The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

by Craig Russell

  ‘It never ceases to amaze me,’ he said without greeting.

  ‘What does?’

  ‘The stuff that finds its way into the river. Do you see it?’

  ‘What? That rusting metal thing?’

  ‘No, next to that, just under the surface. You can just make it out and no more . . .’

  I leaned forward and peered into the water. The sunlight bounced off its oil-sleeked veneer. ‘I can’t see anything, Jock.’

  ‘Look . . . there . . .’ he said impatiently and pointed.

  I saw an indistinct shape, angled in the water. It took me a while to make sense of its dark geometry, but attached to it further down, barely perceptible and streaked with grime and algae, I made out the vague pattern of a keyboard.

  ‘Shit . . .’ I said. ‘An upright piano?’

  ‘Like I say, it never ceases to amaze me what gets dumped in the Clyde. All kinds of secrets.’ Ferguson turned to me pointedly. ‘You’re someone who has a lot of secrets. I sometimes wonder how many of them you’ve dumped into the river. I tell you now, Lennox, this had better be good. And why all this cloak and dagger shite?’

  ‘I need you to get me into that police smoker.’

  Ferguson made a point of looking startled. ‘You amaze me, Lennox. You really have the brass neck to ask that again? I gave you my answer and I gave it to you pretty clearly, as I recall.’ He turned and started back along the pier.

  ‘I’m not asking, Jock,’ I said. ‘I’m telling you I need you to get me into that smoker.’

  He turned, his face suddenly stone-dark like the pier. ‘You fucking what?’

  ‘I need you to listen to me, Jock, because I’m not going to say this again. You’ll either help me or you won’t. I am keeping you in the dark about something – but I’m not keeping you in the dark because I’m up to something shady, but to keep you safe. I know you suspect I’m halfway crooked and most of your colleagues think I’m all the way crooked, but I’m telling you I really am on the side of the angels with this one. Whatever suspicions you may have about me, you must have seen something worthwhile to recommend me for the bank run. I’m asking you to trust me again.’

  His expression changed and he came back to stand beside me. ‘What have you got yourself into, Lennox?’

  ‘Something big and something that stinks. Something rotten. And there’s a good chance I’ll not come out of it breathing.’

  ‘Has this something to do with Quiet Tommy Quaid?’

  ‘The less you know the better, trust me. I’m asking you for a favour, Jock. Maybe the last I’ll ever ask you. I need you to do me this favour and answer a couple of questions. After that I need you to forget everything I asked of you. The favour I need is for you to get me into that police smoker.’

  ‘And your questions?’

  ‘Okay . . . I’m guessing me telling you that I’m into something big isn’t news to you – you already know I’ve attracted heavy attention. I need you to tell me the truth, Jock: when Archie and Twinkletoes do the bank run again this week, they don’t have anything to worry about with that blue van that followed us last time, do they? You know damned well it wasn’t full of armed robbers.’

  Ferguson looked at me for a moment, his expression unreadable. ‘Yes. Yes I do.’

  ‘Special Branch?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not our lot. But it was a Home Office registered vehicle. Like I said, London. I got a shout from upstairs demanding I explain why I was asking about that registration number. I had to tell them the truth: that it had been spotted following a cash van and was suspected of carrying armed robbers. I was told in short order that there was nothing to worry about and to drop the subject pronto if I knew what was good for me. They didn’t exactly give me the “matter of national security” shite, but it was implied.’

  ‘Trust me, Jock, this has nothing to do with national security.’

  ‘Then what has it to do with? You asked me to trust you, why don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Because you’re a good man. The same way Quiet Tommy Quaid was a good man. The problem with you good men is that you always try to do the right thing – or worse, the right thing in the right way – and that could very easily cost you your career or even your life. I’m afraid the only type of man who can deal with this is someone who is a little bit rotten inside. Someone who can do the right thing in the wrong way. We both know that’s me. And if it turns to shit . . . well, let’s face it, I’m not that much of a loss to the world.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Lennox—’

  ‘Can you get me into that smoker or not?’

  ‘What are you going to do there?’

  ‘Don’t worry, nothing dramatic. I’m just going to be there. Show face. Trust me, that’ll be enough.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll get you in. Do you need anything else?’

  I handed Ferguson a note with a date on it: it was the same date as the show for which Tommy had had a ticket stub.

  ‘I need to know if there were any break-ins that night,’ I said. ‘Either private residences or commercial premises – but you can ignore anything low-grade. I’m talking about something worthwhile being taken or the victim being someone important.’

  ‘So this has to do with Quiet Tommy Quaid?’

  ‘Will you check it out for me or not, Jock?’

  He looked at me in that odd blank way of his, then nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘There’s a guy calls himself McNaught – although if that’s his real name mine’s Mitzi Gaynor. Military type, probably ex-officer. Built like a brick shithouse. The most noticeable thing about him is he has a facial wound, probably picked up during the war – makes his face look lopsided. Ring any bells?’

  Ferguson thought for a minute. ‘None. Do you think he’s police?’

  I shook my head. ‘If he is, he’s of the secret variety.’ I found myself using the same vocabulary as Nancy Ross. ‘But again not local Special Branch. I suspect he’s connected to my pals in the blue van. But I get the odd feeling he is unofficial – some kind of independent dirty-tricks contractor, but he’s tied in with the powers that be, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Is that what you’re telling me? That your opposition in all this is “the powers that be”?’

  ‘People connected to them, yes. But I need you to believe me that I’m the cowboy wearing the white hat here. Crimes have been committed, Jock. A series of the worst kind of crime you can imagine – crimes that are punishable under the law, except they’ll never see the light of day. And it’s people in positions of authority who have committed them. They’re beyond your reach. Beyond the law.’

  ‘Nobody’s beyond the law.’

  I gave Ferguson a you-really-can’t-be-that-naive look and his assurance withered under it. He stood silently watching the oily rainbow swirls on the water for a moment. ‘Are you telling me there are City of Glasgow Police officers involved?’

  I sighed. ‘You don’t want me to answer that. I won’t answer that.’

  Again he stared silently down at the water.

  ‘Looking for the rest of the orchestra?’ I asked.

  ‘No – just for what’ll be left of my career if you screw up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, Jock,’ I said. ‘If I screw up, I’ll be down there keeping it company.’

  3

  Sometimes it’s the silences, the spaces between the words, you have to listen to. A cold shiver had run through me when Jock Ferguson had talked about secrets I might have dumped in the Clyde: there was one for sure, a big secret from a couple of years back, and I wondered just how much Ferguson knew, or suspected, about that sunken secret. The main thing was that he hadn’t challenged me about, alluded to or otherwise mentioned the fire in the lock-up and the done-to-a-crisp remains found inside. It wasn’t there in his words and it wasn’t there in the spaces in between.

  The fire and burnt corpse down by the Clyde were an obvious connection for him to make, but only if ownership of the storage shed could
be traced back to Tommy Quaid; knowing Tommy I guessed that, when he had rented the storage unit, he had made sure to brush his footsteps very thoroughly from the sand.

  Ferguson was a difficult man to read. I trusted him – but I trusted him only as much as I could trust a policeman, and it worried me what his copper’s instincts would do with the vague ghosts of truths I had given him. I was testing his loyalties: he had worked out that there were police officers involved, but knew they were involved in something so corrupt that I was prepared to risk my neck over it. Whatever happened, I just hoped Ferguson had the sense not to stretch his own neck out too far.

  *

  Despite it now being the start of August, Glasgow, as was its wont, had grown bored with summer and decided to try out a different season. It became suddenly cooler but remained muggy, and Glasgow’s sky took on its customary pallor: a sheet of pale grey in which clouds had no individual form was pulled over the city like a shower curtain. Every now and then, thick globs of viscous rain were spat against the Alpine’s windscreen.

  At least, I thought as I drove out of the city and southwards into Ayrshire, the weather is becoming more sympathetic to my mood.

  Sometimes, if you wanted something to happen, you had to give the world a bit of a helping hand; give a little push to get things rolling.

  It was time to let the dog see the rabbit.

  *

  St Andrew’s School was about twenty minutes south of Ayr on the coast road. It sat on the edge of a bulge of land that shouldered its way into the sea. The drive had taken me an hour and a half and would have been pleasant if the weather had been in the same mood of only a day before. As it was, the greens of the Ayrshire coast and the blues of the sea had been muted to greys by the opaque sky and a thin coastal fog.

  The school was set against the backdrop of the Firth of Clyde and the distant, southern tip of the Isle of Arran. That should have made it an appealing locale, but it was set against a backdrop of the Firth of Clyde and Arran in the same way Castle Dracula was set against a backdrop of peaceful mountains and woodland. The dark grey building looked more than forbidding: it was as if its Victorian architect had been briefed to scare the bejesus out of any poor kid unfortunate enough to be sent there. Five storeys high with baronial-type towers at each corner, the school sat square and fort-like, with its back turned to the rippling grey shield of sea; I couldn’t work out whether the imperative had been to keep strangers out or keep its inhabitants in.

  The school was poised on an oblong hillock that looked unnatural, like some huge burial mound. A broad expanse of playing fields sat on the flatlands to one side; on the other side scattered copses of meagre trees stood unconvinced between rolling, grassy dunes, as if considering moving inland where their roots would find more substance to hold on to.

  There were only four other cars sitting outside the main entrance, suggesting there must be a car park for staff somewhere out of sight. The school was five miles from the nearest settlement in either direction, its only near neighbour the broken-toothed ruins of a coastal castle, and I guessed that most of the school’s staff would probably live in during term time.

  Before I got out of the car I took a leather satchel briefcase out from where I’d stuffed it under the passenger seat: having it gave me a more official look, added to which was that I had a couple of things in it I didn’t want to leave unattended.

  Standing outside the car, I could smell the ocean’s ozone breath in the air. It was a smell I associated with the sunshine of childhood summer days on the Bay of Fundy and it seemed completely out of place here, as I looked up at the grey fortress of the school against the insipid sky.

  I felt suddenly isolated and despondent, as if I was suddenly a thousand miles from civilization – although I put a lot of that down to being in Ayrshire.

  The main entrance opened into a large hall that, in true Scottish institutional style, managed to combine the baronial with the municipal. It was empty of people and I had to scan the signs on the burgundy-varnished oak doors before I found one that said SCHOOL OFFICE. I knocked and went in. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses scowled at me.

  ‘Hello,’ I said with my disarming Canadian cheeriness, ‘I’m here to see Mr Moncrieff, the headmaster.’

  ‘Is Major Moncrieff expecting you?’ She had short curly hair, and the horn-rims sat on a nose that was on the pug side of retroussé. In her late forties, she exuded all of the furious sexual repression of the eternal Miss.

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘Yes he is. I have an appointment. I’m Captain Lennox.’

  She scowled at me again, or maybe it was just the same scowl from a different angle, turned on her heel and disappeared into the hall.

  A couple of minutes later she reappeared. ‘Follow me,’ she said dourly, and led me briskly along the hall, rapping on another door.

  She swung the door open on command and held it for me to enter. Moncrieff welcomed me with one of those weary ‘I’ve got much more important things to do than talk to the likes of you’ smiles – and shook my hand. A small, balding, overweight man of about fifty with a military-style trimmed moustache, there wasn’t much of an academic air to Moncrieff. Despite the military tache and title, he didn’t much look like a man of action either and I reckoned him for the type who’d seen the war out from behind a desk.

  I examined him closely to see if he corresponded to any of the images seared into my brain during its brief exposure to the photographs. He didn’t; but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved.

  ‘Please sit down, Mr Lennox.’ He sat behind his huge desk and I sat opposite him. ‘It wasn’t very clear from your telephone call . . . what exactly is your interest in Robert Weston?’

  ‘Robert was a pupil here, I believe. A boarder.’

  ‘That’s correct. We have no day-boys or -girls here; everyone boards. But Robert left St Andrew’s over a year ago.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to him – after he left, I mean? Where he was living and what he was doing?’

  ‘We take great care to make sure all our former pupils are placed. Most, it has to be said, follow our advice and go into the services. It is my belief that the forces can offer a true family to those who have lost their own. But Robert didn’t want that. He was living in lodgings in Glasgow and we found him a place at a technical college there. Architecture, I believe.’

  ‘Have you any idea what could have driven him to do what he did?’

  ‘As I said, Robert left a year ago and, tragic though his accident was, it really has nothing to do with St Andrew’s. Anyway, you haven’t answered my question, Mr Lennox: what is your interest in young Robert?’

  ‘Suicide.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said Robert Weston’s death was an accident. It wasn’t: it was suicide. And my interest is because I’m investigating another suspicious death and there’s a chance the two may be linked. In fact I’m pretty certain of it.’

  ‘Oh? In what way linked?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to establish. And it’s also where you can perhaps help me.’

  ‘I don’t really know how I can.’ He frowned. ‘You said that you were looking into another suspicious death. Surely, tragic though it was, there can be nothing suspicious about Robert’s suicide?’

  ‘Robert committed suicide, all right. There’s no doubt about that. What interests me is why he killed himself. What, and who, drove him to it.’

  ‘You think someone drove Robert to take his own life?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. What I’m trying to understand are the circumstances surrounding his death: the people and events. The other death I’m investigating is tied into those circumstances.’

  ‘If there’s something suspicious about either of these deaths, shouldn’t the police be involved?’

  ‘Oh, the police are involved all right. The authorities. Let’s just say I’m assembling a case that may be of interest to the appropriate parties.’ I let it sink in for a moment. �
�What can you tell me about Robert? What kind of boy was he?’

  ‘There’s not much to tell, if I’m honest. We never had any trouble with him, if that’s what you mean. He was quiet. Kept himself to himself but otherwise contented. We never had any cause for concern – either about his behaviour or his mental wellbeing. It has of course to be said that Robert was an orphan and that in itself can lead to a profound sense of isolation. Ultimately depression. But a great many of our pupils are orphans and we are experienced in dealing with the problems that can attend. As a former pupil and outside the school, poor Robert was also beyond our pastoral care. Perhaps if—’

  ‘Did he have many visitors?’ I cut Moncrieff off and his expression conveyed that he wasn’t used to being interrupted.

  ‘As I explained to you, Robert was an orphan. He had no other family, immediate or otherwise, as far as I am aware.’

  ‘That’s not the kind of visitor I’m talking about. Did anyone else ever have any kind of – I don’t know – any kind of interest in Robert?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite—’

  ‘Any benefactor, or any other adults with an interest in him.’ I now didn’t just have my head above the parapet, I was standing on top of it, waving red flags and shouting come and get me. Moncrieff was trying awfully hard not to understand my meaning, but, as someone unused to having his authority challenged, his dissimulation was clumsy.

  ‘No. Robert never received any other visitors.’

  ‘Did he ever go on trips out of the school?’

  ‘Trips?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know . . . to Edinburgh. Or Glasgow. Places where he might have met with other people. Maybe a school outing with other pupils. Theatre outings, perhaps.’ I paused. ‘Comedy shows . . .’

  ‘No.’ It wasn’t an answer; it was intended as a punctuation mark. A full stop.

  ‘I see.’ I leaned back in the chair and rode the silence for a second.

  ‘Well, Mr Lennox, if that’s everything.’ Moncrieff started to rise; I stayed glued.

  ‘It’s just that I thought he might have had other visitors. Or maybe he was close to a particular member of staff. Your pupils come mainly from military families, is that right?’