The Deep Dark Sleep

‘Okay, next time I’ll make it an Italian meal …’ I’d treated Jock Ferguson to a meal at Rosseli’s before. In Glasgow that was as exotic as it comes and he had spent five minutes suspiciously poking around with his fork at his spaghetti. Forty minutes and two bottles of cheap Chianti later, he seemed to have developed an enthusiasm for Italian cuisine. Or as much of an enthusiasm as Jock Ferguson was capable of displaying: I could not imagine him ever throwing his arm around a waiter and bursting into ‘O sole mio’.

‘Do you have anything on either of them?’ he asked. ‘So’s I know where to start asking.’

‘Well, I think Williamson was a war buddy of Joe Strachan’s. In Number One, I mean.’ I had just finished saying it when I heard at the other end of the line something as rare as an inside toilet in Dennistoun: Ferguson laughing.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘A war buddy?’ he said. ‘Is that a polite way of saying fellow deserter?’

‘I thought Strachan had a glowing war record,’ I said. ‘A war hero, his daughter told me.’

More laughter. ‘Listen, Lennox, Strachan could sell any line of bull to anyone he chose. Do you know why everybody called him Gentleman Joe?’

‘I’ve heard that he was a flashy dresser, and liked a few of the finer things in life. Mind you, coming from the Gorbals, toilet paper that doesn’t leave newsprint on your backside counts as one of the finer things, I suppose.’

‘Joe Strachan didn’t dress flashy, Lennox. He dressed well. He knew what to wear and how, when and where to wear it. Like you say, he was one hundred per cent Gorbals, but he could pass himself off as anything, in any social circle. Believe it or not, it was actually what led the City CID in the first place to suspect him of having pulled off the Empire job and the other top-end robberies.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘It was just by chance that a bank clerkess mentioned having served a tall, well-dressed, well-spoken gentleman a couple of weeks before the bank got hit. He had called in to cash a postal order but she had remembered that he had asked a lot of questions. Then, when they went over the other jobs, and prompted witnesses’ memories, they remembered a tall, well-spoken, well-dressed gentleman having had some kind of contact a few weeks before the job.’

‘Did he fit Strachan’s description?’

‘The description was slightly different each time, but there were enough similarities. It was by pure chance that it came out: no one thought anything of it because “gentlemen” don’t commit crime. And do you know where Strachan learned his party trick? In the army at the end of the First War.’

‘He saw active service?’ I asked. ‘I was told he volunteered as a fifteen-year-old …’

Ferguson snorted. ‘Joseph Strachan was not the volunteering type. He was too young for most of the war but was called up at the arse end of it all. But the last shot hadn’t been fired, so young Strachan showed real initiative by taking some leave without burdening his superiors with organizing it.’

‘So that was when he deserted?’

‘More than deserted … Strachan had this ability: to mimic voices, accents, mannerisms, that kind of thing.’

‘What’s your point … that Music Hall’s loss was armed robbery’s gain?’

There was a short silence and I could imagine Ferguson making an impatient face: he was not used to being interrupted. ‘Anyway, he could pass himself off as anyone. Any class, any nationality: Scottish, English, Welsh. So when he deserted, he didn’t just take a powder and lie low, like most would. Oh no, young Master Strachan also nicked a couple of subalterns’ uniforms so he could pass himself off as an officer on leave. Fooled everybody. Spent six weeks running up mess and brothel bills.’

‘Six weeks? I’m surprised he lasted that long. Passing yourself off as an officer with a put-on accent is one thing, but it’s not just how you talk, it’s what you’ve got to say about yourself.’

‘Aye … I suppose you’ll know all about that, Lennox.’ Ferguson didn’t attempt to keep the tone of contempt out of his voice. ‘You having been an officer and gone to a fancy school yourself … So what are you saying? That Strachan would be bound to give himself away by using the wrong spoon or holding his bone china the wrong way or some crap like that?’

‘I just don’t see how a thug from the Gorbals could be that convincing as a public school-educated officer.’