Satnav guided me all the way into the heart of an old-established residential area called Newton Mearns, to the south of Glasgow. What it didn’t tell me was that I’d been there before, not on police business, but for an away tie in a national foursomes competition against a pair from Whitecraigs Golf Club. I have very warm memories of that place; my partner and I handed the opposition a dog licence, in other words we beat them seven and six.
Solomon’s restaurant was situated only a few streets away from the clubhouse where we’d eaten after the match. That was a friendlier snack than it might have been, given what we’d just done to the locals. I’ve been to golf clubs where I haven’t even been offered a drink in those circumstances.
Solomon himself, a cheery, dark-haired wee guy. . think of Ben Elton with a refined Glasgow accent. . just short of forty, first name Jeffrey, ‘but call me Solly; everyone else does’, kept up the local standard of hospitality. He took me into his small office, and gave me sparkling mineral water, then produced a plate of buns that he called rugelach. I tried one, then another, then another. ‘Cream cheese cookies,’ he explained. ‘Kosher, of course. Go on, have another.’
I did; I hadn’t realised how hungry I was.
‘So,’ he said, once we had cleared the plate, ‘this guy you asked me about. What’s the story?’
‘I have a photograph,’ I told him, ‘but I have to warn you, it’s not the nicest.’
‘I have a strong stomach, Mr Haddock.’ He grinned. ‘Unsullied by pork, that’s why. You know the story about the rabbi and the priest?’
I did, but I let him tell it anyway, and I laughed when he was done. Then I took the mugshot from my pocket, slipped it from the evidence bag that held it and showed it to him.
It wiped the smile off his face, but it didn’t take the colour from his cheeks. He shrugged. ‘So he’s dead. I’ve seen worse: I did some kibbutz time when I was a kid, and we had trouble once. Rocket attack. What happened to him?’ He paused, and his eyes widened slightly. ‘You’re not going to tell me it was food poisoning, are you?’
‘No,’ I replied, smiling vaguely for a second or two, as I tried to work out whether his concern was real or just part of his shtick. ‘He had a brain haemorrhage, no warning. Pretty much instant cheerio. If it’s any consolation, he seems to have enjoyed his last meal. He ate plenty of it and he didn’t have time to digest it. That’s how we linked him to you.’
‘So what can I tell you about him?’
‘His name would be nice. Was he a regular?’
Solly shook his head. ‘Never seen him before. I have lots of regulars, and I know them all, but equally, because this is the only kosher restaurant in a long day’s march, I have a lot of occasional trade.’
‘How about his bill?’ I asked. ‘Can you identify that? I might be able to trace him through his credit card slip.’
‘I can find his bill, no problem,’ he told me, ‘but there ain’t no transaction slip, because he paid in cash. That’s why I remember him so clearly. You have any idea how few cash customers pass through here, or through any retail business these days? I love those guys. When someone offers me real money rather than plastic I knock the bill down to the nearest fiver, out of pure sentiment.’ He winked at me. ‘And when I do, the tip is always bigger. Works every time, and it did with him. I’ve still got the notes, by the way.’
‘You have?’
My tone must have rung a warning bell. ‘All above board,’ he insisted. ‘It all gets declared, honest. It’s just that I have so little currency that I don’t bank it very often; I tend to keep it as a float.’
‘Solly,’ I told him, ‘when I showed you my warrant card, it didn’t have HMRC on it. I don’t care about that. Anyway, I don’t imagine there’s any way you can tell which are the notes he gave you.’
‘Hell yes,’ he laughed. ‘I know exactly which ones they were. The only two Bank of England fifties I’ve taken in here since I opened.’ Just as I was thinking that his prices must be sky-high if it took two fifties to cover chicken broth with matzohs and stuffed fish, he added, ‘He didn’t give me them, though. It was one of his mates.’
‘He wasn’t alone?’
‘No. Party of three.’
That was news indeed. ‘Can you describe the other guys?’ I asked, trying to sound casual. Solly struck me as a man with an imagination and I didn’t want to get him so excited that it ran riot. ‘Age bracket, for example?’
‘Same ballpark as your mate, I’d say. Medium height, all of them. One of them was fair-haired, sort of ginger, with a crew cut, a real flat-top; reminded me of that American wrestler guy, Brock Lesnar, only smaller.’ I’d no idea who that was, but I made a mental note to Google him and find a likeness. ‘Otherwise,’ Solly continued ‘they were ordinary-looking guys. Nondescript,’ he declared. ‘I could do a photofit if you like,’ he added.
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ I said; a nondescript photofit, indeed. I reckoned that Brock Lesnar was as lucky as I was going to get, but I was wrong.
‘One thing, though,’ Solly chirped on. ‘The other two guys weren’t Jewish. They hadn’t a clue about the menu. Your dead guy had to explain what everything was, and in the end they let him order for them.’
A bit more, but it didn’t really take me beyond ‘nondescript’.
‘And they weren’t British.’
That was more like it. ‘Explain,’ I murmured.
‘They spoke English, to me and the staff, but with accents. The dead guy, the Jew; his was closest to normal, but it still wasn’t. The other two, I dunno; Australian? New Zealand?’
‘To you and the staff, you said. What about among themselves?’
He shook his head, firmly, sending a white shower of dandruff on to the empty plate. ‘No, they spoke something else then. But don’t ask me what it was. I don’t have a bloody clue, other than that it wasn’t Hebrew. I’m not fluent, but I’d have picked up some of it if it had been that.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s something to go on. I wish you had a credit card slip, though.’
‘Sorry.’
But. . wait a minute, Sauce. ‘You said one of the other guys paid the bill?’
More dandruff flew. ‘Yes, the other dark-haired one, not the wrestler lookalike; seventy-two quid and twenty pence, I knocked it down to seventy. He peeled two fifties off a roll and told me to give him back twenty and we’d be square.’
‘And you’ve still got them?’
‘Like I said.’
I picked up the evidence bag that had held the photo. ‘Solly,’ I began.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Ah, I know what you’re going to ask.’
‘I’ll give you a receipt.’
He laughed. ‘Now, I really will have no choice but to declare it to the tax man.’
He took a cash box from his desk and unlocked it, then pushed it across to me. I tipped the contents out, a few hundred quid, and saw the two fifties straight away, reddish things with the Queen’s head on the front and some bloke in a wig on the back. I wondered how much fifty pounds had bought in his day as I picked them up, each one by a corner, and slipped them into the protective case. They looked fresh, and hardly used; bound to yield decent prints and, with luck, not too many of them.
I wrote Solly the promised receipt, signed it and clipped one of my cards to it for added authenticity.
‘Will you let me know what happens?’ he asked. ‘Whether you get a result or not?’
‘I don’t even know what the game is, sir,’ I admitted, ‘let alone how to work out the score.’
He offered me a sampler of the chicken broth, but I declined. Undeterred, he pressed a bag of rugelach on me, for the road, he said. I thanked him and headed for my car.
I didn’t rely on the satnav for the return journey, for that would have taken me through the centre of Glasgow at gridlock time. Instead I took a simpler route through East Kilbride. I had just cleared the place when my phone sounded. I hit the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel and said, ‘Sauce.’ That’s my standard greeting; on the rare occasion I have a wrong number it confuses the shit out of the caller.
I expected to have Becky Stallings in my ear, wondering why I hadn’t given her a progress report. . as I’d neglected to do. Instead I heard someone I hadn’t expected, not at all.
‘Chief Constable here. Are you on the road?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve been to Glasgow, in connection with Mortonhall Man.’
‘Oh yes? Any progress?’
‘Of sorts, sir. I don’t have a name for him, but I’ve got a couple of new lines of inquiry.’
‘What are they?’
I paused as I was overtaken by a clown in a Mercedes, braking as he pulled in too soon, to be overtaken himself by an even bigger idiot in a Golf GTI. ‘Fingerprints and a wrestler,’ I said, when I could.
He laughed. ‘Where the hell are you, son? It sounds like Brands Hatch. I couldn’t make out a word you said there. Tell me all about it when you get back.’
‘Sir?’
‘I want you to come straight to Fettes, to my office. I need to speak to you.’
If the great man wants you to know why, he tells you. When he doesn’t, don’t ask. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, and Sauce,’ he added. ‘Switch your phone off, now. Just in case DI Stallings or Jack try to call you. I don’t want them in on this, and I wouldn’t want you to have to lie to them.’
The buzz of an empty line filled my humble, non-racing, Astra. ‘Me neither,’ I murmured.