Craig Russell - Lennox

‘As I’ve said before, you lead an interesting and complicated life, Lennox.’ Ferguson eyed me with the same suspicion as he had his spaghetti when it had arrived. ‘I checked out the number of that truck you gave me.’

‘And?’

‘And it’s nothing to do with the McGahern case.’

That’s what you think, I thought. Hell of a coincidence that a truck full of heavies is parked behind me after I’ve been lured out by a call promising information on Tam McGahern.

‘So who does the truck belong to?’

‘You should think about making a formal complaint about this. There’s clearly something rotten going on-’

‘Jock…’ I said impatiently.

‘The registered owner of the Bedford is CCI.’ Ferguson slid the name and address across the Formica table top. ‘Clyde Consolidated Importing.’

‘John Andrews’s company?’

‘The same. Obviously he’s not as straight and clean as you thought. You’ve stirred something up there.’

So there it was. I tried to conceal the jolt that ran through me. Just when I thought I was going to get clear of the McGahern case. The call I got to draw me to Central Station had been specifically about Tam McGahern; then, when it turned into a no-show, I got jumped by goons from a van registered to John Andrews’s company. Whatever Lillian Andrews was into — and I knew it was Lillian Andrews and not John Andrews — had something to do with Tam or Frankie McGahern. I was convinced that I had been right about John Andrews all along. Lillian was pulling his strings.

‘You okay?’ Ferguson frowned at me. His chin was tomato-striped where his spaghetti had whipped it. ‘You looked a little taken aback.’

‘How’s the spaghetti?’ I nodded towards his chin and he wiped it clean.

‘Really good. Never had it before. Never been in an Italian restaurant before, for that matter. You surprised?’

‘The cultural poverty of Glaswegians never fails to surprise me.’

‘Not that, you clot. Are you surprised that it was one of John Andrews’s company vans?’

I lit a cigarette, leaned back and smiled. ‘Nothing surprises me these days.’

*

I had intended to ’phone John Andrews, but thought better of it. Why should he take my call now? Added to which, for all I knew Lillian and her cronies might now be monitoring all his calls, even in the office. I would have to think of a way of getting Andrews on his own. Maybe intercept him on his way into work. I’d have to think it through. I had left Jock Ferguson with not only a newfound appreciation of Italian cuisine but also a growing curiosity about Andrews, CCI and whatever the hell I’d got myself involved with. It would be best to keep a low profile around Jock for a while.

The main thing to come out of my lunch with Ferguson was that I wasn’t finished with the McGahern mess. I wanted to forget all about it, but now that I knew the Andrews business was mixed up in it I was sure that there were those who wouldn’t let me forget. I spent the afternoon in more stubborn fruitlessness trying to decode the notebook I had taken from Tam’s Milngavie retreat. I moved on to studying the photograph I had found. Gideon. Why had a Glaswegian gangster like McGahern written the name of a biblical judge on the back of a snap of wartime chums? Given the infinity of sand in the background, the blazing sun and the desert fatigues, the photograph had clearly not been taken on Mallaig beach. This was the Middle East. And Fred MacMurray and his chums from the night before had been speaking a foreign language that hadn’t sounded European to me.

*

There was something about the whole set up that was making me twitchy. Twitchy was fast becoming paranoid and I was sure that someone followed me back to my digs after I left the office around three forty-five. Glasgow didn’t have a lot of cars for a city its size and I should have been able to recognize any tail I had picked up, but the lack of a recurring grille in my rear-view mirror didn’t do much to ease the feeling in my gut.

I ate sandwiches and used up the last of my precious supply of good coffee to make a pot. I ate lying on my bed reading, the Overseas Service mumbling in the background as I tried to force myself to relax. Every now and then, however, I felt the need to twitch the net curtain and check there was no movie heavy leaning on a lamp-post outside smoking. It was about eight thirty when Mrs White called me down to the telephone at the bottom of the hallway we shared and wordlessly handed me the receiver.

‘Lennox. Is that you, Lennox?’ I recognized the voice on the other end of the line instantly.

‘Is everything all right, Mr Andrews?’

John Andrews gave a bitter laugh. ‘I’m a dead man, Lennox. I hope you remember this call for the rest of your life. A conversation with a dead man. Just talking to you means they’ll kill me.’

‘Who’ll kill you, Mr Andrews? Lillian? If you’re in some kind of danger you should ’phone the police. Or I can speak to a detective I know, Jock Ferguson at Central Division…’ I made the offer even though it would mean me having to explain to Jock Ferguson that there was a connection with Tam McGahern and that I’d been sticking my nose exactly where I’d been told not to.

‘No. No police. Say nothing to the police.’ He was getting agitated.

‘Okay, okay. No police. Who’s going to kill you, Mr Andrews?’

‘They set me up. They had it all planned from the beginning, from the first day I met Lillian…’ John Andrews sounded as if he’d been drinking and I heard noises in the background that suggested he wasn’t ’phoning from home. A pub, maybe. It made me nervous: he was not an impulsive man and certainly not a courageous man, and I had the sense that the nerve it had taken to ’phone me had come distilled.

‘Set you up for what?’

‘My business. They need my business to make it all work. Not that I know it all, but I’ve been able to put enough together. And that’s another reason for them to kill me. Lillian’s been making me forge shipments. Change the details. But that’s not why I ’phoned. They set me up and I walked straight into their trap. But so did you. That’s why I’m ’phoning you, Lennox. Like I said, I’m dead already, but you could still get out of it all.’

‘You’re not making sense. Set up for what? And how did they set me up?’

‘I’m sorry…’ he said and I knew that he meant it. ‘Through me. They set you up through me. When Lillian went missing… when she was supposed to go missing… they told me to contact you. They wanted you involved.’

I thought about what Andrews was saying. It didn’t seem to make any sense but what chilled my gut was that somewhere, deep at the back of my mind, it did.

‘Where are you?’ I asked. ‘I’ll come and get you.’

‘No… no, it’s not safe. Nowhere’s safe.’ There was a pause and I listened to the background sounds of a bar. ‘Help me, Lennox. You’ve got to help me.’

I thought for a moment. I stared at the brownish floral wallpaper on the wall opposite and felt the draft from the gap beneath the front door. ‘Listen, Andrews, do you have your car handy?’

‘It’s outside.’

‘I want you to go right now and get in it. Are you sober enough to drive?’

‘Think so.’

‘Then I want you to get into your car and drive out of the city. North. Take the Aberfoyle road. Don’t take Maryhill Road and go through Bearsden and Drymen. I don’t want you to go anywhere near your house or your office. Don’t stop to pick anything up; don’t go anywhere else; don’t stop anywhere else. Are you listening?’

‘I’ve got it. I won’t.’ I could tell he was taking strength from my sense of purpose.