Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

‘That’s fine, I didn’t say I wanted you to tell me where to find him. I have a funny idea I already know.’

Leggat looked at me, puzzled. But puzzled in a frightened way, as if his failure to understand could have painful consequences.

‘You’ve met Annan though, haven’t you?’ I asked.

‘Aye… aye, well, a long time ago.’ He nodded furiously. ‘Years back.’

I took the photograph that Lynch and Connelly had given me of Frank Lang.

‘This him?’

Leggat looked at the photograph closely, eager to please.

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s no’ him. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right, Eddie. I already knew that. I just wanted to hear it from you. Now, I’m going to describe someone to you. I’m going to describe them in as much detail as I can, because I don’t have a photograph to show you. When I’m finished, I want you to tell me if my description matches Dennis Annan. I want you to understand that there are no right or wrong answers. No one is going to hurt you if you just answer a hundred percent honestly. You got that?’

He nodded.

I ran through my description and an expression of concentration tried to establish itself on Leggat’s bruised face.

‘Does that sound like Dennis Annan?’ I asked when I was finished.

‘Well, obviously that description could fit a lot of people. An awful lot of people. But that was Annan’s thing you see?’

‘What was?’

‘He had this forgettable face. Really ordinary general kind of face. That’s what gave him his advantage.’

‘So does that description fit Annan or not?’

Leggat nodded. ‘Aye. It does.’

I took a ten-pound banknote from my wallet and stuffed it in the corner of his plaster cast.

‘Thanks. Buy yourself a back scratcher.’ I turned to McBride. ‘Come on, Twinkle, it’s time you got some exercise.’

I couldn’t simply walk into the union’s headquarters, and sending Twinkletoes in with a message was going to be less than low key, so I decided to ’phone Lynch from a call box. I was lucky and got him.

‘You do know the police are looking for you?’ asked Lynch. ‘And I mean looking for you as in wanted fugitive looking for you. Our union cannot have anything more to do with you.’

‘Listen, Lynch, I’ve only run into this shitstorm because your information about Frank Lang was so vague it led me to someone totally unconnected but very, very dangerous. We don’t have time for this. I know who Frank Lang is. Or at least I’m pretty sure I do, and my description of him has rung the right bells. I think I can deliver him to you.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘As sure as I can be, but I need you. You were Lang’s contact at the union. He kept it like that to cut down the number of people who could identify him. And that’s what I need you to do. Identify him for me.’

There was a pause. I imagined Lynch at the other end of the line. His beady eyes. His lipless mouth.

‘All right. When?’

‘Now. Right now. Where’s your car parked?’

‘In Park Circus. Just around from the union.’

‘I’ll meet you there in five minutes,’ I said, and hung up.

I was waiting for him by his car. When we had met in the working men’s club, I had asked him what kind of car he drove and his was the only model of its type parked in Park Circus. I watched him approach, bare-headed, wearing the kind of slacks intellectuals and beatniks had a taste for, an open-collar shirt and a pale grey raincoat. Everything about Lynch annoyed me. Even his wardrobe.

‘What’s this all about?’ he asked when he reached the car. ‘I should be telling the police where you are, you know.’

‘But you haven’t.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Let’s take your car,’ I said. I let Lynch get in first, then nodded across to where Twinkletoes was parked; my pre-arranged signal that he should follow us.

‘Where are we going?’ Lynch turned those beady little eyes on me. I could tell he was uneasy.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to force you into any big confrontation. I just need you to eyeball Lang and confirm I’m right. I can take it all from there. Head south. Out through Rutherglen.’

We drove through the city, mainly in silence, and the landscape around us changed from commercial and residential to purely industrial: dark, grimy walls lining the streets, smoke stacks black against the grey sky. I directed him turn by turn, occasionally checking over my shoulder to make sure Twinkle was keeping up.

‘What are we doing out here?’ he asked.

‘You’ll see.’

It started to rain and he switched on the wipers to clear the split screen of the windshield.

‘Next left…’ I said. We had entered a warren of narrow streets. Most of the factories and yards around us were now derelict, apart from the occasional scrap yard where vicious-looking dogs bellowed and snarled at the car as it passed.

‘Stop here.’

I got out and ran through the chill, greasy rain and unhooked a chain from the gate. Directing Lynch through, I beckoned for Twinkletoes to bring the Cresta in behind. When they were both through, I closed the gate behind him. It was as if the Luftwaffe had used this whole area for target practice. Ten acres or so of flat, empty, black landscape, punctuated by occasional piles of rubble yet to be trucked away. A single tenement remained, pointing a black finger into the sky.

‘I’ve been working on this other case,’ I explained when Lynch got out of the car. ‘The guy who got killed in my office. He was in the demolition business and this was one of the sites he was clearing. Flattening slum tenements. That’s the last to go…’ I said, pointing to the tall, black slum standing all on its own. ‘I thought it was the ideal place to do this.’

‘In there?’ Lynch said incredulously.

‘Trust me.’

‘And who’s that in the car behind? Is that Lang?’

‘No, that’s a business associate of mine. He has a special role to play in getting the truth from Lang. But the less you know about that, the better.’

We got out and Lynch cast nervous glances at Twinkletoes.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Follow me.’

The tenements here had been the worst kind of slums. Crowded, filthy, insanitary. They had crammed in on each other, squeezed tight to allow the maximum occupancy in the minimum of space. Now, with all of its neighbours razed, this solitary tenement had a strange, brooding presence, like some siege-blackened mediaeval tower dominating its landscape.

I led Lynch through the china-tiled entry close and up the communal stairs, McBride bringing up the rear. When we reached the second floor apartment, I turned to Lynch and smiled.

‘I’ll just get the key…’ With that I kicked the door hard with the flat of my foot and it flew open, smashing against the wall inside. ‘After you…’ I said, stepping back and extending my arm to indicate he should enter the flat.

Lynch stepped into the flat, along the hall and into the living room, which had been one of only two rooms, probably for a family of six or seven. There was no furniture other than a single kitchen chair sitting in the middle of the room on the bare, black-painted floorboards. There were two bed recesses in the wall, both empty of any palliasses or bedding. One wall was dominated by a fireplace and its mantel, the mirror above it the only item, other than the kitchen chair, left by the previous owners.

‘What the hell is all this about, Lennox? Where’s Lang?’

‘Don’t you see him?’ I asked, infusing my tone with puzzlement.

‘There’s NOBODY HERE!’ Lynch yelled at me. ‘Have you gone mad?’

With one hand, I grabbed a fistful of the back of Lynch’s raincoat. With the other, I seized him by the nape of his neck and ran him forward, pushing his face close into the mirror.