The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

by Craig Russell

  It was McNaught, all right.

  5

  I reversed the Alpine a few yards, hiding it behind the shoulder of a tenement. Cursing the nobility of my motives in leaving the gun and knife back at home in the drawer, I got out, went round to the trunk and took out the Alpine’s tyre lever.

  By the time I was back around the corner, everyone except one heavy had disappeared back inside the garage and the door had been closed. Avoiding the guard goon’s eyeline, I headed down the street in the opposite direction from the garage before crossing the road. Two doors down from the garage was a cheerless-looking pub, its doors closed till opening time, and I slipped up the alley beside it and into a high-walled backyard. A stack of metal beer kegs against the yard’s back wall served as steps and I climbed over, dropping down on the other side.

  The lane I landed in, as I had guessed it would, ran along the back of the pub, its two neighbouring tenements and the garage beyond them. I ran along it until I reached the back of the garage building, which had no doors directly onto the lane. The garage’s back joined seamlessly to a six-feet-high perimeter brick wall that ran around the yard and forecourt; I used the full width of the lane to take a running jump and managed to hook my elbows over the top without dropping the tyre lever and haul myself up and over the soot-grimed wall. The logic of having a tailor run me up some dungarees was gaining appeal as my day progressed.

  I was now at the side of the garage and was able to work my way around without McNaught’s burly lookout spotting me. I tried to stay close to the wall, but had to weave in and out of piles of tyres and exhaust pipes leaning against it. Coming to a metal-framed window, I had to duck down. Hazarding a quick look through the grimy glass, I could see that McNaught and his other heavy had Davey Wilson hemmed into a corner. He didn’t look like he’d been worked over, but he didn’t look like they’d dropped round for high tea either. Coercion and threat, of one form or another, hung over the snapshot scene. McNaught said something to the heavy, then turned and headed out of my sight. I heard the door roll up, McNaught say something to the man he’d posted on guard, then the door closing again.

  There was the sound of a car starting and driving away. I guessed my opposition had just been reduced by a third.

  I edged to the corner of the garage, took a breath and swung around it.

  ‘Hello,’ I said cheerily. ‘I’m from the better business bureau . . .’

  The heavy at the door was built like a weightlifter, was taller than me with a busted nose and red hair cropped short. He looked surprised for a split second, then took a step towards me, recovering his air of authority.

  I swung the tyre lever hard and it made a crunching contact. Feeling Quiet Tommy Quaid’s ghostly hand on my shoulder, I had deliberately avoided the goon’s skull, where I could have done potentially lethal damage. Instead I hit the side of his face, simultaneously depriving him of his air of authority, along with his consciousness and several teeth on the right side.

  At least he would now have more in common with his boss, McNaught.

  The big guy went down like a felled redwood and I took true Canadian pride in my lumberjacking skill. I crouched down over him and rifled through his pockets, hoping that no one passing along Crow Road, from where the front of the garage was clearly visible, would notice. He was carrying nothing in his pockets in the way of an official ID or that otherwise suggested he was police or from any other official bureau. And anyway, he looked wrong to me for a copper, secret or otherwise: he had more of the dodgy hired muscle look about him. I did, however, feel a bulge under his jacket, tucked beneath his left armpit.

  ‘Naughty, naughty,’ I said as I slipped the revolver out of its holster. The heft of it in my hand, I had to admit, felt good. He had started to gurgle on blood and teeth, so I dragged him to one side and propped him up against the garage in a sitting position. I could have done more for him, but he and his pal indoors had the type of beefy arms that had sent me bye-byes in Tommy’s lock-up and I was running low on the milk of human kindness.

  I checked the forecourt: the Rover P4 was still there but the Jag, presumably with McNaught in it, had gone. I rattled the metal door by knocking on it lightly a couple of times, reckoning goon number two would think I was goon number one. I switched the gun to my left hand and readied the tyre lever in my right.

  As I had hoped, the other heavy opened the shuttered door, sending it rushing upwards with a hefty push. His arms were still raised and would have blocked the same kind of roundhouse swing I’d executed on his pal. I also noted he was even bigger and tougher-looking than his pal, so I brought the lever down hard onto his forehead, deciding to shelve my newly found consideration for my fellow man. There was a gout of blood and he clutched his head with both hands. Dazed, he obligingly leaned forward and I hit him again, this time on the back of the skull, not hard enough to risk killing him, but hard enough. He wished Vienna goodnight and dropped. I threw down the tyre lever and switched the revolver to my right hand. Davey Wilson looked stunned, his mouth open.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m fine. But I’m glad you got here when you did. He was about to start work on me. Christ – have you killed him?’

  ‘Where did McNaught go?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Their boss.’

  ‘Oh . . . he told that one,’ he indicated the muscleman on the floor, ‘to get me to tell them what they wanted, then cleared off. He didn’t say where. No . . . wait a minute . . . he did say something about seeing them “back at the warehouse”.’

  ‘Did he say if he would be coming back here?’

  Davey was staring at the unconscious goon, shock beginning to take hold. I snapped my fingers in front of his face to bring him back.

  ‘Davey, stay with me. Did McNaught say if he was coming back here?’

  ‘No. But it didn’t sound like he was.’

  ‘What did they want from you? To find out where Jimmy is?’

  ‘Aye. I wasn’t going to tell them anything. I think they would have killed me.’

  ‘If you’d told them what they wanted to know they would have killed you anyway, then Jimmy. What I want to know is why they’re being less cautious. They went to a great deal of trouble to stage Tommy’s death as an accident. Now they’re getting plain sloppy.’

  ‘They seemed to think that Jimmy’s got something that they’ll do anything to get hold of. Something Quiet Tommy Quaid gave him.’

  ‘And does he?’

  ‘Not that I know of. But whatever they think it is Jimmy’s got, they’re desperate to get their hands on it.’

  ‘Did they say what it was?’

  ‘No. All they wanted to know was where to find Jimmy. That one’ – he indicated the unconscious man – ‘asked their boss if he wanted them to search the garage, but he said “it wouldn’t be here”. Whatever “it” is.’

  I thought about what Davey had said. What I had seen briefly in Quiet Tommy’s lock-up was the kind of dynamite that those involved would go to any lengths to retrieve. But they had retrieved it – and had probably by now destroyed it. Everything that had happened, everything Davey was telling me, suggested that it hadn’t been the whole picture.

  They were desperate because they hadn’t got everything back.

  ‘We need to get tidied up,’ I said. ‘The other monkey is outside . . . let’s get him into the garage and shut the door – ideally without half of Partick seeing.’

  Once we’d got the other guy inside, I went over to the wall telephone and dialled.

  ‘Who are you calling?’ asked Davey.

  ‘Housekeeping . . .’ I said.

  *

  By the time Twinkletoes McBride arrived, the first of McNaught’s men was fully conscious, but had no fight in him. And unless he had always possessed the ability to talk round corners, I’d badly dislocated his jaw with the tyre lever. He sat leaning forward, allowing the blood to flow from his mouth where his teeth had shattered. I could see he
was in a lot of pain.

  I had done that to him: despite my good intentions and promises of a new start, I was back in the dark. Maybe I really was one of that type who Quiet Tommy had described that night.

  The other heavy worried me even more. He too was propped up against a bench, his head also sagging forward, but he was still out for the count and breathed with a loud, harsh stridor like heavy snoring. I could see that Davey Wilson, already shaken up, was really disturbed by the man’s condition. I wasn’t too happy about it myself, but at the moment, I was more concerned about getting information out of whichever of the goons was capable of talking. Davey was also a little taken aback by Twinkletoes, whose recent presence seemed to fill the space inside the garage. I could see Davey trying to work out if he should offer him a chair or one of the hydraulic ramps.

  ‘What’s to do, Mr L?’ asked Twinkletoes, looking at the two men on the floor. ‘Looks like you’s been busy.’

  ‘Just keep an eye on these two, Twinkle. I’m going to bring my car round front. I need to go somewhere with Davey here, but I’ll talk to you before I go.’

  At that point I heard another car pull up in front of the garage. I took the revolver from my waistband and went over to the door. There were a couple of rattling knocks then a voice.

  ‘Lennox, open up . . . It’s me, Jonny . . .’

  I opened the door to reveal Cohen and two of his men.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Jonny. Things have gotten messy . . .’ I indicated the two injured goons with a nod over my shoulder. ‘Let me just get Davey here into the car. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  Crossing the street, I went around the corner to where I’d left the Alpine parked. I drove back round to the front of the garage and ushered Davey Wilson into the passenger seat.

  ‘We’re going to see Jimmy. Okay?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Wait here. I’ll be right back.’

  I went back into the garage, leaving Davey in the car. I knew he was very uneasy about what had happened and I needed him not to hear what I was about to say to Twinkletoes and Jonny. I didn’t want to hear it myself: the thing with the two heavies, no matter how many times I ran it in my head, always only ended one way.

  I took Jonny and McBride to one side, leaving Jonny’s men to watch the injured goons.

  ‘This is a mess, guys.’ I kept my voice low. ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee here are McNaught’s men. They were going to beat where his brother was out of Davey. I’m pretty sure that if they’d succeeded both Wilson brothers wouldn’t see the sun come up tomorrow. I clobbered that one’ – I pointed to the still unconscious goon doing the laboured breathing – ‘a bit too hard. He needs serious attention.’

  ‘You don’t seriously expect us to take him to hospital?’ Jonny asked, although I could see in his expression that he already knew the answer. I didn’t say anything, but held Jonny’s gaze. ‘Okay, Lennox. I’ll take care of it. What about your pal out there?’

  ‘He’ll be happy for the problem to go away, but I won’t tell him how.’ I looked down at the unconscious man and felt like crap. Jonny and the other two Kings had shares in a meat processing plant with an industrial rendering machine. Quite a few embarrassments had been dealt with that way and I had become circumspect where I bought my meat pies.

  ‘The other one?’ asked Jonny.

  I turned to McBride. ‘Twinkle, I hate to ask you to do this. I know you’ve been trying to put your past behind you – and you know I have too – but I really need the guy with the busted jaw to talk. Or at least to write down what I need to know. Do you understand?’

  ‘It does put me in a bit of a moral dial-emma, Mr L, but I know you wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

  ‘It is, Twinkle. It really is.’

  ‘What do you need him to tell?’

  ‘Where I can find their boss. He said something about a warehouse. I need to know where it is. He called himself McNaught, but I need to know his real name and who he works for. Most important, I need to know where to find McNaught, where this warehouse is.’

  Twinkletoes nodded his Easter Island head thoughtfully. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  I turned back to Cohen. ‘These people are connected to something big. We’re playing for high stakes, Jonny. After the other guy tells Twinkle what I need to know . . .’

  Cohen nodded. And there it was: it had been a brief, businesslike conversation. I hadn’t even put a square of black silk on my head as I had condemned two men to death.

  I headed out to the car without looking back. As I did, I heard Twinkletoes give instructions to Cohen’s men.

  ‘Switch on some machinery. Something loud. Then take his socks and shoes off – I need to find a pair of bolt cutters.’

  As Jonny Cohen pulled down the garage door, his handsome face stone-set with resolve, I got into the car where a shaken Davey Wilson sat, started the engine and drove out of the forecourt.

  I stopped and switched the engine off before I turned onto Crow Road.

  ‘Fuck it,’ I muttered.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Davey.

  ‘The problem?’ I said bitterly. ‘The problem is something Quiet Tommy Quaid gave me. A conscience. Wait here – I’ll be right back.’

  I went back to the garage. After I’d talked again with Twinkletoes and Jonny Cohen, I headed back to the car.

  I turned to Davey Wilson when I got in. ‘Where to?’ I asked. ‘Where do I find Jimmy?’

  6

  I knew Jimmy Wilson was desperate, was in terrible fear for his life and willing to go to any lengths to stay safe. But I hadn’t known just how desperate and to what terrible lengths: he had chosen to hide in Paisley.

  Davey broke the news after we left the garage. He asked if we could stop at a 'phone box on the way so he could make a call to Jimmy to tell him we were coming and to stay put, and another to his apprentice to let him know to keep clear of the garage for a couple of days.

  When he got back to the car he told me that Jimmy was okay and would be waiting for us. Davey explained he had rented a small house on the outskirts of the town, paying a couple of months in advance, in cash. He told me it wasn’t a bad place and, most importantly, it had a telephone. The landlord had been amenable to a no-paperwork, cash-on-the-table arrangement – mainly because Davey was paying way over the odds – and had no idea what his new tenant’s real name was, and he had never clapped eyes on Jimmy. The landlord would be back at the beginning of the next month, however, to collect more rent.

  ‘So there’s no way anyone else knows Jimmy’s there?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Just me. I go down roughly once a week with groceries. Different times and I’m always careful to make sure I’m not followed.’

  I nodded, deciding it wasn’t helpful to point out just how experienced in this kind of thing our opposition was, and just how inexperienced Davey was. It didn’t matter, anyway: if McNaught had known where Jimmy was hiding, then he wouldn’t have set his boys on his brother to beat it out of him.

  The two injured heavies were obviously on Davey’s mind as well.

  ‘Those men back in the garage . . . What is going to happen to them?’ he asked, as if uncertain he wanted to hear the answer. ‘You hit that one pretty hard.’

  ‘Harder than I meant to . . . but don’t worry, my friend has a contact, a dodgy doctor whose lost his licence. He’s going to get him to fix them both up on the quiet. They’ll be encouraged to tell us where their boss is, then they’ll be kept on ice until we find McNaught and persuade him to leave your brother alone,’ I said.

  It was the truth: before leaving, I had gone back into the garage and asked Jonny Cohen to get Doc Banks to look them both over – Banks was a struck-off medic Cohen used occasionally and who would do anything to pay for his next drink. I’d also asked Cohen to keep both men alive and suggested to Twinkletoes McBride that he use threat and persuasion rather than a boltcutter pedicure to get the information we wanted.

 
McBride had been relieved, but still willing to do whatever was necessary. Cohen was less pleased.

  ‘I don’t know if the one you clobbered is going to make it,’ he had said. ‘If he doesn’t, his pal could put a rope around your neck – and it’s not just your neck we’re talking about: these bastards have seen me, Lennox. And they’ve seen Twinkletoes. And you know that if they turn out to be in any way official, I won’t let them simply walk away.’

  ‘Just keep them locked up for now, Jonny,’ I had said. ‘We’ll work it all out later. Truth is I don’t know what we’re dealing with, but my gut tells me that McNaught and his boys are unofficial. The kind of fringe scum for hire called in for dirty tricks and clearing up messes.’ As I had been leaving, I turned to Cohen and added: ‘My time as a life-taker is over, Jonny. The deeper I sink into this mess, the more determined I am to come out with my hands clean. Put it down to the Quiet Tommy Quaid philosophy of life.’

  ‘And a lot of good it did him,’ Cohen had said.

  *

  As we drove through Paisley, I exercised the same kind of caution that Davey had taken when making his weekly grocery deliveries, taking lots of unnecessary detours to make sure we hadn’t been tailed. The cottage was on the south side of the town.

  Paisley was famed as Scotland’s biggest ‘town’, not having had its official status elevated to that of a city. Part of the reason had been its sudden and unexpected growth.

  Personally I could never see the appeal of Paisley pattern, although I guessed that in Scotland it had a special utility: a fabric design singularly suited to hiding drink and vomit stains. But when fat little Queen Victoria had decided to start wrapping herself in Paisley pattern, there had been an explosion in worldwide trade in Paisley shawls. Although named after the town, Paisley pattern was basically an Indian design; but one of the boons of having had an empire was that you could steal without consequence anything you had a mind to, including intellectual property.