Craig Russell - Lennox

‘What do you want, Lennox?’

‘We have to talk, Mr Andrews.’

‘Our business is concluded. We discussed that already. My wife is back safe and sound.’

I held up the envelope. ‘We need to discuss what I have here, Mr Andrews. I’m afraid it’s important. May I come in?’

Andrews looked undecided for a moment, then stood to one side. I tried not to show that I knew my way into the Contemporary-furnished lounge. Andrews remained standing and didn’t invite me to sit. I handed him the envelope with the photographs. After planning this moment for so long, I suddenly found that I wasn’t sure what to say. I let him look at the pictures. Halfway through he didn’t so much sit down as drop all the way onto the low-slung sofa. He kept looking. When he was finished he looked up at me. There was pain in his eyes. Lots of pain, but no surprise. Or disappointment.

‘Are you satisfied now, Mr Lennox?’ he said, the hate dull, heavy and blunt in his voice. ‘Are you happy that I’m now humiliated before you?’

‘No, Mr Andrews. This gives me absolutely no pleasure. I could have left things as they were-’

‘Then why the hell didn’t you?’ His eyes were now glossy. ‘Why didn’t you leave things alone when I asked you to?’

‘Because, Mr Andrews, I thought you were a man in trouble. And I think it even more now. I can imagine these pictures are upsetting for you to see, but I also know they were no surprise to you. Are you in trouble, Mr Andrews? Are you being blackmailed or something?’

He laughed a bitter laugh. ‘I loved my wife, you know. I still love her. Lillian is so beautiful. So beautiful. I couldn’t believe that I could be so lucky at this time of life. My first wife died, you see.’

‘I’m sorry. So even then you thought it too good to be true?’

Another bitter laugh. ‘Thanks for that, Lennox. Thanks for pointing out how obvious it should have been.’

‘Listen, I know you’re in trouble. I want to help if I can.’

‘I see. Touting for more business…’

‘I’m not interested in the money. You’ve paid me more than enough already. I just want to help.’

‘Then leave me alone. Just piss off and leave me alone. I’m in trouble all right. I’ve married a gold-digger and a slut and she’s going to take me for everything I’ve got. That’s all the trouble I’m in. And believe me that’s enough. Isn’t that enough for you, Mr Lennox?’

I picked up my hat. ‘If you say so. But I still think there’s more to this. If you need my help, ’phone me at my office or on this number.’ I wrote down the number of my digs. ‘One more thing… you maybe aren’t aware of this, but Lillian’s real name is Sally. Sally Blane. I thought you ought to know. If that still is her legal name and she married you under a false identity, then the marriage is void. You could get out.’

He continued to glare at me with a dull hatred, but took the number anyway.

I stopped off at the Horsehead Bar for a couple. I needed them. I didn’t like Andrews. I didn’t like his fleshy, ugly face, his affected manner or the way he talked. But once more, somewhere deep inside, I felt pity for another human being in distress. Again it surprised me. I thought that capacity had died in the war along with the kid from the Kennebecasis.

A couple became three or four and I started to think about the little nurse again. And then about Fiona White, my landlady. About her Kate Hepburn eyes. About kissing her to loosen the lips that were always drawn too tight. About how easy it would be for one bundle of damaged goods to get mixed up with another.

About how shit everything and everyone was.

Big Bob asked me if I wanted another but I said no. I was getting into that ugly tinder mood that needs just one drink too many to catch light and then you want to smash a face, any face, just to make someone else feel worse than you do. There was more Scots blood in me than I liked to admit.

I went out into the cold and clammy Glasgow night. I left the car outside the Horsehead and walked all the way back to my flat. It was a long walk and the night air slowly cooled my mood. I stood outside the house. The curtains of Fiona White’s downstairs flat were drawn but edged with warm light. The two girls would be asleep in the room to the back, probably dreaming of a father whom they now only really remembered from photographs.

I opened the door quietly and moved quickly up the stairs once I’d closed it behind me. Tonight was not the night to bump into Mrs White. Tonight there was a danger that our mutual need for comfort would be too great.

Or perhaps I was deluding myself.

I met Jock Ferguson at lunchtime in the Horsehead Bar. I had arranged it with him earlier by ’phone and given him a rough idea what it was I was looking to find out. But with coppers there is always a price. They are inquisitive by nature. Nosy.

‘Why do you need this information?’ Ferguson asked. ‘Is this something we should be interested in?’

‘It’s a case I’m working. Something stinks with it. First of all this guy asks me to find his missing wife, then he tries to pay me off, then his wife flashes her tits at me while her buddy cracks my head open.’

‘You lead a colourful life, Lennox. Where does this company come in?’

‘He owns it. Or runs it. He was none too specific about exactly what it was that they did.’

‘Well, I checked it out all right. If your guy is John Andrews, then he owns the company. CCI stands for Clyde Consolidated Importing. The consolidated comes from the fact that Andrews bought a number of smaller companies and formed one big one from it. They have warehouses down on the Clyde and a big office in Blythswood Square.’

‘What do they export?’

‘Plant, machine parts, that kind of thing. All over. North America, Middle East, Far East… You say you had a run-in with the wife?’

‘That’s one way of putting it. The stitches come out tomorrow.’

‘Were they worth it?’ Ferguson asked.

‘Were what worth it?’

‘The tits.’ Ferguson came the closest he ever did to a smile.

‘I’ve been able to find out that she’s an ex-whore,’ I said, ignoring his question. ‘Maybe still is. Or at least she used to act in blue movies. You know, the kind you guys like to watch at police smokers.’

He gave me a look. ‘Is he crooked?’

‘No. That’s the thing. Seems a straight Glasgow businessman, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. He obviously didn’t know about his wife’s past.’

‘Until you put him right.’

‘Actually, I’m maybe wrong to say that he didn’t know. When I showed him the pictures-’

‘Pictures? You showed him photographs of his wife fucking? You’re quite a piece of work.’

‘Anyway…’ I tried to live with Ferguson’s disappointment. ‘When I showed him the pictures he wasn’t really shocked. More sad. Resigned.’

‘A set up?’

‘Dunno.’ I took a mouthful of pie with more grease than a tractor’s axle. Glasgow was not one of the world’s culinary capitals. ‘That’s the feeling I get. Doesn’t fit. His wife used to go by another name. However, which is her real and which is her professional name I don’t know. But it doesn’t fit with blackmail either.’

Ferguson shrugged. ‘Well, let me know if you think there’s something going on that we should know about.’

We talked about other things until we finished our pies and pints. In fact, Ferguson was making small talk. Or as close to small talk as he could manage. The one thing he was at pains not to discuss with me was the McGahern killing. The one thing that should have cropped up, even if only to repeat his earlier warning.