‘What happened?’ I asked, even though I knew that Singer was incapable of answering. He helped me up to my feet. I was still in the cottage. Sammy, Claire and the little green god weren’t. Instead Twinkletoes McBride stood, hunched over because of the limited headroom. He looked like he was holding the whole roof up. Which probably wouldn’t have been a challenge. Willie Sneddon was there too, eyeing me maliciously and smoking a cigarette.
‘There’s an ashtray somewhere,’ I said as Singer eased me down into a sitting position on the crate-cum-table. ‘Don’t get ash on the carpet… I’ve just done the spring cleaning.’
‘You never tire of the wisecracks, Lennox?’ asked Sneddon.
‘I find them comforting in challenging times.’
I held my head in my hands, trying to keep it still and stop the pounding in my skull. I gingerly felt the back of my head. The skin hadn’t been broken but there was half an egg tucked behind my ear and it hurt like hell. I’d been sapped from behind. The kind of blow with a sap that can kill a man. I pictured the sap swinging through the air behind me and when I followed the imagined hand, arm and shoulder behind it, it led me to Costello’s face. I’d catch up with young Costello sooner or later. Then it would be party season.
I looked up at Sneddon and frowned; a thought suddenly hit me, which was becoming a habit. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Singer’s been on your tail for a while. Quiet, like,’ said Sneddon. Then with a malicious grin. ‘He’s good at that… quiet.’
‘Why d’you have Singer tailing me?’
‘Let’s call it insurance. I get all worked up about you maybes experiencing a crisis of interests.’
‘How did he-’
‘He had someone with him. Tam. Always does. He got Tam to drive into the nearest village and ’phone me. The rest he writes down for me. He said two men and a tart came out of here like bats out of hell. When Singer and Tam saw you didn’t, they came in and checked. Thought you was dead.’
‘How long have I been out?’
‘An hour. We’ve just arrived. We was looking for you anyway.’
‘Oh?’ I said. Then I saw Twinkletoes’ expression. It worried me. Anything other than a smile on Twinkletoes’ face worried me.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lennox,’ said Twinkletoes. ‘It’s Davey…’
‘Davey Wallace? What about him?’
‘Someone gave him a doing,’ said Sneddon in an I-couldn’t-give-a-shit tone. ‘A really good doing.’
‘He’s in the Southern General, Mr Lennox,’ said Twinkletoes in a doleful baritone. ‘It’s not right. Not right at all. It’s egggree-jus, that’s what it is… fucking egg-gree-jus.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’
Sneddon shrugged.
‘How’d it happen?’ I tried to shake some of the fog out of my head. When I did, I kept seeing Davey’s eager, youthful face. Whatever had happened to him, I was responsible.
‘I need to go.’ I stood up but gravity objected.
‘I’ll drive you,’ said Twinkletoes as he caught my fall like I was a kid on skates for the first time.
‘My car…’ I said weakly. ‘It’s around the corner of the road. Parked by some trees.’
Singer pointed silently to himself and held out his hand. I handed over my car keys and nodded. It could have been my imagination, but these days there seemed to be less menace in his lurk.
By the time we reached the hospital, the sky had turned a velvety purple. At this time of year it never got truly dark. Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital had started off as cavalry barracks, then became the Govan Poorhouse, then a lunatic asylum, before being converted for its current use. It had somehow managed to maintain the charm of its previous incarnations and its jagged Victorian architecture was as welcoming as Castle Frankenstein.
The linoleum-floored corridors we made our way along were quiet and I did not hear distant cries of ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’ echoing off the porcelain wall tiles. The strictly observed visiting times were over and we were confronted by a matron only slightly less forbidding than the one I had encountered at Craithie Court. She had the same singular eyebrow, with the added twist of facial hair on her upper lip that was in danger of becoming a Ronald Colman moustache. I wondered where they all came from and decided that perhaps Baron Frankenstein did have a part-time job here after all. I anticipated another frosty rebuttal, but Sneddon gained our admittance by handing the matron our special pass: a nice new, crisp, folding special pass with a picture of Her Majesty on it. Matron Karloff tucked the twenty into her apron and bustled off down the corridor, her ugly flat shoes squeaking on the linoleum.
Davey was in a room on his own. I assumed Sneddon was behind that and I was grateful to him, although I guessed that it had less to do with concern or feelings of responsibility towards Davey and more to do with keeping me sweet so I’d deliver everything I could find out.
Someone had done a real number on Davey. His head and jaw were bandaged, framing his face like a mask. And it was more like a grotesque mask than a recognizable face, puffed and swollen until the eyes had become slits between thick pads of bruised flesh. It looked like his nose had been broken but, thankfully, whoever had attended him in the hospital had made some effort to set it straight. His lips were split and the lower lip had ballooned up like Maurice Chevalier’s on a bad day. There were stitches in his upper lip.
‘Davey, it’s Lennox. Are you all right, son?’
Davey turned his head to me. His distended lips twitched and I realized he was trying to smile. That simple act caused a tidal wave of rage to swell up inside me.
‘Who did this, Davey?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lennox. I let you down.’ Davey’s voice was strained through clenched teeth and I realized that his jaw had been busted and wired shut.
‘You didn’t let anyone down. Who did this?’
‘I didn’t see them. They came up behind me and clobbered me. When I was on the ground they gave me this kicking. Then I passed out. That’s all I remember, Mr Lennox.’
‘Okay, Davey… okay. You take it easy. Anything else broken?’
‘Just my jaw… and some cracked ribs. The doc says I must have a steel skull. He says he doesn’t think there will be any permanent damage.’
‘That’s good, Davey. We’ll have you out of here and on your feet in no time. I owe you a bonus.’
‘You don’t need to do that, Mr Lennox. Just tell me that you’ll let me work for you again.’
‘Sure, Davey. Sure I will.’
‘Mr Kirkcaldy came to see me.’
‘Bobby Kirkcaldy?’
‘Aye… it was him what found me. He ’phoned for the ambulance and that.’
‘I see. Did he see who attacked you?’
‘No. He only came along later.’
‘I see.’
‘I lost my book,’ said Davey through the wired cage of his teeth.
‘What book?’
‘The one you gave me, Mr Lennox. My notebook that I wrote everything down in.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Davey. I’ll probably find it in the car or on the ground up there. It’s not important.’
‘I’m sorry…’ Now Davey’s voice sounded distant. He made a soft, detached groaning sound.
‘You rest, Davey. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.’
‘Promise?’ he asked and sounded like a kid. In that moment I remembered that he was alone in the world. No parents. No brothers or sisters that he knew about. A Barnardo’s kid out in the world on his own. The thought restoked the fury in my gut. A fury that was directed in equal shares at whoever had done this to Davey, and at myself for having put the kid in that position.
‘I promise, Davey. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
We left Davey to sleep, and outside in the corridor I had as coherent a conference with Sneddon as I was capable of having. I told him to put men on watch on the Kirkcaldy house twenty-four hours a day. I asked if they could look around for Davey’s notebook, more to put the kid’s mind at rest than anything else. Given that Singer had followed me all the way out into darkest Renfrewshire without me spotting him on my tail, I suggested he be put on following Kirkcaldy. I wanted whoever clobbered Davey, and Sneddon was itchier than ever to find out what was going on with Kirkcaldy. He didn’t care about people getting hurt: he had invested in Kirkcaldy and didn’t want his money to get bruised.