Craig Russell - The Deep Dark Sleep

‘Paul who?’

‘You know who … Paul Downey.’

‘What do you want him for?’

‘Just to talk. I know you know where he is, Frank. Where can I find him?’

Frank leaned in closer and drew his lips back from his teeth. ‘Why don’t you just leave him alone? Didn’t he promise that he’d pay the money back?’

Interesting.

‘Maybe we can arrange easy terms,’ I said. ‘I just want to talk to him, that’s all.’

‘Anything you’ve got to say you can say through me. You’ll get your money. And soon. I thought your boss accepted that.’

‘And who, exactly, is my boss?’

Frank looked puzzled for a moment, then angry when he realized I wasn’t who he thought I was.

‘Okay, I’ll level with you, Frank,’ I said. He may have been a cream puff, but he had lots of filling and there was no need for things to turn nasty. ‘I don’t know what money you’re talking about, but I guess from what you’ve said that young Paul owes the wrong kind of people money. That’s not my concern. I’m on the supply side, not the demand. I’ve been hired to buy back certain photographs from Paul. I take it you know what I’m referring to?’

Frank shrugged his massive shoulders.

‘Listen, Frank, if you know where Paul is, tell him to ’phone me.’ I handed him a card with my office number on it. ‘And tell him that he’ll get his money, but we play this my way, not his. We’re not prepared to mail that kind of cash into a Wellington Street PO box on the strength of good faith. And it would be good if you could point out to him that he doesn’t get a single penny unless I’m totally convinced I’ve got everything: all the copies and all the negatives.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Frank, but he took the card anyway.

Frank left the Govanhill Baths about half past ten. He stood outside on Calder Street for a good five minutes, checking the road in both directions, making sure I wasn’t waiting to follow him — which I was — before heading off down the street to his tram stop. He was wearing a cheap but flashy belted raincoat and had pulled his hat down over his eyes, but there was no mistaking the shoulder to waist taper of a serious bodybuilder.

Fortunately for me, the other side of Calder Street was block after block of tenements; red sandstone beneath black soot. I had found a close, as the Scots called the open-ended entrance passageway and stair of a tenement building, and concealed myself in it while watching the bathhouse exit. Frank was a smart cookie, all right, and I found myself wondering if he had more to do with Downey’s amateur photography club than just looking pretty.

He got on the tram heading away from the city centre and I walked around the corner to where I had parked my Atlantic. There was no rush: I knew where the tram was heading and I would catch up with it before its next stop. It was fortunate that I did, because Frank skipped off at the next stop and crossed the road. We were in a long arc of tenement-lined streets and I would have been conspicuous if I had stopped, so I drove on until I could do a u-turn out of sight. As I sat parked there, another green and orange Glasgow Corporation tram passed by, this time travelling towards the city centre. I waited long enough so that I came around the corner just in time to see Frank, in the distance, board the tram.

He was a very smart cookie.

I kept my distance, following the tram until Frank got off at Plantation, and started walking into Kinning Park. I dumped the car when it became the only vehicle on the streets and my walking pace progress, even in the light fog, would start to draw attention. I followed Frank on foot, my footfall silent because I was wearing my soft-soled suede numbers, and congratulated myself on following my alleyway chum’s footwear tips.

Frank led me into a row of three-storey tenements and turned into one of the closes. I sprinted to catch up, to see which flat he went into, and reached the mouth of the close just in time to hear the downstairs flat slam shut. I doubted if Frank and Downey lived together openly — Glasgow’s attitude toward that kind of thing made the Spanish Inquisition look tolerant — but I had put my money on Frank having wanted to tell his bestest ever friend all about my visit to the baths. I decided to give them some hello-honey-I’m-home time before I went knocking on the door.

I had noticed a call box at the corner of the street, so I headed back to it and called the lawyer, Fraser, on the out-of-hours number he had given me. I told him where I was and what I was doing.

‘And you’re outside now?’ he asked. ‘How sure are you that Downey is in the tenement?’

‘I’m not sure at all, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet. What I need to know from you now is how you want me to handle this. If I go in there and Downey is there, and if the photographs and negatives are in there too, do you want me to promise the money and set up an exchange? Or do you want me to use direct negotiations to secure the negatives right now?’

‘I don’t approve of blackmail, Mr Lennox, no matter how it is couched. And I certainly disapprove most vehemently of anyone profiting from blackmail. I would like Mr Downey, as I mentioned, to be left in no doubt how seriously we take this matter. So I suggest you deal with this using your own, special, initiative.’

‘Understood, Mr Fraser,’ I said and hung up. As I stepped out of the kiosk, I slipped my hand into my raincoat pocket, just to check I had my own, special, initiative with me.

I decided to quell any naughtiness pretty quickly, should Frank get wound up, so by the time I knocked on the tenement flat door, I had already threaded my wrist through the leather loop of my sap.

I instantly recognized the boyish face at the door from the photograph Fraser had shown me. He was small and light framed and gazed at me apprehensively with his soft eyes. No trouble there.

‘Hello, Paul,’ I said cheerfully as I pushed past him and into the flat and checked the hall for Frank. ‘How’s the camera club?’

‘Frank!’ he shouted anxiously along the hall and his muscly boyfriend appeared through a doorway into the passageway and bounded towards me. He was a big boy, all right, so I swung my sap and caught him a textbook blow across the temple.

Frank’s muscle bounced like rubber, first against one wall in the narrow hall, then the other, before he dropped.

‘Say goodnight to the folks, Gracie,’ I said as he hit the floor.

Paul started to scream and I slapped him hard to shut him up. I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

‘It’s playtime, Paul,’ I said between clenched teeth. I was fired up. I had to be fired up because I hated what I was doing: Paul was no fighter and I saw nothing but raw terror in his eyes. Despite everything that I might have become, I had no appetite for picking on the weak. But this was business.

‘Now,’ I said slowly and menacingly. ‘I’m going to let go your throat, but you make nice and quiet, like you’re in a library, got it?’

He nodded furiously. Desperately.

‘Because if you don’t, you’re going to wake up in the fractures ward. Are we simpatico ?’

He gave a strangled yes and I let him go. Frank was making a rattling snoring sound when he breathed, so I bent down and checked him out. I put him in the position we’d been taught in the army and the snoring stopped. While I was down there, I retrieved my business card from his trouser pocket and tried not to think that he would probably have enjoyed me searching for it if he had been conscious.

‘Is he dead?’ Downey asked, his voice high and quivering. Nice line of work, Lennox, I thought.