Dead men and broken hearts

CHAPTER TWELVE

Before going into my office the next morning, I telephoned Handsome Jonny Cohen from a Central Station call box. I was probably being too cloak-and-dagger about the whole thing but, at the end of the day, what I was going to tell him could probably end up with someone’s murder. Jonny was an okay guy in many ways but he was still a gangster, one of the Three Kings, and someone of a biblical disposition when it came to rewarding betrayal.

I knew I should have been walking away from the whole business, but I owed Jonny. Whoever was trying to save their neck by ratting out Jonny to the police was a traitor, and one thing I couldn’t stand was a traitor. I tried to keep that thought foremost as I dialled, and not the thought that I was about to condemn a man to death.

Jonny and I did the pals’ act, haven’t-seen-you-in-a-long-time thing, before I got down to business. I told him to meet me down by the Queen’s Dock at two-thirty that afternoon. When he protested that he was too busy I told him he wasn’t going to be busy for the next twenty-five to thirty if he didn’t meet me and hear what I had to say. I also told him to make sure he wasn’t tailed.

‘And come alone, Jonny,’ I said before hanging up.

I didn’t stop to take my hat and coat off when I called into the office. Archie was there and didn’t seem to be doing much other than chain-smoking the air blue-grey.

‘Can I borrow your car Archie?’ I asked after we had briefly run through where we were with finding Lang, which wasn’t far. ‘I’ve got something to attend to and the Atlantic is acting up.’ I didn’t tell Archie about my meeting with Handsome Jonny Cohen. Archie, the ex-cop, was as straight as Donald Taylor, the serving officer, had ambitions to be crooked.

Archie shrugged, muttered some kind of gloomy assent and tossed me his car key. I grabbed my coat and hat and headed out.

It was true that my car hadn’t been reliable over the last month or so, but the real reason I wanted to borrow Archie’s ancient Morris Eight was that it was a lot less conspicuous than the Atlantic. I had something to do before I met with Cohen. The something I had to do was the thing I always did, what I did best: I was going to spy on someone else’s life and I needed a car that would not be noticed.

Because the person I was about to spy on would be able to identify the Atlantic.

Even though I was in an unknown car, I parked as far along the street as I could while still being able to watch the house. There is nothing more unpleasant than when what you suspected was going to happen happens, and something lurched in my gut when I saw the Jowett Javelin pull up and a man get out. He was about the same age as me but shorter, with blond hair. He trotted up to the front door and rang the bell, and I saw he was dressed in a sports jacket and cavalry twills with the collar of his checked shirt open and a cravat at his throat. I recognized the uniform of the British middle-class male and I recognized the British middle-class male wearing it.

I recognized the little bastard all right.

When he came back out to the car he had Fiona with him. He held open the door and she climbed in. I watched the Javelin drive off, but didn’t follow. There was no point. It wasn’t their destination that mattered, it was the fact that they were making the journey together.

And, anyway, I had an appointment to keep with Jonny Cohen.

From where I stood and smoked, I could see that there was a huge hulk in the dry-dock: either the hull of a cargo ship or Twinkletoes McBride’s bath tub. Whatever it was, it was rust-brown and grey-black in the November afternoon. The cold air rang with the clanging of metal on metal, and every five yards or so along the hull’s flank there was the bright sodium fizz and shower of sparks from either welding or cutting gear. From this distance I couldn’t tell if the object of the labour was construction or dismantling.

A dark green Bentley fastback purred to a stop behind me and a tall, hatless man in a camel military-style coat stepped out. He had thick, dark hair perfectly barbered and was absurdly good looking. In a world where your nickname usually derived from the weapon you used or whatever scars or disabilities you’d picked up in the course of your criminal career, in Cohen’s case it was his movie-star looks that had earned him his epithet: Handsome Jonny.

We shook hands and walked along the quayside a little without speaking until eventually we came to some iron railings. Hunching his camel-coated shoulders against the cold damp, Cohen leaned his forearms on the railings, interlocked his pigskin-gloved fingers and looked out across to the dry dock.

‘Okay, what is this all about?’

‘That’s quite some beast you’ve got there.’ I nodded to where he had parked the Bentley. ‘A pretty conspicuous set of wheels. Are you sure you weren’t followed?’

‘Why would I be followed?’ he asked.

‘Were you?’

‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘Now tell me what the hell this is all about.’

‘You know I’ve been trying to go one hundred percent legit, don’t you, Jonny?’

‘Yeah… I guessed that from the way I’ve been dropped from your Christmas list.’

‘Nothing personal,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I’ve been trying to keep a low-profile and turn an honest buck. But I owe you big time and that’s the only reason I’m here. I need your word that you’ll never let on to anyone that this came from me…’

‘Okay, Lennox, you’ve got my word. Now what’s this all about?’

‘I needed you to make sure you weren’t followed because the police are probably keeping a close watch on you.’

‘And why would they do that?’ His tone darkened.

‘Let’s put it this way, they’re maybe looking to pick up some bargains for Christmas. Jewellery for the wife, that kind of thing.’

Cohen said nothing, his expression opaque. It was the same empty face I guessed he would show the coppers when they came knocking on his door. The silence was broken by more ringing echoes of metal clanging over in the dry dock.

‘They maybe think you could offer them bargain-basement prices and undercut, say, the jewellery stores in the Argyle Arcade.’

‘Now where,’ said Cohen, with deliberate slowness, ‘would they have got an idea like that?’

‘I get the impression it came from someone close to you. Maybe someone who’s visited a jeweller’s with you. Recently. Maybe last month, say.’

‘You don’t have a name?’

‘My police contact is looking for payment for that information, but he needs someone in the middle and I’ve told him I’m not that kind of girl any more.’

‘I need a name, Lennox. I’ll pay for the name. Tell your copper that.’

‘No can do, Jonny. And it’s best for you if you have no dealings with him. If this ends the way I think it will, then he’s the kind to get scared and blab. Anyway, you don’t need the name, Jonny. All you need to know is that a link in your chain is about to break. I’m guessing that, in this case, it’s a pretty short chain. And like the proverb says, it’s always the weakest link. I reckon you can work it out from there.’

He nodded without taking his eyes off the hulk across the dock. ‘Maybe you’re right at that. Thanks, Lennox. Thanks a lot.’

‘Jonny?’

‘Yes…’ He turned to face me, still leaning one elbow on the railings.

‘Do me a favour. I really don’t want anyone to come to… permanent

… grief because of what I’ve just told you.’

‘I can’t promise you that. You know that. It’s best you don’t ask any more.’

It was my turn to be quiet. I’d spent more than a year house-cleaning my life, sweeping out the shadows and cobwebs of dodgy dealings, and I had just condemned a faceless man to a few hours in a darkened room with a torturer. Once they were convinced he’d told them exactly how much he’d passed to the police, they would give him something to ease the pain. Permanently.

‘You know I appreciate this, Lennox. If there’s anything I can do

…’

‘I didn’t do this for a quid-pro-quo, Jonny,’ I said. ‘I would much rather have had nothing to do with it. It was information I wish I never had. But I did, and I had to tell you.’

‘Well, if there’s anything…’

A thought struck me. ‘There is maybe something. If I gave you a photograph, could you have it copied and passed around your people? It’s a missing person I’m looking for. I’ve been given the idea that he enjoys a dance and he’s maybe been a face at one of the dance halls you own. His name is Frank Lang.’

‘Sure. It’s the least I can do.’

‘There’s a chance, maybe a good chance, that Lang isn’t his real name. I don’t know for sure what his game is, but he could be into blackmail and extortion. So maybe someone will recognize him in a professional capacity.’

‘Get me the picture and I’ll ask around. Personally. That means I’ll get answers.’

‘I should warn you that there is a chance that there’s a political element to this. Lang’s a Lefty. Or purports to be. Like I say, he might just be a con man and the politico crap is just part of his cover, but it’s best to keep it discreet.’

Jonny nodded. I could have asked him for anything and he would have given it me. I had just saved him from spending most of the rest of his life behind bars.

And it had come at a small price: a man’s life.

It was my day for clandestine meetings. Taylor, the semi-crooked copper on the cusp of becoming fully bent, had made a ’phone call to my office and told me he had something on the names I’d given him. I thanked him without mentioning that I had passed on for nothing everything he had told me about there being a snitch in Cohen’s organization; I guessed he wouldn’t appreciate my charitable nature. And when their informer turned out to be the deadest of dead-ends, it would be best that there was no trail to follow. Jonny had his weak link; Taylor was mine.

I could tell from Taylor’s tone on the ’phone that he felt he had something worthwhile for me and we arranged to meet at McAskill’s boxing gym in Dennistoun. The gym was a huge barn of a building of bolted-together corrugated iron that flaked dark green paint, and looked more like a shipyard shed than a centre of sporting excellence. Taylor and I used it a lot to meet; old man McAskill was glad of the fiver he got each time for his discretion and it was the last place on earth you would expect to come across a private and public detective exchanging notes — of one kind or the other. For that matter, it was also the last place on earth you would expect to come across any kind of boxing talent; but Dennistoun was the kind of place where, if you grew up there, you had an understandable urge to punch someone’s face and there was a steady stream of Dempsey wannabes, from the brawlers and sluggers to those with genuine talent, and McAskill had a reputation for sorting the wheat from the chaff — even if he never made a penny out of it.

When we met, Taylor and I sat in McAskill’s office-cum-locker-room at the back of the gym. I lit a cigarette to fend off the stale-sweat odours of jock-straps and singlets, and offered one to Taylor.

‘You’ve got something worthwhile for me?’ I asked.

‘I have that, Mr Lennox,’ he said. ‘On those names you gave me… Andrew Ellis and Frank Lang… But I’ve drawn a blank with Tanglewood. Means nothing to me, means nothing to anyone I’ve talked to. But Ellis and Lang are much more interesting. You say these two people aren’t connected?’

‘They’re not,’ I replied. ‘In fact I’m not interested in Ellis any more. Just Lang.’

‘Oh…’ Taylor looked like I’d stolen his fire. Or some of it, at least.

‘Why? Are they connected?’ I asked.

‘You said Andrew Ellis was Hungarian by birth, so I decided to check out his immigration record and his proper name is, or was, Andras Eles. He was a kid when he came over. A baby.’

‘I know most of that already. Anyway, like I told you, Ellis is a closed case now.’

‘But you’re still interested in this Frank Lang character?’

‘Yes…’ I failed to keep the impatience out of my tone.

‘Well, seeing as I was in immigration records and the bird behind reception was being very cooperative, I thought I’d check to see if there were any records for Frank Lang.’

I leaned forward. ‘And there was?’

Taylor nodded. ‘Now, it’s maybe not the Frank Lang you’re looking for… in fact it would be a hell of a coincidence if it was… but there is one in the system. Also Hungarian by birth. It’s not the same as Ellis who’s been British most of his life. Until a couple of years ago this Frank Lang had to report regularly to his local police station as a resident alien.’

‘Do you have any more on him?’ I asked. ‘Has he served as a merchant sailor?’

‘That I don’t know.’

‘What was his original name?’ I asked. ‘I mean the Hungarian one?’

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ said Taylor, ‘but Lang is a very common Hungarian surname. Or so the lass in the records office told me. Just as common as it is in Scotland, but from a completely different origin. Anyway, I got details on this fella Lang…’ Taylor reached into the inside pocket of his raincoat and handed me a handwritten sheet of paper. ‘Again naturalized British, but, like I said, he’s a much newer mintage.’

‘How new?’

‘Came over after the war. Been in Scotland for just shy of ten years. Goes by the name of Frank Lang but the real first name is Ferenc. I just thought that it was quite a coincidence… that you gave me two names to check out and it turns out that they’re both Hungarian.’

I thought about what Taylor had told me. I took a couple of leisurely draws on my cigarette before answering.

‘It is, isn’t it?’

When I ’phoned the union’s headquarters, Connelly wasn’t there, so I had to settle for Lynch.

‘You know how I asked for all and any information on Frank Lang that might help me find him?’

‘I remember.’ Lynch’s tone was dull and flat on the line, as if I was boring him.

‘Well, I know it’s a small point, really, but mentioning the fact that he has an accent like Bela Lugosi would have been helpful.’

‘What are you talking about, Lennox?’ The tone still flat.

‘Is or isn’t Frank Lang a naturalized Briton and Hungarian by birth?’

‘Well my guess would be that he isn’t… Isn’t Hungarian, isn’t Romanian or Transylvanian or from the fucking Shetland Islands. He isn’t even some Canadian smart arse.’

‘You’re saying he isn’t foreign by birth?’

‘How the hell should I know? But if Frank Lang is anything other than Scottish, then he disguises it well. No foreign accent, unless you count Wishaw as foreign. Anyway, it’s not something we would have missed. It would have come up somewhere in his records.’

‘Such as they are,’ I said.

‘Is that it?’ asked Lynch. ‘Is that the only reason you’re ’phoning?’

I thought for a moment. It didn’t make sense that no one else I had spoken to had mentioned Lang being foreign or having any kind of accent. And, of course, Andrew Ellis and his wife’s involving me in their marital concerns had nothing to do with the union case whatsoever.

‘It’s something I needed to check out, Lynch. The leads you’ve given so far have been less than useful. And there is a Frank Lang in Glasgow who was born a Hungarian national. It’s just a coincidence.’

‘Is this how you approach your investigations? You pick whatever nationality happens to be in the news and see if you can tie the missing person into it? Before you ask, he isn’t Egyptian either.’

An idea struck me. ‘Does the word Tanglewood mean anything to you?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said and I could tell it didn’t. ‘Is that it? I hope you get yourself sorted out soon, Lennox, because all I’m hearing at the moment is a dog barking up the wrong tree.’ He hung up.

So much for coincidences. The Ferenc Lang Taylor had tripped over was obviously someone different from the Frank Lang I was looking for.

I started to feel the pain of separation every time I thought about the cash I’d greased Taylor’s palm with.