Craig Russell - Lennox

Mr Morrison looked at me blankly. He had described his sociopathic lack of emotion. It obviously extended to any sense of humour. ‘No, no

… I don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘I have a proposition for you, like I said. I wanted you to know how to contact me if you needed. But I’ll come back to that.’

‘Oh good,’ I said, again with undetected irony.

‘The main reason I wanted to talk to you is because I have some information which I think you’ll find interesting. About a week ago I had a project to undertake for Mr Sneddon. When I was taking the brief he told me that you were looking into the Tam McGahern killing for him. Trying to find out who’s behind it. It wasn’t me, by the way.’

‘If you brought me up here to tell me that you could have spared me the hike. I knew that already.’

‘That’s not what I have to tell you. About two and a half weeks ago there was a number left in one of my mail collection points. It wasn’t one that I recognized. I work for an established clientele and don’t tout for business. As I said to you on the train, Mr Lennox, I am a hunter rather than a stalker, but I am more than capable of the odd bit of detection. I have contacts… people upon whom I can call for paid favours. None of whom, by the way, have any idea what it is I do for a living, although they probably have guessed it’s less than legal. Anyway, I had the number checked out by one of these contacts — one who works for the GPO. He told me the number belonged to a public call box in Glasgow. In Renfield Street. Whoever had left the message was being very careful to avoid being traced. Obviously, because it was a call box, they had left a specific time for me to call.’

‘Did you?’

‘No. Of course not. It could have been a police trap. So instead of calling, I hung around in Renfield Street with a view of the public telephone. Right enough, five minutes before the appointed time a smallish young man went into the call box. It could have been a coincidence, of course, but when another man started to tap impatiently on the glass, the young man opened the door and grabbed the waiting man by the collar and obviously made some kind of threat. The other man scuttled off.’

‘Yeah, but you’re talking about Glasgow. That’s a normal conversation.’ I took a cigarette from my case and lit up, offering Mr Morrison one: I thought it best to keep his hands busy. As I lit the cigarette for him his round, fleshy little face glowed in the sudden light. Given all the time in the world to place him in a profession, hit-man would never have come up. That was probably why he was so successful.

‘No. This was my man. He hogged the ’phone box for half an hour. He was the person I was clearly expected to contact.’

‘Did you recognize him?’

‘No. But I recognized his type. He was an underling. Again, another distance that whoever was trying to hire me was placing between him and me. I could tell he wasn’t my potential client from the way he dressed and the way he looked frightened when he didn’t get the call he had been told to take.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Like I said, smallish, maybe a couple of inches taller than me. Cheap suit. Oily hair in what I believe is popularly called a “Duck’s Arse” style.’

‘Dirty blond?’

There was a pause and I guessed Mr Morrison was frowning in the dark. ‘You know him?’

‘Knew him. If he was who I think he was, then he’s no longer with us,’ I said, and had a nauseating thought about Scotch pies. ‘I think he may have been a gofer called Bobby. Worked for Tam and Frankie McGahern.’

The sky was dark-blue and velvet behind the looming black form of Kirk o’ Shotts. Morrison’s face and the mirrors of his spectacles were again briefly illuminated as he drew on his cigarette. ‘That would fit. I followed him from Renfield Street all the way back to a spit-and-sawdust place in Maryhill.’

‘The Highlander?’

‘Yes. I told Mr Sneddon about this little experience and he told me that the Highlander was run by the McGaherns.’

‘Doesn’t that breach your client-contractor confidentiality?’

‘The McGaherns weren’t my clients and were never going to be. Like I said, I don’t work for just anybody. But, as you know, killing isn’t always a refined art. Glasgow is full of men who would take a life for you for twenty pounds. Or less. I’m a specialist and I cost a lot to hire. If the late Mr McGahern had wanted to use my services then it must have been something special. Out of the ordinary.’

I thought about what Morrison was saying. I also thought of John Andrews’s faked accident. Maybe that had been planned weeks before. Maybe something was planned for me.

‘Mr Sneddon wanted you to know this. He would have told you himself but I said I wanted to talk to you about another matter.’

‘This proposition of yours.’

‘Exactly. You see, Mr Lennox, we plough parallel furrows. In an odd way we are colleagues, both independent, both working for mainly the same people. The difference is you are a stalker, I am a hunter. As such we could share the kill. As you can imagine, my anonymity is paramount. I do everything I can to remain invisible and the only reason I have exposed myself to you is because I see the potential for partnership. On certain cases, that is. You see, sometimes my observation of marks, following them and establishing patterns of movement, et cetera, exposes me to the risk of discovery. But you are a natural stalker who’s at home in the shadows and an expert at tracking people down. My proposition is simple: a fifty-fifty split on any kill we work together on.’

I dropped my cigarette butt onto the ground and crushed the spray of orange sparks with my shoe. I looked at the small, dense silhouette of the bank manager killer.

‘Thanks for the offer but no. I’m not interested in that kind of work,’ I said, trying to make my tone decisive. ‘I don’t want any part of your business.’

The silhouette remained silent for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said eventually. ‘But I think you’re making a huge mistake. This is very lucrative work. And, whether you like it or not, you already play your part.’

‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘Do you remember last year, when Mr Murphy asked you to track down a young couple for him?’

‘Yes.’ I remembered the job. ‘Hammer Murphy said it was a favour for a friend whose daughter had eloped. Murphy’s friend just wanted to make sure his daughter was okay.’

‘I’m afraid the truth was a little less domestic. The young man had, in fact, been an employee of Mr Murphy and had stolen a large sum of money from him. He’d also supplied the police with embarrassing information. Your job was to find them. My job was to lose them again. Permanently.’

‘The girl too?’ I remembered her. No more than twenty-two or — three.

‘The girl too. So you see, Mr Lennox, you have stalked for me before. In any case, I’d like you to think it over. Use the tobacco tin “mailbox” if you need to contact me. Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to get the train back to Glasgow. I won’t be travelling with you as I have a housecall to make near here.’ Mr Morrison began to walk towards the black shoulder of the Kirk. He paused for a moment. ‘Oh, and I take it I don’t need to stress how important it is for you, if you’re not going to consider my business proposition, that you do your best to forget my face.’

‘No. You don’t.’ The truth was that Morrison’s face had faded from my memory with the fading light. It was that kind of face. Ideal for a killer.

I walked back down what seemed the pitch-black road towards Shotts station. As I did so I had to fight the urge to glance over my shoulder to see if the eight-foot ghost of Bertram Shotts, or the five-foot-five shadow of a sociopathic bank manager, was tracking me.