The Deep Dark Sleep

Dunbar smirked. A knowing smirk. ‘They do, do they? Well whoopee-fucking-doo. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’

‘I thought you were off today,’ I said. He took a step towards me.

‘I’m getting fed up with this. I have had nothing to do with all of that shite since my last stretch in Barlinnie. You say Joe Strachan’s dead, fine, Joe Strachan’s dead. I haven’t heard the name in ten years, and I don’t want to get involved with whatever you’re up to.’

‘All we’re up to is finding out information about Joe Strachan, nothing else,’ I said. ‘No big deal. We’re not looking to solve the crime of the century or recover stolen cash or settle scores. We’re working for Strachan’s daughters, who want to get to the bottom of what happened to their father, that’s all.’

‘Well you’re looking in the wrong direction,’ he said. ‘Listen, I did ten years in Barlinnie: ten hard, hard years of getting fucking birched for any excuse, dodging the old queers and keeping away from the mad bastards and trying not to turn into one myself. I was twenty-two when I went in. I lost the best years of my life and I knew from the first day that I never wanted to go back to that, so I went straight. I came out in Thirty-seven and I’d only been out a couple of months when the polis picked me up and beat the shite out of me because they thought I’d been in on the Empire job. Broken nose and jaw, cracked ribs, four broken fingers on my right hand.’ He looked down at the hand of the arm looped under the shotgun, as if examining the long-healed injury. ‘One of the coppers fucking stamped on it. It’s never been right since. I told them then that I knew fuck all and that’s what I’m telling you now.’

‘Why did they pick on you?’ asked Archie.

‘A copper was dead. That was all the reason they needed. Every name they had was pulled in. The bastard who stamped on my hand was a pal of the dead cop.’

‘McNab?’ I took a wild shot.

‘Aye …’ Dunbar looked surprised. ‘Willie McNab. He became a big shot in the CID afterwards. Anyway, the other reason they picked on me is the job I did ten years for … they suspected that Joe Strachan had planned it, but couldn’t prove it.’

‘Had he planned it?’

Dunbar looked at me as if I had said something stupid. ‘If Joe Strachan had planned that job, I would never have got caught.’

‘Did you do jobs with Strachan?’ I asked and got the look again. ‘Okay, did you know Strachan?’

‘I knew him all right. Not well, but I knew about him. He was beginning to make a name for himself in the Twenties. Even back then the polis were desperate to nail him. There were a lot of big jobs being put down to Strachan. Not just robberies but frauds, blackmail, housebreakings … The coppers could never prove it was Strachan.’

‘But if he had that scope of operation, he must have had a regular team.’

‘Aye, that’s as maybes. But who they were was anybody’s guess. That was another reason the coppers picked on me. Because I had kept my nose clean after prison. The theory they had was that Strachan either picked men without criminal records, or, if it was someone with form, told them not to do any other jobs than his and to keep their noses clean and their mouths shut between jobs. You know, the coppers never recovered a single fucking penny from any of the Triple Crown robberies? Not a single banknote was ever traced. That means Strachan must have had his laundry and distribution all planned out well before. But I’m only telling you what every other bastard knows. Like I told you, I know fuck all else. You could have saved your coupon.’

Dunbar referred to the petrol coupon it would have cost to make the trip up from Glasgow. Petrol rationing had ended five years before, but the expression had lingered.

‘Okay,’ I said resignedly. ‘Thanks for your help anyway.’ I handed him a card. ‘That’s my office number if anything should occur to you.’

‘It won’t.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said wearily. ‘Mr Dunbar, I hope you know we weren’t trying to tie you into anything or anything like that. Our interest is quite simply to let a family know if the body recovered from the Clyde is that of their father, that’s all. I’m sorry we disturbed you.’ I handed him a five pound note. ‘That’s for your time. I have to say there would have been more if you had been able to help.’

I lifted my hat an inch and turned, leaving Dunbar staring at the fiver in his hand. Archie followed me, looking disappointed, which really didn’t signify anything in Archie’s case.

‘That’s that, then,’ he said.

‘Not quite. He has something to tell us. Something he really wants to tell us. And I think I already know what it is, but I want to hear it from him. That’s why I’ve left my number.’

‘Wait!’

‘Yes, Mr Dunbar?’

‘I was telling you the truth, I didn’t have anything to do with the Empire robbery or any other Strachan job. And I’ve never seen Strachan since before I went to prison.’

‘But?’

‘But I’ve got some information that will cost you twenty-five pounds.’