The Deep Dark Sleep

I washed and changed. Suit, shirt, underwear, everything. It was something about hospitals I could never understand: you came out of them smelling of carbolic yet you always felt dirty. I went downstairs at six and had a meal of fish, peas and potatoes with Fiona and her daughters. I tried to chat as much as I could but the truth was I was still pretty shaken up by what had happened in my office. Fiona frowned when she saw me take some prescription pills with my meal; the bandage and dressing on my arm was concealed by my shirt sleeve and she did not know how badly I’d been injured, if at all. But the other thing that nagged at me throughout the meal was the smug presence of a dead man’s brother.

After we finished, I helped Fiona take the dishes through to the kitchen but she told me to sit. The girls settled down to watch television and I closed the kitchen door.

‘Are you okay with this, Fiona?’ I asked. ‘I know that reading about what happened must have been a shock.’

She stopped washing the plate she was working on and leant against the edge of the sink, her back to me, and looking out of the kitchen window to the small garden at the back.

‘This man. You killed him? I mean it wasn’t an accident?’

I was about to say it was a little of both, but the infuriating thing about Fiona White was that she brought out the honesty in me. ‘Yes, I killed him. But it was in self-defence. He ambushed me in my office and tried to cut my throat. He was the same guy who jumped me in the fog.’

She turned to me.

‘So it’s safe for you to be back here?’ She made it more of a statement than a question.

‘That’s not one hundred per cent certain,’ I said. ‘I don’t for one minute think that this man was working on his own. But I can’t imagine whoever was behind the attack risking anything so … so visible again. Anyway, it looks like we have serious police protection now. But there is still no way I want to put you and the girls at risk. I can find new accommodation for the time being …’

‘No,’ she said, but as if she had to think about it and without emphasis.

‘It’s not always going to be like this, Fiona,’ I said. ‘Things have got all mixed up. I thought this kind of thing was behind me. I guess I was wrong.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ she said. ‘But you know I can’t be part of that world. I can’t bring the girls into that kind of world.’

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘But that’s what I’m trying to put behind me. Things will get better, like I said.’

‘I know they will,’ she said and smiled.

But we both knew my fate was sealed.

It had still been just within banking hours so, on the way back from the hospital, I had had Archie stop off at the bank. News of my adventures had obviously reached the bank and when I walked in it was the kind of entry that you would expect a gunfighter to get walking into a Western saloon. MacGregor himself dealt with my request to access my safety deposit box. He was overly chatty but nervous, as if making a conscious effort to avoid the word ‘window’ or any reference to catching a taxi. I was glad I had the goods on him, otherwise I reckoned I would have already lost the bank job. As it was, my knowledge of his sordid private life would do little to save me if the board of governors set their minds to get rid of me.

But there again, they maybe liked the idea of their cash being guarded by a life-taker.

I had taken the Webley from the safety deposit box and had tucked it into the waistband of my trousers. I knew that if McNab found out I was walking about his town heavy with an unlicensed gun, the recent thaw in relations would turn out to have been a false Spring. But if someone tried to kill me again, I wanted to have more than a hat stand in my hand. When I had gotten back to my digs, and after my pleasant exchange with James White, I had put the Webley under my pillow.

It was about eight-thirty when I put my jacket and hat on, went down to the hall telephone and ’phoned Isa. We arranged that I would meet her and Violet the next day.

I knocked on the Whites’ door and told Elspeth to tell her mother that I would be out for the evening. When I drove off, I was relieved to see that the dark grey Humber stayed on point outside the house, instead of following me. But I guessed my outing would be noted and radioed in.

Before I headed up north and into the country, I stopped at a telephone kiosk and called Murphy.

‘You heard what happened?’ I asked.

‘About you throwing that cunt out the fucking window? I believe it may have come to my fucking notice. I thought you was supposed to be discreet? So who was he?’

‘The same guy I told you and Jonny Cohen about. The one who jumped me in the fog.’

‘So what are you telling me, that you want your fucking money?’

‘No. Maybe. I don’t think so. Listen, I’m not at all sure that this guy was this so called Lad of Strachan’s. Unless Gentleman Joe sent him for elocution lessons, that is. He was English.’

‘Aye? Fucking reason enough to throw him out the window.’