I restrained the instinct to dry my face with my handkerchief, or to ask if it was okay if I could keep Nigger, my black Irish Wolfhound, in my room, and followed Simpson up the stairs. When I answered his question about how long I would be staying, which I said would be a week, he stopped on the stair and turned, a suspicious frown creasing his porcine brow.
‘You’re no’ Irischsch, are you?’
‘What? Oh, my accent … no, I’m Canadian. Is that all right? But I did spend a weekend in Belfast once …’
My irony went over his shiny head by a mile.
‘That’sch awright. Schscho long aschsch you’re no’ Irischsch …’
The room was basic but clean, and I shared a bathroom with four other rooms and there was a pay ’phone in the hall. It would do for a week or two, if needs be. I paid three days in advance, which Simpson took thanklessly and left.
With Archie on the trail of Billy Dunbar, I decided to dedicate myself to tracking down Paul Downey, the part-time amateur photographer who had done so well in capturing John Macready’s good side.
I spent the first evening checking out the well-known queer haunts in the city centre: the Oak Cafe, the Royal Bar in West Nile Street and a couple of others. I decided to hold off on a trip down to Glasgow Green for the moment. Wherever I went, I was met with an almost universal suspicion, clearly being taken instantly as a copper out to trap homosexuals. I would have probably been less offended if they had thought I had been there cruising.
I tried to get around the suspicion that I was a cop by offering money for information, but that seemed to make things worse. I couldn’t blame them for clamming up. As I had told Macready, the City of Glasgow Vice Squad — and police forces in Scotland generally — pursued homos with biblical zeal which, in itself, made me question the underlying culture. I never could understand why homosexuality was illegal in the first place: if consenting adults wanted to assault each other with friendly weapons out of the sight of children and horses, then I didn’t see why that should be a police matter.
All the same, I avoided visiting the toilets while I was in the queer bars.
I was aware that somebody followed me out of the Royal. It was dark and the fog had come back, but nothing like as densely as before. Unlocking your car door is a prime time for an ambush, so I walked straight past the Atlantic, picking up my pace and taking a swift turn into the alley that connected West Nile Street with Buchanan Street. As soon as I was around the corner, I pressed into the wall and waited for him to take the turn. This time, just like I had promised myself, I was going to lead the dance.
I saw the figure hesitate for a moment, then turn into the alley. I leapt out and grabbed his coat, pulling it out and down over his shoulders and upper arms, transforming it into an improvised straightjacket. I swung him around, slammed his back into the wall and rammed my forearm up and under his chin, shutting off his windpipe.
I knew even before I got a look at his face that this wasn’t the same guy from the other morning in the smog. It had all been too easy and, anyway, this guy was too small.
A pair of scared-wide eyes stared at me through uneven horn-rimmed spectacles.
‘Please … please, don’t hurt me …’ he pleaded.
‘Shit … Mr MacGregor …’ I let go the bank’s Chief Clerk. ‘What are you doing following me?’
‘I … I saw you in the bar. I know why you were there. I just know it.’
‘Em … no, you don’t, Mr MacGregor,’ I said emphatically. ‘I’m not that type of girl.’
‘No, no … I know that, Mr Lennox. I know you were in there watching me. That’s why I came after you. I promise I’ll never go in there again. Ever. It was my first time …’ His fright turned to pleading. ‘Well, my second time, but that’s all, I swear. I promise you I won’t do it again. Listen, I have money. I’ll give it to you. Just don’t tell the bank director. I know he hired you to check up on me … Or the police. Oh, please God no, not the police …’
‘Is that why you came after me?’ I pulled his coat back up over his shoulders.
‘I saw you leaving. I didn’t see you when you were in there, but I guessed that you had seen me. Please don’t tell the bank, Mr Lennox …’
I held my hands up to placate him. ‘Take it easy, Mr MacGregor, I wasn’t in there looking for you. I had no idea that you … And no,’ I said, reading the sudden change in his expression, ‘I wasn’t in there for fun. Let’s get out of this alley before a patrolling copper takes us for a couple.’
He stepped back out onto West Nile Street. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a lift home,’ I said. This was more than just an embarrassing moment: MacGregor worked for an important client and I could do without the complication. But it began to dawn on me that there might be some mileage in having the goods on MacGregor. He told me he lived in Milngavie and we headed out of the city centre and up through Maryhill.
‘So what were you doing in the Royal?’ he asked eventually, clearly still not convinced that he had not been the subject of my surveillance.
‘I was looking for someone,’ I said. ‘A guy called Downey.’
‘Paul?’
I took my eyes off the road and turned to MacGregor. ‘You know him?’
‘I do. Did. Not well. I haven’t seen him in weeks. What do you want him for?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Mr MacGregor. I thought you said that was only your second time in that bar …’
MacGregor reddened. I was going to be able to milk this.
‘Listen, I’m not interested in your private life, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction. I really need to find Downey.’
‘He used to go to the usual places, the Oak Cafe, The Good Companions, all of those places. But, like I said, I haven’t seen him for weeks. You could try some of the steam rooms though. I think I heard someone say that Paul’s friend works at one of the public baths.’
‘Do you have a name?’
‘I’m afraid not. No, wait … I think his friend was called Frank, but I don’t know which baths he worked at. That’s all I can tell you, Mr Lennox. Sorry.’
‘It’s something to go on. Thanks.’
We were passing through an area of flat, open countryside as we approached Milngavie. Off in the distance — a darker grey silhouette in the lighter grey of the fog — I could see something long and cigar shaped suspended from what looked like a gantry. I had seen it before, and more clearly. It looked like something Michael Rennie should have stepped out of in a science fiction movie and it had always puzzled the hell out of me. I decided to take advantage of having a Milngavie local in the car with me.
‘Oh that? That’s the Bennie Railplane,’ MacGregor said in answer to my question. ‘It’s been there since before the war. There used to be a lot more of the track that it hangs from, but they took it down along with all of the railings and stuff for the war effort.’
‘Railplane?’
‘Yes. It was built in the Twenties or Thirties. It was going to be the transport of the future. It could travel at well over a hundred miles an hour, you know. But no one backed it and it never got more than the test track there.’
I thought about dreams of a future that never happened: the Empire Exhibition of Thirty-eight promising a cleaner, brighter Glasgow full of art deco buildings, with the Bennie Railplane connecting cities at superfast speed. What could have been. Like my wartime dream of me returning to Canada, making a proper life for myself. A lot of things had been killed in the war. Ideals and visions, as well as fifty million people.