The Long Glasgow Kiss

‘You said you were sure someone has been in here. I take it the flat wasn’t like this when you were last here?’

She shook her head. ‘Sammy was never house-proud, but not this … this looks like he’s been burgled.’

I nodded to the bedside cabinet. There was a lead crystal ashtray and a brick of a gold table lighter. ‘No house breaker is going to leave without that in their pocket. This hasn’t been a burglary, this was a search.’ I bent down and picked up from the floor the shiny item that had caught my eye. It was a small, polished, steel-hinged box, lying open on the floor. I looked around my feet and found the contents that had spilled out.

‘Does your brother have any medical condition I should know about?’ I placed the syringe and needle back in the metal box and held them out for Sheila to see. ‘Is he diabetic?’

Sheila looked at the box and her expression darkened. ‘No. He doesn’t have any medical condition.’

‘But this means something to you?’ I asked.

She looked at me hard for a moment before answering. ‘I’ve been around a lot of musicians. It’s part of my job. Musicians and artists … well, they experiment with stuff.’

‘Narcotics?’

‘Yes. But I don’t think … or at least I’ve never had any reason to think that Sammy would be involved in that kind of nonsense.’

For a moment, we both gazed silently at the metal syringe box in my hands, as if it would surrender its secrets to us if we stared at it long enough.

‘It could have been Sammy himself, of course,’ I said. I could have sounded more convincing. ‘Maybe he came back to collect stuff. Pack a bag.’ I pocketed the syringe box.

‘I’ll check his wardrobes and drawers,’ she said dully. ‘Maybe I’ll notice something missing. If he’s taken clothes …’ She stepped past me. The room was hot and stuffy and as she passed, I again picked up a whiff of lavender and musk: the dressing and the flesh. Oh boy, Lennox, I thought, you’ve got it bad this time.

There was a sound from downstairs and we both froze. Someone was opening the apartment door. Sheila had closed the snib over behind her and that meant whoever was coming in had a key. Again I stopped Sheila as she made her way to the bedroom door, clearly to call out her brother’s name. I put a finger to my lips, slipped past her and moved as quickly and quietly as I could back down the stairs, again unpocketing the spring-handled sap. I reached the bottom of the stairs just as a young man with black hair and a dark complexion opened the vestibule door and stepped into the hall.

‘Hello,’ I said with a friendly smile, keeping the sap out of sight. The dark-haired man looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ The eyes narrowed as surprise gave way to suspicion. I kept smiling and tightened my grip on the sap.

‘You know in these films,’ I said, ‘where someone says “I’m asking the questions here”? Well, that’s me. Let’s start with why you have a key for an apartment you don’t own or rent and seem to come and go as you please.’

‘Are you a cop?’ he asked.

‘Let’s just say I’m investigating the disappearance of Sammy Pollock.’

‘But you’re not a cop …’ His eyes narrowed further. Suddenly he looked unsure of himself. ‘You sent by Largo?’

‘Largo?’

He looked relieved, then the hardness came back to his eyes. His head lowered slightly into his shoulders and he slipped a hand into the side pocket of his jacket. Playtime.

Upstairs, Sheila Gainsborough must have crept towards the stairs. A floorboard creaked. My dark-haired chum’s eyes cast in the direction of the sound and he looked less sure of himself. He clearly thought I had reinforcements in the wings. I was a little piqued that he thought I’d need them to deal with him.

‘If you’re not a cop, then fuck you.’ He turned and went back into the small tiled vestibule, moving swiftly but without panic.

‘Oh no you don’t …’ I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. ‘Just hold on a minute …’

He was about three or four inches shorter than me and he misjudged the vicious backward jab with his elbow. Instead of hitting me in the face or throat, it slammed painfully into my chest and sent me backwards. It gave him time to open the front door and he was stepping through it when I ran for him. I slammed the door shut on him with the flat of my foot. All my weight behind the kick. The edge of the door caught him on the shoulder but glanced off and smashed into his cheek, jamming his head between the door edge and the jamb. He was stunned. A thick bulge of blood swelled up on his cheek, then turned into a torrent down the side of his face and neck, staining his shirt crimson.

‘Oh, sorry,’ I said. ‘Did I catch you with the door?’