The Deep Dark Sleep

‘You could be right.’ I shrugged. ‘But we’re not dealing with the usual Glasgow criminal type here. And you can’t deny that that was no ordinary thug who jumped me in my office.’ I shook my head irritably as other thoughts crammed in. ‘Why are there no photographs of Strachan, anywhere? I’m telling you, he was planning his disappearance for a long, long time. This is no fairy tale, Superintendent. This is a whole new ball of wax.’

After McNab left, I smoked a couple of cigarettes with Jock Ferguson and talked the thing to death some more. We were interrupted by Dr ‘Sonny’, who gave me the all clear to go. Archie was waiting for me downstairs and shook hands with Jock Ferguson when we arrived.

‘Look after him.’ Ferguson managed to make it sound like an order.

‘I’ll keep him away from windows,’ said Archie dolefully.

I said goodbye to Ferguson, latching on, as casually as I could manage, something that I had been relieved had not yet raised its head.

‘By the way, Jock, what was all that about a murder case the other night? Govanhill, I think it was McNab said.’

I had put the question as conversationally as possible, but it still sounded clunky.

‘Why you asking?’ he asked, but with no more suspicion than usual.

‘Just curious.’

‘We think it was some kind of fairy killing. A pool lifeguard called Frank Gibson who was well known in those circles apparently.’

‘How was he killed?’

Jock Ferguson looked at me suspiciously.

‘Like I said, just curiosity.’

‘Morbid bloody curiosity. He had his throat cut. From behind. Whoever did it set the flat on fire. The whole tenement nearly went up with everybody in it. Why the hell would he set the place on fire after he’d killed Gibson?’

I shrugged to signal the limit of my curiosity, but I was thinking of the burnt furniture thrown into the back court. The answer, I felt, was obvious: fire wipes out evidence. I thought too of all of the other envelopes stuffed with negatives. Maybe Downey and Gibson had been pulling the same stunt with God knows how many others. And where was Downey now?

The kind of business I was in called for discretion. A low profile. Showing my guest the window had gotten me onto the front pages of the Bulletin, the Daily Herald, the Daily Record and the Evening Citizen. The Glasgow Herald confined me to page four. The Bulletin had a photograph of my office building with my window boarded up, and an arrow indicating the route taken by my guest to the street: just in case the Bulletin’s readers were unfamiliar with the workings of gravity.

Archie had the papers in his car when he came to pick me up. Archie’s car was pretty much as you would expect from Archie: a black Forty-seven Morris Eight into which he seemed to have to fold himself like a penknife. We didn’t talk much as we drove across the city and down to the Gallowgate. My mind suddenly filled with the fact that I had killed a man; that my actions, not for the first time, had ended a human being’s existence. I told myself that I had not had much choice in the matter. The truth was that I had had some.

Archie clearly sensed I was not in the mood for chat and we drove in silence back to my temporary lodgings. The door opened without being knocked and we were greeted sullenly by Mr Simpson. My landlord’s demeanour had shifted from suspicious to outright hostile.

‘I’ve chchread all of this schhhite in the papers. People being flung out of windowsch. We’ve got windowsch here. You’re that Lennochsch, aren’t you?’

‘I am,’ I said and noticed my bags, packed, sitting behind him in the hall. ‘But I’ve committed no crime. I was the victim of the attack, not the perpetrator. So your windows are safe.’

‘I don’t want no trouble. No trouble. You’ll have to go.’

‘Would it help if I told you I thought the guy had an Irish accent?’ I asked, deadpan. When he didn’t answer, I leaned past him to pick up my bags. He flinched as I did so and I gave him a wink.

‘Top o’ the mornin’ t’yah!’

‘Where now, boss?’ asked Archie, once we were back in the car. His voice remained dull but there was a twinkle in the large hang-dog eyes.

‘Great Western Road,’ I said. ‘But stop at a phone box on the way so I can warn my landlady.’

The world had turned on its axis a few times since I’d last spent a night in my digs, but I had somehow expected to pick up where I had left off; and specifically where I had left off my tearoom conversation with Fiona White. But things had moved on without me, somewhat.