‘So you think this punter in the hotel snatched Wilma?’ Over the telephone, without the benefit of mock-baronial surroundings and expensive clothes, Sneddon sounded the Govan hardman he was.
‘I’m sure of it. Does he sound like someone you know?’
‘Naw. He sounds like someone you’d remember. And I make it my business to remember faces. He sounds too smooth for Hammer Murphy’s outfit. Could be one of Cohen’s mob, but I doubt it. Maybe he’s an amateur, though from what you’ve said it sounds unlikely. Or some out-of-town firm.’
‘He’s no amateur. He’s a professional all right, but something about him doesn’t fit with being a gangster. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Sneddon said without irony. ‘I’ll check with the boys, see if he rings any bells.’
There was nothing more to be said but I paused for a moment before hanging up.
‘Mr Sneddon, have you heard of a woman called Lillian Andrews? I don’t know what her maiden name would have been.’ I gave him a description of Lillian’s knockout looks and figure. ‘Like our guy in Perth, she’s a real professional. And tough with it. But not someone that would ever have had to work the streets.’
‘There are a lot of sexy-looking girls out there, Lennox. And I don’t know every tart in Glasgow. But from what you’re saying, she’s got too much class to be working one of Danny Dumfries’s clubs. She’s not working Blythswood Square… if she was an indoor whore, then you should talk to Arthur Parks. I’ll tell him to expect to hear from you.’ I smiled. Sneddon preparing Parks meant that I would get total cooperation. ‘Is this woman connected to the McGahern thing?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But she is connected to something that’s getting in the way, Mr Sneddon. I appreciate your help.’
‘Lennox…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Make sure you keep me up to date on what you find out about Tam McGahern. I don’t like surprises.’
I hung up feeling more than a little uneasy. If Wilma had been right about Frankie, not Tam, being the first to die, then I had a pretty big surprise up my sleeve.
CHAPTER NINE
The next evening I was in the one place in Glasgow you were guaranteed a date. If you had enough money on you.
I told a doorman who was all neck that Mr Parks was expecting me and he let me into what had been a drawing room at one time.
Park Circus was in the West End of Glasgow and broke up the otherwise Victorian monotony of Glasgow’s architecture with a circle of impressive Georgian townhouses. Most were still single dwellings, occupied by moderately wealthy families, but some had been subdivided into flats. Arthur Parks owned this particular townhouse in its entirety, but had divided it into a large apartment for himself on the upper levels and two smaller flats, one on the ground floor and the other in the basement. From both he conducted one of the most lucrative trades in the world. And, proverbially, one of the oldest.
I was in the ground-floor flat. There were three girls in the reception room I was shown into, all of whom stood up when I came in. One would have been around thirty and the other two were much younger. One looked no more than nineteen. They were all pretty and curved in the right places and all smiled alluringly. I held up my hand.
‘Sorry, girls, I’m here on business, not pleasure.’ Their smiles disappeared as quickly and mechanically as they had appeared and they sat down again on the sofa, resuming the conversation they had been having when I came in. I sat down in a large leather armchair and lit a cigarette. A small, bald, bird-like businessman in an immaculate suit came in and they repeated their performance. I reckoned the businessman was pushing sixty, but he chose the youngest of the girls.
‘Don’t trust him if he offers you a lollipop,’ I said as they left the room. The small businessman’s cheeks flushed bright red. I made no effort to disguise my disgust.
The other two girls were scowling at me when another man came into the room. Not a customer. Arthur Parks was an ugly fucker. He was about five-eleven and immaculately dressed, but he wore bottle-bottom glasses that exaggerated the size of his eyes. His bottom lip curled up, fish-like, over his top and there was evidence of a badly done repair to a congenital hare-lip. When he spoke, it was in a camp baritone.
‘Ah, Mr Lennox,’ he boomed, extending his limp hand theatrically. Everything he did, he did theatrically. ‘What can I do to help you?’
I handed him the photograph of Lillian Andrews that her husband had given me. Parks took it between manicured fingers. The flamboyant turquoise ring on his little finger matched his heavy cufflinks. I wondered if the set was completed with earrings.
‘Recognize her?’
‘Mmmm… very nice.’ It was like a teetotaller commenting on a fine wine. For all Arthur Parks sold pussy, he had no interest in it. His last stretch in prison had been for buggery in the gents’ toilet at Central Station. I thought I saw a split-second of recognition in his expression but then it was gone. Or he had covered it up quickly.
‘Well… Do you know her?’ I asked.
‘No. No, I don’t.’
‘You didn’t look too sure.’
He looked at the photograph again. Made a show of studying it.
‘No, I don’t know her. It was just that she reminded me of someone. But it can’t be her. Who I’m thinking of was blonde. And she’s dead.’
‘Tell me about her.’
‘Forget it, Mr Lennox, it cannot possibly be Margot Taylor. It’s just there is a rough similarity. Margot died three years ago. She was one of my girls but I found out she was doing her own thing in her spare time. She got a bit of a slapping for it and then I kicked her out. About six months later she was killed in a car crash. One of her punters was drunk behind the wheel. Served her right. If she hadn’t messed me about she would still have been working here. Safe.’
‘How alike is this woman to Margot?’
‘Not that much. She just kind of reminded me of her. Around the eyes.’ He handed me back the photograph. ‘Sorry. Can’t help you.’
I put the photograph back in my wallet. ‘One other thing. Did you ever get the McGahern brothers in here?’
‘God no…’ he laughed. Theatrically. ‘Wouldn’t let ruffian gobshites like that into my establishment.’
‘Do you know anything about an independent brothel that the McGaherns supplied security for? Somewhere in the West End.’
‘Not really,’ said Parks. ‘I heard something about it… potential competition and all that. But it didn’t seem to last long and as far as I could tell it wasn’t taking business from me. Anyway, sorry I can’t help you.’ Parks nodded in the direction of the older prostitute on the sofa. ‘Would you like to spend some time with Lena? On the house.’
The vaguely aristocratic-looking Lena responded by tilting her head back and parting her red lips provocatively. I’ve seen that Rita Hayworth movie too, Lena, I thought.
‘No thanks, I’ll pass.’ It wasn’t that I didn’t find Lena attractive. Parks misread my refusal and gave me his own version of a Rita Hayworth pout. ‘I don’t fuck whores,’ I said. ‘Or pansies.’
The next morning a spring sun was trying to break through but an ill-tempered early-morning Glasgow was telling it to fuck off and shrouding it in factory smoke. I had break-fast in a transport caff on Dumbarton Road before heading up into Bearsden about eight thirty. There was a steady flow of commuter traffic in the opposite direction, reflecting the fact that the majority of Glasgow’s privately owned cars resided in the leafy driveways of Bearsden.
I parked around the corner from the Andrews residence and loitered in the street as inconspicuously as I could until I saw John Andrews’s Bentley slide out of the drive with the sound of water over pebbles.