‘I see…’ I said, still trying to place the name Jack Beckett and making a mental note that if I ever did come across him, to thank him appropriately for the glowing character reference.
There was a silence. A taxi sounded its horn outside on Gordon Street. A river-bubble of voices rose up from outside and through the window I had left open in the vain hope it would cool the office. I noticed a trickle of sweat on Sheila Gainsborough’s sleek neck.
‘So exactly what kind of people was Sammy mixing with? You said he had gotten involved in less than honourable businesses. What do you mean?’
‘Like I said, Sammy isn’t really in show business as such. But he does do the odd singing job. He’s not great, if I’m honest, but good enough for Glasgow. He’s been singing in nightclubs and mixing with a bad crowd. Gambling too. I think that’s where a lot of the money has been going.’
‘Which clubs?’
‘I don’t know… not the ones I started in. There was one he went to a lot. I think he sang there too. The Pacific Club down near the river.’
‘Oh… yes,’ I said. Oh fuck, I thought. Handsome Jonny Cohen’s place.
‘You know it?’
‘I know the owner. I can have a word.’
‘Have you ever heard of the Poppy Club?’ she asked.
‘Can’t say that I have. Why?’
‘When I went to his flat there was a note by the telephone that said “The Poppy Club”. Nothing else. No number. I looked up the ’phone book but there’s no “Poppy Club” listed in either Glasgow or Edinburgh.’
I wrote the name down in my notebook. Reassuringly. ‘What’s Sammy’s full name?’ I asked.
‘James Samuel Pollock.’
‘Pollock?’
‘That’s my real name. Well, it was my real name. I changed it by deed poll.’
‘So you were Sheila Pollock?’
‘Ishbell Pollock.’
‘Ishbell?’
‘My agent didn’t think that Ishbell Pollock had the kind of ring to it that a singing star’s name should have.’
‘Really?’ I said, as if confused as to why anyone would be blind to the charms of a name like Ishbell Pollock. They had done a good job on her. A Glasgow club singer, one amongst thousands. But they had had great raw material to work with. Sheila Gainsborough had the looks — she certainly had the looks — and the voice to stand out from the crowd. She’d been talent-scouted. Groomed. Repackaged. Managed. She maybe had the looks and the voice but the name Ishbell Pollock and the Glasgow accent would have been dropped faster than utility-mark panties on VE Day.
I wrote Sammy’s full name in my notebook. ‘When did you last see Sammy?’
‘Lunch at the Tea Rooms, a week past Saturday.’
‘What about friends… girls… people he used to hang around with? And you said he has been associating with a bad crowd. Can you put any names to them?’
‘He has this friend, Barnier. A Frenchman. Sammy mentioned him a couple of times. I think they were friends, but it could have been a business thing.’
‘First name?’
She shook her head. ‘Sammy always just called him Barnier. There can’t be that many Frenchies in Glasgow.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘They probably come here in their droves for the cuisine.’ We both smiled. ‘Anyone else?’
‘I was at his flat one day and he got a telephone call from a girl. They sounded intimate. All I got was her first name. Claire. But there were a couple of guys he knew who I really didn’t like the look of. Rough types.’
‘Names?’
‘Sorry. I only saw them once, waiting for Sammy outside the club. They had the look as if… I don’t know… as if they didn’t want to be seen. But they were a shiftless sort. Late twenties, one about five-eight with dark hair, the other maybe an inch shorter with sandy hair. The one with the dark hair has a scar on his forehead. Shaped like a crescent.’
I sat and looked at her, deep in thought. She looked back eagerly, obviously reassured that she had provoked some deep, investigative cogitations. What I was really thinking about was what it would be like to bend her over my desk.
‘Okay. Thanks,’ I said once the picture was complete. ‘Would it be possible for us to go to your brother’s flat… have a look around?’
She looked at her watch. ‘I need to be on the sleeper to London tonight. I’ve a lot to do beforehand. Could we go now?’
I stood up and smiled. ‘My car is around the corner.’
The Atlantic had been sitting in the sun and I rolled down the windows before holding the door open for Sheila Gainsborough to get in. I found myself casting an eye up and down the street in the desperate hope that someone — anyone — I knew was there to see me let this beautiful, rich and famous woman into my car. Two youths passed without noticing, followed by an old man wearing a flat cap and, despite the temperature, a heavy, thick, dark blue jacket and a neckerchief tied at his throat. He paused only to spit profusely on the pavement. I didn’t take it as a sign of his being impressed.
Even with the windows open, the car was stifling; the air heady in its confines: hot wood and leather mingled with the lavender from Sheila’s perfume and a vague hint of a musky odour from her body.
Sammy Pollock’s flat was on the west side of the city centre, but not quite the West End. We drove without speaking along Sauchiehall Street to where the numbers started to climb into the thousands and she told me to turn right. A ribbon of park broke up the ranks of three-storey Georgian terraces. There were some kids playing on the grass and mothers, prams parked beside them, sat indolently on the park benches, beaten listless by summer heat and motherhood.
Pollock’s apartment was actually over two levels of one of the semi-grand stone terraces. At one time the terrace would have gleamed golden sandstone. A once brightly coloured arch of stained glass and lead work sat above the door, almost Viennese: Charles Rennie Mackintosh style or similar. But Glasgow was a city of ceaseless work. Dirty work. The unending belchings of smoke and soot had blackened the stone and dulled the glass. It was like seeing a parson in frock coat and breeches after he’d been sent down a mine for a few shifts.
‘You’ve always had a key?’ I asked Sheila as she unlocked the door.
She sighed. ‘Look, Mr Lennox, I can tell you’ve guessed the set-up. I own the flat. I own it, I furnished it and I let Sammy stay in it. I also give him an allowance.’
‘How old is Sammy?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘I see,’ I said. I thought of a twenty-three-year-old being handed everything by a sister who, herself, had yet to hit thirty. I thought about when I had been twenty-three, fighting my way through Europe with only a vague hope that I’d make it to twenty-four. Sammy Pollock was only thirteen years younger than me, but he was a completely different generation. Lived in a different world.
She read my mind. ‘You disapprove of Sammy’s way of life?’
‘I envy Sammy’s way of life. I wish I’d had it when I was his age. You’re a very generous sister.’
‘You have to understand something…’ Letting her hand rest on the door handle, she looked at me earnestly with the bright blue eyes. ‘I’m five years older than Sammy. Our parents are both dead and I’m… well, I feel responsible for my brother. And I’ve been lucky. Got the breaks. And that’s put me in the position to help the only person I care about in the world. Sammy’s not a bad kid. He’s just a bit silly at times. Immature. I’m just worried that he’s got himself in with a bad crowd. Got into trouble.’
‘I understand.’ I nodded to the door she still held shut. ‘Shall we?’
‘Someone’s been here.’ It was the first thing she said when we walked into the living room. Sure enough, the place was a mess. Some of the mess was clearly bachelor living at its best — over-full ashtrays, sticky-bottomed beer bottles, and whisky glasses bonding maliciously with the expensive walnut of the side tables, a jacket tossed carelessly on an armchair, a couple of dirty plates and a coffee cup. It was a vernacular I was familiar with myself. But there was another dimension to the disorder, a third-party, purposeful element. Like someone had been looking for something, and in a hurry.