Dead men and broken hearts

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

By the time I approached the quays beside the Renfrew Ferry, the fog had thinned to a river-hugging shroud. Rowing all night, probably not always in the right direction, I had had to traverse the river north to south as well as the city from east to west. The sky was still night-black but my watch told me it was five in the morning. Not long until the ferry started to throng with early-shift workers making the crossing to the shipyards, offices and factories on the other side of the Clyde.

Approaching from the water instead of the land shifted my perspective and I had some difficulty in finding the barge, making sure that there was no one to see me approach. With shaking fingers I unwrapped my feet from the oil-black rags and rubbed them as clean as I could with the fringe of my army greatcoat, clambered up onto the barge and stumbled my way to the helm deck at the stern.

The cabin door was locked, and my key — thankfully unmarked and unidentifiable other than as the type used for most padlocks — was with my other stuff back at police headquarters in St Andrew’s Square. But I remembered what the old bargee had said about keeping a spare key hidden.

My shivering had become almost convulsive and my fingers shook uncontrollably as I slid back the wooden panel, retrieved the key and unlocked the padlock. Maybe it was the exhausted state I was in and the prison outfit I was wearing, combined with my fugitive crossing of the city, but every movement I made seemed to be desperate and furtive, including the look I cast around the dark quay before I slid open the door and slipped into the cabin.

There was a cooking range with a vertical pipe set into one corner of the cabin and I decided that warming up was worth the tiny risk of someone seeing smoke from the stack in the dark. The bargee had left a pile of chopped wood in a wire basket next to the stove and it took me a couple of drawer-rifling minutes to find matches and paper. Once the fire was lit, I left the door of the range open and was amazed at how quickly it heated up the small cabin. Feeling the tiredness sweep over me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay awake for much longer; but I had things to do before I slept and before daylight; last traces to be wiped off.

I donned the waders that were hanging in a curtained closet and, fighting the sleep that welled up and tried to claim me, I took a grappling pole and climbed back out onto deck. Once I checked there was no one within hearing, I stabbed down repeatedly at the bottom of the rowboat moored at the barge’s side. I couldn’t risk anyone identifying it as the boat stolen from the Queen’s Dock, bringing the River Police to my barge door. It took longer and more effort than I could spare, but eventually the clinker splintered and I unhooked the tether as the rowboat began to fill with oily water. I helped it to the bottom by leaning hard on the grappling pole.

Back in the cabin, I filled a kettle with water and let it boil. I stripped out of the greatcoat and prison outfit before filling a basin with hot water and rinsing my face and body as much as I could. Dumping the filthy water in the sink, I refilled the basin with more clean, warm water and, gently peeling off the soiled and shredded silk socks, I carefully washed my feet, the darkening water blooming black-red with blood and dirt. I let my feet soak until the water began to cool, relieved when they started to hurt.

I would get my stuff from the hold and clean up properly later. But now I would sleep. I crawled into the cabin’s bed space, pulled the blankets over me, and fell asleep. Instantly, deeply.

I slept most of the next day, but woke with a start every time I heard footsteps on the quay close to the barge.

I had let the fire die, not wanting to risk making smoke in daylight despite the fact that no one would notice it, far less think it unusual; but I had it in my head that I should make the barge look as unoccupied as possible. The wood panelling, and the fact that I hadn’t once opened the door, seemed to keep captive in the cabin the heat I had built with the stove. When I wasn’t asleep I sat on the edge of the bunk, naked except for my shorts, the scratchy blanket wrapped around my shoulders. My body ached and my feet now throbbed from the abuse they had suffered the night before but at least I was warm and, for the first time since I’d been arrested, I felt reasonably safe. For now, at least. And as the day passed, and I became accustomed to the comings and goings around the barge, my paranoia eased a little.

To get my stuff from the barge’s hold would mean going back out on deck and I decided it would be best to stay put until late afternoon, when it became dark again. While I waited, I scoured the cabin to see if I could find any morsel of food the bargee had maybe left behind, but there was none. All I could manage to find were the scrapings of a tea barrel with just enough leaves to brew up a tinful. But my self-imposed injunction against making smoke meant I wouldn’t be able to boil the kettle until after dark. I had water to quench my thirst, but I was ravenously hungry.

About three times during the afternoon I heard voices and footsteps directly beside the boat, causing me to tense, then relax as they faded into the distance.

Then came the fourth set of footsteps. The ones that didn’t fade.

I heard them approach. Heavy, deliberate. When they reached the boat, they stopped. I went to the side of the cabin that flanked the quay and stood on the low bunk-type couch so that I could peer through the narrow ribbon of window that ran along the wall, just below ceiling height. From this vantage point, I could just about see the top of the quayside and no more. Whoever it was who had stopped and was standing there, surveying the boat or considering their next move, I couldn’t see them. From the footsteps, I was pretty sure there was only one of them; maybe a single beat policeman checking the moorings. The worst it could be, I reckoned, was a routine and random check. If the police had known for sure I was here there would be more of them and, in any case, I couldn’t see any way they would have found me here so fast.

I listened intently, holding my breath: for a moment there was nothing, then I heard the footsteps again; but this time not on the stone quay. The cabin resonated as my visitor made his way along the side of the barge. Then I saw him: just a flash of trouser cuffs and shoes as he passed the window. Not a uniform, not work boots. A suit and Oxfords.

I dropped down into the cabin and looked around for something to use as a weapon. Grabbing the range poker, I got as far to the side of the door as the cramped cabin would allow and gripped the poker tight, ready to bring it down on the first head that appeared.

I desperately tried to think the situation through. I was in enough trouble as it was without coshing a copper, whether he was in plainclothes or not. The City of Glasgow’s constabulary took a dim view of such assaults on one of their number and were wont to demonstrate their disappointment physically. But I couldn’t let them take me back in now; I remained the only one who could come up with the evidence to prove my innocence.

But if I misjudged the blow and killed a copper…

I tensed as I heard the cabin door slide open, raising the poker in a double grip above my head, and the cabin filled with light before whoever was on deck blocked it with his frame as he came down the steps.

I readied to swing.

‘Mr Lennox?’ asked a baritone voice so deep it resonated through the cabin’s wood panelling, and probably down into the Clyde water the boat sat in. I imagined a whale somewhere in the mid-Atlantic pausing in its tracks to consider replying.

‘Twinkletoes?’

McBride lurched into the cabin, head bowed, massive shoulders hunched and probably doubling the barge’s displacement. His arms were full with a couple of large brown paper bags and when he turned to see me, he looked up disapprovingly at the raised poker.

‘Sorry about that, Twinkle,’ I said, lowering the poker. ‘I didn’t know it was you. Could you shut the hatch?’

Before he went up and drew the cabin door closed, he set the two large brown paper bags on the cabin table.

‘I brung you some comm-est-ables,’ he explained when he came back, nodding to the grocery bags.

I dived into the bags. Tea, a bottle of chicory coffee, powdered milk, bacon, bread, sausages, eggs, three packets of cigarettes, matches and even a half-bottle of Scotch. In the other bag, a safety razor, brush, shaving soap, a comb and some pomade sat on top of a folded jacket, trousers and shirt. There was even a smaller bag inside with bandages, antiseptic cream, sticking plasters, a brand new toothbrush and a tin of tooth powder.

‘I heard you was app-re-hended by the police, but managed to scarper.’

‘Is it in the papers already?’

‘Naw…’ He frowned, obviously wondering if he was being too sweeping with his answer, given that the only papers he read were the News of the World and the Beano. ‘Naw… you know how word gets around.’

I did.

‘I remembered that you said we was the only people to know about this boat. How I wasnae to tell nobody. So I reckoned you was likely to head straight here, so I thought I’d come to help.’

‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. But how did you know what to bring with you?’ I said, holding up his improvised first aid kit.

‘The clothes and that? Well, you know, I have been in the same pree-dick-ament, in the past like. I remembered the kind of things you need.’

‘I see. All I can say is thanks, Twinkle… you’ve restored my faith in people.’

‘You’ve always been decent to me, Mr L. Not like Mr Sneddon always making jokes about me being stupid. Snide remarks, nasty like, about me being not all there. And some of them I didn’t understand. And he didn’t app-ree-ciate my effort to improve my mind and my voh-cabbie-larry, so he didn’t. You’ve been very considerate with giving me work an’ that.’

I smiled. In a way, Twinkletoes McBride was a child, viewing the world with childish simplicity. A six-foot-six, twenty-stone, occasionally psychopathic child, admittedly, but still a child.

‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘And let me tell you, you’ve more than paid me back for anything I’ve done for you. I don’t know what I’d have done without your help. You’re a good man.’

McBride shook his massive head dolefully. ‘No, I’m not, Mr Lennox. I’ve done some really bad things. I’ve hurt a lot of people.’

‘So have I, Twinkle, so have I…’

‘Aye… but no’ with a pair of bolt cutters…’

I found myself at a loss for an answer and we sat in gloomy silence for a while, each contemplating his own dark history. Or more truthfully, we were both contemplating Twinkletoes’s dark history. Whatever his past sins, I was delighted to see him. I owed him big time.

‘I’d make you a cup of tea,’ I said, ‘but I don’t want anyone to see the smoke from the stack.’

McBride shook his massive head dismissively. ‘There’s no one around. I checked to make sure before I came over to the boat. Even the ferry is quieter at this time of day. I’ll make it, and I’ll heat enough water for you to shave.’

Twinkle filled the stove and lit it with an expertise that told me he had probably been brought up in a slum tenement, where a living room range was the usual, and only, form of heating.

‘Thanks for the clothes,’ I said to him. ‘But, if you remember, I have all of mine stashed here. I don’t need those.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ he said. ‘You’re a very smart dresser, Mr L. I always think how much I’d like to have suits like yours.’

‘When I get out of this, I’m going to take you to my tailor and have a bespoke suit made up for you. My treat. Least I can do.’ I smiled, dispelling the concern that they maybe didn’t have looms that spun cloth wide enough.

‘That would be great,’ Twinkle beamed a childlike grin. ‘That would be really great… But that’s no’ my point. Everybody knows you’re a smart dresser. The polis too.’

The penny dropped. Maybe McBride wasn’t so dumb after all, or maybe it was just that I had wandered into an area where his experience was much greater than mine. I took the clothes out of the bag. The trousers were a dull camel colour and of that dense kind of material that is resistant to holding a crease when pressed. The jacket was the usual Scottish job, a box of scratchy tweed that seemed to have been spun from steel wool and bracken. There was a flat cap in the same material and everything seemed to be roughly my size.

‘I’ll change once I get cleaned up,’ I said. Despite my once-over with hot water, I was still filthy, especially my feet. ‘Could you go up top and get me some stuff? You know, where we put it in the forward hold.’ I ran through a list of some of the things I needed. As he struggled back up and out of the cabin and onto deck, I hoped he was right about there being no one about. Six-foot-six of muscle in a Burton off-the-peg was less than inconspicuous down here.

When he got back, I set about the business of having a serious clean-up while McBride made tea and fried the sausages on the stove top. The smell of hot lard and sizzling sausages fumed in the tiny cabin and would normally have turned my gut, but today it smelled nothing short of divine. Next to the barge’s head was a tub — more of an oversized Belfast sink set on the floor, with a flexible rubber hose attached to its one tap. This, I had worked out, was the ablutions: the latest dab with cold-and-cold running water. I guessed that the Martinez in Cannes or the Savoy in London had similar arrangements.

Once I had shiveringly lathered and rinsed, re-lathered and re-rinsed, I let the cold water run over my feet. When I came out of the tub, I was chilled to the bone but felt clean and refreshed. The soles of both feet felt excoriated, and hurt whenever I put any weight on them, and my right foot looked swollen. I patted them dry and rubbed them both with the antiseptic cream that Twinkle had brought with him, then wrapped each in a bandage, more for support than as wound dressings.

I used some of the water Twinkletoes had boiled to shave. By now I had about three days growth and because my hair was so dark, leaving my upper lip unshaved meant the band of black stubble gave the appearance of a moustache. Another couple of days and it would be even more convincing. I dressed in the shirt, cardigan, trousers, tweed jacket and cap McBride had brought with him and used the shaving mirror to examine myself. I hated the outfit, but nowhere near as much as I had hated the prisoner one, and McBride had been right: this was as anonymous a get-up as I could imagine and was so different from my usual wardrobe that, along with my incipient moustache, I was pretty sure even those who knew me well wouldn’t have recognized me at any kind of distance. Even the swelling on my face had gone down, but there were signs of the skin discolouring into a dark arc on my temple and around my eye.

‘Great job, Twinkle,’ I said, as I examined myself with the mirror held at arm’s length. ‘Really great job.’

He beamed joyously at me and I decided that if I ever did manage to get out of this jam I was going to see Twinkle all right.

We sat and drank the tea and I tried not to bolt down the sausages. As it was, I had to mop the grease from my chin as I ate. I had dined in some fancy places over the years, admittedly none of them in Scotland, but, at that moment, that meal of tea, buttered bread and sausages tasted better than anything I had ever eaten. Afterwards I smoked a Capstan untipped as if it had been the finest Havana cigar hand-rolled against the dusky maiden thigh of a Cuban torcedora.

When we were finished, Twinkletoes handed me a key and a red booklet with a crown-topped coat-of-arms on the cover.

‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘My car key. And my driving licence, in case you’re stopped by the polis. There’s a petrol ration book there and all.’

I looked at the stuff he’d handed me. Petrol had been off the wartime ration for some time, but the government had temporarily reintroduced rationing because of shortages caused by the crisis in Suez.

‘This is really very good of you, but I can’t take these…’

‘It’s all right. I don’t use the car much anyways. I keep it locked up in the garage most of the time.’

‘It’s not that, Twinkle. If I get caught by the police in your car with your licence and ration book, then they’ll arrest you for aiding and abetting. With your record, you’ll be sent to prison. I can’t have that.’

‘No, no…’ he waved his vast hands emphatically. ‘I’ve got it all worked out, you see. Like I said, I keep the car locked up in the garage almost all of the time and there are people what know that. Neighbours, like. So if you get caught, all you’ve got to say is that you stole it and I’m in the clear. You’re not, like, but I am. If someone stole my car for real it could be days before I’d find out. But you won’t get caught, Mr Lennox. I know that. You’re too clever for them bastards.’

‘Really?’ I said gloomily. ‘I’ve been doing a good job of hiding it lately. But thanks for the car. I can’t tell you how big a help you’ve been.’

‘How long do you think you can hide out here?’ he asked. His bulk seemed to fill the cabin, making it feel more like a closet than living quarters.

‘I reckon I’m okay for a while,’ I said. ‘We’ll need to keep checking the papers to see if there’s anything in them. Like you said, only you and the bargee know I’ve rented this place, and unless he sees my name in the paper and connects it to the one on the lease, then there’s no reason he’d contact the cops. I have no record, so the police don’t have any photographs of me.’

We sat and talked. I tried to explain what had happened — about my encounter with Hopkins and how all trace of him and his people had vanished into thin air, about how I had stumbled into something big and dangerous just because two people had the same or similar names — but talking it through made even my head hurt and I decided to stop before Twinkle frowned himself to death or a blood vessel burst in his brain.

He sat for a minute, the frown still creasing his almost-brow. He was silent and completely still, even his eyes focused but not focused on the stove. In McBride’s case, cogitation clearly necessitated the shutting down of all other functions.

Then, suddenly, he reached out and snatched up the car key I had left on the table.

‘What’s up, Twinkle?’

‘Listen, Mr L. You’re a nice man. Maybes too nice. You need answers, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, getting answers is my business. I’m sticking with you.’

I didn’t argue. A resolved Twinkletoes McBride wasn’t something you argued with, like you wouldn’t argue with a steam hammer.

The thought of him riding shotgun while I got to the bottom of what the hell was going on troubled me greatly. But, oddly enough, it also comforted me.