‘And they agreed to that?’
‘As I said, they couldn’t see past the bearing and the accent. I told them I would rather die fighting for my country than shot as a coward, which I was not. It was the out they were looking for and I was assigned to Battlefield Intelligence. Basically, I was ordered to crawl all the way over to the enemy’s trenches and get as much information on their deployment as possible. So I did it. And they ended up giving me a medal for it.’
‘How did you survive?’
‘The first few times I did my duty and came back with accurate reports. They were used to direct our artillery on the best points in the enemy’s lines. It was after that first artillery barrage, where they not only missed the points in the enemy trenches I had pointed out, but they missed the trenches completely, that I decided there was no point in risking my life for nothing. They had been sending me out with another ex-deserter, but he stood on a landmine, so I was left to do the intelligence gathering on my own.
‘Command seemed to think that one man was half as likely to be spotted as two. So I would crawl out into the dark, halfway into no-man’s-land, find a deep enough shell crater and have a few hours’ sleep. Then, when I got back, I would give a made-up report. Made-up, but based on what I had really seen on the first few sorties. I just changed the positions, the numbers, shuffled around the regiments, that kind of thing.’
‘And no one suspected?’
‘Not for a long while, then a young intelligence corps captain started to question me about one of my reports. He said I couldn’t have seen the regimental markings that I reported seeing. Everyone else was convinced, but Williamson insisted he came with me on the next sortie. We went all the way over to the German lines, following the route I had taken when I’d really gone over. I guided him from cover to cover, and that convinced him that I really did make the trip each night. The problem was that he then insisted on coming on other sorties. The fool was going to get me killed. But it allowed me to become chummy with him, or as chummy as the chasm in rank and class would allow. I asked him all about his background, and he told me he was South African but had been sent to their version of public school. I did a bit more chat and got out of him that he had no close family left. He was about my age and size, and even looked rather like me, so I decided I’d kill him in no-man’s-land, take his papers and all his marks of rank.
‘I needed everybody to believe that Henry Williamson was still alive, in order for me to use his identity after the war, so I planned to tell command that he had been captured, not killed. I had it all planned out for the next time we went out into no-man’s-land at night, but we were halfway across when the Germans sent up a flare right above us and we were spotted. They opened fire and Williamson was hit in the legs.’
‘So the Germans did your job for you …’
‘No. Not at all. I needed Williamson alive, so I carried him back to our trenches. And that was it. Suddenly I’m not a deserter any more, I’m a hero. Instead of getting a chest full of firing-squad bullets, I get a chest full of medals. And Williamson …’ Strachan shook his head in disbelief. ‘Williamson became my bosom buddy.’
‘Williamson survived the war?’
‘He did. He wanted to keep in touch, so I encouraged him to do just that. He came up to Glasgow unannounced, thinking it would be a great surprise for his old war chum. I thought it was all very odd, given that he was an officer and a gentleman, but then he finds out that I’m known and feared as a gang boss. It turns out that he hasn’t two pennies to rub together and no job prospects, so he asks me for a loan and if I could put any work his way. So I did. He was perfect for pulling scams, because no one suspects an officer and a gentleman. Turns out the real Henry Williamson was every bit as rotten to the core as I was; it was just that he used the advantages of class to hide it from the world.’
‘Let me guess … you convince him to teach you all the moves and manners, so you can form a double act?’
‘I’m impressed, Lennox … again. That’s exactly what I did. All the time I’m getting every detail of his history from him — as the typical gentleman’s background, of course. I found out where he went to school, who he went to school with, who the masters were, all of that. The beauty of him being South African was that he went to Michaelhouse in Natal, their version of an elite public school. It gave me social credibility without me tripping over “old school chums” here in Britain.’
‘So then you do him in?’
‘Sadly, yes. But not quite as you imagine. I had planned to, of course, but I actually caught him stealing from me. Little amounts to start with, and items — like my favourite gold cigarette case.’
‘Oh my God …’ The penny dropped. All the way to the bottom of the Clyde. ‘It was his remains they dredged up?’
‘The police were absolutely miles off with the dates. I shot him in the neck and wrapped him up in chains and dumped him in the middle of the river. But that was in Twenty-nine, not Thirty-eight. I actually felt quite badly about the whole business, so I let him keep my cigarette case, as a gesture, so to speak. I had another case made, identical, by the same goldsmith. I have to say I never thought old Henry would ever be found, and certainly not after such a long time. But the fact that everyone thought it was me was an added bonus. Joe Strachan is dead, Mr Lennox. Now, can we remove ourselves from this sorry little tableau, before someone finds us here?’
‘You’re going nowhere, Strachan. Despite your phoney accent and ersatz refined manner, you’re nothing but a common, low, Glaswegian thug. No matter what you do, you’ll never wash off the stench of the Gorbals. Drop the knife or I’ll let you have it now.’
‘You disappoint me, Mr Lennox,’ he said. The F-S knife clattered on the cobbles of the pier. ‘You’re not as bright as I thought you were. Tell me, what exactly are you going to do? You can’t hand me over to the police. For a start, I’m dead, remember? Officially I’ve been at the bottom of the Clyde for eighteen years. And secondly, how are you going to explain your involvement with the deaths of Frank Gibson, Billy Dunbar and these poor unfortunates scattered around here? No, Lennox, you don’t have much of a choice in this. So let’s do a deal. I know you won’t talk, and I’ll pay for your silence and my peace of mind.’
I sighed, and was surprised how weary my sigh sounded. We both knew where this was going; we both disbelieved everything the other said. The night was cooling and the wake of a ship that was now long passed broke against the pier. I kept my eyes fixed on Strachan because he was someone you kept your eyes fixed on, but I was aware of the shadowed shapes and distant navigation lights of ships and tugs sliding silently by, far out on the black Clyde behind him. Every journey comes to an end and this journey had been rougher than most, and it had brought me here: to the end of a Glasgow pier with the killers and the killed.
I looked at the man before me. Strachan must have been pushing sixty, but not in the way people were sixty in Glasgow. In Glasgow, sixty was elderly. Broken by hard work and harder living. Strachan’s comparative youthfulness and fitness spoke of a life a universe removed from Glasgow. A life he was desperate to return to, unscathed and unsullied by everything that had happened. I thought of my own life here, in Glasgow, and a life left behind in Canada a wartime ago. The unfairness of it made me feel sick. Strachan had paid for his second chance with the pain and blood of others.