The Long Glasgow Kiss

Collins led me up Maryhill Road and through Milngavie. I smiled smugly, for no one’s benefit but my own: we were heading for Bobby Kirkcaldy’s place in Blanefield. But we didn’t. Instead we passed through Strathblane and Blanefield and headed further north and into Stirlingshire. I couldn’t complain about my work not being varied. Over the last two weeks I had seen more Scottish countryside than a Bluebell Tours bus driver.

We were the only cars on the road now and I held right back, allowing myself to be guided by the blood fleck on the horizon that was Collins’s Lanchester as it breached a hill or took a corner. There was nowhere for him to go, which made me feel relaxed about following him but perplexed about where he might lead me.

We were now out into that part of Scotland that was gently scenic rather than dramatic, but the mountains ahead reminded me that we were becoming ever more remote. When I turned the next corner I found that I had lost sight of Collins completely, so I gunned the Atlantic a little until I reached the next bend. Still nothing. I stopped reflecting on the view, dropped a crunching gear and floored the accelerator. I took the next bend a little too fast and the rear tyres protested. Still no Collins. I took the next stretch as fast as the last, braking hard at the corner. This time there was a long, open expanse ahead of me where the road dipped between trees and rose gradually again, stretching out towards the mountains. I slowed down. No Collins, and there was no way he could have cleared that stretch before I made the corner.

It took me a while to find a place where I could get turned around. The Atlantic objected a little as I floored the accelerator again, heading back up the hill and around the bend. Slowing up on the straight, I checked every farm gate and track, peering through the dense clumps of trees. I passed what looked like the entrance to a house, but couldn’t see the building itself because of the trees and bushes that lined the road, just a sweep of dirt and gravel driveway. I drove on for another five hundred or so yards, checking for signs where Collins could have turned off. Nothing. It had to be the entry into the house. I found a lay-by of sorts and parked so I could steal up the driveway on foot and have a nosey-around. This was becoming a bit of a habit and I was becoming more gumboot than gumshoe. As I headed along the road to the entrance to the driveway, I wondered if I should trade in the Atlantic for a tractor.

It was a long driveway. Tree-lined and curving, so you couldn’t get a glimpse of the house till you were nearly on it. It turned out to be a big Georgian type. Bigger and classier even than Sneddon’s newly acquired country retreat and fight venue. But when I drew closer I could see that most of the windows were shuttered and a door to the side was boarded up. Another empty house. But not another derelict. This had all the look of a home boarded up while the owners were away, or one that was between owners. The driveway opened out into a huge semi-circle in front of the house. No blood-red Lanchester. In fact, no cars at all. I could have saved myself some time and driven up to check it out. There was clearly no one here, least of all Collins. I’d lost him. But it still made sense for me to check the house out. And it still made sense for me to be cautious as I did so.

I decided to get off the drive: the gravel was crunching under every footfall and everything else around here seemed to have taken a Trappist vow. I walked across a broad triangle of lawn that was yearning for a long-lost mower and around the side of the house. The first couple of windows I found – the usual tall, elegant Georgian jobs – had the internal shutters closed over. But when I got around to the back, I found an unshuttered window, its glass as black as obsidian. I peered in through it, pressing my face to the glass and shielding my eyes with my hands, but it was no good: the interior was so dark I could see nothing.

I straightened up. There, reflected in the dark glass, was a face next to mine, standing behind me. A battered, indeterminately old face that looked like it had been used as a punch bag for decades. The name ‘Uncle Bert’ formed itself in my head and I started to turn, but something that felt like steel slammed into my back, right above the pelvis. The pain exploded through my gut and I felt as if my kidney had exploded. The punch had caught me exactly where I was still tender from my encounter with Costello’s goons outside the Carvery.

I spun around and swung wildly at the old man. He blocked my punch with his forearm, and his fist, still feeling like steel instead of muscle and bone, rammed into my solar plexus. Every bit of air pulsed out of my lungs. I stopped defending myself. I stopped thinking. Once more, all of my being was concentrated on the simple effort of breathing. He pushed me back and to the side so I collided with the wall.