I had taken the Webley from the safety deposit box and had tucked it into the waistband of my trousers. I knew that if McNab found out I was walking about his town heavy with an unlicensed gun, the recent thaw in relations would turn out to have been a false Spring. But if someone tried to kill me again, I wanted to have more than a hat stand in my hand. When I had gotten back to my digs, and after my pleasant exchange with James White, I had put the Webley under my pillow.
It was about eight-thirty when I put my jacket and hat on, went down to the hall telephone and ’phoned Isa. We arranged that I would meet her and Violet the next day.
I knocked on the Whites’ door and told Elspeth to tell her mother that I would be out for the evening. When I drove off, I was relieved to see that the dark grey Humber stayed on point outside the house, instead of following me. But I guessed my outing would be noted and radioed in.
Before I headed up north and into the country, I stopped at a telephone kiosk and called Murphy.
‘You heard what happened?’ I asked.
‘About you throwing that cunt out the fucking window? I believe it may have come to my fucking notice. I thought you was supposed to be discreet? So who was he?’
‘The same guy I told you and Jonny Cohen about. The one who jumped me in the fog.’
‘So what are you telling me, that you want your fucking money?’
‘No. Maybe. I don’t think so. Listen, I’m not at all sure that this guy was this so called Lad of Strachan’s. Unless Gentleman Joe sent him for elocution lessons, that is. He was English.’
‘Aye? Fucking reason enough to throw him out the window.’
‘Listen, Mr Murphy, could you tell Jonny Cohen about this? I’ve got to look into something else, and it might just tell us whether Strachan is alive or not. I’m also going to try to find out if this guy was the Lad or not.’
After I hung up, I drove out of Glasgow. The sky was heavy and dull but it felt good to get out of the city and into an open landscape. I guessed that there would be no one in the estate office at that time of evening, allowing me to dodge any encounter with the sexually repressed, tweed-clad Miss Marple. When I reached the estate, however, I found the gates closed and padlocked.
Running through the rough map of the place I had in my mind, I headed further on up the narrow ribbon of country road. A high dry-stone wall running along the side of the road marked the border of the estate. Eventually I found a lane that led to a disused entry, but this had been bricked up. At least the Atlantic was off the road and reasonably concealed, so I decided to risk my suede loafers and hounds-tooth suit by climbing the wall. I dropped down the other side into a mulch of old fallen leaves, twigs and branches. Ahead of me was a dense swatch of evergreens that the late evening light failed to penetrate, but I reckoned that if I walked straight ahead and managed not to break an ankle, I would come out onto the path that had led from the estate office to Dunbar’s cottage.
I really didn’t like the walk through the forest. I found myself listening to every creak, rustle and bird cry, my heart in my mouth. There was nothing to fear here and now, of course, but I’d taken many such walks through woods just like this, and back then there were things more deadly than squirrels and rabbits hiding in the foliage.
Ten minutes later I came out exactly where I thought I would, although it took me a minute to get my exact bearings on how far up the path I was. I looked around and found a largish rock by the side of the path. Its shape was reminiscent of a curled-up cat sleeping, or maybe it was just me who would see that. The point was it was distinctive enough for me to recognize and I moved it so that it sat out on the path. On the way back, all I had to do was find the rock, turn left into the woods and head arrow-straight towards the boundary wall.
It was beginning to get dark, even out here beyond the gloom of the trees. I didn’t know why I was doing it, but I slipped the Webley out from my waistband, snapped open the breech and checked the cylinder was full before snapping it shut again and tucking it back into my waistband. I also checked my inside jacket pocket to make sure the photograph was there.
It took me another fifteen minutes to reach the cottage. There were no lights showing and no sign of life, so I guessed that my luck had run out and that no one was home. I went up to the door anyway and knocked, but there was no reply. I stood there for a moment debating whether I should leave the photograph and a note, asking Dunbar to ’phone me if he recognized the man in the photograph. I decided against it. It was my only copy of the photograph and I had to be careful with it: it could, after all, connect me to a burnt-out tenement flat and a dead queer.
I cursed the waste of time coming all the way up here for nothing and turned resignedly from the door. Before I retook the path, I went to one of the cottage windows, cupped my hands to blinker my eyes and peered through the glass. As I did so the memory of my last experience peeping through a window came to mind and I hoped with a laugh I would not catch Dunbar and his ugly wife in flagrante.
I stopped laughing.
I snatched the Webley from my waistband and moved back to the door. It was unlocked and I pushed it as wide as it would go, scanning the room as I entered, ready to fire at anything or anyone that moved. It was empty, except for what I had seen through the window. I moved into the kitchen. Empty too. I came back into the main room.
It was becoming difficult to see in the gathering gloom, but I dared not switch on a light. This was a place and a situation I did not want to be seen in. I said a silent prayer of thanks that I had parked my car where I had, out of sight.
Billy Dunbar lay on the floor of the cottage, in front of the settee. His throat had been cut and the wound gaped like a clown grin. I could just make out in the dim light a bloom of dark crimson staining on the rug beneath his head. His wife lay on the other side of the room. Same story.
I pressed the back of my hand against Dunbar’s forehead. Stone cold. I reckoned he had been dead for at least an hour.
I stood silently in the middle of the room, touching nothing, listening for the sounds of anyone approaching on the path, trying to think what the hell this all meant and what I was supposed to do about it.
I thought of going for the police, but I was outside the City of Glasgow and I would find it difficult to explain my complicated involvement to some hick in a uniform who would have trouble with the most basic concepts: like it really wasn’t a good idea for first cousins to marry.
I had no idea about the social life of gamekeepers, but I decided to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, in case someone else from the estate decided to drop in for a drink or to exchange beauty tips with Mrs Dunbar.
Backing out to the door again, I took my handkerchief and swabbed the handle, the only thing I had touched, clean. I checked up and down the path. No one. Just to be on the safe side, I gave the window I had peered through a good wipe down too.
I put the gun back in my waistband and ran down the path, back the way I had come. After a couple of hundred yards I eased the pace to a trot. It was getting really dark now and I could easily lose my footing. I remembered where I was now: the path took a sudden bend to the right and I would have another half mile to the ‘cat’ stone.
I was fully around the corner before I saw them: a group of three men. The man in the middle turned and saw me and said something to the other two. Instantly I knew I was in trouble. Instead of coming up the path at me, the other two moved quickly off the path and into the fringe of woods, one on either side. The man in the middle stood still and watched me, his hand reaching inside his short, dark coat. I made a run for the cover of the woods to my left, trying to penetrate them as deeply as I could before the guy who had taken that side could outflank me. I was making a hell of a racket, but at this stage, distance and cover were the most important advantages to gain. I had elected for this side of the path because this was the direction the car lay in. If I had gone the other way I would have been at their mercy for longer.