Lennox l-1

by Craig Russell

  Coincidence three. Within a day or so of Parks being topped, a leading plastic surgeon who had been amenable to doing Tam McGahern a favour or two had just decided to blow his own brains out.

  It was over a week after Parks’s death that the police did come calling. I was in the Horsehead Bar when Jock Ferguson appeared at my elbow. He accepted my offer of a whisky. A good sign. There’s a kind of etiquette with coppers: they don’t tend to drink with you before they work you over.

  ‘You got something to tell me?’ He raised an eyebrow. I raised my pulse. Maybe he wasn’t here to socialize.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Come off it, Lennox, you must be up to your eyes in all of this shite.’

  ‘Shite?’

  He turned to face me full on, placing his glass down in a businesslike way and leaning on the bar’s brass rail. ‘Don’t fuck me about, Lennox. There’s no way that Willie Sneddon hasn’t hired you to look into Arthur Parks’s death.’

  ‘Oh, that…’ I said and tried to wipe the and-I-thought-you-were-t alking-about-me-being-a-prime-suspect-for-this-murder expression from my face. I didn’t think I had succeeded that well because Ferguson’s broad forehead creased in a suspicious frown.

  ‘What else did you think I was talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘I wasn’t sure, that’s all,’ I smiled and took a withering slug of the Scotch I’d ordered because Big Bob was out of CC. ‘The problem with working in the sewer is that there’s a lot of shite to choose from.’

  My act of self-deprecation seemed to do the trick and he leaned both elbows back on the bar. ‘Willie McNab is trying to tie this one up fast. He has a theory.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We had a discussion about homosexuals.’ Ferguson grinned, uncharacteristically. ‘McNab finds the whole concept beyond understanding. I don’t think he likes to admit that there are any in Scotland.’

  ‘I’ve heard that theory before,’ I said. ‘That like all the snakes being driven out of Ireland by St Patrick, St Andrew drove all of the queers out of Scotland and they became…’

  ‘… the English,’ we said in unison and laughed.

  ‘I’m being serious though,’ said Ferguson. ‘McNab has all of these theories about Parks’s killing. He thinks it was some kind of sado-masochistic homosexual thing. The only thing he knows about homosexuality is that it’s illegal and those guilty of it usually display excellent clothes-sense. His theories are beginning to border on science-fiction. Like they’re Martians or something. Do you know, he’s like Queen Victoria… he really doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as lesbianism. “How’s that going to work?” he said. “All sockets and no plugs.”’

  ‘Why does he think Parks’s murder is sado-masochism?’ I asked. ‘How did he die?’ Clever Lennox.

  ‘Not nice, Lennox,’ Ferguson grimaced. I couldn’t tell if it was the memory or the Bells that was doing it. ‘Someone had beaten seven shades of shite out of him. Tied him to a chair first. His face was battered to fuck.’

  ‘I take it you don’t go for the bondage-buggery theory?’

  ‘I knew a guy in the war. A decent guy and a good fucking soldier. He blew his brains out because it came out he was homo and he was going to be court-martialled. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t swing from those branches myself, but I don’t feel the need to persecute people because of the way they were made. And it pisses me off the amount of police and court time that goes into persecuting them. They’re not criminals. They’re the way they are. That’s all. And I don’t think they go around howling at the moon or worshipping Satan. And I don’t think that what I saw in Parks’s flat has anything to do with where he put his dobber.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ I said. Not-so-clever-Lennox. ‘From what you’ve said, I mean.’

  ‘So, by my reckoning, Sneddon’s hired you to look into Parks’s killing.’ Ferguson was talking like a copper again. ‘But you’ve got this all tied in with the McGahern thing. Which brings me to the main point.’

  ‘I rather thought it might.’

  ‘I allowed you a little slack on Lillian Andrews. Now she’s completely disappeared. I told you, Lennox. I told you I needed to talk to her about her husband’s death.’

  ‘Which is still officially an accident?’ I asked.

  ‘Which couldn’t be more beside the fucking point. You know he was murdered. I know he was murdered. What I want to know is why and by whom. But Lillian Andrews has fucked off. Abroad, I believe, and I don’t have enough of a case to persuade McNab she’s worth pursuing. So let’s start with exactly what you have heard about Parks’s killing and everything you know about Lillian Andrews.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, as if he’d wrested it out of me. ‘Sneddon asked me to sniff about. But it’s a non-starter. This is like the McGahern killing — everybody knows it wasn’t any of the Three Kings. From what we’ve heard, there was nothing nicked from the flat?’

  ‘Nothing. But that’s meaningless. If you’d seen the state of Parks you’d understand that they weren’t interested in stealing from him. It’s what he knew they wanted. Now that makes me really curious. I don’t, for a minute, believe that Sneddon doesn’t know what it’s all about.’

  ‘He doesn’t. Trust me, Jock,’ I said without irony. ‘This looks more and more like Parks had his own little deal going on somewhere and it all came unstuck.’

  ‘So did his jaw,’ said Ferguson. I kept my expression as if I didn’t know what he meant.

  ‘As for Lillian Andrews,’ I said with a shrug, ‘I have absolutely no idea where she has gone or what she’s doing. But I feel totally outmanoeuvred. The truth is I’m no further forward than when we last spoke.’

  Ferguson stayed for another round, then left. After he left I ordered a double and downed it in one. I felt relieved. Big time. But something nagged at me: why did I feel that I hadn’t been exactly pressed as hard as Ferguson could have pressed me?

  I left the Horsehead shortly after Ferguson and went looking for a prostitute. Purely in pursuit of my investigation.

  Lena, the girl whom Parks had offered me weeks before, was not the kind of girl to work the streets. Too pretty and too ‘classy’. Until she opened her mouth to speak, apparently. She had a bad case, Sneddon had told me, of ‘Gorbals Gob’. Officially, Lena was taking a sabbatical until things cooled down: she was still under Sneddon’s ‘protection’, whether Parks was around or not. But a week is a long time without business and Sneddon suspected that Lena and a few of the other girls were entertaining some of their established clients in their own places.

  The address Sneddon had given me for Lena was over a pub in Partick. I parked the Atlantic across the street from the bar. It sat in a gloomy block of tenements with sooty windows, but had a neon-tube cocktail glass, tilted at a cheery angle, blinking wanly through the Glasgow rain. I could be in Manhattan, I thought.

  I crossed the road and walked up the ‘close’ as the Scots called the narrow alleys between buildings. It stank of urine and reminded me of the set up at the Highlander Bar owned by the McGaherns. I climbed the back stairs to the door of the flat above. The red curtains drawn over the grimy glass of the only window made it glow like a malevolent ember. I didn’t knock but turned the handle. It was unlocked and I stepped into a small, clean kitchen. There was a toilet off and I reckoned the door ahead of me led into the only other room in the flat. I swung the door open and walked in on Lena and a fat middle-aged businessman reclining together on her sofa. Lena was dressed as a nurse. Or more accurately half-dressed as a nurse. I could have been wrong, but from what I could see I didn’t think she had any medical training, unless mouth-to-dick resuscitation was a legitimate form of life-saving.

  ‘Honey!’ I uttered in outrage. ‘You told me you got that extra money from taking in sewing!’

  They both scrabbled to their feet and fat boy panicked. He pulled his trousers up, grabbed his jacket and rushed past me and out of the flat, giving me as wide a berth as he could as he passed.

>   Lena wasn’t giving me her Rita Hayworth look this time.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ she screamed. Her voice was thin and scratchy. Like Sneddon had warned, despite her classy looks, Lena had the elocution of a true Gorbals Gal. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I know you… you was round at the Circus. You was the guy Arthur was speaking to.’

  ‘That’s me,’ I said and sat down in the armchair opposite. Lena grabbed a gown and covered her best assets.

  ‘Get the fuck out. Who the fuck do you think you are barging in here?’

  ‘I’m glad you remember me, Lena,’ I smiled. ‘That night you saw me talking to Parks, I was working for Mr Sneddon. I’m here tonight because I’m working for Mr Sneddon.’

  Her face changed. Real fear.

  ‘Listen… that… what you saw… I’m not trying to take business away from Mr Sneddon. It’s just I’ve got to eat…’

  ‘I noticed that when I came in,’ I said.

  ‘Look, I really don’t want you to tell Mr Sneddon. I’ll do anything…’ Lena took a step closer and opened her gown, pulling it clear of her breasts. I was being invited to play doctors and nurses.

  ‘Put your tools back in their box, Lena,’ I said. ‘I’m here on business. Mine, not yours. Sit down.’

  She covered herself up and sat down. I handed her the photograph of Lillian Andrews.

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Oh, aye. I know that wee fucking whore all right. That’s Sally Blane.’

  ‘Did Parks know her?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but he knew her sister. She used to work for him for a while.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said, lighting up. I didn’t offer Lena a cigarette: the Royal College of Nursing would have disapproved. ‘Sally Blane’s sister is Margot Taylor.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Lena. ‘But Arthur didn’t know Sally. Margot dyed her hair blonde. Other than that they looked quite like each other. I only met Sally through Margot. Margot wanted me to work with them. They had their own wee sideline going. But I got the idea Sally thought I was too fucking common for what they was planning.’

  ‘Heaven forfend,’ I said and drew on my cigarette.

  ‘Either that or she thought I was too old,’ continued Lena, undeterred. ‘Sally was a stuck-up wee bitch. Anyways, I wasn’t interested. Mr Sneddon wouldn’t have liked it. Arthur arranged for Margot to get a hiding because of it.’

  I examined Lena. She was probably thirty. Again, she had that vaguely and disconcertingly aristocratic look: not quite beauty, but very attractive. She would have fitted in with a top-end call-girl operation. Until she opened her mouth.

  ‘Where was Sally working?’

  ‘Edinburgh. Some posh fuckhouse. Why d’you want to know?’

  ‘Have you ever heard the name Lillian Andrews? Specifically, do you remember Sally Blane ever calling herself that?’

  ‘Naw. I only met her that time. Once was fucking enough. You sure you’re not goin’ to tell Sneddon about me having punters here?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m interested in. Did you ever see Arthur Parks talk to either of the McGahern twins?’

  ‘No’ fuckin’ likely. Sneddon would have cut Arthur’s balls off if he’d had anything to do with the McGaherns.’

  ‘This operation Sally and Margot were involved in… did they tell you much about it?’

  ‘Naw, just that they was going to make three times what we made at the Circus. But Sally shut Margot up. I got the idea that she thought Margot had told me too much. Especially when it was fucking obvious that Sally didn’t want me to be part of it.’

  ‘I was told that it was run by a woman called Molly. Do you know if Sally or Margot ever called themselves that?’

  ‘That was what Sally called Margot… like it was short or something for Margot. Aye, I heard her call her Molly. But there’s no fucking way Margot was the boss.’ Lena looked thoughtful for a moment. Again, the illusion of refinement was captured, then lost again when she spoke. ‘There was something that they said to each other… about someone else involved. Shite, I can’t remember what they said, but I know it was something about a foreigner… another chippy. You know, a whore.’

  ‘And it was this foreigner who ran the operation?’

  ‘Dunno. Maybes. Or maybes it was Sally. She was always bossing. But this foreign tart was important somehow. Listen, I really don’t know anythin’. Like I says, Margot thought I’d fit in. Sally says no. So after that I hears nothin’ more about it until Margot’s out on her arse and Arthur gives her a hidin’.’

  ‘Did anyone see him give her a hiding?’

  ‘Naw. Well, aye… one of the boys on the door went with him. But waited in the car. Arthur went in with a barber’s strop. It was a few weeks after that that I heard she was dead. The car crash.’

  I smoked a little for a moment. I was getting a picture. But it was a made-up scene. And I was pretty convinced it had been painted by Parks, Lillian and McGahern. But I was still looking from the wrong angle.

  ‘Do you have any idea who would have wanted to do that to Parks? Did anything happen in the days before he was killed?’

  ‘Naw. Business as usual. Nothin’ special I can remember.’

  ‘I got the feeling you were one of Parks’s star turns, Lena. After all, he offered me a free ticket on you. Did he do that with other special guests?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Anybody you can remember over the last few weeks?’

  ‘Naw. Nob’dy particular.’ She paused and frowned. ‘Wait, there was one guy. Fat ugly bastard. I got the feeling he was important. Arthur told me to pull all the stops out. You know what I mean?’

  ‘I can imagine. Can you remember his name?’

  Lena laughed a drayman’s laugh. ‘You fuckin’ kiddin’? Nobody leaves their name and address. He was a punter looking for a shag, no’ a pen-pal. There was one thing about him though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was foreign. His accent was like a German or something.’

  ‘Could he have been Dutch?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Dutch… where they from?’

  ‘Holland,’ I said. ‘The one with the windmills.’ Lena didn’t look enlightened. I got up and put my hat on.

  ‘You sure you’re no’ goin’ to tell Sneddon on me? I mean about my punter.’

  ‘Like I said… not my business.’ I made for the door.

  Lena slipped her gown off. ‘You deserve a thank you,’ she said. ‘Hows about a wee free fuck?’

  I looked at her body, naked except for the nurse’s hat, shrunken apron, suspenders and stockings. She sure was put together the right way. But, despite the alluring charm of her invitation, I didn’t fancy the idea of having to wash my dick with peroxide afterwards. And my ears, if she had talked.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said and left.

  When I put my mind to it, I clean up pretty well. I had a role to play and I got up early the next morning, bathed, shaved and put on my best business blue. I dressed it up with a pale blue, barrel-cuffed silk shirt, a knitted silk tie in the same blue as the suit, placed a crisp white linen handkerchief in my breast pocket and set it all off with a tiepin and cufflinks in solid gold. I was also a little liberal with my most expensive cologne, which I’d bought from ’Pherson’s. I had an expensive gabardine trenchcoat that seldom saw the light and I draped it over my arm on the way out. Mrs White came out of her door just as I reached the bottom of the stairs and we exchanged our usual perfunctory morning greetings.

  I smiled as I walked across to the car: Mrs White, despite herself, had cast an approving eye over me. I drove to the office and picked up a few business cards from my drawer. The business cards, however, did not have my name on them. Or my business.

  Heading into the city centre, I parked outside the offices of Mason and Brodie in St Vincent Street. The brass plaque told me they were solicitors and estate agents and that they had premises in Ayr as well as Glasgow. Having a place in Ayr meant you had a pre
sence in the nineteenth century.

  Everything about Mason and Brodie’s offices spoke of Scottish Establishment: the solid oak panelling and sturdy desks, the aged document chests and the smell of pipe tobacco and beeswax that hung in the air, as if preserving the atmosphere of the past. The only thing that didn’t fit was the secretary who sat behind the desk nearest the door. She was about twenty and dark-haired with pretty blue eyes. She smiled as I entered and I asked if I could see Mr Brodie, whom I believed was handling the sale of a couple of properties I was interested in acquiring.

  She led me into a panelled meeting room and I tried to resist looking at her ass. Resistance turned out to be futile. She offered me tea, which I declined, and asked me to wait for a few minutes while she found out if Mr Brodie was free.

  A few minutes passed before a burly man in a business suit appeared at the door.

  ‘Mr Scobie?’ he boomed at me. ‘I’m Fraser Brodie.’ I could tell he was from Ayrshire from his eighteenth-century accent and the fact that he bellowed his hello as he extended his beefy hand. Ayrshire people are by nature one-hundred-decibel speakers: it comes from centuries of shouting across fields or up mineshafts at each other. He had thick, curling dark hair and woolly eyebrows and had the ruddy complexion of a lusty shepherd. I somehow imagined him striding purposefully across the Ayrshire countryside while the more virtuous ewes in his flock ran for cover.

  ‘I believe you are interested in a couple of the properties we have available for sale through our estate agency department.’

  ‘I am indeed,’ I said, minimizing my Canadian accent and handing him one of the dummy business cards that supported the fiction of Walter Scobie, of Scobie, Black and MacGregor, Accountants, Edinburgh. ‘But I have to point out that the purchase is not for myself, but for one of my clients who is moving his business to the West. I cannot say too much at the moment, but he may have a need for industrial premises in the Glasgow area, also.’

  ‘I see,’ Brodie smiled broadly. ‘And which of the properties are you interested in?’