The Deep Dark Sleep

‘You haven’t met Twinkletoes McBride,’ I said. ‘He’s an associate of mine, and he didn’t get his name because of his skills on the dance floor. So talk before I call him around with his bolt cutters.’

A smile I didn’t like spread across his busted and bloody face. ‘You know something, Lennox? I don’t think you’re in any state to call anyone. You’re doing nothing, Lennox. In India, they used to have a saying, he who rides a tiger may never dismount. You can’t reach my knife without letting go of the hat stand; you let go of the hat stand, I get to the knife first. Whatever happens, we go another round.’

‘You didn’t win the last time,’ I said, ‘and you had the element of surprise.’

‘But you’re bleeding, Lennox. Nothing that can’t be patched up, but you’re weakening. I doubt you’ll even be able to hold me off with this thing for much longer. All you can do is stand there and shout for help and hope someone comes.’

‘You know something, you’re absolutely right. It’s a conundrum, but I tell you what, I have an answer to it.’

‘Oh yes?’ He kept that arrogant smile on his face. ‘And what would that be?’

‘That you shout for help … On the way down.’

I thrust forward with all of what was left of my strength. The smile went and the one unswollen eye widened in the bloody mask of his face as he scrabbled to keep his grip. I pushed again and his bloodied fingers slipped from the window frame. He toppled, screaming, out of the window.

*

I heard a screech of tyres and a woman’s shriek. I went to the window and looked down into Gordon Street where he lay smashed on the deeply dented roof of a taxi.

It was, I thought to myself as I stepped back in to call the police, one way to catch a cabby’s attention. More effective than whistling.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Pushing people out of third-floor windows, apparently, contravenes some Glasgow Corporation bye-law, so I spent most of the next two days in the company of the police.

The first night was spent in the Western General, with a boy in blue sitting guard at my side. For my own protection, Jock Ferguson less than reassured me.

Despite the fact that I was perfectly capable of walking, I was confined to a bed, but not in the ward, instead ending up in a room on my own. My guess was that the police had insisted on it.

I was in good hands. If you are going to have a stab or slash wound, my advice would always be to try and arrange to have it in Glasgow. Glaswegian hospitals have an unparalleled experience of stitching up knife, razor and bottle-inflicted injuries. I even heard of a guy admitted with multiple wounds from a machete. Why a Glaswegian would have a machete was beyond me; I was pretty sure I hadn’t come across dense patches of jungle or rainforest during my time in Glasgow.

The wound to my arm was deep. A doctor who looked twelve and reddened every time I called him ‘Sonny’ told me that they had had to stitch muscle as well as skin. I could expect some nerve damage, he told me, as if it had been my own silly fault.

I gave a formal statement under caution to Jock Ferguson, witnessed by my uniformed nursemaid. I followed exactly the advice I had given Fraser and told the police the real sequence of events, describing my him-or-me struggle and how it ended with him falling through the window. Except I omitted to mention that it had taken me several shoves to get the bastard through, or that we had chatted for a while before he caught his taxi.

My heart sank when McNab joined us, squeaking a chair across the hospital floor. A professionally dour-looking detective stood behind him, at the door, with a briefcase in his hand. Not carrying your own things was obviously another privilege of rank.

McNab read through the statement I had dictated to Ferguson and signed.

‘Funny thing is,’ he said, pushing his hat up and away from his eyes, ‘that we have witnesses who report glass falling into the street some time before the victim fell.’

I didn’t like that word. Victim.

‘Could be, Superintendent. We were smashing into everything.’

‘And there were bloody handprints on the frame of the window, as if the victim had tried to hang on to prevent himself from falling.’

There it was again. That word.

‘He grabbed at it as he fell. In fact, that was when he dropped the knife. But his hands were too bloody to get a grip: that’s why he fell.’

‘Mmm. I see.’ McNab nodded to the detective behind him who handed him a roll of white cloth. Unwrapping the cloth, he revealed the knife. It had an evidence tag on it. And some blood. Mine. Flecks of it had stained the cloth.

‘This knife?’

‘That’s the one.’

Now, after the adrenalin of the fight had left my system, draining every last ounce of energy from me, the sight of the blade that had sliced into my flesh made me feel sick.

‘Aye …’ said McNab contemplatively. ‘This would be a commando knife, would it not?’