Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

‘Okay…’ I said as I headed back in haste to the main door, waving my thanks and leaving my homely little goldfish in her circle of glass.

I just made the street in time to catch a glimpse of the figure that had passed as I had opened the office door into the hallway. She was just disappearing around the corner at the top of the rise. I sprinted up the street to the corner, closing just enough space for me to keep her in sight when I rounded the bend without drawing attention to the fact that I was following her. I could have been wrong, of course, but it had been the odd mismatch of hat and coat that I had recognized more than anything else.

And her shape. I had not had a chance to see her face, but her figure looked right to me. As right as it was possible to be right.

There were, I had been told, whisky connoisseurs whose tastebuds were so attuned, they could identify each and every distillery; and wine buffs who could pin down a wine’s source almost to the specific vine. When it came to appreciation of the female form, I displayed pretty much the same set of skills. Once a set of curves had registered with me, it wasn’t just imprinted in my memory, it was card-indexed, cross-referenced, categorized and star-rated. Even though I had only ever seen it through the weight of her unfashionable coat, hers was one chassis that had been given its own reference section.

She walked with a steady pace, determined but not rushed, and it was no ordeal to follow her from behind, but I was concerned that there was no one else around on the street. Maybe I was flattering myself, but I felt pretty sure that if she got a good look at my face, she would recognize it as the one who had disturbed her and Ellis in the smog.

She crossed Sauchiehall Street and I trotted along behind her. There were more people about and I relaxed a little, feeling I could take better cover in the foliage of other pedestrians. When we reached Charing Cross, she walked directly to the taxi rank and I picked up the pace. I was on foot, having abandoned the Atlantic at almost exactly the same place as I had that night in the smog, and there was a real danger I was going to lose her if she jumped into a cab.

Which was exactly what she did. I sprinted to the next taxi in the rank and jumped into the back.

‘Follow that car…’ I said breathlessly.

The cabbie turned in his seat and presented me with the kind of leathery face that you could only cultivate in a boxing ring.

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

‘Right now, no… but I do have my lighter moments. Hurry up, or we’ll lose them.’

‘That taxi that that young lady just got into?’

‘That’s the one. What’s the problem here?’ I looked past him and through his windshield. Her cab had turned west along Sauchiehall Street and was about to disappear from view.

‘Listen pal, this is the way it works: if you have a destination, then give it to me and I’ll take you there. If not, get out of the cab.’

‘I really need you to follow that taxi before we lose it, it’s important.’

‘I don’t know what your game is, sir,’ he said, his tone heavy with menace. ‘But I’ll repeat the way this all works: you give me a legitimate destination and I’ll take you there. Then I charge you in accordance with the City of Glasgow Corporation’s Hackney Fare Regulations: anywhere in the city for two shillings for the first mile, plus fourpence for each additional quarter of a mile, first five minutes of waiting free, thereafter fourpence for each completed period of five minutes. Luggage not exceeding fifty-six pounds in weight is free, excluding bicycles, perambulators and-or children’s mail-carts. Maximum quantity of luggage one hundred and twelve pounds weight. Have you got it? If you’ve any complaints, please address them, quoting my driver number, to the Chief Constable, Traffic Department, twenty-one Saint Andrew’s Street, Glasgow, C-one. Alternatively, you can shove them up your arse.’

I sighed and handed him a business card. ‘I’m an enquiry agent and I’m on a case. Now would you please try to catch up with that taxi.’

‘I don’t care if you’re Dick-Fucking-Barton… I’m not taking you to follow some lassie without her knowing. Try reading the Sunday papers, pal. With these murders going on, you’re lucky I don’t just take you straight to the polis.’

I sank back into the seat, the fight gone from me. A couple of months before, three woman had been shot to death in their beds, the kind of murder never committed in Scotland, and now all of Glasgow was looking over its shoulder for a crazed killer in the shadows.

‘You sure are a by-the-book kind of guy, aren’t you?’ I said dully.

He replied by getting out of his cab and coming round to hold the door open for me.

‘If you don’t have a destination, sir, then I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you fuck off.’

‘Is that the wording from the Regulations too?’ I asked as I got out of the taxi.

‘I’m paraphrasing.’

I looked along Sauchiehall Street. The cab was gone.

‘Thanks a bunch, friend,’ I said. I thought about getting him to drive me back to Garnethill, but the idea of paying him two bob stuck in my throat. I walked across Charing Cross and back towards where I’d left the car. At least this time, I thought hopefully, it wouldn’t have been sabotaged.

I was half way up Garnett Street when I stopped to take in the view. The sun was still bright but now hung lower in the winter sky and the dark glass of Glasgow’s smoke-hazed air split it into a spectrum of golds and reds. Standing there watching the sky above the city, I lit a cigarette and took a long, slow pull on it.

I should have known better than to indulge in reflective moments.

I was so busy meditating on how industrial pollution makes for great sunsets and savouring my slow smoke that I didn’t notice until the last minute the brand new Rover as it gleamed to a halt beside me. I found myself flanked by a couple of brushed and polished burly types.

There are two types of heavy one was wont to encounter in my line of work: the professional criminal thug whose weight is all muscle and fist; then there are those who carry the weight of authority invested by the state. Policemen, mainly. I knew I was looking at the latter kind.

A third man slid out from the front passenger seat. He was taller but less built than the other two. His tailoring, unlike theirs, was the kind that was priced in guineas, not pounds. He was wearing a country set type herringbone-tweed overcoat and a matching flat cap. He wasn’t wearing plus-fours — I checked, the thought having run through my head that this could have been a press gang for shooting party ghillies. From the outfit and the casually authoritative demeanour, I guessed that his education had involved dreamy spires and his school, like his tailoring, had been paid for in guineas.

He had also been enjoying a smoke and I didn’t like the business-like way he dropped the cigarette onto the kerb and crushed it under the heel of a burnished Oxford brogue.

‘Would you be so kind as to get into the car, Mr Lennox,’ he said in an accent so cut-glass it made Waterford Crystal look slapdash. The heavy to my left showed me a warrant card. He was a policeman all right, but one of the secret denomination. But I guessed the public-school boy was slumming it. He was no Special Branch copper; he was something other.

‘What’s this all about? Are you arresting me?’

‘Arresting you? Do we have to?’ The public-school boy affected a look of confusion. ‘I rather hope not, Mr Lennox. We simply require your help to clarify a couple of matters. I hoped you would be willing to help us and we would be able to do this without any fuss. Now, if you would be so kind…’