Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

I had half expected that I would wake up in my hotel bedroom with that disconcerting feeling of not knowing where I was for a moment, but I hadn’t. The instant I had woken, I had known where I was and what I was going to do that day. It was going to be a big day and I determined to meet it with enthusiasm, an emotion I had become especially unaccustomed to over the last few years. And if I was going to embrace the day with gusto and resilience, then my digestive system was just going to have to do the same.

A month, I thought to myself. Or maybe six weeks. It would take me that long to arrange everything about the business and, in any case, I still had the Frank Lang case to finish for Connelly’s Union — if there was any end to the case. In the meantime, I decided it would be best to keep my decision from everyone, including Archie. Just until I got it all sorted out. I’d see Archie all right before I went. I might even hand the business over to him; but maybe that would just be handing him a poisoned chalice.

Getting to the office early, I was at my desk when Archie arrived. Before he headed off for a morning’s spying on Sauchiehall Street store assistants, I asked him if he could round up Twinkletoes for that afternoon; I had a job for him.

I joined the small queue waiting for the bank doors to open at nine-thirty. When I eventually got to the desk, I struggled to get the teller to understand that I wanted to withdraw everything from my cash account and wire the balance from my savings account to a bank in New Brunswick. It took ten minutes of explaining and the intervention of an under-manager before the penny eventually dropped, as if the removal of funds from their bank was an act of incomprehensible folly, and all the time I was given the impression that I was taking away their money, not mine. It made me more appreciative of Jonny Cohen’s instant withdrawal methods, but I lacked his stocking mask and sawed-off.

‘I’m afraid that will take some time to arrange,’ said the under-manager with a shake of his head, referring to the wire transfer. ‘Quite some time. But we should have it transferred by the beginning of next week. Are you sure you want to close your accounts, Mr Lennox?’

‘I’m moving back to Canada,’ I explained. ‘I would have thought that a transfer like that could be done much quicker.’ I felt like asking if they’d considered a faster method, like passenger pigeon or pony express, but I didn’t. The cash would see me through all I had to do and there was still a lot to be organized.

When I got back to the office, I used the ’phone number from the newspaper advertisement and left a message for the old bargee. I guessed it was his son who was ‘on the telephone’ and I explained that I wasn’t in the market for a long-term let any more but, if the bargee was interested, I’d like to rent the barge for a month on a static basis. The son agreed to pass on the message and we arranged that I would ’phone back early that evening.

Again I tried to contain my shock as I stepped out from my office building onto Gordon Street to feel the prickle of an all-pervading chill drizzle whisked into my face by a swirling wind. Glaswegians perpetually maintained that this type of rain — smirr, as they called it — always got you more wet, soaked you more thoroughly, than normal rain. The logic behind this remarkable piece of Glaswegian physics was beyond me. Having an office directly opposite Central Station had its advantages and, instead of walking around the corner to where I’d parked the car, I took a cab from the station rank and told the cabbie to drop me off at the Charing Cross garage where I hired the bank run van each Friday. I had telephoned ahead and the van was ready for me, despite it not being the usual day or time, and I drove it back and parked it close to the office.

I’d locked up the office when I’d left to pick up the van and I was aware of the stairwell being darker than usual as I made my way back up it on my return. The human eclipse blocking out what light came in through the landing window was waiting patiently for me outside my office.

‘You got a job for me, Mr Lennox?’ Twinkletoes McBride asked amiably, but resonated menacingly in the echo chamber of the stairwell. ‘Archie said you was wanting me this afternoon.’ He pronounced Archie ‘Erchie’ and afternoon, ‘effternoon’. I knew that when I left the city, I would miss the majesty of the Glaswegian vowel, flatter and broader than the Saskatchewan prairie.

‘Nothing grand, Twinkle,’ I said. ‘I just need to borrow your muscles.’

‘Oh aye? Nae problem, Mr L. Do I need to get any tools?’

‘No, no, nothing like that…’ I said emphatically, seeing he’d gotten the wrong idea. ‘I just need you to help me load and unload some stuff onto a van. But give me a minute… I have a quick ’phone call to make.’

He waited in the hallway while I ’phoned the bargee’s number again. This time I got to speak to him directly and he agreed to the short-term let.

‘Okay, Twinkle, we’re on,’ I said, as I came back out onto the landing, locking the office door behind me.

‘Where’s we goin’, Mr L?’ he asked.

‘I’m moving address…’

I parked the van where I’d positioned Archie’s car to watch the house before. We arrived at one-thirty and I decided to give it until two or quarter after. If I could avoid Fiona, I would; if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.

I cursed the predictability of it all: the Jowett Javelin pulled up outside at two and James White trotted up to the house. After five minutes he re-emerged with Fiona in tow and they drove off.

‘Okay, Twinkle,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’

I drove up to the space vacated by the Javelin and parked, leaving enough tailgate space for us to load the van.

‘We’re just going to get my stuff. There’s not much but I’ve got a couple of heavy crates with books in them.’

‘Sure thing. You doing a midnight flit? You know, with us waiting for the place to be empty?’

‘No. I’m paying up for the month,’ I said. A ‘midnight flit’ was what the Scots called a sneaking your stuff out of property to avoid paying overdue rent.

It took less than twenty minutes for us to clear out my rooms. Most of the time was spent carefully packing my suits and other personal stuff into the trunk and two suitcases I’d bought from Copland and Lye, while Twinkle lugged my crated library down and into the van with disturbing ease and speed.

I felt strangely numb leaving the rooms I had occupied for more than three years. Everything going through my head came together from opposite directions, continually clashing. Standing there, I knew I had had real feelings for Fiona White. Strong feelings that I’d felt only once before. Yet I had this overpowering urge to get as far away from her, from Glasgow, from everything I’d known there.

‘You all right, Mr Lennox?’

I turned to see McBride standing there, his demi-brow furrowed with concern.

‘I’m fine. That us?’

He nodded.

‘Then let’s go.’

On the way out, I pushed an envelope under Fiona’s door. More than two months’ rent in cash. I hoped that would cover things until she found a new lodger. Nothing else: no note, no explanation, no forwarding address.

I pushed my key through the letterbox as I stepped out onto the street, pulling the main door closed behind me.

‘I want you to understand something,’ I said to Twinkle as we drove out of town along Great Western Road. ‘Where we’re going… no one knows about this place. No one. We’ll dump most of my stuff there but only you and I are to know about it. Got that?’

‘I got it, Mr L. You know I am the soul of description.’

I decided against correcting him. ‘Good. And once we’ve done this, I want you to drop me back in town, near the Art School, then take the van back to the garage.’