The Long Glasgow Kiss

Instead, we drove on until we saw a uniformed constable with zebra-striped traffic cuffs over his tunic. He seemed to be standing on an unbroken piece of grass verge, but as we drew nearer he signalled us to turn in. The barely discernible mouth of a largely overgrown, cobbled access road, just wide enough for the Wolseley, opened up for us and we bumped our way down to the shore. The lane widened into an open area as we reached the water. This had obviously been a working quay, but the Luftwaffe had made a good job of making it inoperable for the rest of the century. Vast concrete blocks, like broken teeth, thrust out of the overgrown grass, rusting metal cable projecting, twisted, from their broken ends. At one corner of the site an earthmover sat, its shovel resting heavily on the ground. On what looked like it had originally been the quay’s loading area, four police cars and an ambulance, which must have struggled to negotiate the lane, huddled close to the water. Whatever this was, it didn’t look like it was about my break-in to Barnier’s office.

McNab and Ferguson led me over to where the other vehicles were parked.

‘He was found here this morning by workers clearing the site for more bonded warehouses,’ said Ferguson. ‘We reckon he’s been dead a day at least.’

‘Who? What’s this got to do with me?’ I asked, genuinely confused. I saw that the rear of the ambulance was open and there was a body inside, covered with a grey blanket, lying on the ambulance stretcher.

‘What’s it got to do with you?’ McNab sneered at me. ‘That’s what I want to know. According to our leads, you’ve been looking for this fellah for the last week or so. Now he turns up dead.’

My gut gave a lurch. I did a little time travelling into the future and imagined myself in front of Sheila Gainsborough, trying to find the words to tell her that I’d found her brother all right. Dead.

So John Largo was no spook. No shadowy figure without substance. And he had caught up with Sammy Pollock at last.

McNab pulled back the blanket. ‘You know him, I take it?’

‘You take it right,’ I said with quiet resignation as I looked down at the body. The quiet resignation was to disguise my surprise. And my relief. ‘That’s Paul Costello.’

Costello’s eyes were wide open. There were grains of dust and dirt on them and looking at them made me want to blink. His face was bleached of colour and his hair dishevelled. The paleness of his skin was in stark contrast to the vividness of the gaping wound that arched, like a clown’s smile, across his throat. He was very, very dead.

‘Why were you looking for Costello?’ asked McNab. He snapped the blanket back over the dead face.

‘His father Jimmy asked me to,’ I answered honestly, if not wholly. ‘Paul Costello went missing a few days ago. Without warning and, more importantly, without cash.’

‘Aye,’ said McNab, his voice loaded with suspicion. ‘Inspector Ferguson here said you told him that when he came up to see you with that Yank, Devereaux.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And that was because you were bandying the name Largo about. So tell me, is this Largo’s work, d’you think?’

I looked at the blanket-draped corpse. ‘I honestly don’t know. But if Largo is as big and as dangerous a crook as Dex Devereaux seems to think, then my guess would be yes.’

‘Aye? Well thanks for your valuable insight, Lennox. Next question: who the fuck is this celebrity client of yours? The relative of the other missing person?’

I sighed. ‘Like I told Inspector Ferguson, I can’t compromise client confidentiality.’

‘Client confidentiality my arse …’ McNab took a step closer to me. I didn’t need to look to know his hands had already balled into fists. Whatever happened here would be only the beginning.

‘If I tell you, will you keep her out of it? Unless there’s a direct involvement, I mean?’

McNab laughed. An ugly, mocking laugh. ‘Do you think that I have to negotiate with the likes of you, Lennox? I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, talk to whoever the fuck I want. This is a murder enquiry, you clown.’