Craig Russell - The Long Glasgow Kiss

I went in and handed my hat over again, this time to an attendant in a white waist-length jacket and pillbox cap. He was, without doubt, the most geriatric bellboy I’d ever seen and I worried that he would buckle under the weight of my fedora. I told him I was there to meet with Mr Barnier and he nodded towards a tall man standing at the bar with his back to me. It was going to take us an age to cross the lounge so I thanked my elderly hop and gave him a two-shilling tip: I reckoned that the weight of half-a-crown would tip him in more ways than intended.

‘Monsieur Barnier?’ I asked the man’s back and he turned to face me. Alain Barnier was not what I had expected. For a start he was tall and light-haired, not quite blond, with greenish eyes. To me he looked more like a Scandinavian or German than a Southern Frenchman. His skin tone wasn’t dark either, although I knew he had lived in Glasgow for at least a couple of years; but there again, no one could be as pale as a Glaswegian. Scots were the whitest people on the planet; and Glaswegians came in pale blue tints, except for those who had been burned scarlet by unaccustomed exposure to the big fiery ball in the sky that had, until a couple of hours ago, made a mysterious appearance that summer. Barnier was a striking man, handsome, with deep creases under his eyes that suggested a lot of smiling, but there was something a little cruel in his features. I estimated his age to be about forty.

Other than his slightly golden skin tone, there were a couple of other things that gave Barnier away as a foreigner. His clothes were expensive but not showy. And not tweed. His suit was extremely well-tailored in a pale grey, lightweight flannel, run through with a faint white pinstripe. It didn’t look like a British cut. Added to that, he was immaculately groomed and wore a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee beard that gave a point to his chin. My first thought was of a Cardin-coutured fourth Musketeer.

‘My name is Lennox, M. Barnier,’ I said in French. ‘We spoke on the telephone this afternoon.’

‘I was waiting for you. Drink?’ He beckoned to the barman with a casual authority that Scots find difficult. ‘Two cognacs,’ he said in English.

‘Please…’ he said, reverting to his native tongue and indicating one of the plush leather booths at the back of the lounge bar. We sat down. ‘You speak French very well, M. Lennox. But, if you don’t mind me saying so, you have a strong accent. And you speak slowly, like a Breton. I take it you’re Canadian?’

‘Yes. New Brunswick. The only officially bi-lingual province in Canada,’ I said, and was surprised at the pride in my voice.

‘But you’re not a Francophone yourself?’

‘That obvious?’

Barnier shrugged and made a face. He was French. I expected it. ‘No… not particularly. But you have a strong accent. I assumed English was your first language.’

‘Where are you from yourself, M. Barnier?’

The drinks arrived. ‘Toulon. Well, Marseille originally, then Toulon.’

I sipped the cognac and felt something warm and golden infuse itself into my chest.

‘Good, no?’ he asked. A smile deepened the creases around the eyes. ‘I supply it. It is one of the best.’

‘It tastes it. I had some of the bourbon you supplied Jonny Cohen. That was excellent too.’

‘Ah, yes… you mentioned you knew M. Cohen…’ Barnier looked at me over the rim of his brandy glass. ‘By the way, you rather annoyed my Miss Minto.’

‘Really?’ I said, raising my eyebrows and trying to look as innocent as I had been at sixteen when my father had interrogated me about some missing cigarettes and whisky. ‘We seemed to be getting on so well. I learned a new word — key lan — or is it two words?’

There was something in the mention that stung Barnier. He quickly hid it. ‘I can’t have you upsetting her. Miss Minto is a very… determined lady who is essential to the efficient running of the office.’

‘Why did she ask me if it was about the key lan. Am I pronouncing it right?’

‘She was referring to an item we’ve recently imported. Miss Minto probably thought you wanted to see me about it, that’s all.’

‘I’m flattered that Miss Minto thought I was rich enough to buy it.’

‘She didn’t. The item’s gone astray in transit. It’s more than likely been incorrectly crated and labelled, that’s all. Miss Minto probably thought you were from the insurance company.’ Barnier’s smile had dropped and his tone now suggested that the small talk was over. ‘What exactly is it you want from me, M. Lennox?’

‘I’ve been engaged to look into the disappearance of Sammy Pollock. You may know him as Sammy Gainsborough.’

‘I hardly know him as either. M. Pollock was an acquaintance. Nothing more. My dealings with him were so infrequent that I’m struggling to remember the last time I saw him. Why is it that you are asking me about Pollock?’

‘Can you? Remember, I mean?’

Barnier made a show of running through a mental inventory. He pulled gently at his goatee, smoothing it into an inverted peak.

‘It would have been about two or three weeks ago. A Friday. He was at the Pacific Club at the same time I was. It is a dreadful place… please don’t tell M. Cohen I said so — he is a valued customer after all. But it really is an awful place. I go there because, ironically, M. Cohen does tend to get rather good jazz acts on Fridays. Anyway, I saw young M. Pollock there. He did a turn… sang a few songs to fill in for a no-show act. He was there with a girl, if I remember correctly. But we didn’t speak that night.’

‘And you haven’t seen him since?’

‘Listen, Mr Lennox…’ Barnier reverted to his flawlessly articulated, grammatically perfect English. ‘I really have no idea whether I have seen him since or not. Sammy Pollock is not someone who features in my consciousness much. It may be that I have seen him and not noticed. Now, I repeat my question: Why are you asking me about this young man?’

‘You must excuse me, M. Barnier, but it’s my day for straw clutching. I was told that Sammy Pollock was seen in your company on occasion. The truth is that he really does seem to have gone missing and I’m more than a little concerned for his welfare. So far I’ve not been able to come up with the slightest hint of where he is.’ I looked at the Frenchman’s face. There was nothing to read in his expression. Maybe it was just that my I’m-all-at-sea act didn’t wash. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested.

‘Did you have any business dealings with Pollock?’ I asked.

‘No. None.’

‘The occasions where you saw him… did you know the people he was with?’

‘Again, no. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t think I can help you any further.’ He drained his glass. It was a gesture of punctuation — our conversation had come to a full stop.

‘Thanks for your time, M. Barnier,’ I said in French.

I left Barnier in the Carvery, picked my hat up from the geriatric bellboy and headed out into the street. The rain had stopped but the sky still looked bad-tempered. It wasn’t alone.

It had been a fruitless day and I was too tired to go up to Sneddon’s Bearsden house or even to ring him. Telling Willie Sneddon that you really can’t do his bidding is something done face-to-face and in the right frame of mind. I didn’t get into the car straight away but went to the telephone kiosk on the corner, fed it some copper and called the number Sheila Gainsborough had given me in London. The English accent at the other end told me that he was her agent and she wasn’t there.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘She gave me this as a contact number.’

‘I see. Are you Lennox?’ His voice was a tad too high and slightly effeminate. I gave a small laugh at the thought that I obviously expected theatrical agency to be one of those robustly masculine professions, like steelworking or mining.