The Long Glasgow Kiss

CHAPTER FIVE

The British Empire, the most avaricious piece of land theft since Genghis Khan saddled up a pony, was a remarkable thing. What made it particularly remarkable was that it had been carried out by the British, probably the most apologetic race on the planet. I always imagined them as some kind of impeccably well-mannered, latter-day Vikings, frightfully embarrassed about all the raping and pillaging. I suppose my interest in the globe-spanning collection of Raj, colonies, dominions, mandates and protectorates lay in my being very much a product of it: I was born in Glasgow but shipped off with my folks when I was still a baby and Canada was still ‘the Dominion’ as far as everyone was concerned. Then, after twenty-one summers, the ‘Mother Country’ of which I had had no direct contact, or even recollection, suddenly and urgently needed my assistance. Four thousand miles away.

And now, sixteen years on, I was living in the Second City of an Empire on which, despite classroom assurances to the contrary, the sun was most definitely now setting. For a century and a half, Glasgow had been the Empire’s industrial heart. But the War had screwed all of that up. Britain had ended the conflict all but bankrupt: if the United States had not come along in 1946 with a close on four billion dollar-loan, then the sceptr’d isle would have gone bankrupt. Now, former enemies were fast becoming new competitors in shipbuilding and heavy industry. Things were changing fast in the world. They were changing faster in Britain. And fastest in Glasgow.

Not that you would have guessed it from the activity in the docks as I drove past them. It was ten-thirty in the morning and already hot. I had both the Atlantic’s windows rolled down, and as I drove past the quays the sound of metal being hammered, clashed, seared and cut rang dull but loud in air so muggy and thick with grime you could have strained it. It was as if the temperature was being increased by the activity itself.

To my left a forest of cranes jostled at the water’s edge, swinging ceaselessly, loading and unloading docked ships or supplying vast sheets of heavy-gauge steel to the yards. I drove on past the huge red-brick dockside bonded warehouses, five storeys high behind tall fences. I parked on the street and went to the gatehouse and asked where Alain Barnier had his offices. The gateman was the usual retired cop with the usual I-couldn’t-give-a-fuck attitude, and the best I could get out of him was directions to some other smaller shipping offices where they might have a better idea. It took me half an hour of asking around before getting a pointer to Barnier’s office. By the time I got down there it was after eleven.

As Jonny had said, it was more of a shed than an office, one of a rank of semi-cylindrical Nissen huts, like a row of Sequoia logs half sunk into the earth. The sign above the door said Barnier and Clement Import Agents. I knocked and went in. As soon as I did, I could see that this was no front but a genuine working office: there was the kind of ordered chaos that’s impossible to fake. A counter separated the main body of the hut from the reception area. There was a push bell on the counter and next to it a paper spike piled high with impaled shipping bills; there were three desks behind it, half-a-dozen filing cabinets and a woman.

The woman was about five-one and dressed in a businesslike grey suit that strained a little at the waist and bust. She had a pale round face and black hair coiled in a perm so tight and unyielding it could have withstood an A-bomb test. She had a small thin-lipped slit of a mouth that she had tried to flesh up with red lipstick.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, coming around from behind her desk and to the counter. She stretched the thin lips in a weary, perfunctory smile.

‘I’m looking for Mr Barnier.’

‘Is this about the key lan?’ she asked.

‘The key lan?’ I frowned. ‘What’s a key lan?’

She ignored me. ‘Mr Barnier’s not here at the moment. Did you have an appointment?’

‘No. No appointment. When will he be back?’

‘You’ll need an appointment to see Mr Barnier.’

‘My eyes work just fine without an appointment. When will he be back?’

She had large, round, green eyes set into her round face and she used them to stare at me as if I had been a congenital idiot. ‘An appointment…’ She came close to the kind of syllable by syllable pronunciation favoured by Twinkletoes McBride.

‘The sign says Barnier and Clement. Is Mr Clement here?’

‘ Monsieur Clement,’ she said, correcting my pronunciation, dropping the hard ‘t’ at the end of the name and sounding it out as ‘ Clemmong’ in the way that only the Scots can murder the French language, ‘does not work here. He is based in our French office.’

‘I see…’

There was the usual hinged lid arrangement on the counter and, swinging it open, I stepped through the counter and onto her side. The round green eyes grew rounder.

‘You’re not allowed in here…’

‘I’ll wait,’ I said, and sat down behind one of the desks, pitching my hat onto a pile of papers. ‘Probably best, seeing as you can’t tell me when he’ll be back or where I could find him.’

My dumpy girlfriend with the round eyes and thin lips lifted the hatch on the counter, as if holding it open for me. ‘You can’t wait.’

‘There you go underestimating me again. I can wait. I’ve done it before. Lots of times. In fact, between you and me, I’m rather good at it.’

She picked up the telephone on her desk and dialled a number. She turned her back on me and spoke into the mouthpiece in a hushed but agitated voice. After a moment she turned and held the receiver out to me wordlessly.

I smiled cheerfully at her: we were getting on so well.

‘You are looking for me?’ The voice on the other end of the line spoke perfectly articulated English. The French accent was distinct, but not heavy.

‘Mr Barnier? I wondered if we could have a chat.’

‘A chat about what?’ No suspicion or guardedness. Just impatience.

‘I’m trying to get in contact with someone. You may be able to help me find them.’

‘Who?’

‘I’d rather we discussed this face-to-face. And as soon as possible, if you don’t mind. Where could we meet?’

‘For whom are you looking?’ he asked again, with the acquired perfect grammar of a non-native English speaker.

‘Sammy Pollock. You maybe know him as Sammy Gainsborough.’

There was a pause at his side of the connection. Then, in the same contraction-less, formal English: ‘There is something about this which suggests to me your interest is professional rather than personal, yet you did not identify yourself to Miss Minto as a police officer.’

‘That’s because I’m not. If I had it would have been impersonation. I’m not very good at impersonations. Except Maurice Chevalier, but I’m sure, as a Frenchman yourself, you’d be able to see through that one.’

‘I do not have the time for this. What is your name?’

‘Lennox. You do know Sammy Pollock, don’t you, Mr Barnier?’

‘I do. However, I do not know him well. Insufficiently well, in fact, to know anything about his whereabouts.’

‘I’d still like to talk to you, Mr Barnier.’

‘I am afraid I am too busy for this. I cannot assist you with your enquiries. And these are enquiries, are they not? I take it you are some kind of private detective?’

‘I’m just helping someone out, Mr Barnier. Sammy Pollock has gone missing and I’m trying to ascertain his state of health and whereabouts. I would be obliged if you could spare me a few minutes. There may be something you know that seems insignificant to you but that could help me track Sammy down.’

‘I am sorry. As I said I do not have the time…’

‘I quite understand. I’ll explain to Mr Cohen. It was he who suggested I speak to you.’

I got what I wanted: a small silence at the other end of the line. Barnier was putting things together in his head. Whether they came together in an accurate picture or not, I didn’t really care.

‘Do you know the Merchants’ Carvery in the city centre?’ he said at last, a sigh spun through it.

‘I know it,’ I said. The Merchants’ Carvery was a no-riff-raff kind of bar and restaurant. In a riff-raff kind of city. Barnier obviously had style and the cash to back it up. I couldn’t see someone like that being involved with Sammy Pollock. Even less with scum like Paul Costello. But it had to be checked out.

‘Meet me there at eight p.m.,’ he said. ‘In the bar.’

‘Thank you, Mr Barnier. I’ll be there.’

I drove back towards the town but before I got to the centre turned up the North road towards Aberfoyle. My head hurt, a dull, persistent throbbing in the temples and behind my eyes. Glasgow had pulled a curtain over the sun, a thin, dark-flecked veil of cloud. The temperature stayed hot, however, and the air around me seemed denser, heavier. I knew that the pain in my head was a warning of a storm coming. Getting out of the city didn’t do much to ease the oppressive air that was now playing my sinuses like an accordion. After about fifteen minutes I was up around the Mugdock area where Glasgow yielded to open countryside and scattered, expensive houses. The sun had broken through again, but the pre-storm heaviness continued to hang in the air and the sky to the west was the colour of shipyard steel.

Bobby Kirkcaldy’s place wasn’t the most expensive, but it was a huge step up from his origins in Motherwell. But then again, having a toilet indoors, and one that you didn’t have to share with four other families, was a huge step up. Truth was I quite admired Kirkcaldy as a boxer. He had started off welterweight, later moving up to middleweight but retaining a certain grace and lightness on his feet. I had seen him fight twice and it had been like watching two completely different boxers. Kirkcaldy was one of those boxers who, while probably no mental giant in any other way, seemed to possess a profound physical intelligence: a constant process of interpretation and fine re-calibration to match every move his opponent made. It was as if he could read any fighter within the first minute of a round and adapt his style to suit: if he was up against an infighter, Kirkcaldy subtly increased his range, forcing his opponent to stretch outside his preferred zone; if Kirkcaldy was up against an outfighter, he closed in with tight jabs, forcing his opposite number always backwards and onto the ropes.

One of the fights I had seen had been against Pete McQuillan. McQuillan was a slugger and bruiser; a stump of a man who struggled to stay in the middleweight bracket and in terms of style was just one step up from the pikey bare-knuckle boys. McQuillan winning a fight — and he had remained undefeated until then — depended either on a knockout, or his doing so much devastation to his opponent’s face that the referee stopped the match. Then he had been matched with Bobby Kirkcaldy. It had been an amazing thing to watch: McQuillan viciously scything empty air while Kirkcaldy had danced around him, placing stinging jabs with absolute precision. It took McQuillan to a place he’d never been before: the distance. Kirkcaldy had been the unanimous points winner. Now he was the clear favourite for the European Middleweight Championship and would be meeting the West German Jan Schmidtke.

And I would be there. I had a ticket.

The house was roughly the same size as MacFarlane’s in Pollokshields but was more recently built, maybe in the Twenties or Thirties, and it benefited from a more prestigious geography. It had also benefited from whitewash, which made it look bright and foreign in the sunlight. The front door faced south but was shielded by a Deco arch edged in earth-red brickwork. The whitewash walls beneath the red tiles and the terracotta brick detailing was an ambitious attempt to give the house an almost Mediterranean look, which in Scotland was an achievement akin to making Lon Chaney look like Clark Gable. I wasn’t sure how much of the credit should go to the architect and how much to the alien climate that seemed to have invaded the West of Scotland.

The door was answered almost instantly when I rang the electric push-bell. I got the idea that they had heard my Atlantic crunch its way up the drive. They were looking out for visitors, welcome or otherwise, I guessed. It wasn’t Bobby Kirkcaldy who answered the door but someone probably even more pugnacious-looking, an older man in a dark suit and thin woollen tie. He was lean and mean-looking and he had the appearance of something assembled from the toughest material; he had white bristle for hair and a deep-lined, leathery face that was more than weather-beaten. It looked as if anything capable of giving it a beating, weather or otherwise, had had its turn on his face. His flattened nose had that thick, rubbery, formless look that suggested it had been broken so many times that there was no cartilage left to give it any kind of meaningful shape. The damage wasn’t just visually apparent; when he spoke he sounded muffled and nasal. Even more than the average Glaswegian did.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘A quiet life, money, a beautiful girl and a sense of inner peace.’

He looked at me blankly. Along with the crap, he had clearly had the humour beaten out of him.

‘I’m here to see Bobby,’ I sighed. I was not appreciated here. ‘My name is Lennox. I’m expected.’

He looked me up and down. I mirrored his examination. It was difficult to age him. He could have been a battered fifty or a fit seventy. It was obvious he was an ex-fighter, but I reckoned as much damage had been done to his face outside the ring as in it. I tilted my head and smiled impatiently. The old warrior stood to one side to let me in. I was going to hand him my hat but he didn’t look the Jeeves type, so I hung on to it and followed him down a long hallway with terracotta tiles on the floor and tasteful art, some original, on the wall. I guessed that a Motherwell-raised boxer like Kirkcaldy would probably have about as much good taste as my elderly companion with the devastated nose would have a sense of smell; I put the domestic aesthetic down to a good decorator.

He led me into a large lounge with big French windows that looked out over a massive expanse of landscaped garden to the green hills beyond. It was a nice place. The kind of nice you had to pay for. Again, what struck me most was the way it had been furnished. Glasgow was, generally, a make-do-and-mend kind of city; Britain was a make-do-and-mend society, mainly because until recently the country’s very survival had depended on it. Post-war near-bankruptcy had added inertia to the pendulum swing from austerity to prosperity. Added to all of this was Scottish social conservatism. I had seen a few homes that had been decorated in the Contemporary style — Jonny Cohen’s, for example — but generally Modernism was distrusted. And when it was used as decor, it was normally done half-heartedly or clumsily overdone.

All of which is why Bobby Kirkcaldy’s home would have looked to the average Scot like a Hollywood set. This was all good stuff. If the furnishings weren’t original Bauhaus or le Corbusier or Eames, they were pretty good copies. There was a wall filled with books. I had the uncharitable thought that Kirkcaldy the boxer must have told his interior designer to make him look smarter. Just like in the hall, the art on the lounge walls looked original. Most of it was modern and edgy — abstracty stuff — but there was something about that kind of art that appealed to me. Like the furniture, it was new. And for me, New was Good. Again, I put it all down to an overpaid interior decorator.

Bobby Kirkcaldy stood up when we came in. He had been sitting on a leather lounger by the big windows and when he got up and crossed the room to us, he did so with the same easy grace with which I’d seen him move in the ring. He had thick, dark hair and, unlike the old guy at my side, there wasn’t the usual evidence in Kirkcaldy’s face of a boxer’s career. His nose didn’t look as if it had ever been broken and there was only a hint of the high-cheeked angularity of a fighter’s face. He was wearing an open-necked shirt and lightweight trousers. The look was casual but had Jermyn Street all over it.

‘You Lennox?’ asked Kirkcaldy. He didn’t smile but there was nothing overtly hostile in his manner, either. Just businesslike.

‘I’m Lennox. You know why I’m here?’

‘To look into this nonsense that’s been going on. You’ve been hired by Willie Sneddon. To be honest, I think all this shite bothers Sneddon more than it bothers me.’ Kirkcaldy’s voice was light, almost gentle, but he managed to inject a hint of distaste when he articulated Willie Sneddon’s name. He spoke with a quiet confidence and had less of an accent than I had expected. When you saw him up close, as opposed to the distance a boxing stadium compels, there was an intelligence in the eyes. But there was something else that I couldn’t define. And it stopped me liking him.

I turned and looked at the punch bag who had shown me in, and then back at Kirkcaldy.

‘It’s okay,’ Kirkcaldy said. ‘You can talk in front of Uncle Bert. Uncle Bert has coached me since I was a kid.’

Uncle Bert looked at me expressionlessly. But, there again, he’d probably had the mobility to form an expression beaten out of his face years ago. I found myself silently questioning his qualifications as a boxing trainer, seeing as no one seemed to have taught him the meaning of the word ‘duck’.

‘Okay,’ I said. I looked around the room in the way you do when you’ve got to that point where you should have been invited to sit but haven’t. ‘Nice place. Like the paintings. I’m never sure where Abstract Expressionism ends and Lyrical Abstraction begins.’

‘These are neither,’ said Kirkcaldy. ‘I don’t trust “isms”. Political or artistic. I just buy what I like and what I can afford. And the only reason I can afford it is because of the fight game.’ He picked up that we were still standing and pointed to a sofa that hovered just clear of the polished wooden floor. I lowered myself onto it: there was a lot of lowering involved. Kirkcaldy certainly didn’t talk like the average street-to-ring pugilist and I started to suspect the books on the shelves weren’t just for show. There was a certain type of working-class Scot who, deprived of it in their childhood, treated learning and knowledge as if they were bullion. I thought I was above making snobby judgements; I’d just proved to myself that I wasn’t. It was clear to me now that the impression of physical intelligence Kirkcaldy showed in the ring was part of something bigger.

‘Do you know much about art, Mr Lennox?’ he asked, and sat down on the Eames chair opposite. Uncle Bert remained standing. It was probably force of habit: staying upright had cost him dearly in the past.

‘Some,’ I said. ‘I was interested in it before the war. Then it was kind of expected of me to get interested in the war. But I still like to visit the odd gallery.’

Kirkcaldy smiled and nodded. There was nothing to the smile in the same way there had been nothing to Sheila Gainsborough’s smile. ‘You know this is a lot of nonsense, don’t you?’

I shrugged. ‘It sounds to me like someone is trying to spook you before the big fight. There are a lot of people betting a lot of money, one way or the other, on this fight. And some of those people aren’t above dodgy dealings to protect their investment.’

‘It’s obviously somebody trying to spook me, but it’s not working. I don’t spook easily, and anyone who’s had anything to do with me would know I’d quit the ring before throwing a fight.’

‘Has anyone approached you about it? ’Phone calls, notes under the door, that kind of thing.’

‘No. Nothing. Like you say, just a spook job. Trying to put me off my preparation for the fight.’

I nodded and noted. Maybe it would get back to Sneddon that I had nodded and noted. This was a wild goose chase, just like the thing with Small Change’s appointment book. The only thing that surprised me about it was Kirkcaldy’s willingness to accept it was someone trying to queer him for the fight. Like Jonny Cohen, I got the impression this was about something else. I decided to run the idea past him.

‘Is there anything else — anybody with a grudge, or some dispute you’ve got going — that might explain this?’

He pursed his lips and thought it over for a moment. ‘No… I can honestly say I can’t imagine anyone doing this for personal reasons.’

‘I see,’ I said. It was interesting that he had to think about it before answering. As if he had never before considered the possibility. We talked for another half hour, during which I noted down each of the things that had happened, the dates, the times. Kirkcaldy gave me the information in a going-through-the-motions manner. I asked if I could see the car that had been splashed with red paint: it had been repainted. The noose had been thrown out as had, obviously, the dead bird.

‘What kind of bird was it?’ I asked.

‘What? I don’t know. A bird. A dove or a pigeon, I think. But I do know it was white. Pure white. So probably a dove.’

‘How did it die?’

‘I don’t fucking know.’ He became agitated and the Motherwell in his voice became more pronounced.

‘What will you do?’ he asked wearily.

‘Well, I’ve nothing to go on. You’ve no idea of who might have a personal grievance against you… There’s not a lot I can do other than watch your back for a while.’

‘I can watch my own back,’ he said and cast a meaningful look at Uncle Bert.

‘Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll keep an eye on things. Of course I can’t be here all the time, so if anything happens, you can get me on one of these numbers normally.’ I scribbled down my office and home number, as well as the number for the ’phone behind the bar at the Horsehead.

By the time I left Kirkcaldy’s place, the ship-iron sky had turned even darker and the air even more oppressive. It was damp-hot and I could feel the pressure like a band around my head. I had only been driving for a couple of minutes when the weather broke.

If there’s one thing Glasgow can do well — better than anywhere else I know — then it’s rain. There were a couple of bright, ugly flashes in the sky and the rain hit my windscreen before the deafening thunder rolled over me. It didn’t just rain — it was as if there was a pent-up fury driving the thick, heavy bullets of rain that rattled and drummed furiously on the roof of my car and mocked the best but feeble efforts of my wind-screen wipers. As I approached Blanefield and headed into Bearsden, I had to slow the car to an almost crawl, unable to see more than a few feet in front of me.

I had time on my hands before I met the Frenchman so I drove down to Argyle Street. The torrential rain hadn’t stopped but I was lucky enough to get parked a thirty-second dash away from the corner tearooms. I went in, shook the rain off my hat and moaned to the waiter I handed it to about the sudden change in the weather. There were only a couple of other tables occupied and I sat in gloomy silence. When I’d finished my lamb chop and mashed potatoes I drank a coffee and smoked, gloomily contemplating the rain through the window.

A fool’s errand. No matter how long I thought it over, the Bobby Kirkcaldy job remained a fool’s errand. Willie Sneddon was thrashing about in the dark trying to protect his investment. Other than sit outside Kirkcaldy’s house all night, there was very little I could do. And if it came to a twenty-four-hour surveillance job, then it would cost Sneddon dear. He’d be better getting Twinkletoes McBride to park himself outside. Or Singer. This was a muscle job. I was going to have to tell Sneddon so.

After I’d settled my bill at the cashier’s desk and collected my hat, I went back out into the rain. It had eased considerably, and with its easing it had taken some of the stale heat out of the air. But Glasgow was Glasgow again, dressed in rain and shades of grey.

It took me only a couple of minutes to get to the Merchants’ Carvery in the city’s business district. It meant that I was early and I decided to wait in the car until just before eight. The Merchants’ Carvery was Glasgow’s attempt at class: it sat looking out over a square of park in the middle of a grid of Georgian and Victorian terraces. As the Carvery’s name suggested, the city’s wealthy traders and industrialists had once occupied the surrounding houses; now most had been converted into offices. Sitting parked outside, I made a little wager with myself that I would be able to pick out Barnier when he arrived. As it turned out, the only people I saw going into the restaurant was a middle-aged couple. Both dressed in tweed.

The Merchants’ Carvery was one of those places designed, or more correctly decorated and furnished, to intimidate. A place you were meant to feel out of place. To me, it was overdone; way overdone. The plush red leather of the booths was just that little bit too plush and much too red. If the Carvery had been in Edinburgh, it wouldn’t have been quite so overdone.

I went in and handed my hat over again, this time to an attendant in a white waist-length jacket and pillbox cap. He was, without doubt, the most geriatric bellboy I’d ever seen and I worried that he would buckle under the weight of my fedora. I told him I was there to meet with Mr Barnier and he nodded towards a tall man standing at the bar with his back to me. It was going to take us an age to cross the lounge so I thanked my elderly hop and gave him a two-shilling tip: I reckoned that the weight of half-a-crown would tip him in more ways than intended.

‘Monsieur Barnier?’ I asked the man’s back and he turned to face me. Alain Barnier was not what I had expected. For a start he was tall and light-haired, not quite blond, with greenish eyes. To me he looked more like a Scandinavian or German than a Southern Frenchman. His skin tone wasn’t dark either, although I knew he had lived in Glasgow for at least a couple of years; but there again, no one could be as pale as a Glaswegian. Scots were the whitest people on the planet; and Glaswegians came in pale blue tints, except for those who had been burned scarlet by unaccustomed exposure to the big fiery ball in the sky that had, until a couple of hours ago, made a mysterious appearance that summer. Barnier was a striking man, handsome, with deep creases under his eyes that suggested a lot of smiling, but there was something a little cruel in his features. I estimated his age to be about forty.

Other than his slightly golden skin tone, there were a couple of other things that gave Barnier away as a foreigner. His clothes were expensive but not showy. And not tweed. His suit was extremely well-tailored in a pale grey, lightweight flannel, run through with a faint white pinstripe. It didn’t look like a British cut. Added to that, he was immaculately groomed and wore a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee beard that gave a point to his chin. My first thought was of a Cardin-coutured fourth Musketeer.

‘My name is Lennox, M. Barnier,’ I said in French. ‘We spoke on the telephone this afternoon.’

‘I was waiting for you. Drink?’ He beckoned to the barman with a casual authority that Scots find difficult. ‘Two cognacs,’ he said in English.

‘Please…’ he said, reverting to his native tongue and indicating one of the plush leather booths at the back of the lounge bar. We sat down. ‘You speak French very well, M. Lennox. But, if you don’t mind me saying so, you have a strong accent. And you speak slowly, like a Breton. I take it you’re Canadian?’

‘Yes. New Brunswick. The only officially bi-lingual province in Canada,’ I said, and was surprised at the pride in my voice.

‘But you’re not a Francophone yourself?’

‘That obvious?’

Barnier shrugged and made a face. He was French. I expected it. ‘No… not particularly. But you have a strong accent. I assumed English was your first language.’

‘Where are you from yourself, M. Barnier?’

The drinks arrived. ‘Toulon. Well, Marseille originally, then Toulon.’

I sipped the cognac and felt something warm and golden infuse itself into my chest.

‘Good, no?’ he asked. A smile deepened the creases around the eyes. ‘I supply it. It is one of the best.’

‘It tastes it. I had some of the bourbon you supplied Jonny Cohen. That was excellent too.’

‘Ah, yes… you mentioned you knew M. Cohen…’ Barnier looked at me over the rim of his brandy glass. ‘By the way, you rather annoyed my Miss Minto.’

‘Really?’ I said, raising my eyebrows and trying to look as innocent as I had been at sixteen when my father had interrogated me about some missing cigarettes and whisky. ‘We seemed to be getting on so well. I learned a new word — key lan — or is it two words?’

There was something in the mention that stung Barnier. He quickly hid it. ‘I can’t have you upsetting her. Miss Minto is a very… determined lady who is essential to the efficient running of the office.’

‘Why did she ask me if it was about the key lan. Am I pronouncing it right?’

‘She was referring to an item we’ve recently imported. Miss Minto probably thought you wanted to see me about it, that’s all.’

‘I’m flattered that Miss Minto thought I was rich enough to buy it.’

‘She didn’t. The item’s gone astray in transit. It’s more than likely been incorrectly crated and labelled, that’s all. Miss Minto probably thought you were from the insurance company.’ Barnier’s smile had dropped and his tone now suggested that the small talk was over. ‘What exactly is it you want from me, M. Lennox?’

‘I’ve been engaged to look into the disappearance of Sammy Pollock. You may know him as Sammy Gainsborough.’

‘I hardly know him as either. M. Pollock was an acquaintance. Nothing more. My dealings with him were so infrequent that I’m struggling to remember the last time I saw him. Why is it that you are asking me about Pollock?’

‘Can you? Remember, I mean?’

Barnier made a show of running through a mental inventory. He pulled gently at his goatee, smoothing it into an inverted peak.

‘It would have been about two or three weeks ago. A Friday. He was at the Pacific Club at the same time I was. It is a dreadful place… please don’t tell M. Cohen I said so — he is a valued customer after all. But it really is an awful place. I go there because, ironically, M. Cohen does tend to get rather good jazz acts on Fridays. Anyway, I saw young M. Pollock there. He did a turn… sang a few songs to fill in for a no-show act. He was there with a girl, if I remember correctly. But we didn’t speak that night.’

‘And you haven’t seen him since?’

‘Listen, Mr Lennox…’ Barnier reverted to his flawlessly articulated, grammatically perfect English. ‘I really have no idea whether I have seen him since or not. Sammy Pollock is not someone who features in my consciousness much. It may be that I have seen him and not noticed. Now, I repeat my question: Why are you asking me about this young man?’

‘You must excuse me, M. Barnier, but it’s my day for straw clutching. I was told that Sammy Pollock was seen in your company on occasion. The truth is that he really does seem to have gone missing and I’m more than a little concerned for his welfare. So far I’ve not been able to come up with the slightest hint of where he is.’ I looked at the Frenchman’s face. There was nothing to read in his expression. Maybe it was just that my I’m-all-at-sea act didn’t wash. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested.

‘Did you have any business dealings with Pollock?’ I asked.

‘No. None.’

‘The occasions where you saw him… did you know the people he was with?’

‘Again, no. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t think I can help you any further.’ He drained his glass. It was a gesture of punctuation — our conversation had come to a full stop.

‘Thanks for your time, M. Barnier,’ I said in French.

I left Barnier in the Carvery, picked my hat up from the geriatric bellboy and headed out into the street. The rain had stopped but the sky still looked bad-tempered. It wasn’t alone.

It had been a fruitless day and I was too tired to go up to Sneddon’s Bearsden house or even to ring him. Telling Willie Sneddon that you really can’t do his bidding is something done face-to-face and in the right frame of mind. I didn’t get into the car straight away but went to the telephone kiosk on the corner, fed it some copper and called the number Sheila Gainsborough had given me in London. The English accent at the other end told me that he was her agent and she wasn’t there.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘She gave me this as a contact number.’

‘I see. Are you Lennox?’ His voice was a tad too high and slightly effeminate. I gave a small laugh at the thought that I obviously expected theatrical agency to be one of those robustly masculine professions, like steelworking or mining.

‘That’s me,’ I said.

‘Tell me, Lennox… do you have anything to report?’ Oh boy, he was losing my affection big time with that tone.

‘That’s why I’m ’phoning,’ I said.

‘Well?’ he asked. He spoke to me as if I was the hired help; to be fair, I was. But, there again, so was he.

‘Miss Gainsborough told me she could be contacted through this number. I take it you’re Whithorn… Will you be seeing her this evening?’

‘I see Miss Gainsborough almost every evening,’ he said. Proprietorially. ‘She’ll be here in about half an hour.’

‘Tell her Lennox called. And that I will ’phone again this evening. About ten o’clock. If she could make sure she’s available to take the call.’

‘Why don’t you just tell me what you have to report and I’ll pass it on.’

I gave another small laugh. Louder this time, for him to hear. ‘Client confidentiality, friend. I would have thought that would have been a concept you’d be familiar with.’

‘I’m not just Miss Gainsborough’s agent, Mr Lennox. I’m her advisor. Her friend.’

‘I’ll ’phone back at ten.’ I hung up. I decided to make a point of putting a face to the voice that had been at the other end of the line. I had already decided I would dislike Humphrey Whithorn’s face as soon as I saw it.

I walked back to where I had parked. I didn’t pay much attention to the Wolseley parked three cars back from my Atlantic until an unnecessarily large man in a formless raincoat and a too-small trilby planted himself on the pavement, squarely in my path. Another appeared at my side, smaller but still robust, and with the kind of face you would avoid looking at in a bar. Or anywhere else. I felt the second guy’s firm grip on my upper arm, just above the elbow. I could tell right away that these were no policemen. They were somebody’s goons.

‘Okay, Lennox,’ said the raincoat. ‘Mr Costello wants to see you. Now.’

I felt relief. Of sorts. Having to deal with any muscle is tiresome, but normally compliance comes from knowing who’s behind the muscle. Costello didn’t carry that kind of weight and I made a bored, irritated face.

‘Does he now?’ I said. For some reason, the image of Barnier’s homely, insistent little secretary came to my mind and I decided to follow her example. ‘I’m a busy kind of guy. Tell Costello to make an appointment.’

The fingers around my arm tightened and I turned to the second guy and smiled. They were hard men. Men who were in the business of hurting. But Jimmy Costello was not famed as a criminal mastermind and his lack of genius extended to the quality of goon he recruited. They had probably been following me all day and I wouldn’t have spotted them in the rain. There had been a dozen suitable places for them to have made their move on me. This was not one of them. A stupid choice of place to pick me up off the street. We were in the middle of the business district, admittedly at eight forty-five in the evening, but outside a well-respected eatery. And there was a district police station two blocks away. No, this was as dumb a choice as they could have made and the ideal place for me to kick off. But they were too stupid to realize it and the goon with the vice grip on my arm looked as sure of himself as his partner did.

‘Now,’ he said with a vicious-looking grin. ‘Are you going to come quiet or come the cunt?’

There was something I found out about myself during the war. It was something I could have done with not finding out for the rest of my life. Something ugly and dark. I lay awake at nights wondering if the war had created it, or if it had been there all the time and it might never have been awoken if the war hadn’t come along. As I stood there with two violent thugs trying to coerce me into a car, I felt it begin to stir deep inside; and greet me as an old friend.

‘Listen, guys,’ I said in a friendly voice, but quiet. Quiet so they had to strain to hear it. ‘I’m not coming with you. And if you try to make me, someone’s going to get hurt. Tell Costello if he wants to see me, he can pick up the ’phone like everybody else. If he’s peeved because I smacked his kid about, then tell him sorry… but I don’t give a crap.’

‘Whadyou say?’ The big guy in the raincoat frowned and leaned forward, which is what I wanted him to do. I only had one arm free so I swung a kick at the spot on his raincoat where I reckoned he kept the family jewels. My reckoning was dead on and he folded. The guy with my arm yanked me backwards, again what I expected him to do. I went with it. Keeping your distance from your attacker isn’t always the best strategy in a street fight and I rammed into him, bending him backwards onto the bonnet of the Wolseley. I fell on top of him, face-to-face. He got a punch in and jarred my head with it, making black and white sparks dance for a split second across my vision. With my free hand, I had grabbed my hat as it came off from the punch. I pushed it into and over his face, covering his eyes and pulling it away just as my brow slammed into his nose.

I was just mentally complimenting myself on my excellent management of the situation when a mule kicked me to the right of my spine, just above the kidney. I heard two lungfuls of air pulse out of me and I was in that panicked, winded place where filling your body with oxygen fills the universe. The big guy in the raincoat who had kicked me grabbed my arms and pulled me back from his bonnet-sprawled partner. I was still struggling to catch a breath but knew if I didn’t pull myself together I was in for a kicking. Suddenly the big guy let go of me and I leaned forward, my hands resting on my knees, and pulled long deep breaths into my emptied lungs. I turned to see something that didn’t make any sense, then turned my attention back to my bloody-faced chum who was pulling himself up from the bonnet of the Wolseley. I now knew I only need concern myself with him: the thing that hadn’t made sense when I had turned around was seeing Alain Barnier behind me, very efficiently beating the crap out of the rain-coated thug.

But I still had my hands full and kept focussed on my chum who was now pulling himself upright from the bonnet of the Wolseley. I took a step forward, ready to hit him when he came up. He wasn’t as stupid as I had taken him for, because he read my movement and, bracing his elbows on the bonnet, he swung his foot out and up. It was a vicious kick but it missed its target and I was able to grab his ankle. I gave his leg a hard yank and his body slid off the car’s bonnet like a ship being launched from a slipway. He came down onto the pavement hard and there was the sickening sound of his skull against the kerb. He lay still and for a moment I was genuinely worried that I had killed him. He put my mind at rest by giving a low moan.

I heard the commotion continue behind me: Barnier and the other guy. Also shouts coming from the direction of the Carvery. I turned to see what was happening. The big man in the raincoat looked the tougher of the two goons and was certainly the bigger. I reckoned he would be more than a handful for Barnier, but when I turned around I saw that the undersized trilby had been knocked off his head. There was blood coming from a cut on his temple as well as from the mess of his mouth. It was Barnier who fascinated me: he stood back from his opponent; almost calm. I could see his eyes move, constantly checking the big guy’s hands, feet, face, as if reading every intention, anticipating every move. The big guy staggered forward and swung a clumsy, desperate hook at Barnier, who stepped back gracefully as if allowing an elderly lady to pass him on the boulevard. It was then I saw how the Frenchman had been doing so much damage to his opponent. He seemed to lean his entire body back and his leg swung round and up, the side of his foot like a scythe through the air. It slammed into the side of the big man’s head. Costello’s goon toppled like a felled tree.

I took a few backward steps until I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Barnier, both of us ready should our playmates get up from the pavement. There was a huddle of people behind us on the steps of the Carvery and in the distance I heard the urgent trilling of a police car’s bells.

‘I ’phoned them,’ Barnier said to me in French and without turning to me. He was a cool one all right. ‘So we better get our story straight.’

The goon whose head I had cracked on the pavement hauled himself upright, leaning on the wing of his car. He looked across at Barnier and me. His eyes were still a little glazed but he was focussed enough to see that we were ready to deal with any more fun and games and clearly decided that the playtime bell had rung. He picked up his pal’s trilby and poked him with his foot, muttering something about the police. The two goons clambered clumsily into the Wolseley and drove off.

‘Who were your chums?’ asked Barnier, again in French.

‘Dissatisfied customers,’ I said.

‘You best come back inside and get cleaned up.’

I nodded and started to follow him into the Carvery, ignoring the arrival of a black police Wolseley 6/80. When we got to the front door, Barnier delivered me into the care of the geriatric bellboy who escorted me down some red carpeted stairs to the gents’ toilets. There was an attendant there who looked shocked, so I guessed that my face must have been a mess. However, when I looked in the mirror above the wash-hand basins, it didn’t look too bad and I asked for a wet towel to hold against my cheek to keep it from swelling up and bruising too much. While I waited for the towel, I washed my hands and face, cupping some cold water and running it over the back of my neck. I had to ease myself up slowly from the basin, pressing a hand gingerly into the small of my back, where the raincoat had kicked me. I was getting too old for this.

I dried myself off, straightened my collar and tie and got my elderly bellhop in the monkey jacket to dust down my jacket before helping me on with it.

‘Perfectly dreadful, sir,’ he said with genuine dismay. ‘Perfectly dreadful that one can’t mind one’s own business without being accosted and robbed in the street.’

I nodded and smiled wearily. That was obviously the story Barnier had given them when he told them to call the cops. I pressed the damp towel to my cheek. The old hop disappeared back up the stairs and came down a minute later with ice wrapped in a napkin. I was impressed he could move so fast. I leaned against the porcelain tiled wall and held the ice to the side of my face. After a few minutes I tipped both the hop and the toilet attendant and headed back up the red-carpeted stairs to the lounge. When I got there, Barnier was at the front door talking to the two police constables. It was the tenor of the place that the uniforms had to stay at the front door, not even being allowed to conduct their interview in a staff room or office. Whatever it was that Barnier had said to them, they were clearly satisfied with it and they headed off back to the car without taking a statement from me. The one thing I noticed about Barnier was that there wasn’t a mark on him and the impeccable grey flannel was still impeccable. He came over to me, slapped me on the shoulder and grinned.

‘I think you could do with another cognac, no?’

‘I could do with another cognac, yes,’ I said.

We went back and sat at the same booth. ‘What did you say to get rid of the cops?’ I asked.

‘I told them that you were my cousin from Quebec and that you couldn’t speak a word of English. I told them that the two guys outside had tried to rob you and that I and the manager in here had seen the whole thing. I gave them a phoney description of the car and sent them on their way.’

‘They didn’t want to speak to me?’

‘I told them you spoke only French and that you were going home in a couple of days and that you did not want the complication of pressing charges or having to delay travelling.’

‘And they were satisfied with that?’

‘This is the police we are discussing, my friend. Dealing with a foreign national who is about to head off home is complicated. And if there is one thing I have learned about policemen the world over, it is that they do not like complications. Now, why not tell me what that was really all about. Has it some connection to young Mr Pollock’s disappearance?’

‘Yes. Or at least in a way. Sammy Pollock was hanging around with Paul Costello. He’s the son of Jimmy Costello. Have you heard of Jimmy Costello?’

Barnier gave another Gallic shrug and shook his head.

‘Costello is a crook and a thug. Small-time stuff, but he has a small gang. Our two dancing partners would be paid-up members. Costello also has a waster of a son. It takes something to be such a wash-out that you’re a disappointment to the underworld, but that’s what young Paul is. Anyway, he was hanging around with Sammy Pollock before he went missing. He also had a key for Sammy’s apartment. I took it from him and we had a frank exchange of views. So frank that I think I may have cracked the odd bone.’

‘And Papa Costello is not pleased?’

‘It would appear not. But, to be honest, I don’t think he gives a shit. That outside was him going through the motions. He maybe doesn’t really care about me giving his son a slap, but he has to be seen to take exception. Big people for appearances, our criminal fraternity chums…’

‘Well, I think you may receive a return visit from your friends. Or their colleagues.’ He arched an eyebrow.

‘Maybe I should hang around you. That was pretty fancy foot-work.’

‘ Savate. French Foot Fighting. It is sometimes called the jeu Marseillais because it became very popular in Marseille in the last century. Sailors, you see. The idea is that if you are fighting on a ship at sea, then it is better to have a hand free to hang onto something if the ship is pitching.’

‘Yeah…’ I said. I’d heard of savate, but what I’d seen outside had been something more. ‘But I thought that savate was a type of street fighting. Dockers and sailors. If you don’t mind me saying, you don’t strike me as someone who spent his youth brawling in the backstreets of Marseille.’

‘Do I not?’ Barnier replied. ‘Perhaps not. But if there’s one thing I have learned in life, it’s that people are very seldom who we think they are. Anyway, savate has become a little gentrified over the years. A sport. Alexandre Dumas fils studied it.’ I watched the Frenchman’s cruel, handsome face. The smile he framed with the trimmed moustache and goatee beard had something knowing about it. And something melancholic. He struck me as a weary, sad Satan.

‘Well, whatever its origins,’ I said. ‘I was glad of it. Thanks for your help out there. And with the police.’

Barnier gave a small shrug.

There seemed to be nothing more to say to each other and my feet took me back out onto the street and to my car. This time there were no heavies waiting for me. For the moment. I would have to deal with the Costello situation sooner or later. As I opened the door of the Atlantic, I looked back towards the Merchants’ Carvery. Barnier was at the window of the lounge bar, watching; just as he must have done when he saw Costello’s men jump me.

Barnier bothered me. I had no reason to doubt what he had told me about his relationship, or lack of it, with Sammy Pollock. What was bothering me probably had nothing to do with that at all. It was just that there was something about the Frenchman. Some shadow he dragged around with him. And for a wine merchant, he certainly knew how to handle himself.

I called in at Lorna’s on the way back to my flat. I had hoped that the cold compress had stopped the side of my face swelling up and bruising too much, but it was still tender to the touch and Lorna noticed it as soon as I arrived.

‘What happened?’ she asked as she let me in, but her concern was grief-dulled and she was content with a dismissive shrug and a mumbled ‘It’s nothing…’

We sat in the living room, alone. Maggie MacFarlane was out. Making arrangements, she had told Lorna. I wondered how many of those arrangements would involve the matinee idol I saw pull up the day before.

Lorna looked tired and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. I spoke softly and soothingly and did all of the right things that a sensitive suitor should do. After a while, and when the moment seemed to open up and allow it, I asked her about the visitor in the Lanchester-Daimler. She looked at me blankly for a moment.

‘Tall, dark hair… moustache,’ I prompted.

A look of dull enlightenment crossed her expression. ‘Oh yes… Jack. Jack Collins. He was Dad’s partner. And he’s a family friend.’

‘Partner? I didn’t think that your father had a partner.’

‘Oh, no, not in the bookie business. Jack Collins is involved with boxing. He arranges matches. I think he’s like an agent or promoter for some of the fights. He and my father were putting together some fights. They had set up a company together. Jack and my dad were… close. Jack really is like a member of the family.’

‘They weren’t involved in arranging this Kirkcaldy-Schmidtke fight, were they?’

‘No… nothing as big as that. Why are you asking?’

‘Just curious,’ I said. ‘Why was he round here yesterday?’

‘He’s been helping sort out some of the business stuff.’

‘I see. Helping your stepmother?’

Lorna looked at me puzzled. Then it dawned on her. ‘Oh no. Nothing like that. Trust me, I wouldn’t put it past Maggie. I wouldn’t put anything past Maggie. But I don’t think Jack is in the slightest bit interested. Apparently he has a string of glamorous girlfriends.’ She made an attempt at a mischievous smile, but her sadness washed it away as if it had been drawn in sand. ‘Like I said, Jack and Dad were very close. There’s no way Jack would…’

‘What did he want? Last night, I mean?’

‘Just to see if he could help. And he was looking for some papers that Dad had.’

‘Did he find them?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

I had a drink with Lorna and she clung to me again when I was leaving. I fought down the sense of irritation that seemed to well up inside me. Again Lorna was breaking our contract of being mutually undemanding. I was, I thought to myself, a real piece of work.

When I got back to my apartment, I used the ’phone in the hall to call Sheila Gainsborough at the number she had given me for her agent. The same light, effeminate voice answered. I asked to speak to Miss Gainsborough: there was a sigh and a silence, then she came on the line. I went through the progress I had made, which didn’t take long.

‘Have you heard from Sammy at all?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’ The transatlantic voice sounded tired and strained. ‘I was hoping…’

‘I’m still looking, Miss Gainsborough. I spoke to the Frenchman, Barnier. He doesn’t seem to know Sammy that well after all.’

‘Doesn’t he?’ She sounded surprised. But only vaguely. ‘Sammy mentioned him a couple of times. I thought they knew each other.’

‘Oh, he does know Sammy. Just not that well.’

We talked for another few minutes: there was little more she could tell me and there was less I could tell her. I promised to keep her fully informed of progress.

After I hung up I felt something dead and leaden in my chest. Every time I thought about Sammy Pollock, the picture darkened a little.