‘So you just get to walk away?’ I said eventually. ‘And what about the trail of death and misery you’ve left behind you? I’m expected to let that all go? Just forget about the innocent people you’ve killed simply to preserve the fiction of your fake existence?’
‘Like I said, Lennox, you have no choice. Let it go. Let me go. It’ll make you a rich man. I’ll organize it through Willie Sneddon.’
‘He doesn’t even know for sure you’re alive. I don’t think he’s even sure that he really is your son.’
‘Then it’s time for a father-son reunion to put his doubts to rest. You know I’m right. You know everything I’m saying is right.’
‘That’s true,’ I said and nodded respectfully. ‘What you’ve said is all true. And do you know what the truest thing is?’
‘What?’ He was smiling now, knowing he had beaten me down with his logic.
‘The truest thing you’ve said is that you’re dead. As far as everyone is concerned you’ve slept the deep, dark sleep at the bottom of the river for eighteen years.’
‘Your point is?’ he asked, the smug smile still on his face.
‘That this isn’t murder.’
I shot him in the face. Right in the middle of his smug smile. My second and third bullet hit him in the chest and the life left him before he toppled backwards, off the pier and into the river.
‘Sleep well, Gentleman Joe,’ I said.
I used my handkerchief to wipe down the Webley before I threw it as far as I could into the dark.
I heard it splash, somewhere far out in the inky Clyde.