Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

‘Yes…’ He stretched the word. ‘Remind me… you got the call from Dewar just after lunchtime, and he was distraught… agitated… is that right?’

‘Like I told you before, Jock. Several times, if I remember. He told me he didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I said I would come up and discuss his case with him that night.’

‘How did he get your name and number?’

‘That I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’

‘But you didn’t know him previously?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about his wife? You never met her before?’

‘No. Why? What’s this all about?’

‘Like I said…’ Ferguson stood up, leaving the tea I’d poured him half-drunk, ‘… just checking up on all of the details, that’s all. See you…’

And that was it.

The ’phone rang shortly after Ferguson left.

‘This is Matyas,’ said the Mittel-European-tinged voice. ‘I have discussed your suggestion with Ferenc Lang and he has agreed to meet you. With certain conditions.’

‘Oh he has, has he?’ I said, leaning back in my chair and putting my feet up on the desk. ‘A little birdie told me that I should have nothing to do with you or Ferenc Lang.’

‘A little birdie?’ The voice at the other end of the line sounded confused, but maybe more at my choice of expression than what I was saying. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Do you want to meet Ferenc or not?’

‘Not. It turns out that your Frank, or Ferenc, Lang is not the Frank Lang I’m looking for and, anyway, I’m no longer working on the Ellis case. So thanks for getting back to me as we arranged, but I no longer have a professional interest in meeting you or Ferenc Lang.’

‘I see…’ There was a pause while he processed the information. ‘That is unfortunate. It was you who pressured me to arrange this meeting for you and I have done so at no small inconvenience.’

‘Then I apologize for your trouble, but I am no longer employed by that client and, like I said, I therefore have no professional need to meet with Mr Lang. To be honest, this has all been a matter of mistaken identity. Like I said, Mr Lang is not the Frank Lang I was after.’

‘Well, that is of course up to you, but I think it may have profited you to talk to Mr Lang. It is a great pity that you have become involved in our business and Ferenc wanted the opportunity to set you straight on a few things.’

‘Well, like I said, I’m not involved anymore, so I don’t need setting straight.’

‘If you change your mind, Mr Lang will meet you at the coffee bar in Central Station, across from your office, in exactly one hour. He will give you ten minutes. If you don’t turn up, that’s up to you. But I really think you should hear what he has to say.’

‘I’m sorry, but don’t you understand what I’ve explained? This is no longer any of my business.’

‘One hour, Mr Lennox. Mr Lang will make himself known to you.’ He hung up.

I held the receiver out for a moment and examined it, shaking my head in disbelief. Maybe Matyas’s English wasn’t as perfect as I had thought.

I sat with my feet still up on my desk and smoked a couple of cigarettes while I thought through where I was with everything. The three issues most prominent in my mind were finding Frank Lang for the union, my preparations for getting back home, and distancing myself from the events at the Dewar home in Drumchapel and all of the red tape that could go along with them. Getting tangled up in that was the one thing that could delay my escape from the Second City of the British Empire.

Smoking and idly looking out of the window across Gordon Street to the frontage of Central Station, I thought back to my ’phone call with Matyas and how he simply would not take the hint that I was no longer interested in whatever his little group was up to. By the time I had finished my second cigarette, I really felt like a cup of coffee. I took my hat and coat from the stand, locked the office behind me and headed down the stairwell and across the street to the station.

If she had been wearing a red cape and I had been on my way to her Grandma’s house, my smile would probably have been less wolfish.

‘If you are Ferenc Lang,’ I said, ‘then I would seriously consider changing my affiliation.’

She frowned in puzzlement. ‘I do not understand,’ she said. Her voice was deep, rich, rolled and foreign in a way that weakened your knee joints. Walking across the concourse of the station, I had recognized her instantly as the woman I had seen Ellis with that night in the fog and whose curves I had followed unsuccessfully to the taxi stand.

She was dressed in exactly the same mismatched coat and toque-type hat I had seen her wearing on both previous occasions. Her black hair wasn’t loose as it had been the last time, but was swept up and fastened with a clip, and again her face was naked of make-up other than the crimson that emphasized her full lips. In the smogless, illuminated environment of the station, her nut-brown eyes were even more captivating than they had been that night in the fog.

Up close, her beauty was intoxicating. I sobered up from it pretty quickly, however, when I remembered how following her curves had led me directly into the clutches of Hopkins and his Rich Tea biscuit interrogation techniques. I scanned the station for anywhere a tail might be lurking, which was of course everywhere.

‘I can assure you I haff not been vollowed…’ she said huskily. If I hadn’t been right next to her when she spoke, I would have looked around to see where Marlene Dietrich had concealed herself.

‘Where’s Lang?’ I asked.

‘Something has come up and it is not safe for him to come here. He asked me to meet you and explain.’

We were standing on the main concourse and, taking her by the elbow, I steered her towards the coffee bar where there would be fewer eyes on us. Whatever Matyas’s little emigre group was up to, and despite all of their attempts at subterfuge, it seemed mad to use a woman like this as a courier. She was less than inconspicuous: no matter how dowdy her outfit, there would not be a man with a pulse and within visual range who would not have given anything to get inside it.

It was maybe something she was aware of, because she insisted that she went into the coffee bar first. She would find a quiet table and when I came in I could buy two coffees and bring them over. I went along with her little dance and ordered the coffees at the counter from a cute little blonde in a waitress uniform.

It took me a moment to find my Hungarian beauty; she had chosen a table right at the back, tucked into a corner and out of sight of the counter, and was sitting with her back to the rest of the patrons. She knew her business all right.

‘So is Lang coming or not?’ I asked as I placed her coffee before her.

‘You have to understand,’ she purred Continentally, ‘that we have to be very careful. Ferenc particularly. He fully intended to be here, but we realized he was being followed. I was nearest so they ’phoned me and told me to meet you and explain, if you turned up.’

‘And what’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Magda.’

‘Okay, Magda, perhaps you can tell me what Lang had to tell me.’

‘That I cannot,’ she said. ‘I do not know what he was going to tell you.’

‘Well, maybe you can tell me a little bit about your little sewing club.’

‘Sewing club?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, realizing I was going to have to park the metaphors, and the humour. ‘Your group. What can you tell me about your group?’

‘Nothing. I’m afraid that I am not authorized to discuss anything about our group, as you describe it. Please understand that this is difficult times for us.’