Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

‘But if they think that’s what I’d do, then they must realize it would be to try to get the truth out of her?’

‘Or to silence your partner in crime, in case she turns Queen’s against you to save her own neck. If you have a clarty mind like Detective Inspector Shuggie Dunlop.’

I sighed. I had hoped to have gotten the truth out of Pamela Ellis and have her believe that between us, the police and I could guarantee her safety. But that just wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

‘Cheer up, boss,’ said Archie, cheerlessly. ‘You’ve got me and Twinkle here on the case. And I suspect we aren’t your only friends.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘As soon as you did a runner, I was hauled in by Jock Ferguson. He knew I didn’t know where you were, but he went through all the motions. But, while I was in there, he made a point of telling me all of Shuggie Dunlop’s Double Indemnity theories about you and Pamela Ellis. I mean, he really went into detail, like he was laying the whole case out for me. He also gave me the usual warnings about what to do and not to do if you got in touch.’

‘Sounds pretty much what you’d expect,’ I said.

‘Except he then starts to tell me all of this stuff that I really shouldn’t know and if he ever found out that you found out about it, he’d know it was me who told him. So I was to make sure I never told you what he’d found out, if you catch his drift.’

‘Bastard…’ growled Twinkle.

‘No, no…’ I explained over my shoulder. ‘It’s his way of getting information to me.’ I turned back to Archie. ‘What did he tell you?’

‘Shuggie Dunlop may be the one-line-of-enquiry type but Jock isn’t. He’s obviously been following up a few leads on his own. You were right that Andrew Ellis was born in Hungary, but his family were no penniless peasants; more like political refugees. It’s all confusing, you know, the history over there: there were all types of revolutions and counter-revolutions and a hell of a lot of bloodshed. There was a Red Terror, as they called it, then a White Terror — or maybe the other way around — anyway, there were left-wing extremists and right-wing extremists and each took turns at seizing control and murdering the others.’

We were now several blocks away from the Ellis house and Archie pulled into the kerb.

‘Anyway, Ellis’s family were involved with one side or the other and ended up having to skip the country. Ellis grew up in poverty in Glasgow knowing he should have been living the high life in Hungary.’

‘Where did Ferguson get all of this from?’

‘There’s a sister. Didn’t have much to do with Ellis, lives in Edinburgh. He got it all from her. You know how Ellis’s wife told you he had to volunteer for bomb disposal because the army was sniffy about him being born in what became an Axis country?’

‘Yeah…’

‘Well, they were sniffy about more than that. Ellis tried to get in as an officer, but the army wouldn’t have it. All his young adult life, he was a member of this Scottish-Hungarian friendship society. It even paid for him to travel to Hungary on at least one occasion. Turns out he got himself involved with some kind of youth movement when he was over there. Jock doesn’t know the colour of the movement’s political complexion, but whatever it was, it didn’t ring the right bells with the army enlistment people here.’

‘I see…’ I thought through what Archie had said. ‘Did he say anything about Hopkins, the government man who seemed to know all about Ferenc Lang and his outfit. And all about me, for that matter.’

‘Mmm… To be honest, Jock thinks you’ve been played for a mug. He thinks that Hopkins as he called himself was just trying to find out what you knew about the Hungarian outfit. The office was just some kind of short-con set-up. The clincher for Jock was you saying that Hopkins was wearing an Intelligence Corps tie, which there was every chance of you recognizing. Or, as Jock put it, nothing short of wearing a big collar badge that said “I am a spy, but keep that secret.”’

‘Yeah… That makes sense,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Hopkins is really a Hungarian who just happens to speak perfect, cut-glass English. And because I’ve been spotted following their girl — instead of simply bundling me into the back of a van and taking me to a quiet back alley or abandoned cellar somewhere where they could simply beat the truth out of me — they decide to pick me up with fake-but-perfect police IDs, move into a phoney office with dozens of extras to make it look more convincing, and then get more facts on my background than even I know — all in the time it takes to drive me there? Sure, that sounds credible.’

‘I take it you and Jock aren’t as one on this then?’

‘You take it right. I’m telling you, Archie, Hopkins was the real deal. Maybe not in the way he put himself forward, but he was a professional interrogator and had access to official files. I don’t know what the hell is going on with them doing a midnight flit, but it was no elaborate short-con. Why go to all that trouble?’

Archie sat and stared out through the windshield for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said turning to me at last, ‘if Jock and the City of Glasgow Police can’t nail down Hopkins or his louche pals…’

‘Louche?’ asked Twinkle from the back.

‘Louche,’ Archie repeated. ‘It means sinister or shadowy.’

‘Loooosh…’ McBride stretched the word out, relishing it. ‘Shadowy or sinister. Aye… I like that. How do you spell it?’

I spelled it for him while, with a stub of pencil that looked preposterously small in his huge hand, he scribbled the word into a small notebook he took from his coat pocket.

‘Loooosh…’ he savoured the word again, then said, ‘Sorry… ’, when he saw Archie’s impatient face.

‘If Jock can’t track them down,’ continued Archie, ‘then I don’t think you have much chance while doing your Richard Hannay act.’

‘There was a clerk from the solicitor’s or estate agent’s… the other night when we went to the office. He is obviously responsible for the let or sale of the building. Collins was his name. Is there any chance you could have a word, Archie? He must know something about the set-up. They couldn’t have just broken in in broad daylight and put together that phoney setup. Collins must know something.’

‘Sure,’ said Archie. ‘I’ll track him down and see what I can squeeze out of him.’

‘Excuse me for inter-jetting…’ Twinkle leaned forward, resting his forearms on the seat backs and shifting the car’s centre of balance. ‘But if you don’t mind me saying, I think I’d be better squeezing information out of this wee shite Collins. It’s what I do, like.’

‘I know, Twinkle,’ I said. ‘But the last thing we need is to put some office worker in traction. Or remove his toes with bolt cutters.’

‘Oh no,’ said McBride, almost offended. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I would use the piss-eye-cho-logical approach.’

‘And what does that involve?’

‘Showing him the bolt cutters and tellin’ him what I’m going to do, without actually doin’ it.’

‘You know something,’ said Archie. ‘Maybe if Twinkletoes was with me I’d get farther, quicker than if I was on my own. And we don’t have a lot of time.’

‘Aye… Erchie could go with me. Make sure I don’t lose the rag and that.’

‘Okay…’ I said reluctantly. ‘But remember Twinkle, no rough stuff. And no bolt cutters… even the psychological kind. Just stand beside Archie and look menacing.’

‘And what are your plans?’ Archie asked me. ‘A fugitive life in one of the darkest and most inhospitable regions of the world where the law has no reach? Venezuela? The Congo? Dundee?’