Laidlaw

19

Poppies was in a court behind Buchanan Street, along with a couple of abstruse businesses and an anonymous second-hand bookshop. It was the most recent example in Glasgow of a pub with adjoining disco, recent enough for Harkness not to know it. He knew The Griffin and Joanna’s in Bath Street, Waves and Spankies at Customs House Quay. The pub here, The Maverick, was closed just now but the door to Poppies was open.

As they climbed the stone stairs to the landing, they heard a droning noise. The double doors closed behind them in green baize. The motif was gambling. There were cushioned dice along the walls for sitting on. Each wall light held a poker-hand in glass. The floor of the small stage for the go-go dancers was a mosaic of a roulette wheel. At the end of the room the barcounter was an enormous up-ended domino, double six.

‘Love would appear to be a lottery,’ Laidlaw said.

The noise was coming from a Hoover. The woman who worked it had her back to them. Context gave her an unconscious poignancy. She was elderly and fat. Each bare leg was a complex of varicose veins from too many children. Just by being there she was commenting ironically on all this jumped-up sophistication.

Laidlaw crossed and touched her shoulder. She was halfway to the ceiling before she realised what was happening. The kicked Hoover gave out gradually like a mechanical heart-attack.

‘Oh my God, son,’ she said. ‘Ye should tell ma next o’ kin before ye do that.’

But behind the feminine flummox, she was smiling already, a face as welcoming as an open fire.

‘I’m sorry,’ Laidlaw said. ‘We’re looking for Mr Rayburn.’

‘Aye, he’s in. He’ll be up in his office, likely. Oh dear, that’s the most excitin’ thing that’s happened tae me since Ah fell out the shawl.’

They went up the few carpeted stairs to the bar area. There was a corridor on the left. Behind the third door they knocked at, a voice shouted, ‘Hullo therr.’

Laidlaw opened the door. The room was well carpeted, curtained, nicely furnished. Opposite them, behind a desk, a young man was sitting in a swivel-chair. He was sallowfaced and his lank hair had more grease than a chip-pan. A black leather jacket sat on his body like a suit of armour. His calf-length boots rested on top of the desk. He was cleaning his fingernails with an ornamental knife.

‘Aye, whit’s the gemme?’

‘We’d like to see Mr Rayburn,’ Laidlaw said.

‘Ye got an appointment?’

‘What is he?’ Laidlaw said. ‘A dentist?’

The young man was concentrating on looking very tough.

‘Put your sneer away,’ Laidlaw said. ‘It’s getting faded. Keep it for a good thing.’

The young man swung his feet onto the floor, stood up without haste, letting what he imagined was the tension build. He came out from behind the desk, knife vaguely drooping. Laidlaw flashed his police-card.

‘How’s that for a counter-punch?’ he said. ‘Son. You are about to lose in two ways. If you don’t stop playing at Jack the Rippers, I’ll take that paper-knife off you and shove it up your rectum. Then I’ll arrest you in an ambulance. Tell him to come out of his hidey-hole.’

The young man put the knife on the desk.

‘Ah’m supposed to check on people for Harry.’ He was like a boy complaining that the game isn’t being played according to the rules. ‘Ye can get some weirdies in here.’

‘I see that,’ Laidlaw said, and waited.

‘Harry! It’s the polis.’

The door across the room opened and Harry Rayburn emerged. He would be in his forties, big and tired-looking, the black curling hair long and decoratively streaked with grey. He wore a shirt like an action-painting, sleeves rolled up to show impressive hairy forearms. Melted down, the silver buckle of his belt could have saved the economy.

‘Mr Rayburn?’ Laidlaw showed him the card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Laidlaw. Crime Squad. This is Detective Constable Harkness. We’re investigating a murder.’

Rayburn nodded.

‘What’s the connection with us?’

‘Well, it’s a girl called Jennifer Lawson. From Drumchapel. She was murdered on Saturday night. We believe she came dancing here that night. If she did, it’s odds on she met the man here.’

‘It’s their money we take, no’ their photies. Eh, Harry?’

Laidlaw looked at the young man as if he was a headache. Harry Rayburn looked impressively annoyed.

‘Can it, Lennie! A lassie’s dead.’ Then to Laidlaw, ‘Is there any way you think we can help?’

‘This is the girl.’ Laidlaw passed him the photograph. ‘It’s a million-to-one chance but we have to take it.’

Harry Rayburn shook his head.

‘I’m sorry. But these young girls all look as if they came off an assembly-line to me. See one, you’ve seen them all.’

Laidlaw passed the photograph to Lennie who glanced at it and laid it on the desk.

‘How many evening staff do you employ in here?’

‘It’s a variable. In general? Say, three behind the bar.’ He seemed to find it difficult to work it out. ‘A couple of go-go dancers when we’re having that. They spell each other. Two on the door. Maybe two other stewards.’

Lennie shook with voiceless laughter and whispered, ‘Stewards’, to himself, shaking his head.

‘You can give me a list?’

That seemed to be a problem.

‘Not off-hand. Some of the boys are just doing it for a bit extra. Casual, like. You know? It’ll take me time. The bloke who handles all that isn’t in.’

‘You’re not the manager? It’s your own place?’

Harry Rayburn smiled.

‘Every crack in the ceiling’s paid for. I started with “The Maverick” years ago. And now this place.’

‘All right. Thanks for your help. I’m afraid you’ll be getting more visitors. They can collect the information.’

He picked up the photograph.

‘You don’t know her?’ Harkness asked.

‘Naw,’ Lennie said. ‘Fanciable. Too late now, though, intit?’

‘And what about this vibrantly sensitive young man?’ Laidlaw said. ‘What does he do for you, Mr Rayburn?’

‘Lennie’s only in in the mornings. Looking after food and drink that comes in. That kind of thing.’

Rayburn seemed to be only just managing to contain his anger. When Laidlaw and Harkness had closed the door on them, they heard the anger break over Lennie’s head.

‘I think that Harry Rayburn could be a hard man,’ Harkness said.

‘Come on, Brian. Hard man? Mary Poppins with hair on her chest.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘I saw him putting on his tough face at the door. It was a bad fit, too. That’s the kind you get out of a book. Fig. 1: Curling the Upper Lip. It’s for hiding something.’

‘So what’s he hiding?’

‘After we’ve looked for somebody I want to see, you can check in, Brian. See what’s happening.’

‘So what’s he hiding?’

‘So what’s he hiding?’ Laidlaw said. ‘When found, make a note of.’