The Deep Dark Sleep

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When I was leaving my digs in the morning, I bumped into Fiona White as she was coming out of her ground floor flat. Bumped into in the sense that I had the distinct impression she had been waiting to hear my footfall on the stairs before coming out.

It was a sad little exchange. I was still mixed up about her and the sudden appearance of her dead husband’s brother, or substitute, or whatever the hell he was. She was trying to frame something that she had not fully thought through: some kind of reassurance, I guess, but we were both all at sea. After all, anything that there was between us had been, until then, unspoken — if you excluded my soliloquizing the year before. And that had done more to formalize whatever we had between us than anything else. She told me that James was just concerned, as the girls’ uncle, for their well-being and there was not much else to be said. I said that it really was none of my business and that, I could see, stung her.

It was thus that our little stairwell exchange ended and I headed out to the Atlantic, feeling like crap. Always a good way to start the day.

I got to the office in time to let the joiner and glaziers in. They took most of the morning to replace the window. I hadn’t been allowed to repair it until then, but once the coppers had all of the photographs and fingerprints they wanted, I had got the go-ahead to replace the temporary boarding with new glazing. For the rest of the day, my office stank of putty, resin and the strangely lingering odour of workman sweat.

I took out a note pad and did a quick calculation of where I was with the money I had earned; none of it likely to come to the taxman’s attention. It was a lot. A whole lot. The John Macready case had been ridiculously overpaid. It annoyed me that people giving me unreasonably large sums of tax-free cash brought out the suspicious side to my nature. It annoyed me intensely. But it did.

I was now officially off the Macready and Strachan cases. I had narrowly dodged taking a long sleep in a shallow grave in the forest and I had more than enough cash to do whatever I should be doing with my life. Now, Lennox, I kept telling myself, is the time to leave well alone.

It appeared I was as deaf to internal dialogue as I was to instinct.

I found out from Donald Fraser that Macready and entourage were leaving town and flying back to the US the next day. I ’phoned Leonora Bryson and asked if we could meet for a coffee.

‘I really don’t see the point,’ she said. ‘Whatever happened between us, I don’t want you to think that it means anything.’

‘Oh, believe me, sister, you’ve made that crystal clear. But this is business. A little epilogue to my investigation, you might say.’

I could tell from her tone that she was unsure what to do; she eventually agreed to meet me. But in my office.

She turned up quarter of an hour later. She was wearing a less formal outfit that hugged her figure. I guessed that every man she had passed on the short walk across from the Central Hotel was now wearing a neck brace. She wore a silk patterned headscarf instead of a hat.

‘So, Mr Lennox. What’s on your mind?’ She squeezed an impressive amount of boredom into the question. She should have looked at her watch to underline the point, but she didn’t.

‘It’s more what’s on my conscience, if I’m honest. I know this woman, Martha. She’s a nice girl but I haven’t treated her well.’

‘Am I supposed to be surprised? Or interested?’

‘Oh I think you should be interested. I’ve treated her badly because I’ve used her as a substitute for someone else. Someone I care about but, if I’m honest, I know I will never be able to be with. You said on the ’phone that what happened between us didn’t mean anything. It did. It meant a lot. I have to tell you, there was a lot of aggression in there, sweetheart.’

Leonora Bryson stood up. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. I knew all along you were no gentleman, but this …’

‘Save the outrage, Leonora and sit down. Or I might just suggest to the police that they stop you getting on that plane tomorrow.’

She said nothing. Still defiant, still standing.

‘The way I was with Martha … I realized it was the same way you were with me. I’m sorry, Leonora, I really am … I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so much in love with someone you are with every day in life, but with whom you can never have any kind of relationship.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But she sat back down.

‘You are completely, totally, insanely in love with John Macready. God knows any man on the planet should get down on his knees in thanks to have a woman like you worship him. But, let’s face it, Mr Macready gets down on his knees for a whole different set of reasons. All that impressive equipment you’ve got there, completely wasted on him. He’s blind to you. And he’s blind to the fact that you would do anything to protect him.’

‘You really are a small man, Lennox. A sordid, poisonous little man.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I’m not really the best person to defend my own character. But I don’t like people getting killed when they don’t deserve it. Frank Gibson, for example. You got the wrong guy there, didn’t you? I don’t know who it is you have working for you here, but you called them right after I ’phoned you from outside Gibson’s flat. You couldn’t rely on me getting hold of absolutely everything. There could have been another darkroom somewhere, more negatives, more prints. And you wouldn’t let anyone damage the man you love. Get rid of the blackmailer and you get rid of the blackmail. But when your people got there, there was only Frank. My guess is that Paul Downey did a runner as soon as I left. Whoever you used has probably been on Downey’s trail ever since.’

‘What do you want, Lennox?’ she said coldly. ‘Sex? More money?’

‘I have more than enough money, thanks. And, though I cannot believe I’m hearing myself say this, I’ll pass on the sex. It’s probably best anyway, at least until the Infirmary sets up a post-coital ward in its casualty department. Anyway, don’t worry, I can’t prove anything. The police maybe could, given time, but your secret is safe with me.’

She tried really hard not to look relieved. ‘So what is it you want from me?’

‘Three things. I can’t see a striking woman like you cruising Glasgow’s underworld in search of professional killers, so I want to know who did the stalking and killing for you.’

She remained silent.

‘The second thing I want to know is if they have found Downey, and if so if he is still converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. If he is still alive, then I want to know where he is, or at least to find out where to pick up the trail.’

‘And the third thing?’

‘The third thing is the most personal, and I want an honest answer. Was the guy who left my office via the window here on your instructions? Did you pay someone to kill me?’

‘No.’

‘It would make sense. How could you know that I wouldn’t blab about John Macready? Or that I had maybe pocketed a couple of keepsake negatives myself? After all, I know how much the studio is prepared to fork out to protect their star’s reputation.’

‘I thought about it, but no. The one thing that we all knew about you, whatever else seedy you’ve got going, was that you wouldn’t cheat on a client. So no … whatever happened here has nothing to do with me.’

‘Okay … I believe you. What about my other questions. Where did you get the hired help?’

‘Fraser, the lawyer.’

‘Fraser?’ I failed to keep the surprise out of my tone. I’d been doing so well up until then with my omniscient detective act. The truth was I had not been at all sure I was on to anything at all.

‘He knows people,’ she said. ‘From the war.’

‘But Fraser was in the Home Gua …’ The sentence died on my lips. I felt like throwing myself out of the window, I had been so stupid.

‘And is Downey dead?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

She didn’t answer but instead reached over my desk and pulled my telephone towards her. As she did so I could see the swell of her breasts in the cleavage of her silk blouse. I decided I was too quick to turn down offers and that a short spell in casualty would not have been that bad.

She spoke a few words into the receiver and scribbled something down on my desk blotter. Her last words were to call the dogs off.

‘They’ve tracked him down to this address,’ she said. ‘Nothing will happen to him. But if he ever tries to sell any photographs of John, I promise you, Lennox, I’ll make a call across the Atlantic and I’ll be giving my contacts two names.’

Standing up and walking around the desk, I stood over her and read the address. It was in Bridgeton. Poor bastard.

I grabbed Leonora by the flesh of her upper arm and hauled her to her feet, pushing her hard and fast across the room until her back hit the wall.

‘I don’t hit women, Leonora. Just one of these odd little quirks about me,’ I said. ‘But if you ever threaten me again, I don’t care how many continents I have to cross, I’ll come over and slap you senseless. Then, after that, I’ll give the police every scrap of evidence I’ve got to see if they can pin anything on you. You got that?’

She nodded, but her eyes were clear of fear. She was a real piece of work, all right. I let go her arm.

‘And let me be clear about this … if I hear that anything — and I mean anything — untoward happens to Paul Downey then, again, I will go to the police with everything I know. Now I may not have enough for them to make a case, but it will be one hell of a scandal and everything you’ve fought so hard to avoid coming out will be splashed across the newspapers.’

I backed off. I felt bad about the rough stuff, but I reacted badly when people threatened me. And, anyway, given my experience with Leonora, she probably considered it foreplay. ‘Another bit of advice, Miss Bryson: when you get on that plane tomorrow, I strongly recommend you make sure it’s a one-way ticket and never, ever set foot on British soil again. Got that?’

She straightened herself out before answering. She was trying to retain her dignity, but the truth was she had never lost it.

‘You’ve expressed yourself very well, Lennox. But don’t worry, I have no intention of setting foot in this shitheel country ever again.’

‘One more thing,’ I said as she was leaving. ‘Not a word to Fraser. I don’t want you tipping him off that I know about your little arrangement.’

She turned at the door and nodded curtly. Then she was gone.

I sat and stared at the window, out at the black stone and iron lacework of Central Station, contemplating what had just happened and the information I’d been given. The war had been over for ten years, but it still loomed large in everything, casting its shadow into every corner of life. I had forgotten, even when Jock Ferguson had asked the old retired copper about Harrison, that Fraser had been in the Home Guard.

I was considering my next move when someone walked into my office; just like McNab, without knocking. I considered getting a sign.

‘Hello, Jock,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

He came in and sat down opposite me. As he did so, I saw that he had noticed the address written on my blotter and glanced at it absently before tossing his trilby on top of it.

‘Here’s your photograph back.’ He handed me an envelope. I had let him and McNab keep the picture of Joe Strachan or Henry Williamson or whoever the hell he was, but on the understanding that they copied it and gave me back the original. I had been relieved that they had not pushed too much to find out exactly how I’d come by it.

‘You get anything on the guy in the picture?’ I asked.

‘Nope. He remains a mystery man. But I have some good news — and I have to point out that I haven’t shared it with Superintendent McNab yet — I think I’ve tracked down someone who might be able to cast a little light on the matter.’

‘Oh … who?’

‘Stewart Provan.’

‘Wait a minute … I recognize that name …’ I scrabbled about in my drawer and found the sheet of paper the twins had sent me with the names that had been found on the note behind furniture. There it was, the fourth name on the list. ‘How did you find him?’

‘Pure chance. He’s living under the name Stewart Reid now. Changed his name by deed poll. But with ex-prisoners, we get notified of change of names and residence. I got the name from old Jimmy Duncan, who you met the other day. Told him I wanted to track down anyone who was suspected of being an associate of Joe Strachan. He came up with Stewart Provan, which led to Stewart Reid.’

‘Any form since the Thirties?’

‘None. Like Billy Dunbar, he’s gone straight.’

I nodded, not wanting to add that I could guarantee that Dunbar would never break the law again.

‘And you have an address for him?’ I asked.

Ferguson nodded indulgently and handed me a slip of paper with Provan’s details on them.

‘I appreciate this, Jock.’

Ferguson shrugged. ‘Just don’t let McNab know I’ve tipped you off. Having said that, what is it that’s going on between you and McNab? It’s almost like you’re on the payroll. You’re not, are you? I mean, he’s not paying you snout money?’

‘Don’t be stupid, Jock. Let’s just say the Superintendent has come to a greater appreciation of my finer qualities. Now, what do you reckon to this Home Guard connection? Do you really think that this Chief Superintendent Harrison tipped off whoever it was that came after me?’

‘I don’t know, Lennox, but you know that coincidences are pretty difficult things to believe in. But I can’t believe a senior officer in the City of Glasgow Police would knowingly be involved with this kind of nonsense.’

I raised an eyebrow so much that Archie would have been proud of me.

‘We’re not all on the take or corrupt,’ said Jock defensively.

‘Not all, I’m sure. Anyway, thanks for the address, Jock.’ I stood up. I wanted Ferguson to clear out. I had no idea how long the terrified Paul Downey would stay at the address Leonora Bryson had given me.

‘You’re welcome.’ I could tell from his tone that he was a little put out.

‘Sorry, Jock … it’s just I’ve got something to deal with. And it’s urgent.’

I saw him down the stairs and out onto the main street. I made my way around the corner to where I had parked the Atlantic and headed out to Bridgeton. I drove past the address three or four times, circling the block on either side, just to make sure there was no sign of the mob Bryson had set on Downey’s trail. I needed to get Downey safe and secure before I dealt with Fraser.

I had a more immediate problem.

The address was in a tenement block that was little more than a slum, as were the blocks around it. I couldn’t leave the Atlantic anywhere near. Mainly because, if I did, there would be little of it to come back to, but the other reason was it would stick out a mile in this part of the city and I had as much chance of getting to Downey unseen as if I approached waving a banner and beating a drum. I drove out for a half mile until I found the rail station and dumped the Atlantic in the car park, hoofing it back to the tenement. The exact numbers were difficult to sort out and I decided against knocking on doors and asking if anyone knew Downey. Even as it was, I thought I could hear the rhythm of jungle drums as I strolled past the tenements.

I could have staked the place out, of course, but it might have been hours before the spooked Downey would venture out. Or maybe he had already moved on. I stood at the corner, smoking and watching shoeless kids sail newspaper boats on the iridescently oily surface of rain puddles.

I had just decided to risk knocking some doors when I saw Downey at the far end of the street, carrying a large brown paper bag of groceries. He hadn’t seen me and I ducked around the corner and waited for him to reach me.

I really did feel sorry for the guy. When he turned the corner, he looked as if he had walked straight into the Grim Reaper himself, which was pretty much who he thought I was. He started as if he was about to make a run for it but I grabbed his arm and hauled him up against the wall. He dropped the grocery bag on the cobbles.

‘You killed him!’ he shouted. ‘You killed Frank! You’re going to kill me!’

The kids playing in the gutter stopped playing and watched us, but with a dull curiosity that suggested they had seen it all before.

‘Stop shouting, Paul,’ I said in a calm, even voice, ‘or I’m going to have to slug you, and I really don’t want to do that. I’m not going to hurt you and I didn’t hurt Frank.’ I frowned. ‘Well … okay … I did hurt Frank, but it wasn’t me who killed him. And I’m not connected to the people who did. Got that?’

He nodded furiously, but in that I’m-too-scared-to-listen way.

‘Paul …’ I said patiently. ‘You need to understand what I’m saying. I’m not here to hurt you. Believe it or not, I’m here to help you. To make sure you stay safe. Do you understand?’

He nodded again, but it had sunk in this time. Now his expression clouded with suspicion. I let him go.

‘I want to help you, Paul … to put an end to all this mayhem and fix things so that you can stop running. But first of all I need to talk to you so that I can try to understand what’s going on better. Can we go up to your place?’

‘I’m staying with a friend. We can’t talk there.’ Again his look and his tone were laced with suspicion.

‘Okay …’ I picked up the groceries and handed them to him. My car’s parked at the station. We can talk as we walk …’

I had given Downey his groceries to carry as an encumbrance, or at least an early warning, if suddenly dropped, that he was going to make a run for it. But as we walked he listened to everything I told him, including how my involvement had been simply to retrieve the photographs and negatives of John Macready. I lied by telling him that I suspected Frank had been killed by people working either on Macready’s behalf or on behalf of the Duke to protect his son. The truth, of course, was that I knew damned well that it had been Leonora Bryson and the lawyer Fraser who had organized the killing.

We got back to the car and I told him to get in, which he did, but only after casting an anxious eye around us. I did a bit of casting myself and got in after him. He sat there, small and slight and clutching his now crumpled grocery bag, more child than man.

‘Why did you get into all of this business, Paul?’ I asked. ‘You’re just not cut out for it.’

‘It was Frank’s idea to start with. Then Iain came up with this plan to fleece Macready. I never thought people would start getting killed. I never knew that Frank …’

He broke off and started to cry. I looked the other way, out of the window, embarrassed. And trying to avoid getting angry with him because he had embarrassed me. He stopped after a while.

‘Listen, Paul,’ I said. ‘I don’t think this is all just about the Macready photos, either. I think you ended up in possession of something valuable and dangerous and you didn’t even know it was valuable and dangerous.’ I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the envelope Ferguson had given me. I took out the photograph and handed it to Downey.

‘You remember this?’ I asked. ‘I think your life is in more danger because of this photograph than the whole business with Macready. I believe this is someone who has made a great effort never to have his face or anything about him recorded, anywhere.’

‘Who is he?’ asked Downey.

‘I am pretty convinced that this is someone called Joe Strachan, although everybody seems to want me to believe it isn’t. Everybody wants me to think it’s someone called Henry Williamson, but I don’t know if he ever existed. What I can’t work out is why the people who have lied to me about it, lied to me about it.’ I thought back to the twins’ reaction, or lack of it, to the photograph when I had shown it to them.

‘The name means nothing to me,’ said Downey. ‘I don’t know anything about this man except I was given a description of him and told to try to get a picture of him.’

‘By this man you say hired you? The man who called himself Paisley?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did he find you?’

Downey looked afraid. Or more afraid. ‘I didn’t tell you everything,’ he said and looked as if he was expecting me to hit him.

‘It’s all right, Paul,’ I said. ‘You can tell me now.’

‘Mr Paisley turned up when we were setting up the camera in the cottage. You know, the way Iain had asked us to do so we could get pictures of him and Macready. Somehow Mr Paisley knew all about what we had planned. He said he would make sure that the police got to know what we were up to if we didn’t do as he asked. He also told me that he knew all about my betting debts and who I owed the money to. He said he could make that all go away, that he could square everything with the loan shark and he wouldn’t come after me any more for interest.’

‘He seemed well-informed.’

‘He knew everything. He said we could go ahead with our plan and we would end up keeping anything we made instead of handing it over to the shark.’

‘He didn’t ask you for a cut, for a percentage?’

Downey laughed. ‘It would have been small change for him, from what I could see. He arrived in a huge Bentley and his clothes were very expensive.’

‘He was alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you went along with him, just like that?’

‘Yes. Even with the clothes and the car, you could tell he was someone you didn’t want to mess with. He looked hard. And dangerous. He had this scar on his cheek, like he’d been in a razor fight.’

‘Right or left cheek?’

Downey thought for a moment. ‘Right. The other reason we didn’t kick up was it seemed easy money. We were on the estate anyway and Mr Paisley said that the man I was to look out for should turn up in the next few days.’

‘And all you were to do was to take a photograph of him?’

‘That’s all. The best I could manage. Mr Paisley said that we would be paid well, but if we ever talked to anyone about it, we’d end up dead. Do you think it was him who killed Frank?’

‘Honestly? No, I don’t think so. Tell me, Paul, is there any chance that the man you photographed spotted you? Knew that you’d taken his picture?’

‘No. Or at least I don’t think so.’

‘No, nor do I,’ I said, remembering how difficult it had been, even with years of army training and combat experience, to give him and his goons the slip in the woods.

‘What happens now?’ he asked.

‘You have to disappear for a while. And not to where you were. The people who are after you now wouldn’t take long to track you down. I’m going to take you out of town. We’ll find you somewhere to hide out. But you hide out, is that clear?’

‘Clear.’

Largs was on a narrow strip of coastline squeezed between the sea and a massive shoulder of rock known as the Haylie Brae, which rose precipitously behind it. It was a dismal day and the rain started to come down in sheets, turning everything into sleek shades of grey.

Before I drove all the way down the Ayrshire coast to Largs, I had not made any ’phone calls or asked anyone for help or advice. Not even Archie. I had no idea why I had picked Largs, which was a good thing: no one else could put together a logical sequence that would lead them to my random choice. Although I supposed there was some logic to it: I had had it in the back of my head that a coastal resort was ideal for anonymous and by-the-night accommodation and I had had a vague notion to make for one of the many guest-houses that lined the promenade. The only thing that concerned me was that most Largs guest-house landladies exercised the kind of discipline and adherence to regulation that made the average glasshouse sergeant-major look easy-going. And two men booking a room off-season, particularly when one of them was Downey, could end up attracting the attention of the police.

After the war, the British had developed a renewed passion for caravanning, which had started to gain some popularity in the Thirties. Now there were caravan parks springing up alongside any seaside resort or on Highland estates, where holiday-makers could enjoy the experience of sitting in cramped conditions looking out at the rain, instead of sitting at home in cramped conditions looking out at the rain. I suppose I understood it in a way. The trips abroad so many had been obliged to take in the previous decade had probably blunted the nation’s wanderlust.

I had gotten the idea as we approached Largs along the ribbon of coast road. Between Skelmorlie and Largs a large open field, backed by a curtain of cliff, had been converted into a caravan park. A drive led to a cabin that bore a sign telling you that it was the ‘reception office’. Half of the field beyond was occupied by ten to a dozen identical two-tone cubes arranged in ranks, looking out over the sea to the hulking grey mass of the Isle of Arran. On the other half of the field, next to the identical caravans, was a largely open space, populated by two boarded up, larger caravans. I guessed one side of the park was for visitors bringing their own vans, while the other was for caravans to rent. Across from the ‘reception’ shed was a largish, red-sandstone villa.

I told Downey to stay put in the car while I went into the park’s office cabin. There was no one there, but a sign above a large hand-bell, the kind ye olde worlde town criers would use, instructed me: IF NOBODY’S HERE IT DON’T MEAN A THING, PICK ME UP AND GIVE ME A RING.

So I did.

A minute later, a woman in her early thirties came across from the villa, hurrying as much as her tight pencil skirt and high-heels would allow. She had light brown hair and pale grey eyes and a smile that told me I could be her special guest. That made things easier and I flirted as I booked in. I explained that the caravan would be occupied mostly by my young friend, who had been ill and needed the sea air to recuperate.

‘We get a lot of that from Glasgow,’ she said, nodding gravely but keeping her eyes on mine. ‘So, will you be staying at all yourself, Mr Watson?’ she asked, reading the fake name I’d entered into the register. ‘I’m Ethel Davison, by the way.’

‘I hadn’t planned to,’ I said, hamming up the wolfishness as I shook her limp hand. ‘But maybe I should keep an eye on my friend.’

‘We’ll look after him. I’m here all of the time and my husband is here when he’s not at work. He works nights,’ she explained helpfully.

‘I wouldn’t worry too much about my friend. He has a pile of books and really wants solitude as much as the sea air, which is why I chose your site. It really is a lovely spot you have here,’ I said, and looked appreciatively out of the cabin’s window to the sea, just as a beer lorry rattled past the road end.

I gave her a week’s rent in advance, which she was delighted with. ‘If your friend needs to stay longer, that’s not a problem at this time of year,’ she said. ‘Or if you wanted a caravan for yourself, we could do a special combined rate …’

I smiled and told her it wouldn’t be necessary, but I really would make sure that I checked on him regularly. Probably in the evenings.

After she showed me where the communal toilets and washhouse was, she took me over to the caravan. Like the others, it was cream on top and black below, with flat flanks but a belly swell at the front and back. Inside it was clean and still had a smell of newness. There was a horseshoe of seating at one end and she demonstrated how it folded down into a bed. I could easily have encouraged her to demonstrate some more, but Downey was waiting in the car and I had a lot of business to deal with.

Once I had gotten Downey settled in the caravan, I drove into Largs and picked up provisions for him, as well as half a dozen cheap paperbacks. Warning him not to set foot anywhere further than the toilet block, I told him I would check on him regularly and left him to it.

I ’phoned Willie Sneddon’s office from the post office in Skelmorlie but was told that he was out and would not be back that day. I tried him at home, but his wife told me he would not be home until later that evening. Telling her who I was, I said I would try to get hold of Mr Sneddon later. I thought about cruising a few of his places to see if I could find him, but decided to leave it for now.

I had other business.

The address Jock Ferguson had given me was in Torrance, an uninspiring small town to the north of Glasgow and a couple of hours from Largs. Stewart Provan’s house was a substantial looking, stone-built bungalow that small Scottish towns were full of: statements that the occupiers were financially comfortable but without imagination or ambition. It was the architecture of mediocrity. I guessed that, in Provan’s case, it was a statement of anonymity.

He answered the door himself. He looked in his early fifties but I’d already worked out that he would be sixty at least. He was dressed in flannels, a Tattersall shirt and a navy cardigan — the uniform of Britain’s lower middle-classes — but his face didn’t quite fit. No scars, no broken nose, no cauliflower ears: just a lean hardness that told you this was not someone to mess with. I thought I detected his shoulders sag a little when he saw me on the doorstep and an expression of resignation on his face. Not for the first time, I felt as if my arrival had been expected.

‘Yes?’ he said, and cast a glance past me, down the path and to where my car was parked on the street, as if he was looking to see who was with me.

‘Mr Provan? I’d like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.’

‘Here? Or …’ He nodded towards the car.

‘Here would be fine, Mr Provan,’ I said, trying to work out who he thought I was who would take him away in a car. Not the police, I reckoned.

‘I take it you know what this is about?’ I decided to milk it a little.

‘I know. I’ve been expecting you. Ever since the bones were hauled up. You’d better come in.’ He stood to one side, with even more of a resigned sag of the shoulders. I stepped into the hall and past him.

I was hit with such force that I flew forward and halfway up the hall, coming to rest face down on the floor, having sent an umbrella stand flying and scattering its contents all over the floor.

From the explosion of pain, I reckoned he had kicked me in the small of my back. He was on top of me in an instant, his knee pinioning me to the floor, pressing down on the exact same point on my spine that he had kicked. He looped his forearm under me and used it as a choking bar on my throat. My air supply was shut off and I knew I had seconds before the lights went out. Finding his hand, I seized his little finger and yanked it forward, hard. I knew I’d dislocated it, but he knew I only had seconds left and he ignored the injury. I twisted the finger round hard and he found it impossible to ignore. He eased the pressure off just enough for me to twist my shoulders sideways and throw him off balance. I slammed him into the wall, then again, and managed to get free enough to ease up on one knee. My hand fell on a robust walking stick that had spilled from the stand; grabbing it, I swung it blind but hit my target. I swung round and hit him again, this time across the side of the head. The stick didn’t have enough weight to put him out, but another couple of blows dazed him enough for me to get to my feet.

I snatched the Webley from my waistband and levelled it at him. He was slumped on the floor, half propped-up against the wall, and he gazed up at me with a strange look. Like some kind of resigned, contemptuous defiance. It was that look that told me all I needed to know. He thought I was his executioner.

‘Wife?’ I asked. I knew there was no one else in the house, or they would have come running because of the racket we had made.

‘Dead. Seven years.’

‘You’re alone?’

He nodded. ‘Just get on with it.’

‘You think Joe Strachan sent me, don’t you?’ I said.

‘Ghosts can’t send killers, can they?’ He laughed, low and bitterly. ‘I thought he would do it himself. Like the others. I knew it was him. I always knew it was him.’

‘I’m not who you think I am,’ I said.

He frowned as he watched me ease the hammer back on the Webley and tuck it back into my waistband. I could see he was unsure what to do, so I left my hand resting on the gun butt.

‘Who are you then?’

‘A mug. A mug who was hired to clear up the truth about Joe Strachan, but I think I was maybe really hired just to muddy the waters. Now, I’m not here to kill you or take you for a spin in the trunk of my car, and I’m not a copper. So can we maybe relax a little?’

He nodded, but I left my hand on the gun. It was beginning to dawn on me that I really had struck gold.

‘This is a nice little place you’ve got here,’ I said. ‘It must have set you back a bob or two. I take it this was all bought with the money from the Empire Exhibition robbery?’

Provan wiped blood from his nose and laughed again. Bitterly. I guessed it was the only way he knew how to laugh.

‘I didn’t get a penny from that robbery,’ he said. ‘Not a penny.’

‘But you were one of the team?’

‘Who the fuck are you, anyway?’

‘Lennox. Like I said, I’m an enquiry agent. I was hired by Strachan’s kids to find out what happened to their father.’

‘Kids? Which kids?’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean, which kids?’

‘Gentleman Joe was one for the ladies. There are Strachan bastards all over the shop.’

‘These ones are legitimate. His twin daughters.’

Provan looked at me as if weighing up the truth of what I was saying. ‘Can I get off the floor?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But no more funny business. I’m no threat to you and I’d like it to be mutual.’

‘Fair enough.’ He got up. ‘You all right?’ he asked and nodded to my hand. I looked down: there was blood on the back of it. I guessed our little tussle had popped a stitch or two on the knife wound. I decided I really should think about a different line of work. Maybe Bobby McKnight could get me a job selling used cars.

‘I’ll live. Incidentally, that was a present from a commando type who had been sent to dissuade me from pursuing my enquiries. I guess that was who you were expecting to turn up.’

‘Come through to the kitchen.’ Provan led the way. ‘I think we could both do with a drink.’

On the assumption that the sun was above the yardarm somewhere on the planet, I agreed and followed. Provan took two tumblers that looked more suited for milk than whisky down from a kitchen shelf. He told me to sit at the kitchen table. The kitchen was a widower’s kitchen right enough: bachelor Spartan but with sad, faint vestiges of a past-tense femininity.

‘Blended okay?’ he asked me as he reached into a cupboard.

‘The way I feel, wood alcohol would do the trick.’ I rested my unbloodied hand on my wounded forearm. I would have to go back to the hospital. When I looked up, it was into the black eyes of a sawn-off shotgun. He must have kept it as a reminder of his previous life. I’d heard that Max Bygraves still kept his carpentry tools. It was good to have a trade to fall back on.

‘Okay, Lennox, just lay both hands flat on the table.’ Provan spoke authoritatively, but without heat. ‘There’s no reason for anyone to get hurt, but I don’t want you getting any ideas about taking me into the police or delivering me up to Strachan, if he really is still alive.’

‘Do I still get the whisky?’

Provan smiled, but it looked wrong on his face, as if he was out of practice. He kept the sawn-off trained on me but poured us two massive belts with his free hand.

‘I reckon you’re on the level,’ he said after taking a slug without wincing, which was impressive: my first sip of the cheap blended whisky had shrivelled up every sphincter muscle in my anatomy. ‘I read about you in the papers. Was that the fella … the one who took a dive from your window?’

‘That was him. And if it hadn’t been him, it would have been me. He wasn’t taking prisoners. Listen …’ I leaned forward and he refocused his aim on me. I made a placating gesture. ‘Take it easy. Like you said, no one needs to get hurt. What I was going to say is that I need your help here. There’s no way I can force you to tell me, and there’s no way I can prove to you that I won’t repeat what you tell me to the cops, other than my word that I won’t. But the more you tell me, the more likely I am to be able to bring this thing to an end.’

Another bitter laugh. ‘You don’t stand a chance, Lennox. You’re lucky that you survived the attack on you. You won’t be so lucky the next time. I won’t be so lucky the first.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. To begin with I thought I’d run. Run and hide. Get the lawyer to sell this place for me. Then I decided there was no point in running, they’d just find me. I’d made up my mind to stay put and just take what was coming to me. But then, when you turned up, it was like a survival instinct took over …’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I noticed. Can I smoke?’

‘Yes, but move really slow. This thing has a hair trigger and I don’t want to have to redecorate.’

I took his point and eased my packet of Players from my jacket pocket and offered him one. He shook his head.

‘Tell me what happened,’ I said after I’d lit the cigarette and snapped shut my lighter. ‘Everything, starting with the robbery.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because it would help me, and helping me might just help you. This has gotten very personal with me and I want to make sure it’s Strachan, if that’s who’s behind it all, that gets what’s coming to him. And if he does, you don’t, if you get me.’

‘I get you. What do you want to know?’

‘You said the others … what others? And what happened to them?’

‘Johnny Bentley, Ronnie McCoy and Mike Murphy. They were the other members of the outfit. We did the Triple Crown robberies together.’

‘What? Hammer Murphy was part of the gang?’

‘No. This was another Michael Murphy. Hammer Murphy wouldn’t have anything like the brains or finesse Gentleman Joe needed from us all.’

‘I see,’ I said. I had undergone the unpleasantness of Murphy’s company for no good reason. ‘So what happened to them?’

‘All dead. One by one, over the years. Bentley died in a car crash and McCoy was killed by a hit and run driver. Mike Murphy disappeared on the night of the share-out and my money is on him being dead too.’

‘So none of them slipped off quietly in their sleep, that’s what you’re telling me?’

‘The police wouldn’t connect their deaths because they had no idea they were all part of the Exhibition Gang, as the newspapers took to calling us. And anyway, whoever did them took his time: there was five years between Bentley and McCoy’s deaths and six between McCoy’s and Murphy’s. And that left me.’

‘So you think it was Joe Strachan who killed all three?’

‘Not necessarily. I don’t even know if Strachan is alive. There was another member of the outfit, you see.’

‘The Lad?’

‘You know about him?’ Provan looked genuinely surprised.

‘All there is to know, which isn’t much.’

‘Well, if it isn’t Strachan, then it’s the Lad who killed the boys.’ By now Provan had drained his tumbler in a few gulps but the whisky hadn’t seemed to have any effect on him.

‘I suppose I had better start with what happened at the Empire robbery …’