‘It tastes it. I had some of the bourbon you supplied Jonny Cohen. That was excellent too.’
‘Ah, yes… you mentioned you knew M. Cohen…’ Barnier looked at me over the rim of his brandy glass. ‘By the way, you rather annoyed my Miss Minto.’
‘Really?’ I said, raising my eyebrows and trying to look as innocent as I had been at sixteen when my father had interrogated me about some missing cigarettes and whisky. ‘We seemed to be getting on so well. I learned a new word — key lan — or is it two words?’
There was something in the mention that stung Barnier. He quickly hid it. ‘I can’t have you upsetting her. Miss Minto is a very… determined lady who is essential to the efficient running of the office.’
‘Why did she ask me if it was about the key lan. Am I pronouncing it right?’
‘She was referring to an item we’ve recently imported. Miss Minto probably thought you wanted to see me about it, that’s all.’
‘I’m flattered that Miss Minto thought I was rich enough to buy it.’
‘She didn’t. The item’s gone astray in transit. It’s more than likely been incorrectly crated and labelled, that’s all. Miss Minto probably thought you were from the insurance company.’ Barnier’s smile had dropped and his tone now suggested that the small talk was over. ‘What exactly is it you want from me, M. Lennox?’
‘I’ve been engaged to look into the disappearance of Sammy Pollock. You may know him as Sammy Gainsborough.’
‘I hardly know him as either. M. Pollock was an acquaintance. Nothing more. My dealings with him were so infrequent that I’m struggling to remember the last time I saw him. Why is it that you are asking me about Pollock?’
‘Can you? Remember, I mean?’
Barnier made a show of running through a mental inventory. He pulled gently at his goatee, smoothing it into an inverted peak.
‘It would have been about two or three weeks ago. A Friday. He was at the Pacific Club at the same time I was. It is a dreadful place… please don’t tell M. Cohen I said so — he is a valued customer after all. But it really is an awful place. I go there because, ironically, M. Cohen does tend to get rather good jazz acts on Fridays. Anyway, I saw young M. Pollock there. He did a turn… sang a few songs to fill in for a no-show act. He was there with a girl, if I remember correctly. But we didn’t speak that night.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
‘Listen, Mr Lennox…’ Barnier reverted to his flawlessly articulated, grammatically perfect English. ‘I really have no idea whether I have seen him since or not. Sammy Pollock is not someone who features in my consciousness much. It may be that I have seen him and not noticed. Now, I repeat my question: Why are you asking me about this young man?’
‘You must excuse me, M. Barnier, but it’s my day for straw clutching. I was told that Sammy Pollock was seen in your company on occasion. The truth is that he really does seem to have gone missing and I’m more than a little concerned for his welfare. So far I’ve not been able to come up with the slightest hint of where he is.’ I looked at the Frenchman’s face. There was nothing to read in his expression. Maybe it was just that my I’m-all-at-sea act didn’t wash. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested.
‘Did you have any business dealings with Pollock?’ I asked.
‘No. None.’
‘The occasions where you saw him… did you know the people he was with?’
‘Again, no. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t think I can help you any further.’ He drained his glass. It was a gesture of punctuation — our conversation had come to a full stop.
‘Thanks for your time, M. Barnier,’ I said in French.
I left Barnier in the Carvery, picked my hat up from the geriatric bellboy and headed out into the street. The rain had stopped but the sky still looked bad-tempered. It wasn’t alone.
It had been a fruitless day and I was too tired to go up to Sneddon’s Bearsden house or even to ring him. Telling Willie Sneddon that you really can’t do his bidding is something done face-to-face and in the right frame of mind. I didn’t get into the car straight away but went to the telephone kiosk on the corner, fed it some copper and called the number Sheila Gainsborough had given me in London. The English accent at the other end told me that he was her agent and she wasn’t there.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘She gave me this as a contact number.’
‘I see. Are you Lennox?’ His voice was a tad too high and slightly effeminate. I gave a small laugh at the thought that I obviously expected theatrical agency to be one of those robustly masculine professions, like steelworking or mining.
‘That’s me,’ I said.
‘Tell me, Lennox… do you have anything to report?’ Oh boy, he was losing my affection big time with that tone.
‘That’s why I’m ’phoning,’ I said.
‘Well?’ he asked. He spoke to me as if I was the hired help; to be fair, I was. But, there again, so was he.
‘Miss Gainsborough told me she could be contacted through this number. I take it you’re Whithorn… Will you be seeing her this evening?’
‘I see Miss Gainsborough almost every evening,’ he said. Proprietorially. ‘She’ll be here in about half an hour.’
‘Tell her Lennox called. And that I will ’phone again this evening. About ten o’clock. If she could make sure she’s available to take the call.’
‘Why don’t you just tell me what you have to report and I’ll pass it on.’
I gave another small laugh. Louder this time, for him to hear. ‘Client confidentiality, friend. I would have thought that would have been a concept you’d be familiar with.’
‘I’m not just Miss Gainsborough’s agent, Mr Lennox. I’m her advisor. Her friend.’
‘I’ll ’phone back at ten.’ I hung up. I decided to make a point of putting a face to the voice that had been at the other end of the line. I had already decided I would dislike Humphrey Whithorn’s face as soon as I saw it.
I walked back to where I had parked. I didn’t pay much attention to the Wolseley parked three cars back from my Atlantic until an unnecessarily large man in a formless raincoat and a too-small trilby planted himself on the pavement, squarely in my path. Another appeared at my side, smaller but still robust, and with the kind of face you would avoid looking at in a bar. Or anywhere else. I felt the second guy’s firm grip on my upper arm, just above the elbow. I could tell right away that these were no policemen. They were somebody’s goons.
‘Okay, Lennox,’ said the raincoat. ‘Mr Costello wants to see you. Now.’
I felt relief. Of sorts. Having to deal with any muscle is tiresome, but normally compliance comes from knowing who’s behind the muscle. Costello didn’t carry that kind of weight and I made a bored, irritated face.
‘Does he now?’ I said. For some reason, the image of Barnier’s homely, insistent little secretary came to my mind and I decided to follow her example. ‘I’m a busy kind of guy. Tell Costello to make an appointment.’
The fingers around my arm tightened and I turned to the second guy and smiled. They were hard men. Men who were in the business of hurting. But Jimmy Costello was not famed as a criminal mastermind and his lack of genius extended to the quality of goon he recruited. They had probably been following me all day and I wouldn’t have spotted them in the rain. There had been a dozen suitable places for them to have made their move on me. This was not one of them. A stupid choice of place to pick me up off the street. We were in the middle of the business district, admittedly at eight forty-five in the evening, but outside a well-respected eatery. And there was a district police station two blocks away. No, this was as dumb a choice as they could have made and the ideal place for me to kick off. But they were too stupid to realize it and the goon with the vice grip on my arm looked as sure of himself as his partner did.
‘Now,’ he said with a vicious-looking grin. ‘Are you going to come quiet or come the cunt?’
There was something I found out about myself during the war. It was something I could have done with not finding out for the rest of my life. Something ugly and dark. I lay awake at nights wondering if the war had created it, or if it had been there all the time and it might never have been awoken if the war hadn’t come along. As I stood there with two violent thugs trying to coerce me into a car, I felt it begin to stir deep inside; and greet me as an old friend.