Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

She shook the comment away irritatedly. ‘He’s hiding an affair. That’s why he was trying to shake you off.’ A thought seemed to take root and trouble her; she bit her lip and frowned. ‘That means he knows I’m on to him. That it was me who hired you to follow him.’

‘But that’s my point, Mrs Ellis… It’s as if he knows I’m tailing him, but he’s not sure why. Now that is confusing. Why would your husband feel he was being followed, if he’s not having an affair? And if he is going to such lengths to stop me from getting evidence of infidelity, then why hobble my car after I’ve seen them together?’

‘I’m confused, Mr Lennox. Did you or did you not catch Andrew with another woman?’

‘I saw him with a young woman. And yes, you’re probably right. I tend to shave situations like these with Occam’s Razor.’

She frowned.

‘It’s a variation on if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck,’ I explained. ‘But I just feel there’s something not kosher about the whole business. And, in any case, all I saw was your husband talking with a woman. In fact, I didn’t even see them talking to each other. It’s not enough to confront your husband with, far less start divorce proceedings.’

‘So if Andrew isn’t carrying on with this woman, then what on earth is it?’

‘Can you think of anything that your husband could be involved in that he would want to try to keep from you? From everybody?’

‘Not a thing. Like I told you before, Andrew is a very ordinary, very honest, very reliable man. He wouldn’t be involved in anything illegal or funny.’

‘To be honest, that’s also the description of a man who’s unlikely to be involved in an extramarital affair, although I have seen it happen. Are you sure there isn’t something that could explain all this subterfuge?’

She held out her arms in a helpless gesture.

‘Okay…’ I said. ‘Do you want me to continue tailing your husband?’

‘Yes. I need to know what’s going on.’

‘The way your husband is giving me the slip, it could be a costly business, not least in car parts.’

‘I have enough money to pay you for another week or so. After that Andrew will know that the money’s going missing. Can you find something out in that time?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Mrs Ellis, but I’ll do my best.’

Back in the car, I examined my oil-stained tie, dabbing at the smudge with a handkerchief. It was a dark blue knitted silk tie and the stain wasn’t that noticeable, but I knew it was there. Going back to my digs to change the tie was, I knew, nothing more than an excuse to talk to Fiona away from the girls and hopefully get to the bottom of what the hell was going on with her.

However, as I passed my digs I saw a car parked outside. A Jowett Javelin — and one I recognized. Instead of pulling into the kerb, I drove on.

Deafened by the sound of pennies dropping.

Like every City of Glasgow policeman, Donald Taylor was tall; about an inch and a half taller than me. He had been a Detective Constable in Central Division for four years and for three of those had been supplying me with information in return for unreceipted donations. I was not the kind of citizen that many Glasgow coppers would want to be seen hob-nobbing with — the exception being the newly promoted Detective Chief Inspector Jock Ferguson, who was above bribery and suspicion as well as being the closest thing I had to a friend. Consequently, I arranged to meet Taylor down by the river, under the shadow of a forest of shipyard cranes.

‘Tanglewood, you say?’ Taylor took the cigarette I offered him and frowned. ‘Nope, I can’t say it means anything to me.’

‘I’ve a couple of names I’d like checked out. They’re not connected but I need to know if either has been naughty at any time. Or anything else you can dig up on them.’ I handed Taylor a folded slip of paper with Ellis’s and Lang’s names on it. It was folded around a five-pound banknote and Taylor slipped it into his coat pocket without looking at it.

‘Are they likely to have form?’ he asked.

‘Doubt it. One’s a businessman, the other’s a union official.’

Taylor frowned. ‘I’ll have to be careful with the union bloke.’

‘Why?’

‘You can have more than one kind of record, Mr Lennox. Checking out the criminal records in the Collator’s Office is straightforward enough, but a lot of these union boys are Communist Party members and the Special Branch boys have their own rogues’ gallery. Ask the wrong questions about the wrong people and you can end up being questioned yourself. Shady bunch, Special Branch.’

‘See what you can do, anyway, Don.’ I paused for a moment, thinking about what he had told me. ‘Listen, I should maybe warn you that the first name, Ellis, belongs to someone with a Hungarian background. Pre-communist, but he was born there. I guess that could be vaguely political too.’

Taylor looked worried. Purposefully worried. I took the hint and handed him another five.

‘Like I said, see what you can find out for me and it will be much appreciated.’ I smiled my gratitude, which was as genuine as his worry had been: there was nothing more nauseating than a bent copper, even if you were the one doing the bending. ‘Any other tidbits that might be of interest?’ I asked.

‘They’ve got a lead on that jewellery robbery in the Arcades last month.’

‘Really?’ I said conversationally. ‘Who’s in the frame?’

‘Now, Mr Lennox, you know I couldn’t tell you that,’ he said. What he meant was he couldn’t tell me unless I paid him for the information. There had been a time when I would have paid well; it was the kind of news that you could sell on at a profit.

‘I don’t move in those circles any more, Don, you know that. If you can’t tell me, don’t. I’m just interested that’s all.’

I could see that I had just pulled the rug from under him. He had valuable information that was valuable only to people he could never deal with directly. He was looking for a broker, and my days as a middle-man were behind me.

‘The reason I’m mentioning it, Mr Lennox,’ he said, ‘is that it concerns someone that I think you know well.’

‘I know a lot of people well, Don.’

‘The Jew, Cohen.’ The cocky look on Taylor’s face told me that he really did have goods to sell. Goods I didn’t want to buy but, like it or not, I did owe Handsome Jonny Cohen a favour.

‘What’s the information?’

‘A name. A name of someone who’s going to turn Queen’s Evidence.’

I nodded. The police had obviously got something on one of Cohen’s people and were trading his hide for Jonny’s.

‘Well?’ he asked. I thought about old loyalties. About scrapes I’d been pulled out of. About thirteen months of trying to put distance between me and where I’d been. What I’d been.

‘I’ll pass, Don,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Like I said, I don’t move in those circles any more. And if you want my advice, I wouldn’t go about offering that kind of information for sale. Sell something like that to any of the Three Kings and you’ve sold yourself. And trust me, if they get their claws into a copper, they won’t let go and you’ll spend the rest of your career worrying about whether they’d trade you to get out of a tight spot.’ I let it sink in before continuing. ‘But get me something I can work with on the names I’ve given you and there’ll be a bonus in it for you.’

‘Okay,’ he said, clearly crestfallen. I could imagine his delight when he had happened to overhear that snippet. Cash registers ringing in his head. But what I had told him was true: there are degrees of graft. What he was selling me could get him kicked out of the police; what he wanted to sell Cohen — or to get me to sell to Cohen — could get him kicked into prison.