She closed the door. So much for hands across the ocean. At least I knew now that I had the right address. I was also pretty sure that Tam McGahern hadn’t had a secret wife. I’d have to work out some way of getting the information from Mason and Brodie.
I thought about heading in to the Horsehead Bar at opening time for the traditional pie and pint but Hammer Murphy’s processing plant came to mind, so I decided to have high tea in Byres Road. The overpriced pastries were too sweet. Rationing was being phased out and sugar had only just come off the ration book, so the new badge of affluence was to be liberal with it. I sat at the window and watched the world, or at least Byres Road, pass me by. I drank my tea and contemplated where I was with everything. The sun outside shone on the people and cars that passed with the joyfulness of a Presbyterian preacher: the time I felt most homesick for Canada was the British Sunday.
I made a decision and, after I’d paid, picked up my car and headed up towards Bearsden. Parking where I had before, I walked round to the drive of the Andrews house. A mink-coloured MG TF convertible swished down the drive and out onto the road and I ducked back out of sight, shielded by an overhang of thick bush. I recognized the driver as the blonde woman whom I’d seen Lillian Andrews with that night in the smog, and I was pretty sure it was Lillian in the passenger seat. I waited until they had pulled out into Drymen Road before heading up towards the house.
It was John Andrews who answered the door. He was wearing an open-necked shirt with a cravat and a pale-blue sweater that exaggerated a paunch that needed no exaggeration. Given that he had been avoiding my calls, I expected him to be taken aback, angry even. But he looked startled. And afraid.
‘What do you want, Lennox?’
‘We have to talk, Mr Andrews.’
‘Our business is concluded. We discussed that already. My wife is back safe and sound.’
I held up the envelope. ‘We need to discuss what I have here, Mr Andrews. I’m afraid it’s important. May I come in?’
Andrews looked undecided for a moment, then stood to one side. I tried not to show that I knew my way into the Contemporary-furnished lounge. Andrews remained standing and didn’t invite me to sit. I handed him the envelope with the photographs. After planning this moment for so long, I suddenly found that I wasn’t sure what to say. I let him look at the pictures. Halfway through he didn’t so much sit down as drop all the way onto the low-slung sofa. He kept looking. When he was finished he looked up at me. There was pain in his eyes. Lots of pain, but no surprise. Or disappointment.
‘Are you satisfied now, Mr Lennox?’ he said, the hate dull, heavy and blunt in his voice. ‘Are you happy that I’m now humiliated before you?’
‘No, Mr Andrews. This gives me absolutely no pleasure. I could have left things as they were-’
‘Then why the hell didn’t you?’ His eyes were now glossy. ‘Why didn’t you leave things alone when I asked you to?’
‘Because, Mr Andrews, I thought you were a man in trouble. And I think it even more now. I can imagine these pictures are upsetting for you to see, but I also know they were no surprise to you. Are you in trouble, Mr Andrews? Are you being blackmailed or something?’
He laughed a bitter laugh. ‘I loved my wife, you know. I still love her. Lillian is so beautiful. So beautiful. I couldn’t believe that I could be so lucky at this time of life. My first wife died, you see.’
‘I’m sorry. So even then you thought it too good to be true?’
Another bitter laugh. ‘Thanks for that, Lennox. Thanks for pointing out how obvious it should have been.’
‘Listen, I know you’re in trouble. I want to help if I can.’
‘I see. Touting for more business…’
‘I’m not interested in the money. You’ve paid me more than enough already. I just want to help.’
‘Then leave me alone. Just piss off and leave me alone. I’m in trouble all right. I’ve married a gold-digger and a slut and she’s going to take me for everything I’ve got. That’s all the trouble I’m in. And believe me that’s enough. Isn’t that enough for you, Mr Lennox?’
I picked up my hat. ‘If you say so. But I still think there’s more to this. If you need my help, ’phone me at my office or on this number.’ I wrote down the number of my digs. ‘One more thing… you maybe aren’t aware of this, but Lillian’s real name is Sally. Sally Blane. I thought you ought to know. If that still is her legal name and she married you under a false identity, then the marriage is void. You could get out.’
He continued to glare at me with a dull hatred, but took the number anyway.
I stopped off at the Horsehead Bar for a couple. I needed them. I didn’t like Andrews. I didn’t like his fleshy, ugly face, his affected manner or the way he talked. But once more, somewhere deep inside, I felt pity for another human being in distress. Again it surprised me. I thought that capacity had died in the war along with the kid from the Kennebecasis.
A couple became three or four and I started to think about the little nurse again. And then about Fiona White, my landlady. About her Kate Hepburn eyes. About kissing her to loosen the lips that were always drawn too tight. About how easy it would be for one bundle of damaged goods to get mixed up with another.
About how shit everything and everyone was.
Big Bob asked me if I wanted another but I said no. I was getting into that ugly tinder mood that needs just one drink too many to catch light and then you want to smash a face, any face, just to make someone else feel worse than you do. There was more Scots blood in me than I liked to admit.
I went out into the cold and clammy Glasgow night. I left the car outside the Horsehead and walked all the way back to my flat. It was a long walk and the night air slowly cooled my mood. I stood outside the house. The curtains of Fiona White’s downstairs flat were drawn but edged with warm light. The two girls would be asleep in the room to the back, probably dreaming of a father whom they now only really remembered from photographs.
I opened the door quietly and moved quickly up the stairs once I’d closed it behind me. Tonight was not the night to bump into Mrs White. Tonight there was a danger that our mutual need for comfort would be too great.
Or perhaps I was deluding myself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I met Jock Ferguson at lunchtime in the Horsehead Bar. I had arranged it with him earlier by ’phone and given him a rough idea what it was I was looking to find out. But with coppers there is always a price. They are inquisitive by nature. Nosy.
‘Why do you need this information?’ Ferguson asked. ‘Is this something we should be interested in?’
‘It’s a case I’m working. Something stinks with it. First of all this guy asks me to find his missing wife, then he tries to pay me off, then his wife flashes her tits at me while her buddy cracks my head open.’
‘You lead a colourful life, Lennox. Where does this company come in?’
‘He owns it. Or runs it. He was none too specific about exactly what it was that they did.’
‘Well, I checked it out all right. If your guy is John Andrews, then he owns the company. CCI stands for Clyde Consolidated Importing. The consolidated comes from the fact that Andrews bought a number of smaller companies and formed one big one from it. They have warehouses down on the Clyde and a big office in Blythswood Square.’
‘What do they export?’
‘Plant, machine parts, that kind of thing. All over. North America, Middle East, Far East… You say you had a run-in with the wife?’
‘That’s one way of putting it. The stitches come out tomorrow.’
‘Were they worth it?’ Ferguson asked.
‘Were what worth it?’