Lennox l-1

by Craig Russell

  ‘I don’t know. But I think Tam was worried about him being involved with it maybe causing problems with the Three Kings.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought Tam would have been too worried about that.’

  Bobby shrugged. For the first time I really examined him. He was younger than I had first thought; the twisted face and half-closed eye I had given him made him look almost vulnerable. I found I didn’t have the appetite to push him around any more. ‘I heard him talking to Jimmy Wallace about Hammer Murphy. Couldn’t hear much because they kept it quiet. But I knew that Tam thought Hammer Murphy might take a pop at them.’

  I thought about what Bobby had said. ‘You told me you couldn’t think of anyone who could be behind Tam and Frankie’s killings.’

  ‘I can’t. Everyone knows it wasn’t Hammer Murphy. Everyone knows that Hammer Murphy was dying to have a go at Tam, but that the other two Kings had said no.’

  ‘Tam knew this?’

  Bobby nodded.

  ‘Why was Tam talking to Jimmy Wallace about this? I thought you said he wasn’t involved with the outfit?’

  ‘He isn’t. Or wasn’t. But Tam used to ask him things. Talk to him a lot. Like he could give him advice.’

  I took a couple of pound notes from my wallet and stuffed them into the breast pocket of Bobby’s thigh-length jacket. He took them out and looked at them. His mood lightened.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘Get yourself a new suit.’

  The biggest immigrant group in Glasgow was the Italians. Some families had been here since the twenties or before, but most had endured repatriation or internment when the war broke out. Now they tried hard to be liked.

  The Trieste was a small Italian restaurant near the city centre. I ate there a lot and had got to know the family who ran it. To start with the Rosselis had been surprised at my basic knowledge of Italian. Then they had been distrustful, realizing it was the passing acquaintance the invader — or liberator — has with the culture of the nation he occupies. Now they greeted me with an incurious familiarity that made me feel comfortable. Like the food, the atmosphere was cheap and cheerful.

  I sat in the corner, under a tattered but colourful poster extolling the sunny virtues of Rimini, and ate spaghetti and drank a rough red wine.

  I tried to get the image of Lillian Andrews out of my head. I had agreed to keep my nose out of whatever sordid business she had going on, but, let’s face it, my word carried as little weight as hers probably did. But all of that would have to wait.

  In the meantime my progress in getting to the bottom of the McGahern business was less than spectacular. After my meeting with Bobby, I had gone to the GPO main office in Waterloo Street and worked my way through the telephone directories for lawyers and estate agents who might handle sales in Byres Road. There were a few. I ’phoned around them, explaining that I was an American engineer who had moved to Glasgow to help design ship engines. I said that I was looking for a property in Byres Road and if they could give me details and asking prices of properties that had sold in the last three months. Most had been reluctant to help, but I’d ended up with a list of seven properties. I knew Byres Road well; it butted onto Great Western Road about half a mile from where my flat was. Tomorrow I would check the addresses out.

  Other than that, I didn’t have a thing to go on, unless Sneddon’s boys turned something up on Powell, the Fred MacMurray lookalike.

  The Italians were supposed to be experts at coffee. It was a skill that seemed to have skipped a generation or two of the Rosseli family and I left my cup half drained and went out into the street.

  If there’s one thing Glasgow can do well it’s rain, and rods of it sparkled in the streetlights as I ran to my car. I was about to unlock the door when a dark-green Riley RMB, so shiny and sleek it looked straight off the production line, pulled up behind me. The door swung open and Jonny Cohen leaned his head out into the rain.

  ‘Lennox! Leave your car there. I’ll bring you back for it.’

  ‘What’s up, Jonny?’

  ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  We drove out of the city centre and headed east. I sat in the front passenger seat but had noticed the two large goons in the back seat as I had got into the Riley. As one of the Three Kings, it was no surprise that Jonny Cohen travelled with muscle. It was true that I genuinely liked Jonny and I came as close to trusting him as you could anyone in his position, but being picked up off the street by a crime boss and two of his goons tended to bring out the over-cautious side of my nature.

  ‘Never mind about the boys.’ Jonny read my mind. ‘They’re not here for your benefit.’

  ‘What’s this all about, Jonny?’ I asked. We headed out on the A8. Despite Jonny’s reassurances, I felt the need to keep track of our whereabouts. He turned and gave me one of his handsome smiles.

  ‘We’re going to see a dirty film,’ he said.

  Just past Shotts we turned off the main road and into the entrance of a small factory. The uniformed night-watchman raised a finger to the peak of his cap when he saw Jonny and opened the gates to let the Riley through.

  I had known that this place existed, but I hadn’t known where it was. Jonny Cohen, like the other two Kings, needed a semi-legitimate business to pass cash and other stuff through the rinse. But I guessed there was more to this place than that: Jonny Cohen was well-known to be a major importer and distributor of hardcore, continental pornography. He was rumoured to supply a lot of the stuff sold south of the border, with a fortnightly truck run to Soho. His enterprising efforts had succeeded in putting dirty magazines and blue movies on the list of leading Scottish exports. And, let’s face it, nobody jerked off over whisky and shortbread.

  We parked outside one of the factory’s warehouses and Jonny led the way in.

  There were two other men inside the warehouse. One was middle-aged and short, but had the mean, muscled look of an ex-boxer. The other was even older, nervy-looking and dressed like he worked in a bank. They stood next to an eight-millimetre film projector. A white sheet had been nailed up on the facing wall.

  ‘These two gentlemen are business associates of mine,’ explained Jonny. ‘If you don’t mind, we won’t go into names at this point. All you need to know is that we don’t just import porn, we make it as well. In Edinburgh, as a matter of fact. My friends here are, well, the wank film industry’s equivalent of Sam Goldwyn and J. Arthur Rank.’

  ‘Mr Cohen gave us a rough description of the woman you are interested in.’ It was the bank manager type who spoke. ‘He also explained how you described her exceptional… magnetism I suppose you’d call it. But it was when Mr Cohen showed us the photograph… May I see it again?’

  Jonny nodded and handed him the picture of Lillian Andrews. He examined it for a moment and smiled, tilting it for the ex-boxer to look at. He gave a brief nod.

  ‘No, there’s no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘That’s Sally Blane, all right,’

  ‘Sally Blane?’ I asked.

  In answer the bank manager handed me the photograph while the boxer switched on the projector and turned out the strip lights. A caption, ‘Housewife’s Choice’, came up on screen. The black and white film played mute, so I couldn’t hear her voice, but I instantly recognized a younger Lillian Andrews as she opened the door to a door-to-door salesman.

  ‘That’s her all right,’ I said. ‘But she looks different.’

  ‘Younger. We made it about five, six years ago,’ explained the bank manager. By this time Lillian/Sally was performing an impressively professional blow-job on the salesman. ‘Sally worked for us for about six months. She was a natural. You could say she was custom-made for it. We offered her more money than we have ever offered any of our performers to stay on, but she quit and we never heard from her again. But she was the kind of girl you never forget.’

  ‘Where did you find her?’

  ‘We put the word out that we were looking for new tal
ent. One of our contacts put us on to her. She and her sister came along for an audition.’ I tried not to think what an audition for a dirty film might involve. ‘I’m not sure, but I think she might have been working in a knocking-shop in Edinburgh.’

  I turned back to the screen. Lillian and the ‘salesman’ were now engaged in full intercourse in what looked like an improbable and certainly uncomfortable angle against a Belfast sink. I remembered the first time I met John Andrews: pompous, brusque, embarrassed; but desperately worried about the woman he loved. This was more than just a marriage for money: it was a set-up.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen enough. So Sally Blane is her real name?’

  The bank manager turned off the projector and the lights went on.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. All our payments were made on a strictly cash basis. No tax, no names, no pack drill. My guess is that it was a professional name though. Her sister worked for us too and she used a completely different name.’

  The boxer placed the film spool back in the can and stacked them with some others. He handed me a brown foolscap envelope.

  ‘These are stills taken from some of the films Sally made for us.’ The boxer’s voice was cluttered with long, flat Edinburgh vowels. ‘We thought you’d maybe need a copy of them. If you need proof.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. I had a sickening feeling when I thought about the not too distant future: to showing John Andrews photographs of his wife performing sex for money. I should have walked away from this one when I had had the chance. I could still walk away. But I knew I wouldn’t.

  Jonny Cohen dropped his two heavies at one of his clubs before driving me back to where my car was parked outside the Italian restaurant.

  ‘That was good of you, Jonny,’ I said as we parked. ‘I mean, going to all that trouble for something that isn’t of any concern to you. I appreciate it.’ As I made to get out of the car, he placed his driver-gloved hand on my forearm.

  ‘I won’t say think nothing of it, Lennox. You owe me. It’s a favour I may call in some day.’

  I thought about what he said for a moment and then nodded. ‘Fair enough, Jonny.’

  I stood and watched the deep-green Riley purr into the distance and felt an indistinct unease somewhere deep inside. I was working for Sneddon. I was indebted to Jonny Cohen. I was getting sucked deeper into a case for which I had stopped being paid. I reckoned I couldn’t be in a much worse situation.

  But I was wrong. I could.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I remember seeing, before the war, a circus film in which a lion-tamer placed his head in the mouth of a lion. I recall thinking it was a pretty stupid way to make a living. Now it was my turn. There was one last King left in the pack.

  Hammer Murphy.

  A name like Murphy was a badge in Glasgow. It marked you out, made clear your background and allegiances. Your religion. To Glasgow’s Protestant majority, a name like Michael Murphy was the name of the enemy. A Fenian. A Mick. A Taig. Glasgow may have been the least anti-Semitic city in Europe, but it made up for it in the red-hot mutual hatred between Protestant and Catholic. It wasn’t really anything to do with religion, but with origin. The Protestants were indigenous Scots, the Catholics the descendant families of nineteenth-century Irish immigrants.

  Hammer Murphy was no more than five foot seven but could never be described as a small man. He gave the impression of being as wide as he was tall. Packed with muscle. Packed with hate. The other two Kings tended to joke about Murphy’s lack of brains. He certainly was no scholar, but there was no underestimating Murphy’s vicious animal intelligence.

  Everybody knew Hammer Murphy’s story. It was the stuff of legends. And knowing the story made you want to avoid knowing the man.

  Murphy had learned at an early age that he had been born with the deck stacked against him. He realized that he didn’t have the intelligence to learn his way out of the cramped Maryhill tenement flat he shared with his parents, five brothers and two sisters. He also worked out that the British class system strictly rationed opportunity and that as a working-class Glasgow Catholic he didn’t even own a ration book. It had been obvious to the young Murphy that he would never enjoy the things in life that others had been gifted by birth outside the tenements. Unless he took them.

  All of this had contributed to a dark, malevolent fury that burned deep within Murphy. To begin with, violence had been his way of venting that fury. Violence for its own sake: ‘Old Firm’ matches between Celtic and Rangers providing the fevered tribal atmosphere. Then he had sought to combine violence with a strategy for survival and success. Productive violence. In his five brothers he had a ready-made gang. The Murphy firm had never been imaginative. It had taken the obvious route: starting with a minor local protection racket, stealing cars, house-breaking. Then they moved into loan sharking. And into another gang’s patch.

  It had all started as small stuff: a squabble between two insignificant wideboy gangs over a worthless patch of Glasgow turf. But a legend had been born. It was then that Murphy earned his nickname.

  The other gang’s leader had been Paul Cochrane. The usual way these things were settled was through attrition. Repeated gang battles. Advances made racket by racket, shop by shop, bar by bar, bookie by bookie. But Murphy had suggested to Cochrane that they settle it between themselves. A ‘square-go’ in front of both gangs. Whoever won would be the leader of both. Cochrane didn’t ask what would happen to the loser.

  It was expected that weapons would be used and Cochrane had had a set of home-made knuckledusters, a short but lethal spike projecting from its top. Murphy had used his fists, his feet, his forehead. Even his teeth. Cochrane’s kicks and punches had made no impact on Murphy’s battle-hardened face. When Cochrane had come at him with his weapon, Murphy had broken his arm. The fight had been swift, brutal and very one-sided. Cochrane had gestured his surrender with his unbroken arm.

  The triumphant Murphy had then turned to the assembled gang members and told them they were now totally under his control. That now they were stronger. Better. Harder. He promised more money. More power. This was the beginning of something good for them all. Then, in a calm, measured tone, he told them that anyone who opposed him would get the exactly same as Cochrane was about to get.

  It was a builder’s short-handled, barrel-headed lead mallet.

  In front of forty witnesses, Michael Murphy committed murder. More than that, he made it a spectacle: an exposition of extreme, psychotic violence to shock men who dealt in violence every day. When he was finished, he made Cochrane’s former deputy scrape up what was left of the erstwhile gang boss’s head with a shovel. His point had been made.

  Everybody got to know about it. Including the police.

  Murphy had been arrested, naturally. He could easily have ended up being hanged. But he had already achieved the status of a legend. The fear that surrounded him bordered on the superstitious. Maybe some thought that if they bore witness against Hammer Murphy, his execution would be no barrier to his returning to exact revenge.

  The police knew that he had killed Cochrane. They knew where, when and how. But they couldn’t put together a case against him. Murphy was released.

  Two more bosses were to meet a literally sticky end courtesy of Murphy’s lead mallet. After that, his criminal organization spread like a stain across Glasgow’s West Side. It grew to such an extent that the only obstacles to total domination of Glasgow were Willie Sneddon and Jonny Cohen, the two most successful black marketeers in immediate post-war Glasgow.

  Things soon got messy. The Second World War had just ended and there were a lot of guns in illegal circulation. The conflict between the three yet-uncrowned Kings had threatened to turn Glasgow into a new Chicago. At the beginning of ’forty-nine, Sneddon and Cohen combined forces and hit Murphy hard. Murphy’s bookies were turned over by Cohen’s armed robbers every second week. Top men in the Murphy organization were crippled or killed by Sneddon’s hardmen. In the meantime Murph
y hit both the Cohen and Sneddon operations hard. After Murphy’s Jaguar exploded just as he was about to get into it, he called for a truce.

  Jonny Cohen had then brokered the Three Kings Deal. In October nineteen forty-nine, over lunch in the elegant art deco surroundings of the Regent Oyster Bar in Glasgow’s business district, the three most violent and powerful criminals in Glasgow divided up the city and its most profitable criminal activities. It was the coronation of the Three Kings. The deal struck became a successful and stable arrangement and now, five years on, Glasgow’s criminal business was still conducted in comparative peace.

  But Hammer Murphy continually strained at the bonds the deal put on him. Of the Three Kings, the bookies’ money was on Murphy to be the one to shatter the peace. Whenever a deal was done, Murphy worried that he had been swindled by the other two. He also envied the influence his rivals had with the police, a foothold he had failed to attain. And if one of his firm was arrested, Murphy suspected that Sneddon or Cohen had instigated it through the bent coppers on their payroll.

  Murphy was volatile, unpredictable, suspicious to the point of paranoia and the chip on his shoulder was as precariously balanced as it could be. And now I was going to have to find out if he was holding back about Tam McGahern’s murder.

  There was no way I could simply turn up on Hammer Murphy’s doorstep the way I had with Jonny Cohen, or even Willie Sneddon. Instead, I ’phoned him from my office. I only got to speak to one of his goons but left a message explaining in none-too-specific terms what I wanted to talk to him about. I was told to call back the next day for an answer.

  But I got my answer within a couple of hours.

  After I ’phoned Murphy, I called John Andrews at his office and gave my code name and fake company details again. He didn’t take my call. I explained to his secretary that it was urgent and she checked again, but again I got the brush-off. In a way I was glad to put off showing him the stills of his wife. Again I thought about how easy it would be to walk away from the whole sordid business.