Craig Russell - Lennox

I took a couple of pound notes from my wallet and stuffed them into the breast pocket of Bobby’s thigh-length jacket. He took them out and looked at them. His mood lightened.

‘What’s this for?’

‘Get yourself a new suit.’

The biggest immigrant group in Glasgow was the Italians. Some families had been here since the twenties or before, but most had endured repatriation or internment when the war broke out. Now they tried hard to be liked.

The Trieste was a small Italian restaurant near the city centre. I ate there a lot and had got to know the family who ran it. To start with the Rosselis had been surprised at my basic knowledge of Italian. Then they had been distrustful, realizing it was the passing acquaintance the invader — or liberator — has with the culture of the nation he occupies. Now they greeted me with an incurious familiarity that made me feel comfortable. Like the food, the atmosphere was cheap and cheerful.

I sat in the corner, under a tattered but colourful poster extolling the sunny virtues of Rimini, and ate spaghetti and drank a rough red wine.

I tried to get the image of Lillian Andrews out of my head. I had agreed to keep my nose out of whatever sordid business she had going on, but, let’s face it, my word carried as little weight as hers probably did. But all of that would have to wait.

In the meantime my progress in getting to the bottom of the McGahern business was less than spectacular. After my meeting with Bobby, I had gone to the GPO main office in Waterloo Street and worked my way through the telephone directories for lawyers and estate agents who might handle sales in Byres Road. There were a few. I ’phoned around them, explaining that I was an American engineer who had moved to Glasgow to help design ship engines. I said that I was looking for a property in Byres Road and if they could give me details and asking prices of properties that had sold in the last three months. Most had been reluctant to help, but I’d ended up with a list of seven properties. I knew Byres Road well; it butted onto Great Western Road about half a mile from where my flat was. Tomorrow I would check the addresses out.

Other than that, I didn’t have a thing to go on, unless Sneddon’s boys turned something up on Powell, the Fred MacMurray lookalike.

The Italians were supposed to be experts at coffee. It was a skill that seemed to have skipped a generation or two of the Rosseli family and I left my cup half drained and went out into the street.

If there’s one thing Glasgow can do well it’s rain, and rods of it sparkled in the streetlights as I ran to my car. I was about to unlock the door when a dark-green Riley RMB, so shiny and sleek it looked straight off the production line, pulled up behind me. The door swung open and Jonny Cohen leaned his head out into the rain.

‘Lennox! Leave your car there. I’ll bring you back for it.’

‘What’s up, Jonny?’

‘I’ve got something to show you.’

We drove out of the city centre and headed east. I sat in the front passenger seat but had noticed the two large goons in the back seat as I had got into the Riley. As one of the Three Kings, it was no surprise that Jonny Cohen travelled with muscle. It was true that I genuinely liked Jonny and I came as close to trusting him as you could anyone in his position, but being picked up off the street by a crime boss and two of his goons tended to bring out the over-cautious side of my nature.

‘Never mind about the boys.’ Jonny read my mind. ‘They’re not here for your benefit.’

‘What’s this all about, Jonny?’ I asked. We headed out on the A8. Despite Jonny’s reassurances, I felt the need to keep track of our whereabouts. He turned and gave me one of his handsome smiles.

‘We’re going to see a dirty film,’ he said.

Just past Shotts we turned off the main road and into the entrance of a small factory. The uniformed night-watchman raised a finger to the peak of his cap when he saw Jonny and opened the gates to let the Riley through.

I had known that this place existed, but I hadn’t known where it was. Jonny Cohen, like the other two Kings, needed a semi-legitimate business to pass cash and other stuff through the rinse. But I guessed there was more to this place than that: Jonny Cohen was well-known to be a major importer and distributor of hardcore, continental pornography. He was rumoured to supply a lot of the stuff sold south of the border, with a fortnightly truck run to Soho. His enterprising efforts had succeeded in putting dirty magazines and blue movies on the list of leading Scottish exports. And, let’s face it, nobody jerked off over whisky and shortbread.

We parked outside one of the factory’s warehouses and Jonny led the way in.

There were two other men inside the warehouse. One was middle-aged and short, but had the mean, muscled look of an ex-boxer. The other was even older, nervy-looking and dressed like he worked in a bank. They stood next to an eight-millimetre film projector. A white sheet had been nailed up on the facing wall.

‘These two gentlemen are business associates of mine,’ explained Jonny. ‘If you don’t mind, we won’t go into names at this point. All you need to know is that we don’t just import porn, we make it as well. In Edinburgh, as a matter of fact. My friends here are, well, the wank film industry’s equivalent of Sam Goldwyn and J. Arthur Rank.’

‘Mr Cohen gave us a rough description of the woman you are interested in.’ It was the bank manager type who spoke. ‘He also explained how you described her exceptional… magnetism I suppose you’d call it. But it was when Mr Cohen showed us the photograph… May I see it again?’

Jonny nodded and handed him the picture of Lillian Andrews. He examined it for a moment and smiled, tilting it for the ex-boxer to look at. He gave a brief nod.

‘No, there’s no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘That’s Sally Blane, all right,’

‘Sally Blane?’ I asked.

In answer the bank manager handed me the photograph while the boxer switched on the projector and turned out the strip lights. A caption, ‘Housewife’s Choice’, came up on screen. The black and white film played mute, so I couldn’t hear her voice, but I instantly recognized a younger Lillian Andrews as she opened the door to a door-to-door salesman.

‘That’s her all right,’ I said. ‘But she looks different.’

‘Younger. We made it about five, six years ago,’ explained the bank manager. By this time Lillian/Sally was performing an impressively professional blow-job on the salesman. ‘Sally worked for us for about six months. She was a natural. You could say she was custom-made for it. We offered her more money than we have ever offered any of our performers to stay on, but she quit and we never heard from her again. But she was the kind of girl you never forget.’

‘Where did you find her?’

‘We put the word out that we were looking for new talent. One of our contacts put us on to her. She and her sister came along for an audition.’ I tried not to think what an audition for a dirty film might involve. ‘I’m not sure, but I think she might have been working in a knocking-shop in Edinburgh.’

I turned back to the screen. Lillian and the ‘salesman’ were now engaged in full intercourse in what looked like an improbable and certainly uncomfortable angle against a Belfast sink. I remembered the first time I met John Andrews: pompous, brusque, embarrassed; but desperately worried about the woman he loved. This was more than just a marriage for money: it was a set-up.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen enough. So Sally Blane is her real name?’

The bank manager turned off the projector and the lights went on.