I spent the next couple of days paddling hard and getting nowhere. Nowhere with what had happened to Sammy Pollock. Nowhere on what was going on with Bobby Kirkcaldy. I was considering changing the name of my business to Sisyphus Investigations. The one good thing was I was able to leave a message with Big Bob at the Horsehead for young Davey to get in touch. I would maybe have something for him to do after all.
Sheila Gainsborough was back in town. She called me on her return from London and didn’t sound at all pleased that I had so little to report. She insisted on talking face-to-face and asked if I would meet her at Sammy’s apartment. I drove over that afternoon.
When I got there the place was unrecognizable. The disorder was tidied and the air in the apartment was scented with beeswax.
Sheila had gathered her blonde hair up with pins and was dressed for serious housework: a red checked shirt-style blouse, the shirt tails tied in a bow at her navel, exposing a couple of inches of pale midriff above the sky-blue Capri pants. She had none of the sophisticated couture she had worn at our last meeting and her face was naked of make-up, other than a quick sweep of crimson around the lips. And she still looked a million dollars.
‘I had to tidy the place up,’ she said. ‘It makes me feel better. Getting it nice for Sammy to come back to, I mean.’
She asked me if I wanted a coffee and I decided to risk it: coffee in Glasgow was typically some chicory sludge from a bottle, mixed with hot water. But Sheila was anything other than typical Glasgow. She returned with a tray encouragingly laden with a percolator, two cups and a plate of pastries. She poured our coffees and sat down opposite me, her knees angled, ankles together, finishing-school style. I thought again about how good a job they had done on her.
She offered me one of the pastries. It was one of those over-sweet things that had become popular since rationing had ended: a doughnut with cream and jam filling — what we used to call a Burlington Bun back home in Atlantic Canada. I didn’t know what they called them anywhere else.
‘No thanks.’ I smiled. ‘I don’t have a sweet tooth.’ I noticed she put the plate back down without taking a pastry herself. That figure was a piece of work.
‘The last time we spoke I was really worried about Sammy disappearing…’ She bit into her crimson lower lip and I found myself wishing she had been biting into mine. ‘Now I’m frightened, Mr Lennox. He seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth. And you don’t seem to have the slightest clue…’
‘Listen, Miss Gainsborough. I have found something out. I didn’t want to tell you on the ’phone, but do you remember Paul Costello, the guy we came across at Sammy’s apartment?’
She nodded. I could see the trepidation in her eyes.
‘Well,’ I continued, ‘I’m afraid he seems to have gone missing too. Same set-up.’
The trepidation became fear and Sheila’s eyes glossed with tears.
‘I really think you should contact the police,’ I said, placing my coffee cup on its saucer and leaning forward. ‘I know you’re really concerned and, if I’m honest, so am I.’
‘But the police…’ She paused and frowned. ‘Why do you think they’ve both disappeared?’
‘My theory is that there is some truth in what Costello said about this mysterious Largo. I don’t think Costello owed him money, the way he claimed, and I don’t think this Largo would send heavies here to Sammy’s place if he wasn’t in some way involved. But Costello denied that too.’
‘So what do you think is going on?’
‘I honestly don’t know, but I’m guessing that Sammy and Paul Costello were involved in some kind of deal with Largo and something has gone wrong. If I’m right, that’s not necessarily bad news. It could mean that Sammy and Costello have simply gone into hiding. Voluntarily. That would explain why they’re so hard to find. That’s the way they want it. But it’s just a hunch. I think you should go to the police. There’s something clearly not right here. Even if Sammy has headed off under his own steam, it would suggest that he’s got something to be afraid of.’
‘No. No police. If what you’re saying is true, then there’s a good chance Sammy’s broken the law. Seriously broken the law. He wouldn’t be able to stand prison.’ She frowned her cute frown for a moment then shook her head decisively. ‘No. No, I want you to keep looking for Sammy. Do you need more money?’
‘I’m fine for the moment, Miss Gainsborough. The only thing I’d ask is that you tell your agent that I don’t work for him. I’ve nothing to say to him about anything. I deal with you directly. Are you okay with that?’
She nodded. I reached into my pocket for a cigarette, but my case was empty.
‘Oh, hold on a minute…’ She stood up and looked about herself. ‘Sammy smokes. I’m sure I found some cigarettes when I was tidying up. Oh yes…’ She crossed to the dresser against the wall and brought over a silver desktop cigar box. She flipped it open and offered me one.
‘They’re filtered,’ she said apologetically. Then she frowned. ‘Look… they’re the kind you asked about. The butt you showed me with lipstick on it.’
I took a cigarette and examined it. It had two gold bands around the filter. ‘Yeah… they’re Montpelliers. A French brand. There’s a lot of them about, it would seem.’ I lit the cigarette and drew on it. It was like straining steam through a blanket. I nipped off the filter between finger and thumb and dropped it into the ashtray, pinching the ragged end tight.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Filters are okay for women. But for me they kill the flavour.’
Sheila smiled the smile of somebody responding to something they hadn’t listened to. ‘So you’ll keep looking?’ she asked.
‘I’ll keep looking,’ I said, pausing to pick a couple of tobacco strands from my tongue. ‘I know you don’t want the police involved, but would you mind if I spoke to a couple of police contacts. Strictly on the Q.T. and off the record.’
‘What if they get suspicious?’
‘The kind of cops I’m talking about don’t get suspicious, they just get expensive. Leave it to me.’
We talked for another half hour. I asked if she could remember anything more about the people her brother had been hanging around with, particularly the girl, Claire. I also asked her to think again about the name Largo. I drew a double blank. I asked if there had been any places with which Sammy had a particular attachment: anywhere he may have sought sanctuary in. She tried. She really tried, the poor kid, but she couldn’t think of anywhere, anything or anyone that might bring me closer to finding her missing brother.
I left her to her desperately methodical housework. As I was leaving, I said that at least Sammy would be coming back to the place all nice.
The truth was that we both suspected she was simply dressing a grave.
It was on the Thursday night that I got a break. Such as it was. I had been doing the rounds of clubs and bars. Most knew Paul Costello only as Jimmy Costello’s son. And the few that had heard of Sammy Pollock/Gainsborough again made the link only through Sheila Gainsborough. I struggled to find any musicians or singers who had heard of them, far less been approached with offers of representation. I worked my way from the few hep joints Glasgow had, like the Swing Den and the Manhattan, to the rougher workingmen’s clubs that abounded across the city.
The Caesar Club was one of the latter category. It combined industrial drinking with performers so bad that you had to drink industrially to tolerate them. I arrived about nine-thirty.
The Caesar Club was well named. It was the kind of place that left no turn un-stoned, and the acts who took to the stage weren’t so much performers as gladiators. I half expected to see Nero in a dickie-bow sitting at the front table giving each turn the thumbs-down. When I walked in there was a comedian on the stage. He had succeeded in warming up the audience in much the same way as Boris Karloff had warmed up an angry peasant mob with torches in Frankenstein.
The audience was on the cusp of verbal violence turning physical and, despite the fixed grin above the oversized bow tie, I could see the comic’s eyes glittering as they darted desperately around the crowd. I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to find just one person laughing or trying to gauge from where the first missile would be launched. I wondered why anyone would choose to be a comedian in Glasgow when there were so many less hazardous career options like bomb disposal, bullfighting or sword-swallowing. I started to feel a deep, real sympathy for the comedian.
Then I heard a couple of his jokes and decided he had it coming.
I knew the manager of the Caesar Club and he pushed an unbidden and unwanted pint of warm stout in my hand and conducted me through backstage.
‘This is who I told you about, Lennox,’ he said, as he led me along a narrow corridor and shoved open a cupboard door in the hall. I could still hear the audience responding to the comic’s act and for the first time understood what baying for blood sounded like.
The cupboard turned out to be the smallest dressing room I’d ever seen; and in my colourful career, I’d seen a lot of dressing rooms. This one, however, was not occupied by a chorus girl but by a small man of about fifty with large brown eyes and no hair to speak of on his egg-shaped head. There was no shade on the bulb that hung from the ceiling and its butter gleam on his pale skin added to the Humpty-Dumpty look. He was dressed in a cheap dinner suit and bow tie. A gleaming trumpet sat on his lap, its case lying open on the shelf that passed as a dressing table. He smiled when I came in.
‘You’re the gent looking for young Sammy, I believe?’
‘That I am. You know where he is?’
‘No. I haven’t seen him in two weeks. But that’s what I thought I’d tell you about. Two weeks ago, outside the Pacific Club… you know, Mr Cohen’s place… well, two weeks ago I was playing there. Friday night. Anyway, I had finished my stint and was getting the bus home. I was halfway along the street when I heard this commotion, like. Sammy was having some kind of trouble with two men. Youngish fellows, I’d say. Anyway, there was a fair bit of pushing and shoving, that kind of thing. But not a fight, not a square-go, anyway. Not with two against one. Anyway, this other fellow came out of the club. Calmed the whole thing down, like.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About nine. I was on early.’
‘Did you recognize any of them?’
‘Not the two troublemakers. I recognized Sammy, of course. The bloke who stopped the tussle looked to me like Paul Costello. You know, Jimmy Costello’s boy. They’re always hanging around the clubs together. Costello and Sammy, I mean.’
‘Did they go back into the Pacific?’
‘No. They all got into a car and drove off. They was next to the car when they was arguing. I wouldn’t have paid much notice, it’s just that it was an odd thing.’
I nodded. A street scuffle in Glasgow was nothing out of the usual. You saw it every Friday or Saturday night. ‘What made it odd?’
‘I dunno. It was just odd. They wasn’t pished, or anything like that. It was more like…’ He frowned his pale, eggshell brow. Then it hit him. ‘It was like they was all agitated, rather than spoiling for a fight. Sammy in particular. It was like the other two had done something wrong.’
‘What kind of car did they get into?’
‘A big one. White. A Ford, I think.’
‘A Ford Zephyr Six?’
‘Could be. Yeah, could be. You know who I’m talking about?’
‘I’ve run into them, I think. How well do you know Sammy Pollock?’
‘Sammy Pollock?’
‘Sheila Gainsborough’s brother,’ I said, and he looked enlightened. It was becoming pretty clear that all around town Sammy had been trading hard on his sister’s name.
‘Not that well. I used to see him around. In the clubs, mainly.’
‘Did he ever say anything to you about representing you or any other musicians?’
‘What do you mean, represent?’
‘Did he ever talk about becoming an agent? Or setting up a talent agency with Paul Costello?’
The small man with the glabrous head laughed. ‘What would they know about the music game? No, he never said anything to me, or anyone I know.’
‘Fair enough.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Listen, do you have any idea of where I might find someone who knows where he is.’
‘There’s that lass he hangs around with.’
‘Claire?’
‘Oh, you know her already?’
‘No. Know of her. I’d very much like to talk to her. Do you know where I might be able to find her?’
‘Aye, I do. She’s a singer. Not bad, either. Claire Skinner. She sings at the Pacific Club some nights. I think she lives out in Shettleston.’
I took a couple of quid from my wallet and handed it to the trumpeter. From the sounds coming from the main club hall, I would maybe have been better giving him the pocket Webley I’d taken from Skelly.
‘Thanks, that’s been a help. Good luck out there,’ I said and left, wondering how long it would take all the king’s men and horses to get there.
I ’phoned Jonny Cohen at home. He said he knew the girl Claire who sang at the Pacific but he didn’t know if her surname was Skinner. Nor had he connected her to Sammy Pollock in any way.
‘Are you sure it’s the right girl?’ he asked.
‘That’s what my source tells me, but who knows? Can you give me an address for her?’
‘I can’t, but Larry who manages the Pacific for me maybe has one. Or at least he can tell you who he gets in touch with to book her. Call by the club tomorrow night and I’ll tell him to give it to you.’
‘Thanks, Jonny. I owe you.’
‘Yes, Lennox, you do. And Lennox?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I hope you heard me when I said you shouldn’t let this shite distract you from the thing with Bobby Kirkcaldy.’
‘I heard you, Jonny.’
Davey Wallace turned up at my office at ten-thirty, just as I’d asked him to in the message I’d left with Big Bob. He was wearing the same too-big and too-old suit that he wore to the Horsehead. He had a red tartany type tie and a white shirt and he had topped the lot off with a wide-brimmed grey fedora that had a couple of decades’ worth of shape bashed out of it. At least, I thought, I now knew what a private detective is supposed to look like.
Davey’s grin when he walked into the office was impossibly broad and gleeful, making me wonder if I had done the right thing in bringing him in. He was just a kid. And a good kid at that. But it was his choice.
‘Now you’re clear on what you’re doing? And more importantly on what you’re not doing?’
‘I got it, Mr Lennox. I won’t let you down.’
I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a coarse linen bag. It was heavy, filled with pennies. I tipped some out onto the desk.
‘Take this bag with you. You’ve got enough coppers there to ’phone Australia. If anything happens, call the numbers I gave you and they’ll get a message to me as soon as they can.’ I tossed the bag in my palm a couple of times, assessing the weight. ‘And keep the drawstrings pulled tight when you’re not taking money out. This cash bag won’t break and it makes one hell of a cosh if you run into trouble. You got that?’
‘I got it, Mr Lennox.’
‘But I don’t want you to take any risks, Davey. Just keep an eye on the Kirkcaldy place and let me know if anything happens. And remember… note down times and descriptions of anyone you see coming or going.’
I went back into my desk drawer and tossed a black reporter’s notebook over to him. He caught the notebook and then stared at it, wide-eyed, as if I’d just handed him the Keys to the Kingdom.
I drove up to Blanefield and parked the Atlantic along the street from Kirkcaldy’s place. It was difficult not to be conspicu — ous, but the car was far enough away and still had a clear enough view of the entrance to the Kirkcaldy residence. I gave Davey a couple of quid, a packet of cigarettes and a lamppost to lean on. He took the duty so seriously that, when I left him, I found myself worrying that he might not blink until I returned.
I left the car where I’d parked it, giving Davey the keys so that he could take shelter if it started raining. The weather had now definitely reverted to type and the milky sky periodically darkened into a glower: I didn’t want to be responsible for Davey contracting pneumonia or trench foot, both of which were possibilities in the West of Scotland climate. Before I left him on sentry duty, I called at Kirkcaldy’s house. The boxer wasn’t in, but Uncle Bert Soutar answered the door. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that exposed arms writhing with tattoos, some of which had unhelpful suggestions for the Pope. If dourness could be measured on a scale, then Soutar was a bass baritone. He nodded glumly and closed the door when I told him that the youth at the corner was with me and not connected to whoever had been carrying out the vandalism.
I knew of course that there would be nothing significant for Davey to report that afternoon. The kind of shenanigans that had been going on with Kirkcaldy were the kind of shenanigans you got up to under cover of darkness.
While Davey was earnestly leaning and diligently watching the Kirkcaldy place, I went to ’Pherson’s on Byre’s Road for a trim and shave. Old man ’Pherson knew his stuff and I came out with my face tingling and with a parting that made Moses’ Red Sea work look sloppy. Afterwards I took a tram back into town and made a few fruitless ’phone calls from my office in pursuit of Largo.
Maybe it was because Jock Ferguson’s name had come up in conversation with my tame copper chum Donald Taylor, but, almost on an impulse, I picked up the ’phone and dialled the number for St. Andrew’s Square headquarters. Obviously, Detective Inspector John Ferguson knew nothing of my ‘accommodation’ with one of his junior officers and he sounded surprised to hear from me all right. Surprised and maybe a little distrustful. I have no idea why I bring that out in some people, especially coppers. He did concede he was free at lunchtime and we agreed to meet up at the Horsehead Bar. Ferguson and I hadn’t spoken much in nearly a year.
It was one-thirty by the time I got to the Horsehead and the lunchtime crowd had already smoked the atmosphere into a density you could cut with a knife. If I were to describe the ambience of the Horsehead, I would say it was eclectic. There were clerks, uniformed in regulation pinstripe, shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar with workmen in flat caps and Wellington boots. It has to be said that no one could accuse Glaswegians of not being fashion-conscious, and a few of the workies had rolled their Wellies down from calf- to ankle-length as a concession to the warm weather.
I spotted a man in his late thirties over by the bar. He had his back to me but I recognized his tall, angular frame and the dull grey suit he always seemed to wear, year round. Some policemen need a uniform, even after they’ve transferred to CID. I understand it in a way: the need to take off your job when you got home. I squeezed shoulder first into the bar next to Ferguson. The man who had been standing next to him eyed me with that casual, disinterested hostility that you only seem to find in Glasgow hostelries. I smiled at him then turned to Ferguson.
‘Hello, Jock.’
Ferguson turned dull grey eyes that matched his suit on me. Jock Ferguson had anything but an expressive face: it was practically impossible to work out what was going on in his head. I’d seen more than a few men come out of the war with the same absence on their faces. And I somehow had always known that Jock Ferguson had a similar kind of war to mine.
‘Long time no see,’ he said, without smiling. And without offering me a drink. We were going through the preliminaries. ‘Where have you been keeping yourself?’
‘You know, keeping my head down. Divorce cases, company thefts, that kind of thing.’
‘Still doing work for Glasgow’s disreputable element?’
‘Now and again. Not as much as before. Things aren’t what they used to be, Jock. Gangsters have embraced the free market. I can’t compete with the rates your colleagues charge.’
Something set harder in Ferguson’s face, but he clearly decided to let it go. Before, he would have laughed off a jibe like that because he knew I was referring to coppers other than him. But this was not before.
‘I heard you were asking a few questions about me, Lennox. After that business last year. I could be accused of being paranoid, but that would suggest to me that you think I had something to do with all that shite. Is that what you think?’
I shrugged. ‘I just got to chatting with a couple of your colleagues. Are you telling me that you didn’t have anything to do with it?’
He held my gaze. Neither of us wished to define what it was that had happened. The truth is that he shouldn’t have even known about the events in a dockside warehouse that ended with me having a bullet in my side and someone very special to me lying dead at my feet, her face blown off. Events that would not have taken place if information hadn’t been leaked by a copper.
‘Anything that happened had nothing to do with me. That’s what I’m saying, yes.’
‘Okay. If that’s what you’re saying, then I believe you, Jock.’ It was a lie. We both knew it was a lie but it was a form of words that allowed us to move on. For the moment. ‘So… how are things?’
‘Busy. McNab has dumped this train death on me. And he’s piling on the pressure. This new smart-arse pathologist has got him farting fire. You know McNab, shite killing shite doesn’t interest him unless it’s all straightforward and easy, which it usually is.’
I nodded sympathetically. The idea of working for a wroth McNab was a frightening thought. For a second I felt the weight of his hand on my chest. ‘So how’s the investigation going? Any leads?’
Ferguson snorted. ‘Sweet Fanny Adams. We’ve nothing to go on except the body. And you could carry that around in a couple of buckets. Anyway, you didn’t ask to see me to enquire about my level of job satisfaction. What do you want, Lennox? You’re always after something.’
Before answering, I nodded over to the barman and ordered a couple of whiskies. He wasn’t a barman I knew so I decided not to confuse him by asking for a Canadian Club.
‘You know this big fight that’s coming up? Bobby Kirkcaldy and the German?’
‘Of course. What about it?’
‘Well, Kirkcaldy’s been getting some unwanted attention. Crap dumped on his doorstep, veiled threats, that kind of thing.’
‘Has he contacted us?’
‘No. In fact I’ve only been hired by one of his backers because Kirkcaldy’s manager happened to find out about it. Kirkcaldy is doing his best to draw attention away from it.’
‘One of his “backers”, did you say?’ Ferguson raised an eyebrow.
‘The point is that something about it stinks. There’s this old guy who hangs around Kirkcaldy. A sort of bodyguard-cum-trainer. Like I said, old, but as hard as nails. Goes by the name of Bert Soutar. I was wondering if you could…?’
Ferguson sighed. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But quid pro quo, Lennox. I might want something from you in the future.’
‘My pleasure.’ I smiled and ordered a couple of pies. They were handed to us on bleakly white plates that were crazed with spidery grey cracks beneath the glaze. It looked like the same kind of porcelain they made urinals from. The pies themselves lay on what the French would call a jus of liquefied fat. I had lost weight since I’d first arrived in Glasgow. The presentation didn’t seem to put Ferguson off and he squelched into the pie, dabbing the grease from his chin with the paper napkin.
‘Was that all?’
‘Yeah,’ I said and sipped the whisky. ‘I believe old Soutar used to be handy with a razor. Bridgeton Billy Boys, that kind of thing. Anything you could find out would be really useful.’
‘I can do better…’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a non-regulation notebook and pencil. He scribbled something down, tore the page out and handed it to me. ‘That’s the address of Jimmy MacSherry. He’s an old man now but was a real hard bastard in the Twenties and Thirties. Fought the Sillitoe Cossacks, put a couple of police in hospital. Got ten years and the birch for his trouble. He was a Billy Boy and knows anyone who’s anyone in that circle. But be careful how you handle him. And it’ll cost you a few quid.’
‘Thanks, Jock. I appreciate it.’ I pocketed the note. Then a thought occurred to me. ‘Oh there’s maybe one other thing. Nobody else seems to know this guy, but it’s worth a try. Have you ever heard of someone called Largo?’
Like I said, Jock Ferguson did not have the most expressive face, but something crossed it that looked as if it had been powered by the national grid.
‘What do you know about John Largo?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all, that’s why I’m asking. Who is he?’
‘Where did you hear the name? You must have heard the name somewhere.’
I looked at Ferguson. He had turned towards me, straightening up from the bar. All of a sudden he became all copper and no acquaintance. After all the asking around, I had in that split second doubled my knowledge about Largo. I now had a full name for him. But every alarm bell that could ring was now ringing. It was clear that knowing the name John Largo was enough to get me the kind of police attention I so studiously avoided. I decided it was best to deliver the goods.
‘Okay, Jock, I can see that I’ve hit pay dirt. But you obviously think I know something I shouldn’t. Well, I don’t. All I have is the name Largo. I’m investigating a missing person case. It’s turned into two missing persons: Paul Costello, Jimmy Costello’s son, has also dropped out of sight. But before he did, our paths crossed. He thought to start with I was one of your mob, then he asked me if Largo had sent me. That’s all of it. I’ve been asking all around town if anyone knows Largo and nobody I asked did. Until now. So who is John Largo?’
‘Now see that… See that right there… what you just asked… if I were you that’s a question I would never ask again. John Largo is someone you don’t want to know anything about. If ever I’ve told you anything worthwhile, Lennox, it’s this: John Largo doesn’t exist. Hear it, accept it and get on with your life. Otherwise you might not have a life to get on with.’
‘Oh now wait a minute, Jock. You can’t…’
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see if I can find anything out about Soutar for you. In the meantime try Jimmy MacSherry.’
Before I could say anything he was gone. I leaned against the bar and looked down at the half-full whisky glass he had left. I knew this was big, big stuff. When a Scotsman leaves a free drink unfinished, you know it’s serious.
Bridgeton was the kind of place you felt overdressed if you wore shoes. It seemed that footwear was optional until age twelve; thereafter you were expected to wear heavy work boots with soles studded with metal segs that made a seven-stone youth sound like a Nazi division marching down the street. Like ninety-nine per cent of the population of Bridgeton, Jimmy MacSherry wasn’t on the ’phone. So I decided the best thing to do was to go down and do some door knocking. I made sure I had my sap with me. Bridgeton was the kind of place you would feel naked without some kind of means of injuring another human being.
I got a call from Davey before I took the tram down to Bridgeton. There was, as expected, nothing to report other than Kirkcaldy had left for his afternoon session at the Maryhill gym he had always trained in. I had told Davey to stay on the house, not on Kirkcaldy and that’s what he had done. I could tell he was worried that I would be disappointed that he had nothing to report, but I reassured him he was doing just fine and he rang off as eager as when I had left him there.
For the rest of the world, a Glaswegian was a Glaswegian was a Glaswegian. They all looked the same, spoke with the same impenetrable patois, worked in the same industrial sweatshop of shipyard, factory or steelworks; they all lived in the same kind of slum. They also shared the same schizoid tendency to be the warmest, friendliest people you could meet while, at the same time, displaying a propensity for the most psychopathic violence. Sometimes simultaneously. Within Glasgow, however, lay a chasm that divided its working class. On the surface it was a religious divide: Protestant versus Catholic. The truth is the divide was ethnic: Scottish Glaswegians versus Irish-descent Glaswegians. And the focus for the biblical hatred between the two communities were the football teams, Rangers and Celtic.
Bridgeton was part of the city’s fringes. And it looked pretty much like all the other parts of Glasgow’s fringes. The streets were lined with tenements or four-storey apartment buildings. The building material of choice in Bridgeton had been red rather than blond sandstone or red brick, but it was all pretty academic as all the buildings had been grime-darkened, like every other structure in Glasgow. Occasionally an ember of the underlying colour would glow through the soot, giving a tenement the look of a dark, rusting hulk looming into the sky. Like other parts of the city, the worst of the slums were gradually being cleared to make way for new blocks of flats. The spirit of the Atomic Age had reached Glasgow and soon all of its denizens would enjoy the very latest modern amenities. Like flushing inside toilets.
But Bridgeton was different from the other areas of the city in one way. It distinguished itself in the intensity of its hatred for its neighbour. This was the most ultra-loyalist Protestant, Catholic-hating part of Glasgow.
A few weeks before, as it was on the Twelfth of July each year, Bridgeton had been a mustering ground for the pipe bands, drummers and marchers who celebrated the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne. And once they had mustered, they would march triumphantly through the streets of Glasgow. Especially the predominantly Catholic streets. Surprisingly, the curmudgeonly Catholics didn’t seem to get into the spirit of things and refrained from joining in with songs containing lyrics like ‘ We’re up to our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you’ll die’.
But Glasgow was nothing if not a city of balance and fairness, and there was an ultra-republican Catholic, Protestant-hating part of Bridgeton too. The Norman Conks, the Catholic counterparts of the Billy Boys, had been concentrated in the Poplin Street and Norman Street part of Bridgeton. Their speciality, as well as offering the same skills for plastic surgery with open razors as the Billy Boys, was throwing Molotov cocktails made with paraffin or petrol at the marchers on the Twelfth. Or occasionally the odd ‘sausage roll’: human excrement loosely wrapped in a sheet of newspaper.
I sometimes wondered how Rio could compete with Glasgow’s carnival atmosphere.
As I walked through Bridgeton, however, there were no marching bands and little in the way of a carnival atmosphere. In fact, even on a pleasant summer’s day, I couldn’t imagine anywhere less festive. I certainly was glad I hadn’t brought the Atlantic with me. There were no other cars parked in the street in which MacSherry resided, and a knot of five or six children, faces grimy and feet bare, were playing maliciously around a streetlamp. As I walked past one block doorway, a man of about thirty stood watching me from beneath the brim of his cap. He was wearing a collarless shirt and a waistcoat, his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose forearms that looked woven from steel cable. He had his thumbs looped into the pockets of his waistcoat and leaned against the doorway, his heavy-booted feet crossed at the ankles. It was the most casual of poses, but for some reason he gave me the idea he was some kind of guard or lookout.
The only other person I passed was a woman of about fifty who emerged from a house further up the street. She was as wide as she was tall and dressed in a formless black dress. Or maybe it was just the body beneath that was formless. She had a headscarf tied tight around her head and her legs were naked, her stockings having been rolled down into beige bracelets around her ankles. She was wearing dark tartan slippers on her feet. Something had caused the skin of her legs to mottle a purplish red and I suddenly felt the need to foreswear ever touching corned beef again. She walked past me and eyed me with even more suspicion than the shirtsleeved sentinel I had just passed.
I smiled at her and she glowered back. And just when I was about to tell her how pleased I was that Dior’s New Look had at last made it to Glasgow.
I found the tenement I was looking for and climbed up the stairwell. It was the weirdest thing about Glasgow slums: you could have eaten your dinner off the flagstone stairs or the doorsteps of each flat. Glaswegians took an inordinate pride in cleaning communal areas — closes, stairs, entrances. There was normally a strict rota, and failure to have a sparkling doorstep or landing would result in the offending housewife becoming a social pariah.
The MacSherry flat was on the third floor. The landing was as spotless as I had expected, but there was some kind of unpleasant smell wafting about in the air. I knocked on the door and it was opened by a woman in her sixties who made the female I’d passed on the street look positively svelte.
‘Hello, could I speak with Mr MacSherry, please?’
The fat woman turned from me wordlessly and waddled back along the corridor, leaving the door open behind her. She tortured some vowels in quick succession, which I took to be ‘It’s someone for you.’
A man in his late sixties or early seventies emerged from the living room and came to the door. He was short, only about five-five, but he was compact and wiry with a heavy head topped with white bristle. There was something about him made me think of an older Willie Sneddon. Except Sneddon’s razor scar was delicate needlepoint compared to the criss-cross of ancient slashes on MacSherry’s cheek and forehead. Like Uncle Bert Soutar, this was a man whose history of violence was written all over his face, but in a different vernacular.
‘What the fuck do you want?’
I smiled. ‘I wondered if you could help me. I’m looking for information on somebody. Someone from the old days.’
‘Fuck off,’ he said, without anger or malice, and pushed the door shut. I stopped it by jamming my foot between it and the jamb. Old MacSherry opened the door wide and looked deliberately down at my shoe and then back up at my face. He smiled. It was a smile I didn’t like and I contemplated the ignominy of having the crap beaten out of me by an Old Age Pensioner.
‘Sorry,’ I said swiftly and held my hands up. ‘It’s just that I’m willing to pay for the information.’
He looked at my foot again and I removed it from the doorway.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you know… or did you know someone called Bert Soutar?’
‘Aye, I knew Soutar. What’s it got to do with you? You’re not police.’
‘No, no… nothing like that. I represent a group of investors who have an interest in a sporting event. Mr Soutar is involved with this event and we’re just doing a check into his background. You see, Mr Soutar has a criminal record.’
‘You don’t fucking say.’ Irony was not his strong suit.
‘I do say,’ I continued as if I had missed his sarcasm. ‘Not that that is, in itself, a problem. But we’d like to know the kind of people we’re dealing with. Did you know Mr Soutar well?’
‘You said you was willing to pay for information.’
I took out my wallet and handed him a five-pound note, keeping a second fiver in my hand. ‘Maybe we could…?’ I nodded along the hall.
‘If you like,’ said MacSherry, and he stood to one side to let me in.
The living room was small. Cramped. But again surprisingly clean. A large window with no curtains looked out over the street below and there was a bed recess, a typical feature in Glasgow tenements, in one wall. The furniture was cheap and worn but there was the occasional item that looked incongruously new and expensive, and I was surprised to see a small Pye television squashed into one corner of the room. It had a set-top aerial sitting on it, its twin extendable antennae each stretching at a wild angle from the other. I understood MacSherry’s reluctance to let me into the flat: the mix of new and old was the difference between the legitimately owned and the knocked off.
The fat woman whom I’d guessed was MacSherry’s wife left the room. It was clear that business was often conducted here.
‘Are you a fucking Yank?’ MacSherry had a charming, welcoming manner about him. I guessed I wasn’t going to be offered a cup of tea.
‘Canadian.’ I smiled. It was beginning to make my jaw ache. ‘About Soutar…’
‘He was a Billy Boy. And a boxer. He fought bare-knuckle. Hard cunt. I know what this is all about. It’s about his nephew. Bobby Kirkcaldy. That’s your fucking sporting event, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say, Mr MacSherry. Soutar was a member of the Bridgeton Billy Boys about the same time as you, is that right?’
‘Aye. I didn’t know him that well, though. He was a mental bastard with a razor in his hand, I can tell you that. And with his fists. But then when it got all military, you know, when the Billy Boys started having morning drills and stuff like that, he fucked off. He hated fucking Fenians but he liked making money more. He was still boxing though. It was after he cut them coppers, that was him finished.’
‘I thought you said he’d left the Billy Boys?’
‘He had. This wasn’t a rammy. It was after a match, right enough, but he was breaking into a credit union. He had some fucking mad idea that the mounted polis would be too busy dealing with the rammy. But two coppers caught him in the back close of the building. From what I heard, Soutar got lippy with them and they was going to give him a bit of a doing. That was his biggest problem, too fucking mouthy for his own good. Anyways, he always kept two razors in his waistcoat pockets. The two cops made a move on him and he cut them both. Popped an eye on one. You seen the state of his face?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He must have taken more than his fair share of beatings in the ring.’
‘That’s got fuck all to do with boxing. Bert Soutar was too light on his feet to get battered like that in the ring or in a bare-knuckle fight. No, that was the fucking polis that did that to him. They half-killed him. Took fucking turns with him. You see, it was a message… you don’t cut a Cossack.’ MacSherry referred to the Sillitoe Cossacks, the gang-busting mounted police squad set up by the then Chief Constable of Glasgow, Percy Sillitoe. ‘When Soutar came out of prison he gave up the Billy Boys. Apparently he was a model prisoner inside and got out after six years. And he came out with big ideas. He said he wasn’t interested in the Billy Boys any more. He said there was no money in it. And he was finished as a boxer. The beatings he took in prison fucked up his face. He couldn’t take any more damage, and couldn’t get a licence ’cause of his face and ’cause he was an ex-con. It was about then that he started hanging around with some Flash Harry who filled his head with all kinds of money-making schemes.’
‘Who was the Flash Harry?’
‘I didn’t know him at the time. He wasn’t from Bridgeton and I think he was younger than us. Quite a bit younger. But, like I say, flash as fuck. Soutar and this bloke got into the boxing game for a while. Fixing up fights, in more ways than one if you get my fucking drift. Never saw him after that, but I don’t think the partnership lasted. Soutar just disappeared and MacFarlane became a big fucking success.’
‘MacFarlane?’
‘Aye. Small Change MacFarlane. That was the Flash Harry. Became a big-time bookie. Fuck all good it did him considering he ended up having his coupon smashed to fuck.’
I sat and nodded as if I had been processing the information, hiding the fact that a dozen possible combinations of people and events were now running through my head. The flat door was still open and I heard voices out on the hall. The old fat woman and a male voice. Time to go. I stood up and handed MacSherry the other five pounds.
‘It’s not enough,’ he said.
‘What?’ I put on my best confused expression. I wasn’t confused at all.
‘Another ten.’
‘You’ve been paid for your time, Mr MacSherry. More than adequately paid.’
He stood up. I heard a sound behind me and turned to see the collarless sentinel had been the voice out on the landing and was now blocking my exit through the hallway. He smiled maliciously at me.
‘Another ten. Hand it over. In fact, let me save you a lot of trouble. Just hand over your fucking wallet.’
I weighed up the situation. Sticky. The old guy would have been tough enough to deal with on his own, but the younger man tipped the scales well and truly against me.
I shrugged.
‘Okay. I’ll give you all the money in my wallet. It’s nothing to me. I just claim it back from the investors I was telling you about.’ I frowned pensively then made out as if an idea had suddenly struck me. ‘Why don’t I just get them to come and see you in person. You can sort out remuneration with them. Mr William Sneddon is my employer. Mr Jonathan Cohen is the other investor.’ I kept my tone friendly, as if I really didn’t mean it as the threat it was. ‘I know Mr Sneddon is very angry about people interfering in his business arrangements. So I’m sure he’ll take your request for more payment seriously. Very seriously.’
MacSherry looked over my shoulder at the younger guy and then back at me. ‘Why didn’t you say you worked for Mr Sneddon? Maybe you’re just pissing down my back and telling me it’s raining.’
‘If there’s a working callbox anywhere in this shithole, then we can take a wander to it and you can ask him yourself. Or I could simply ask for Twinkletoes McBride to come down here and convince you of my credentials.’ I dropped the friendly tone. It was a careful balancing act. Some people don’t have the sense to know when to be scared. I’d have bet my last penny on MacSherry being one of them.
He gave a jerk of his head in a signal for the younger man to let me past.
‘Thanks for your help, Mr MacSherry.’ I turned and walked out of the flat casually and unhurriedly.
But I didn’t take my hand from the sap in my pocket until I was out on the street and around the first corner.