The Long Glasgow Kiss

I ’phoned Jonny Cohen at home. He said he knew the girl Claire who sang at the Pacific but he didn’t know if her surname was Skinner. Nor had he connected her to Sammy Pollock in any way.

‘Are you sure it’s the right girl?’ he asked.

‘That’s what my source tells me, but who knows? Can you give me an address for her?’

‘I can’t, but Larry who manages the Pacific for me maybe has one. Or at least he can tell you who he gets in touch with to book her. Call by the club tomorrow night and I’ll tell him to give it to you.’

‘Thanks, Jonny. I owe you.’

‘Yes, Lennox, you do. And Lennox?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I hope you heard me when I said you shouldn’t let this shite distract you from the thing with Bobby Kirkcaldy.’

‘I heard you, Jonny.’

Davey Wallace turned up at my office at ten-thirty, just as I’d asked him to in the message I’d left with Big Bob. He was wearing the same too-big and too-old suit that he wore to the Horsehead. He had a red tartany type tie and a white shirt and he had topped the lot off with a wide-brimmed grey fedora that had a couple of decades’ worth of shape bashed out of it. At least, I thought, I now knew what a private detective is supposed to look like.

Davey’s grin when he walked into the office was impossibly broad and gleeful, making me wonder if I had done the right thing in bringing him in. He was just a kid. And a good kid at that. But it was his choice.

‘Now you’re clear on what you’re doing? And more importantly on what you’re not doing?’

‘I got it, Mr Lennox. I won’t let you down.’

I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a coarse linen bag. It was heavy, filled with pennies. I tipped some out onto the desk.

‘Take this bag with you. You’ve got enough coppers there to ’phone Australia. If anything happens, call the numbers I gave you and they’ll get a message to me as soon as they can.’ I tossed the bag in my palm a couple of times, assessing the weight. ‘And keep the drawstrings pulled tight when you’re not taking money out. This cash bag won’t break and it makes one hell of a cosh if you run into trouble. You got that?’

‘I got it, Mr Lennox.’

‘But I don’t want you to take any risks, Davey. Just keep an eye on the Kirkcaldy place and let me know if anything happens. And remember … note down times and descriptions of anyone you see coming or going.’

I went back into my desk drawer and tossed a black reporter’s notebook over to him. He caught the notebook and then stared at it, wide-eyed, as if I’d just handed him the Keys to the Kingdom.

I drove up to Blanefield and parked the Atlantic along the street from Kirkcaldy’s place. It was difficult not to be conspicu -ous, but the car was far enough away and still had a clear enough view of the entrance to the Kirkcaldy residence. I gave Davey a couple of quid, a packet of cigarettes and a lamppost to lean on. He took the duty so seriously that, when I left him, I found myself worrying that he might not blink until I returned.

I left the car where I’d parked it, giving Davey the keys so that he could take shelter if it started raining. The weather had now definitely reverted to type and the milky sky periodically darkened into a glower: I didn’t want to be responsible for Davey contracting pneumonia or trench foot, both of which were possibilities in the West of Scotland climate. Before I left him on sentry duty, I called at Kirkcaldy’s house. The boxer wasn’t in, but Uncle Bert Soutar answered the door. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that exposed arms writhing with tattoos, some of which had unhelpful suggestions for the Pope. If dourness could be measured on a scale, then Soutar was a bass baritone. He nodded glumly and closed the door when I told him that the youth at the corner was with me and not connected to whoever had been carrying out the vandalism.

I knew of course that there would be nothing significant for Davey to report that afternoon. The kind of shenanigans that had been going on with Kirkcaldy were the kind of shenanigans you got up to under cover of darkness.

While Davey was earnestly leaning and diligently watching the Kirkcaldy place, I went to ’Pherson’s on Byre’s Road for a trim and shave. Old man ’Pherson knew his stuff and I came out with my face tingling and with a parting that made Moses’ Red Sea work look sloppy. Afterwards I took a tram back into town and made a few fruitless ’phone calls from my office in pursuit of Largo.