Ferguson snorted. ‘Sweet Fanny Adams. We’ve nothing to go on except the body. And you could carry that around in a couple of buckets. Anyway, you didn’t ask to see me to enquire about my level of job satisfaction. What do you want, Lennox? You’re always after something.’
Before answering, I nodded over to the barman and ordered a couple of whiskies. He wasn’t a barman I knew so I decided not to confuse him by asking for a Canadian Club.
‘You know this big fight that’s coming up? Bobby Kirkcaldy and the German?’
‘Of course. What about it?’
‘Well, Kirkcaldy’s been getting some unwanted attention. Crap dumped on his doorstep, veiled threats, that kind of thing.’
‘Has he contacted us?’
‘No. In fact I’ve only been hired by one of his backers because Kirkcaldy’s manager happened to find out about it. Kirkcaldy is doing his best to draw attention away from it.’
‘One of his “backers”, did you say?’ Ferguson raised an eyebrow.
‘The point is that something about it stinks. There’s this old guy who hangs around Kirkcaldy. A sort of bodyguard-cum-trainer. Like I said, old, but as hard as nails. Goes by the name of Bert Soutar. I was wondering if you could…?’
Ferguson sighed. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But quid pro quo, Lennox. I might want something from you in the future.’
‘My pleasure.’ I smiled and ordered a couple of pies. They were handed to us on bleakly white plates that were crazed with spidery grey cracks beneath the glaze. It looked like the same kind of porcelain they made urinals from. The pies themselves lay on what the French would call a jus of liquefied fat. I had lost weight since I’d first arrived in Glasgow. The presentation didn’t seem to put Ferguson off and he squelched into the pie, dabbing the grease from his chin with the paper napkin.
‘Was that all?’
‘Yeah,’ I said and sipped the whisky. ‘I believe old Soutar used to be handy with a razor. Bridgeton Billy Boys, that kind of thing. Anything you could find out would be really useful.’
‘I can do better…’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a non-regulation notebook and pencil. He scribbled something down, tore the page out and handed it to me. ‘That’s the address of Jimmy MacSherry. He’s an old man now but was a real hard bastard in the Twenties and Thirties. Fought the Sillitoe Cossacks, put a couple of police in hospital. Got ten years and the birch for his trouble. He was a Billy Boy and knows anyone who’s anyone in that circle. But be careful how you handle him. And it’ll cost you a few quid.’
‘Thanks, Jock. I appreciate it.’ I pocketed the note. Then a thought occurred to me. ‘Oh there’s maybe one other thing. Nobody else seems to know this guy, but it’s worth a try. Have you ever heard of someone called Largo?’
Like I said, Jock Ferguson did not have the most expressive face, but something crossed it that looked as if it had been powered by the national grid.
‘What do you know about John Largo?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all, that’s why I’m asking. Who is he?’
‘Where did you hear the name? You must have heard the name somewhere.’
I looked at Ferguson. He had turned towards me, straightening up from the bar. All of a sudden he became all copper and no acquaintance. After all the asking around, I had in that split second doubled my knowledge about Largo. I now had a full name for him. But every alarm bell that could ring was now ringing. It was clear that knowing the name John Largo was enough to get me the kind of police attention I so studiously avoided. I decided it was best to deliver the goods.
‘Okay, Jock, I can see that I’ve hit pay dirt. But you obviously think I know something I shouldn’t. Well, I don’t. All I have is the name Largo. I’m investigating a missing person case. It’s turned into two missing persons: Paul Costello, Jimmy Costello’s son, has also dropped out of sight. But before he did, our paths crossed. He thought to start with I was one of your mob, then he asked me if Largo had sent me. That’s all of it. I’ve been asking all around town if anyone knows Largo and nobody I asked did. Until now. So who is John Largo?’
‘Now see that… See that right there… what you just asked… if I were you that’s a question I would never ask again. John Largo is someone you don’t want to know anything about. If ever I’ve told you anything worthwhile, Lennox, it’s this: John Largo doesn’t exist. Hear it, accept it and get on with your life. Otherwise you might not have a life to get on with.’
‘Oh now wait a minute, Jock. You can’t…’
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see if I can find anything out about Soutar for you. In the meantime try Jimmy MacSherry.’
Before I could say anything he was gone. I leaned against the bar and looked down at the half-full whisky glass he had left. I knew this was big, big stuff. When a Scotsman leaves a free drink unfinished, you know it’s serious.
Bridgeton was the kind of place you felt overdressed if you wore shoes. It seemed that footwear was optional until age twelve; thereafter you were expected to wear heavy work boots with soles studded with metal segs that made a seven-stone youth sound like a Nazi division marching down the street. Like ninety-nine per cent of the population of Bridgeton, Jimmy MacSherry wasn’t on the ’phone. So I decided the best thing to do was to go down and do some door knocking. I made sure I had my sap with me. Bridgeton was the kind of place you would feel naked without some kind of means of injuring another human being.
I got a call from Davey before I took the tram down to Bridgeton. There was, as expected, nothing to report other than Kirkcaldy had left for his afternoon session at the Maryhill gym he had always trained in. I had told Davey to stay on the house, not on Kirkcaldy and that’s what he had done. I could tell he was worried that I would be disappointed that he had nothing to report, but I reassured him he was doing just fine and he rang off as eager as when I had left him there.
For the rest of the world, a Glaswegian was a Glaswegian was a Glaswegian. They all looked the same, spoke with the same impenetrable patois, worked in the same industrial sweatshop of shipyard, factory or steelworks; they all lived in the same kind of slum. They also shared the same schizoid tendency to be the warmest, friendliest people you could meet while, at the same time, displaying a propensity for the most psychopathic violence. Sometimes simultaneously. Within Glasgow, however, lay a chasm that divided its working class. On the surface it was a religious divide: Protestant versus Catholic. The truth is the divide was ethnic: Scottish Glaswegians versus Irish-descent Glaswegians. And the focus for the biblical hatred between the two communities were the football teams, Rangers and Celtic.
Bridgeton was part of the city’s fringes. And it looked pretty much like all the other parts of Glasgow’s fringes. The streets were lined with tenements or four-storey apartment buildings. The building material of choice in Bridgeton had been red rather than blond sandstone or red brick, but it was all pretty academic as all the buildings had been grime-darkened, like every other structure in Glasgow. Occasionally an ember of the underlying colour would glow through the soot, giving a tenement the look of a dark, rusting hulk looming into the sky. Like other parts of the city, the worst of the slums were gradually being cleared to make way for new blocks of flats. The spirit of the Atomic Age had reached Glasgow and soon all of its denizens would enjoy the very latest modern amenities. Like flushing inside toilets.
But Bridgeton was different from the other areas of the city in one way. It distinguished itself in the intensity of its hatred for its neighbour. This was the most ultra-loyalist Protestant, Catholic-hating part of Glasgow.
A few weeks before, as it was on the Twelfth of July each year, Bridgeton had been a mustering ground for the pipe bands, drummers and marchers who celebrated the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne. And once they had mustered, they would march triumphantly through the streets of Glasgow. Especially the predominantly Catholic streets. Surprisingly, the curmudgeonly Catholics didn’t seem to get into the spirit of things and refrained from joining in with songs containing lyrics like ‘ We’re up to our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you’ll die’.