The Long Glasgow Kiss

I decided to break the tension. ‘Did you find the … I mean, was it you who found Mr MacFarlane?’ I asked Maggie.

She sat down on the chesterfield opposite us, crossing her legs with a hiss of silk on silk. It was, of course, the most inappropriate time for me to take a look at her legs and I made a great effort not to. As usual, I failed. Her lips were deep crimson around the cigarette she lit: some fancy foreign brand with filters and a band of gold paper.

‘I was at a friend’s place in Bearsden,’ she said, holding me in a steady blue gaze. ‘I got back about an hour ago. When I got here I knew something was wrong because the front door was ajar. Then, when I went through to Jimmy’s study …’ She dropped her eyes and took a long slug of Scotch.

‘What did the police say?’

‘Not much. Just that they think it was a robbery. Someone who knew Jimmy would be coming back with the night’s Shawfield takings.’

‘Have the police mentioned any names?’

Maggie was about to answer when McNab came into the living room without knocking. Knocking was something other people did.

‘Miss MacFarlane, could I ask you a few questions?’ He looked at me pointedly before adding: ‘In the kitchen might be best.’

Maggie waited until Lorna and McNab had gone before answering. ‘No. No names. But I would imagine they have some ideas.’

I gave a low laugh. ‘They’re not ideas people, the police. Thinking has an annoying habit of getting in the way of a conviction.’

When Lorna came back from talking to McNab she was in tears; an effect his company often came close to having on me. I went back to dutifully comforting her, and stayed with daughter and stepmother without as much as once asking if Small Change had happened to mention anything about boxing tickets before his untimely demise. I was nothing if not a gentleman.

From what I could pick up it looked like McNab was probably right: Small Change had had his brains bashed in for the night’s takings he had brought back. It would have been a tidy sum all right, but not so tidy as to be worth hanging for. And if McNab was personally involved in the case, then someone would definitely hang. I actually found myself grateful that I had the most solid of alibis.

I hung around until about two a.m., by which time the police had gone. I promised to ring in the morning and left.

CHAPTER TWO

The streets I drove through to get back to my flat were deserted and I reflected that there were probably cemeteries more lively than Glasgow at two in the morning. That was probably why I was so aware of the headlights in my rear mirror. I wasn’t sure if they had been with me since Pollokshields, but they had certainly been there for long enough for me to become suspicious. I didn’t pull over outside my flat – instead I drove along Great Western Road and turned into Byres Road, taking a random right into a silent residential street lined with sandstone tenements and semi-detached houses, soot-stained darker than the night sky above them. The lights in my mirror held back as far as they could without losing me, but nonetheless followed my arbitrary route. Again completely at random, I pulled up outside a tenement, stepped out of the Atlantic, locked the door and walked with a sense of purpose into the tenement close.

The car drove past. An Austin. One of the big jobs. Black or dark grey. The kind the police cruised around in. I saw a driver and passenger, but I couldn’t make out either figure other than that one of them had shoulders to make Atlas jealous. Small Change MacFarlane was a big enough fish all right, but I didn’t see why his case warranted so much attention. I didn’t see why I warranted so much attention from the police, given my tangential involvement. The car cruised around the corner and I heard the synchromesh get a grinding as it did a three-point somewhere out of sight. Stepping out of the shadows, I went back to my car and leaned against the wing, my arms folded, patiently waiting for the unmarked police car to drift around the corner. Sometimes I can be too smart for my own good.

The Austin reappeared and pulled up next to me. It was a Sheerline; too fancy for the police. Something vast and dark unfolded from the passenger seat and cast an improbably large shadow in the lamplight.

‘Hello again, Mr Lennox …’ Twinkletoes McBride said in his earth-rumbling baritone and smiled at me. I straightened up from the wing of the Atlantic. This was interesting.

‘Twinkletoes? What are you doing here? I thought it was the police. Why are you tailing me?’

‘You’ll have to ask Mr Sneddon that,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’m sure he can elucidate you.’ Twinkletoes pronounced every syllable deliberately: ee-loos-ih-date.

‘Still reading the Reader’s Digest I see,’ I said amiably.