The Deep Dark Sleep

‘It certainly was. The Empire Exhibition was a big thing for Glasgow back in Thirty-eight,’ Archie continued. ‘The big thing. I was there, with my wife. They built the whole exhibition in Bellahouston Park, but you would not have believed you were in the middle of Glasgow. There were towers, pavilions, a freak-show, a funfair … Oh aye, and a giant model of Victoria Falls, a hundred feet wide. There was even an entire Highland village, complete with a castle and a loch. Aye, it was some undertaking. Even your lot – the Canadians, I mean – had a pavilion, with Mounties and everything. There were these women – they called them the Giraffe-necked Women – and everybody went to see them. They’d come from Burma and had all of these rings around their necks, one added a year, until they had necks a foot long …’

Archie paused, lost for a moment in memories, a faint wistfulness flickering disturbingly across his pall-bearer’s countenance.

‘Yep,’ I said, ‘really sounds like something.’

‘It was right after the Depression, of course,’ Archie said, ‘and they thought it would do a lot of good for Glasgow, but the truth was Glasgow was about to get back to full swing anyway because of the war. And you couldn’t afford to go into any of the pavilions … at least, not if you were an ordinary Glaswegian like we were. They charged you a bob just to get through the gates. Even the kiddies had to pay sixpence. It was all supposed to be about the future but it looked to the missus and me like a future we wouldn’t afford. There were tearooms and the like, but the Atlantic Restaurant was beyond the reach of everybody except the seriously well-off. Like most people, Mavis and I spent most of the time walking around and looking at the pavilions from the outside. Do you know, we couldn’t even sit down? They charged you tuppence for a deck chair, and your ticket was only good for three hours.’

We reached Charing Cross Mansions and the garage from which I had hired the van. I pulled up outside behind where I’d parked my Atlantic, and listened to Archie while he finished his story.

‘The weather was shite,’ he continued. ‘The worst summer for rain anyone could remember, and in Glasgow that’s saying something. The Exhibition was nearly a complete wash-out, literally. But it really was something. They said that it was the future, the way things would look. All these fancy buildings. Like the ones they have in Hollywood.’

‘Art deco.’

‘Wouldn’t know. Anyway, despite the rain, the exhibition took in a fortune in cash – at all of the attractions, the restaurants and events and so forth – and the money was transferred back to the bank in the city centre. The same kind of run as we’ve just done, so to speak, but in reverse. These boys had a reinforced van, though – armoured, like. There was some kind of arrangement where the armoured car picked up the exhibition takings on its way back along Glasgow Road from a textile wholesaler out at Paisley and then back to the main bank in the city centre. They had staff working the night shift there to lock it up in the main safe, instead of it being dropped into the night safe.’

‘So there was more than the Exhibition takings in the van?’

‘Aye. But how the robbers knew that was a mystery. The CID reckoned that the robbers had help or information somewhere along the way. An inside job. But all of the staff were interrogated and the CID came up with nothing. Anyway, the Exhibition had closed for the day and the van had just done the pick-up when it was ambushed by these armed men. Five of them. The driver and the guard played along, guessing that these boys meant business after one of the robbers gave the driver a doing, but there was actually a police office as part of the Exhibition. It was supposed to be empty at that time, but the young PC who had been on duty during the day had been held up for some reason.’

‘Gourlay?’

‘Yes, Charlie Gourlay … he was on his way out of the Exhibition when he walked right into the robbery taking place. The driver of the van said in his statement that the tallest of the robbers let him have it with both barrels without a second’s hesitation. Cold blooded murder.’

‘Were you involved in the case?’

‘No … I was posted away on the other side of the city. But of course it was big, big news. A murdered policeman was seen – still is seen – as an attack on the whole force. Like I said, we were all of us dragged in and briefed and re-briefed about the robbery. I tell you, every policeman in the city was on the lookout for Joe Strachan. There were a couple of blokes got a real kicking because they fitted Strachan’s description.’

‘And they fixed on Strachan right away?’

‘Aye. There had been rumours about the Commercial Bank job and the one before it. But I think there was more to it than that.’

‘Oh?’

‘If you ask me, someone somewhere got a tip about Strachan. I mean, we weren’t looking for anybody else.’

‘But Strachan didn’t have a reputation as a life-taker, did he?’