Craig Russell - The Deep Dark Sleep

He frowned as he watched me ease the hammer back on the Webley and tuck it back into my waistband. I could see he was unsure what to do, so I left my hand resting on the gun butt.

‘Who are you then?’

‘A mug. A mug who was hired to clear up the truth about Joe Strachan, but I think I was maybe really hired just to muddy the waters. Now, I’m not here to kill you or take you for a spin in the trunk of my car, and I’m not a copper. So can we maybe relax a little?’

He nodded, but I left my hand on the gun. It was beginning to dawn on me that I really had struck gold.

‘This is a nice little place you’ve got here,’ I said. ‘It must have set you back a bob or two. I take it this was all bought with the money from the Empire Exhibition robbery?’

Provan wiped blood from his nose and laughed again. Bitterly. I guessed it was the only way he knew how to laugh.

‘I didn’t get a penny from that robbery,’ he said. ‘Not a penny.’

‘But you were one of the team?’

‘Who the fuck are you, anyway?’

‘Lennox. Like I said, I’m an enquiry agent. I was hired by Strachan’s kids to find out what happened to their father.’

‘Kids? Which kids?’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean, which kids?’

‘Gentleman Joe was one for the ladies. There are Strachan bastards all over the shop.’

‘These ones are legitimate. His twin daughters.’

Provan looked at me as if weighing up the truth of what I was saying. ‘Can I get off the floor?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But no more funny business. I’m no threat to you and I’d like it to be mutual.’

‘Fair enough.’ He got up. ‘You all right?’ he asked and nodded to my hand. I looked down: there was blood on the back of it. I guessed our little tussle had popped a stitch or two on the knife wound. I decided I really should think about a different line of work. Maybe Bobby McKnight could get me a job selling used cars.

‘I’ll live. Incidentally, that was a present from a commando type who had been sent to dissuade me from pursuing my enquiries. I guess that was who you were expecting to turn up.’

‘Come through to the kitchen.’ Provan led the way. ‘I think we could both do with a drink.’

On the assumption that the sun was above the yardarm somewhere on the planet, I agreed and followed. Provan took two tumblers that looked more suited for milk than whisky down from a kitchen shelf. He told me to sit at the kitchen table. The kitchen was a widower’s kitchen right enough: bachelor Spartan but with sad, faint vestiges of a past-tense femininity.

‘Blended okay?’ he asked me as he reached into a cupboard.

‘The way I feel, wood alcohol would do the trick.’ I rested my unbloodied hand on my wounded forearm. I would have to go back to the hospital. When I looked up, it was into the black eyes of a sawn-off shotgun. He must have kept it as a reminder of his previous life. I’d heard that Max Bygraves still kept his carpentry tools. It was good to have a trade to fall back on.

‘Okay, Lennox, just lay both hands flat on the table.’ Provan spoke authoritatively, but without heat. ‘There’s no reason for anyone to get hurt, but I don’t want you getting any ideas about taking me into the police or delivering me up to Strachan, if he really is still alive.’

‘Do I still get the whisky?’

Provan smiled, but it looked wrong on his face, as if he was out of practice. He kept the sawn-off trained on me but poured us two massive belts with his free hand.

‘I reckon you’re on the level,’ he said after taking a slug without wincing, which was impressive: my first sip of the cheap blended whisky had shrivelled up every sphincter muscle in my anatomy. ‘I read about you in the papers. Was that the fella … the one who took a dive from your window?’

‘That was him. And if it hadn’t been him, it would have been me. He wasn’t taking prisoners. Listen …’ I leaned forward and he refocused his aim on me. I made a placating gesture. ‘Take it easy. Like you said, no one needs to get hurt. What I was going to say is that I need your help here. There’s no way I can force you to tell me, and there’s no way I can prove to you that I won’t repeat what you tell me to the cops, other than my word that I won’t. But the more you tell me, the more likely I am to be able to bring this thing to an end.’

Another bitter laugh. ‘You don’t stand a chance, Lennox. You’re lucky that you survived the attack on you. You won’t be so lucky the next time. I won’t be so lucky the first.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. To begin with I thought I’d run. Run and hide. Get the lawyer to sell this place for me. Then I decided there was no point in running, they’d just find me. I’d made up my mind to stay put and just take what was coming to me. But then, when you turned up, it was like a survival instinct took over …’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I noticed. Can I smoke?’

‘Yes, but move really slow. This thing has a hair trigger and I don’t want to have to redecorate.’

I took his point and eased my packet of Players from my jacket pocket and offered him one. He shook his head.

‘Tell me what happened,’ I said after I’d lit the cigarette and snapped shut my lighter. ‘Everything, starting with the robbery.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because it would help me, and helping me might just help you. This has gotten very personal with me and I want to make sure it’s Strachan, if that’s who’s behind it all, that gets what’s coming to him. And if he does, you don’t, if you get me.’

‘I get you. What do you want to know?’

‘You said the others … what others? And what happened to them?’

‘Johnny Bentley, Ronnie McCoy and Mike Murphy. They were the other members of the outfit. We did the Triple Crown robberies together.’

‘What? Hammer Murphy was part of the gang?’

‘No. This was another Michael Murphy. Hammer Murphy wouldn’t have anything like the brains or finesse Gentleman Joe needed from us all.’

‘I see,’ I said. I had undergone the unpleasantness of Murphy’s company for no good reason. ‘So what happened to them?’

‘All dead. One by one, over the years. Bentley died in a car crash and McCoy was killed by a hit and run driver. Mike Murphy disappeared on the night of the share-out and my money is on him being dead too.’

‘So none of them slipped off quietly in their sleep, that’s what you’re telling me?’

‘The police wouldn’t connect their deaths because they had no idea they were all part of the Exhibition Gang, as the newspapers took to calling us. And anyway, whoever did them took his time: there was five years between Bentley and McCoy’s deaths and six between McCoy’s and Murphy’s. And that left me.’

‘So you think it was Joe Strachan who killed all three?’

‘Not necessarily. I don’t even know if Strachan is alive. There was another member of the outfit, you see.’

‘The Lad?’

‘You know about him?’ Provan looked genuinely surprised.

‘All there is to know, which isn’t much.’

‘Well, if it isn’t Strachan, then it’s the Lad who killed the boys.’ By now Provan had drained his tumbler in a few gulps but the whisky hadn’t seemed to have any effect on him.

‘I suppose I had better start with what happened at the Empire robbery …’

It seemed that we were settling down for a long account, and I don’t like guns pointing at me. It’s a prejudice based on their habit of going off, even when the person holding the gun has had no intention of firing it. During the war, I had seen too many men killed or wounded by their own side, just because someone had been forgetful with a safety catch or had been waving their weapon around carelessly. I communicated my prejudice to Provan and reminded him that he was loath to redecorate the wall behind me and he agreed to put the shotgun down, provided I kept my hands where he could see them. He sat down opposite me at the table and started on his memoirs.