Lennox

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I eased the Chubb closed again as quietly but quickly as I could. I moved through the darkened house to the kitchen where I used my torch to find the back door. There was a heavy key in the mortise lock. I would let myself out into the back garden, taking the key with me and lock the door from the outside, hoping that whoever was paying a visit didn’t feel like taking in the night air.

Slipping the torch back into my cash-stuffed pocket I turned the key. The door didn’t unlock: the key half-turned and then seemed to jam. I reckoned that whoever was coming up the path would be at the front door by now. I tried the lock again, turning the key one way then the other, making more noise than I should. Nothing. I heard the sound of the front door unlocking and opening. I leaned my weight against the door, pushing it back in its frame and trying the key again. It turned in the lock with a loud clunk. I slipped out into the dark garden, easing the door shut. I didn’t lock it behind me as I’d planned: it would make too much noise and for all I knew whoever was there had already heard it unlock. I eased back from the door. There was no moon and the garden to the rear was hedged in; as far as I could see, I was crouched on a small patio of concrete slabs. I moved like a blind man, afraid I might bump into something and give away my presence. The kitchen light went on. It meant I could see something of my surroundings. It also meant that anyone in the kitchen could probably see me. I scoured the garden desperately for a hiding place, but it was small and laid out as level lawn edged with low shrubs, offering no opportunity to hide.

There were three men in the kitchen, illuminated by the yellow-white ceiling light. I recognized one of them instantly. I rushed forward and ducked under the sill of the window, pressing hard into the wall. I slipped the sap from my pocket, ready to use it should the back door open. There was what looked like a gap between the wall edge furthest away from me and the hedge, suggesting I could get around the side of the house. I started to ease towards it, keeping low and making as little noise as I could.

I was crossing in front of the kitchen door when I heard the handle turn.

I rushed headlong towards the corner of the house. The kitchen door opened and a swathe of yellow light cut across the small lawn, framing the projected shadow of a huge man. I ducked around the corner of the house, hoping that my scrabbling across the concrete slabs had not attracted the attention of the figure in the doorway.

I found myself in a narrow space between the hedge and the wall of the house. I kept my feet planted as if glued: the space had been filled with stone chips and the slightest movement would make a crunching sound and attract the attention of the heavy at the door. There was enough shadow for me to stay concealed while keeping an eye around the corner. A second man came to the doorway with a torch and shone it into the garden. I ducked my head back out of sight. The two men exchanged a few words in a language that I didn’t recognize, then closed the door again. The kitchen light went out and the darkness dropped back into the garden.

I edged along the windowless side of the house, trying to minimize the gravel-crackle of each footstep, and checked the front. The curtains were still drawn but I could see the light from inside leach out at the window edges. I made a quick measure of the distance from the house corner where I crouched in shadow to the gate. There was a Wolseley parked outside the front gate that hadn’t been there when I had arrived. I reckoned I could move silently over the grass, but it would be quicker to grasp the nettle and use the squeaking gate, rather than risk entanglement clambering across the chest-high privet. I was just about to launch my run when I saw an amber-red glow in the cavern of the parked Wolseley suddenly swell then diminish. A drawn-on cigarette. They had obviously left a sentry outside.

I drew back and muttered a few words that my mother didn’t think I knew. I leaned against the wall and considered my situation. A typical Lennox one: I was crouched in the dark with nearly two thousand American dollars and six hundred English pounds bulging in my pockets, there were four heavies to deal with, one sitting smack bang in the middle of my escape route and another inside whom I already knew to be a real pro. I’d started off thinking that I’d be lucky to get out of here with the cash. Now, I’d consider myself lucky to get out in one piece.

There was nothing else for it than to sit tight and wait until the guys inside finished whatever it was they had to finish or found whatever it was they had to find. The last thought chilled me: what if they were picking up the cash? Maybe they would put two and two together and work out that the cash had gone out the unlocked back door. Then they’d come looking. I pushed at the hedge tight in front of me. With a little effort I could squeeze through it and into the garden of the house next door. But it would be noisy.

I couldn’t see my watch but I reckoned I’d been in the house for roughly a couple of hours and out here for twenty minutes. That made it about half past midnight. Not a lot happened in Milngavie at half past midnight and there wasn’t even the sound of cars in the distance. I decided to wait it out.

I didn’t have to wait long. I heard the front door open and the three goons from inside headed out. No hint of them searching for an intruder. They walked quietly to the Wolseley and got in. The last guy out turned as he closed the gate, trying to minimize the squeaking. His face in the streetlight was shadowed by the brim of his hat but he seemed to look directly at me and my chest went very tight very fast. He turned and got into the car and they coasted down the incline for a hundred yards before starting the engine.

In the sterile Milngavie quiet I could hear the car until it faded into the far distance. Still I waited another ten minutes to reassure myself there hadn’t been a fifth goon left inside McGahern’s house before I made my way as quietly as possible across the grass, through the gate and back towards where I had parked the car.

While I waited I thought about the figure I had seen in the light of Tam McGahern’s kitchen and the strange language he had spoken to the other two men. They had looked foreign. Dark. But, whatever lingo he had been speaking, it had done nothing to dispel the impression I had of him the first time I’d met him. He still reminded me of the actor Fred MacMurray.