King dragged a slow smile across his face.
‘She says she will not tell you again, sir.’
‘She’s going to have to.’
‘She’s a very stubborn lady, sir.’
‘I’m beginning to see that.’ King looked at the woman. ‘Tell Mrs Dinn that this is a murder enquiry and if she doesn’t co-operate I’ll arrest her for obstructing the police by withholding information.’
‘She will not like that, sir,’ said the man apologetically.
‘Just tell her.’
The man spoke to the woman, who then glared at King and began to shout at him. She was dressed in a brilliantly coloured sari, with a gold pin fastened to the side of her nose. She had a small face and a hooked nose, and she sat there, fixing him with dark eyes, shooting words at him.
‘Mrs Dinn is saying that freely she came and freely she will depart, sir,’ explained the man with the turban. He had a lean and open look, with a neatly trimmed, greying beard. King put his age as about sixty, some twenty years older, he thought, than Mrs Dinn.
King cleared his throat and managed to stop Mrs Dinn in full flow. ‘Do you understand Mrs Dinn’s complaint, Mr Bano?’
‘Perfectly, sir.’
King had initially recoiled from the smell of Mrs Dinn and Mr Bano, but rapidly detected and began to enjoy the scent which lay behind the smell. He was also recognizing Mr Bano to be one of the most well-mannered men he had ever met while undertaking his duties.
‘Perhaps, Mr Bano,’ said King, ‘if I tell you what I think to be the situation you could correct me if I go wrong?’
‘Delighted, sir.’
‘Well,’ said King, consulting his notebook, ‘Mrs Dinn here and her husband sold their grocer’s shop some five years ago.’
‘Five years, seven months on the twenty-eighth day of this month, sir.’
‘Right. So the person who bought the shop paid the money to Mrs Dinn’s solicitors.’
‘No, sir.’
‘No?’
‘No. The gentleman who purchased the shop and was a cousin of Mrs Dinn’s paid the money to his solicitors.’
‘I see. And the solicitor engaged by the purchaser then paid the money to the solicitor acting for Mrs Dinn, the vendor.’
‘That is correct, sir. Five years and seven months ago.’
‘But Mrs Dinn’s solicitors have not released the money to Mrs Dinn?’
‘That is correct.’
‘She alleges they have kept it?’
‘They have kept it. We have written letters and telephoned and it has been promised us, in the next few months we are going to get it. For the last five years we expect to receive it in the next few months.’
‘Can I ask how much money is involved?’
‘Thirty-five thousand pounds. Five years ago thirty-five thousand pounds was a lot of money, enough to buy the house we wanted. If we are paid in full tomorrow we could not now buy half of the house.’
‘That’s inflation,’ said King wearily.
‘So it is also stealing money.’
‘Only in an abstract sense.’ King tapped his pen on the desk. ‘I…er…I’m not sure that the police can be of help, Mr Bano’
‘But who can help us?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ll have to get advice but in itself this seems to me to be a civil law issue, not a criminal act. Perhaps you ought to take legal advice, take out an injunction against your solicitors.’
‘We have taken legal advice, sir. It has cost us thirty-five thousand pounds.’
‘I appreciate your anger, Mr Bano, but I’m just explaining the police point of view.’ King chewed the end of his pen. ‘If you can substantiate an allegation of fraud or some other criminal act we might be able to take a look at this firm, but even then there’s no guarantee that you’d get your money back.’
‘Oh my,’ said Mr Bano and looked up at the naked light-bulb.
‘Who are they anyway?’
‘They have a small office in Byres Road, above a butcher’s shop. They are called McNulty, Spicer and Watson.’
‘McSW,’ said King.
‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ King shook his head. Which of these gentlemen are you dealing with?’
‘Mr Spicer. We are clients of Mr Spicer.’
‘And you approached Mr McGarrigle and asked him to help.’
‘No, sir. He approached us a few weeks ago and he showed us a letter we had written to the Clarion newspaper nearly one year ago.’
‘No, I think his hair was longer.’
Stan Greene peeled away a sheet of polythene and replaced it with another.
‘That’s about right,’ said Mrs Laing, nodding with approval. ‘I reckon that’s about it.’
‘What, the whole thing?’ Stan Greene looked at her.
Montgomerie walked from the wall where he had been standing, and leaned over the table, looking at the photofit. ‘That’s him?’ he asked.
‘That’s his hair, Officer.’ Mrs Laing sat back in the chair with her hands folded on her lap. ‘Only his hair. Now we’re going to do the rest of him. He had a nice nose, a bit on the large side but nice—you know, clean lines.’
‘Clean lines,’ sighed Stan Greene and searched through sheets of polythene. Montgomerie sank back against the wall.
It had taken Mrs Laing one hour and forty-five minutes to get the hair constructed to her satisfaction. It now also seemed that she had an exact impression of his face, and all this from a glimpse of the man in the gloom and from thirty feet above.
‘His cheeks were a bit fuller,’ she said.
Montgomerie leaned forward and took a second look. The photofit was still minus mouth and chin but the man whom Mrs Laing saw murder Bill McGarrigle was already looking to be a staggeringly handsome individual.
Two and a half hours after she had started she relaxed in the chair and looked up at Montgomerie with a didn’t-I-do-well expression. ‘That’s him,’ she said.
‘Not unlike Tyrone Power, is he?’ said Montgomerie drily, looking at the completed photofit, and not any Quasimodo himself.
‘That’s him, Officer. That’s the one.’
Montgomerie escorted her to the main entrance of the police station and thanked her for her time. Three hours to go through the mug shots and turn up nothing and a further two and a half hours to create an image of her fantasy. He watched her forge a straight path through the holiday crowds, head held high and her huge rear waddling in the thin cotton dress.
In the CID room he wrote up Mrs Laing’s visit in the McGarrigle file. Stan Greene approached him and handed him a wad of photocopies of the photofit. Montgomerie apologized for wasting his time.
‘Don’t know how she’s got the brass neck,’ said Greene.
‘We might succeed in getting the interest of the film companies if nothing else,’ smiled Montgomerie. ‘Split the agent’s fee fifty-fifty. It’ll pay better than public service. Coffee?’
‘I could use one right enough, but I’d better go. I promised to take the family to Saltcoats for the Fair weekend. We’re only seven hours late getting away.’
‘Your professionalism is an example to us all.’
‘The hell with professionalism, I need the money. I’ve got a thing called a mortgage and a wife who believes that her place is in the home even though the kids are old enough to allow her to get a job.’
‘Still, thanks for coming in, Stan. I wish I could say it was worth it.’
Montgomerie filed the photocopies except one, signed out and drove to Rutherglen. He climbed a dark stairway, the air of which had grown musty with the heat and rapped on the door of Timofei Jaruduski. He rapped twice more before he received an answer.
‘Who is?’ yelled a voice from the other side of the door.
‘Police,’ said Montgomerie. ‘I called the other day, remember?’
‘About the sighting?’
‘Aye.’
‘I told you everything. Is not good. Go
now.’ Montgomerie could tell by the strength of the voice that Jaruduski had come towards the door and was now standing directly behind it.
‘There’s something I’d like you to look at, Mr Jaruduski.’
‘Go. What is it?’
‘A photograph.’
‘What of a photograph?’
‘Probably of the man who attacked the newspaper man in your back court.’
‘Was a man who did it?’
‘Will you look at the photograph?’
‘Wait.’
Montgomerie waited and then a clove of garlic dropped out of the letter-box and landed at his feet. He picked it up.
‘Move away,’ yelled Jaruduski. ‘Back to the door of the kind lady.’
Montgomerie retreated across the flagstones until he stood against the further door. Jaruduski’s letter-box opened.
‘I have to see,’ he said. ‘Put the photograph on the floor.’
‘Mr Jaru—’
‘It must be so. Please, on the floor.’
Montgomerie laid the photocopy down.
‘Now you must break the garlic and smear it over the photograph. Both sides.’
Montgomerie broke open the clove of garlic and kneeled on the dusty flagstones, drawing the vegetable across both sides of the paper.
‘Now bring here.’
Montgomerie folded the paper and passed it through the letter-box.
Jaruduski snatched it and the letter-box lid snapped shut. Moments later it was opened and the piece of paper was pushed out. ‘Now go,’ said Jaruduski.
Montgomerie unfolded the paper. Across the front, right over the clean-cut features, in block letters, Jaruduski had printed ‘I see only wings.’ Montgomerie went down into the street, he felt it was useless to take it any further. He went back to the station, wrote up the visit to Jaruduski, which took him fifteen seconds and then signed himself out until 6.30 p.m. It was Fair Saturday, 4.00 p.m.
He knew he’d be working that evening, hoofing around the bars and the streets of Rutherglen, showing the photofit to publicans, bus drivers and taxi drivers. Montgomerie had wide shoulders, a slim waist, a downturned moustache, and for the last nine years, since he was seventeen, he had had his pick of women. So much so that he had lost count of the number, though none of them could have been called a conquest, all finding his good looks and charm utterly irresistible. Having briefly explored one, he would await the next, and the next. Then he met Fiona.
Fiona was different.
He could not leave Fiona. She was charming and intelligent and mature and went in and out in all the right places. She also had the rare and priceless virtue of enabling Montgomerie to retain a sense of independence and freedom in their relationship. At 4.00 p.m. on Fair Saturday he took time out to visit Fiona.
He had known Fiona for two years, meeting over a pile of blood-soaked clothing and a recent stiff. She was the casualty doctor, he was the cop that had brought in the raw material. She was a career woman and made few demands on him, which suited Montgomerie down to the ground. But recently he had found himself spending more and more time in her flat. As a man who had always loved his freedom, he found this unsettling He let himself into her flat. She was sitting under the window on a scatter cushion reading the Glasgow Herald. She held up her hand palm outwards as Montgomerie entered the room and then let it fall to grasp the mug of coffee which lay on the varnished floorboards. She didn’t take her eyes off the newspaper. He went back into the hallway and tugged off his boots and padded back into the main room in his stocking feet.
‘Malcolm!’ Fiona put her newspaper down. ‘How nice to see you!” She smiled and held out her hand. Montgomerie took it and kissed her forehead. ‘I thought you were working all day. You know, the Edinbrovian slave-driver cracking his whip.’
‘Did I say that?’ Montgomerie peeled off his jacket and slung it on one of the scatter cushions.
Fiona read her newspaper.
‘When did I say that?’ He sat next to her and slid his arm around her waist.
Fiona turned the page. Montgomerie got up, grabbed his jacket and hung it in the hall.
‘Last night,’ she said, smiling as he entered the room.
‘I don’t remember.’ He resumed his seat next to her. ‘But it’s true right enough, we have a murder investigation, happened just before the Fair and Fabian cancelled all leave. Ray Sussock’s fuming. He had a weekend planned in his love-nest near Mallaig with the delectable WPC Willems. She’s gone off by herself and left him in Big G.’
‘Do they think their affair is a secret?’ Fiona laughed.
‘They’re convinced of it, they make a big show of avoiding each other in public but everybody knows what’s happening.’
‘Oh yes, and what exactly is happening?’
‘The same thing that I have planned for us two.’ He kissed her.
‘Suppose I said I was going out, this very minute, as a matter of fact?’
‘I would say that’s not true.’ He slid his hand inside her T-shirt. ‘I do remember something being said last night, something about you drawing Fair Saturday night in casualty with them coming in bleeding from every orifice. So you don’t have to be there until six, which gives you plenty of time to allow me to consult you about this pain I have, Doctor.’
Fiona’s body was firm and smooth. She put everything into the act, and moaned until she screamed. Afterwards they lay there, with the sun streaming through the half-open curtains, talking quietly.
King tapped reverently at the door. Emma McGarrigle opened it. ‘She’s still in her room,’ she said. ‘She hasn’t come out and won’t take anything to eat.’
‘Give her time,’ said King. ‘I’d like to have another look inside your dad’s study, please.’
Emma McGarrigle stepped aside and beckoned him in the house. He walked to Bill McGarrigle’s study and sat in the chair.
‘Would you like a cup of tea again, Mr King?’ asked the girl from the doorway.
‘No, thank you, love.’ King didn’t turn as he spoke. ‘Turn the light on for me, please, and shut the door. I’ll see you before I leave.’
King sat in Bill McGarrigle’s chair for a few moments looking at his surroundings, the mounds of papers and books, piled on the floor and spilling off the shelves, trying again to get the ‘feel’ of the study. Presently he got up from the chair and began to probe the shelves and the drawers as carefully as he could so as not to disturb the order of the papers. Near to where he had found the folder which had been labelled ‘Gilheaney’, and a few inches deeper in the pile, he came across a long, brown envelope. It was unmarked but King had long felt that Bill McGarrigle had been a man who had no need of labels and a filing system. King sensed that even the name Gilheaney’ written on the folder had been done only in the spirit of thoughtless doodling, rather than in an attempt at filing efficiently.
In the envelope were photocopies of two letters of complaint sent to the editor of the Clarion. Both letters alleged loss of monies to the law firm of NcNulty, Spicer and Watson. There was a period of nearly twelve months separating the dates of the letters, the second having been written less than six weeks previously. King resumed his seat. He imagined the Clarion receiving hundreds, thousands of letters each year complaining of poor service, crime, unfair treatment. Some were probably followed up, others, the vast majority, were probably dismissed as malicious or petty or as having no foundation. But it seemed that all the letters had been kept, for a year at least. King could visualize Bill McGarrigle, in a cold sweat about losing his job, searching the old letters looking for a story. And he’d found one; hell, had he found one.
The second of the two letters had been written by a man who had given his name as Eric Simpson and whose address was in Queens Cross. King drove there.
Most of Queens Cross had come down and much of the rest was coming down, with a couple of blocks of the old sandstones being gutted by a Housing Association prior to being refurbished. The dust from the demolition site
s hung in the still summer air and never seemed to fall completely to the ground. There were forty or fifty flats still inhabited in an old tenement block which stood between two demolition sites. Eric Simpson lived in one of the flats.
King climbed the stairway, reading the name on each door as he passed it. It wasn’t until he got to the very top that he saw ‘Simpson’ written on a piece of paper which was taped to the door.
‘The smooth stinking swine,’ said Simpson after King had introduced himself and explained the purpose of his visit.
‘Shall we talk here or inside?’ asked King.
Simpson stepped aside and shut the door behind King. His flat was a single end: one room off a common stairway. His bed was hard against one wall, there was a table in the middle of the floor and a couple of easy chairs in the bay window, and there was a wash-hand-basin in a recess.
‘So you’re on to him at last,’ said Simpson, pushing his shirt into his jeans. He had wild ginger hair and a face like a pile of broken glass; he had a nearly toothless mouth and a dazed expression. The scars on his face extended down his neck. King thought he was about twenty-five.
‘On to who?’
‘Spicer. The wee rat.’ Simpson went over to the cooker and lighted the ring under the kettle. He went back across the room and sank on to the bed and held his head in his hands.
‘Bevvied?’ asked King.
‘Aye.’ He reached under the bed and pulled out a cardboard box. It was half full of cans of lager and bottles of wine. ‘I’ve been having a wee drink since Thursday,’ he explained in a voice like pit boots on gravel. ‘I got laid off on Thursday.’
‘Redundant?’
‘Aye. Me and twenty-five others. What’s today, sir?’
‘Saturday. Call me Mr King, please.’
‘Saturday?’ Simpson ran his hands through his hair and then bent forward and picked up a half-smoked roll-up from the floor. ‘Saturday, aye, it’s Fair Saturday, is it no?’
‘Aye,’ said King.
‘Aye,’ sighed Simpson and struck a match clumsily. He held it unsteadily while he lit the dog-end, holding the flame to the tobacco much longer than necessary. ‘Will you take a wee heavy, Mr King?’
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