Craig Russell - Dead men and broken hearts

This time, the client I was meeting had made a proper appointment, although the tone on the telephone had been more that of a summons than of an invitation. I had received a call giving me the address and time I was to be there. Ten-thirty a.m.

The headquarters of the Amalgamated Union of Industrial Trades, to which I’d been summoned, was in the West End of Glasgow, housed in one of a sweeping arc of Georgian town houses. I guessed that the choice of location and architecture was in itself a statement. A statement that things were changing; that the old order was on its way out and the genteel had to get used to new neighbours.

Where once a butler would have opened the door to me, it was answered instead by a none-too-tall, lean-to-scrawny man in his late thirties, tieless and jacketless and with his shirtsleeves rolled up past the elbows. He had a look that was common in Glasgow: a pale, pinched long face, lipless tight line of a mouth, tiny eyes and a plume of badly cut black hair. He reminded me of an older version of the Maryhill Teddy Boy who’d given the Atlantic a push. The only thing about him that was even vaguely butler-like, however, was the practised disdain with which he looked me up and down, taking in the twelve-pound Borsalino, the thirty-guinea overcoat and the thirty-five-guinea suit beneath it. I could hear the cash register ringing away in his head and it was clear he had taken an instant and profound dislike to me. I decided to save time and do the same.

‘Is the master of the house at home, my good man?’ I asked, stepping across the threshold without waiting to be asked. I was going to push the gag further by handing him my Borsalino, but I decided the gigantic chip on his shoulder was burden enough for him to bear.

‘You Lennox?’

‘I’m Mr Lennox, yes. I have an appointment to see…’

‘Joe Connelly. Aye. We’ve been expecting you. You’re late.’

‘I’m working to rule,’ I said.

My new bestest friend led me along a high-ceilinged hall with elaborate plaster cornicing stained yellow by Woodbine smoke, somehow perfectly capturing the spirit of the new age. He rushed me past several offices filled with cigarette haze and burly men who looked as at home behind a desk as a Home Counties accountant would at a mine coalface. A few hard-faced women typed industrially. I noticed I was attracting the odd look that made my skinny pal’s welcome seem positively warm. I really should, I decided, make an effort to dress appropriately for the event. Unfortunately my wardrobe didn’t extend to a flat cap and clogs.

We went up the stairwell and I was shown into a large office with a view out over Kelvingrove Park. A fat, florid-faced man was using a worn-down stub of a pencil to scribble into a large ledger. Looking up, he saw me, stood up and came round the desk, his face empty of expression. Like the pencil, he was a worn-down stump. Short and squat and livid and tough. He was committing several crimes against tailoring in a too-tight, dark brown suit.

‘Mr Connelly?’ I asked.

‘Aye, I’m Joe Connelly. You Lennox?’

I nodded. ‘You asked to see me. What can I do for you, Mr Connelly?’

‘Did anyone see him come in?’ Connelly asked the younger man.

The younger man shrugged. ‘I told you we should have had the meeting somewhere private. But no one knows who he is or why he’s here.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Do I have offensive body odour or something?’

‘Sit down,’ said Connelly. ‘I’ve got a job for you to do. If you’ll take it.’ He waited till I sat. ‘It’s highly confidential and it’s best if no one else in the union knows about your involvement. From now on, I think our meetings should be conducted somewhere out of public view.’

‘Sounds a bit cloak-and-dagger for a trade union,’ I said.

‘Before I go into detail, I need to establish something. Whether you accept this job or you don’t, I take it anything we discuss here is considered privileged and will be treated confidentially?’ Connelly’s accent was broad Glasgow, but he spoke with the precise, deliberate articulation of a self-taught man.

‘Of course. So long as it’s all legal.’

‘A crime has been committed, Mr Lennox. But this union is the victim of that crime. We do not, for the moment, want to involve the police. However that may change.’

‘Anything you tell me will go no farther, Mr Connelly.’ I looked across at the skinny guy who had shown me in. He was making no effort to leave.

‘Paul Lynch here is my deputy.’ Connelly had clearly read my expression. ‘Brother Lynch takes care of a number of key areas of our activity, including safeguarding the good name of our union.’

‘I see,’ I said, and looked again at Lynch, who looked back at me with his tiny, hard eyes. There was something about those eyes that told me this was not someone on whom to turn your back. I found myself wondering what kind of ‘safeguarding’ Lynch did for the union.

‘Why don’t you tell me what this is all about? You say it involves a crime. What kind of crime?’

‘Theft,’ said Lynch.

‘From this building,’ Connelly added. ‘We are having difficulty getting in touch with one of our union officers.’

‘Let me guess. You’re also having difficulty getting in touch with some union funds?’

Lynch again turned his tiny, cold eyes on me. ‘A ledger has been stolen, along with thirty-five-thousand pounds in union funds.’

I blew a whistle. ‘Who took it?’

‘His name is Frank Lang,’ said Connelly. ‘He is a member of the union and was carrying out some sensitive work for us.’

‘What kind of sensitive work?’

‘We can only discuss that when we know you’ll take the job,’ said Connelly.

I took a cigarette out and lit it, blowing a blue jet into the air. ‘And the sensitivity of this work… I take it that’s why you’re not involving the police?’

‘What you have to understand,’ said Connelly, ‘is that a trade union is a complex body. It has many dimensions and many functions beyond the immediate one of protecting its members’ rights and welfare. It is a political entity as well, and there are those who see us as a danger to the status quo. Who would wish to spy on us and do us harm.’

‘The police?’

‘If you could find Frank Lang within the next few days, then we can maybe persuade him to return what he took. He’ll be kicked out of the union, for sure, and I will personally make sure he never finds a job again, but he won’t go to prison.’

‘And in return you won’t have the police and the press sticking their noses into your business.’

‘Believe me, Lennox,’ Lynch chipped in. ‘The last thing we want to do is involve someone like you in our business either. We’ve tried to find Lang ourselves, but he’s disappeared without trace. This is something that’s outside the union’s expertise or resources. That’s why we contacted you. This is your kind of work, isn’t it?’

‘Sure…’ I nodded. ‘But the police have more and better resources than anyone. I know they’re not your favourite people, but I still don’t really understand why you are so reluctant to get them involved if a crime has been committed.’

‘You don’t know much about the union movement, do you, Mr Lennox?’ asked Connelly.

‘My usual clients tend not to be unionized.’ I smiled at the thought of what union affiliation would be held by some of the people I’d rubbed shoulders with in the recent past: Singer, Twinkletoes McBride or Hammer Murphy. The Association of Armed and Allied Thuggery Trades, probably. At least it would resolve demarcation issues about who should be ramming the shotgun in the teller’s ribs and who should be stuffing the cash from the safe into the duffle-bag.