The Man with No Face

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Well…yes.’

  ‘Good. Look, Mr King, I do so hate beating about the bush. Is the reason that you’ve walked in off the street to ask me what the scuttlebutt is among the antique-dealing community about the Cernach blaze?’

  ‘I couldn’t put it better myself.’

  ‘The scuttlebutt is that the whole affair reeks like putrefaction in a hot airless room, the scuttlebutt is that a king’s ransom was paid out by an insurance company for a scam that could be seen with a glass eye. We put our own insurance with Glasgow and Trossachs after that. So did a lot of other firms. An insurance company that pays out like that is a gift horse and you know what you do not do to gift horses?’ Dickson raised an eyebrow.

  ‘So put me out of my misery. Tell me what the rumours are?’

  ‘Well, were—rumours have died down now and I also would wish to state that I have no evidence of anything, nothing that I could have come to you about.’

  ‘Accepted.’

  ‘Very well, initially we were saddened…they did have some very beautiful stuff in there…but after a few months, after a year had elapsed…people began to talk and things just didn’t add up. You see, the company came from nowhere. Nobody knew them in the antique trade. It was managed by a crone of a woman called Carberrie and she knew very little about what she was selling. Didn’t know a thing about antiques. That doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t happen. You’re born into this business, you learn as you grow older, you become known, or you start small and over years you move from your unit in the mews arcades behind Byres Road to a shop in Sauchiehall Street. That progression takes years, during which you become known in the antique-trading community. Mary Carberrie arrived from nowhere and opened the largest antiques-furniture shop in Glasgow. And the classiest. And she had a lot of serious stuff in there.’

  ‘But she knew nothing about it?’

  ‘Not a thing. It was the genuine stuff, all right, the full monty, but she couldn’t talk about it.’

  ‘How often did you visit the shop?’

  Three times, and here you have another mystery. I, and other dealers, called to view her stock when she first opened; we call in on each other to see who’s got what and where the trends are. This is a consumer-led business, antiques go in and out of fashion, that keeps you on your toes, identifying trends as they start and buying up stuff to satisfy the trend. So we keep an eye on each other, make sure we don’t miss out. So I called in on Cernach’s and looked round, very impressed with their stock, less than impressed with the Carberrie woman, returned here and carried on, business as usual. I visited six months or so later and nothing seemed to have moved.’

  ‘Moved?’

  ‘In both senses, no item of furniture, or oil painting, or jewellery had moved an inch, that also meant it hadn’t been moved in the sense of being sold. Yet they seemed to still be in business. They were still open, view by appointment only.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Didn’t mention it to anybody but it puzzled me and so I paid my third visit about six months later and I kid you not, having taken more notice of things on my second visit, I came away convinced that they were selling nothing, nothing at all was being moved by that shop. About a year later it all went up in smoke. It just didn’t add up. Or perhaps it did.’

  ‘What do other people in the business think?’

  ‘As I do, that the whole affair was shot through with criminality. We felt it suspicious that it went up so quickly. Very old hardwood is actually quite difficult to burn, modern stuff no problem, a blaze in a furniture shop selling modern furniture, that gets very hot very quickly and destroys everything equally quickly, but you have to generate an awful lot of heat for a long time before you can reduce oak to a pile of ash, and even more heat to have the same effect on tropical hardwoods, and Cernach’s had some mouthwatering mahogany pieces.’

  King cleared his throat. For the second time that afternoon he felt embarrassed for his profession. ‘I think there’s more you want to tell me?’

  It’s the fact that there was more than one seat of fire…that takes time to organize. The story that it was a burglar starting a fire to cover his tracks isn’t credible. Not for us in the trade it isn’t. And to start a fire in a shop full of difficult-to-burn furniture you’d need something to help it along. A discarded cigarette on an armchair of modern manufacture is all you need to start an inferno. But if I were to place this cigarette on any piece of furniture in this shop, all I would succeed in doing is causing a superficial burn. I could even play the flame of my lighter against a piece of antique furniture and that would scorch it, but it wouldn’t catch fire. To start a blaze like that in Cernach’s you’d have to spread petrol liberally, on all three floors. What burglar is going to walk through the centre of Glasgow carrying that amount of petrol?’

  King could only shake his head in disbelief. ‘I wish you had come to us sooner.’

  ‘Sooner than what? And I haven’t come to you, you came to me. Also I have nothing to come with.’ Dickson paused. ‘Or perhaps, just perhaps, I have.’

  King raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes. You see, the thing that convinced us that it was a genuine act of vandalism was that if you come into this business, you do so because you love antiques, it is reaching out and touching history. I have in this shop two timepieces which are dated seventeen-thirty. They were in existence when the Young Pretender raised his standard, they were already seventy-five years old in Nelson’s day, they were over two hundred years old when the Second World War was being fought and they are here, in this shop. Fine art shops, antique shops and perhaps other ventures I can’t think of, don’t get burned down for the fire insurance. They just don’t, because their owners love their stock. If the business fails you can always sell your stock and move on. So you see, we couldn’t believe that anybody would willingly send irreplaceable antiques up in smoke, especially not an antique dealer.’

  ‘But now you think you’re wrong? That is what did happen?’

  ‘I don’t think I am, Mr King. You see, it’s only in talking to you just now that I may be able to suggest a solution. The aforementioned serious stuff didn’t go up in flames because it wasn’t in the shop.’

  ‘What did go up in flames?’

  ‘Junk.’

  A pause. The word seemed to echo round the small room, bouncing off the walls.

  Dickson allowed the implication to register and then continued. ‘You see, in the antique trade generally there is an awful lot of junk and the antique-furniture trade is no exception. In cheap auctions and charity shops you can buy furniture made of hardwood which has been neglected down the years, deeply scarred by being used as a workbench, broken, repaired with strips of metal, bits missing entirely

  ‘I get the picture. So, if the good stuff was moved out and sold for what it was worth and the junk put in place of the good stuff, then if the fire was hot and sustained enough, all you’d get would be ash.’

  ‘That’s my way of thinking. I’m no scientist but I would have thought that while you might be able to tell from a sample of ash what type of wood had been burnt, pine, oak, teak…you couldn’t from that sample gauge the value or condition of the piece of furniture before it was consigned to the flames.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so either.’ King felt weary. He felt he had made progress that afternoon, but it hadn’t been a comfortable ride.

  ‘Something I’d like to show you.’ Dickson stood, dogging his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. He left the room. King followed him.

  Montgomerie, having finished his recording of his visit to Kit Saffa in the Ronnie Grenn file, made three further phone calls.

  The first was an internal call to the collator. He asked the duty collator to access the file on Kit Saffa, specifically he wanted to know who was the last officer to access the file. The collator said that she would come back to him.

  The second call, made whilst sipping a fresh mug of coffee, was to the Female and Child
Unit of the Tayside Police at Dundee. Detective Constable Susan Neilson answered the phone.

  ‘…guy called Iveson,’ said Montgomerie. ‘I visited him yesterday, he gave us some useful information about a code four-one we have going on at present, but I felt I ought to phone you about him.’

  ‘Iveson.’ Constable Neilson had a pleasant lilting voice. ‘I confess that that name rings bells.’

  ‘Surprised you’re not deafened by said bells.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s a paedophile due for release and will be returning to a bail hostel in Dundee and thence into the community.’

  ‘Yes…yes, I remember now…we received a Scottish Office notice about him…’

  ‘I thought I’d phone you just to make said notice come alive as it were. So that he’s more real in your minds than might otherwise be the case, sort of lift him off the page, as it were.’

  ‘Appreciated.’

  ‘Prison’s done nothing for him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘There’s two problems with him, first he’s so looking forward to coming out that he’s already talking with relish about the “Tayside Fairies”, as he calls them.’

  ‘Ugh…’

  ‘Exactly, and not just to other lags as well, but to prison officers and visiting police officers.

  ‘The second problem is that he’s just the most manipulative person I’ve ever met. It goes beyond manipulation…I found myself being sucked in by his mind…so far as I can tell it’s down to eye contact and a soft voice, but I’m an adult not without life experience and I found myself being sucked in by him and he didn’t like it when he didn’t get his way with me. I can see how he can make the little people do exactly what he wants them to do.’

  ‘Particularly when two of his known victims were his own daughters. I remember reading his file now.’

  ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’

  ‘And we’ve been forewarned. Appreciate it.’

  The phone rang the instant Montgomerie put it down.

  ‘Collator…the information you requested is DC Shirra, Drug Squad. Two weeks ago.’

  ‘Drug Squad?’

  That’s what it says here.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Montgomerie put the phone down and made the third call to the Strathclyde Police Drug Squad. He identified himself and asked to speak to DC Shirra.

  ‘He’s on leave…’ Then to one of his colleagues, ‘When’s Kenny Shirra due back?’

  ‘Next week, Monday, back shift,’ called a voice in the background.

  ‘Next week, Monday, back shift,’ repeated the voice in Montgomerie’s ear. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Dunno, really…tell you what it is…I had occasion to visit one Kit Saffa this afternoon, he’s full of going straight with mended ways but something was missing, it didn’t come off somehow and he looked worried when I told him that each access to his file is recorded so we know who is of continuing interest, even though they may not be perpetrating “fellow-nays”. I wonder if you could tell me why you’re interested, just to set my mind at rest. He gave some useful information, he’s a previous known associate of the guy who was found in the West End yesterday morning with his brains blown out.’

  ‘Oh him…well, yes, we’re interested in Kit, he’s a prime target.’

  ‘Not the born-again full-time student wanting to do youth work, then?’

  ‘Well, he’s a full-time student and he’s interested in youth, but probably not in the way he’d have you believe.’

  ‘Not another sex offender. I’ve just…’

  ‘No, not another sex offender…if I were to say that he seems to enjoy great popularity, and is feverish in his activities running up to the weekends in which the cream of Paisley youth have a “rave”.’

  ‘Ecstasy?’

  ‘Got it in one. He’s thought, known, in fact, for pushing the stuff left, right and centre among the “buddies”. He’s got Paisley sewn up. Anybody that tries to muscle in on his pitch tends to end up in the Royal Alexandria with broken limbs.’

  ‘Tell me the old, old story.’

  ‘And don’t get taken in by the poor-but-honest lifestyle he has in Garthamlock. He needs to retain contact with the East End, that’s where the wholesale is to be had. He has a very nice house in Dumbarton, a Porsche in the garage and a gin palace in the marina. Leopards don’t change their spots, Malcolm.’

  ‘Poor Ronnie Grenn.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  The guy with no brains. Indications are that he was involved in something that he believed might give him enough folding green to go straight, just like his mentor Kit Saffa. If he’d known the true ID of Kit Saffa, he probably wouldn’t have become involved in whatever he was involved in and he’d still be alive right now. Anyway, thanks for the information. I was left wondering, now I’m not. Owe you one.’

  ‘Its a Westmorland dowry chest.’ Dickson stood in front of a dark, and even to King’s untrained eye, clearly ancient item of furniture. It stood in the corner of Dickson’s shop. It was, King estimated, of similar dimensions to the aluminium cabin trunks that university students have delivered to their lodgings at the beginning of each academic year. It was fastened by an ancient lock. ‘It’s seventeenth century,’ Dickson advised him, ‘contemporary with William Shakespeare.’

  ‘Blimey.’ King found himself becoming fascinated with the world of antiques, each item around him in this well-lit shop: these tables, these writing desks, these chairs all have a story, all have a place in recorded history. Who sat here, who there, what was written on that surface, what meals taken from that table…to say nothing of the craftsmanship of the carpentry. And that was just the furniture. Beyond the wood there are metal and gems, and clockworks, and oil on canvas. This could, King realized, be a dangerous interest if he allowed it to grow, financially speaking.

  ‘As an antique it isn’t, despite its age, particularly valuable, it’s not in excellent condition and it’s of very simple construction. It’s just a wooden chest, really, it’s the age which makes it interesting. If you want to buy it, it would cost you as much as a weekend break for two in Amsterdam, plus spending money. But the reason that I want to show it to you is this…’ Dickson paused as if collecting his thoughts. The first point to make is that this item of antique furniture is not unique, there are others in circulation but they are few in number. Dowry chests like this would have been owned by daughters of yeomen, in their day they were seen as having little value and so had a high wastage rate. They were chopped up for firewood or used to keep the coal in, so many were made, but few survived.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Often there’s nothing to tell them apart. But if I were a betting man, I’d lay a fiver that this item of furniture was on the second floor of Cernach’s on all three occasions when I visited. If I’m right it should be a pile of ash right now, yet here it is.’

  ‘When did you acquire it, sir?’

  ‘Six months ago, or thereabouts, from Fancy’s.’

  ‘Fancy’s?’

  ‘On the Great Western Road. They’re beyond reproach; auctioneers of this city for in excess of two hundred years. They would not touch anything dodgy and it only occurred to me what this chest might signify when I was talking to you, Mr King. You see, I’ve been walking past this chest for six months, each trading day for six months, and each time I walk past her…’

  ‘Her…?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help but personalize my stock, each one is a him or a her. Each time I walk past her I find myself thinking, “I know you, I’ve seen you before…” and only now do I realize that it was in Cernach’s, as certain as I can be without being certain. And that, you see, is as I said earlier, something else that just slots into place about the Cernach blaze. I mean, look around you, look at this beauty, this craftsmanship, this living history. Only someone with a heart made of Aberdeen granite could pour petrol over this for the fire insurance.’ Dickson paused and turned to King and held ey
e contact. ‘They burnt junk. Had to. They stored the good stuff, somewhere there’s a barn or a warehouse full of high-value antiques and they’re trickling them on to the market, one item at a time, one item every few months.’

  ‘And this being one?’

  ‘This being one.’

  Ray Sussock stirred, awoke, for a second he did not know where he was, the double bed in the ‘inshot’ in the room, the pastel-coloured decoration, the Van Gogh print on the wall. Oh yes…yes…he’d returned to Langside.

  ‘Afternoon, Old Sussock.’ Elka Willems sat in the armchair in the bay window reading the Glasgow Herald. She didn’t look at him as she spoke.

  Sussock groaned. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Five o’clock or thereabouts. You didn’t sleep much. You don’t sleep enough, really.’

  ‘It’ll be enough.’ Sussock knuckled his eyes. ‘Five o’clock, my poor body thinks it’s six o’clock.’

  Elka Willems glanced out of the window. Night had fallen over Langside. ‘Yes, it does seem strange that it’s so dark already. In Holland, you know, my father once…’ But she fell silent as she realized from a distinct snore that Raymond Sussock had drifted off to sleep. She said to herself, ‘I’ll wake you at nine, Old Sussock. If you’re not awake by then.’

  When he returned to P Division Police Station, to the DCs’ office on the CID corridor, he peeled off his coat and laid it beside Montgomerie’s ski jacket. He said hi to Montgomerie who sat with his feet on his desk reading a two-day-old copy of the Daily Record. King sat at his desk and picked up the phone and tapped a two-figure internal number.

  ‘Collator.’ A female voice, crisp, efficient-sounding.

  ‘DC King, P Division…two names for you, can you let me have anything you have on them…first one is Carberrie, Mary.’

  The collator requested clarification. She wanted to know whether it was Mary Carberry or Mary Carberrie. King said he understood it to be Carberrie but would she please try both spellings?

  ‘Do you have her numbers?’

  ‘Don’t,’ said King, leaning forwards as he spoke, ‘but she’s believed to be late forties, early fifties.’