The Deep Dark Sleep

The office was huge and panelled in a polished exotic hardwood that made you think it would have been cheaper to paper the walls with five-pound notes. Sneddon sat behind a massive inlaid desk that could have been launched into the Clyde as an aircraft carrier. On the desk sat three phones: one black, one ivory, one red. The rest of the desk furniture looked antique and there was a small pile of books in one corner of the desk and a heap of files sitting on the blotter in front of Sneddon.

Sneddon himself was dressed in expensive grey herringbone, a silk shirt and burgundy tie. I had never seen him dressed in anything that didn’t look Savile Row. Willie Sneddon had the kind of physical presence that made you wary. He was none too tall and was stocky without being heavy: all muscle and sinew in a way that always made me think he had been woven from ship rope. That, and the ugly crease of a razor scar on his right cheek, told you that this was someone to whom violence came naturally and easily.

I wondered what his classy new chums would make of the razor scar.

‘What the fuck do you want, Lennox?’ said Sneddon in greeting. I guessed Dale Carnegie’s How to win Friends and Influence People was not among the books on his desk.

‘It’s been a while,’ I said sitting down without being asked. ‘You seem to be doing very well for yourself, Mr Sneddon.’

He stared at me silently. His small-talk skills made Jock Ferguson look like a chatterbox.

‘I wondered if you could help me,’ I continued, cheerily undeterred. ‘You used to be friends with Billy Dunbar. I just wondered if you know where I might find him? He seems to have dropped out of sight.’

‘Billy Dunbar?’ Sneddon frowned at me. ‘How the fuck should I know? I haven’t heard from him in over ten years. Billy Dunbar …’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘What the fuck do you want Billy Dunbar for?’

‘A long shot. The police hauled him in and gave him a rough time back in Thirty-eight. Over the Exhibition robbery job. I just wanted to talk to him about it.’

Something flickered across Sneddon’s expression in the small pause before he spoke. Whatever it was, I didn’t have time to read it.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Does this have something to do with Gentleman Joe Strachan being found at the bottom of the Clyde?’

‘Well, yes … as a matter of fact it does.’

‘And what the fuck has that got to do with you?’

‘I’ve been hired to look into it. To make sure that was Joe Strachan they found.’

‘And why the fuck shouldn’t it have been Strachan? It makes sense, seeing as how it ties in with when he went missing.’

‘Did you know Strachan?’ I asked.

‘Naw. Knew of him, of course, he was the big bollocks back then … but I never met him. Why do you think that it’s maybe not Strachan they found?’

‘I didn’t say I thought that. I’ve just been asked to make sure. And I just wanted to talk to Billy Dunbar about it and thought you might have a more up to date address for him.’

‘Leave Billy out of it,’ said Sneddon. ‘He was a good bloke. Someone you could trust. But he went straight fucking years ago and just wanted left alone. The coppers gave him the hiding of his life and he didn’t tell them anything. I mean, they get handy with their fists a lot of the time, but this was different. What they did to Billy, and a few others, was nothing less than fucking torture. But there wasn’t nothing for him to tell.’

‘I see. So you don’t know where I could find him?’

‘How many fucking times do I have to tell you?’

I stood up. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Sneddon.’

Sneddon said nothing and remained seated. I made my way back to the door.

‘You want my opinion?’ Sneddon called across an acre of Axminster. I turned.

‘About what?’

‘About how the government could resolve the Cyprus crisis … what the fuck do you think about, for fuck’s sake? About Gentleman Joe Strachan.’

‘Okay …’ I said tentatively.

‘Whoever it was they found at the bottom of the river, it wasn’t Gentleman Joe Strachan.’

‘Why do you say that? I thought you said you didn’t know him, so what makes you think it’s not him they found?’

‘I took his place, Lennox. If Joe Strachan hadn’t disappeared it would be him sitting here, not me. He was a fucking legend in this town. And the Empire Exhibition robbery is the kind of job that every gobshite dreams of pulling off. Textbook stuff.’

‘Except the fact that a copper was blown away,’ I said, trying to imagine what textbooks Glasgow criminals read.