The Deep Dark Sleep

CHAPTER THREE

Three thousand miles and a wartime before, about the time that Gentleman Joe Strachan’s criminal career was already well underway, I had been an eager-beaver schoolboy in the prestigious Boys’ Collegiate School in Rothesay, New Brunswick, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, where Glasgow was far, far away. Mind you, no further away than Vancouver. One of the subjects at which I had excelled at school was History. Then, without pause or hesitation, I’d answered the King’s call and rushed to defend, against a small Austrian corporal, the Empire and a Mother Country I had left before I’d been toilet trained.

The funny thing about the reality of war was that you suddenly lost your enthusiasm for history. Watching men die in the mud, screaming or crying or calling for their mothers, blunted your appetite for memorizing the dates of battles or for learning the glories of past conflict. If the war had taught me anything about history, it was that there was no future in it.

That was probably why, despite there being an impressive wad of cash in my desk drawer, I put off delving into the history of Glasgow’s most audacious robbery and the colourful if dangerous character behind it. It was true, of course, that I really needed the list of names that Isa and Violet had promised me before my delving could have any clear direction, but the truth was I knew where I could get started and I was putting it off for a day or two.

The day before the twins had turned up, I had received a telephone call asking for an appointment to see me. The male voice on the line had had that accent that was normally associated with Kelvinside: nasally and vaguely camp, with the tortuously articulated vowels that over-compensated to hide a Glasgow accent. I had lived in the city for a couple of years before I’d worked out that Kay Vale-Ray wasn’t some obscure nightclub chanteuse, but referred to a company of mounted soldiers.

The voice spoke in multi-syllabically dense sentences and told me that it belonged to Donald Fraser, a solicitor, and that he would appreciate me calling out to see him at his office in St Vincent Street on ‘a matter of not inconsiderable delicacy’. More than that he was ‘unprepared to divulge telephonically’. I let it go and agreed to meet with him: as an enquiry agent, I had learned that some people desperately wanted to tell you their story — and their whole reason for contacting you was to tell you their story — but nevertheless needed time to open up; and they expected you to coax it out of them. I was rather good at it, and had often contemplated that my talents would have been equally well employed if I’d qualified as a doctor of venereal diseases. The truth was that I would probably have had to listen to less sordid stories.

In any case, I hadn’t pushed Fraser for more information. The other reason was that he was a lawyer in a firm whose name I recognized. Being an enquiry agent, the city’s lawyers were a key source of legitimate jobs. Mainly divorces, which under Scottish law required some upstanding member of society such as myself to testify that some other member of society had been upstanding when, where and with whom he shouldn’t have been.

After Isa and Violet left, I had a couple of hours before my appointment with Fraser. I picked up the phone and asked the operator for Bell 3500, the number of police headquarters in Saint Andrew’s Square, and asked to be put through to Inspector Jock Ferguson.

‘Fancy a pie and a pint?’ I asked him.

‘What is it you’re after, Lennox?’ I could hear the chatter of a typewriter in the background. I imagined a burly, ruddy-cheeked Highlander in uniform tapping away with two fingers, tongue jutting sideways from his mouth, frowning in concentration.

‘What do I want? The pleasure of your society, of course. And a pie and a pint. But don’t pin me down too soon … I need to view the Horsehead Bar’s a la carte options, first.’

‘The Horsehead?’ Ferguson snorted.

‘For some reason I’m harbouring a grudge against my digestive system.’

‘Aye … and mine, it would seem. Why don’t you save us the indigestion and just tell me what you’re after?’

‘Just a chat. See you there in half an hour?’

Ferguson grunted his assent and hung up. Small talk was not his forte.

Scotland had two national pastimes, the only subjects that awoke profound passion in the Scottish breast: football and the consumption of alcohol. The funny thing was that they were as spectacularly bad at the first as they excelled at the second. Like the Irish, the Scots seemed to have a prodigious thirst woven through the fabric of their being. But being Presbyterian, the Scots felt the need to temper, contain and regulate anything that could be deemed pleasurable and make it run to a timetable. Midday drinking was therefore restricted by law to between eleven a.m. and two-thirty p.m. Bars were only allowed to open between five and nine-thirty in the evening. Sundays were dry.

There were, of course, all kinds of social clubs that found their way around the licensing laws but, generally, the Scots had learned to consume impressively large quantities of alcohol with breathtaking speed. So when I walked into the Horsehead Bar at one, it was shoulder-to-shoulder packed and the air was eye-stingingly dense with cigarette smoke. It was a typical Glasgow city-centre-pub lunchtime: mainly flat caps but a fair smattering of pinstripe. I saw Jock Ferguson at the bar and squeezed my way to him through the sea of drinkers. I washed up on the shore of the counter, resting my elbows on it.

‘How’s it going, Jock?’ I asked cheerfully. And loudly, to be heard above the din of the other drinkers. We didn’t shake hands. We never shook hands. ‘Waiting long?’ I noticed there was no drink before him. He had been waiting for me to buy the first round. I reckoned I’d be buying the second and third.

‘A few minutes,’ said Ferguson, again exhausting his repertoire of small talk.

Big Bob the Barman was behind the bar, wreathed in cigarette smoke and working the beer pumps like a railwayman pulling levers in a signal box. As usual, he had his shirtsleeves rolled up above his tattoo-swirled Popeye forearms. I caught his eye and he pulled two pints of heavy.

‘Give us a couple of pies to go with that, Bob,’ I shouted across the bar when he brought the beers.

‘Okay,’ said Ferguson, taking the first sip of his beer and savouring it for a moment. ‘What is this all about?’

‘Does there have to be a reason? Purely social. Maybe partly thanks for helping me land that wages run.’

‘You’ve already thanked me.’ Ferguson looked at me suspiciously, which, given that he was a Detective Inspector with the Glasgow City Police, was pretty much the way he looked at everyone.

‘You involved in this Joe Strachan thing, Jock?’ I asked as casually as I could. ‘You know? Those bones dredged up from the Clyde.’

Ferguson put down his beer.

‘Now, why would Gentleman Joe Strachan be of interest to you, Lennox? He was long before your time.’

‘Well, he seems to have resurfaced. Literally. Or am I wrong? How sure are you that the remains are Gentleman Joe’s?’

Ferguson twisted to face me full on. He turned up the volume on his suspicion and my wrists itched with a premonition of handcuffs.

‘Okay, Lennox, now I know that this is more than idle curiosity. Whatever your interest in Strachan is, I would bury it somewhere very deep. This is a subject close to a lot of Glasgow coppers’ hearts.’

‘Oh, I understand that, Jock,’ I said, putting on the ingenue act. ‘But it’s a perfectly innocent and reasonable question: was it Strachan or not?’

Ferguson sighed. ‘Yes, the body was Strachan’s.’

‘It couldn’t have been much of a body, after nearly twenty years at the bottom of the Clyde,’ I said, again as casually as I could. Laurence Olivier wouldn’t have felt threatened.

‘There was enough to identify him. Now, do I have to repeat myself? Officially?’

‘Take it easy, Jock. It’s just that I’ve been asked to confirm that it is Gentleman Joe you’ve got in a shoebox at the City Mortuary.’

‘And who’s been doing the asking? I thought you were putting that shite behind you. You working for the Three Kings again? Listen, Lennox, I vouched for you with that job. If you’re …’

I interrupted him with an emphatically held-up hand and an indignantly shaken head. ‘No, Jock, nothing like that. I can’t tell you who my client is, but it isn’t any of the Three Kings and it isn’t anyone remotely colourful.’

‘Client confidentiality, eh?’ Ferguson snorted. ‘Just tell me that whoever it is isn’t of interest to us.’

‘Trust me,’ I said disarmingly. ‘The only records my clients have were recorded by Jimmy Young.’

‘The twins …’ Ferguson frowned for a moment, trying to pull their names into his recall. ‘Isa and Violet?’

I looked at him blankly for a moment.

‘I’ve got to learn to make my wisecracks more cryptic,’ I said. ‘I’m that easy to see through?’

‘If you’re not working for a crook, then it has to be family. And Joe Strachan’s daughters are the only family that would give a shit. They have the advantage of not having had to grow up with Strachan. Listen, Lennox, be warned: drop this one and drop it fast. Whatever Strachan’s kids are paying you, it’s not worth it.’

‘What’s the big drama?’

‘A dead copper, that’s what. That and the fact that the name Joe Strachan carries a lot of history. Bad history. You’ve had dealings with Superintendent McNab in the past …’

‘Willie McNab? You know I have. He’s the president of my appreciation society, but he’s not been forwarding my fan letters lately.’

‘Aye … very funny. Let me tell you this, Lennox: if Superintendent McNab finds out you’re sniffing around the Strachan thing, you’ll be wearing your balls as earrings.’

‘Why? What’s his special interest?’

‘Police Constable Charles Gourlay, that’s what. The young policeman who was shot and killed by the Empire Exhibition robbers. You know McNab, and you know about his sense of eye-for-an-eye justice when it comes to coppers being attacked or killed.’

‘The word biblical comes to mind,’ I said. ‘His sense of vengeance makes Moses look like he took it easy on the Pharaoh.’

‘Exactly. Well Gourlay wasn’t just any bobby on the beat. This was Nineteen thirty-eight and Willie McNab was a young PC himself. Gourlay was a friend. A drinking buddy at the Masonic Lodge and Orange Hall and Christ knows where else. Willie McNab took Gourlay’s murder to heart, and it became a personal crusade for him to find Strachan and watch him drop through the hatch at Duke Street or Barlinnie. Now that Strachan has been found at the bottom of the Clyde, Superintendent McNab feels that both he and the hangman have been robbed of their chance to put things right.’

‘But maybe it wasn’t Strachan who killed the policeman. Maybe whoever did the copper, did Strachan too.’

Ferguson’s expression darkened. ‘Listen, Lennox, you and I have both seen our share of shite during the war. We both know what it’s like to be in a place where life is cheap. But never, ever talk to me about the murder of a police officer like that again. No one did PC Gourlay. He was murdered in the course of his lawful duty, in cold blood by scum who knew he was unarmed and unable to defend himself. I’m not Willie McNab, but I do have loyalty to my fellow officers.’

‘Okay, Jock … no harm meant.’ I held my hands up. It was a stupid way for me to have put it. The City of Glasgow Police were a tight-knit bunch and touchy about their own. It didn’t matter if your colleague was on the take, on the bottle or on the level: if he was a Glasgow copper you looked after your own first and foremost and expected the same in return.

‘But you do see how it is possible, don’t you, Jock? Strachan maybe wasn’t the killer.’

‘But he was behind the whole thing. Planned it, put the crew together, led the raid. He was in charge. Guilty before and after the fact. When that constable died there was a rope around Strachan’s neck, no matter who pulled the trigger. Anyway, there was a witness. Said it was the tallest of the gang who did the shooting.’

‘There was a witness?’

A couple of other drinkers jostled past Ferguson and he frowned. Our conversation had been half-shouted to be heard and Ferguson overdid a weary expression, but I guessed he was using the interruption to decide if or how he was going to dodge my question.

‘The van driver,’ he said eventually. ‘He said there were five robbers. They all wore stocking masks, but one was tall and all the others were no bigger than five-six, five-seven. In my book that fingers Strachan as the shooter. So maybe there’s no mystery to Gentleman Joe taking the deep, dark sleep: he put a rope around the neck of every man in that gang. Maybe they made him pay the price.’

‘How do you know that it was Strachan at all? I thought that the identities of the Empire Exhbition Gang were all unknown.’

‘Strachan …’ Ferguson paused again, this time while Big Bob placed two plates in front of us, each with a small, round meat pie centred in a pool of viscous grease. ‘Strachan went missing right after the robbery. Dropped out of sight. And Joe Strachan wasn’t one to keep a low profile.’

‘That’s it? God, Jock, we now know that Strachan was at the bottom of the Clyde. That’s the lowest profile I can think of. It could be a pure coincidence that he was topped about the same time as the robbery.’

‘You’re right, we don’t know who the other gang members were. But that in itself points to Joe Strachan. He was a stickler for security. We could never get the bastard because no one talked about a job if they were doing it with Strachan. No one knew in advance what was going to be hit or when or who was in the team. If there’s one thing I can say in his favour, it’s that when it came to planning and executing bighaul robberies, he was the best. No one came close. Even if he hadn’t gone missing he would have been at the top of a list for the Empire Exhibition job. A list of one. Anyway, the Empire Exhibition robbery was only part of it. The Triple Crown.’

‘The Triple Crown?’ I knew the story, but sometimes being an outsider to Glasgow helped: you could plead ignorance and people told you more than they had intended to.

‘That’s what the older boys call it. The ones with enough years under their belts to remember it. Three massive robberies, committed in fast succession, but planned right down to the last second and penny. And there’s a very good chance that they’re linked to a series of other, smaller robberies that took place a few months before. Trial runs, they reckon, to sharpen the team for the big ones.’

‘And the biggest of the big ones was the Empire Exhibition robbery?’

‘Totally different targets but carried out with the same military precision. The first was the National Bank of Scotland in St Vincent Street. Twenty thousand pounds in wages and God knows how much else from the safe deposit boxes. Then a van on its way with wages cash to the Connell shipyard in Scotstoun — the kind of run you’re doing now. The bastards actually wore police uniforms for that one. Thirty-two thousand. Then they hit the real jackpot: the Empire Exhibition. Fifty thousand.’

I blew a long whistle and probably looked more impressed than I should have in front of Ferguson. One hundred and two thousand in total was a massive amount of money, particularly in pre-war Glasgow. It was no surprise that everyone assumed that Gentleman Joe had done a disappearing act. It was, after all, the kind of money that could buy you a new, luxurious life anywhere and have enough left over to buy the silence of others. It was also, I realized, more than enough to post off three thousand a year from small change.

‘And you’re convinced it was the same crew?’

‘Absolutely convinced. I don’t want to badmouth your social circle, but I don’t see Hammer Murphy or Jonny Cohen having that amount of brains or style.’

‘Like I said, I don’t have many dealings with them any more. And less as time goes on. But I know what you mean.’

And I did: Jonny Cohen’s mob were the most successful when it came to hold-ups, but it was small-league stuff compared to what Ferguson had described. I noticed that he hadn’t mentioned Willie Sneddon. Of the Three Kings, Sneddon was the one with the biggest ambitions. And the biggest reach. Sneddon had never been successfully convicted of a single crime, and his personal empire now had as many straight enterprises as crooked ones.

‘Like I said, Lennox, there’s a lot of history attached to the name Joe Strachan. And a lot of grudges and scores to be settled. If you know what’s good for you, stay clear. Tell Isa and Violet that it really was Daddy sleeping the deep, dark sleep, then take the money and get clear of it.’

‘But what if it wasn’t?’ I persisted. ‘What if it’s somebody else’s bones you’ve got?’

‘It’s Strachan all right. But if it isn’t, then that’s even more reason for you to stay out of this business. If Strachan is alive, then you don’t want to be looking for him and you definitely don’t want to find him. Joe Strachan is a legend amongst Glasgow’s scum. All of this “Gentleman Joe” crap? Trust me, I’ve heard all about the real Joe Strachan and read the case files: he was a merciless bastard of the first water. Just take my word for it, Lennox, stay out of this one if you know what’s good for you. Some skeletons should be left in their cupboards … or at the bottom of the Clyde, for that matter.’

‘Listen, Jock, I’m not interested in pursuing this any further than I have to. I just want to establish for his family that it was Joe Strachan they found. That’s all.’ I didn’t make mention of the fact that I was also on the trail of whoever was sending large sums of cash to the twins. ‘Just give me something to go on. Someone who might be able to point me in the right direction.’

Ferguson looked at me for a long time. That cold, empty stare of his. You could never tell if he was appraising you, seeing deep into your soul with his copper’s gaze and unlocking your darkest secrets, or if he was simply thinking about whether he was going to have pork chop or fish for dinner.

‘What I will do for you,’ he said at last and wearily, ‘is give you a name. But don’t bring me into this, Lennox.’ He took out a notebook and scribbled something on it with a stub of pencil.

‘Billy Dunbar.’ Ferguson tore the note from the pad and handed it to me. ‘That’s the last address I have for him. Dunbar was a peterman and occasional armed robber. He used to hang around with Willie Sneddon, way back in the days when Sneddon didn’t count for much. Dunbar did ten years for an early job but never got caught after that. He was brought in after the Empire Robbery.’

‘You think he was one of the crew?’

‘No. He had a cast-iron alibi. I don’t mean the usual I-was-with-my-aunty-and-uncle-just-ask-them type of cast-iron alibi. It was genuine. And there never had been any link between Joe Strachan and Billy Dunbar, but there again, there was never any link that we could prove between Joe Strachan and anybody else. That didn’t stop a few in CID having their own ideas. The other thing about Dunbar was that he was making a real effort to go straight. But he was a name and a face … so, for a few hours, he had it hard.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. With a copper dead, the mere inconvenience of your innocence wouldn’t save you from the beating of your life if the police thought you had even the smallest scrap of information.

‘You say he used to hang about with Willie Sneddon, before Sneddon became big game; what about Hammer Murphy? Was there any connection there?’

‘Not that I know of. I think it’s highly unlikely. Like Sneddon, Billy Dunbar’s a true blue ultra-loyalist Prod. The only contact he was likely to have with a Catholic would be with a razor.’

‘You say he’s straight now?’ I asked.

‘Since before the war. Or at least as far as being caught’s concerned. But, from what I’ve been told, Billy Dunbar wouldn’t hold up a teashop these days.’

I nodded, dispelling the image of masked raiders escaping with twenty pounds in half-crowns and a crate of Darjeeling. Although the thought did cross my mind that teashops probably had been the target of hold-ups in Glasgow. Everything else was. Any business that handled cash was seen as fair game by the city’s armed robbers. I had once met an ex-bank teller-turned-policeman who told me that one of the reasons for his career change was that as a copper he was much less likely to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

‘He’s maybe even out of Glasgow,’ Ferguson continued. ‘Someone told me some story about him being a ghillie on some country estate somewhere. Or a gamekeeper.’

‘He must stand out from the others,’ I said. ‘I mean, he’ll be the only gamekeeper with the barrels sawn off his shotgun. Anybody else you can think of that might give me a steer, Jock? What about the witness?’

A roar of laughter from a bunch of flat-caps behind us swelled the clamour and Jock made out that he hadn’t heard me.

‘What about the witness you mentioned? The van driver?’

‘I don’t know his name offhand,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I’ll get back to you with it. I’ll tell you what, you should speak to Archie McClelland about it.’ Ferguson referred to the retired policeman I had hired to ride security with me on the wages run. ‘Archie was in the force back then. I’ve no doubt that he can tell you something about it. Now … I think you owe me another pint …’

I smiled resignedly and, shaking my empty beer glass, turned to Big Bob, who was at the far end of the bar.

I arrived on time for my meeting with Donald Fraser, the solicitor. Disappointingly, he was pretty much as I had expected from his voice: unremarkable and dour. He was tall and dull looking in the way only lawyers and bank managers managed to look dull, dressed in an expensive blue serge suit that was very carefully just out of fashion. It was also several cloth weights too heavy for the time of year and the elbows had glossed with too much desk leaning. Like his elbows, the dome of his skull seemed worn and his scalp shone through the thinning dark hair. The small, beady eyes that watched me through wire-framed spectacles had a look that I guessed was meant to be superior or intimidating. It didn’t work. He took half a dictionary to ask me to sit down and I did, taking my hat off and hanging it on my knee.

‘I was fortuitously supplied with your name by Mr George Meldrum, a colleague of mine,’ said Fraser.

‘I know Mr Meldrum,’ I said, without adding that I was surprised that Fraser knew him professionally. Everybody knew George Meldrum by reputation, of course: he was Glasgow’s most flamboyant defence lawyer and had represented some of the more colourful members of the city’s underworld, his principal client being Willie Sneddon, one of the Three Kings. Meldrum was the kind of oleaginous creep who treated people like crap whenever he could get away with it, yet when in Sneddon’s presence displayed an obsequiousness that would embarrass any self-respecting lickspittle.

‘I appreciate his recommendation,’ I said as if I meant it.

‘Quite …’ Fraser’s tone suggested that it had been less a recommendation, more of a needs-must. ‘Mr Meldrum assures me of your discretion. Particularly with regard to the more unsavoury aspects of some investigations.’

‘I see,’ I said, guessing that Fraser expected me to polish up my lead-and-leather sap. ‘I hope you understand that I operate within the law at all times, Mr Fraser.’

‘Of course,’ Fraser said, emphatically and with a hint of wounded integrity. ‘I would not expect anything less. We would not be having this conversation if I thought otherwise.’

‘Why don’t you tell me what it is you want me to do? The thing you didn’t want to divulge telephonically.’ I threw his twenty guinea phrase back at him.

‘You’re American, Mr Lennox? From your accent I mean …’

‘No. I’m Canadian. Scottish parents but brought up in Canada.’

‘Ah,’ he said approvingly, as if he found the latitude of my childhood more commendable; there was a strong fraternal link between the Scots and the Canadians — as could be seen by the three-block queues of eager soon-to-be-ex-Glaswegians outside the Canadian Consulate in Woodlands Terrace. By contrast, the British generally had a distaste for the upstart vulgarity of Americans, particularly for the insolence with which they had saved Britain from defeat during the War, and then from bankruptcy after it. ‘Like Robert Beatty, the actor?’ said Fraser eagerly. ‘My wife is something of a fan of Robert Beatty.’

‘Not quite. Beatty’s an Ontarian. I was raised in New Brunswick. Atlantic Canada.’

‘I see,’ Fraser said with a hint of disappointment. I had gotten the latitude right, but not the longitude. He opened a buff foolscap folder and slid a large, black and white portrait photograph across the desk at me. An unfeasibly handsome face grinned a one hundred-watt smile at me. I recognized the face right away.

‘That’s not Robert Beatty,’ I said.

‘No … that’s the American actor John Macready,’ said Fraser, telling me something I already knew. ‘Mr Macready is over here in Glasgow at the moment. He’s been participating in a film currently being made in Scotland. The filming has been mostly done in the Highlands: an adventure story, I have been led to believe. Mr Macready will be flying back to the United States at the end of the month or thereabouts, from the new airport at Prestwick. Until then, he is resident in the Central Hotel, which I believe is directly opposite your offices, Mr Lennox.’

‘Where do I come into this?’ I asked.

‘My firm here is affiliated to Hobson, Field and Chase, a most prestigious law firm in the City of London. In turn, they represent the UK interests of the studio currently undertaking the production of the film, set here in Scotland, in which Mr Macready is appearing. I believe it is a film of a historical theme.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘What’s his poison?’

Fraser frowned. ‘I don’t quite understand …’

‘Don’t you? I’m guessing that you’re looking for a chaperone for Macready. My experience is that these people tend to need a governess more than they do a bodyguard. What’s Macready’s deal? Booze, prostitutes, pretty boys or narcotics? Or all of the above?’

Fraser looked at me with distaste, which I rather enjoyed and smiled back as insolently as I could. The beady-eyed lawyer needed me more than I needed him, I reckoned. He had been asked by someone he couldn’t refuse to dip a toe into the gutter. And that, it was clear, was where he thought someone like me belonged.

‘There is absolutely no need to be vulgar about this, Mr Lennox.’

‘Oh I know I don’t need to be … but I’m right, aren’t I? You want me to nursemaid him till he gets his flight?’

The distaste in Fraser’s eyes didn’t abate. ‘Actually, no. The studio has sent over two of their security people to do just that.’

‘I see. Why do I get the feeling that I’m here to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted?’

‘Your train of thought in relation to things like this seems rather well informed, Mr Lennox.’

‘What can I say? I lead an interesting and varied life. I’m right, I take it: John Macready has done something questionable and he’s under five-star house arrest until he can be gotten out of the country. In the meantime, you’re looking for someone in the tying-up-loose-ends business. How loose are the ends?’

‘Very loose, I’m afraid. Mr Macready is something of a heart-throb as I believe our American friends describe it. He has sex appeal, which is bankable at the box office. And he has a reputation as an incorrigible ladies’ man and is regularly seen with some of Hollywood’s most beautiful actresses on his arm.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ I said. ‘But your reminding me of it suggests that this trouble Macready is in either relates to the truth of that reputation or its falsity.’

Walking over to a robust filing cabinet, Fraser unlocked it with a key from his pocket. He took out a brown envelope and handed it to me before retaking his seat behind the vast desk.

‘I think you’ll see that we are in a very delicate and very serious situation here …’

I took the envelope and braced myself before slipping out the photographs.

‘My God …’ I said, not enough under my breath for Fraser not to hear.

‘Indeed …’ Fraser’s voice was filled with malicious satisfaction. ‘I was very impressed with your cynical seen-it-all attitude, Mr Lennox, but I see it has its limits. I take it you recognize who is in the photographs with Mr Macready?’

I stared at the photographs. For a moment, I found it difficult to take it all in. The young, bent-over gentleman beneath Macready in the photograph was clearly not having the same trouble.

‘I don’t follow the society pages but yes, of course I recognize him. That is the Duke of Strathlorne’s only son and heir, isn’t it? I’m guessing that’s one noble lineage that’s run its course …’ I glanced through the photographs as quickly as I could. Not quickly enough to stop me feeling queasy. ‘Blackmail?’ I asked eventually.

‘Yes. Or, in effect, yes. The person making the demands is not concealing his identity and is taking the utmost care to word things in a way that cannot be seen as a threat. And he is claiming that it is in the public interest that these photographs be made public.’

‘Unless someone buys them from him?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t see Picturegoer or Everybody’s running this little tableau with the headline “Hollywood Star Penetrates High Society’s Inner Circle.” The other … party in the photographs … surely he would have more to lose. Why isn’t he the one being blackmailed?’

‘The other party, as you put it, and his people, are unaware of the existence of these photographs. As yet. I think you can understand that the repercussions would be profound. And they have the power to ensure that no suggestion of this appears in the British press. But the American media would have a field day. I’m sure I don’t have to point out to you that buggery and gross indecency are serious crimes. It would take a lot of nerve to blackmail a member of the Royal Family, even a peripheral member.’

Fraser scooped up the photographs from the desk and placed them back in the envelope.

‘You understand, Mr Lennox, that you now have knowledge that very few people will ever be allowed to have. If you tell anyone what you have seen, I will rigorously deny the existence of the photographs — which, I assure you, will no longer be in this office — and, given the status of the other party in the photographs, you will attract the attention of individuals and organizations infinitely more dangerous than your current associations.’

It was the most long-winded threat I’d ever been subject to. But it was effective.

‘Maybe I don’t want to become involved,’ I said. Truth was I wasn’t sure that I did. ‘This is more than a little out of my league.’

‘I quite understand why you may feel that. I have been authorized to make a payment of fifty pounds to you, should you decide against taking this assignment. In return, I will require you to sign a declaration that you will not discuss anything that has passed between us today.’

‘Fifty pounds?’ I grinned. ‘Please feel free to ‘phone me any time you have a job for me to refuse.’

‘If you take the assignment, however, I am also authorized to make a cash payment of one thousand pounds to you, with the understanding that another four thousand will be paid to you on recovery of the negatives. And we really would appreciate your professional help with this matter, Mr Lennox.’

I blew another of those long, low whistles that large sums of cash seem to elicit from me. ‘Five thousand? I don’t get it. Wouldn’t you be cheaper paying the blackmailer off?’

‘Do you really think that the ransom asked for these images is anywhere near five thousand pounds? These photographs could command heaven knows how much on the open market. And, of course, a blackmailer is a blackmailer, no matter how he couches it. I would not for a moment imagine that we would hear the last of it if we meet his initial demands. But even if no further demands were made, we could not be guaranteed that all copies and negatives had been destroyed. What we are paying you to do, Mr Lennox, is to hand over the money, secure the negatives and make sure all copies, other than those I have here, are destroyed.’

‘And the blackmailer?’

‘Quite frankly, Mr Lennox, we would wish the person responsible for these photographs to be made fully and unequivocally aware of the seriousness of our intent.’

‘I see.’ Fraser’s halo of rectitude was slipping: it looked like I was going to have to polish my sap after all. ‘I don’t know what George Meldrum told you, Mr Fraser, but I am no hired thug. But I’m sure, given his other associations, that Mr Meldrum knows a great many people better qualified for that kind of work-’

Fraser held up a hand. ‘This is not a job for a thug, Mr Lennox. I am assured that you are an ex-officer and a man of some intelligence as well as … well, having a robust approach to your work. You have seen the photographs and understand the gravity of the situation. We need someone who can conduct themselves decisively but discreetly. Now, Mr Lennox, do I pay you fifty pounds or one thousand?’

I watched his forgettable face for a moment.

‘I have other work on at the moment. Other commitments.’

‘I expect you to forget about everything else until you have recovered all originals of these photographs.’

‘That I can’t do,’ I said. ‘I have a Friday wages run.’

‘I’m sure you could find someone to stand in for you.’

‘No. I handle the run personally. And I have another case that I need to pursue. I’ve also been paid in advance for that. It wouldn’t make many demands on my time, but I can’t drop it. I can still do this for you, depending on what leads you can give me, but I won’t drop my caseload.’

I used the word ‘caseload’ instead of jobs a lot these days: it sounded professional. More like a lawyer and less like a plumber. ‘Anyway, dealing with these other cases is my problem, not yours.’

‘I’m afraid we would see that exactly as being our problem,’ said Fraser.

‘We?’

‘The studio, my colleagues in London and myself, of course,’ said Fraser. ‘You will deal directly with me, Mr Lennox.’ He leaned across the desk and handed me a visiting card. ‘You can reach me on one or either of these numbers, twenty-four hours a day. If you have anything to report, I want to hear it right away.’

‘Of course. Listen, Mr Fraser, I am more than willing to undertake this for you, but I repeat that I cannot promise to work on it exclusively.’

Fraser watched me for a moment with his beady lawyer’s eyes.

‘Very well,’ he said, as if indulging a child, but in that moment I realized he had no choice. Whoever we really were, they were desperate.

‘You say you have a name for this extortionist?’

‘Paul Downey. He is a photographer. Of sorts. And, apparently, some kind of aspiring actor. He has dropped out of sight and has left instructions for all “bids for his scoop”, as he puts it, to be mailed to a PO box at Wellington Street post office.’ Fraser dipped into the file again. ‘Here is his last known address and a photograph of him. Reasonably recent, I’ve been led to believe.’

I looked at the photograph. Downey was a young man in his early twenties, and had the Iberian Celtic look of a Glasgow Catholic: dark hair, pale complexion. He had a faintly girlish appearance with his black hair a little too long but not Teddy Boy style, largish, soft eyes, a weak mouth and a soft chin.

‘Mr Downey is also a …’ Fraser left the word hanging in the air. ‘He is also involved in that world.’

‘I see.’ I thought it over for a moment. ‘And you say the other party in the photographs is unaware of their existence?’

‘That is correct.’

‘How long, exactly, is Macready going to be in Glasgow?’

‘He has very little still to do in the way of actual shooting, but there are some other tasks he has to perform before he returns, technical issues and publicity matters. He is scheduled to return early next month. His flight is already booked on BOAC from Prestwick.’

‘If I am to take this any further, then I have to talk to him. You do understand that, don’t you, Mr Fraser?’

‘I supposed you would, Mr Lennox. That’s why I have drawn up this schedule of the remainder of his stay in Scotland. His personal assistant is Miss Bryson. Here …’ Fraser handed me a sheet of paper. ‘I don’t suppose there is any way you could avoid the necessity of your discussing this directly with Mr Macready?’

‘I’m afraid not. Those photographs you showed me weren’t taken in a rush. I smell a premeditated set-up. Whoever took them knew what they were doing. And I guess that, knowing who Macready was entertaining, they have been fully aware of the stakes they’ve been playing. I’m going to have to ask Macready some difficult questions.’

‘I know that this is of no interest or concern to you, Mr Lennox, but distasteful as any right-minded person finds that aspect of his life, it is my opinion that John Macready is a good man.’

‘I’m sure he’s a faithful pilgrim,’ I said. ‘From what I could see from the photographs he certainly adheres to at least one Christian tenet.’

Fraser frowned questioningly.

‘It looked to me like he truly believes that it is better to give than to receive.’