The Long Glasgow Kiss

As I had explained to Devereaux in the lobby of his hotel, the Maillé-Brézé had been a French Navy destroyer. It had been anchored at the berthing point at the Tail of the Bank, at the mouth of the Clyde Estuary and beneath the spot where the Free French monument now stood. The Tail of the Bank had been the gathering point for the Atlantic convoys: a bustling knot of merchant vessels and their heavily armed escorts. And it had also been where the Maillé-Brézé had been berthed in April 1940. The French destroyer had only just set out to sea when two torpedoes were accidentally launched onto the ship’s own deck. The torpedoes had exploded midships with a force that had shattered windows in Port Glasgow and the broken vessel had blazed and smoked with many of its crew trapped in the forward mess hall. Despite the efforts of the Port Glasgow fire brigade, when the Maillé-Brézé eventually sank to the bottom of the Firth, it took sixty-eight of the two-hundred-strong crew with it. I had never met anyone connected to the disaster. Until now.

‘I found your name all right …’ I said. ‘I mean I found the name Alain Barnier. But it was amongst the list of missing. I had no list of survivors to check.’

‘Alain was a friend of mine.’ Largo smiled. His face looked completely different without the goatee beard. And his hair was now as dark as mine. ‘In a way, it was my way of commemorating him … keeping his name alive. But how did you trace my name?’

‘Remember the fight in Port Glasgow? A couple of nights after the French fleet was sunk at Mers-el-Kébir?’

‘Ah …’ He nodded. ‘Of course …’

‘When I first came to your offices, Miss Minto corrected me when I said the name Clement the English way. There are a lot of names that are spelt the same in French and pronounced differently.’

‘And, of course,’ he concluded the thought for me, ‘there are many words that are spelt differently but sound the same …’

‘Dex Devereaux had an informant who heard mention of your name. He just reported it how he heard it, John Largo. But when I was going through the court records, I found the statement given by Capitaine Jean Largeau of the Fusiliers Marins. After that I guessed your career must have become so colourful that you adopted the name Alain Barnier.’

‘It was prudent at the time. I have another name now. And another port. You have succeeded in making Glasgow –’ he struggled for the right word – ‘… untenable for me.’

‘I can’t say I’m sorry about that. I don’t approve of your business, Jean.’

Largeau shrugged the same Gallic shrug that he had as Alain Barnier. ‘America is corrupt, my friend. I did not create the corruption, I merely profit from it. And I do not force these blacks to use my goods. I supply a need.’

‘They’re going to hang the gypsy boy, you know,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘The boxer, Tommy Gun Furie.’

Largeau made an expression of incomprehension.

‘For Small Change MacFarlane’s murder. He pled guilty, on his lawyer’s advice, but they’re going to hang him anyway. Which is a shame, because I don’t think he killed Small Change.’

‘Ah …’ Largeau shook his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the case. But with these itinerant people, they are normally guilty … of something.’

We talked for a few more minutes. Two men standing chatting outside a Glasgow bar. We wished each other well and he took his hand from his pocket to shake mine. I left him standing there and drove off. When I looked in my rear-view mirror he was gone.

I don’t know why I didn’t turn Largeau in to the police, or at least why I gave him a chance of getting away before I did. I think it was probably one of those there but for the grace … moments. The war had done things to us both and I had very nearly turned out the same way.

But I hadn’t.

EPILOGUE

Maggie MacFarlane, the Merry Widow of Pollokshields, took the disappearance of Jack Collins with the same stoicism as she had her husband’s demise. I guessed I would never know just how much she knew about, or was involved with, his business dealings. Jack Collins wasn’t mentioned once when I called up to see Lorna and there seemed to be some kind of peace between the two MacFarlane women. I reckoned it had about the same chance of lasting as the new armistice in Indochina.

I told Lorna that if she needed anything, I was there for her. It was goodbye and we both knew it. She was a big girl and could look after herself – one of the things that had brought us together was that we had both been carved from the same wood – but I was beginning to question how I handled women.