Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

I was still on the other side of the street when I saw them.

The couple had spilled out from the ballroom and even from that distance I could see — and hear — that whatever the guy’s intentions were, the girl wanted no part of it. There again, Glaswegian courting rituals had an elegance and charm to make the average mate-clubbing Neanderthal seem like Charles Boyer; but I could see that this was all wrong and the girl was desperately trying to free herself from the man’s grip on her elbow.

A solitary car slowed down as it passed, but the guy yelled obscenities at it and it drove on. Other than me, there was no one else in the street. It was too late for people to be arriving at the dance hall and too early for the crowds to be spilling out onto the street. From what I could see, the guy was trying to drag the girl around the side of the dance hall. It was a distraction I could have done without, but the Canadian in me exerted himself and I walked purposefully across the road towards them.

The man had his back to me and I had just reached them when he slashed her across the face with the back of his hand. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

‘Take it easy, friend,’ I said, but I was taken aback for a second.

‘Oh…’ I said. ‘It’s you…’

‘Aye… it’s me,’ said Sheriff Pete, without a trace of his cod-American accent. Snakes of oiled black hair hung across the pale brow and as his eyes locked with mine, they burned with a cold, dark fire. ‘Stay the fuck out of this. It’s not your business.’

I looked at the girl, still desperately trying to wriggle free from his grasp.

‘Help me, mister…’ she pleaded. ‘Please help me.’

‘Let her go.’ I crushed the cheap gabardine of his coat and pulled him away from her. Then, I said to the girl, ‘On you go, love. I’m going to have a little chat with Pete here.’

I watched her run all the way to the junction of Bain Street, where she disappeared around the corner. She had run as if her life had depended on it and I knew she had seen in Pete’s black eyes the same thing I had seen that night in the Horsehead. I let him go.

‘I think you need to calm down, fella,’ I said as soothingly as I could. But the dark fire still burned in his eyes.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he said, and I knew then how this was going to have to end. ‘Sticking your nose into my fucking business. You think you’re so fucking great, don’t you? Big man, are you?’

‘Well, truth be told I’m more of a man than you are,’ I said, still calmly. ‘I don’t feel the need to knock women about. And anyone who does is less than a man.’

‘What? Her?’ He jerked his head mockingly in the direction the fleeing girl had taken. ‘That hoor? She was in there, in the dance hall. That place is no more than a shagging shed and tarts like her go there for one thing and one thing only. They’re all sluts. They only want one fucking thing, then they make out they’re virgins.’ He stepped forward and looked up at me, doing his best to push his face into mine. I was tempted to ask if he wanted me to find a crate for him to stand on, but I decided it wouldn’t do much to defuse the situation.

‘You think you’re so fucking big, don’t you?’ he hissed at me. ‘A big fucking man. Let me tell you, you’re a nothing. A fucking nobody. But I’m somebody. No one is ever going to remember you. Nobody’s going to give a shit about you.’

‘But I suppose your name is going to be carved into immortality, is that it?’

‘Aye. That’s right. No one is ever going to forget my name. I’m going to have a big name all right. I already have, it’s just that nobody knows about it… yet. But they will. They’ll remember all right. People are going to remember my name and my face long after I’m dead. You can bet on it.’

‘Okay, fine. I get it: in my old age I’ll tell my grandkids I knew you. Now why don’t you go home and cool off, that’s a good boy. But take the opposite direction from your girlfriend.’

He sighed, took a step back from me and let the tension ease from his shoulders.

‘Okay…’ he said dejectedly, as if defeated. It was this sudden and complete change of demeanour, intended to put me off my guard, that alerted me to his real intention. But even with me being ready for it, when he made his move it was so fast and expert that he managed to catch me on the side of the head. Not just a fist, and I felt a trickle of blood from my temple. He swung again and I saw something metal flash in the streetlight.

I slammed a kick into the middle of his abdomen, just the way they’d taught me in the army, and he didn’t have enough weight to stay on his feet. I followed through on his fall and dropped down on top of him, squeezing the air out of him with my knee on his chest and pinning the hand with the weapon in it to the asphalt. I was relieved to see that it was a short length of steel tube and not a razor. I smashed the heel of my right hand into his nose and gouts of blood spurted from the nostrils. Then I started to punch him. Over and over and over. This wasn’t like the episode with Dewar in Sauchiehall Lane: I was dealing with a bad bastard here who walked around with a weapon in his pocket. So I kept hitting him.

I was still hitting him when the two uniformed coppers hauled me off.

They threw me into a cell on my own, although the previous occupant was still there in spirit if not in substance. I sat on the edge of the bed contemplating how long someone would have to go without bathing and how much cheap hooch you would have to have in your system to stink a place out like that.

I was pretty pissed with the way things had turned out. Sure, they had chucked Sheriff Pete into a cell further down the block, and I could hear him giving forth in his fake American accent to the custody sergeant as if they were long lost buddies, but I knew things didn’t look too good for me. I’d banged Pete up bad enough for them to call out the police surgeon and, after all, it had been me they’d had to haul off of him, and I had no witnesses to back up my side of events. Even the girl Pete had terrified had disappeared into the night.

In all of my time in Glasgow, despite several brushes with the police and having gotten involved in all kinds of dodgy goings-on, I had managed to keep my dance card unmarked. And now, all because of a psychotic little loudmouth, I was going to chalk up an aggravated assault charge and probably thirty days in chokey.

But things never turn out the way you expect.

I had only been in the cell for an hour when the custody sergeant opened up and told me to follow him. That was confusing enough, but he had tied it up in ribbons: he had said please.

There were two other uniformed coppers waiting at the custody desk, one with inspector’s pips on his shoulders. Again, I got the polite treatment, and I formed the distinct feeling that the custody sergeant would have liked to shake my hand.

‘Have you found the girl he was harassing?’ I asked.

‘No, Mr Lennox,’ said the inspector. Mr. ‘Unfortunately we haven’t. But let’s just say your story is consistent with what we know about your chum. Unfortunately we can’t charge him with anything either, but we’ll keep the little shite overnight, anyway.’

‘He’s no chum of mine. Am I free to go?’

‘Aye… you are, Mr Lennox. But we have a favour to ask… would you mind coming across to St Andrew’s Square?’

‘You want me to go to police headquarters? At this time of night?’

The beefy custody sergeant leaned his stripes on the desk. ‘CID would like to talk to you. About chummy in there, if you don’t mind.’

‘It really is important…’ the inspector added. ‘I can’t tell you why, but it is.’