Craig Russell - The Long Glasgow Kiss

McNab pulled back the blanket. ‘You know him, I take it?’

‘You take it right,’ I said with quiet resignation as I looked down at the body. The quiet resignation was to disguise my surprise. And my relief. ‘That’s Paul Costello.’

Costello’s eyes were wide open. There were grains of dust and dirt on them and looking at them made me want to blink. His face was bleached of colour and his hair dishevelled. The paleness of his skin was in stark contrast to the vividness of the gaping wound that arched, like a clown’s smile, across his throat. He was very, very dead.

‘Why were you looking for Costello?’ asked McNab. He snapped the blanket back over the dead face.

‘His father Jimmy asked me to,’ I answered honestly, if not wholly. ‘Paul Costello went missing a few days ago. Without warning and, more importantly, without cash.’

‘Aye,’ said McNab, his voice loaded with suspicion. ‘Inspector Ferguson here said you told him that when he came up to see you with that Yank, Devereaux.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And that was because you were bandying the name Largo about. So tell me, is this Largo’s work, d’you think?’

I looked at the blanket-draped corpse. ‘I honestly don’t know. But if Largo is as big and as dangerous a crook as Dex Devereaux seems to think, then my guess would be yes.’

‘Aye? Well thanks for your valuable insight, Lennox. Next question: who the fuck is this celebrity client of yours? The relative of the other missing person?’

I sighed. ‘Like I told Inspector Ferguson, I can’t compromise client confidentiality.’

‘Client confidentiality my arse…’ McNab took a step closer to me. I didn’t need to look to know his hands had already balled into fists. Whatever happened here would be only the beginning.

‘If I tell you, will you keep her out of it? Unless there’s a direct involvement, I mean?’

McNab laughed. An ugly, mocking laugh. ‘Do you think that I have to negotiate with the likes of you, Lennox? I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, talk to whoever the fuck I want. This is a murder enquiry, you clown.’

‘And then some. Let’s face it, Superintendent, someone is playing a very big game in this town. Bigger than anything the local talent is capable of putting on. Now you can walk all over me and feel like the big bollocks, and I’ll do exactly what you want and walk away from the whole thing. No skin off my nose. But if we work together you could end up getting the credit for breaking the biggest case this city’s seen in years. Remember that Dex Devereaux can’t make the arrest here

…’ I looked meaningfully at Ferguson. ‘Yes, Jock, I know Devereaux’s FBI. I knew the moment you brought him into my place.’ I turned back to McNab. ‘I’m not being funny, but this case involves things you don’t understand. You don’t understand them because this kind of crap has never washed up in Glasgow before. Okay… here it is: my client is Sheila Gainsborough, the singer. Now you can let me deal with this side of it or you can dirty her carpet with your size tens. But, if you do, then count me out.’

‘I’m a policeman, Lennox.’ McNab looked at me as if inspecting something noxious that he’d just scraped from his shoe. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you? I don’t have to wheel and deal with the likes of you. I’ve got hundreds of officers I can rely on. Real policemen. Not Canadian gobshites.’

‘Okay,’ I said and shrugged. ‘Your call.’

‘Just a minute…’ Jock Ferguson stepped between us. ‘Lennox has got a point, sir. And we don’t have someone like him we can call on.’

‘He works for fucking crooks, for God’s sake, man. How do we know that he’s not delivering information to them instead of us?’

‘I am working for one of the Three Kings,’ I admitted. ‘But not on this, on something else. And the job I’m doing for him is legitimate private investigation work. I know you have a low opinion of me, Superintendent. I don’t blame you, sometimes I share it. But I’m not a crook. Anyone who hires me knows I won’t break the law for them.’ I stopped. It was a pretty speech. I particularly liked the bit where I’d sworn my adherence to the law. Apart from the laws pertaining to breaking and entering and police assault, that was.

‘Sheila Gainsborough?’ McNab asked. ‘How the hell did you get a client like that?’

‘I move in the best circles, Mr McNab. Now, can I deal with the Sammy Pollock/Sheila Gainsborough side of things?’

McNab examined me long and hard. ‘For the meantime, Lennox. But just remember this is a murder investigation now.’

I looked back at Paul Costello’s body. So I wouldn’t be getting even with him, after all.

‘I’m not likely to forget,’ I said.

McNab remained at the scene while Jock Ferguson and I got back into the polished Wolseley squad car.

‘I’ll take you back,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a stop to make on the way, if that’s okay.’

‘I’m glad of the lift,’ I said.

I didn’t remain glad for long. We only drove a little way along South Street before turning into the gates that led to the Nissen hut offices of various importers.

‘This won’t take long,’ said Ferguson as we pulled up. Outside the office of Barnier and Clement Import Agents. ‘Some stupid break-in. I wouldn’t be involved if it weren’t for the fact that some stupid flatfoot got himself clobbered.’

‘No rush.’ I smiled. Which was an impressive achievement, because a small, elderly man in a worn tweed jacket and a flat cap was looking at me through the rear window of the police car. Billy the night watchman stood, rolling a scrap of tobacco in a cigarette paper. Even though I hadn’t seen him close up, I recognized his stooped frame and wide, scruffy flat cap. I hoped he wasn’t about to return the compliment. I was sitting in the back of the car, with the uniformed driver in front. It made me look like an arrested suspect. I had been sure Billy wouldn’t identify me: he had only seen me from a distance. But with the visual clue of me seemingly in custody he might make the connection.

‘I think I’ll stretch my legs,’ I said to the driver and stepped out of the car, lighting a cigarette. As I did so, Billy seemed to peer at me, as if examining me more closely. He walked across to me, a little uncertainly, the meagre roll-up unlit between his lips. At least he wasn’t shouting for help from the police. His eyes were narrowed under the brim of his scruffy flat cap.

‘Excuse me, officer,’ he said. ‘Would you spare me a light?’

‘Sure,’ I said, suddenly, explicably cheerful. I struck a match for him. ‘Lots of excitement today…’

‘Aye,’ he said with a bright mournfulness. ‘Too much excitement for me.’

‘What, the break-in?’ I asked.

‘Aye… Those hooligans really clobbered yon young polisman.’

‘Did you see them?’

‘Aye… But not good. To tell the truth I forgot my spectacles. Brand new ones and all, off the National Health. Two pairs I got. And the one night something happens that I need to see, I leave the bastards at home.’ He shook his head and I resisted the impulse to kiss him. ‘But I seen them all right. Running away. Two of them.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Teddy Boys. Them Teddy Boys is nothing but trouble. Them two was lucky I didn’t catch up with them.’

I smiled. This time it was a genuine smile. A heartfelt, thankful, joyous smile. It had been one hell of a morning so far: a rollercoaster of emotions. Everything that could have come along to shake me up, had. All I needed now was the copper I had sapped to turn up, the blow to the head I’d given him somehow bestowing a photographic memory. There again, he was a Highland copper: a photographic memory is no good if there’s no film in the camera.