‘Alain Barnier? Sure. What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘According to Sheila Gainsborough, he’s been hanging around with Sammy Pollock.’
Jonny smiled. ‘Alain Barnier doesn’t hang around with anyone. They hang around with him. He’s a smooth operator.’
‘Who’s he with?’
‘No one.’
‘Come on, Jonny, everyone who’s got a piece of action in this town is aligned with you, Murphy or Sneddon.’
‘Barnier is mainly legit. Sure, I think he’s got a few tasty deals on the side, but nothing that we would be interested in. I do the odd bit of business with him.’
‘What kind of business? What’s his line?’
‘Officially he’s an importer. He imports wine, mainly. And spirits. He also brings in stuff from the Far East. Furniture, ornaments, that kind of shite. He’s lived here for about a couple of years and he supplies some of the fancier restaurants in town. Edinburgh too. But if there’s anything else you need brought in, he probably can arrange it for you.’ Jonny poured us another each and tilted the Heaven Hill bottle’s label in my direction once more. ‘Barnier was my contact for this stuff. Cognac too.’
‘Let me guess, he doesn’t like to put the customs man to any trouble?’
‘He’s very considerate that way. Saves our hard-working public servants a lot of paperwork. But the stuff he brings in has always been at the quality end, you could say. Nothing you’d find at Paddy’s Market. Word is that side of his operation isn’t as good as it was. Rationing coming to an end has been bad for business.’
‘What about cigarettes? Does he smuggle those too? Fancy French brands?’
Jonny shrugged. ‘Doubt it. Suppose it’s possible, though.’
‘Have you ever heard of the Poppy Club, Jonny? It’s maybe got something to do with Barnier. It definitely has something to do with Sammy Pollock.’
‘Poppy Club?’
‘It’s not listed in the ’phone book. Maybe it’s not licensed.’
‘Never heard of it, Lennox.’ By the time he poured the third Bourbon, I was beginning to glow. I reappraised the Pacific Club, but the glow didn’t catch: it still looked depressing.
‘Where would I be able to find Barnier?’ I asked.
‘He’s here if we’ve got a good jazz act on. Fridays. But not every Friday. You’re best trying to catch him down at the river. He has an office of sorts down there. More a shed. Near the bonded area.’
‘Is that where he liberates his goods from bondage?’
Jonny shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t know. If he does, it will be through bribery. The odd brown envelope to a watchman, copper or taxman. Barnier is no out-and-out crook, like I said. Just sails close to the wind. Law wise. You two should get on.’
‘I better go,’ I said, draining the glass. ‘Thanks for the whisky.’
Jonny saw me to the door and, after the gloom and Bourbon of the Pacific Club, we stood squinting for a moment in the bright sunlight.
‘Lennox?’ said Jonny, shielding his eyes with his hand.
‘Yep?’
‘This other case. Sammy Pollock. I know you have to follow it up, but don’t let it get in the way of finding out what the fuck is happening with Bobby Kirkcaldy. Sneddon’s getting as antsy as hell. The fight’s in just over two weeks’ time. And, like I say, there’s something about the whole thing stinks as far as I’m concerned.’
‘I’ll see him tonight. Thanks again for the Bourbon.’
Jonny had, of course, been right. Whenever I thought of the Sammy Pollock case, I smelt grief; whenever I thought of the Kirkcaldy case, I smelt money. There was a lot of it riding on Kirkcaldy and I guessed Jonny Cohen and Willie Sneddon would be in a big bonus mood if I got it all sorted out for them. And I had, to a certain extent, done the sniffing about that I’d promised Sheila Gainsborough I’d do. But there was something about the thing with Sammy that was nagging away at me. Anyway, I hadn’t had a chance to practise my French for a long time.
CHAPTER FIVE
The British Empire, the most avaricious piece of land theft since Genghis Khan saddled up a pony, was a remarkable thing. What made it particularly remarkable was that it had been carried out by the British, probably the most apologetic race on the planet. I always imagined them as some kind of impeccably well-mannered, latter-day Vikings, frightfully embarrassed about all the raping and pillaging. I suppose my interest in the globe-spanning collection of Raj, colonies, dominions, mandates and protectorates lay in my being very much a product of it: I was born in Glasgow but shipped off with my folks when I was still a baby and Canada was still ‘the Dominion’ as far as everyone was concerned. Then, after twenty-one summers, the ‘Mother Country’ of which I had had no direct contact, or even recollection, suddenly and urgently needed my assistance. Four thousand miles away.
And now, sixteen years on, I was living in the Second City of an Empire on which, despite classroom assurances to the contrary, the sun was most definitely now setting. For a century and a half, Glasgow had been the Empire’s industrial heart. But the War had screwed all of that up. Britain had ended the conflict all but bankrupt: if the United States had not come along in 1946 with a close on four billion dollar-loan, then the sceptr’d isle would have gone bankrupt. Now, former enemies were fast becoming new competitors in shipbuilding and heavy industry. Things were changing fast in the world. They were changing faster in Britain. And fastest in Glasgow.
Not that you would have guessed it from the activity in the docks as I drove past them. It was ten-thirty in the morning and already hot. I had both the Atlantic’s windows rolled down, and as I drove past the quays the sound of metal being hammered, clashed, seared and cut rang dull but loud in air so muggy and thick with grime you could have strained it. It was as if the temperature was being increased by the activity itself.
To my left a forest of cranes jostled at the water’s edge, swinging ceaselessly, loading and unloading docked ships or supplying vast sheets of heavy-gauge steel to the yards. I drove on past the huge red-brick dockside bonded warehouses, five storeys high behind tall fences. I parked on the street and went to the gatehouse and asked where Alain Barnier had his offices. The gateman was the usual retired cop with the usual I-couldn’t-give-a-fuck attitude, and the best I could get out of him was directions to some other smaller shipping offices where they might have a better idea. It took me half an hour of asking around before getting a pointer to Barnier’s office. By the time I got down there it was after eleven.
As Jonny had said, it was more of a shed than an office, one of a rank of semi-cylindrical Nissen huts, like a row of Sequoia logs half sunk into the earth. The sign above the door said Barnier and Clement Import Agents. I knocked and went in. As soon as I did, I could see that this was no front but a genuine working office: there was the kind of ordered chaos that’s impossible to fake. A counter separated the main body of the hut from the reception area. There was a push bell on the counter and next to it a paper spike piled high with impaled shipping bills; there were three desks behind it, half-a-dozen filing cabinets and a woman.
The woman was about five-one and dressed in a businesslike grey suit that strained a little at the waist and bust. She had a pale round face and black hair coiled in a perm so tight and unyielding it could have withstood an A-bomb test. She had a small thin-lipped slit of a mouth that she had tried to flesh up with red lipstick.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, coming around from behind her desk and to the counter. She stretched the thin lips in a weary, perfunctory smile.
‘I’m looking for Mr Barnier.’
‘Is this about the key lan?’ she asked.
‘The key lan?’ I frowned. ‘What’s a key lan?’
She ignored me. ‘Mr Barnier’s not here at the moment. Did you have an appointment?’