Craig Russell - Lennox

But Hammer Murphy continually strained at the bonds the deal put on him. Of the Three Kings, the bookies’ money was on Murphy to be the one to shatter the peace. Whenever a deal was done, Murphy worried that he had been swindled by the other two. He also envied the influence his rivals had with the police, a foothold he had failed to attain. And if one of his firm was arrested, Murphy suspected that Sneddon or Cohen had instigated it through the bent coppers on their payroll.

Murphy was volatile, unpredictable, suspicious to the point of paranoia and the chip on his shoulder was as precariously balanced as it could be. And now I was going to have to find out if he was holding back about Tam McGahern’s murder.

There was no way I could simply turn up on Hammer Murphy’s doorstep the way I had with Jonny Cohen, or even Willie Sneddon. Instead, I ’phoned him from my office. I only got to speak to one of his goons but left a message explaining in none-too-specific terms what I wanted to talk to him about. I was told to call back the next day for an answer.

But I got my answer within a couple of hours.

After I ’phoned Murphy, I called John Andrews at his office and gave my code name and fake company details again. He didn’t take my call. I explained to his secretary that it was urgent and she checked again, but again I got the brush-off. In a way I was glad to put off showing him the stills of his wife. Again I thought about how easy it would be to walk away from the whole sordid business.

God knows John Andrews was a difficult man to like, but it was as if I owed something to myself. To the Kennebecasis Kid. To prove that I could still do the right thing even after all the shit I’d been through. I had encountered another human being who I suspected, somehow and for whatever reason, was being exploited. Manipulated. It could be that I had it all wrong, but I knew that if I walked away, then I was walking away from whatever decency was left in me.

*

I had a habit of taking lunch in tea rooms that sat on the corner of Argyle Street. There was something about the tea rooms’ large picture windows, high vaulted ceiling and black marble that reminded me of a place in Saint John I used to go with my parents when I was a kid back in New Brunswick.

I was on my way there when they took me off the street: two big Micks with busted-up noses and dark business suits.

‘Mr Murphy has sent us. He wants to see you. Now. Get in the taxi.’ My escorts flanked me and indicated the black cab that pulled up to the kerb. I allowed myself to be guided into it. I tried not to think that this was trade-mark Murphy; that God knew how many people had been taken off the street in the same manner, probably, given their obvious accustomed expertise, by the same gentlemen. Except the others who had been spirited away had never been seen again.

They took me out to Baillieston. It sat even greyer and uglier than usual under a moody sky and the scrapyard we entered merged seamlessly with its landscape. There was a huddle of Nissen huts in one corner of the yard. Against this backdrop, the honed razor gleam of the parked silver-grey Bentley announced Hammer Murphy’s presence like a royal standard on a castle.

My escorts delivered me into the main hut and waited outside. Hammer Murphy sat behind the desk. Like the Bentley, there was the sheen of a sharpened razor about him: all grey mohair and freshly barbered and Brylcreemed. Since the last time I had seen him he had grown a pencil-thin moustache. The Ronald Colman look sat with his battered Irish spud face no better than the Tony haircut and mohair suit did.

It’s often difficult to imagine how some people can resort to the most extreme forms of brutality; to equate the inner violence with the outer appearance. That wasn’t the case with Hammer Murphy. He gave you the feeling that he was perpetually on the verge of smashing his fist into someone or something. There was an intense density to his build, almost as if fury was an energy that bound the atoms of his body tighter together.

I considered making a witticism about the new moustache, but decided I would rather survive the encounter.

‘Hello, Mr Murphy. You wanted to see me?’

Murphy looked at me with hate in his eyes. I knew not to take it personally. Hate was always there.

‘I heard you wanted to talk to me,’ he said. His thick Glasgow accent was still tinged with the Galway his parents had left. ‘But something’s come up. Something I need you to explain to me.’

‘If I can.’

‘You’re looking into Tam McGahern’s death. You’ve been throwing your weight around a bit, I hear.’

‘No more than I have had to.’

Murphy stood up. ‘Follow me.’

We went out into the yard and across to another of the Nissen huts. I noticed that I picked up my two-Mick escort again on the way. One of the heavies undid the padlock and we entered. This hut was used for storing engine parts and other smaller items salvaged from the scrap-yard. There was something bigger on the floor of the hut, wrapped in a stained oily blanket. The package was about the size of a human body. I felt my pulse pick up the pace. Whatever was wrapped up in that blanket, I didn’t want to see it. Everyone knew that Hammer Murphy was a life-taker, but no one, least of all me, wanted to be an indictable witness to the fact. That could cut short a promising career.

‘Listen, Mr Murphy…’

‘Shut the fuck up and look,’ said Murphy. One of the goons closed the door behind us. I shut the fuck up and looked. The other goon peeled back the blanket from the body’s face.

‘Fuck,’ I muttered.

‘You do this?’ Murphy asked.

‘Me? Fuck no. I thought you…’

Murphy looked at me blankly for a moment. ‘If we had done this and you was looking at it you would be lying next to him.’ I spent a moment considering my promising career while I looked down at the mortal remains of Tam McGahern’s erstwhile faithful retainer, Bobby. Someone had adjusted his DA hairstyle with a heavy object. His head was caved in on one side and a lot of what should have been inside was now outside his skull. I tried to dismiss the image of a five-pound barrel-head lead mallet from my mind. Hammer Murphy had no reason to lie to me.

‘Then who?’ I asked.

‘Well, you gave him a hiding. And one of his muckers two hidings.’

‘We had a disagreement. We fell out over who should succeed Mr Churchill. He said Rab Butler and I’m a Tony Eden man.’ The gag didn’t take so I moved quickly on. ‘Bobby and his chums didn’t tell me everything I needed to know about McGahern. Added to which they had a little party planned for me. I spoiled their surprise. Anyway, I also gave Bobby here a couple of quid. He was pathetic, in a way. A wanker playing at big shot.’

‘Could it have been that cunt Sneddon?’ Murphy said it as if it was a double-barrelled name. The Wilmington-Smythes and the Cunt-Sneddons.

‘No. Sneddon doesn’t even know about Bobby. If I had wanted Sneddon to get involved he would have sent Twinkletoes McBride to ease the flow of information. But that would have been about the extent of it. How did you come into possession of the body?’

‘Sneddon, Cohen and me are splitting up McGahern’s bars between us. Like always I got shafted. Sneddon got the Arabian Bar, the kyke got the Imperial and I get left with the fuckin’ Highlander.’

‘Good little earner, the Highlander. From what I saw,’ I said conversationally, as if we were discussing the comparative merits of models of car and there wasn’t the stink of stale blood and spilt brain matter from the Teddy Boy corpse on the floor.

‘Anyway,’ continued Murphy. ‘This piece of shite was lying upstairs from the bar.’

‘In the same flat that McGahern was killed in?’