I looked back at Paul Costello’s body. So I wouldn’t be getting even with him, after all.
‘I’m not likely to forget,’ I said.
McNab remained at the scene while Jock Ferguson and I got back into the polished Wolseley squad car.
‘I’ll take you back,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a stop to make on the way, if that’s okay.’
‘I’m glad of the lift,’ I said.
I didn’t remain glad for long. We only drove a little way along South Street before turning into the gates that led to the Nissen hut offices of various importers.
‘This won’t take long,’ said Ferguson as we pulled up. Outside the office of Barnier and Clement Import Agents. ‘Some stupid break-in. I wouldn’t be involved if it weren’t for the fact that some stupid flatfoot got himself clobbered.’
‘No rush.’ I smiled. Which was an impressive achievement, because a small, elderly man in a worn tweed jacket and a flat cap was looking at me through the rear window of the police car. Billy the night watchman stood, rolling a scrap of tobacco in a cigarette paper. Even though I hadn’t seen him close up, I recognized his stooped frame and wide, scruffy flat cap. I hoped he wasn’t about to return the compliment. I was sitting in the back of the car, with the uniformed driver in front. It made me look like an arrested suspect. I had been sure Billy wouldn’t identify me: he had only seen me from a distance. But with the visual clue of me seemingly in custody he might make the connection.
‘I think I’ll stretch my legs,’ I said to the driver and stepped out of the car, lighting a cigarette. As I did so, Billy seemed to peer at me, as if examining me more closely. He walked across to me, a little uncertainly, the meagre roll-up unlit between his lips. At least he wasn’t shouting for help from the police. His eyes were narrowed under the brim of his scruffy flat cap.
‘Excuse me, officer,’ he said. ‘Would you spare me a light?’
‘Sure,’ I said, suddenly, explicably cheerful. I struck a match for him. ‘Lots of excitement today…’
‘Aye,’ he said with a bright mournfulness. ‘Too much excitement for me.’
‘What, the break-in?’ I asked.
‘Aye… Those hooligans really clobbered yon young polisman.’
‘Did you see them?’
‘Aye… But not good. To tell the truth I forgot my spectacles. Brand new ones and all, off the National Health. Two pairs I got. And the one night something happens that I need to see, I leave the bastards at home.’ He shook his head and I resisted the impulse to kiss him. ‘But I seen them all right. Running away. Two of them.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Teddy Boys. Them Teddy Boys is nothing but trouble. Them two was lucky I didn’t catch up with them.’
I smiled. This time it was a genuine smile. A heartfelt, thankful, joyous smile. It had been one hell of a morning so far: a rollercoaster of emotions. Everything that could have come along to shake me up, had. All I needed now was the copper I had sapped to turn up, the blow to the head I’d given him somehow bestowing a photographic memory. There again, he was a Highland copper: a photographic memory is no good if there’s no film in the camera.
But he wasn’t going to turn up. Unfortunately, as I looked over the cap of my new best night watchman friend, I saw the next best thing arrive.
Striding with resolute purpose up from the main gates and heading towards the offices, a small but sturdily built woman with her hair in what could only be described as an aggressive permanent. Miss Minto.
I could see her taking in the police cars and guessing that something had happened that threatened her little but jealously guarded realm of absolute order. The last thing I needed was for her to spot me; or casually ask in front of Jock Ferguson what I was doing there.
‘Excuse me,’ I said to Billy, turning my back to the approaching Miss Minto and ambling as casually as I could between the Nissen huts, as if I had been going around the back to check for damage. I heard her determined steps behind me on the gravel, then on the wooden steps into the office. Doing a swift about turn, I flicked my cigarette away and headed back to the car. It was now the best place for me to keep out of sight. I just hoped that Miss Minto did not re-emerge from the office and spot me in the police car.
Leaning forward between the seats, I rested my elbows on the seat backs and supported my head in my right hand, hopefully concealing my face from the office doorway. As an excuse for invading his territory, I engaged the police driver in small talk. It was an effort: he was only marginally more chatty than Sneddon’s mute bodyguard, Singer. After what seemed an age, Jock Ferguson came out of the office and over to the car.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that lift now.’
‘No problem,’ I said cheerily. ‘I would have thought that by now you would be above investigating simple break-ins, Jock.’
Ferguson shrugged. ‘The bastards clobbered a cop. That changes everything. ‘No one puts one of ours in the infirmary and gets away with it.’
‘Quite right…’ I said, and tried to think ahead. But not too far ahead.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It took me a little while and another conversation with her supercilious agent, before I finally arranged a meeting with Sheila Gainsborough. Telling her that the person her missing brother had gone missing with had turned up dead was the kind of thing you had to do face to face.
I met her again at her apartment. She took it well, or at least as well as it could be taken, and much better than I had anticipated. I suspected there was an element of blind wishful thinking on her part; or maybe it simply didn’t occur to her that her brother might be just as dead as Paul Costello but no one had found the body yet. It was a thought that was never far from the front of my mind.
For my part, I played it all down, as much as you can play down a sliced throat. It also didn’t occur to her that eventually the police would want to talk to Sammy. It was only a matter of time and lack of results before they would start to look around for the most convenient possible suspect. That’s when Sammy’s name would be pulled out of McNab’s hat and I would be elbowed out of the way.
I had things to do and places to be, but I could see that Sheila Gainsborough was in a fragile state, so I gave her all kinds of assurances that I would double my efforts now that the stakes were higher, and that I would definitely bring Sammy back in one piece. Making promises to women was something I did all the time — especially ones like that, where there was every chance I wasn’t going to be able to deliver on it.
After I left Sheila, I went to a telephone kiosk and rang Ian McClelland at the University. We did the usual banter thing and then I got down to business.
‘Ian, could you tell me what a Baro is? In a gypsy or tinker context?’
‘Gosh, Lennox, it’s not really my field, but I could check it out. What was the context?’
‘I was meeting with someone, a gypsy, and another gypsy referred to him as the Baro.’
‘Okay, I know someone I can ask…’ said McClelland.
‘Could you ask the same people what significance a wooden box with pieces of wood and red and white wool might have as well? About nine inches square, I’d say.’ I described the box Lorna told me had been delivered to her father shortly before his death. ‘The wool was rolled up into a ball.’
‘Certainly, old man. In fact I’m just along the corridor from the very person. Can I call you back in ten minutes?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What about the description and drawing of the dragon I gave you?’
‘As I thought, it’s a Chinese Qilin.’
‘Actually, you’re wrong…’ I sounded rather smug. ‘Not a Qilin, it’s a Vietnamese Ky-lan, if my information’s correct.’
‘Probably is,’ said McClelland. If he was impressed with my knowledge of the finer points of oriental mythology, he hid it well. ‘It is a Sino-Vietnamese character. It looks fierce but it’s one of the good guys. It brings you luck and wealth and looks after the good and the honourable.’