Condition Purple

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s your occupation?’

  ‘Is that any of your business?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Montgomerie, ‘it is.’

  Leopold Keys paused. ‘I have private means.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I made a killing on the stock exchange. Quite some years ago now. I have not needed to work for several years and I won’t ever need to.’

  In the Keys’ household, in a pine-clad kitchen with rows of dainty cups hanging on the wall and decorated with oddments bought from souvenir shops, Leopold Keys said to his wife, ‘It was her, Olive.’

  And Olive Keys said, ‘How could she do this? Doesn’t she realize it reflects on us? She is so mean, so selfish, so inconsiderate.’

  ‘We did what we could for her, Olive.’ Leopold Keys spoke in a deadpan voice. ‘Nobody can say we didn’t.’

  ‘You said earlier,’ said Montgomerie, ‘you said that she was a difficult child. What did you mean exactly?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Again the flat deadpan voice of Leopold Keys.

  ‘It may be of relevance,’ Montgomerie persisted.

  ‘Well, she was untidy, dirty and slovenly,’ Mrs Keys hissed with indignation. ‘She wouldn’t clean her shoes.’

  ‘Or brush her teeth.’

  ‘We had to make her do those little things.’

  ‘If she was going to be a lady.’

  ‘It was an uphill struggle. No support, just a modest fostering allowance and left to get on with it.’

  ‘She left when she was sixteen, I understand?’ asked Montgomerie.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she return, ever?’

  ‘Not for any length of time,’ said Mr Keys.

  ‘A few days at the most,’ said Mrs Keys.

  ‘To pick things up.’

  ‘Or drop things off.’

  ‘Can I see her room?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘If you like.’

  Leopold Keys took Montgomerie towards the rear of the bungalow. Mrs Keys followed. They walked on carpet of deep pile and they passed the main bedroom of the house. Montgomerie glanced inside, a modern pine four-poster bed, trimmed with lace, a blue carpet, modern furniture, a pine chest at the foot of the bed, and along one wall a row of female boots, all highly polished, Montgomerie guessed there were about twenty pairs.

  Stephanie Craigellachie’s room was at the rear of the house. It was a small room, the smallest in the house, thought Montgomerie. The floor was covered with thin linoleum, cracked and torn in places, the small bed was of inexpensive plywood, shoddily painted. One of the walls was covered in loud garish wallpaper, two were painted white, the wall against which the bed stood was bare plaster on which numerous games of noughts and crosses had been played and it seemed to Montgomerie to have been played with a lonely pencil. Most of the games were on that part of the wall closest to the pillow. A crate which once held oranges stood on the floor, inside which were some old books about horses and school holidays. A wardrobe without a door stood in the corner of the room. Poor, low quality clothing hung in the wardrobe.

  ‘We haven’t touched her room,’ said Olive Keys. ‘In case she should have wished to return.’

  ‘Our door was never closed to her,’ said Leopold Keys.

  ‘She doesn’t look too happy,’ said the man in the flower-patterned shirt.

  ‘She’s not anything.’ Donoghue recovered the photograph. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Well, in that case I dare say she wouldn’t be happy,’ the man beamed. ‘What was her name again?’

  ‘Stephanie Craigellachie. You sure you haven’t seen her?’

  ‘Positive, Jim.’

  ‘We found these among her possessions.’ Donoghue tossed the book of matches on to the highly polished bar top between a beer cloth and an ashtray. Soft lights played on the spirit rack, soft music played in the background.

  ‘They’re ours right enough,’ said the man turning the book of matches over and over in his hand. ‘New, too.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Aye, we changed the design. We’ve only been using this design for two weeks. The old design had “Sylvester’s” printed in simple bold letters, the new design as you see here is like someone’s handwriting. Also it’s silver on black. The old design was white on black. So, if she was in here she must have been in the last fourteen days. We give them out free to anybody who buys cigarettes.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Nice-looking girl. I think I’d have remembered her if she had come in when I was serving. Work in the Square, did she, aye?’

  ‘Just off.’

  ‘Insurance executive? Bank clerk?’

  Donoghue shook his head. ‘The street,’ he said. ‘She worked the street.’

  The man dropped the book of matches as if they were contaminated. ‘Then she definitely wouldn’t come in here. Definitely not. Was she the girl who was murdered the other night? I read it in the papers?’

  ‘Last night, yes.’ Donoghue looked at the man. The man’s eyes had gone cold. He was not unlike most publicans of Donoghue’s acquaintance, affable, superficially friendly, but liable to turn aggressive very rapidly. Donoghue enjoyed a good pub or a bar, but publicans were his least favourite group of people; constantly defending their territory.

  ‘Take a hard line, do you?’

  ‘Have to, Inspector,’ said the man, mellowing, thawing again after the sudden flash of anger. ‘They come in here, the expensive ones, one even has a full-length mink…’

  ‘I think I met her,’ said Donoghue. ‘I thought she was in her mid-twenties, turned out she was nineteen.’

  ‘They age,’ said the barman, ‘that’s what gives them away. They have a worn or a used look. Most come from the schemes or from outlying towns, and even if they have a mink coat or other classy clothing they don’t know how to carry it. They stick out like…’

  ‘Vice girls in a smooth bar,’ suggested Donoghue.

  ‘Exactly.’ The publican shot himself a tonic from the gun. ‘Drink, sir?’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Donoghue. ‘I’d like a tonic as well, from the bottle if you don’t mind. Ice and lemon.’

  ‘Just what you need on a day like this.’ The barman fixed the drink. ‘Good health,’ he said, placing the drink on a new coaster. Donoghue thought he said ‘good elf’. ‘No, I don’t want this place to become a pick-up parlour.’

  Donoghue glanced round him. It was the first time he had been in Sylvester’s, a basement cocktail bar in Blythswood Square, all velvet and chrome and soft music. The drinks were fifty per cent above normal city prices but the publican knew that mostly everyone who ate and drank at Sylvester’s was on an expense account, so what the hell? The bar was used by businessmen from the Square, it did most of its trade at lunch-time, and according to the plaque outside, shut down at 9.30 each weekday night and shut completely from 9.30 Friday until 11.00 a.m. Monday. Civilized hours for any publican, early nights and every weekend off. Not bad.

  Donoghue took out the photograph which had been found in Stephanie Craigellachie’s wallet. ‘Seen this guy, or the girl?’

  The barman leaned forward and tapped the photograph, ‘Aye,’ he said slowly, thoughtfully. ‘Aye, now when did I see them?’

  ‘In here? Together?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And not so long ago either. A week. Maybe two weeks. They had a meal. She on the game as well, this lassie?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘I remember them well. See, her, she was so thin, built like a racing snake, but she was nae anorexic, threw down her food like there was no tomorrow, a real wee snapper she was. Reminded me of my bears.’

  ‘Your bears?’

  ‘My weans, my children. My wife’s blonde, see, so at home it’s Goldilocks and the three bears. I love my bears, so I do, but see, trying to teach them table manners, it’s unreal, so it is. Anyway she reminded me of them the way she shovelled her food i
n and tossed her knife and fork on the plate when she’d finished instead of placing them centrally. She was dressed well, brown outfit, went with her hair.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Small too. See this photograph, even though there’s a motor to give some scale they somehow look bigger than they were in reality. He was a totty wee man but he swaggered when he walked.’

  ‘Hard man?’

  ‘Reckon he might have fancied himself as one. He was only about five feet six inches, maybe less if he had large heels. I know that men tend to be small in the West of Scotland, but even allowing for that he was on the small side all right. He was no businessman, black shirt with a gold medallion round his neck. Good head of hair for a man of his age. I’d put him at fifty.’

  ‘Fifty?’

  ‘Easy fifty. He dressed younger but he’ll not see forty-five again. I don’t think he’ll see fifty again. There were lines round his mouth and eyes and he’d got chunks out of his cheeks, healed over as dead white skin, and he had a long scar on his forearm, all as though he’d fallen into a tube of razor blades. But he obviously didn’t take the second prize all the time if only because he was still alive. He seemed to be a guy who had carved himself a slice of life the hard way.’

  ‘I’m surprised that you served him.’ Donoghue turned and glanced at a group of grey-suited executives leaving the premises, laughing together at a shared joke. ‘I mean this man and the girl.’

  ‘They were in and served before I’d properly clocked them. I didn’t like them but they paid good money, didn’t cause bother and went away happy. People like that pay my mortgage whether I like them or not, and once in a while they do no harm, but too many of them and the place gets seedy and the downward spiral starts. I’d start to lose customers like the gentlemen who went up the stairs just now. Maybe I could turn over more money if I let the place get seedy in a flash sort of way, but I’m a family man and I have my bears to think about. One day they’ll get to know what sort of gaff their dad runs and I’ll have to look them in the eye. I’ve got to mind that day.’

  ‘Very wise.’

  ‘You a family man, sir?’

  ‘Two,’ said Donoghue, ‘one of each, not started secondary school yet. At a nice age, old enough to talk to, young enough to need you.’

  ‘Nice. Mine are all boys.’

  ‘So this guy and female, you just saw them the once?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘About fourteen days ago?’

  ‘Aye. That’s the difficult part right enough, the days just fly in, merging with one another. Sometimes I forget what I did yesterday and other times I can remember events of months or years ago as clear as daylight.’

  ‘It just means you’ve got a busy life.’

  ‘I think it means that I’m suffering pre-senile dementia.’

  ‘You never saw them separately?’

  ‘No. The only reason why I clicked when I saw the photo is that I remember them like that, as a couple. Him swaggering about fighting the years and life, it seemed, and her younger and thinner and hungry. They stuck in my mind. He bought a cigar.’

  ‘A cigar?’

  ‘Yes. I remember. I get cynical at times, you know, I mind looking at him and wondering which hole in his face he was going to stick the cigar. He had a choice between his mouth and two or three others where a blade had torn chunks away. It doesn’t show in the photograph but his face is like the surface of the moon. I gave him a book of matches.’

  Donoghue asked, ‘New or old?’

  ‘New. I remember clearly. That pins it down to within the last fourteen days that they were here, very close to the beginning of the time that we started issuing the new style matches.’

  Donoghue drained his glass and stepped nimbly off the stool. ‘Perhaps you’ll let us know if they come in again, either as a pair or singly?’

  ‘Anything to be public-spirited. Mind how you go.’

  ‘You want me to wait outside?’ asked Montgomerie.

  Collette smiled as she raised two pint tumblers on the rack underneath the gantry. ‘If you don’t mind, Malcolm. We’re not allowed to entertain friends on the premises.’

  ‘Am I only a friend?’ He glanced at his reflection in the mirror behind the spirit rack. OK, so fate had been good to him, black hair, chiselled features, downturned moustache, he had enjoyed the longing looks of women of all ages since he was seventeen. He looked at Collette, a slim, trim, dark-haired child who wore the pink dress that was the uniform of the female staff of the Long Bar on Great Western Road. ‘I thought I was more than that?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ She glanced round and saw the tall, elegant manageress was still engrossed in an argument with a drunken customer about the bar prices. ‘So where are you taking me tonight?’

  Montgomerie shrugged. ‘Where do you fancy?’

  ‘I’m in your hands.’ Then she went to serve a customer.

  ‘Well, a drink,’ he said when she returned, ‘a meal and back to my place for a game of Scrabble.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds like fun.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting for you across the road.’ He pointed to another chrome and music and lights West End of Glasgow bar.

  ‘Look forward to it. It’ll be my last night out for four nights. Tomorrow, Thursday, I work a split and then I’ve got three night shifts.’

  ‘Split?’

  ‘Eleven till two, seven till eleven. It’s murder.’

  Later, over a meal in the Indian restaurant close to Montgomerie’s flat just off Highburgh Road, he said, ‘Cloying.’

  ‘Cloying?’ Collette looked up at him.

  ‘Cloying.’ He tore a piece of chapatti and scraped the last of the sauce from his plate. ‘I had occasion to visit a house today, up in Bearsden, this couple lived there, late middle-aged, overdressed, as though they were about to go out but they were just sitting in, there was a word I knew existed to describe their relationship but I couldn’t think of it.’

  ‘But it’s “cloying”?’

  Montgomerie nodded and tore off another piece of chapatti.

  King sat in front of Donoghue’s desk. He glanced out of the window at the evening settling like a comfort blanket over the rooftops of Glasgow town. It was still warm enough at this time of the night not to need a jacket out of doors, and warm enough indoors for Donoghue to have opened the windows of his office. Donoghue sat in his waistcoat and pulled on his pipe and considered. King returned his attention to the Inspector.

  ‘I think I’d still like to find out who Dino is,’ said Donoghue, ‘but I can’t help thinking that we are leading ourselves up a blind alley. Especially in the light of this information.’ He tapped the file on the desk.

  ‘I’ve located another so-called scratcher, sir. He was out bevvying when I called at his place of work. I think I’d like to call back tomorrow just for the sake of completion. After that, well…’

  ‘Very good.’ Donoghue liked King. He found the young detective-constable to have a strong sense of professionalism, of thoroughness, he always seemed willing to go the extra mile. He was a detective-sergeant in a detective-constable’s clothing, comfortably in the frame for early promotion.

  ‘When did we receive this new information, sir?’

  ‘It was in my pigeonhole when I came back from Sylvester’s just before you returned. As I said, Elliot Bothwell has lifted prints from the cellophane packet which had contained heroin, quite a massive amount if the packet was full of the stuff. The prints in question belong to a known felon, none other than one Jimmy “the Rodent” Purdue. Here’s his file, and a right evil ned he is too by the sound of it. Convictions for violent crime, done time in Peterhead and Shotts.’ Donoghue handed the file to King. ‘You’ll see he’s a knife man, going by his form, carves people for a living and finally murdered a girl.’

  ‘So now he’s peddling dope?’

  ‘Either that or he’s delivering it. A courier is the word they use, so I believe. Either way he’s left e
nough dabs on what was once a large consignment of smack for us to be interested in him for reasons over and above any connection with the death of Stephanie Craigellachie. It was uncut heroin, pure as the driven snow.’

  ‘So how did a girl like Stephanie Craigellachie get hold of that amount of heroin?’

  ‘Well, that is what we have to find out, so this is where we earn our crust,’ said Donoghue, beginning to see a slight fissure opening in the case, enough to get a purchase on and to lever it wider. ‘Time to shovel work.’

  ‘So we assume Dino and the Black Team are side issues,’ said King, closing the file on Jimmy ‘the Rodent’ Purdue, ‘just things that we turned up along the way.’

  Donoghue pulled on his pipe. It had gone out. He lit it with his lighter before replying. It was the privilege of rank and one which King found intensely annoying. ‘I don’t think we assume anything, Richard. The Black Team may be nothing more than a group of female muggers and we’d be interested in them in their own right, those girls who work the street are vulnerable enough as it is without being rolled by their own alumni. On the other hand the Black Team might be up to their collective oxters in the death of Stephanie Craigellachie. The other issue which I haven’t told you about is that the collator has come up with another gem or another spanner in the works, depending upon how you look at it, in the form of a file on Toni Durham.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The girl in the photograph found in Stephanie Craigellachie’s wallet.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ King nodded. ‘Jimmy the Rodent with Toni Durham some time, a week I think, before she disappeared.’

  ‘That’s it. Helps us pin down the date of the photograph. Toni Durham was reported missing seven days ago. Now if Stephanie Craigellachie took the photograph, then she must have known Toni Durham and Jimmy the Rodent socially…’

  ‘Or professionally,’ said King. ‘If their profession is vice and drugs.’

  ‘Or professionally.’ Donoghue allowed himself to be corrected.

  ‘Jimmy the Rodent runs a black Mercedes, it’s here in the photograph, she was seen to show fear of a man in a black car. So the man who took her off the street and returned her with a black eye was Jimmy the Rodent, pictured here with Toni Durham.’