Lennox

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It is raining. The entire world beyond the grime-smeared window is as grey and heavy as wet lead. The snappy wind grabs handfuls of rain and throws them like pebbles against the glass, as if trying to draw my attention to just how crap everything outside is. The dull sound of some massive industrial blunt instrument rhythmically hitting metal stretches through the rain, sometimes loud, sometimes muffled, depending on the whim of the wind.

But my attention is pretty much focused on this room. In my life, I have had to explain my way out of a lot of tight corners, but this tops them all.

I am leaning against the wall of an upper-storey room in an empty dockside warehouse. I am leaning against the wall because I doubt if I can stand up without support. I am trying to work out if there are any vital organs in the lower left of my abdomen, just above the hip. I try to remember anatomy diagrams from every encyclopaedia I ever opened as a kid, because, if there are vital organs down there, I am pretty much fucked.

I am leaning against a wall in an empty dockside warehouse trying to remember anatomy diagrams and there is a woman on the floor, about three yards in front of me. I don’t need to remember childhood encyclopaedias to know that there is a pretty vital organ in your skull, not that I seem to have made much use of it over the last four weeks. Anyway, the woman on the floor is Helena Gersons and she hasn’t got much of a skull left, and no face at all. Which is a shame, because it was a beautiful face. A truly beautiful face. Next to her is a large canvas bag that has been dropped onto the grubby floor, spilling half of its contents, which comprise a ridiculously large quantity of used, large-denomination banknotes.

I am leaning against a wall in an empty dockside warehouse with a hole in my side trying to remember anatomy diagrams, while Helena Gersons without her beautiful face and a large bag of cash lie on the floor. That should be enough of a pickle to be in, but there is also the Fat Dutchman looking down at the girl, the three dead men, the bag and now, at me. And he is holding a shotgun: the same one that took Helena’s pretty face off. De Jong walks across the floor, swings the shotgun up and aims it at my head. He pulls both hammers back and squeezes the triggers. There are two almost simultaneous hollow clicks.

‘Bad luck,’ I say. ‘Lillian was in too much of a hurry to reload.’ I aim the automatic at his face. He drops the shotgun with a clatter and puts his hands up. ‘That’s a good Dutchman,’ I say with a smile, but I am finding it difficult to breathe. ‘Now take two steps back.’

He does what I ask.

‘I’m afraid there’s more bad luck for you,’ I say apologetically.

‘What?’

I answer his question by firing the last three rounds from the automatic into his face. One round pops an eye and he’s dead before he hits the ground.

I look around me. Five dead bodies lying in big sticky pools of blood.

‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll join you,’ I say to the rest with a weak smile. I slide down the wall until I’m in a sitting position. I think about Jackie Gillespie and how I’d talked to him until he died. I would have liked that. At least I got McGahern. And I have stopped the guns getting out. I look at Helena’s body and feel like crying. The thing that burns me is that that bitch Lillian has gotten away. She was the brains after all. Truth is, I don’t think I really did get all of the answers. The one thing that sticks with me is that Tam McGahern was smart. And he fought alongside Palestinian Jews. He knew how tough they were. That they would never give up. It doesn’t fit that he would get involved in smuggling arms to the Arabs. He knew where it would lead. And then there was the way he looked to Lillian for guidance. Yes, she was the brains of the outfit. I looked across at McGahern’s body.

‘You’re not Tam at all, are you?’

He doesn’t answer.

‘Doesn’t matter, Frankie.’

I feel cold. And sleepy. It’s not too bad, Lennox, I think. I close my eyes and wait to die.

I am annoyed because someone is trying to wake me. Slapping my face. Someone else is tugging at my clothes where I’ve been shot. Fuck off and let me sleep. More slaps and someone pulls at my eyelids. I open them.

‘Jonny?’ I say weakly to the big handsome face pushed into mine. It can’t be Jonny Cohen. I think I’m hallucinating. Someone’s cutting my clothes. I feel a faint sting as a needle is pushed into my arm.

I look over Jonny’s shoulder and see someone else standing there. I decide I definitely am hallucinating: what would Hollywood actor Fred MacMurray be doing in a Glasgow warehouse?