The Man with No Face

by Peter Turnbull

  Sussock stood and walked across the room the short distance to his window. A blackened stone wall surrounded the lawn, beyond was the upper floor and rooftops of a villa and above the rooftop of the villa was a blood-crimson sunset. He gazed at it. Sunsets had always reached him. He left his room, locking the door behind him. He had little worth stealing; the gesture was rather to preserve the sanctity of his living space. The small room, probably no more than a broom cupboard when the house was new built and first occupied, was his personal space. It wasn’t much, but it was his. So he kept the door locked. He went down the inside stone stairway, clambering into his coat as he did so, holding his battered trilby in one hand as he struggled with the buttons of his coat with the other. He turned left at the foot of the stairs and entered the kitchen. He kept little food in the kitchen, knowing such a policy was fatal in bedsit land. Keep only what you’re going to eat in the next hour or two, you can’t stand guard over it. It was no surprise to him that the last of his teabags had gone, as had the can of beans he always kept as an emergency source of food. And that was something else he had found out about bedsit living; if a can of food remains unconsumed for long enough, it moves into a state of ownerlessness, upon which it vanishes. Fast. He had resisted keeping a cardboard box of foodstuff in his room, it had seemed like a defeat in some way to do so, but he felt his resolve on that issue slackening. It was either that or have his food pilfered.

  Beside the kitchen door was a second door. It led to the cellar of the house where the Polish landlord lived with his wife. Sussock had had one occasion to go there, to request a replacement light bulb, only to be rebuffed with a ‘buy your own’, but he had thus been able to see how they lived. They too lived in cramped accommodation, just upright chairs round a dining table next to a sink with an ancient black-and-white TV sitting drunkenly on the draining board and a double bed pushed into a recess beyond the cooker. After that insight into their lives he didn’t like them any more but gave them grudging respect. They were not absentee landlords who lived in luxury while their tenants shivered and starved; they lived frugally and expected their tenants to do the same. Sussock could respect that.

  He left the house and turned right and walked down Victoria Crescent Road, he enjoyed the walk, he always did; the graceful sweep of the terrace curving downhill he found uplifting. Like the house he lived in, these terrace houses were now split into multiple occupancy dwellings but unlike the house he lived in, the houses on Victoria Crescent Road were divided into owner-occupier flats favoured by the yuppies of the city. Those people in the basement flats benefitted from massive iron bars over windows to keep the burglars from getting in, though Sussock had learned they were an original feature designed to stop the servants from sneaking out.

  He turned left at the bottom of the crescent and walked the short distance to Byres Road, the axis of the West End of the city. The long road, another of Glasgow’s canyons, reaching south from G12 to Gil was the Sauchiehall Street of the West End, it was the Princes Street of the West End, the Oxford Street of the West End, it was the Avenue of the Americas of the West End; without it, and its bustle, Sussock held, the West End just wouldn’t exist. It was an artery, pumping the life blood of this part of Scotland’s first city. He stepped from the quietness of Dowanside Road into the crowded pavement of Byres Road, and weaved his way to the McDonald’s and a quarterpounder with cheese and a plastic beaker of orange juice. On his way to the fast-feeder he saw Christmas cards being aggressively displayed in shop windows. And it was still only October.

  Feeling put on by the quarterpounder and refreshed by the orange juice, he walked back to the large house. He hadn’t slept since coming off shift, by this time, now four p.m., tiredness still ran like a sharp pain from pupil to pupil, from eyeball to eyeball. It was his policy to sleep immediately upon returning home after a night shift, to wake at about three p.m. and have the afternoon and evening to himself before reporting for duty again at 22.00. But he hadn’t done so that day. He hadn’t felt tired when he had returned to his room and had sat in the armchair, his thoughts dwelling depressingly on the state of his life, where he had fetched up, aged sixty, after thirty-five years of service. It had all seemed to him to be very unfair, especially when he couldn’t put his finger on where he had gone wrong, what terrible crime he had committed to bring down such a judgement upon himself. And by now it was too late to sleep, he had let the precious hours of silence slip through his fingers. To return home now would be to try to sleep when the boys in the next room would be gasping and grunting, with or without the accompaniment of their hi-fi, and when the couple upstairs, fuelled after work with alcohol, would be screaming at each other. He walked to where he had parked his car, and fighting sleep and the numbing of his senses, he drove to Langside. To Baker Street.

  Richard King cleared his throat. He looked down at the file open on his lap and said, ‘Out of his depth.’

  Donoghue pulled on his pipe and nodded. He noticed that King was wearing a sports jacket of uncharacteristically loud check; grey with yellow stripes. He had often noted with approval King’s modest, sober, professional dress style and so his sudden taste in grey-yellow check for a sports jacket was, he found, head-turning. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ King shuffled on his chair. The first thing that strikes me about this is how out of character it is for him.’

  ‘He is a thief.’

  ‘But not in this league, not in this class,’ King turned the pages of the file. ‘It’s all petty stuff, he’s a petty ned, a light-fingered recidivist. Look at his track, probation, fines of a few quid, six months here, three months there, twelve months suspended, community service…and the offences. Breach, going equipped, theft by OLP, and then he leaps from that and opens the lockfast premises of them all and pilfers a quarter of—’

  ‘Half.’

  ‘Half a million pounds’ worth of gems.’

  ‘Which have not been recovered. Where do half a million pounds’ worth of gems go to, Richard?’ Donoghue liked King, he had time for him, he found the chubby, bearded cop dedicated, professional in his attitude and good at his job. He had the benefit of a calm and settled home life, wife and one child, so far, but Donoghue saw in King a man who took to fatherhood and he fully anticipated the announcement of another King on the way. Ray Sussock would be retiring soon, and if Donoghue were to be asked to nominate a successor he knew he would nominate Richard King. A detective constable well in the frame for detective sergeant.

  ‘Beats me, sir.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, Richard.’ Donoghue lit his pipe.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It doesn’t beat you. Do you remember the theft in question?’

  ‘Certainly do, the building’s still a burnt-out shell.’

  ‘It never did satisfy me, I mean the outcome of that case. We drew a blank and went to the Fiscal with what we had and he ran with it and Ronald Grenn collected his seven years. It’s an image that stays with me, you know, little Ronnie Grenn who’d never been in a higher court than the Glasgow Sheriff and he suddenly finds himself in the High Court with all its majesty and gravitas, standing there, a wee guy peering over the top of the dock looking lost and frightened, like a little boy having his first day at the big school. I confess I felt embarrassed for the police force, Richard, I really did. Half a million pounds’ worth of gems vanish, then the building they’re taken from goes up in smoke and a further half a million pounds’ worth of antique furniture, paintings, artefacts of a general nature are destroyed and the only culprit we can find is wee Ronnie Grenn whom we make stand blinking in fear and anticipation and wonder in the dock of the High Court.’

  ‘A patsy?’

  ‘Has to be. I thought at the time that he was fed to us as a fall guy, but he wouldn’t trade and so someone clearly made it worth his while to keep quiet. We pulled him soon after the fire and theft, about forty-eight hours, as I recall…this is over four years ago, time for him to hand the gems to someone else…
a bit like bringing someone down with a rugby tackle after he’s passed the ball.’

  King smiled. He enjoyed the image that Donoghue had employed.

  ‘We had his prints on the strongbox inside the lockable fireproof cabinet, the gems having been kept in the strongbox. He didn’t explain where he’d put the gems, who he’d given them to, he lived a hand-to-mouth existence in Easterhouse, no gems in his gaff, no bank account in his name that we could find, nothing to tie him to the fire, nothing at all. All we had was his latents on an empty jewellery box. He wouldn’t tell us how he got past the alarm, wouldn’t tell us anything.’

  ‘He pleaded guilty, though.’

  ‘He pleaded not guilty. That was clever of him, or it was clever of whoever it was that was putting him up to it. You see, if he coughed to a plea bargain, he’d have to tell us how he got into the building and he’d have to tell us to whom he gave the gems. But if he went with an NG to OLP, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he could take those secrets to the slammer with him. The judge knew what was going on and sent him down for seven years which was quite lenient. Wee Ronnie set about working his ticket, volunteering to clean the toilets and ingratiating himself with the chaplain and he came out in four, half of which was spent in an open prison. Montgomerie is down there now, even as we speak, digging and sniffing around.’ Donoghue paused and rekindled his pipe. ‘So, Ronnie is happy to collect seven years, probably told to think in terms of four or five if he remembers his p’s and q’s and generally minds his manners, and to remember a wee nest egg that awaits him upon release.’

  ‘Being conjecture?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, but if we start with a supposition we can at least look for something to prove it. So he minds his manners, gets released and forty-eight hours later he’s on a slab. My guess is that he went for his pay-off and his pay-off turned out to be a bullet in the head.’

  ‘It’s happened before.’

  ‘And it’ll happen again. It’s the old Pied Piper of Hamelin number, you see, reneging on a deal, but, unlike the Pied Piper, Ronnie hadn’t got anything to hold over whoever had not fulfilled the promise made.’

  ‘Except perhaps to turn queen’s evidence, and so he was filled in to keep him quiet.’

  ‘That would be my guess, Richard.’

  ‘Where now, sir?’

  ‘I know what I want to do, but I’d be interested in your thoughts?’

  ‘Well…Malcolm’s down at…’

  Traquair Brae.’

  ‘Oh yes…a home visit to Ronnie Grenn’s next of kin or known associates…they may well know something

  ‘Montgomerie will do that…I was thinking of another approach.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Come on, Richard. You disappoint me.’

  King remained silent. ‘I’m sorry

  ‘We’re going back into the case, Richard. Not the murder of Ronnie Grenn, but the theft he was gaoled for; there, we’re going back there.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘We are.’ Donoghue placed his pipe in the glass ashtray and leaned forward, his forearm resting on his desk, and folded his hands together, interlocking his fingers. ‘You see, it’s my guess that an insurance fraud went down in this town around four years ago. Look at the figures, half a million pounds’ worth of gems, say worth half that when reset. So that’s three-quarters of a million pounds already, then the antique furniture and oil paintings and sundry nick-nacks, all of high value, worth another half a million with a resale value of half that, so we have a potential criminal profit there of one and a half million.’

  ‘What was left in the fire, sir?’

  ‘A lot of ash, but who’s to say if the ash was from a beautifully kept Chippendale chair or a scratched and battered and worm-eaten bit of Victorian junk, so long as it’s hardwood, not chipboard.’

  ‘Of course, and the canvases…?’

  ‘Could have been bought from Barrows any weekend, framed paintings by enthusiastic amateurs from Victorian and Edwardian times, of no value at all.’

  ‘The paintings would have been itemized, though, sir -always strikes me as a pointless theft, the theft of an art treasure, I mean who could you sell it to?’

  ‘Good point, but I’m not letting go of my premise that this was an insurance fraud on a massive scale. Maybe they didn’t claim for the paintings and sold them off before torching the building. We’ll have to see what’s on the insurance manifest.’

  ‘Dare say we can expect a lot of help from the insurance company on this one, sir.’

  ‘Dare say we can, because then there is the insurance on the building itself. Four floors of early Victorian stone-built commercial property, designed as offices, turned into a prestigious, high-value antiques shop, view strictly by appointment, on Bath Street. The development potential of that site would be worth more than the building itself; never get planning permission to knock it down, Glasgow valuing its Victorian heritage as it does. It’s the most Victorian city in the UK. Did you know that?’

  King confessed that he didn’t.

  ‘Take it from me, I have an abiding interest in the architecture of this city.’

  ‘I didn’t know that, sir.’

  ‘Well, it is, but that’s by the by. But one way round the planning permission is to destroy the structural integrity of the building and force its demolition.’

  ‘And one way of doing that is by fire.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Donoghue smiled. ‘So the site could be worth two million quid; in addition the value of the building would have to be paid for. The insurance company would be obliged to pay up the cost of a total rebuild but if a total rebuild was not possible because of the aforementioned structural integrity being compromised, then the owner of the building would pocket the cost of the total rebuild in hard cash and then sell the site as is. I mean, all in all, you could be talking about a fraud of four or five million pounds.’

  ‘It wasn’t seen at the time?’

  ‘Apparently not. But sometimes you need distance to be able to realize things. At the time, I thought no more than that Ronnie Grenn must have had an accomplice who had persuaded him to take the rap and that they burnt the building to cover their tracks. I didn’t see beyond that, none of us did—none of us being me and Ray Sussock. It’s only after the usefulness of four years’ time distance that’s enabled me to see what I’ve just outlined to you as possibly being what happened. So someone pockets three, four or five million, they offer Ronald Grenn a hundred thousand to do a four-year stretch, hard cash. I mean, it’s good money, and for Ronnie Grenn, who knows how to survive in the slammer, that sort of dosh is the end of the rainbow. Of course he’d jump at it.’

  ‘But as you say, when he went to collect…’ King shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Well, this is all conjecture. We won’t know what happened until we start turning over a few stones. So, like I said, we’re going back into the case and I want you to head it up.’

  ‘Me, sir?’

  ‘You, sir. With Montgomerie coming at it the other way, from the murder back in time, and you going from the theft of the gems to the present, you should, if I’m right, but only if I’m right, meet each other halfway.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ King smiled, eager to start work. He stood and glanced at his watch. It was 17.00 hours. Exactly. Though his mind and body felt it to be 18.00 hours. Exactly.

  It’s the eyes. Montgomerie thought it was the eyes. Something sucked him into this man. He felt himself being sucked up by him. The man had no sense of presence, he wasn’t a strong charismatic personality, at least so far as Montgomerie could discern. Yet somehow, he felt he was being pulled out of himself by this man, ‘Weasel’ Iveson, by name and nickname. He tried to analyse the technique. It was, so far as he could tell, a combination of facial expression and his eyes, but mostly his eyes. The facial expression was serious, no smile, no relaxation, concentrating fully on Montgomerie, holding eye contact, with expressionless eyes…no…no, they weren’t expre
ssionless, there was a depth to them, like looking into two dark tunnels and Montgomerie felt himself being pulled into the man’s eyes. He felt himself losing contact with himself, as if being hypnotized. He glimpsed where this could lead. He knew, if he gave in, that this man could make him do things that he would otherwise have thought impossible. And he knew why the warders at Traquair Brae never allowed themselves to be alone with him. And he knew why the man was in prison: if he, a cop, sensed himself being manipulated by this man, what chance had his children, and friends of his children whose lives he had blighted? And when he thought how this small man with sharp features had been overheard ‘drooling with anticipation’ about the ‘Tayside fairies’ that await him upon his release, then Montgomerie knew why the Yanks do what they do. ‘Sorry, we know you’ve served your time, but you’re still not being released, it’s too dangerous, too much of a risk. So here you stay.’ It made sense. It was a massive infringement of civil liberty, but it made sense. There in the pleasant wood-panelled agent’s room with a window which overlooked a darkening forest scene, it made sense. He looked away from the man, deliberately breaking eye contact and the instant that he did so he realized that the man was employing another technique: he was taking Montgomerie very seriously, at least he was giving out that message. This man would not be hostile, nor sneer, nor smirk, nor belittle, he would do nothing that might put up a barrier of resentment, but he appealed to the need of every person to be taken seriously, shown respect, being told by manner and body language that they matter and if the person to whom he is talking is needy, uncertain, insecure, as in the case of a ‘Tayside fairy’ then what a powerful seduction technique. Montgomerie realized that he was sitting in the presence of a very dangerous man. He also sensed a distinct annoyance from Iveson when he broke eye contact and decided not to allow the man any further such contact. He would look down at his notepad, or out of the window, but not into the two dark tunnels at either side of the bridge of Iveson’s pointed nose.