by Marie Rowan
“That must surely be nonsense,” protested Tiffney.
“Quite a normal reaction if you really looked at it. The suspect is being watched and trailed by Jake and some unofficial others led by Ned Bell.”
“Thank God for that. How many men on it” asked Tiffney.
“More than enough, according to Ned. I went home while you two were at the printworks and I can assure you, he’s got it all covered. Now, your report, Felix.”
“Right, Ben. We went to the printworks and saw the Fishermen group with no bother and no delaying tactics by the management due to the manager we saw being from the same village in Mull as DC Malcolm Beaton who came with me, Austin having been assigned elsewhere by you, Ben. The end result was nothing as far as a name was concerned. You’ve got the list in front of you of the people who’re presently occasional participants. What we did learn was that it was a fairly informal group of people who attended monthly religious services at the works led by the local minister. It was held during the men’s break time. I expect the McCorquodales are elders of the kirk. The name The Fishermen was a comic reference to the fishers of men in The Bible. The group changed when folk left for a dozen different reasons and others were new employees. It all began many years ago and continues to this day. Nobody on that list has Finlay as either a first or second name. That’s about it.” Tiffney did not mention the whisky as, in his opinion, it was not immediately relevant to the enquiry.
“Now, Felix has produced this list of known Fishermen. Study it in silence while I have a word with our uniform coleagues downstairs.” Pollock left and quickly pulled Sergeant Manley aside.
“Who’s outside The Clew Bay?” he whispered.
“Donegan talking to Vipond about nothing, of course. Just watching. He’ll be replaced by Fortuna in half-an-hour.”
“Good. Jake’s on his way up there now. Keep me informed.”
“Will do.”
In the newly-updated Clew Bay Bar, Miss Euphemia Malone settled herself in the lounge bar and brought out a daily newspaper. ‘Situations Vacant’ lay before her, and a pair of spectacles were positioned delicately on her very patrician nose.
“And what would you like to drink, miss?” The landlord’s wife smiled kindly at the young, very-efficient looking woman whose tidy notebook lay open before her. The pages were already replete with columns and headings and Mrs Kelly wondered why WM Roberts, Coal Merchants’ most efficient secretary and an adept at seeing off time-wasters clamouring for her boss’s attention, should still be out of work. As WM Roberts himself was now languishing in Barlinnie Jail, due in part to Miss Malone’s testimony, perhaps, thought Mrs Kelly, it was not too surprising that only totally honest prospective employers would be likely to offer her a position. Even then, though, a neatly turned ankle and eyes like Baltic amber which might just mist over at the most inappropriate times, would be the subject of conversation at the dinner-table between husband and wife and a letter of rejection would somehow find its way to Miss Malone’s door. Poor Miss Malone.
“Not very busy today, Mrs Kelly.” Mrs Kelly shook her head as she looked round the near-empty pub.
“Was just as usual at mid-day with the factory workers but most of them spent their drink money last night due to the excitement of the fire and the murders. We’ve done much better than usual over the piece as some who would normally drink in other pubs stayed here to watch and talk about what had happened in Tara’s Halls.”
“I heard about that. Pity about it for it was a very popular venue for works’ dances and socials.”
“And weddings. We made a lot out of weddings over there because the guests would come here for several drinks both before and after the reception.” Miss Malone nodded.
“The thing I liked about it was the way they did the floral arrangements around the hall and also on the tables. I had to arrange dinners, large and more intimate ones, for WM Roberts as you probably know, and the tables were always set out and decorated to perfection. Most attractive and a great favourite with Mr Roberts.” Meaningful and knowing glances were exchanged between the two women. “I like that very tasteful arrangement of yours on the bar counter.” Mrs Kelly scowled slightly.
“That? That wasn’t me and, personally, I think it’s wasted on the folk who drink in here. All they’re interested in is booze and banter. Running, bicycling and football. That’s it. I’ve no idea what Chris is thinking about. He dragged that vase down from our quarters upstairs and stuck some flowers in it. Violets. Hardly likely to cause a stir, are they? Not dramatic enough. Says he’s thinking of opening up some of our rooms upstairs for functions. Says he’s got some pal or other he can hire them out to. So he says. A fad. And where the flowers came from is anybody’s guess. He disappeared just before 9pm for a few minutes and came back with that bunch. Then again, since he’d been in here all day, I expect he just went mad for a bit.”
“Still, I do like them.”
“But how many women with your finer feelings come in here? I bet you’d have walked right out if our usual standard of clientele had been in.” Miss Malone sighed.
“Too true, Mrs Kelly. I’m just working my way along The Gallowgate taking a chance that any premises I call on might just have a vacancy for a secretary or any work really in the office managing line.”
“Got your paper, too, I see.”
“I think I have all areas covered. Here’s hoping.”
“Here’s DS Jacobstein. Why he’s in the police force when his family own JAE in Glasgow and Edinburgh, I’ll never know. They’re talking of one in Greenock, I’m told.” Miss Malone nodded vigorously and lowered her voice to almost a whisper.
“I’m told that he’s now in the same boat as me. That’s what the street gossip is saying anyway today. Practically out on his ear for bad-mouthing his boss. I met them both when that murder investigation was underway. You remember, my ex-boss was involved in it in a way. Last December. I met him very briefly this morning in Great Eastern Street – beautiful manners, he has – and was telling him I might come in here to have a look at the ‘Situations Vacant’ columns. I wonder if he’s come in here to see me, have a chat, you know. He seems quite harmless to me. Should I cheer him up? I might even find there’s a vacancy in JAE coming up shortly. I’d love to work in there. It has a staff canteen, staff discount and is he married, do you know?” asked Miss Malone in a voice full of hope.
“Don’t think so. He’s worth a packet, they say,” said Mrs Kelly softly as Jacobstein entered her pub and looked round. Miss Malone unobtrusively preened herself and Mrs Kelly smiled.
“Sergeant Jacobstein, over here. Please join me.” Jacobstein walked over and sat down in the seat Miss Malone indicated. Orders were taken and Miss Malone explained why her things had been littering the table.
“Cheer up. I’ve really lost my job, but you’ve still got yours. Rumours. I’m afraid.”
“Just a matter of time, though. If I remember correctly, Miss Malone, you resigned, you weren’t sacked.”
“That’s true and I must remember to emphasise that in my job applications.”
“Are you finding jobs hard to come by, Miss Malone?” The lady nodded and her auburn curls caught the light through the etched glass window as they were shaken. Jacobstein was slightly disorientated.
“Keep your mind on the job, Sergeant Jacobstein,” murmured Miss Malone suppressing a grin as she suddenly pointed to the vase of violets. “Aren’t they lovely? Mr Kelly placed them there. I think they must be his favourites. It’s lovely to receive flowers, isn’t it? I mean for girls, ladies,” Miss Malone added. “Oh thanks, Mrs Kelly, I’m very thirsty. Is it expensive to eat in JAE’s restaurant, Sergeant Jacobstein?”
“Not pricey, no. Is there a flower shop near here, Mrs Kelly?” asked the sergeant. Miss Malone laughed.
“I don’t think buying flowers for Detective Inspector Pollock will get you your job back, Sergeant Jacobstein, do you, Mrs Kelly?” Miss Malone sipped her drink and smiled over at
Chris Kelly who had now appeared behind the bar.
“At the top end of the street. Closes at 9pm,” said the landlord. “I just made it and she had my favourite flowers.”
“Since when?” asked his wife sceptically.
“Since I saw them sitting in the florist’s shop last night. Adds a touch of colour, don’t you think, Sergeant Jacobstein?”
“I certainly do.” Jacobstein appreciated the unexpected quality of the sherry. “But let’s have a look at what’s on offer in the jobs market today, Miss Malone. Your savings won’t last forever.”
“No vacancies in JAE’s offices then, I suppose?”
“I don’t know. Might be asking the same question myself at the end of today. By the way, how long did you work for the coal merchant?”
“Four years and he’s a self-styled coal king. I had to work my way up as he had as big office.”
“Right then, they’ll probably hand you a questionnaire to fill in first. There’s the kind of question they might ask you.” Jacobstein wrote quickly and sat back. “Take your time to think about it.” Miss Malone thought for a bit and then wrote the answer. Jake nodded. So, the flowers weren’t there before nine o’ clock and Kelly left the bar to get them. So why violets? Bigger, more dramatic ones would have made a better display. Why had Kelly chosen violets? Jacobstein wrote the words, ‘Why violets and don’t take the claim that they’re his favourites?’ “They always ask this one. The best places give a written test before an interview. The latest American idea. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“This one’s a problem, Mr Jacobstein. I don’t think I’d be much good at this. Maybe I should go for a very small office, nothing too ambitious. “
“Nonsense, just have a go at the answer.”
“But what will I say when they ask me why I resigned? Mr Jacobstein, do I lie, tell the truth or what? Let me think.” Jacbstein sipped his sherry. “Mr Kelly?””
“Just like a woman,” said Kelly avoiding the lady’s problem.
“No, not that. I was just wondering. You like flowers, don’t you?”
“I certainly like these violets.”
“Do you think that if I wore a little bunch on my jacket, pinned on, I mean, they would create a good impression? Show that I get up in time to dress well?”
“A good time-keeper? I think so.”
“Maybe if I got some that kept my name in their minds. Do you know anyone called Violet? Did she try it? Did it work for her? I’m getting really desperate for it’s been four long months with no money coming in.”
“To answer your question, yes, I did know someone called Violet but she’s been dead for three years now. I don’t know if she did wear flowers at interviews. Better ask Sergeant Jacobstein.”
“Wasting your time there, Miss Malone, for the only interviews I was trusted with for JAE was when they needed a message-boy. Girls never applied. Think I’d better get moving. Might even try the store’s afternoon teas.”
“Same here. I mean going, not eating. I’ll work my way along The Gallowgate as far as The Trongate.”
“Opposite direction then. Good luck.” Jacobstein paid for both drinks, left then headed east towards Bridgeton Cross. Miss Malone counted out her tram fare, tucked it inside her small leather gloves and left going west towards the City Centre.
Pollock watched while Tiffney opened the note he had just received, brought in by PC Proctor.
“Anything I should know?” he asked.
“It’s from one of the present-day Fishermen. He writes that an old-timer at the printworks says the original Fishermen group were twelve in number and all came into work on the tram from the East End. They were something of an evangelical group.”
“Austin, find that tram driver. It was probably one of the first trams of the day so that they could make it to the printworks in time for their shift.”
Chapter 8
Jacobstein’s brain was working overtime. He now had a name, Violet, and a vase of flowers appearing on the counter of The Clew Bay Bar. But that rude gesture at Ned Bell’s back, what did it mean? Suddenly a thought struck him. Kelly had touched the flowers and flicked his fingers at the same time. But Bell had been walking just behind Austin Quigley. Maybe it wasn’t Bell or Quigley, just the CID. Kelly knew something about that fire, but did he know something about the murders as well? Was he involved in the murders and also seeking revenge on Pollock? Jacobstein stopped just inside the entrance to a small grocer’s shop and took his bearings. He had to speak to Pollock. The street was crowded, noisy and a perpetual morass of bodies. The street flowed like a river of traffic with pedestrians cutting across at every possible angle. It was easy to slip round unseen in that moving mass of humanity and into Camlachie police station. He had to know exactly where the operation stood right then. Shameena was now safe and Kelly under the eye of the best of wily watchers. He had watched as Euphemia Malone caught the tram to the City Centre and then onto Pollock’s flat.
Manley nodded to Jacobstein as he ran swiftly up the stairs to the CID room.
“Good to see you, Jake. Things are beginning to move here. Listen first and then we’ll hear your report,” said Pollock. Tiffney and Jacobstein were old mates and Jacobstein eased himself into a chair beside him. “According to Mrs Simon Corrie, her husband said he’d learned about some gambling school here in the East End previously unknown to him and his mate, Lewis Morton. The person who was to introduce them to the others was only referred to as The Fisherman. We are going on the assumption it was the group playing cards in the outbuilding behind Tara’s Halls. Felix here visited McCorquodale’s Printworks and, thanks to DC Malcolm Beaton who accompanied him being from the same village in Mull as the manager, they managed to interview the remaining members of the group immediately. Felix has received an update from an older member of the workforce who remembered the original lot, stating that there were a dozen of them, all of an evangelical turn of mind, and thus named The Fishermen, a biblical reference. The note Felix received also states that they all went to work on the same tram every day from the East End. Austin is trying to trace the driver at this very moment. Now, how did you get on at The Clew Bay Bar with the formidable but delectable Miss Malone?” Pollock smiled and waited.
“Miss Malone is a joy to watch in action.”
“Miss Malone is indeed a joy to watch, Jake, but did the two of you learn anything from your visit to the pub?”
“We did. I was wondering if we could find out exactly when those flowers appeared, exactly what prompted them to be placed there for that location is totally wrong.”
“And did you?” asked his boss. Jacobstein nodded.
“We did. Well, Miss Malone did once she understood what we were after. They were put there by Chris Kelly himself. He’d been behind the bar all day but had nipped out for a few minutes and purchased them from a florist shop a few hundred yards farther along Great Nelson Street. He did this at about 9pm just as the shopkeeper was closing up. That was obviously after the fire. Now what was the point of that? What was the point in bringing our attention to the flowers? He deliberately flicked his fingers and touched the flowers as Bell and Quigley passed. He was deliberately linking the CID and the flowers. The vicious look on his face, unseen by the other two, told me that. I prompted Miss Malone to ask, in her inimitable fashion, if the flowers, violets, reminded him of someone he knew. I won’t go into exactly how she did it, but it was perfection in itself. Kelly said, quite unsuspectingly, that he had once known someone called Violet but that she had died some three years previously.”
“And your conclusions are, Jake?”
“We have two murders and a fire and a girl called Violet who connects the lot.”
“So, who was Violet and what’s Kelly’s role in all of this? At the moment we know he’s involved in an act of revenge and that he was behind the bar all day, more or less. The place was crowded with workers and Kelly likes to act the big landlord bit. Likes to hear all the gossip. Does he know s
omething by accident or is he taunting us not openly but indirectly?” The sound of footsteps running up the stairs drew everybody’s attention, then Austin Quigley burst into the room.
“Found him!”
“Great! Found who?” asked Pollock.
“The tram driver. Found the actual one who plied that route from the East End to just beyond The Saltmarket for years when all the original Fishermen used it.” The silence that followed that announcement was almost broken by the fast beat of CID hearts. “He’s downstairs at the front desk. His name’s Hector Livingstone. The main thing is that he maintains only four actually got on in the East End. The rest joined them near The Trongate. Could’ve walked but preferred a blether with their mates.”
“Great work, Austin. Now we’re really going somewhere. How did you manage it?”
“My Uncle Kevin. I was waiting for a tram to pass when Uncle Kevin sauntered by. I thought it would be quicker getting the information from fellow tram drivers than having to go to the nearest garage and wait until some manager trawled through the time sheets. One of Uncle Kevin’s many occupations was tram driving and he knows the lot of them. They have a special spot when they’re off-duty where they assemble for some soup and buttered bread. It’s called In The Soup and it’s in Westmuir Street. And there he was, Hector Livingstone getting stuck into a bowl of broth and two buttered outsiders. He’s been promoted since the early days of The Fishermen, an inspector of tickets, no less. Shall I bring him in? He’s more than happy to talk to you, sir, but says he doesn’t know much.”
“Bring the man up, Austin. Jake and Felix, you two sit way back. We don’t want to overpower the man. Don’t want him taking fright and clamming up. Right, now, Austin, get going. Jake, don’t miss a word of this. Get the notebook and pencil ready.”
All eyes were fixed on the door, hearts pounding, all negative thoughts on the back burner. Ben Pollock stood by the open door as the tram driver appeared, aware that all his hopes were centred on this one individual. He watched as the tall, spare man’s head appeared first as Quigley and Mr Livingstone reached the curve in the staircase. A handsome head of iron-grey hair sat atop a long, lean, weather-beaten face, soft corn-flower blue eyes, clear, intelligent and at great odds with the masculine features of the face itself. A smile and a handshake of welcome all round and Hector Livingstone settled down in front of Pollock as the detective inspector took his place behind his cluttered desk.