Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

The last place of the morning — a basement flat in a West End tenement — started me seriously considering a boat ticket back to Canada.

At least there would be no danger of romantic involvement with the landlady there: she lived in the street-level apartment above the flat for rent and was a short, stocky woman in brogues, with pitch-black hair coiled in a bomb-proof permanent and whose too-pink make-up powder had gathered in tiny clumps on her incipient moustache. Zapata in drag showed me the flat while quizzing me about my religious allegiances with what she clearly thought was undetectable subtlety. The basement flat was clean, but dark in the November morning and smelled dank; at the front it had bars on windows that looked out on nothing but a sooty brick wall and the steps leading up to street level.

Life in Glasgow above street level was grim enough and the idea of a subterranean existence there plunged me into nearpathological depression.

I was pretty dejected and took my circled classifieds to a coffee bar with steamed up windows in Byres Road, where I sat over a cup of bitter froth, desperately trying to seek out alternatives. There was one. But it was so absurd I laughed out loud. I circled it anyway.

‘It is an awful day, isn’t it?’

A man in his thirties, still hatted, sat down at my table. I noticed he hadn’t brought a coffee over from the bar.

‘Terrible,’ I said. I drained my coffee. ‘At least it’s not snowing. Excuse me…’

The guy at the table placed his hand on my forearm as I stood.

‘Please, Mr Lennox. I’d appreciate a moment of your time.’

I looked at him but didn’t sit. I also took in the two other men sitting at the table behind my new friend. They sat with untouched coffees, watching me. I sat back down. A busy Glasgow cafe wasn’t somewhere they could pull a stunt and I was safer here than out on the street.

‘You have been asking around about one of our friends, Ferenc Lang, I believe.’ He took his hat off and laid it on the table, revealing a wedge of thick, blond hair. He had a long, thin face with a long nose that had a kink in it where it had been broken at some time or another. Strangely, it didn’t make him look tough, but seemed to add to his faintly aristocratic look. When he spoke, there was something foreign flowing through it. I guessed it was the Danube.

‘Or Frank Lang, as he seems to prefer these days,’ I said. ‘Yes, I would like to speak to him.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be at all possible, Mr Lennox. Mr Lang is a very private person and he does not appreciate your intrusion into his affairs. For good reason, I have to say.’

‘So you and your chums here have come along to warn me off… is that it?’

‘No. Not warn. Ask. We would be obliged if you forgot all about Mr Lang.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, naturally inquisitive as I am, my interest in Frank Lang is professional, not personal. I’m being paid to find him. But I guess you already knew that.’

He nodded the long head slowly, as if considering my words carefully. ‘By whom, may I ask?’

‘You may not. Confidentiality is everything in my business, but I’m sure Mr Lang could have a pretty good guess about who’s looking for him and why.’

‘Perhaps he could,’ said the blond man. His English was near perfect: near, but not quite.

‘You are Hungarian?’ I asked.

‘I am Hungarian. As is Mr Lang, as you already know. He is also a great patriot. You know what is going on in our country at the moment?’

‘Of course I do. Exactly what kind of patriot are you? I’m trying to work out how much red there is in the flag of your particular brand of patriotism. Do you work for the Hungarian government?’

‘Now what makes you ask that?’

‘Just that this little encounter… please, don’t get me wrong, charming as it is…’ I held up my hands and smiled appeasingly. ‘But this little encounter seems to coincide with me talking to Mr Tabori, the Hungarian consul in Edinburgh. Now what was it that I said to him that has provoked your interest? My asking about Ferenc Lang, or Frank Lang, or whatever he wants to call himself — or was it because I mentioned Tanglewood?’

‘Mr Lennox, I understand that in your particular line of business, you have to have a suspicious mind, but let me assure you that I am not here to issue ultimatums or threats.’

‘Just appeal to my better nature? Then why do you have two goons with you? And why didn’t you call into my office?’

‘People are dying in Hungary. Others are being thrown into prison or driven from their homes. The Soviets are sending a message to the whole of Communist Europe that any move towards liberalization will be crushed mercilessly. And that message, Mr Lennox, is being written in Hungarian blood. If we seem cautious in how we approach you, it is simply because we have to be. We are watched. The communists would give anything to find Ferenc Lang. And they would use any means to do so. And anybody.’

‘You’re telling me that I’m being used as an instrument of the great socialist revolution?’ I laughed.

‘Ask yourself who you are working for. And what they are paying you. Your enquiries could end badly for a truly good man.’

‘And what do I get out of it if I do drop this enquiry?’

The blond man laughed bitterly. ‘I see… it’s like that. We don’t have much, but I suppose we could reimburse you for your trouble.’

I held up my hand. ‘I wasn’t canvassing for a bribe. I’ll think about what you’ve said. What’s your name?’

‘Matyas will do. It’s Hungarian for Matthew.’

‘Well, Matyas, I understand that there is a lot of stuff going on with your people at the moment, but we’re on the shores of the Black Clyde, not the Blue Danube, and what I’ve been asked to investigate is a simple case of theft. I have been engaged to avoid the embarrassment, principally to your friend Frank Lang, of having to get the police involved. Now, I’m sure you would much rather that the police did not start sticking their noses into you and your friends’ goulash club.’

‘Theft?’ Matyas looked genuinely confused. ‘Ferenc Lang is accused of having stolen something?’

‘That’s a surprise to you? He is. And there’s a definite time limit on how long I have to return the property and resolve differences between the parties concerned.’

‘This is nonsense. Absurd. Do you not see that this accusation is trumped up? A pretence to get you to pursue Ferenc and find him for them?’

‘I admit it could just be a possibility,’ I said. I didn’t want to tell him that the chances were his Lang wasn’t really the one I was after. ‘So here’s the deal…’ I pushed my card across the table to him. ‘Telephone me at my office to arrange a time and a place for me to meet with Frank Lang. I’ll show him mine if he shows me his. And you have my word I won’t discuss any of this with my client until after Lang and I have met. But one thing: let’s make the meeting in a public place.’

‘How do we know that you won’t inform your client, or the police, if it’s supposed to be a criminal matter?’

‘You don’t. But I’ve given you my word and I’m a Canadian. We make Boy Scouts and Quakers look like ne’er-do-wells.’

He looked puzzled. I had clearly stretched his English or Middle European sense of irony to its limit.

‘You just have to trust me,’ I said.

He looked at me for a minute, then pocketed the card before standing up. His two escorts did the same.

‘All right, Mr Lennox. We will be in touch. I doubt if Mr Lang will agree to this, but I will put it to him nevertheless.’

‘What I want most of all is to have the stolen item returned to me, so that I can give it back to the party concerned.’