhat louche Scottish accent, but didn’t look me in the eye, instead casually plucking at the pressed-to-a-knife-edge crease in his cavalry twills to make sure they didn’t bag or wrinkle as he sat. ‘I wonder if you’d mind telling me what it is you were looking for here?’

  I held my hands up. ‘Okay, listen . . . before you start with the wet rags in the mouth or the bamboo under the fingernails, I’ve got some bad news for you: there is no Nazi loot. No hidden treasure. Whatever you think Tommy Quaid stole during the war, it’s all just a tall tale.’

  Tarnish spoke over his shoulder to his two associates. ‘A wet rag in the mouth . . . we’ve never tried that one, have we, boys?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said the Englishman. ‘First time for everything though.’

  Oh goodie, I thought, this is going to be fun.

  ‘Listen, I’m telling you – it’s not even that I don’t know where Tommy hid it . . . there was nothing to hide. No loot. You and your chum Baines are chasing something that doesn’t exist.’ I tried to put some force behind the statement.

  ‘So you’ve met Dave Baines?’ asked Tarnish.

  I sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And would you know where Sergeant Baines would be now?’

  I sat silent for a moment, probably open-mouthed as I played through in my head all the ways of saying ‘Actually, Baines is dead – and here’s the funny thing, you’ll really like this – I was the last one to see him alive, just like I was the last to see Tommy Quaid alive, another one of your wartime compatriots. And I know this is going to sound odd, but the thing is that after Baines was murdered – by somebody else, obviously, not me – I burned his body so no one could recognize it. You know, to some people who didn’t know better, that would maybe look a little suspicious and they’d almost think I’d killed them both to get my hands on this phantom Nazi loot. Ha, ha, ha.’

  ‘Where is Dave Baines, Mr Lennox?’ Tarnish repeated with elegant impatience.

  ‘Dead,’ was all I could think to say.

  ‘And would you have happened to be there when he died, by any chance?’

  If it was a guess, it was a good one. I nodded. ‘In body if not in spirit. Someone came up behind me and put me to sleep. I didn’t see who.’

  ‘And these people you didn’t see – they killed Baines and left you alive?’

  This was going so well.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I was meant to take the blame for his murder. Tommy Quaid had hidden something – the something that he was killed for. But that something had nothing to do with anything taken during the war. I found it when I was with Baines. Whoever was looking to get it back bushwhacked us; they killed Baines, put me out, then they took what I’d found, the only evidence, away with them.’

  ‘And all this happened in the storage sheds down by the Clyde?’

  I looked at Tarnish, surprised. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘We were keeping an eye on Baines. And on you. You made the job easier by getting together. But we already knew about Quaid’s lock-up. Tell me truthfully, did you kill Baines?’

  ‘When I woke up Baines was already dead: someone had cut his throat. Commando style. When I woke up I was covered in Baines’s blood and had the knife they’d used to kill him in my hand. It was a frame-up and I had to destroy the evidence so I set light to the storage shed. I know how that all sounds, but no, I didn’t kill Dave Baines.’

  ‘No,’ repeated Tarnish. ‘I don’t believe you did.’

  ‘At the risk of sounding like a stuck record,’ I said, ‘there really is no stolen wartime loot. What I found in that storage shed was something else completely. And definitely no treasure. I don’t know what you’ve heard about Tommy scoring big with stolen Nazi booty, but it’s all bull.’

  ‘I know,’ said Tarnish.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Tommy Quaid was with us throughout the war. I know there was no job pulled; no “personal enterprises”. Trust me, we had our hands too full with achieving our objectives and simply staying alive – which most of the unit didn’t. Baines, on the other hand, was transferred elsewhere and heard all kinds of rumours – or maybe he started one himself. There’s a mythology in war, as I’m sure you know yourself. A grain of speculation became an obsession with Baines. An imagined Holy Grail.’

  ‘Okay, now I’m confused. You know I didn’t kill Baines, and you know there’s no hidden loot . . . so what are you doing here?’

  ‘The same thing you are. We’re here for Tommy Quaid.’ Tarnish reached into his pocket and took out a s
lab of hallmarked silver and, snapping it open, offered me a cigarette before taking one himself. He lit us up. ‘I got a message from Tommy shortly before he died,’ he continued. ‘We were a tight unit during the war but we had to endure some terrible things . . . we had to do some terrible things. That kind of experience binds men together. But after the war things were different: seeing each other just reminded us of all the stuff we’d been through, of all the others who didn’t make it – so we agreed never to meet up. But we also agreed that the exception was if any one of us ever needed help – then the rest of us would be there for him. The letter I got from Tommy said he needed help. It said he was in danger and he needed me to take charge of something for safekeeping.’

  ‘And do you have it?’ I asked.

  Tarnish shook his head. ‘We didn’t get here in time. By the time I was in touch with Fraser and Mayhew here, and we got to Glasgow, Tommy was already dead. Anyway, how could I have it? I thought you said whoever put you out in the storage shed and killed Baines took everything . . .’

  ‘Apparently not. There’s a red leather ledger that wasn’t with the other stuff. Our chums are clearly still very keen to get their hands on it.’

  ‘I see.’ Tarnish paused, thinking something through; then he said: ‘You know, I have to admit that I did find it rather troubling that you just happened to be there when two of my former squad members were killed.’

  I shrugged, concealing my worry that he’d read my mind when I’d been running through the explanations. ‘Trust me, you’re not as troubled about it as I am. I need you to know that Quiet Tommy Quaid was my friend.’

  ‘I know that. That’s why you’re still alive. When Tommy got in touch he told me you were the one man in Glasgow he trusted.’

  I said nothing. Truth was, it had stung me: I believed Tommy had said that about me; about the man who had led him to his death. I snapped out of it and tried to process the information – the pile of information – I’d had dumped on me.