The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

by Craig Russell

  ‘What can I do for you, Mr McNaught?’

  ‘I have a job for you. More correctly, my client has a job for you.’

  ‘Your client?’

  ‘I am an intermediary. A broker, if you like. I have been hired by a party who wishes to remain anonymous. They instruct and pay me, I instruct and pay you.’

  ‘Pay me for what?’

  ‘An idea. Or at least for you to secure that idea for them. It’s your business to gather information for clients; there’s a single, specific piece of information that is of great commercial value to my client. To our client.’

  ‘What kind of information?’

  ‘I’ll give you the details if and when we come to an arrangement, but what we’re talking about is basically a design for something. Something my client’s competitors have developed and that gives them an unfair commercial advantage. My client would very much like to obtain the details of this advantage.’

  Again I studied McNaught, taking a moment to work out exactly whose army he’d been in.

  ‘It sounds to me like the information you’re talking about is more like secrets,’ I said. ‘They hang people for stealing those, in this country.’

  McNaught laughed lopsidedly, the damage to his face restricting the movement on the right. It turned his smile into something ugly and disturbing. ‘You’re right, Mr Lennox, I’m asking you to steal secrets and get involved in espionage. But not those kinds of secrets nor that kind of espionage. What we’re talking about is purely industrial espionage. And, technically, industrial espionage isn’t illegal in this country.’

  ‘But what you’re asking me to do is of dubious legality.’

  ‘No it’s not. There’s absolutely no dubiety about it whatsoever – it’s illegal. Stealing industrial secrets may be no crime, but those secrets are, of course, kept under lock and key. The means of gaining access to those premises – breaking and entering – is a crime, even if it’s only intellectual property that ends up being stolen. I’m asking you to conspire to commit a crime, even if that crime is petty.’ He paused, leaning the ramrod he had for a spine back in the chair and taking his turn to study me. ‘From what I’ve been able to gather about you, Mr Lennox, bending the law shouldn’t present much of a problem. And that’s why you’re being paid a premium. I’m authorized to offer you a deal that compensates for the risk.’

  ‘How much compensation are we talking about?’

  ‘Two hundred pounds now, a further five hundred when the files are delivered to me. But I have to point out that once the two hundred pounds is paid, you are committed to delivering the files. Failure to do so could have unpleasant results. My clients may be respectable and conventional, but my associates and I are not. We have a reputation for delivering what we promise to deliver . . . and we take that reputation very, very seriously. If you say yes, you’re committed. If you cannot commit fully, then say no now and I’ll leave. Are we clear?’

  The darkness of his threat was lost in the cosy glow generated by the idea of seven hundred pounds, at least three hundred of which would warm my back pocket. I nodded. He dipped a hand into his briefcase. When it came out, the hand was holding a satisfyingly thick bundle of banknotes, tight-bound with elastic bands. Homely as the reigning monarch might have been, I always felt an almost erotic thrill when I saw her face on a Bank of England twenty-pound note. McNaught sat the bundle on the desk between us; Pavlov rattled my dish and I smiled again.

  ‘So, for whom would I be working?’

  ‘You’re working for me. I thought I made that clear.’

  ‘Okay then . . . for whom are you working?’

  ‘I hope we’re not going to have a difficulty, Mr Lennox. You do not need to know – you should not know nor try to find out – who my client is. Like you, I’m self-employed. Another link in the chain, as it were. Or a buffer between my client and you. Between my client and everyone else, for that matter. All you need to know is that I represent someone who will benefit from the information you obtain.’

  I nodded. ‘You realize that I won’t be visiting the premises myself? I have to hire a specialist contractor for that.’ Whenever entering somewhere without the convenience of a legally held key came to mind, so did Quiet Tommy Quaid. But I was going to be as tight-lipped about who I’d use as McNaught was about his client’s identity.

  ‘I assumed you would,’ he said, ‘and that you would have someone particular in mind. It has to be someone who’s good with heights and whose discretion can be relied upon. You’re being well paid for this, so I don’t expect you to cut corners.’

  ‘I won’t. The person I’m thinking about has worked for me before and he’s the best in the business. But it means I will have additional expenses. Shall we round it up to a thousand?’

  McNaught’s hand reached out for the two hundred on the desk and the cosy glow began to dim.

  ‘Okay . . .’ I surrendered faster than a Govan girl on a Saturday night. ‘Seven hundred it is. How do I contact you?’

  McNaught withdrew his hand and I again basked in the glow. ‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay in touch with you. I take it I can trust you to keep this business strictly to yourself and your contractor? Absolutely no one else.’

  ‘I won’t even discuss it with my associate here,’ I promised. ‘Heights?’

  McNaught frowned. ‘Heights?’

  ‘You said whomever I hired had to be good with heights.’

  ‘Oh, I see. It’s your business, of course, but the best way into the premises is through the roof. It’s a large industrial complex and entry is through a skylight, six floors up and across pitched roofs. There is minimal security but a night watchman is based on the ground floor and does – or is supposed to do – an hourly walk around and checks the doors at ground level.’

  ‘I think that my guy would rather make his own plan. He’s a bit of a perfectionist.’

  ‘That is of course entirely a matter for you and him, but we have taken the liberty of surveying the building and the security arrangements. Just to save you time.’

  ‘Speaking of time, when do you need the stuff?’

  ‘Before the end of the month. That gives you enough time to plan and execute the break-in. But I will need to know when you plan to carry it out. The exact date and time.’

  ‘Sounds like someone needs an alibi.’

  ‘Again, that’s not your concern. All you need to focus on is getting your man in and out with the plans, ideally leaving little or no trace of his presence. I need to know which night you’re planning to go through with it. Exact times.’ Reaching again into his briefcase, he brought out a foolscap envelope, which he set next to the cash on the desktop. ‘In there you will find the address of the company, photographs and plans of the building and details of what you’re looking for and where to find it.’

  I reached for the envelope but McNaught laid his hand on top of it.

  ‘If you open this and see where the job is, you are committed to taking it. Understand?’

  I nodded. I didn’t pick up the envelope but I didn’t withdraw my hand either.

  McNaught sat back. ‘If there’s anything you want to ask before taking the job, now’s the time to ask it.’

  ‘Are these plans kept under lock and key? If there’s a safe, then that could be tricky and, whatever you say, the cost would have to go up.’

  McNaught shook his head. ‘No safe. The blueprints we want are kept in a draughtsman’s office on the third floor, stored in a plan chest. There’s always a chance that the chest will be secure, so your contractor should be able to deal with locks, although it shouldn’t be anything too challenging. I have to say that if the person you use is skilful enough, there is a good chance that not only will he get in and out without detection, but also it might be some time before the removal of the plans is discovered. Which would actually be preferable.’

  ‘Why not just photograph them? The plans, I mean,’ I added helpfully, and a little cleverly, I thought. McNa
ught’s expression suggested he didn’t share my opinion of my intelligence.

  ‘You read too many spy novels, Mr Lennox. Admittedly it would be one way of making sure no one would know that the ideas had been stolen, but all it takes is for your man’s skills as a photographer not to match his as a burglar and the photographs turn out blurry and unreadable – or for something to go wrong in the developing process. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I always think it’s an idea to have as few links as possible. Anyway, like I say, it could be days, even weeks, before these original blueprints are noticed missing.’ He paused. ‘This really is a high-pay, low-risk opportunity, Mr Lennox. Seven hundred pounds for a single night’s work. If you’re not interested, then there are plenty of others I could ask.’

  ‘So why haven’t you?’ I saw a contradiction in what McNaught was saying: as far as I could see, I was an unnecessary link in the chain; a little asking around and he could probably have found and hired Quiet Tommy Quaid himself. And more cheaply.

  ‘Because most of them are criminals. This enterprise lies only partly on the wrong side of the law; criminals are completely on the wrong side of the law. Less reliable. And more chance of complications with the police.’

  ‘And I fit your picture of someone with a foot planted on both sides of the law, is that it?’

  ‘I’m asking you to do what your business card says you do. I just need you to bend the law a little to do it. So yes – I not only believe you have the skills needed to manage this perfectly, but that your door would not be the first port of call for the police, should they become involved. And I’m guessing you would only hire someone you can guarantee to keep their mouth shut should they be unlucky enough to be caught.’

  ‘That’s something I can absolutely guarantee.’ My hand still rested on the envelope and I looked questioningly at McNaught. He nodded and I lifted and opened it.

  ‘This looks like—’

  ‘The Saracen Ironworks. Yes,’ McNaught interrupted me.

  ‘What are these plans you’re stealing?’ I asked, confused. I had expected the layout of some top-secret laboratory somewhere. ‘The pattern for a 'phone box? I could sketch that out for you here and now.’ The red 'phone box had become, for those like myself not born in the sceptred isle, an icon of Britishness. Most red 'phone boxes in the UK had been cast at the Saracen Foundry. The romance of this particular cultural icon had faded for me over my years in Glasgow, mainly because of the locals’ custom of using them as public conveniences. I also reflected that only minutes before, as I had watched the police arrive at Central Station, I had been looking at the Saracen Foundry’s work in the shape of the station entrance’s elaborate cast iron canopy.

  ‘I’m sure you’re aware that the foundry produces more than fountains, bandstands and 'phone boxes,’ said McNaught. ‘The nature of the item we’re interested in is none of your concern. The details in there tell you what your man is looking for and where to find it.’

  ‘Okay.’ I shrugged. McNaught was right: it would be a walk in the park for Quiet Tommy Quaid. Security was light and the works were out of town and there wouldn’t be many coppers pounding the Possilpark beat. Possilpark was a part of Glasgow that had been created out of the green fields of some toff’s estate and built over with tenements exclusively used as housing for the foundry’s workers. Medieval serfdom had simply been replaced with a newer, post-Industrial Revolution version. At Possilpark’s heart and surrounded by a high wall, the foundry buildings themselves covered acres of land. I still was confused as to why an ironworks would be the target of industrial espionage – but as McNaught had pointed out, that was his and his client’s business, not mine.

  Before he left, McNaught told me to be by my home 'phone on Sunday, ‘between thirteen hundred and thirteen-thirty hours’, when he or an associate would 'phone me to get the exact day and time the ‘mission’ would take place.

  I nodded, but there was something about McNaught’s military way of phrasing things that seemed heavy-handed: carrying out your mission instead of pulling off the job; between thirteen hundred and thirteen-thirty hours not between one and one-thirty p.m. It was almost as if he had been trying too hard to paint a military background.

  *

  Archie returned about twenty minutes after McNaught had left. He told me all about his bank meeting with his usual lugubrious wit. We were being entrusted with an extra delivery on the wages run, he explained, and were expected to go at least three-handed – usually the runs were handled by the unlikely duo of Archie and Twinkletoes McBride. Unlikely because Archie was an ex-copper and Twinkletoes McBride was, well, Twinkletoes. If you put ‘ex’ in front of just about any criminal activity that involved extreme violence, then you’d get a snapshot of McBride’s curriculum vitae. But Twinkle had turned over a new leaf – mainly thanks to me, it had to be said – and his intimidating physical presence had proved a successful deterrent on the bank runs.

  ‘Anything new while I was away?’ Archie asked.

  I told him about the excitement over at Central Station. Some kind of accident, I guessed.

  ‘Nothing else?’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s been as quiet as the grave, Archie.’

  3

  I had a date, of sorts, that night. Or at least the early part of the evening.

  My venturesome time as an officer in occupied Hamburg at the end of the war had presented me with unexpected entrepreneurial opportunities – the result being that I’d managed to stash away my little Nibelungengold hoard. Generally speaking, people didn’t have any kind of moral or legal problem with you making your fortune by playing the market – I could never grasp the difference between a stockbroker and a bookie – and that’s all I could be accused of doing in Hamburg: playing the market.

  However, the particular market I had played had been on the dark side of black, and the military police and the local German authorities seemed to have had a problem with it – especially when a German associate of mine took a face-down dip in the harbour. It all ended with my hasty – and almost-but-not-quite-dishonourable – exit from military life.

  My time in Glasgow since had also provided other earning opportunities I hadn’t wanted to be a nuisance to the taxman about. Altogether it had meant a very tidy sum had accrued in my under-a-loose-floorboard-beneath-the-bed bank account.

  My plan had always been to use my Nibelungen Hoard to get back to Canada some day when I was less fucked up and my hands were that little bit cleaner. Before the war, I’d been someone else, somewhere else: the bright-eyed, idealistic Kennebecasis Kid growing up in Canada and careless privilege. After the war, a different Lennox was demobbed from the 1st Canadian Army, and Glasgow had been waiting for him, like an accomplice hanging about prison gates.

  But, scathing as I was about the place, I’d grown fond of Glasgow. It was the kind of place and the kind of people that got under your skin, and it had remained my dark accomplice, our characters suiting each other. A match made somewhere other than in heaven.

  Given that my Glaswegian sojourn had turned semi-permanent, I’d decided to place a chunk of my gains, ill-gotten and otherwise, into a stylish little place in a nineteen-thirties Art Deco apartment building – one of those redbrick and stucco deals – in Kelvin Court.

  It was a bright and elegant flat with a largish lounge, two bedrooms, biggish bathroom and a separate kitchen. Most importantly, it had a dining room, which was the most significant social identifier in Glasgow: Glaswegians who unwrapped the newspaper from their fish suppers in a separate room considered themselves quite the cut above. French windows opened out from the dining room onto a narrow balcony and the whole place looked out over a tree-fringed square of car park and gardens to Great Western Road.

  It was a nice place in a nice part of town and, sickeningly, my property ownership brought out more than a little petty bourgeois pride in me. But not bourgeois enough to stop me entertaining ladies there. I was discreet, but my social life had stil
l attracted the disapproving attention of some of the other residents.

  Which brings me to Irene.

  After the war, after I had all of the bright-eyed, pre-war Kennebecasis Kid naivety kicked out of me, I generally saw things the way they were: all of the absurdity and crap we build into ways of living. It wasn’t as if I spent all my time looking for the emotional and psychological wreckage all around me, it was just that I couldn’t help tripping over it.

  It was especially true in Glasgow when you saw life stories written before they’d been lived: seen the face of a passing teenage girl filled with the resignation of a sixty-year-old; or watching some tenement kid, happy and grimy from street-play, smile as his paper boat sailed on oil-sleeked gutter water towards a storm-drain, unaware of deep metaphorical irony. The fact was that the whole determinism or free-will hoopla just didn’t fly here in Glasgow: it was the kind of place your future was handed to you the second you were born. And it usually was crap.

  The truth was that most were complicit in their own doom. You could never have described nineteen-fifties Britain – especially Scotland – as the most progressive of societies. They were all still there: all the fossilized ideas and forms, codes and systems that had been impressed into the British social consciousness. It wasn’t just a case of keeping people in their place, but getting them to keep themselves, and each other, in their place. It was how ships got built, how wars got fought, how the machinery of Empire was kept running. It was odd that no one seemed to have noticed that the Empire wasn’t there any more.