Craig Russell - Lennox

‘Which couldn’t be more beside the fucking point. You know he was murdered. I know he was murdered. What I want to know is why and by whom. But Lillian Andrews has fucked off. Abroad, I believe, and I don’t have enough of a case to persuade McNab she’s worth pursuing. So let’s start with exactly what you have heard about Parks’s killing and everything you know about Lillian Andrews.’

‘Okay,’ I said, as if he’d wrested it out of me. ‘Sneddon asked me to sniff about. But it’s a non-starter. This is like the McGahern killing — everybody knows it wasn’t any of the Three Kings. From what we’ve heard, there was nothing nicked from the flat?’

‘Nothing. But that’s meaningless. If you’d seen the state of Parks you’d understand that they weren’t interested in stealing from him. It’s what he knew they wanted. Now that makes me really curious. I don’t, for a minute, believe that Sneddon doesn’t know what it’s all about.’

‘He doesn’t. Trust me, Jock,’ I said without irony. ‘This looks more and more like Parks had his own little deal going on somewhere and it all came unstuck.’

‘So did his jaw,’ said Ferguson. I kept my expression as if I didn’t know what he meant.

‘As for Lillian Andrews,’ I said with a shrug, ‘I have absolutely no idea where she has gone or what she’s doing. But I feel totally outmanoeuvred. The truth is I’m no further forward than when we last spoke.’

Ferguson stayed for another round, then left. After he left I ordered a double and downed it in one. I felt relieved. Big time. But something nagged at me: why did I feel that I hadn’t been exactly pressed as hard as Ferguson could have pressed me?

I left the Horsehead shortly after Ferguson and went looking for a prostitute. Purely in pursuit of my investigation.

Lena, the girl whom Parks had offered me weeks before, was not the kind of girl to work the streets. Too pretty and too ‘classy’. Until she opened her mouth to speak, apparently. She had a bad case, Sneddon had told me, of ‘Gorbals Gob’. Officially, Lena was taking a sabbatical until things cooled down: she was still under Sneddon’s ‘protection’, whether Parks was around or not. But a week is a long time without business and Sneddon suspected that Lena and a few of the other girls were entertaining some of their established clients in their own places.

The address Sneddon had given me for Lena was over a pub in Partick. I parked the Atlantic across the street from the bar. It sat in a gloomy block of tenements with sooty windows, but had a neon-tube cocktail glass, tilted at a cheery angle, blinking wanly through the Glasgow rain. I could be in Manhattan, I thought.

I crossed the road and walked up the ‘close’ as the Scots called the narrow alleys between buildings. It stank of urine and reminded me of the set up at the Highlander Bar owned by the McGaherns. I climbed the back stairs to the door of the flat above. The red curtains drawn over the grimy glass of the only window made it glow like a malevolent ember. I didn’t knock but turned the handle. It was unlocked and I stepped into a small, clean kitchen. There was a toilet off and I reckoned the door ahead of me led into the only other room in the flat. I swung the door open and walked in on Lena and a fat middle-aged businessman reclining together on her sofa. Lena was dressed as a nurse. Or more accurately half-dressed as a nurse. I could have been wrong, but from what I could see I didn’t think she had any medical training, unless mouth-to-dick resuscitation was a legitimate form of life-saving.

‘Honey!’ I uttered in outrage. ‘You told me you got that extra money from taking in sewing!’

They both scrabbled to their feet and fat boy panicked. He pulled his trousers up, grabbed his jacket and rushed past me and out of the flat, giving me as wide a berth as he could as he passed.

Lena wasn’t giving me her Rita Hayworth look this time.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ she screamed. Her voice was thin and scratchy. Like Sneddon had warned, despite her classy looks, Lena had the elocution of a true Gorbals Gal. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I know you… you was round at the Circus. You was the guy Arthur was speaking to.’

‘That’s me,’ I said and sat down in the armchair opposite. Lena grabbed a gown and covered her best assets.

‘Get the fuck out. Who the fuck do you think you are barging in here?’

‘I’m glad you remember me, Lena,’ I smiled. ‘That night you saw me talking to Parks, I was working for Mr Sneddon. I’m here tonight because I’m working for Mr Sneddon.’

Her face changed. Real fear.

‘Listen… that… what you saw… I’m not trying to take business away from Mr Sneddon. It’s just I’ve got to eat…’

‘I noticed that when I came in,’ I said.

‘Look, I really don’t want you to tell Mr Sneddon. I’ll do anything…’ Lena took a step closer and opened her gown, pulling it clear of her breasts. I was being invited to play doctors and nurses.

‘Put your tools back in their box, Lena,’ I said. ‘I’m here on business. Mine, not yours. Sit down.’

She covered herself up and sat down. I handed her the photograph of Lillian Andrews.

‘Do you know her?’

‘Oh, aye. I know that wee fucking whore all right. That’s Sally Blane.’

‘Did Parks know her?’

‘I don’t think so, but he knew her sister. She used to work for him for a while.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said, lighting up. I didn’t offer Lena a cigarette: the Royal College of Nursing would have disapproved. ‘Sally Blane’s sister is Margot Taylor.’

‘Aye,’ said Lena. ‘But Arthur didn’t know Sally. Margot dyed her hair blonde. Other than that they looked quite like each other. I only met Sally through Margot. Margot wanted me to work with them. They had their own wee sideline going. But I got the idea Sally thought I was too fucking common for what they was planning.’

‘Heaven forfend,’ I said and drew on my cigarette.

‘Either that or she thought I was too old,’ continued Lena, undeterred. ‘Sally was a stuck-up wee bitch. Anyways, I wasn’t interested. Mr Sneddon wouldn’t have liked it. Arthur arranged for Margot to get a hiding because of it.’

I examined Lena. She was probably thirty. Again, she had that vaguely and disconcertingly aristocratic look: not quite beauty, but very attractive. She would have fitted in with a top-end call-girl operation. Until she opened her mouth.

‘Where was Sally working?’

‘Edinburgh. Some posh fuckhouse. Why d’you want to know?’

‘Have you ever heard the name Lillian Andrews? Specifically, do you remember Sally Blane ever calling herself that?’

‘Naw. I only met her that time. Once was fucking enough. You sure you’re not goin’ to tell Sneddon about me having punters here?’

‘That’s not what I’m interested in. Did you ever see Arthur Parks talk to either of the McGahern twins?’

‘No’ fuckin’ likely. Sneddon would have cut Arthur’s balls off if he’d had anything to do with the McGaherns.’

‘This operation Sally and Margot were involved in… did they tell you much about it?’

‘Naw, just that they was going to make three times what we made at the Circus. But Sally shut Margot up. I got the idea that she thought Margot had told me too much. Especially when it was fucking obvious that Sally didn’t want me to be part of it.’

‘I was told that it was run by a woman called Molly. Do you know if Sally or Margot ever called themselves that?’

‘That was what Sally called Margot… like it was short or something for Margot. Aye, I heard her call her Molly. But there’s no fucking way Margot was the boss.’ Lena looked thoughtful for a moment. Again, the illusion of refinement was captured, then lost again when she spoke. ‘There was something that they said to each other… about someone else involved. Shite, I can’t remember what they said, but I know it was something about a foreigner… another chippy. You know, a whore.’