The Long Glasgow Kiss

In the meantime, my other case – my one-hundred-per-cent legitimate case – was getting nowhere. I decided I would try to get in touch with Claire Skinner the next day, but I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere. Sammy Pollock had dropped off the face of the earth. It took some doing, and I was beginning to worry that it was the kind of dropping that could only be done professionally. And then there had been Jock Ferguson’s reaction to the name Largo. If it was the same Largo who Paul Costello claimed to know, then it was someone outside the normal gangster circle, yet someone important enough to be instantly recognizable to Glasgow CID.

I wasn’t given to much deep personal reflection; maybe because I had seen in the war where deep personal reflection got you: mad or dead. But sitting there in a car outside a probably crooked boxer’s house in the countryside outside Glasgow, I suddenly felt homesick.

Blanefield sat above Glasgow. The sun was lower now in the sky and filtered into tones of gold, bronze and copper through the haze above the city in the valley below. I experienced another of my reminiscent moments: Saint John had similar sunsets. The industrial heart of the US lay in Michigan and the dense, grime-filled air would drift north and west, exploding the Maritime Canadian sun into garnet beams and spilling red into the Bay of Fundy. But the similarity ended there. I thought back to those days before the war. Things had been different. It seemed to me people had been different. I had been different.

Or maybe I hadn’t.

A car pulled up behind me. A bottle-green Rover. I didn’t need to turn around to see that the driver was Twinkletoes. Either that or there was an unscheduled eclipse of the sun. He came around to the passenger door of the Atlantic and tapped on the window. I opened the door and he got into the car, causing me to be impressed with the Atlantic’s suspension.

‘Hello, Mr Lennox …’ Twinkletoes smiled. ‘Are you well?’

‘I’m well, Twinkle. You?’

‘In the pink, Mr Lennox. In the pink. Mr Sneddon sent me up here to take over watching Mr Kirkcaldy’s place. Singer’s going to take over from me until morning.’

‘It’ll be a long night, Twinkle.’

‘I’ve got the radio,’ he said. ‘I find jazz has a molly-fying effect on my mood.’

‘I’m sure it does. Who do you like listening to?’

‘Elephants Gerald, mostly,’ he said with a smile.

‘Who?’

‘You know … Elephants Gerald. The jazz singer.’

‘Oh …’ I said, trying not to smirk. ‘You mean Ella Fitzgerald.’

‘Do I? I thought it was Elephants Gerald. You know, one of them jazz names. Like Duke Wellington.’

‘Duke Ellington, Twinkle,’ I said. I noticed the smile had fallen away from his face. It was time to go. ‘But I could be mistaken. Enjoy, anyway. I’ll catch you later.’

I left Twinkletoes sitting in Sneddon’s Rover, watching the Kirkcaldy house, reassured by his promise that he would be most abb-steamy-uzz in performing his sentry duties. I went straight back to my flat. Again, as I closed the common entrance door behind me, I heard the sound of the television in the Whites’ flat being turned off. I headed straight up the stairs to my rooms and set about making myself some real coffee and ham sandwiches with bread that should have been used at least two days before, unless I had intended to use the slices as building materials.

I had just sat down to start eating when I heard the downstairs doorbell ring and Fiona White answer it. There was a brief exchange then the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. It wasn’t that I was inhospitable, but I was not in the habit of receiving callers at the flat. In fact, one of the reasons I had established the Horsehead Bar as my out-of-hours office was because I kept this place pretty much off the radar of everyone I dealt with. So, before I answered the knock on the door, I went to the dresser drawer where I put my sap whenever I hung up my suit jacket and slipped it in my pocket. I opened the door, stepping back as I did so, and found Jock Ferguson framed in the doorway. There was another man behind him. Bigger and heavier. He was stretching a pale grey suit with extremely narrow lapels over huge shoulders and had a straw trilby type thing with a broad blue hatband on his head. He had a big face that was a little too fleshy to be handsome and his skin tone was several summers darker than the locals. The one thing that was missing was a sign around his neck proclaiming God Bless America. Seeing Ferguson at my door and in such strange company took me aback for a moment.

‘Jock? What are you doing here?’

‘Hello, Lennox. Can we come in?’

‘Sorry … sure. Come on in.’