‘Where were they taken?’ I asked, leaving for the moment the fact that every time Downey said ‘we’ I got a funny feeling ‘we’ was more than him and Frank.
‘The Duke’s estate. The same place where we took the Macready photographs.’
I slipped the best of the close-ups into my pocket. Downey had now started to shake quite violently: the shock setting in. With some it takes all a battlefield can throw at them, with others a raised voice and the threat of worse.
There was a wooden chair in the corner of the darkroom and I told him to sit. It only took me a minute to cast an eye over the rest of the apartment, as well as checking on sleeping beauty in the hall. Truth was, I was getting a little worried about him and decided to make sure he came to before I left.
When I came back into the darkroom, I had an ordinary one hundred watt bulb that I had taken from the bathroom and I replaced the red light with it, flooding the small room with brilliance. I tipped out every drawer, tray cupboard and cubby-hole I could find, checking as I went. John Macready and his aristocratic playmate were clearly not the only subjects of Downey’s artistic bent.
I decided to do some pro-bono work and gathered every print and negative I could find, other than the ones I had been contracted to deliver, placing them in an enamel developing tray. I tossed the other two sets in and started a small bonfire, that made sure Downey and his muscle-bound chum would not be making any more from fat Glasgow businessmen or foreign-looking aristos.
‘Okay, Paul,’ I said as the photographs and negatives burned and I hauled him back to his feet. ‘I’ll take the rest with me and that will be an end to the matter, unless you want me to come back, that is.’
He shook his head.
‘But before I go, I want to know how you set it all up. The cottage and everything. It was an elaborate set-up. You plan it all?’
‘I needed the money. I owe money and I have to pay it back. I can’t now …’ He started to cry. ‘They’ll kill me.’
‘Who? Who will kill you?’
‘I owe money to loan sharks. Local hard men.’
‘So you came up with this scheme all by yourself?’
‘No. It was Iain’s idea.’
‘Iain? Iain as in bent-over-obligingly Iain? Iain the toff in the photographs? Iain, the Duke of Strathlorne’s son?’
‘We used to be close. For a while. He needs money almost as badly as I do and he came up with the plan. He knew about Macready and he came up with the idea.’
‘Why on earth would he need money desperately? His family own half the country, for God’s sake,’ I said incredulously. ‘And anyway, doesn’t he have as much … more … to lose than Macready if this all comes out? His family name … The connections …’
‘Iain said that that was exactly why they would cough up. It would be such a scandal that they would pay anything to stop it coming out. And if it did come out, I don’t think Iain would be that worried. It would destroy his father, more than him. And he hates his father.’
I regarded Downey. I guessed he was of Irish Catholic stock, brought up in Glasgow, which put you at the bottom of the social pile. And Iain, the Duke’s son, was right at the top. In class-obsessed Britain, I couldn’t work out how they could possibly have been ‘close’, as Downey had put it.
‘It isn’t that unusual,’ he said, reading my mind. ‘It’s a different world. You should see the businessmen and toffs who hang around Glasgow Green looking for a bit of rough. I met Iain at a party in the West End.’
‘Does he have copies of the photographs?’ I asked, suddenly seeing a much more complicated task in front of me.
‘No.’ He nodded to the tin box that I had laid back on the table. ‘That’s everything.’
We were interrupted by Frank, who lunged into the doorframe, trying to focus his gaze on me. He made a clumsy charge and I easily sidestepped him, slamming my elbow into the bridge of his nose as he careered past. He hurtled into the table and sent the tray with the burning prints and negatives crashing to the floor with him. He wasn’t out this time, but rolled over onto his side and cupped his busted nose, blood everywhere. He was finished.
Downey had started to shake again. I grabbed him by the shirtfront once more and pulled him towards me.
‘Is our business with each other concluded, Mr Downey?’
‘Yes,’ he said in a quivering tone. ‘You won’t hear from me again, I swear.’
I pushed him against the wall again and he screwed his face up tight. He knew he was going to take a beating, just to get the message across. I balled my fist.
‘Just make sure you don’t,’ I said. I maybe should have slapped him around a bit, just to reinforce the point, as Fraser had asked for in his roundabout way. But I had my limits, I was surprised and pleased to discover, and I let him go. ‘You better see to your girlfriend.’
We met at the Central Hotel, in a private dining room, at nine-thirty.
After I had left Downey, I had used the same call box at the corner of the street to get in touch with Fraser and Leonora Bryson. I told them both that I had all the copies and negatives and I had put Downey and his friend out of business. I didn’t mention at that stage that I’d found out that Iain, the aristo in the pictures, had planned to be on the receiving end in more ways than one. I had decided I could tell them when we got together, which would buy me some time to think about what it meant.
John Macready was wearing a grey chalk-stripe, double breasted suit with a white shirt and burgundy silk tie that looked like they had just been hand delivered from Jermyn Street. The guy had style, I had to give him that. He sat smoking but stood up and shook my hand when I came in. Donald Fraser and Leonora Bryson remained glued to the upholstery. I had business on my mind, but Leonora was wearing a blue silk dress that looked like the silkworms had oozed it out directly onto her skin. Her hair was up and her throat bounded by a four tier pearl choker. She sat smoking and looking at me disinterestedly, or uninterestedly, or both. I couldn’t help thinking about the night in the room upstairs and felt the urge to go over there and start tearing silk, but I guessed that would have contravened business meeting etiquette.
‘Did you run into problems?’ Fraser asked, indicating the plaster on my cheek.
‘No … this is unrelated. Everything went pretty much as I thought it would.’
‘You have the items?’ Fraser asked me. I handed over the tartan tin.
‘No … I thought I would bring you some shortbread instead. A souvenir of Scotland for our American guests.’
He looked at me blankly with his beady lawyer’s eyes. As I didn’t have a dictionary to show him the definition of the word humour, I decided to play it straight.
‘They’re in there …’ I said, nodding to the shortbread tin.
‘All of them?’ asked Leonora.
‘All of them,’ I said.
‘You’re sure?’ asked Fraser.
‘I’m sure. Downey was too scared to hold back, and I saw the set-up for myself. All the negatives are there. And, just for good measure, I burned every other piece of film I could find.’ I turned to the actor. ‘It’s over, Mr Macready. You can rest easy.’
‘I appreciate that, Mr Lennox.’ He smiled at me, but I didn’t get the full one hundred watt business. ‘I really do. If ever I can be of any help to you, please let me know. Mr Fraser, do you think it would be possible to give Mr Lennox a small bonus? After all, he really did sort this out very quickly for us.’
Fraser was caught totally off guard. He flustered for a moment, then reached into his jacket pocket and produced a juicily thick buff envelope.
‘Your fee is in there, Mr Lennox. Four thousand pounds. Not bad for a few days’ work. I trust you’ll appreciate there’s an element of hush money in there. You can never discuss this with anyone.’
‘Obviously.’
‘And we’re paying you cash. No need to go through the books. I doubt if the taxman would believe it was the proceeds of just one assignment that lasted less than a week.’