But maybe it had. I found myself back in the future. Ahead of me the partly built monoliths of Moss Heights loomed black into the night sky. Again I parked some distance from Jackie Gillespie’s brand-new house, although it did little to make the Atlantic, one of only three cars parked on the entire length of the street, less conspicuous.
The back door was still ajar. I made my way into the kitchen and cursed the fact I hadn’t brought a torch. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing there. I was alone. The Three Kings were out of the picture for God knew how long. No Twinkletoes or Tiny to call on to add muscle. I wasn’t even here on a hunch.
I went through to the living room. It was easier to see in there because of the nauseous yellow light cast in from the streetlamp. It was still the tumbled mess it had been earlier. The only difference was the figure sitting in the corner, partly concealed in shadow. I noticed him mainly because of the yellow gleam on the sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun he had pointed at me. I put my hands up but otherwise didn’t move.
‘Hello, Jackie,’ I said. ‘You okay?’
‘No.’ The voice from the corner was deep but weak. ‘You Lennox?’
‘Were you expecting me?’
‘Kinda,’ said Gillespie. He lowered the gun and I lowered my arms. ‘You’re a favourite topic of conversation for McGahern and his tart. You was supposed to sit still for the frame. Like me.’
‘Funny thing is I was half-expecting to find you here,’ I said.
‘Everybody’s turned this place over once. They’ve crossed it off their list. It’s the one place in Glasgow I’m safe.’ Gillespie moved slightly to the side and his face became etched in yellow. From the look of him, I guessed it would be yellow even without the streetlight. I could see a glistening patch, black in the streetlight, on his shirt and jacket. There was a pool of it on the floor next to him.
‘Fuck, Gillespie. Let me have a look at you.’ I moved towards him but he hinted I stop by raising the barrels. I took the hint.
‘Forget it, Lennox. You’re talking to a ghost. You was in the war too. You know when someone loses this much blood, he’s fucked. Anyway, I could have gone to a hospital a day ago. What would be the point? Nursed back to health just to be dropped through a fucking hatch at Barlinnie. This way I choose where and when I die.’
‘I guess I’m right to think it was McGahern and Lillian who fucked you?’
‘Full fucking shaft.’ Gillespie lowered the gun again. He nodded when I asked if I could sit next to him. I could see his torso more clearly. He was right. There was no point in discussing it any more. ‘McGahern shot me. He executed those fucking soldiers. They didn’t die in a fire-fight. They was conscripts. Kids. Then he turned, calm as fuck, and shot me. But I got a shot off too. Missed the bastard, but he ran for it and drove off in the van. I took the car. Could hardly fucking drive. Dumped the car, waited till dark and walked here. The walk nearly fucking killed me. I was hoping you’d turn up.’
‘I kinda guessed you’d be here. Can I get you something? Water?’
Gillespie shook his head. ‘The only thing I want you to get me are those bastards. McGahern and his whore. She planned the whole fucking thing.’
‘Not McGahern?’
‘Naw. His idea. She put it all together. Now shut the fuck up and listen. I don’t have a lot of breathing left in me. And remember what I tell you. The Carpathian Queen. She’s one of the three ships McGahern’s been using. It sails at eleven the day after tomorrow. But the big payoff takes place tomorrow, noon. McGahern gives sight of the goods and gets half the money. Then the other half on delivery. The agent is a big fat Dutch fucker. We only ever called him The Fat Dutchman, but McGahern slipped once when he was talking to Lillian… he called the Dutchman De Jong. You have to watch the Dutchman: he has a couple of Arabs in tow. Dangerous bastards.’
‘One of them isn’t any more,’ I said. ‘We had an episode. I’ve ended his lineage.’
‘Watch your back anyway, Lennox. They’re all meeting at an empty warehouse on dock thirteen. Like I said, noon tomorrow.’
‘Maybe they’ve changed their plans. After all, you know about the meet.’
Gillespie’s laugh turned into a wet cough. ‘Dead men don’t tell tales. Anyhow, I know more than they think I know. Lennox, promise me you’ll get the bastards.’
‘I promise. I’ve got my own score to settle. And the Three Kings have bigger scores to settle.’
It was then that Gillespie said something that jarred with me. Made me feel even more vulnerable and alone. Something he had overheard and couldn’t elaborate on.
We sat quietly in the black and yellow geometry of shadow and streetlight. Everything was quiet. No dogs barking, no distant cars passing.
‘Lennox?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I was in Burma during the war. You?’
‘First Canadian. Italy and Germany.’
‘Then you know too. I mean, you know how this goes.’
‘Sure, Jackie. I know how this goes.’
‘I always wanted to go to Canada. Read all them comics about lumberjacks when I was a kid. Tell me about it.’
So I did. Gillespie sat quiet, apart from the odd wet cough, and listened as I talked about growing up on the banks of the Kennebecasis. About deep snow winters and hot sun summers. About watching the tidal bore surge up the Bay of Fundy. About the smell of the forest when the snow first melts. I was surprised just how much I had to say and talked on, even after Gillespie stopped coughing.
Like I had told him, I knew how it went.
I left the dead armed robber in his brand-new house, his shotgun still on his lap. When I got back in the Atlantic I sat for a moment and thought back to what he had said and how it had shaken me more than anything else: ‘There’s one other thing, Lennox. I don’t know which one, but one of the Three Kings isn’t to be trusted.’
It was four in the morning by the time I got back to my digs. If Mrs White heard me creep in, she didn’t signal it by putting on her light. I lay on the bed in my clothes, my exhaustion playing tug-of-war with the nausea and the throbbing in my head. My exhaustion won.
I woke up with a start and a stab of pain in my head. I looked at my watch and saw it was half past nine. I let my head sink back onto the pillow. The pain was still beyond all description of a headache, but I was aware that the intensity had been turned down a notch or two.
I got up and took enough aspirin to rot a steel gut and took a bath, shaved and dressed in a new change of clothes. I wore a black suit with a red pinstripe and a deep burgundy tie. I was dressing up for my coffin. My plan remained exactly the same as it had the night before when I had explained it to the Three Kings. The only difference now was that instead of going in mob-handed with the combined strength of Glasgow’s criminal underworld, I was going it alone. I could see the epitaph on my gravestone: Here lies Lennox: he went it alone. The wanker.
I drove to the docks and parked the Atlantic. I slipped the switchblade into my jacket pocket, checked the chambers of the Webley, snapped it shut and tucked it into the waistband of my trousers. I found a hole in the fence and dodged between warehouses until I found dock number thirteen. Maybe it would be my lucky number. I could see the warehouse. A Bedford of the same make that had been used the night they attempted to grab me was parked outside, a tarpaulin stretched over its cargo. It started to rain. Something on the other side of the dock began thumping at metal, sending ringing echoes across the water. I ran across to the back of the warehouse and ducked behind its cover. I pulled the Webley out from my waistband and rebuttoned my jacket and coat. I checked my watch: ten before noon. At least it hadn’t rained on Gary Cooper.
Two cars arrived, about five minutes apart. They drove round to the front of the warehouse and I couldn’t see who got out. I made my way along the back of the building and round the corner. I found a door on the side but it was padlocked. I was going to have to go in the same way as everyone else. I sprinted the length of the warehouse’s side and ducked behind a collection of huge oil drums. I just made it, because a third car, a Nash roadster, pulled up and a red-haired man in a houndstooth jacket and cavalry twills got out. I watched the country-set type, whom I reckoned to be their army connection, disappear into the warehouse. He had the look of someone Lillian and her girls could have compromised.