The Long Glasgow Kiss

‘That’s what she said. Now I get why you wanted me to sniff around.’ I paused for a moment. I was like the clown in the circus standing dumbly till the plank the other clown is swinging around hits him on the back of the head. It hit me. ‘Oh yeah …’ I said. ‘Now I get it. That’s why you’ve got me involved with the Bobby Kirkcaldy crap. It’s the same deal, isn’t it? You want me to find out if Kirkcaldy is tied up with whatever deal Small Change was brokering.’

‘Aye. And my guess is that it’s fuck all to do with boxing academies or shite like that. Especially with what you’ve said about this dodgy fucking uncle he has in tow.’

‘And the nooses and stuff?’

‘Maybes it’s connected – with the deal I mean, and nothing to do with the fight what’s coming up.’

‘I see …’ I drew on the cigarette and contemplated the silver-grey writhes of smoke. ‘Now this takes me into dodgy territory. You too, for that matter. The police are all over Small Change’s murder and I was left in no doubt by Superintendent Willie McNab that his wife will be wearing my balls as earrings if I start sniffing around.’

There was the sound of aged wood on wood as Sneddon pulled open a desk drawer. He reached in, took something out and tossed it onto the desk in front of me. It was a large white envelope. It was tucked shut, not sealed, and it was stuffed thick. Rewardingly thick.

‘Buy yourself some new balls.’ Sneddon nodded to the envelope.

I picked it up and slipped it into my inside jacket pocket without opening it. It tugged satisfyingly at the material of my jacket, balancing the weight of the blackjack in my other inside pocket. I was going to have to start taking a satchel to work.

‘You’re right, the police are all over MacFarlane like flies on a turd.’ Sneddon exposed his talent for colourful metaphor. ‘And I ask myself why the fuck that is. He was an important bookie, but the cops on the case are too many and too high-up.’

I nodded. It fitted. I had wondered about McNab’s involvement myself. ‘So you think the police are onto whatever deal it was that Small Change was setting up?’

‘If that’s the reason, then it’s something really fucking big. And if it’s really fucking big, I really fucking want to know about it. You’ve got contacts in the police, haven’t you?’

‘Yeah …’ I said reluctantly, wondering how much Sneddon knew about my arrangement with Taylor. Then the tug of the heavy envelope in my jacket pocket reminded me not to be too reluctant. ‘So do you. Probably better than mine.’

‘Listen …’ Sneddon leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. Again he was all brow. ‘I’ve already fucking told you: I don’t want to be connected to this. That’s why I’m going through you. You want the money or not?’

Taking a last, long draw on the cigarette, I stubbed it out in a boulder of crystal ashtray, picked my hat off his desk and stood up.

‘I’ll get onto it.’ I turned towards the door then checked myself. ‘You know everybody who’s got a racket going in the city.’

‘Just about.’ Sneddon leaned back in his green leather and walnut captain’s chair. A pirate captain’s chair, probably.

‘Have you ever heard of anyone called Largo?’ I asked.

He thought for a moment then shook his head.

‘Okay … thanks. I just thought I’d ask.’

Industrial pollution can be a beautiful thing. When I came out of Sneddon’s I stood by my car for a moment, looking out over to the west. Sneddon’s house was elevated in more than a social sense and I could see out across the treetops and past the edge of the city. Glasgow’s air was of the granulated variety and it turned sunsets into vast, diffused splashes of colour, like gold and red paint strained through textured silk. I stood and gazed westward, filled with a sense of contentment.

But that had more to do with the wad of cash weighing down my suit jacket than the sunset. I climbed into the Atlantic and headed back down into the city.

I should have been more on my toes. This time there was a little more subtlety and a lot more brains employed.

I was driving back from Sneddon’s and was passing along the curve in the road where Bearsden notches down the social ladder to become Milngavie, when I saw a blue ’forty-eight Ford Zephyr Six up ahead, pulled into the kerb. The driver had the hood up and he was standing next to it on the road. He was about thirty-five, with dark hair, and from what I could see smartly dressed. I say from what I could see because he was doing what every true man does when his car breaks down: he was standing on the roadway, one hand on his hip, the other scratching his head. And like every true man, he had had to take his jacket off and roll up his sleeves to do the head-scratching. It was a pose of helplessness mitigated by stubbornness: you’ve tried everything and you’re asking for help only as a last resort.