‘It makes sense,’ said McNab defensively. Thinking is something policemen find hard work and hate it when their labours are picked apart.
‘Sure it makes sense,’ I said. ‘And it still might be the case, but we’ve got this witness who swears it was Strachan he saw in Nineteen forty-two, at Lochailort, and in an army major’s uniform.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Jock Ferguson. ‘I still think that’s shite.’
‘Well, just for a moment, pretend it isn’t. Let’s say that that really was Strachan, and he was there, fully accredited, as an army major. How could that come to be?’
‘It couldn’t,’ said McNab.
‘Now play along, Superintendent. Let’s take Strachan’s presence as an absolute fact. How could he have achieved that?’
‘Well …’ Ferguson pulled on the word thoughtfully. ‘We know that he had experience of passing himself off as an officer. And doing it very well.’
‘Which means it’s entirely conceivable that he was seen dressed as a major …’
‘But Lochailort was one of the most secure military installations in the country. It would take more than a uniform, a plum in your mouth and an authoritative demeanour to get in there.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Which is where the whole thing falls down,’ said Ferguson.
‘Let’s go back to the Triple Crown robberies. What if they were only a means to an end? From what I’ve been able to find out, Strachan would disappear for months on end. Just drop out of sight. What if he had spent months, years, establishing another identity elsewhere? Maybe more than one. What if his plan had been to use the proceeds from the Triple Crown robberies to fund something else, somewhere else?’
‘Like what?’ asked McNab.
‘Maybe just a different life somewhere else. The quality of life he imagined he deserved. Or maybe the proceeds were to be reinvested in another job: something even bigger than the Exhibition robbery … a mail train or gold bullion or the Crown bloody Jewels, I don’t know. But then, two things happen. One, things don’t go to plan during the Exhibition robbery and a copper is killed, so if Strachan’s plan was to use the money to become Glasgow King Pin, then it’s a complete wash-out. Two, Hitler invades Poland and everything is turned on its head. The whole of the country is on a war footing and pulling any big jobs becomes ten times more difficult. But I suspect something else happened. I’m not sure what, but I suspect that maybe Strachan’s officer act was part of whatever identity he set up for himself and somehow fantasy and reality fused and he ended up roped into some real unit.’
‘Have you heard of Fairy Tale Frankie Wilson?’ asked McNab, dully. I shook my head. ‘Inspector Ferguson here has come across him, haven’t you, Jock? He’s a compulsive little bastard. A compulsive thief and a compulsive liar. We call him Fairy Tale Frankie because he can’t keep it simple. When he’s trying to lie his way out of something, he keeps tripping up over his own lies, so he keeps inventing new, more outrageous lies to cover up. Before you know it his lie about why he had a jemmy in his pocket becomes a full-scale epic with a cast of characters that would send MGM into bankruptcy. But you just have to keep on listening, because it’s so bloody entertaining. I have to tell you, Lennox, even Fairy Tale Frankie couldn’t come up with anything as ridiculous as you’re suggesting.’
‘You could be right.’ I shrugged. ‘But we’re not dealing with the usual Glasgow criminal type here. And you can’t deny that that was no ordinary thug who jumped me in my office.’ I shook my head irritably as other thoughts crammed in. ‘Why are there no photographs of Strachan, anywhere? I’m telling you, he was planning his disappearance for a long, long time. This is no fairy tale, Superintendent. This is a whole new ball of wax.’
After McNab left, I smoked a couple of cigarettes with Jock Ferguson and talked the thing to death some more. We were interrupted by Dr ‘Sonny’, who gave me the all clear to go. Archie was waiting for me downstairs and shook hands with Jock Ferguson when we arrived.
‘Look after him.’ Ferguson managed to make it sound like an order.
‘I’ll keep him away from windows,’ said Archie dolefully.
I said goodbye to Ferguson, latching on, as casually as I could manage, something that I had been relieved had not yet raised its head.
‘By the way, Jock, what was all that about a murder case the other night? Govanhill, I think it was McNab said.’
I had put the question as conversationally as possible, but it still sounded clunky.
‘Why you asking?’ he asked, but with no more suspicion than usual.
‘Just curious.’
‘We think it was some kind of fairy killing. A pool lifeguard called Frank Gibson who was well known in those circles apparently.’
‘How was he killed?’
Jock Ferguson looked at me suspiciously.
‘Like I said, just curiosity.’
‘Morbid bloody curiosity. He had his throat cut. From behind. Whoever did it set the flat on fire. The whole tenement nearly went up with everybody in it. Why the hell would he set the place on fire after he’d killed Gibson?’
I shrugged to signal the limit of my curiosity, but I was thinking of the burnt furniture thrown into the back court. The answer, I felt, was obvious: fire wipes out evidence. I thought too of all of the other envelopes stuffed with negatives. Maybe Downey and Gibson had been pulling the same stunt with God knows how many others. And where was Downey now?
The kind of business I was in called for discretion. A low profile. Showing my guest the window had gotten me onto the front pages of the Bulletin, the Daily Herald, the Daily Record and the Evening Citizen. The Glasgow Herald confined me to page four. The Bulletin had a photograph of my office building with my window boarded up, and an arrow indicating the route taken by my guest to the street: just in case the Bulletin’s readers were unfamiliar with the workings of gravity.
Archie had the papers in his car when he came to pick me up. Archie’s car was pretty much as you would expect from Archie: a black Forty-seven Morris Eight into which he seemed to have to fold himself like a penknife. We didn’t talk much as we drove across the city and down to the Gallowgate. My mind suddenly filled with the fact that I had killed a man; that my actions, not for the first time, had ended a human being’s existence. I told myself that I had not had much choice in the matter. The truth was that I had had some.
Archie clearly sensed I was not in the mood for chat and we drove in silence back to my temporary lodgings. The door opened without being knocked and we were greeted sullenly by Mr Simpson. My landlord’s demeanour had shifted from suspicious to outright hostile.
‘I’ve chchread all of this schhhite in the papers. People being flung out of windowsch. We’ve got windowsch here. You’re that Lennochsch, aren’t you?’
‘I am,’ I said and noticed my bags, packed, sitting behind him in the hall. ‘But I’ve committed no crime. I was the victim of the attack, not the perpetrator. So your windows are safe.’
‘I don’t want no trouble. No trouble. You’ll have to go.’
‘Would it help if I told you I thought the guy had an Irish accent?’ I asked, deadpan. When he didn’t answer, I leaned past him to pick up my bags. He flinched as I did so and I gave him a wink.
‘Top o’ the mornin’ t’yah!’
‘Where now, boss?’ asked Archie, once we were back in the car. His voice remained dull but there was a twinkle in the large hang-dog eyes.
‘Great Western Road,’ I said. ‘But stop at a phone box on the way so I can warn my landlady.’
The world had turned on its axis a few times since I’d last spent a night in my digs, but I had somehow expected to pick up where I had left off; and specifically where I had left off my tearoom conversation with Fiona White. But things had moved on without me, somewhat.