The Long Glasgow Kiss

Barnier was my way to Largo. If I kept tabs on the Frenchman, there was a chance he would lead me to Largo. Or at least take me a step closer. I needed an address. Again I blessed homely, unfriendly Miss Minto, who had channelled all of the sexual and social frustration of the spinster into a fanatical efficiency. Her address book was not tabulated or indeed a proper address book. Instead it was a hardcovered notebook into which she had written all of the company’s most important contacts. It was impressively obsessive: not a name was out of perfect alphabetical order. Barnier lived some distance out of town on the Greenock Road, in Langbank. He was on the telephone and I noted both address and ’phone number. I found myself wondering about the mysterious M. Clement, and after I got the address of the Barnier et Clement French office in Cours Lieutaud, Marseille, I looked up and found the name Clement: Claude Clement lived somewhere called Allauch. I wrote down both addresses and put my notebook back in the bag. A worthwhile night’s work.

It was just as I had put everything back in my bag that I heard the footsteps outside the door.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I had already switched off the bicycle lamp and put it back in my bag. I dropped down behind Miss Minto’s desk and tucked myself into the knee-hole. There was no point in trying to go out through the door: whoever it was I had heard was out there. Again, I played out all my options in my head. It could simply have been the watchman again, making a second round of this part of the bonded area; or it could have been that the watchman had noticed the missing padlock and twisted bar on the door and had called the police.

I slowly unzipped my holdall. Just enough to put my hand in and rummage around until I found my sap. This was potentially a situation where I couldn’t win; if it was the elderly watchman, I’d have to use my sap judiciously. Too hard a blow and I’d end up facing a murder charge. Added to which, although I had an unpleasant propensity towards violence, I avoided using it against the totally innocent. If it turned out to be a copper, then I’d have to hit him hard and run for it. Hitting a City of Glasgow copper usually turned out to be a much more painful experience for the attacker; the boys in blue liked to hold a little reception for you in the station. Allegedly, it normally involved being stripped naked and wrapped in a soaking wet blanket. For some physiological reason beyond my ken, the wet blanket stopped bruising when twenty or so Highland lads set in about you with their boots and truncheons. The second painful element came judicially: police assault usually combined a prison sentence with corporal punishment. The birch. You would be tied to a table and thrashed with some dried foliage. Quaintly traditional but incredibly painful.

I considered my options and huddled beneath the desk. I heard the door opening. A torch probed the recesses of the Nissen hut for a moment. It switched off and the neon strip light above me fizzed and crackled into life.

‘You was right, Billy.’ The voice had a Highland lilt to it. A copper. Option two. I guessed ‘Billy’ was the elderly night watchman. ‘Someone’s broken the lock.’

A pause. I remained absolutely still beneath the desk, controlling my breathing, ignoring the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears. All my time in Glasgow, I had avoided being charged with a criminal offence. I would do time for this. Unless I dealt with the copper and the night watchman.

‘All right …’ the unseen Highlander called out into the Nissen hut. ‘This is the police. I know that you’re in here.’ No you don’t, I thought … I could tell from the tone of his voice. ‘Show yourself now and don’t make any bother.’

Silence. I sat tight and silent. The sap was gripped so tight in my hand that I could feel the heartbeat in my fingers keeping time with the pulse in my ears.

‘Come on now … let’s not be having any silliness …’ Again the voice had the sound of someone who thought they were speaking to an empty room. I heard wood on wood: the lid on the reception counter folding over. He would be stepping through it, his baton drawn. Scottish police batons were made of Caribbean lignum vitae – one of the densest and strongest woods on the planet. Bone-crackingly and muscle-deadeningly hard. Whatever I did, I was going to have to avoid a blow to the head. I heard his boots now. He was at the desk in front of mine. He moved forward. One step. Two. His breathing, slow and deliberate. Not frightened. He moved something around. A chair or something. Three. Four. He was next to my desk, but couldn’t see me. Yet.