Craig Russell - Lennox

‘And it was this foreigner who ran the operation?’

‘Dunno. Maybes. Or maybes it was Sally. She was always bossing. But this foreign tart was important somehow. Listen, I really don’t know anythin’. Like I says, Margot thought I’d fit in. Sally says no. So after that I hears nothin’ more about it until Margot’s out on her arse and Arthur gives her a hidin’.’

‘Did anyone see him give her a hiding?’

‘Naw. Well, aye… one of the boys on the door went with him. But waited in the car. Arthur went in with a barber’s strop. It was a few weeks after that that I heard she was dead. The car crash.’

I smoked a little for a moment. I was getting a picture. But it was a made-up scene. And I was pretty convinced it had been painted by Parks, Lillian and McGahern. But I was still looking from the wrong angle.

‘Do you have any idea who would have wanted to do that to Parks? Did anything happen in the days before he was killed?’

‘Naw. Business as usual. Nothin’ special I can remember.’

‘I got the feeling you were one of Parks’s star turns, Lena. After all, he offered me a free ticket on you. Did he do that with other special guests?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Anybody you can remember over the last few weeks?’

‘Naw. Nob’dy particular.’ She paused and frowned. ‘Wait, there was one guy. Fat ugly bastard. I got the feeling he was important. Arthur told me to pull all the stops out. You know what I mean?’

‘I can imagine. Can you remember his name?’

Lena laughed a drayman’s laugh. ‘You fuckin’ kiddin’? Nobody leaves their name and address. He was a punter looking for a shag, no’ a pen-pal. There was one thing about him though.’

‘What?’

‘He was foreign. His accent was like a German or something.’

‘Could he have been Dutch?’

‘I wouldn’t know. Dutch… where they from?’

‘Holland,’ I said. ‘The one with the windmills.’ Lena didn’t look enlightened. I got up and put my hat on.

‘You sure you’re no’ goin’ to tell Sneddon on me? I mean about my punter.’

‘Like I said… not my business.’ I made for the door.

Lena slipped her gown off. ‘You deserve a thank you,’ she said. ‘Hows about a wee free fuck?’

I looked at her body, naked except for the nurse’s hat, shrunken apron, suspenders and stockings. She sure was put together the right way. But, despite the alluring charm of her invitation, I didn’t fancy the idea of having to wash my dick with peroxide afterwards. And my ears, if she had talked.

‘No thanks,’ I said and left.

When I put my mind to it, I clean up pretty well. I had a role to play and I got up early the next morning, bathed, shaved and put on my best business blue. I dressed it up with a pale blue, barrel-cuffed silk shirt, a knitted silk tie in the same blue as the suit, placed a crisp white linen handkerchief in my breast pocket and set it all off with a tiepin and cufflinks in solid gold. I was also a little liberal with my most expensive cologne, which I’d bought from ’Pherson’s. I had an expensive gabardine trenchcoat that seldom saw the light and I draped it over my arm on the way out. Mrs White came out of her door just as I reached the bottom of the stairs and we exchanged our usual perfunctory morning greetings.

I smiled as I walked across to the car: Mrs White, despite herself, had cast an approving eye over me. I drove to the office and picked up a few business cards from my drawer. The business cards, however, did not have my name on them. Or my business.

Heading into the city centre, I parked outside the offices of Mason and Brodie in St Vincent Street. The brass plaque told me they were solicitors and estate agents and that they had premises in Ayr as well as Glasgow. Having a place in Ayr meant you had a presence in the nineteenth century.

Everything about Mason and Brodie’s offices spoke of Scottish Establishment: the solid oak panelling and sturdy desks, the aged document chests and the smell of pipe tobacco and beeswax that hung in the air, as if preserving the atmosphere of the past. The only thing that didn’t fit was the secretary who sat behind the desk nearest the door. She was about twenty and dark-haired with pretty blue eyes. She smiled as I entered and I asked if I could see Mr Brodie, whom I believed was handling the sale of a couple of properties I was interested in acquiring.

She led me into a panelled meeting room and I tried to resist looking at her ass. Resistance turned out to be futile. She offered me tea, which I declined, and asked me to wait for a few minutes while she found out if Mr Brodie was free.

A few minutes passed before a burly man in a business suit appeared at the door.

‘Mr Scobie?’ he boomed at me. ‘I’m Fraser Brodie.’ I could tell he was from Ayrshire from his eighteenth-century accent and the fact that he bellowed his hello as he extended his beefy hand. Ayrshire people are by nature one-hundred-decibel speakers: it comes from centuries of shouting across fields or up mineshafts at each other. He had thick, curling dark hair and woolly eyebrows and had the ruddy complexion of a lusty shepherd. I somehow imagined him striding purposefully across the Ayrshire countryside while the more virtuous ewes in his flock ran for cover.

‘I believe you are interested in a couple of the properties we have available for sale through our estate agency department.’

‘I am indeed,’ I said, minimizing my Canadian accent and handing him one of the dummy business cards that supported the fiction of Walter Scobie, of Scobie, Black and MacGregor, Accountants, Edinburgh. ‘But I have to point out that the purchase is not for myself, but for one of my clients who is moving his business to the West. I cannot say too much at the moment, but he may have a need for industrial premises in the Glasgow area, also.’

‘I see,’ Brodie smiled broadly. ‘And which of the properties are you interested in?’

‘A house you have in Bearsden. Ardbruach House, I believe is the name of it.’

‘Oh yes. Yes, of course. Give me a moment…’ He sorted through some files and handed me a typed-out sheet with a photograph attached. It was the Andrews place, all right. ‘Actually…’ he said thoughtfully, but loudly, ‘it is something of a coincidence that your client should be interested in acquiring commercial premises as well; the vendor of Ardbruach House is also about to place a substantial commercial estate up for sale. Offices in the city and dockside warehousing. Would that be the kind of thing your client would be looking for? Or perhaps it would be more manufacturing… if so we have-’

I held my hand up. ‘I’m afraid I’m not currently at liberty to say, Mr Brodie. Suffice it to say that my client’s is a name you would recognize…’

Brodie beamed, imagining I represented some Edinburgh financial magnate. He wouldn’t have if he had known who my client really was. Even here, deep within the comfortable yet unyielding folds of the Scottish Establishment, the name Willie Sneddon would have had the resonance to have him permanently stain some pinstripe. ‘I quite understand,’ he said knowingly. And loudly.

I read through the particulars of the house.

‘Tell me, Mr Brodie,’ I said. ‘As you can imagine I am au fait with property prices across the Central Belt, not just in Edinburgh. It strikes me that Ardbruach House is being offered at a very reasonable price. In fact, this “offers over” figure seems to me considerably underestimated… at least a thousand below what I would expect. We will be doing a thorough survey of the property, so it does no one any service not to disclose any potential problems…’ My mouth was beginning to ache from talking multisyllabic shite.