The Deep Dark Sleep

‘I guessed as much,’ I said, thinking about the new blood splashed all over my office and the taxi below.

‘But of course,’ continued Fraser, ‘his loyalty to the Duke is phoney … everything he does is for his own purposes.’

The dark, grimy flank of the quayside and the brooding mass of the fifty-ton Stobcross crane loomed out of the fog and into view; the ferry was near docking.

Fraser reached into his coat and I did the same.

‘Take it easy, Lennox, it’s just this …’ he said, handing me a fat envelope. ‘There’s a thousand pounds in fifty pound notes in there. I want you to have it, Mr Lennox.’

‘Why is it everybody wants to shove vast sums of money into my lap? What’s the deal? What do you want from me?’

‘Like I said, I need you to protect me. Keep my name out of all of this. And more. I’m not so naïve as not to know that I am a marked man, so I’m going to disappear for a while. I’m taking my family with me. Somewhere out of the country. But I want to come back. I want it to be safe for me to come back.’

‘I can’t guarantee that,’ I said, but pocketed the envelope. He owed me at least that much. ‘But I intend to take Strachan down, one way or another.’

The ferry docked.

‘Get into my car,’ I ordered Fraser. ‘And I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I had quite a bit of time to kill, so instead of going into the office, I went back to my digs. The net curtain twitched in the downstairs window as I opened the gate and walked up the path, but Fiona didn’t come to the door as I came in, so I went straight up to my rooms.

In the bedroom, I opened the top drawer of the chest and laid the Webley in it. Reaching under the bed, I eased up the loose board and retrieved a box of shells for the revolver and a small leather roll-case. I unrolled the case on the bed and took out a hunting knife, still in its sheath and a set of brass knuckles. I laid these in the drawer with the gun and shells. Next, I found both my saps and laid them in next to the other weapons. They would stay there until tonight. I stripped off my shirt and examined the dressing on my arm. It was fresh and clean, but I would double bind it tonight, just to have that little extra support.

Back in the living room, I sat down at the bureau and wrote three letters: one to Jock Ferguson, detailing absolutely everything that had happened over the past two weeks and giving him the lowdown on a few other aspects of my colourful career. The second was to Archie, instructing him to take over my business. The third was a short note to Fiona White. I stuffed the money that Fraser had given me into the envelope for Archie. In with the letter to Fiona White, I placed my bank safety deposit box key and a letter of instruction to MacGregor, the bank’s Chief Clerk, informing him that I had taken Mrs White into my confidence in all matters relating to my investigations and she was to have unfettered access to the deposit box.

Once all the envelopes were sealed, I put them all into a larger brown envelope, on which I had written: IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH.

I had undertaken cheerier tasks.

I shut the envelope up in the bureau, but didn’t lock it, then went through to the bedroom and lay on my bed, smoking. Maybe it was because I was trying to fill my head with anything at all other than the night that lay ahead of me, but I started to think about home. Thinking about Canada was something I tried not to do too much, but now I indulged myself. I thought about the ‘Kennebecasis Kid’ as I always called that self I had been before the war: young, idealistic, blissfully ignorant of the crap life can throw at you. Stupid, probably. I thought about the killing I had done and the killing I had seen throughout the war. About how it had changed me into something I didn’t like.

All in all, I wasn’t too proud of what I had become during the war. I wasn’t too proud of most of what I had been up to since. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of myself in the way I would have been if I had become a white slave trader selling virgins into prostitution, sold drugs to school kids or played hockey for the Montreal Canadians – but I’d piled up the sins all right.

But even with all of my erring, sinning, fornication, drinking, brawling and shoving ex-commandos out of third floor windows, I was a choirboy compared to Gentleman Joe Strachan. Another thing I knew about myself was that I was bright. I had smarts enough for two, but even there I was left in Strachan’s shadow. He had made a career out of crossing, double-crossing, beguiling and confusing others with an ease and skill that was breathtaking. It was one thing I had found out about life, about people. We’re not all the same. There were always the manipulators and the manipulated, the singular and the unremarkable.

I even wondered whether it was true, after all, that Sneddon was Strachan’s illegitimate son, or if Gentleman Joe had somehow manipulated him, moulded him into the belief.