The Deep Dark Sleep

‘Yes?’ he said, and cast a glance past me, down the path and to where my car was parked on the street, as if he was looking to see who was with me.

‘Mr Provan? I’d like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.’

‘Here? Or …’ He nodded towards the car.

‘Here would be fine, Mr Provan,’ I said, trying to work out who he thought I was who would take him away in a car. Not the police, I reckoned.

‘I take it you know what this is about?’ I decided to milk it a little.

‘I know. I’ve been expecting you. Ever since the bones were hauled up. You’d better come in.’ He stood to one side, with even more of a resigned sag of the shoulders. I stepped into the hall and past him.

I was hit with such force that I flew forward and halfway up the hall, coming to rest face down on the floor, having sent an umbrella stand flying and scattering its contents all over the floor.

From the explosion of pain, I reckoned he had kicked me in the small of my back. He was on top of me in an instant, his knee pinioning me to the floor, pressing down on the exact same point on my spine that he had kicked. He looped his forearm under me and used it as a choking bar on my throat. My air supply was shut off and I knew I had seconds before the lights went out. Finding his hand, I seized his little finger and yanked it forward, hard. I knew I’d dislocated it, but he knew I only had seconds left and he ignored the injury. I twisted the finger round hard and he found it impossible to ignore. He eased the pressure off just enough for me to twist my shoulders sideways and throw him off balance. I slammed him into the wall, then again, and managed to get free enough to ease up on one knee. My hand fell on a robust walking stick that had spilled from the stand; grabbing it, I swung it blind but hit my target. I swung round and hit him again, this time across the side of the head. The stick didn’t have enough weight to put him out, but another couple of blows dazed him enough for me to get to my feet.

I snatched the Webley from my waistband and levelled it at him. He was slumped on the floor, half propped-up against the wall, and he gazed up at me with a strange look. Like some kind of resigned, contemptuous defiance. It was that look that told me all I needed to know. He thought I was his executioner.

‘Wife?’ I asked. I knew there was no one else in the house, or they would have come running because of the racket we had made.

‘Dead. Seven years.’

‘You’re alone?’

He nodded. ‘Just get on with it.’

‘You think Joe Strachan sent me, don’t you?’ I said.

‘Ghosts can’t send killers, can they?’ He laughed, low and bitterly. ‘I thought he would do it himself. Like the others. I knew it was him. I always knew it was him.’

‘I’m not who you think I am,’ I said.

He frowned as he watched me ease the hammer back on the Webley and tuck it back into my waistband. I could see he was unsure what to do, so I left my hand resting on the gun butt.

‘Who are you then?’

‘A mug. A mug who was hired to clear up the truth about Joe Strachan, but I think I was maybe really hired just to muddy the waters. Now, I’m not here to kill you or take you for a spin in the trunk of my car, and I’m not a copper. So can we maybe relax a little?’

He nodded, but I left my hand on the gun. It was beginning to dawn on me that I really had struck gold.

‘This is a nice little place you’ve got here,’ I said. ‘It must have set you back a bob or two. I take it this was all bought with the money from the Empire Exhibition robbery?’

Provan wiped blood from his nose and laughed again. Bitterly. I guessed it was the only way he knew how to laugh.

‘I didn’t get a penny from that robbery,’ he said. ‘Not a penny.’

‘But you were one of the team?’

‘Who the fuck are you, anyway?’

‘Lennox. Like I said, I’m an enquiry agent. I was hired by Strachan’s kids to find out what happened to their father.’

‘Kids? Which kids?’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean, which kids?’

‘Gentleman Joe was one for the ladies. There are Strachan bastards all over the shop.’

‘These ones are legitimate. His twin daughters.’

Provan looked at me as if weighing up the truth of what I was saying. ‘Can I get off the floor?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But no more funny business. I’m no threat to you and I’d like it to be mutual.’

‘Fair enough.’ He got up. ‘You all right?’ he asked and nodded to my hand. I looked down: there was blood on the back of it. I guessed our little tussle had popped a stitch or two on the knife wound. I decided I really should think about a different line of work. Maybe Bobby McKnight could get me a job selling used cars.

‘I’ll live. Incidentally, that was a present from a commando type who had been sent to dissuade me from pursuing my enquiries. I guess that was who you were expecting to turn up.’

‘Come through to the kitchen.’ Provan led the way. ‘I think we could both do with a drink.’