The Long Glasgow Kiss

I drove into the West End, found the café in Byres Road and took a table by the window. It was one of those Italian places, where they made an opera out of making a cup of coffee with a steam-hissing machine that sounded like it should be pulling the eleven-fifteen to London out of Central Station. At least the coffee was good.

Sheila Gainsborough arrived five minutes late. She looked flustered and apologized for the delay. She took her scarf off and everyone in the café made a big show of not staring at her. Staring would have been much less obvious than the clumsily stolen glances. A waiter who looked as if he’d come straight off the boat from Naples but sounded like he’d come straight off the ferry from Renfrew took her order for a coffee.

‘You have news?’ she asked urgently. Her cheeks were flushed and, despite my gloomy mood and aching head, the thought of how nice it would be to make her cheeks flush crossed my mind.

‘Like I said on the ’phone, Miss Gainsborough,’ I said quietly. ‘We should do this at your flat or my office. Like it or not, you’re a celebrity, and every ear in this place is flapping. You never know when someone’s a reporter or a copper.’

She took the point and we drank our coffee in haste and silence. Afterwards, we walked the few blocks to her apartment. Most of the dwellings in the area were tenements, townhouses or the occasional villa. Sheila Gainsborough’s place was a rupture in the grimy Victorian and Georgian façades: an Art Deco block that would have been about thirty years old. One of the interesting things about Glasgow was the richness and variety of its architecture: Victorian, slum, Art Deco, slum, Contemporary, slum …

It was a classy place. Sheila led me into a huge, bright foyer that made you feel you’d stepped straight into the mid-Twenties. A uniformed commissionaire, who had an ex-military bearing but was of a vintage to have fought Kaiser rather than Führer, saluted us and we took the elevator to the top floor.

‘You want a drink?’ she asked, as she dropped her bag and scarf onto a chair in the hall. ‘You look like you could do with one.’

‘I could do with one, but it would probably finish me off.’ I moved into the lounge. Everything in the flat was clean and orderly. The furniture, like the architecture that housed it, was Art Deco and was simple and tasteful – in that subtle way that tells you simple and tasteful is more expensive. There was a huge picture window, unbroken except for a couple of widely spaced, thin, white mullions. It gave a view over the city towards the university and Kelvingrove.

‘Please …’ she said, impatiently gesturing for me to sit. I sat. I think if Sheila Gainsborough had told me to jump out the window, I’d have done it. She remained standing, clutching her hands in front of her. ‘Is this about Sammy?’ she asked anxiously.

I held my hands up. ‘Sammy’s okay. I saw him last night.’

‘Thank God he’s safe …’ she almost gasped. Tears of relief glossed her eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Gainsborough, but I don’t think he is safe. I saw him last night and he was all right, but he’s in trouble. And he’s very scared.’

‘Then why in God’s name didn’t you bring him with you?’

‘Because, Miss Gainsborough, someone smacked me over the back of the head and put my lights out. Sammy and his girlfriend – and his handy associate – scarpered while I was counting sheep.’

Her face fell. I felt sorry for her, but there wasn’t a lot I could do to put a positive sheen on it.

‘I’m afraid that Sammy has gotten involved in something heavy,’ I said. ‘Something out of his league. You remember Paul Costello? The guy who was wandering in and out of Sammy’s apartment, seemingly at will?’

Sheila nodded.

‘I rather suspect it was young Mr Costello who put my lights out. They’re in this together. Whatever this is.’

‘I knew Sammy was getting in with the wrong sort …’ She frowned her cute frown again. ‘Where did you find him?’

‘Sleeping rough in a derelict farm cottage in the middle of nowhere’s back of beyond. I only found him because I spooked a girl he’s involved with – Claire Skinner – and was able to follow her.’

‘Sleeping rough?’ Her eyes glossed with tears again. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I keep looking. I think there’s a chance he’ll get in touch with you. He looked hungry and tired. My guess is he’ll need money. If he gets in touch, I need you to let me know. No matter what he says, you’ve got to tell me. Got it?’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘When I was out at the cottage, there was something odd. A statuette of a dragon. Looked like it was made of jade. Chinese by the look of it. Mean anything to you?’

She shook her head. ‘Do you think they stole it?’

‘I’m pretty sure they did. I don’t know if that’s why they think the devil himself is after them or not. I really don’t know, but it would be a good guess.’

‘Where on earth would they have stolen something like that from?’

‘I don’t know. But I maybe know someone I can ask.’

CHAPTER TWELVE