The Deep Dark Sleep

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It seemed that we were settling down for a long account, and I don’t like guns pointing at me. It’s a prejudice based on their habit of going off, even when the person holding the gun has had no intention of firing it. During the war, I had seen too many men killed or wounded by their own side, just because someone had been forgetful with a safety catch or had been waving their weapon around carelessly. I communicated my prejudice to Provan and reminded him that he was loath to redecorate the wall behind me and he agreed to put the shotgun down, provided I kept my hands where he could see them. He sat down opposite me at the table and started on his memoirs.

‘I suppose you remember the Exhibition?’ he asked.

‘Before my time. I only came to Glasgow after I was demobbed. But I believe it was quite something.’

‘Aye. It was. They poured tons of cash into it. They were trying to prove something; just what it was they were trying to prove is beyond me. Maybe it was that Glasgow had taken such a kicking in the Depression and they thought that trying to convince us all that everything wasn’t all messed up after all and we weren’t going to spend the rest of our lives in squalor. The other thing was that everybody knew back in Thirty-eight — aye, well everybody except Neville Chamberlain, that is — that Hitler was going to keep stirring the shite until it spilled out into another war like the Great War. All this shite about the Glory of the Empire … I think they were trying to kid us on that everything was going to get better and stay the same at the same time. That we would always have colonies and dominions with Glasgow at the heart of it all.

‘Whatever the reason, they built this entire fake world on Bellahouston Park. Most of it looked like that H.G. Wells film, The Shape of Things to Come, while the rest of it looked like bloody Brigadoon or some bollocks like that — some kind of imaginary, romantic Scotland with a loch, a castle and a Highland village. Anyway, Joe Strachan had read up all about it right at the very beginning when it was just being planned. He worked out that there would be thousands in workers’ wages every week and even more in cash takings from the public. That was his big thing — his special gift — he could always see where the big money, the best takings, could be. No one else had his eye for it. He gathered us together and talked us through the Triple Crown.’

‘You, this guy Murphy, Bentley, McCoy, and the so-called “Lad”. What was his name?’

‘I don’t know. I never knew his name, never knew his face. And when you ask if Murphy, Bentley and McCoy were there, I know now that they were, but at the time they could have been anybody. None of us knew anything about the others. We all knew what Strachan looked like and he knew our faces, because he had recruited us, but he made us meet up at the old Bennie Railplane track, up by Milngavie.’

‘Why there?’

‘It was abandoned but somewhere we could all find. I also think that Strachan liked a bit of drama. If there was one thing he did have going against him, it was that he was a flash bastard. Anyway, there was this disused building that had been part of the original station they had built. We were told to turn up there, fifteen minutes apart. When we did, there was this guy on the door with a balaclava hiding his face.’

‘The Lad?’

‘Aye. That’s how he was introduced by Strachan later. Anyway, he was armed and gave each of us a balaclava to wear before we entered the building.’

‘So he saw your faces?’

‘Aye. But we never saw his and we didn’t see each other’s. Strachan said that it meant no one could identify any of the gang, other than Strachan himself, if they got caught. And it was made clear that it didn’t matter what prison we were locked up in, if we fingered Strachan, we wouldn’t last a month.

‘So, anyway, we all gather there, wearing these balaclavas and calling each other by an animal name: I was Fox and the others were Wolf, Bear and Tiger. Load of shite, but that was the way Strachan ran things. Like it was the fucking army. And we couldn’t complain, because it worked. Strachan then set to going through what we were going to do. He had four smaller robberies planned, but these were just practice runs, and to get funds to finance the bigger robberies. All he told us about these bigger robberies was that the first two would be the usual type of job, but on a much bigger scale than anyone had ever seen. But the third was going to be something so different, so unexpected, that they wouldn’t know what had hit them and the police wouldn’t know where to start looking. Oh, there was one thing we did know about each other — that none of us had any kind of serious form that would make us suspects.’

‘Did he tell you then that it was going to be the Empire Exhibition?’

‘Naw. I got the feeling that the first four jobs were more than practice or to raise funds. I think he was testing us out, to see how we worked as a team; to see if he could trust us. It was only after that that he gave us the details of the Triple Crown. But there was a lot more weird stuff. Every time we met, it was up at the Bennie Railplane, and every time we had to turn up at different times so that we didn’t see each other without our masks on. I really didn’t see how we could keep it up. Even with the test jobs, we were all masked up and in the back of a van. We were told that anyone who took his mask off and let the others see his face would be shot there and then. And if you knew Gentleman Joe Strachan, you’d believe it. It was then that it started to dawn on me: the real reason for the masks and the codenames and not being allowed to talk to each other. Strachan and the Lad were tight; they knew each other; the rest of us were useful if we did what we were told, but if we started to talk to each other, we could maybe plan a double-cross. Divide and fucking conquer, that’s what it was.

‘But we were happy. We got a big slice each from the practice jobs and we had all seen how Strachan’s planning worked better than any boss we’d had before. And we knew that if we pulled off the Triple Crown, we’d never have to work again. But like I said, it was all pretty weird. For three months we had to meet up every Tuesday night and Strachan would drive us up into the fucking wilds and make us do all of these exercises and combat practice. Again, like in the army. Anyway, one night we were disturbed by this gamekeeper, who obviously thought we were night-time poachers. He approached us, waving his shotgun at us, but Strachan put on his army officer palaver and before you knew it this poacher was tugging at his forelock and calling him sir. But the Lad had been on lookout and, while Strachan was talking to the gamekeeper, the Lad came up behind him, completely silent, and cut his fucking throat. In the bat of an eye and without breaking his step.’

‘I see …’ I said, casting my mind back to a more recently deceased gamekeeper with a slashed throat. ‘What happened to the body?’

‘We took it back in the van. What happened to it after that I don’t know: Strachan and the Lad disposed of it, I suppose. But on the way back, Strachan stripped the body and left the keeper’s shotgun and all the clothes that weren’t blood-stained by the side of this fast flowing stretch of river. I said to Strachan that it didn’t make sense, that no one would believe that the gamekeeper had gone for a midnight dip in a dangerous stretch of river, never to be found. In any case, I says, it’s not like the sea … anyone drowned in the river would be washed up somewhere downstream.

‘Strachan says to me that that doesn’t matter. That the less sense it makes the more of a mystery the gamekeeper’s disappearance will be. Country people love a mystery, he says, and they’ll make up all kinds of stories about the gamekeeper running off with a woman or crap like that. No one will think about it being a simple murder because he disturbed someone in the woods.

‘After that, things got tense. Me and the other boys had been shaken up by the way the Lad had done the gamekeeper in cold blood. I started to think that maybe the loot from the big jobs would only be split two ways and the rest of us could end up taking a nap at the bottom of the Clyde.’

‘Did you do anything about it?’ I asked.

‘I’ll get to that,’ Provan answered me impatiently. ‘So we do the first two of the big three and everything goes to plan. But there’s no talk of a divvy-up of the takings. We’re told we have to wait until after the Exhibition Robbery. Then, says Strachan, we’ll get everything that’s coming to us.

‘But one of the other guys slips me a note. It’s got the address of a pub in Maryhill and a day and a time we’re to meet. Strachan is such a twisted bastard that I worry that it’s a set-up to test our loyalty or security or God knows what. But I go along anyway. I stand in the pub like a fucking lemon because I’ve got no idea what he looks like and he’s got no idea what I look like. I’m just about to leave when this bloke comes up and asks if I’m Mr Fox. I say I am and he tells me that he’s Mr Bear. Turns out he’s Johnnie Bentley. He tells me that he gave the same note to Mr Wolf and Mr Tiger, but he can’t tell if either of them are there yet.

Half an hour later we goes up to this fella sitting on his own nursing a pint. Right enough it’s Mike Murphy. Ronnie McCoy sees the three of us together and works out we’re his furry workmates. We leave the pub and sit in the bus stance for two hours talking everything through. Turns out that the other two have the same thoughts I did and reckon that we’re going to get shafted by Strachan and the Lad.’

‘So you decide to do some shafting yourself?’ I asked.

‘Not there and then, but we meet four or five times after that. We had to be careful because there was no way of knowing if Strachan had his Lad following us. Christ knows we would never have been able to recognize the bastard. Anyway, we agree that after the Exhibition Robbery, we’ll deal with the pair of them. Problem is that we have no idea when and where we’re supposed to meet to split up the cash, but we guess it’s going to be the Bennie Railplane, so we agree that, whatever time we’re given by Strachan, we’ll all turn up, tooled-up, fifteen minutes earlier.

To start with, we agree that if we can just make sure that we get our fair share, as Strachan promised we would, we’ll leave it at that. But we have to see the Lad’s face so’s we know who to be looking over our shoulders for. But then Johnnie Bentley says about the gamekeeper and how there’s no chance that Strachan or his masked monkey will let us get away with holding them up. So eventually we agree that we have to kill them both. It was a big step. Not one of us was a life-taker, not like them other two, and it would be murder. You hang for murder. Anyway, it all became academic after what Strachan does during the robbery.’

‘The copper?’

Provan nodded. ‘Strachan only gives us the full details on the day of the Exhibition job. Nothing’s last-minute though, somehow he’s been able to train us up, to prepare us for it in bits. Like a jigsaw puzzle. Then everything comes together when he tells us how it’s going to go down. The bastard was good, I have to give him that. If he hadn’t been a villain, he’d have made a good general.’

I decided not to tell Provan about the supposed sighting of Strachan in officer garb during the war.

‘The only fly in the ointment is that he tells us on the day of the robbery that we’re to split up after the robbery and stay low for a week, then we meet up at the Railplane. So we’re sitting in the back of the van, masked up and tooled up, but we can’t arrange to meet to discuss our next move, because the Lad is sitting right there next to us. We arrive at the Exhibition site at Bellahouston, just when it’s closing. It’s a Saturday night so the Exhibition is closed the next day and the armoured car will be picking up the whole week’s banked takings. We go in through the entrance opposite Ibrox Stadium. Strachan’s driving and he tells the gateman that he’s got an urgent delivery for Colville’s Steel, who had a pavilion. There’s a bit of argy-bargy and we hear Strachan tell the gateman that that’s fine if he isn’t going to let him in, it’s no skin off his nose but he’ll need a note of his name because Colville’s are going to go spare. The gateman’s an old codger with bottle-bottom glasses and although he’s looking straight at Strachan, he can’t give a description later.

‘Strachan even has that planned to the last detail: we come in the Ibrox gate because Strachan knows exactly who’s on duty at what gate and when. God knows how, but he did. We get in and we drive up the main boulevard of the exhibition. I can’t tell you how weird it was … all of these futuristic buildings and fountains and towers. It was like pulling a job in ancient fucking Egypt or on Mars. Anyway, there’s nobody there now except staff and they’re beginning to leave. We turn into the avenue that leads to the amusement park restaurant and park up, tucked in the shadow of the Palace of Engineering, where we have a clear view of the main drag. We kill the lights and wait. Strachan balaclavas up like the rest of us and, right on time, the security van comes up the main boulevard, heading for the exhibition bank office.

We wait till it makes the pick-up and is on its way back, then Strachan pulls out and blocks the way and we’re out and got the van surrounded. The security men inside are shocked but not too worried, because they’re inside an armoured car, until Strachan shows them that he has a grenade in each hand. He tells them to get out of the van or he’ll start rolling pineapples under it. They know that the van’s not armoured underneath, and even if it doesn’t kill them, they’re going to lose legs or balls or both, so they get out. The Lad gives the driver a hiding, really quick but really thorough, just to prove we mean business, and the other guy opens up the goodies for us. We’ve got the armoured car open and the cash sack transferred to our van all inside fifty seconds, just as Strachan timed it.

‘Then this copper turns up. He’s just a kid in a uniform that’s too big for him, but he comes running over with his truncheon in his hand. I mean, I’ve got a sawn- off, Murphy’s got a sawn-off, Johnnie Bentley’s got a Lee-Enfield rifle and Strachan and the Lad have both got army revolvers. And this kid comes running up clutching fifteen inches of fucking wood. So Strachan shoots him. One shot, right in the forehead. No warning. No shouting for the copper to stop. Fuck all. Then Strachan turns back to us as if nothing’s happened and tells us to get in the van.

We do what we’re told but we see Strachan and the Lad over by the security car men, who we’ve got spread-eagled on the ground. They tell the security men that they’ll have to kill them because of what they’ve seen and take aim at their heads. It’s all show, but the security men believe it and us sitting in the van believe it because of what we’ve just seen. Strachan says he’ll let them live, but if he hears that they’ve told the police anything useful, they’ll be getting a visit. Ten minutes later we’ve dumped the van, transferred the cash into the back of Strachan’s car, and we’re dropped, one at a time, at different places in the city. I end up in the Gallowgate, stuffing my balaclava into my pocket and standing completely fucking dazed, wondering if what happened really happened.’

‘What did you do?’

‘The only thing I could think to do, and it was totally against Strachan’s orders to lie low: I went to the pub where Johnnie Bentley had arranged our first meeting, hoping that the others would have the same idea.’

‘And had they?’

‘Aye. If a copper had come in he would have sussed us right away. Four of us as white as fucking sheets, whispering to each other and looking as if we already had an appointment with an executioner. We talked as well as we could. This really changed everything. Strachan had put a noose around our necks and the only way we could dodge the drop in Duke Street would be to turn King’s Evidence. Now we all knew that Strachan would have worked that out too, so we had no choice. We either went straight to Saint Andrew’s Square and spilled our guts, meaning we’d dodge the hangman but spend thirty years each in the Bar-L, or we kill Strachan and his psycho Lad.’

‘So no choice, in other words.’

‘Instead of turning up at the usual intervals, we all go to the meet at the Railplane a full hour ahead of schedule, and together. We don’t have the weapons we had for the robbery ’cause Strachan was supposed to dump them in the Clyde after we split up, but Johnnie has a Great War Luger that he brings along and I have my own sawn-off. Strachan turns up half an hour after us and we get the drop on him. But there’s no money with him. We’ve got him at gunpoint and the bastard just laughs at us. He tells us that he knew we’d try to pull this so he’s stashed the cash where no one knows about it except him. Stalemate. Johnnie tells Strachan that he’s going to torture him, shoot his balls off one at a time, but Strachan knows we’re not made of the same as him. He could do that kind of thing, but not us. We’re fucked. We can’t kill Strachan because if we do, we’ll never get the money and, anyways, we’re all a bit squeamish about committing murder and Strachan knows that. The bastard knows everything.

‘So we’re just standing there shouting at each other ’cause no bastard knows what to do next when we realize that the Lad’ll be there at any moment. So Johnnie, who’s kind of taken everything over, sends me out with the shotgun to wait for him arriving. No squeamishness about killing now. We all know that the apprentice is an even greater danger than the master, if you know what I mean, so I’m ready to blow the fucker’s head off if he turns up. So I’m outside and don’t know what the fuck is happening in the hangar and by now it’s getting dark and there are no lights at the site. I’m standing there in the dark with the Bennie Railplane above me and only four shells for the shotgun.

‘I see the shape of someone coming my way from the main road. More of a silhouette than anything else but I can tell from his build that it’s the Lad. But I have to wait till he gets really close. A sawn-off is useless at anything more than a few feet. He’s still far too far away when all hell breaks loose inside the hangar. There are a whole load of shots fired and Johnnie and Ronnie come running out, shouting for me to make a run for it. Johnnie’s shouting “He’s dead, he’s fucking dead”, but I don’t know if he’s talking about Strachan or Mike Murphy. The Lad starts running away too and I chase, firing one barrel at a time, but just for show because there’s no way I could hit him, but I guess he’s unarmed and I don’t want the bastard coming after me.

‘End of story? Four men run off in opposite directions, never to meet again, without a penny from the robbery in their pockets. Three of them are going to have to keep running. Who’s dead in the Railplane hangar? It could be Joe Strachan, it could be Mike Murphy, it could be both. All I know is that years later I read that Johnnie Bentley and then Ronnie McCoy meet with tragic accidents.’

‘You never saw them again?’

‘Naw. We all did a disappearing act. I even used a fake name for a while, but after a time I thought it was safe and, anyway, I met the wife and had to get married under my legal name. But I never heard another word from the others and I didn’t go looking for them, so I’m stuck not knowing if it was Strachan or Mike who’d been killed.’

‘The body …’ I said. ‘Surely the police found a body?’

Provan shook his head. ‘Not that I heard about. And believe me, I checked. Every day, all the papers.’

We both fell silent for a moment.

‘And where did you get the money for this?’ I gestured vaguely to indicate the bungalow we sat in.

‘I pulled a few jobs on my own. A couple in Glasgow and a few in Edinburgh. I’d learned a lot from Gentleman Joe and I decided that all of my jobs would be big takes. Strachan always said that robbing fifty quid carries the same risk as fifty thousand. When I had enough to keep me going, I gave the business up. Went straight. Even got a job for appearances’ sake and actually did well for myself.’

‘That night, when the Lad approached the Railplane site … he won’t have had a balaclava on then. Did you get a look at him?’

‘No. Or not enough to ever recognize him again. Like I said, it was as dark as a coon’s arse that night and he didn’t get close enough for me to get a decent squizz at him. But he was young. Younger than I thought and a lot younger than me.’

I took another few sips of the whisky but decided not to drain the tumbler, unless I wanted to see dual carriageways through Glasgow again.

‘What are you going to do now?’ I asked.

‘Believe me, Lennox, I’m open to suggestions.’

‘Do you have a car?’

‘Aye. In the garage.’

‘Then I suggest you get packed. Right now. And get in your car and drive. Lock this place up, empty your bank account and drive. South. England. Don’t tell me where, just go. And I suggest you stay there for a few weeks, or until you hear that this is all over.’ I handed him a business card. ‘Telephone me every Monday morning at ten a.m. I’ll tell you what the state of play is. Call yourself Mr French when you call and if you hear anybody’s voice but mine, hang up. Got it?’

He nodded, but had a strange expression. Not suspicious, more confused.

‘Why are you helping me?’ he asked.

‘It’s Bob-a-Job week and I’m a Boy Scout. By the way, you owe me a shilling. I don’t know … I think you’ve been punished enough for your involvement in the robbery. You didn’t get anything out of it and you’ve spent the last eighteen years looking over your shoulder. And whether it’s Strachan or the Lad or someone else, whoever’s behind all of this mayhem has made it all very personal with me, like I told you.’

‘Well,’ said Provan. ‘It’s appreciated. Sorry about …’ He nodded to my blood-stained hand.

‘That’s okay. I don’t feel like I’m me if I’m not bleeding or bruised. Anyway, it’s a souvenir from my encounter with my commando window cleaner.’ I nodded to the kitchen sink. ‘Do you mind if I clean up?’

‘No problem. I’ve got a first aid kit if that helps.’

I took off my jacket and rolled my shirt sleeves up. My right sleeve was sodden with blood. I eased up the dressing and saw that two of the stitches had popped, as I’d suspected and the wound gaped slightly at one end. I took a fresh pad and bandage from the frowning Provan and patched myself up as well as I could.

While I cleaned up, Provan packed a couple of holdalls for himself. He saw me out, locked the bungalow’s door behind him and shook my hand.

‘Thanks again, Lennox,’ he said.

‘Don’t thank me yet. Like I said, keep driving until you’re the only one with a Scottish accent, then drive some more.’

‘Will do.’ He waved and headed into the green-painted wooden garage.

I sat in the Atlantic for a moment and considered my next move. I knew who I had to see. I’d known it for some time now. My guess was that if I didn’t see him, he’d come visit me. And there was Fraser, the solicitor, with whom I had an account to settle. But I decided that before I did anything, I’d have to visit the Casualty Department and get my wound stitched up again. Then I’d visit a sign painter and get the lettering on my office window changed to ‘Lennox. Enquiry Agent and Human Tapestry’.

I could have sworn the whole car shunted sideways. The blast sideswiped the Atlantic and I felt the same stunned paralysis that I’d got during the war every time a shell or a grenade had gone off that little bit too close to me. And as the scars on my face attested, they had gone off too close. I ducked down and hugged my knees and a shower of green painted wood clattered down on the car. After it subsided I turned and looked out of my cracked side window. The garage was gone, along with a lot of Provan’s car. And Provan. I could make out something barely recognizable as a human shape blazing like the rest of the car.

Instinct took over and I sped off, taking the first turning off Provan’s street, hopefully before the neighbours who were coming running from their homes spotted my car or, worse still, my licence plate.

I cursed as I drove. I still didn’t know exactly whom I was cursing, but I cursed colourfully and loudly. Once I was in open countryside, I pulled over to the side of the road and checked the Atlantic for damage. Nothing much, apart from the cracked window on the driver’s side. I brushed what fragments of green-painted wood were left on the roof and bonnet and drove off at speed.

Into Glasgow.

I was left waiting in the Western Infirmary’s Casualty Department for four hours before a doctor deigned to see me. He tutted and sighed until I glowered at him with sufficient menace to change his attitude. Then he and a pretty nurse stitched me back up. I smiled at the nurse while the doctor worked. It is one of the paradoxes of being a man, or maybe just of being a Lennox, that you can be battered and bleeding, you can have just seen someone blasted and burned to death, you can have the most dangerous villains hunting you down, but somehow you still take time to make a move on pretty nurses.

Like the suicidal spawning journey of wild salmon, it was one of the wonders of Nature.

I called Fraser from a pay ’phone in the hospital.

‘We need to talk,’ I said firmly.

‘I’ve been somewhat expecting your call, Mr Lennox. I agree, we do have to talk. I do so hope we can resolve matters between us.’

‘In that case you’ll understand that I’d like to meet somewhere public. The Finnieston Vehicular Ferry, tomorrow morning, the first sailing at six-thirty, if that’s not too early for a lawyer.’

‘I’ll be there. I’ll bring a small bonus for you, Mr Lennox, just as a goodwill gesture. I don’t see that we need to rock the boat.’

I wondered if Fraser was making a joke about the ferry, but decided that that kind of humour would be more alien to him than a little green man from Mars. I hung up.

I went to the hospital canteen and had a coffee, more to wash down the antibiotics I had been given to fight infection than anything else. I noticed my hand shook as I held the cup and the image of Provan’s burning silhouette kept pushing its way to the front of my mind.

After I’d calmed down a little, I made my way out to the car park. There were two men waiting at the Atlantic. One was a wiry, hard-looking Teddy Boy. The other was sitting on the wing of my Atlantic and I was seriously worried about permanent damage to the suspension. He stood up as I approached and the Atlantic bounced.

I knew them both.

‘Hello, Mr Lennox,’ said the giant, in a baritone that bordered on the bottom of the human hearing range. ‘We’ve been re-quest-ed to furr-nush you with conney-vey-ance to see Mr Sneddon.’

‘I was kind of expecting that, Twinkle,’ I said. ‘I see you have Singer with you. Hello, Singer.’

Singer nodded. Which was all he could do. I thought of quipping ‘I see I’m in for the silent treatment’, but joking about Singer’s affliction was something I never did, for some reason I didn’t fully understand.

Singer was mute. He was also the meanest, most vicious life-taker you could encounter. But I owed him: he had saved my life once and, as far as I could tell, he had some kind of regard for me, as did Twinkletoes. I liked Twinkletoes. He was a great one for self-improvement and worked tirelessly at improving his word-power, mainly through study of the Reader’s Digest. The funny thing was that, despite this, Twinkletoes managed somehow to speak English, his native tongue, as if it were a second language.

This endearing image of Twinkletoes was the one I tried to keep at the forefront of my thinking as he escorted me into the back of the Jaguar they had parked behind my Atlantic. The alternative image was of the psychopathic torturer who handed you your toes one by one while reciting ‘This Little Piggy’.

I looked back at my Atlantic. I had stashed my gun in the boot before heading into Casualty.

‘Need to get something, Mr Lennox?’ asked Twinkletoes.

‘No …’ I said thoughtfully. I just had to play this hand with the cards I’d been dealt. ‘No, it’s okay, Twinkle.’

Singer drove and Twinkletoes sat in the back with me, which meant I was squeezed into one corner.

‘Still doing a lot of work for Mr Sneddon, Twinkle?’ I asked conversationally.

‘Oh cunt-rare …’ said Twinkle. ‘That’s French for on the contrary, by the way … Mr Sneddon is currently in a process of commercial diversy-fey-cation. But he’s finding other things for me to do and I’m still on full pay, but.’

‘That’s good …’ I said, hoping this trip fell under the category other things. I watched out the window. We were heading for the docks. Maybe Sneddon’s corporate office, which would be a good sign. But we took several turns into the quayside and were soon surrounded by the black hulks of quayside warehouses. Not so good.

Twinkletoes fell silent and stopped smiling. Which was worse. We pulled up at a warehouse shed and Singer got out, opened the doors, then drove inside. It was dark inside and it took me a while to adjust to the gloom. Twinkle got out, walked round to my side and hoisted me out by the arm. I was frogmarched past some empty office compartments, through double doors and into the vast hall of the main warehouse area. It was completely empty except for the heavy steel chains that dangled like jungle creepers from the roof, and for the single tubular steel office chair in the middle of the space.

Willie Sneddon, dressed in a sharp suit as always and with a camel coat draped over his shoulders, was sitting on the chair. He nodded across to Twinkletoes and a train hit me in the kidneys.

‘Sorry, Mr Lennox,’ said Twinkletoes genuinely as I vomited up my breakfast. And my spleen. Yellow dots danced in front of my eyes and I was only vaguely aware of being dragged across the floor and something cold and hard being wrapped tight around my wrists. I was suddenly hoisted up and my feet left the ground. It took me a moment or two to realize I was suspended by one of the chain hoists I’d seen dangling from the roof. I felt a trickle of blood run up my arm to my shoulder. There go my stitches again, I thought, and wondered if it would be better to get a zip fitted the next time.

Sneddon shrugged off his camel coat, stood up and came over to me.

‘Now this,’ he said with an irritated tone, ‘is exactly the kind of shite I’ve been trying to put behind me.’

‘If there’s anything I can do to help you put it behind you,’ I said through my teeth, ‘just let me know.’

‘And that,’ he said wearily, ‘is the kind of wisecrack that makes you a pain in the arse.’ He nodded to someone out of my sight behind me, presumably Twinkletoes. Another train hit me in the soft part of my back. It was Twinkletoes.

‘I’ve given you a lot of work over the years, Lennox. I know that you think you’re too good to work for me or Cohen or Murphy any more, but this shitty little business you run … it wouldn’t have got off the ground without us. And I’ve always treated you fair, haven’t I?’

‘Generally speaking yes,’ I said, trying to focus on his face and ease the pain in my arms. ‘But I have to say that this current little tete-a-tete is stretching both our working relationship and my arms from their sockets. So why don’t we cut to the chase?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Sneddon. ‘You know why you’re here?’

‘I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this Strachan thing, is all. And I know you have more to do with it than you’ve admitted. I know who you are. I mean, I know who you were…’

Sneddon looked past me again and jerked his head towards the door. ‘Go wait outside with Singer, Twinkle.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ said Twinkle behind me, somewhat mournfully. ‘Sorry, Mr Lennox …’

‘It’s okay, Twinkle,’ I said, still taking short breaths. ‘I know it’s just business.’

‘Okay… enlighten me,’ said Sneddon, after we were on our own.

‘I can’t prove any of this … and you’ve got to understand that I don’t want to prove any of this. All I want is to know who’s been trying to kill me and why.’

‘Go on …’

I groaned a little first. My shoulder sockets hurt like hell and I still felt sick from Twinkletoes’ punches. His half-heart-edness about beating me up hadn’t been transmitted to his fists.

‘Let’s go back to the Empire Exhibition robbery in Nineteen thirty-eight,’ I said. ‘It was the biggest raid in Glasgow history. One of three robberies, all record breakers. I am now one hundred per cent certain that it was Gentleman Joe who pulled them all off. Gentleman Joe and his band of anonymous merry men. But that copper got killed and everything went to hell. Four of the gang get the wind up, but Strachan and his apprentice, the so-called “Lad” keep running everything by the book. From what I’ve been able to find out, it was the Lad who did most of Strachan’s enforcing but, like the rest of the gang, his identity was kept well hidden from everyone.’

‘Get to the point, Lennox.’

‘Let’s say Strachan was the shooter. Killing that copper put a rope around everyone’s neck. So there was an argument. Before he died, Stewart Provan told me that the gang split up after the raid and arranged to meet up a week later at the Bennie Railplane hangar. The three reckon they’re going to be double-crossed by Strachan and the Lad, so they do a bit of double-crossing themselves. Emotions are running high because of the murder and shots are fired. Strachan or one of his crew ended up dead. My money has always been on Strachan, because the bones they dredged up fit with a taller man. So he takes the deep, dark sleep at the bottom of the Clyde and no one gets to know where the money is. Except that doesn’t make sense, because Strachan’s wife and twin daughters get a grand apiece, every year on the anniversary of the Empire Exhibition robbery. So my guess is someone did get to the money. The whole pot. And kept it stashed nice and safe over the war years.’

‘And who do you think that someone was? From what you’re saying, it sounds like I was right and Gentleman Joe survived,’ said Sneddon.

‘Not necessarily. There was a member of the Empire Exhibition team who was even more of a ruthless son of a bitch than Strachan. The one they called the Lad. He sits tight. Maybe does his war service, while all the time he knows that when demobilization comes he’ll be sitting on a gold mine. Enough money to … well, what could he do with money like that? He could set himself up in some far-flung part of the world, but keep looking over his shoulder, or he could build a power base that would make him the one to be feared. The one whom others look over their shoulders for. So that’s what he does. He becomes the richest, most powerful organized crime boss in Glasgow. You’re the King of Kings, after all, aren’t you, Mr Sneddon? You had the viciousness and the ambition all along, but now you had the working capital. It was you: you were the Lad. And you know all about the money the twins get every year because you send it, don’t you?’

I grinned. I was a smart guy. I had it all figured out and I had to go and prove I had it all figured out. I was so smart that I’d talked my way into an early grave. Sneddon didn’t call for Twinkletoes. He would do this himself. No one could know what I knew.

‘And what makes you so sure of that?’ he asked in a quiet, calm voice.

‘I came to you to ask where I could find Billy Dunbar, and during our talk, I tell you that I’m looking into Joe Strachan’s disappearance. The next day, I’m jumped in a foggy alley by someone who tells me to drop the whole thing. The only people I suspect of having dropped me in it are the police: I never, for a second, think that it might have been you. Then I see Billy Dunbar who spins me an elaborate line of bull that just might be true. But he lets it slip that you put him onto the gamekeeper’s job because you knew about the vacancy. You knew about it because you created it when that gamekeeper stumbled on you, Strachan and the others practising for the Exhibition job.’

Sneddon laughed. It was something I’d never seen him do. ‘You know, Lennox, you’re really something. You really want to rush headlong into an early grave, don’t you?’

‘Maybe I’ll get some peace there,’ I said. It wasn’t a wisecrack.

‘Go on,’ said Sneddon.

‘My guess is that you killed Strachan when you went back to the hangar, and probably Mike Murphy too. Then you hunted the others down, ending with a bomb in Stewart Provan’s car today. But back to Dunbar … you and Billy Dunbar are old mates, and Dunbar doesn’t have two pennies to rub together, so you concocted the whole Strachan as an officer crap. You knew that I would have found out about Strachan’s gimmick of impersonating officers at the end of the First War, and how he could pass himself off as anyone, anywhere. It was wild enough for me to swallow it. In the meantime, you hire some officer-type ex-commando to scare me off and when that doesn’t work, you tell him to kill me.’

‘You think you’re such a clever cookie, don’t you, Lennox?’ said Sneddon.

‘I was just complimenting myself on that very fact.’ My voice was dull now. I was exhausted. And I knew that I was going to die.

‘Why do you send the money to the girls, Sneddon?’ I asked. ‘I can’t believe you have any kind of conscience. Sending that cash exposes you, so why?’

He smiled. I didn’t like that. Not one bit. He came around behind me. I was going to get it in the neck, or the back of the head. I looked up at the chains: there was nothing I could do. At least it would be quick.

Suddenly I was on the grimy floor, coils of chains cascading down on me. Sneddon had unhitched the gear, releasing me. He was round in front of me again. He pocketed his gun and sat back down on the chair. Twinkletoes burst through the factory door.

‘Everything all right, boss?’ he asked, looking across to me. ‘I heard some cacko-phoney.’

‘Everything is fine. Twinkle. Mr Lennox and I have sorted out our misunderstanding. Wait outside, we’ll be out in a minute.’

‘I don’t get it …’ I said, for once out of wisecracks. I eased the chains from around my wrists.

‘No you don’t, Lennox. You’re right: I was “the Lad”, all right. Joe Strachan taught me everything I know.’

‘So you did take part in the Triple Crown robberies?’

‘There are some things I’m not going to admit to. Some things that are locked up tight for good. You draw your own conclusions. But know this, Lennox. I didn’t kill Joe Strachan. Yes, it’s me who sends the twins the cash every year. You’ve asked why, and I’ll tell you. I send them the money because they’re my half-sisters.’

‘You’re Strachan’s son?’

‘I tracked him down. I don’t fool myself that I wasn’t one of the many bastards that Strachan had fathered. I found out later that my Ma had been a real looker when she was young. And Joe Strachan always had an eye for the ladies. They have a thing going and she gets knocked up. She dumps me as soon as I’m born and I end up being raised in an orphanage. That’s where I learn that you’ve got to be top fucking dog or you’re nothing at all. It took me an age to find my Ma and then Gentleman Joe. I took a length of lead pipe along to our father-son reunion, but things turned out all weird. I swear he was nearly in fucking tears when I told him I was his son. He just had the twin girls, you see, and Strachan was full of that crap about passing something on. A son to inherit the empire. So yes, I was the Lad. But he didn’t call me that because I was his apprentice, I was his son. So when I told you I took over his wee empire,’ said Sneddon, ‘that’s exactly what I did. I inherited my father’s estate.’

I eased myself painfully to my feet and rubbed at my wrists. ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘You’re going to tell me I got everything else wrong.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Well, everything seems to fit: you tell Dunbar to spin me that line about seeing Strachan during the war … a smokescreen. And then you hire an ex-commando to warn me off, but when that fails, you tell him to kill me. But then there’s something that doesn’t fit.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That old razor scar of yours. A distinguishing mark, you might say. There’s a frightened little queer called Paul Downey who specializes in dodgy photography. He’s persuaded to do a blackmail job to pay off a loan shark when suddenly a knight in shining Bentley turns up and offers him a simple job, nothing illegal on the face of it, and in turn he gets an unreasonable amount of money. This rich knight calls himself Mr Paisley and he’s a flash dresser but has a razor scar on his right cheek, just like yours. By the way, I guess that you inherited your father’s taste for expensive tailoring. So you are the Lad, and you’re “Mr Paisley”?’

‘It’s your story, Lennox. Go on …’

’So there’s these two facts, added to the fact that I’m still breathing, that screw up my theories. Why would you pay someone to take photographs of some guy who we all think is Strachan, if you know for sure Strachan is dead?’

Sneddon took out a gold cigarette case and offered me a smoke. I took it. He lit us both up. ‘So what’s your take on it now?’

‘I don’t know why,’ I said, ‘but you needed to convince yourself that Joe Strachan was dead or not. You got a tip-off that he was going to be up meeting with the Duke of Strathlorne on his estate and you know that Downey’s going to be up there because you own the loan shark, and therefore the loan, that Downey had to pay off. You knew about the whole John Macready blackmail thing.’

Sneddon shook his head. ‘It was a mad fucking idea. They were never going to get away with it. But when I heard that they were using a cottage on the estate, it was too good an opportunity to miss.’

‘It was you who told George Meldrum to recommend me to the lawyer Fraser, wasn’t it?’

‘Aye. I knew you’d clear it up in no time and they’d pay you over the odds. I needed that whole thing tied up before someone found out about the photographs I hired Downey to take.’

‘So you didn’t put anyone else on it. You weren’t behind the killing of Downey’s boyfriend and the fire at the tenement?’

‘No. I couldn’t put anybody onto that. And I had no need to have them killed. You were my man on the case, even if you didn’t know it at the time. But then you got yourself involved with the twins and finding out who was sending the money. You’ve brought all of this shite down upon yourself, Lennox. Don’t blame me.’

‘I’m not. But I’m asking you for some straight answers.’

‘Then ask.’

‘Okay …’ I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the photograph I’d gotten from Downey. ‘In that case, in the name of Christ and all that’s holy, will you please, please tell me … is this man your father, Gentleman Joe Strachan, or not?’

Sneddon took a long, slow pull on his cigarette and smiled maliciously as he let the smoke go, savouring my frustration.

‘Yes.’