I knew what Jonny meant: Hammer Murphy was the King with whom I least liked having dealings. Much of what Jonny said about Tam McGahern could apply to Hammer Murphy. Except the intelligence. Michael Murphy’s nickname suited him; he was the human equivalent of a blunt instrument: dense and it hurt when you collided with him. Jonny was right though. Murphy always made sure he got full credit for all the brutal acts he was behind. And he was behind many. But I was keeping an open mind: whether it had been Tam or Frankie who had got his head pulped in the Rutherglen garage, it did fit with Hammer Murphy’s MO.
‘Anyway,’ Jonny continued, ‘we were all keeping a lid on Tam McGahern’s operation. He didn’t like it, but as long as the three main firms worked together, he couldn’t do anything about it.’
‘I hear Tam had a hanger-on of sorts. A guy called Jimmy Wallace. I don’t think he was involved much on the business end of things but Tam was supposed to have indulged him.’
‘Jimmy Wallace?’ Jonny shook his head thoughtfully. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.’
I sipped my Scotch. It was good Scotch but I would rather have had a rye. I was hearing nothing that I didn’t already know. Jonny seemed to pick up on this.
‘Not much help, huh? Sorry. I would help if I could… even if you are working for the wrong people.’ He paused. ‘There is maybe one thing. Tam McGahern liked his women. This Wilma may have got you nowhere, but McGahern normally liked his girlfriends to be professionals. Experienced, as it were.’
‘I’ve already tried Arthur Parks,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’
‘Arthur Parks is a front man for Sneddon. McGahern would never have gone there. And he was never in one of my places. There was a group of girls working independently somewhere in the West End. What the Yanks would call “call-girls”: everything arranged discreetly for high-paying clients. Classy girls. McGahern provided security for them. He didn’t run them, more that they paid him a cut to supply heavies, et cetera. The rumour was that McGahern was pretty cracked up on one of them. The tart that ran the house.’
I thought about what he was saying. Classy girls. In Glasgow, and talking about women who fucked for cash, it was a relative statement. I thought of Wilma Marshall’s look.
‘You have an address or number?’ I asked.
‘No. Like I said, it was all done very discreetly and we stayed out of it. Hammer Murphy wanted to force protection on them, but he didn’t know where to find them. Added to which, it would have meant a war with McGahern. There were also rumours that these whores were keeping the police sweet. Or that they had high-level contacts. The odd thing is it was almost as if they disappeared from view. Not that they were much in view to start with.’
Jonny made a ‘that’s it’ gesture with his hands. I hadn’t told him all I knew and he probably hadn’t told me all he knew. But that was the way it worked and I had at least got some new information.
‘Listen, Jonny, you can maybe help me with something else. Not connected at all with McGahern. Have you ever seen this woman before?’ I took out the picture John Andrews had given me of his wife. ‘I think she’s a professional too. She’s called Lillian Andrews now but God knows what she went by before.’
‘What’s the deal?’ He took the picture and examined it. ‘Nice.’
‘Only to look at,’ I said. ‘She’s married to a man called John Andrews, who owns a big export business. Something’s rotten in the state of Bearsden and there’s a smell to the whole set up. Andrews is a scared man and I think it’s entirely possible she’s blackmailing him or has got some kind of hold on him.’
Jonny looked at the picture again. ‘You know something… I think I’ve seen her somewhere before.’ He shook his head, clearly annoyed that he couldn’t recall. ‘Can I hold on to this photograph for a day or two? Do a bit of checking?’
‘Sure. But I need it back. It’s the only one I’ve got.’
We switched to general chat for a while and then I thanked Jonny for his time and we made for the door. On the way out I saw a photograph of his parents on the bookcase. They were sitting outdoors at a cafe table under a sun that had never shone on Glasgow.
‘How are your folks?’ I asked.
‘They’re fine, Lennox. Thanks for asking. I worry about them. All the trouble with the Arabs.’
‘You never fancy it yourself?’ I asked.
‘Israel? Naw. You can’t get a decent fish supper there. Anyway, I was never political. That was my dad’s thing. I remember, before the war, he was always talking about the trouble in the Mid East. I could never work out what the fuck was happening in Falkirk that worried him so much.’
I laughed.
‘But,’ he said, ‘God knows I didn’t expect them to emigrate at their age…’ He shrugged, looking at the photograph. ‘Just goes to show you never can tell what the future holds.’
I smiled. I was talking with Jonny the devoted son, not Jonny the gangster. The son who had financed his elderly parents’ emigration to Israel. The Jewish boy from Newton Mearns who had served with the Second British Army in Germany and had walked through the gates of a camp on the Luneburg Heath forty miles south of Hanover with a name no one had heard of before. Belsen.
‘Nope, Jonny. You never can tell.’
I had a clear goal when I left Jonny Cohen’s. More a target. And after an hour sitting in my car outside the Highlander Bar I caught sight of it. I crossed the road and intercepted Bobby and his two chums, all of whom were still carrying the signs of our previous encounter, just as they were about to enter the bar. Dougie, the biggest of the trio, obviously still fancied himself as tasty.
‘What the fuck do you want, Lennox?’ he said, placing himself between me and Bobby and squaring his not insubstantial shoulders. ‘We told you fucking everything we-’
I interrupted him with a sharp head-butt to the bridge of his nose. He slumped against the wall of the pub. Pete, ever his loyal companion, turned on his heel and ran. Bobby again was frozen to the spot.
‘I cannot abide coarse language,’ I explained to Bobby as I grabbed his upper arm and frogmarched him across the road, leaving the still-dazed Dougie propped against the wall.
I shoved Bobby into the passenger seat and drove down to the Clyde. Clydebank was still gap-toothed from wartime air raids and I parked on one of the half-cleared bombsites by the river. I hauled him out of the car and down to the pier. We stood near its edge, the water below black and sleeked with rainbow-swirls of engine oil.
Bobby eyed me sulkily through the eye I hadn’t closed. ‘One of these days you’re going to push the wrong person too far.’
‘Oh really? Well, until that day comes I’ve always got you.’ I shoved him and he staggered back towards the edge of the pier. His hideous winkle-picker boots scrabbled on the rough rubble.
‘This is very simple, Bobby. You held out on me. I told you I wanted to know everything about Tam McGahern.’
‘I didn’t hold out,’ he protested. ‘I told you everything I know!’
I gave another shove to his chest and he tilted precariously backwards. I grabbed a hold of his bootlace tie.
‘I can’t swim!’ he bleated.
I laughed at him. ‘This is the fucking Clyde, Bobby. You’ll die of heavy-metal poisoning before you have a chance to drown. Anyway, shite floats. Now talk to me… what about the whore McGahern used to go to? The one he provided heavies for?’
The hate and fear on Bobby’s face didn’t leave much room for any other emotion, but for a moment something like confusion crossed it.
‘What whore?’
‘The classy operation in the West End. The one McGahern was giving one to.’
The penny dropped.
‘Oh, aye… her. I didn’t even think about her. I didn’t think it was important. I wasn’t holding out on you. I just didn’t think about her.’