Craig Russell - The Deep Dark Sleep

Sneddon himself was dressed in expensive grey herringbone, a silk shirt and burgundy tie. I had never seen him dressed in anything that didn’t look Savile Row. Willie Sneddon had the kind of physical presence that made you wary. He was none too tall and was stocky without being heavy: all muscle and sinew in a way that always made me think he had been woven from ship rope. That, and the ugly crease of a razor scar on his right cheek, told you that this was someone to whom violence came naturally and easily.

I wondered what his classy new chums would make of the razor scar.

‘What the fuck do you want, Lennox?’ said Sneddon in greeting. I guessed Dale Carnegie’s How to win Friends and Influence People was not among the books on his desk.

‘It’s been a while,’ I said sitting down without being asked. ‘You seem to be doing very well for yourself, Mr Sneddon.’

He stared at me silently. His small-talk skills made Jock Ferguson look like a chatterbox.

‘I wondered if you could help me,’ I continued, cheerily undeterred. ‘You used to be friends with Billy Dunbar. I just wondered if you know where I might find him? He seems to have dropped out of sight.’

‘Billy Dunbar?’ Sneddon frowned at me. ‘How the fuck should I know? I haven’t heard from him in over ten years. Billy Dunbar …’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘What the fuck do you want Billy Dunbar for?’

‘A long shot. The police hauled him in and gave him a rough time back in Thirty-eight. Over the Exhibition robbery job. I just wanted to talk to him about it.’

Something flickered across Sneddon’s expression in the small pause before he spoke. Whatever it was, I didn’t have time to read it.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Does this have something to do with Gentleman Joe Strachan being found at the bottom of the Clyde?’

‘Well, yes … as a matter of fact it does.’

‘And what the fuck has that got to do with you?’

‘I’ve been hired to look into it. To make sure that was Joe Strachan they found.’

‘And why the fuck shouldn’t it have been Strachan? It makes sense, seeing as how it ties in with when he went missing.’

‘Did you know Strachan?’ I asked.

‘Naw. Knew of him, of course, he was the big bollocks back then … but I never met him. Why do you think that it’s maybe not Strachan they found?’

‘I didn’t say I thought that. I’ve just been asked to make sure. And I just wanted to talk to Billy Dunbar about it and thought you might have a more up to date address for him.’

‘Leave Billy out of it,’ said Sneddon. ‘He was a good bloke. Someone you could trust. But he went straight fucking years ago and just wanted left alone. The coppers gave him the hiding of his life and he didn’t tell them anything. I mean, they get handy with their fists a lot of the time, but this was different. What they did to Billy, and a few others, was nothing less than fucking torture. But there wasn’t nothing for him to tell.’

‘I see. So you don’t know where I could find him?’

‘How many fucking times do I have to tell you?’

I stood up. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Sneddon.’

Sneddon said nothing and remained seated. I made my way back to the door.

‘You want my opinion?’ Sneddon called across an acre of Axminster. I turned.

‘About what?’

‘About how the government could resolve the Cyprus crisis … what the fuck do you think about, for fuck’s sake? About Gentleman Joe Strachan.’

‘Okay …’ I said tentatively.

‘Whoever it was they found at the bottom of the river, it wasn’t Gentleman Joe Strachan.’

‘Why do you say that? I thought you said you didn’t know him, so what makes you think it’s not him they found?’

‘I took his place, Lennox. If Joe Strachan hadn’t disappeared it would be him sitting here, not me. He was a fucking legend in this town. And the Empire Exhibition robbery is the kind of job that every gobshite dreams of pulling off. Textbook stuff.’

‘Except the fact that a copper was blown away,’ I said, trying to imagine what textbooks Glasgow criminals read.

‘Aye … that’s where it all went tits up. Listen, Lennox, I took over all of Strachan’s operations after the war, or at least the ones we knew about. That guy was all planning. And brains. So I can put myself in his place — because I have put myself in his place, if you know what I mean. So let’s say I’m Gentleman Joe … there I am, I’ve just pulled off three of the biggest fucking robberies ever, and, like you say, the last one’s left a copper dead. Even if the bobby hadn’t been killed, the coppers are going to be after you like shite off a shirt tail. Matter of pride, you see: no copper wants his patch to go down in history for the biggest job pulled successfully.

‘So, like I say, there I am, having pulled this job, with a stack of cash that doesn’t need laundered and fuck knows what else from the security van. But I’ve done a copper so I am fucked as far as Glasgow’s concerned. I’ve got three men with me on the job. Maybes it was one of them that done the copper, maybes it was me. Anyway, I’m the only name the cops are likely to have, so I divide up the loot, taking a bigger share for myself, because I’ve got to start somewhere new. Maybes one of the others kicks up about it, so I top him, dress him up in my clobber, shove the initialled cigarette case that I’m never seen without in his pocket and dump him in the river. If he isn’t found, fine. If he is, the cops think that there’s no point to keep on looking for me.’

‘You’ve certainly thought this one through, Mr Sneddon,’ I said.

‘Aye, I have. I got my chance because Strachan dropped out. So aye, I’ve thought it through. Mainly because I’ve always had half an eye on the bastard resurfacing, but not in the way those bones did. But now …’ He held his arms wide to indicate his surroundings. ‘Now I’m putting all of that behind me. I’m a businessman now, Lennox. I’ve got kids who’ll be able to take all of this over without having to take the shite the police have tried to give me over the years. So if Gentleman Joe Strachan comes back from the grave, then it’s Murphy’s and Cohen’s lookout, not mine.’

‘You’re that sure that he’s not dead?’

Sneddon shrugged. ‘Like I said, I never met him. Didn’t know him. But what I knew about him makes me think he was too slippery a shite to end up topped by one of his own. Too slippery and too dangerous. By the way, I don’t think Billy Dunbar ever had anything to do with him either. So you’re barking up the wrong tree there as well.’

‘Well, thanks for your time, Mr Sneddon,’ I said. ‘Like I said, I just thought you might be able to point me to Dunbar.’

‘Well I can’t, so fuck off.’

I left Sneddon in his palace of commerce, wondering if he concluded meetings with the Rotary Club in the same way.

Glasgow had three main railway stations, each a gargantuan Victorian edifice: Queen Street, St Enoch’s and Central Stations were all within walking distance of each other but divided the nation’s destinations between them. If all roads led to Rome, then all railroads led to Glasgow city centre. Each of the stations was connected to its equivalent in London, binding the two most important cities in the British Empire together: Queen Street ran the service to King’s Cross, St Enoch’s to St Pancras, and Central Station ran the Euston connection. And each station had a huge, grand hotel attached to it.

My offices were directly across Gordon Street from Central Station and the dark, grandiose mass of the Central Hotel that was stone-fused into it. The Central Hotel was the kind of place where you were more likely to bump into a movie star or minor royalty than the average Glasgow punter; which was ironic, given that I was going to question a movie star about his bumping into minor royalty. The Central Hotel had had personages as stellar as Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly under its roof; not to mention Roy Rogers and Trigger. Trigger, apparently, had had a suite to himself.