The Long Glasgow Kiss

‘Then you can check,’ I said. ‘The bank will give you that information, but not me. Even the police would have to get a court order. Have you been to the police, Miss Gainsborough?’

‘I was waiting. I kept thinking Sammy would turn up. Then, when he didn’t, I thought I’d be better getting a private detective … I mean enquiry agent.’

‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘I mean, who put you in contact with me?’

‘I have a road manager, Jack Beckett. He says he knows you.’

I frowned. ‘Can’t say …’

‘Or at least knows of you. He said …’ She hesitated, as if unsure to commit the rest of her thought to words. ‘He said that you were reliable, but that you had contact with – well, that you knew people that were more the kind that Sammy has been mixing with.’

‘I see …’ I said, still trying to place the name Jack Beckett and making a mental note that if I ever did come across him, to thank him appropriately for the glowing character reference.

There was a silence. A taxi sounded its horn outside on Gordon Street. A river-bubble of voices rose up from outside and through the window I had left open in the vain hope it would cool the office. I noticed a trickle of sweat on Sheila Gainsborough’s sleek neck.

‘So exactly what kind of people was Sammy mixing with? You said he had gotten involved in less than honourable businesses. What do you mean?’

‘Like I said, Sammy isn’t really in show business as such. But he does do the odd singing job. He’s not great, if I’m honest, but good enough for Glasgow. He’s been singing in nightclubs and mixing with a bad crowd. Gambling too. I think that’s where a lot of the money has been going.’

‘Which clubs?’

‘I don’t know … not the ones I started in. There was one he went to a lot. I think he sang there too. The Pacific Club down near the river.’

‘Oh … yes,’ I said. Oh fuck, I thought. Handsome Jonny Cohen’s place.

‘You know it?’

‘I know the owner. I can have a word.’

‘Have you ever heard of the Poppy Club?’ she asked.

‘Can’t say that I have. Why?’

‘When I went to his flat there was a note by the telephone that said “The Poppy Club”. Nothing else. No number. I looked up the ’phone book but there’s no “Poppy Club” listed in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.’

I wrote the name down in my notebook. Reassuringly. ‘What’s Sammy’s full name?’ I asked.

‘James Samuel Pollock.’

‘Pollock?’

‘That’s my real name. Well, it was my real name. I changed it by deed poll.’

‘So you were Sheila Pollock?’

‘Ishbell Pollock.’

‘Ishbell?’

‘My agent didn’t think that Ishbell Pollock had the kind of ring to it that a singing star’s name should have.’

‘Really?’ I said, as if confused as to why anyone would be blind to the charms of a name like Ishbell Pollock. They had done a good job on her. A Glasgow club singer, one amongst thousands. But they had had great raw material to work with. Sheila Gainsborough had the looks – she certainly had the looks – and the voice to stand out from the crowd. She’d been talent-scouted. Groomed. Repackaged. Managed. She maybe had the looks and the voice but the name Ishbell Pollock and the Glasgow accent would have been dropped faster than utility-mark panties on VE Day.

I wrote Sammy’s full name in my notebook. ‘When did you last see Sammy?’

‘Lunch at the Tea Rooms, a week past Saturday.’

‘What about friends … girls … people he used to hang around with? And you said he has been associating with a bad crowd. Can you put any names to them?’

‘He has this friend, Barnier. A Frenchman. Sammy mentioned him a couple of times. I think they were friends, but it could have been a business thing.’

‘First name?’

She shook her head. ‘Sammy always just called him Barnier. There can’t be that many Frenchies in Glasgow.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They probably come here in their droves for the cuisine.’ We both smiled. ‘Anyone else?’

‘I was at his flat one day and he got a telephone call from a girl. They sounded intimate. All I got was her first name. Claire. But there were a couple of guys he knew who I really didn’t like the look of. Rough types.’

‘Names?’

‘Sorry. I only saw them once, waiting for Sammy outside the club. They had the look as if … I don’t know … as if they didn’t want to be seen. But they were a shiftless sort. Late twenties, one about five-eight with dark hair, the other maybe an inch shorter with sandy hair. The one with the dark hair has a scar on his forehead. Shaped like a crescent.’

I sat and looked at her, deep in thought. She looked back eagerly, obviously reassured that she had provoked some deep, investigative cogitations. What I was really thinking about was what it would be like to bend her over my desk.

‘Okay. Thanks,’ I said once the picture was complete. ‘Would it be possible for us to go to your brother’s flat … have a look around?’

She looked at her watch. ‘I need to be on the sleeper to London tonight. I’ve a lot to do beforehand. Could we go now?’

I stood up and smiled. ‘My car is around the corner.’