The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

by Craig Russell

  I could simply have slung tarpaulins like curtains over the windows, but I needed whoever came to be able to see inside. See normality.

  The only other viewpoint from outside was the small glazed panel, again reinforced with steel wire, set into the access door. We had brought the Bedford into the warehouse, parking it close enough to obscure most but not all of the view of the building’s interior from the door panel; two tarpaulins draped hurriedly over the van made it impossible for anyone peering in through the panel to identify it as a vehicle.

  I killed the main lights. Cohen, McBride and I stayed in the warehouse hall but sent everyone else up to the office, telling them to switch off the lights, and to keep quiet and out of sight.

  Cohen and I flattened ourselves against the wall, next to the window but far enough along to be out of the angle of sight of anyone peering in. The geometry needed to hide Twinkletoes anywhere near the same place would have been beyond Euclid; so, with much grunting and groaning, we got him to fold his bulk, knees tucked up as near as possible to his chin, behind a concealing pyramid of stacked crates.

  I heard a single car approaching. No police bells, just the quiet continuous crunch of tyre on asphalt.

  ‘How did you know?’ whispered Cohen.

  ‘The same trick they tried to pull with me down at Tommy’s lock-up. They got you all fired up by leaving that message and knew we’d come rushing back. The police arrive and find the warehouse doors open and the whole place lit up like Christmas – with three dead bodies and us armed to the teeth.’ I held up a hand. Crouching low, I went over to the window and peered out into the night. Only one police car. Two bobbies. McNaught’s anonymous tip-off hadn’t been taken as seriously as he had hoped.

  The beams of the coppers’ flashlights swept the approach to the warehouse, flashed briefly into the window, causing me to shrink back, then disappeared.

  ‘They’ve gone round the front,’ I hissed at Cohen.

  There was the sound of the door handle being rattled in that way that only bored coppers and night watchmen do. I was about to steal another peek outside when I heard the crunch of a policeman’s boot on the gravel immediately outside the window, which suddenly lit up again. This time the copper was right up against the glass, the beam from his flashlight probing the interior of the warehouse. When I’d heard his footfall outside, I hadn’t dared try to get back to where Cohen was, so I had dropped to the floor, pressing hard against the wall beneath the window and cursing my own impatience and clumsiness.

  The light went out but, looking up from my hiding place, I could now see the policeman clearly as he peered into the warehouse, cupping his hands and pressing them against the window to shield his eyes. I could see him, and that meant all he needed to do to see me was switch his flashlight back on and shine it downwards. I held my breath.

  After a few seconds that seemed like an age, the copper removed his hands.

  ‘There’s fuck all going on here, Bob,’ he called to his invisible partner. ‘Are you sure it was this one?’

  ‘Aye . . .’ I heard the voice call back from the far corner. They had split up to check out the warehouse. ‘This was the one all right. Gunshots, my arse – bloody kids making a hoax call. Either that or somebody’s been watching too many cowboy films.’

  The copper nearest muttered something as he moved away. I scuttled back across to Cohen, holding my finger to my lips.

  There was a dull thud from behind the crates where Twinkletoes McBride was hiding.

  It wasn’t a loud noise, but in the absolute quiet around us, and to my adrenalin-heightened senses, it seemed to reverberate through the whole building.

  The flashlight was back at the window and again probed the dark warehouse; this time the beam was there longer, more insistent, probing the space more thoroughly. The copper at the window shone his light downwards, to exactly where I’d been hiding only seconds before.

  ‘Are you coming or what?’ the further away constable called impatiently. ‘This is a complete waste of fucking time.’

  ‘I thought I heard something . . .’

  A pause. The insistent beam continued to probe, the light pooling on boxes, tarpaulins, the walls, the floor. It came to rest on the crates behind which the three bodies sat. For a moment, like them, I stopped breathing.

  The beam swept to another pile of crates, this time to where McBride was hiding and from where the sound had come. The disc of light sat on one of the crates, midway up. Below it, semi-illuminated, I could see Twinkletoes’s ankle and foot jutting out beyond the bottom crate.

  The copper hadn’t seen it yet, but he would. If he lowered his torch beam a few inches he definitely would. There was no getting out of it if he did. This warehouse was registered to Jonny Cohen. All we could do was maybe overpower the coppers and make it all look like Cohen was the victim of a robbery, but I couldn’t see how we could make it work.

  I wanted to hiss across to McBride to move his foot, but the copper would hear me too. And maybe it was better that the foot didn’t move.

  ‘Aye . . . I’m coming,’ the voice from behind the window said eventually, wearily.

  The flashlight disappeared from the window.

  *

  We waited a good ten minutes. I looked out the window and confirmed that the police car was gone; then Jonny sent one of his men out on foot to go to the road end and check it was out of the area. Only when he returned did we switch on the warehouse lights again, first hanging the tarpaulins over the windows.

  ‘We could have done that to start with,’ complained Cohen.

  I shook my head. ‘The coppers needed to see that the warehouse was empty.’

  Twinkletoes McBride looked sheepish. ‘Sorry, Mr L.’

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ asked Cohen. ‘You nearly had the polis down on us.’

  ‘I got cramp,’ said McBride. ‘I couldn’t move in there and I had to straighten my leg and I kicked the—’

  ‘It’s all right, Twinkle,’ I said. ‘No harm done.’ I turned to Cohen. ‘We’ve got to get this mess cleared up. Can you take care of it? The bodies, I mean . . .’

  We moved the crates we’d stacked around where Pops Loeb and the other two sat tied to their chairs. Cohen looked really distressed. I knew, looking at him, that this was no longer just my fight. What worried me was that it was also a fight no longer under my control: Handsome Jonny Cohen had lost someone close to him and I knew that taking revenge for Pops’s killing would become his number one priority.

  ‘What will you do with them?’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about those two . . .’ He jutted his handsomely cleft chin at McNaught’s dead men. ‘They’re for the fucking mincer. But not Pops. Pops is going to be buried somewhere. He’s going in the ground.’

  ‘Jonny,’ I said, ‘we can’t—’

  ‘I know, I know . . . Pops had no real family left, I’m not talking about an official thing. There’ll be no shiva or Kaddish for poor old Pops,’ said Cohen sadly, ‘but I’ll make sure he has a kevura.’

  ‘Kevura?’

  ‘Burial . . . Don’t worry, it’ll be somewhere he’ll never be found. But it’ll be a decent resting place for him. And I’ll know where he is.’

  I let it go. I was never sure what happened to the meat-plant-rendered remains of the Three Kings’ victims, but I imagined that any chance of even the smallest part of Pops Loeb ending up in a pork pie probably went against something in the Torah.

  ‘I’m sorry I brought you into this, Jonny. If I hadn’t . . .’ I looked down at Loeb’s body.

  ‘Forget it. These bastards have picked a fight with me. Just promise me that you’ll let me deal with McNaught when we find him.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’ I decided not to bring up that I’d made the same promise to Tarnish, or that I had planned to enjoy the privilege of ending McNaught myself. I was now in a lawless world – where everyone suddenly believed in justice.

  We didn’t t
alk much after that, for a while, and set about the business of cleaning up the warehouse and preparing three men for a rest without grace.

  2

  I got there fifteen minutes early. For all I knew, Tommy’s apartment was being watched by Tarnish and my arrival any earlier would have looked suspicious.

  I didn’t need any more time, anyway: what I was looking for would be exactly where I last saw it, or it wouldn’t be there at all. I tried to let myself in with the key I had, but it wouldn’t fit. When I checked, I realized I was using the unnumbered blue-tabbed key that Jimmy Wilson had given me. Pocketing it, I took out the right key and opened the door.

  Before I did anything, I did a quick check of all the rooms to make sure there was no one else in the flat. Once I was reassured there wasn’t, I went over to the bookcase and took the copy of The Outsider from its shelf. Tarnish and his crew could turn up at any time and I still wasn’t in a sharing mood, so I slipped the book straight into my jacket pocket without looking at it. All of my suits were reasonably lightweight: I followed the Italian philosophy that only lightweight cloth hung well. But it was another warm day and I had put on an even lighter than usual, dark-sand cotton weave; the book bulked and wrinkled the pocket.

  I went over to the window and looked out. There was no sign of Tarnish yet. My Sunbeam Alpine sat at the kerb directly outside, the convertible top down; I’d left it that way not just because the day was so warm, but to emphasize I had come alone.

  Except I hadn’t. Before coming, I had arranged with Twinkletoes that he follow me there, keeping his Vauxhall Cresta more than a discreet distance from me. Once I was in Tommy’s apartment, I had instructed him, he was to take a couple of spins around the block, then park where he had a view of the street. But only if he could do so inconspicuously. I had to admit that to my mind Twinkletoes McBride and inconspicuousness were about as natural a marriage as Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, but I needed someone to watch my back.

  The main reason was that McNaught and his cronies could crash the party at any time. But it was more than that: something didn’t gel with me about Tarnish. He seemed genuinely vengeful about Tommy’s death, and genuinely revolted by what I had told him about the little club of powerful perverts who had ordered Tommy’s murder – but the truth was Tarnish had a look about him that was, well, bad. I tried not to dwell on the fact that it was a look I had in common with him.

  Tarnish turned up exactly on time. He was alone, but I guessed he was alone in the same way I was, and that he had his men somewhere handy. As I let him into the apartment, I caught him looking at the book-shaped bulge in my jacket pocket. I stepped forward, shook hands with him, and we went through to the living room.

  ‘Have there been any developments since we last met?’ he asked, offering me a cigarette from his case. ‘Anything in particular?’

  ‘None,’ I said. Seeing as we had met only the previous day, I found it an odd question. And his manner of asking suggested he already knew there had been ‘developments’. For the meantime, I decided to keep the events in Clarkston to myself.

  Tarnish told me that he had been asking around – making 'phone calls to army and commando chums – but my description of McNaught had drawn a blank. It had been a big war, had been a big army, he had said, and maybe McNaught had served in some other branch of the services, if at all.

  ‘Remember, Captain Lennox, that we have an agreement that if you find McNaught, I and my boys get the pleasure of dealing with him.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ I said. I wasn’t going to tell him why Handsome Jonny Cohen now had prior claim to McNaught’s hide. It was a complication I reckoned would sort itself out. One way or another. ‘And when the time comes,’ I said, ‘I’ll be asking a lot of you, you understand that, I hope. The law is no use to me with this. We’re talking about people who are beyond the reach of the law. Who are the law, in some cases. The justice that finds them has to be natural. And uncompromising. I intend to call on you and your men’s special skills when the time comes. Are we clear on that?’

  ‘We are.’

  I showed Tarnish out into the hall.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ I said and opened the door. Tarnish checked its opening with his hand.

  ‘I am a fair man,’ he said. ‘I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But that’s mainly because I’m not a man friendly to betrayal of any sort. Not the type of man you would want to disappoint. Are we clear on that as well, Captain Lennox?’

  ‘We are, Captain Tarnish. But why do I get the feeling there’s a doubt you’re giving me the benefit of?’

  ‘Let’s just say I hope you’re being perfectly open with me.’

  ‘And I hope the same of you.’

  A heartbeat’s pause. Then Tarnish nodded towards my pocket.

  ‘That,’ he said wearily, holding my gaze, ‘wouldn’t happen to be the ledger bound in red morocco you mentioned, would it?’

  ‘That sounds very much like an accusation.’ I instinctively took a step backward. It was a gesture worthy of Roy Rogers and I could almost hear a saloon honky-tonk stutter to a mid-tune halt. Tarnish caught my intention and laughed.

  ‘Just show me. Please.’

  I shrugged and took the copy of The Outsider from my pocket and held it up for him to see. ‘I’m improving my mind. Satisfied?’

  ‘Like I said, it would be unfortunate if you were holding anything back from me. Anything. Goodbye, Captain Lennox.’

  ‘Goodbye, Captain Tarnish.’

  *

  I left with him. I wouldn’t look at the book until later. I got into the Sunbeam and drove off, heading back towards my apartment. After we were back over the river, I could see Twinkletoes McBride’s Cresta in my rear-view; he followed me all the way along Great Western Road.

  ‘Coming up for a drink?’ I asked when we were both parked in the car park outside my apartment building. McBride frowned as much as the narrow band between his heavy brow ridge and low hairline allowed.

  ‘Mr L,’ he said earnestly, ‘I watched for them men with Tarnish. You was right: they was waiting around the corner and he got in with them and they drove away. There’s something I’ve got to tell you about them.’

  I placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled. ‘Let’s go in and get a drink, Twinkle—’

  ‘No listen . . . this is important. I’ve got to tell you . . . it’s something about Tarnish and his men.’

  ‘It’s okay, Twinkle.’ I steered him in the direction of the apartment building entrance. ‘I already know . . .’

  *

  After Twinkletoes left – after he told me what he had to tell me and I told him how I already knew – I sat alone in the apartment with my whiskey. I set the book down on the coffee table. I poured myself another bourbon and sat looking at the book without touching it, as if it were a locked box, its secrets still fastened tight within. A Pandora’s Box.

  I took a sip, then a breath. I opened the book.

  I flicked through it all. Nothing. I lifted it up, holding the coverboards like wings and shaking it so that anything trapped in the pages would fall out. Still nothing. Finally, I turned every page individually, methodically, scanning each printed face for notes or highlights. Still nothing. Not even a page corner turned over as a bookmark.

  I laid it back down and stared at it.

  ‘Maybe, one day, this’ll be a book that will speak to you too.’

  Except it wasn’t saying anything. Its simple cover of orange geometric shapes told me nothing, other than the title, the author’s name and that it had an introduction by Cyril Connolly.

  After all of that, after all of my investment of significance into an offhand remark; after all my manoeuvres and shenanigans and fancy footwork to retrieve it – maybe all Tommy had meant was a literary recommendation: that he really thought it was simply a book I should read, but he hadn’t wanted to lend it to me at the time.

  I leaned back in the club chair and lifted my glass to the air. />
  ‘Thanks, Tommy. Thanks a bunch for the book recommendation.’ I gave a bitter laugh then drowned it with a swig of booze.

  It was like Tommy had answered me. It was the weirdest experience, but the rest of what he had said to me that night fell suddenly back into my head: ‘And most important of all, always remember that you can never judge a book by its cover. This book particularly.’

  I picked up the hardback again and slipped off the paper dust jacket. And there it was, on the inside of the paper cover in faint yellow pencil; written small and so lightly that its impression wouldn’t show through the paper; written specifically for me to read: the words of a dead, quiet man.

  *

  As I had asked him to, Twinkletoes had arranged with Archie and Tony the Pole that we meet up at Tony’s transport caff. A gloomier than usual Archie was waiting for me, squeezed into the corner of one of the café’s booths by the Neanderthal bulk of an equally grim-faced Twinkletoes McBride. When I arrived, Tony the Pole was behind the counter helping Senga, who hypnotized me with her ability to balance a fan of multiple plates in one hand, a cluster of white china tea mugs in the other, while simultaneously squinting through the smoke of her lip-clenched cigarette and containing wet rumbles of rheumy coughs. Not a drop was spilled, even during her worst consumptive spasms.

  I wondered idly if she’d trained at Maxim’s in Paris.

  Tony the Pole beamed at me and came around from behind the counter. We weaved our way through the tables populated by a smattering of early-morning lorry drivers sitting gloomily over their fry-ups and coffees or teas, contemplating arduous journeys to Aberdeen or London, Birmingham or Plymouth. None of them faced a journey as operose as that which lay ahead of me and my cobbled-together club of allies.