Dead men and broken hearts

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

We waited until it was beginning to get dark before heading off the barge, across the quay and out onto the street where Twinkletoes’s car sat, gleaming, in a pool of light, as if it had been placed there by the gods themselves.

‘I always park under a lamppost,’ Twinkle explained, ‘in case I don’t get back to it before dark.’ He glowered disapprovingly from under his eyebrows. ‘There are some thoroughly dis-rep-uh-table people around in Glasgow, you know, Mr L.’

‘So I believe,’ I said, ignoring the irony of an ex-gangland torturer commenting on the moral decline of his home city.

‘Aye…’ he shook his head mournfully. ‘Steal the ground from under you. Wee fuckers.’

And there it was. What I was presented with was, exactly like the barge we had just left, one man’s pride and joy.

‘She’s a beaut…’ I said appreciatively, and Twinkle beamed back.

It was a one-year-old burgundy red Vauxhall Cresta, polished and burnished until it shimmered in the lamplight. It clearly seldom made it out of its garage and I thought back to how McBride had handed over his key and driver’s licence. Seeing the car, I appreciated the gesture even more. The truth was I could have done with a downpour of sooty rain to dull the car’s conspicuous lustre. But it was good to be mobile and to have the feeling that there was at least one person on my side.

The interior of the Cresta was filled with the smell of unguent polishes and was as luxurious as Connelly’s Zephyr: piped two-tone claret and white leather, white leather panels on the doors and a white steering wheel and column. Twinkletoes slid in behind the steering wheel and suddenly the proportions of the car shrank. Looking at him, he was the most unlikely person to imagine spending evenings and weekends polishing and tinkering at a motor car, but it strangely fitted with my experience of him.

‘There’s a raincoat in the back,’ he said. ‘To go with what you’s got on.’

I reached over and picked up the raincoat, laying it folded on my lap. The usual grey-green job, shapeless, style-less and totally anonymous. It was perfect and I told McBride so.

‘Where to then?’ he asked me.

‘Bearsden…’ I said. ‘I’ll give you directions.’

We drove by the house several times before parking far enough around the corner not to be seen getting in or out of the car. Mind you, this was Bearsden, the most twitchy-curtained part of Glasgow, and if being noticeable had been an event at the Melbourne Olympics then McBride would have cleaned up the golds. There were no signs of police or any other unusual cars outside the house, so I reckoned it was safe enough for us to make our approach.

We reached the gate of the house and I was about to lead the way in when I became aware of a car slowing to walking pace beside us.

‘Keep walking,’ the driver leaned across and spoke through the open window. ‘Police… in the Ellis house… waiting for you inside. Keep walking and I’ll park around the corner.’ He drove off along the road and turned into the next adjoining street.

‘Let’s do as the man says and keep walking, Twinkle, and try to look casual,’ I mouthed sideways and, without looking towards the Ellis residence, walked on with a sense of purpose in the direction taken by Archie McClelland’s ancient Morris Eight.

Archie had parked even further up his side street than we had ours, and no sooner had Twinkle heaved, wriggled and squeezed into the back seat and I had slid into the front than he took off.

‘You two need to rethink your double-act,’ said Archie, his tone even more doleful than usual. ‘If I could count the number of times you drove past the house, then I’m sure the uniforms inside will have too.’

‘You saw us check the street out?’

Archie turned his spaniel eyes to me as if I had said something profoundly stupid. ‘I was dazzled by the gleam on your car. What’s the story? Did you steal it straight from the showroom?’

‘Naw…’ There was a gratified rumble from McBride in the back. ‘It’s a year old. I keep it clean, but.’

‘Point taken,’ I said to Archie. ‘How do you know there are coppers in there?’

‘Because they gave me the third degree when I went calling a couple of hours ago. I take it your current state of liberty is self-instigated?’

‘Naw…’ rumbled Twinkle again. ‘He ran away…’

‘What were you doing at the Ellis house?’ I asked Archie.

‘Seeing as you’ve got yourself up to your ears in shite, I thought I’d try to get to the bottom of what is going on. Wait a minute… how did you and Twinkletoes get together?’

‘He found me,’ I said. ‘He worked out where I’d be hiding. I owe him, Archie. Whatever happens to me, remember that. I owe Twinkle big time.’

‘Thanks Mr L…’ Another rumble.

‘Well, wherever it is you’re hiding,’ said Archie, ‘don’t tell me. If I don’t know, I can’t tell. Just having you in the car could land me a stretch inside.’

‘I know. It’s appreciated, Archie. It sounds like I owe you too for trying to get me out of this. Did they let you speak to Pamela Ellis?’

‘No. I get the feeling she’s scared witless. And, of course, instead of looking to see who’s putting the screws on her, the police are putting her terrified state down to you being at liberty… that her husband’s murderer is going to come after her for not backing up his insane story, that kind of thing.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Thanks for putting it that way. Makes me feel all warm inside. So that’s why the police are there?’

‘They obviously think that you would be stupid enough to make straight for her as soon as you escaped… Oh, but hold on a minute, that’s exactly what you did…’ Another wryly doleful look.

‘But if they think that’s what I’d do, then they must realize it would be to try to get the truth out of her?’

‘Or to silence your partner in crime, in case she turns Queen’s against you to save her own neck. If you have a clarty mind like Detective Inspector Shuggie Dunlop.’

I sighed. I had hoped to have gotten the truth out of Pamela Ellis and have her believe that between us, the police and I could guarantee her safety. But that just wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

‘Cheer up, boss,’ said Archie, cheerlessly. ‘You’ve got me and Twinkle here on the case. And I suspect we aren’t your only friends.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘As soon as you did a runner, I was hauled in by Jock Ferguson. He knew I didn’t know where you were, but he went through all the motions. But, while I was in there, he made a point of telling me all of Shuggie Dunlop’s Double Indemnity theories about you and Pamela Ellis. I mean, he really went into detail, like he was laying the whole case out for me. He also gave me the usual warnings about what to do and not to do if you got in touch.’

‘Sounds pretty much what you’d expect,’ I said.

‘Except he then starts to tell me all of this stuff that I really shouldn’t know and if he ever found out that you found out about it, he’d know it was me who told him. So I was to make sure I never told you what he’d found out, if you catch his drift.’

‘Bastard…’ growled Twinkle.

‘No, no…’ I explained over my shoulder. ‘It’s his way of getting information to me.’ I turned back to Archie. ‘What did he tell you?’

‘Shuggie Dunlop may be the one-line-of-enquiry type but Jock isn’t. He’s obviously been following up a few leads on his own. You were right that Andrew Ellis was born in Hungary, but his family were no penniless peasants; more like political refugees. It’s all confusing, you know, the history over there: there were all types of revolutions and counter-revolutions and a hell of a lot of bloodshed. There was a Red Terror, as they called it, then a White Terror — or maybe the other way around — anyway, there were left-wing extremists and right-wing extremists and each took turns at seizing control and murdering the others.’

We were now several blocks away from the Ellis house and Archie pulled into the kerb.

‘Anyway, Ellis’s family were involved with one side or the other and ended up having to skip the country. Ellis grew up in poverty in Glasgow knowing he should have been living the high life in Hungary.’

‘Where did Ferguson get all of this from?’

‘There’s a sister. Didn’t have much to do with Ellis, lives in Edinburgh. He got it all from her. You know how Ellis’s wife told you he had to volunteer for bomb disposal because the army was sniffy about him being born in what became an Axis country?’

‘Yeah…’

‘Well, they were sniffy about more than that. Ellis tried to get in as an officer, but the army wouldn’t have it. All his young adult life, he was a member of this Scottish-Hungarian friendship society. It even paid for him to travel to Hungary on at least one occasion. Turns out he got himself involved with some kind of youth movement when he was over there. Jock doesn’t know the colour of the movement’s political complexion, but whatever it was, it didn’t ring the right bells with the army enlistment people here.’

‘I see…’ I thought through what Archie had said. ‘Did he say anything about Hopkins, the government man who seemed to know all about Ferenc Lang and his outfit. And all about me, for that matter.’

‘Mmm… To be honest, Jock thinks you’ve been played for a mug. He thinks that Hopkins as he called himself was just trying to find out what you knew about the Hungarian outfit. The office was just some kind of short-con set-up. The clincher for Jock was you saying that Hopkins was wearing an Intelligence Corps tie, which there was every chance of you recognizing. Or, as Jock put it, nothing short of wearing a big collar badge that said “I am a spy, but keep that secret.”’

‘Yeah… That makes sense,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Hopkins is really a Hungarian who just happens to speak perfect, cut-glass English. And because I’ve been spotted following their girl — instead of simply bundling me into the back of a van and taking me to a quiet back alley or abandoned cellar somewhere where they could simply beat the truth out of me — they decide to pick me up with fake-but-perfect police IDs, move into a phoney office with dozens of extras to make it look more convincing, and then get more facts on my background than even I know — all in the time it takes to drive me there? Sure, that sounds credible.’

‘I take it you and Jock aren’t as one on this then?’

‘You take it right. I’m telling you, Archie, Hopkins was the real deal. Maybe not in the way he put himself forward, but he was a professional interrogator and had access to official files. I don’t know what the hell is going on with them doing a midnight flit, but it was no elaborate short-con. Why go to all that trouble?’

Archie sat and stared out through the windshield for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said turning to me at last, ‘if Jock and the City of Glasgow Police can’t nail down Hopkins or his louche pals…’

‘Louche?’ asked Twinkle from the back.

‘Louche,’ Archie repeated. ‘It means sinister or shadowy.’

‘Loooosh…’ McBride stretched the word out, relishing it. ‘Shadowy or sinister. Aye… I like that. How do you spell it?’

I spelled it for him while, with a stub of pencil that looked preposterously small in his huge hand, he scribbled the word into a small notebook he took from his coat pocket.

‘Loooosh…’ he savoured the word again, then said, ‘Sorry… ’, when he saw Archie’s impatient face.

‘If Jock can’t track them down,’ continued Archie, ‘then I don’t think you have much chance while doing your Richard Hannay act.’

‘There was a clerk from the solicitor’s or estate agent’s… the other night when we went to the office. He is obviously responsible for the let or sale of the building. Collins was his name. Is there any chance you could have a word, Archie? He must know something about the set-up. They couldn’t have just broken in in broad daylight and put together that phoney setup. Collins must know something.’

‘Sure,’ said Archie. ‘I’ll track him down and see what I can squeeze out of him.’

‘Excuse me for inter-jetting…’ Twinkle leaned forward, resting his forearms on the seat backs and shifting the car’s centre of balance. ‘But if you don’t mind me saying, I think I’d be better squeezing information out of this wee shite Collins. It’s what I do, like.’

‘I know, Twinkle,’ I said. ‘But the last thing we need is to put some office worker in traction. Or remove his toes with bolt cutters.’

‘Oh no,’ said McBride, almost offended. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I would use the piss-eye-cho-logical approach.’

‘And what does that involve?’

‘Showing him the bolt cutters and tellin’ him what I’m going to do, without actually doin’ it.’

‘You know something,’ said Archie. ‘Maybe if Twinkletoes was with me I’d get farther, quicker than if I was on my own. And we don’t have a lot of time.’

‘Aye… Erchie could go with me. Make sure I don’t lose the rag and that.’

‘Okay…’ I said reluctantly. ‘But remember Twinkle, no rough stuff. And no bolt cutters… even the psychological kind. Just stand beside Archie and look menacing.’

‘And what are your plans?’ Archie asked me. ‘A fugitive life in one of the darkest and most inhospitable regions of the world where the law has no reach? Venezuela? The Congo? Dundee?’

‘The first thing I have to do is to catch up with Larry Franks at the Paradise Club. He was checking out some names for me.’

‘This to do with the Hungarians?’

‘Actually, no. I’m still trying to track down the original Frank Lang. The one the union hired me to find.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ said Archie, ‘your current predicament may make carrying on as usual with work a mite tricky.’

‘I’m doing it for me, not Connelly or his union. Shuggie Dunlop is determined to pin a murder on me. If he can’t make Ellis’s stick, then he’ll try to nail me for Sylvia Dewar’s. But that’s not the real reason I want to find Frank Lang. Something stinks about the whole union thing.’

‘But I thought you said the two Frank Langs are unconnected?’

‘They are. I stumbled into one while looking for the other. But there are two people dead who were connected, if not very closely connected, to Frank Lang.’

‘And the Hungarians?’

‘I need to get into the Ellis house or his office or both. His wife told me when I first spoke to her that he had to write everything down. Sometimes it was just a one-word scribble or a doodle, but he couldn’t function without notes to himself. There must be something, somewhere, that might give me a hook on where to find our Magyar chums, or even what the significance of the word Tanglewood is.’

‘So you’re just going to ask the policemen nicely to let you in to the Ellis home and poke around — the policemen who are only there to make sure your feet don’t touch until you’re in a cell?’

‘That’s a wrinkle all right. I’ll have to think of something.’

‘And I don’t see you faring any better at Ellis’s company. Remember, it’s just been turned over by a gang of mime artists. Security is even tighter than it was before.’

‘Yes, Archie… I know that too. Listen, shouldn’t you be somewhere else offering words of comfort… to someone called Job?’

‘Just trying to keep you out of the cells, boss. You get caught in the Ellis house, then it’s not exactly going to do your case much good, is it?’

‘Then I’ll make sure I don’t. Talking about getting caught, we should split up. Twinkle, I’ll take you up on two of your offers. If you don’t mind, I will borrow your car and Archie can get you home. But I’ll also call on your moral support when it comes to getting some answers. In the meantime, I don’t want either of you to be caught giving succour to a fugitive.’

I saw Twinkle reach for his notebook again and I spelled out ‘succour’ for him. When I asked, he confirmed with deep pride that he was indeed on the telephone, and I got a note of his number. I told Archie I would keep in touch too.

‘I’ll leave Collins the estate agent to your tender mercies,’ I said. ‘Twinkle, you know where to find me. Let me know what you get out of him.’

‘What are you going to do in the meantime?’ asked Archie.

‘In the meantime? I’ve got to see a woman about a dog.’