‘Mr Lennox…’ The man smiled and stood up. He was tall. No surprise: the City of Glasgow Police had a minimum height requirement of six feet, hence the fact that at least two-thirds of their number came from outside Glasgow. He shook hands with me. Now, it has to be said that City of Glasgow cops were not in the habit of calling me ‘Mister’ or shaking hands with me, unless it was to snap a pair of cuffs on me. But Detective Constable Donald Taylor was different. We had an arrangement.
‘Thanks for coming, Donald. You on duty?’
‘Backshift. Start at two.’
‘Did you find out anything about what I asked you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not much, I’m afraid, Mr Lennox. Bobby Kirkcaldy isn’t Glaswegian. He was born in Motherwell. To sniff around any more I’d have to contact the Lanarkshire County Police. That would start questions.’
‘But you would at least be able to check out whether he has a record or not.’
‘Oh aye… I did that. Nothing. And from what I can gather there are no rumours about him. He seems to be straight.’
‘What about the other thing? Small Change MacFarlane?’
‘Sorry… no joy there either. I’m not on the case and, again, if I start asking too many questions, the gaffers’ll get suspicious. I did talk to the evidence sergeant though. Conversational, like. He said they took tons of stuff away from MacFarlane’s place. With his missus’s say-so, like.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Couple of things. Inspector Ferguson was asking about you.’
‘He knows you know me?’
‘No, not really. Well not that we… well, do business. Inspector Ferguson doesn’t go in for that kind of thing. It was just that he knew that I’d interviewed you about that business last year. When you was away abroad.’
I nodded. Jock Ferguson had been my main contact in the police. Not paid for. A straight copper. Or so I had thought. I hadn’t spoken to him in six months.
‘What was the other thing?’ I asked.
‘It’s just one of the reasons I couldn’t ask too many questions about the MacFarlane thing. There’s been all kinds of top brass sticking their noses into it. It’s like there’s something more to it than just a simple robbery.’
‘And…?’ I said impatiently. I knew Taylor was building up to something. Or building something — or nothing — up. He knew that I only paid for results.
‘There was a Yank in St. Andrew’s Square. He was in with Superintendent McNab and the DCC.’
‘An American?’
‘Think so. I passed them in the corridor. He talked like you.’
‘I’m not American. I’m Canadian.’
‘Yeah… his accent was stronger. He was a big man. Big as McNab. Loud suits.’
‘So what’s this got to do with me?’
‘Well, you know what tarts are like. The typing pool and the women police constables were swooning all over the place because of his accent. He was the talk of the steamie. I’m friendly with one of the girls who works up in the DCC’s office. She says they asked for all the files on MacFarlane’s murder.’
‘So this guy’s an American cop?’
‘Don’t know. Someone said he was a private detective. Like you.’
‘Okay…’ I thought for a moment. ‘Anything else going on?’
‘Just this other murder.’
‘What other murder?’ I asked.
‘The guy they found by the train tracks.’
‘I thought that was an accident.’ I lit another cigarette, pushing the pack across the desk for him to help himself. ‘What are you Einsteins up to? You going to arrest the train driver?’
‘Superintendent McNab is as mad as hell about it. Everyone was happy that it was the train that killed him. I mean, they had to use spades to get all of him gathered up. But the pathologist who did the post-mortem said the guy was dead before the train ran over him. The other thing is he had two busted fingers and knuckles skinned to fuck. The quack says it looked to him like the guy’d been in a fight and was beaten to death, then dumped. The train mashed him up to buggery and the thinking is that whoever killed him dumped him on the tracks.’
‘Makes sense,’ I said. ‘There was a good chance that no one would question that the injuries were caused by anything other than the train. Who was he?’
‘No idea. No one’s reported anyone missing that fits and he didn’t have any identification on him. This pathologist is some new hot-shot with fancy tricks. He put in his report that from the stiff’s build, the calluses on his palms and his colouring, he reckons he was a manual labourer of some sort. It fits with the clothes.’ Taylor laughed. A thin, mean laugh. ‘I think the pathologist’s going to be our next murder victim. Supe — rintendent McNab is really pissed off that he’s been lumbered with another killing. Doesn’t like paperwork, does the Superintendent.’
I nodded. I could see McNab prioritizing deaths. Nobodies, somebodies and, right at the top, coppers. If you killed a policeman, then McNab would be harder to stop in his tracks than the train that had mashed the labourer’s corpse.
Taylor talked for another ten minutes without saying anything, again trying to justify his fee. When he was finished I thanked him and gave him the number of the wall ’phone in the hall at my digs.
‘Give me a ring if you hear anything else. It’ll be worth your while.’ I opened my wallet and handed him three tenners. Coppers didn’t come cheap.
After Taylor had gone I went back out into the gym. A couple of youths had arrived and had changed into boxing shorts and white singlets. They looked skinny and too pale. Both were working the punch bags and Old McAskill was leaning against the wall watching them disinterestedly.
I walked over to the old man and slipped him a fiver. ‘Thanks for the loan of the office, Mac. Do you know much about Bobby Kirkcaldy?’
‘Not much. He’s a great wee mover. He’s going to malky that Kraut next week.’
‘You reckon?’
‘No doubt about it.’
‘But you’ve never come across him? I mean through the boxing.’
‘Naw. He wouldn’t pish on a place like this if it was on fire. Anyways, he’s a country boy. No’ Glasgow.’
I smiled at the thought that McAskill pictured Motherwell as some bucolic paradise. I suppose, in comparison to Dennistoun, it was.
‘He’s got a minder. Says he’s his uncle. About your age. Calls him Uncle Bert.’
Old McAskill seemed to be concentrating. It took a lot of effort. He was clearly trying to retrieve something from a brain that had been rattled about in his skull by years of punches. It must have been like trying to pick a specific ball out of a spinning bingo cage.
‘What does he look like?’
‘Like he’s used his face to break toffee.’
‘Fuck…’ He’d clearly found the ball he’d been searching for. ‘Albert Soutar. Is he Kirkcaldy’s uncle?’
I shrugged.
‘Is his nose all busted to fuck?’
‘I don’t think to fuck covers it adequately. He could sniff his ears with it.’
‘That sounds like Soutar all right. And he had family out in Lanarkshire. That’s one bad wee fucker. Or was.’
‘In what way?’
‘In the late Twenties, early Thirties, he went professional, but he was shite. A slugger who stopped too many punches with his head. Did a lot of bare-knuckle too. Then he went inside.’
‘Prison?’
‘Aye. He was in with the Bridgeton Billy Boys. Razor gang. He was supposed to have cut up a copper. He kept his razor in the peak of his bunnet.’ McAskill touched his own flat cap. ‘He was a bad, bad bastard. He abused the privilege of being a cunt, as my old Da would say.’
I smiled, picturing the cozy fireside scene of young son on father’s knee being inducted into the world of abusive epithets.
‘So you think that Uncle Albert is the same guy?’
‘Could be.’ McAskill shook his head slowly. ‘If it is, then he’s so crooked he pisses corkscrews. I’d be surprised if young Kirkcaldy would have anything to do with him.’