The Deep Dark Sleep

‘Something like that.’ I sighed, this was complicated and confusing. I was having a conversation that I never would have envisaged myself having with McNab. ‘Okay, here’s the deal. I’ve been hired by Strachan’s daughters to confirm or otherwise that that was Gentleman Joe who was dredged up.’

‘I don’t see the conflict of interest,’ said McNab. ‘You can tell them that and point me in the right direction. I know you’ve had a lot of shady stuff in your background, but I also know that you’re the kind of man who wouldn’t sit still and let someone get away with murder, whether it’s a policeman’s murder or not.’

‘It would be a mistake to overestimate my nobility, McNab. But from what I’ve heard about Strachan, yes, it wouldn’t upset me to see him caught. But we have different furrows to plough, Superintendent.’

‘Give me something, Lennox.’

Again I paused, struggling with where I was with this.

‘Okay, like I said, I am looking into Strachan’s disappearance for his daughters. I had only made a couple of enquiries, barely putting my head above the parapet, when some guy jumps me in a foggy alley and tells me to lay off. Now this guy could handle himself, I mean really handle himself. Not like a street thug, more like a commando. It gets me thinking, if Strachan is dead, why am I getting serious professional advice to drop it?’

McNab’s broad face lit up with something. I was telling him what he wanted to hear. I decided not to tell him that my dance partner had stuck a gun in my back.

‘Then … and don’t ask me how I found this out, because I’m not going to tell you … but then I get an account from an eyewitness who swears he saw Strachan during the war. In the summer of Nineteen forty-two, to be exact.’

McNab looked as if an electrical charge had just run through him. ‘I knew it! I bloody knew it! Where?’

‘Now don’t get too excited …’ I tried to inject a cautious tone. ‘The rest of this doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, so just hear me through. This eyewitness, whom I tend to believe, said that he saw Strachan wearing the uniform of a major up at Lochailort. My witness reckons that Strachan was involved in the training of Auxiliary Units.’

I could see the electricity drain from McNab. ‘That can’t have been Strachan,’ he said.

‘That’s what I thought to start with too, but don’t dismiss it. I found out about Strachan’s less than glorious service in the First War. He regularly went AWOL, wearing officers’ uniforms and made an embarrassingly good job of passing himself off as an officer. You know yourself that he probably passed himself off as some plausible upper-class type to carry out reconnaissance of the locations of each of his major robberies. So Strachan being seen in an officer’s uniform isn’t that big a leap.’

‘But you said he was at Lochailort. There’s no way anyone, even Strachan, could have bluffed his way in there without the right papers and without others knowing exactly who he was and from what unit.’

‘That’s where I get stuck. And that’s where we could do a little quid pro quo. I can’t gain access to that kind of information; but you can.’

‘I don’t know, Lennox. There’s only so much the City of Glasgow Police can get out of the military. Especially about places like Lochailort, that are still subject to the Official Secrets Act.’

‘You’ve got a better chance than me.’

‘And what do I get in return?’

‘A call. If I find that Strachan is alive, and if I discover where he’s hidden himself, I’ll stick a couple of pennies in a pay ’phone. You probably won’t believe this, but I’ve already cautioned my clients that if I do find Strachan is alive and well, I would be compelled to do my civic duty.’

‘Just make sure no one gets a five-minute start, Lennox. Or our new found chumminess may falter.’ In a gesture of purposeful ceremony, McNab used two fingers to push the envelope across the table towards me. I pushed it back.

‘Like I said, Mr McNab, civic duty. Keep your money.’

McNab paused for a moment as if assessing me, then shrugged and pocketed the envelope as he stood up.

‘Can I use your ’phone?’ he asked, but had already spun it around to face him and lifted the receiver.

‘Superintendent McNab here,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’m clocking off. Anything come in before I head home?’

He sighed as he listened to the answer, then took his notebook from his coat and scribbled into it.

‘No rest for the wicked, I guess,’ I said after he hung up.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘There’s been a murder. Some nancy-boy out in Govanhill …’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

After McNab left, I tried unsuccessfully to get a hold of Jock Ferguson. He was on duty, the desk sergeant who answered the ’phone told me, but was out on a call.