that’s my husband — Tom doesn’t dance.’
‘Would it be worthwhile me coming back to talk to your husband? I mean if he had more to do with Mr Lang?’
Something frosted in her expression. ‘No… I don’t think that would do anyone any good. Tom does have more to do with Frank than I do, but not that much more. Anyway, there’s not much point talking to my husband about anything. He gets lots of stupid ideas in his head.’ Sylvia paused and eyed me. ‘Tom’s at work at the moment. He won’t be back until six tonight.’
‘The union told me that they had carried out a few enquiries of their own,’ I said, ignoring the invitation in ten-foot high neon. ‘Has anyone else been here to talk to you?’
‘No,’ she kept me held in her gaze. ‘Only you.’
I stood up. ‘Well, thanks for your time, Sylvia. If anything else occurs to you, please give me a ring. Obviously, I’d appreciate it if you got in touch right away if and when Mr Lang returns home next door. My number’s on the card.’
‘You haven’t finished your tea…’ she protested.
‘It was fine, thanks, but I have to go. Thanks for your help.’
‘You could stay for a while longer, couldn’t you?’
She got up from the sofa, stepped around the table and stood close to me. Too close. She couldn’t have signalled her meaning more clearly if she had been waving semaphore flags at me from two feet away.
‘Sorry…’ I smiled and put on my hat. ‘I’ve got to go.’
As I made my way back to the car, two thoughts struck me. The first struck me like a shovel across the back of the head: I had just declined a chance of guilt-free, no-complications sex. Something I would never have turned down before. But since Fiona had come on the scene, of course, it wouldn’t have been guilt-free.
The second thought was more of a nagger, like an eyelash in your eye: if Sylvia Dewar had nothing to do with Frank Lang, how come she knew what he kept in his cupboards.
CHAPTER SIX
The following night I took Fiona and the girls to Cranston’s Cinema de Lux on Renfield Street to see The Ten Commandments. I had suggested we go to see The Searchers, but the girls would not have gotten in so, in the absence of a babysitter, I sat and watched an American-accented Moses argue the toss with a Russian-accented Pharaoh while a Max Factored Nefretiri smouldered. I was maybe getting paranoid, but as Chuck Heston climbed down the mountain with commandments in hand, I couldn’t help wondering if it was a ploy by Fiona to remind me just how many of them I had broken.
But I had more to bother me that night. When I had come home from work and tapped on Fiona’s door to remind her of the time of our date, I could tell there was something wrong. Her face was pale to the point of being ashen and there was something distracted about her manner, as if something massive and heavy was sitting in the path of her concentration. I asked her what was wrong but she dismissed the question, saying that she hadn’t slept too well the night before, that was all. But I knew there was more to it. Much more. She had become increasingly distant over the last month.
When I had called again to pick up her and the kids to take them to the picture house, Fiona looked better and sounded cheery at the prospect of watching the movie. But there wasn’t really a block that I hadn’t been round several times and I recognized the deceit of her good cheer.
Chuck parted the Red Sea for the Chosen and I cast a glance at Fiona. It did nothing to reassure me. Whatever her thousand-yard-stare was focused on, it wasn’t the screen or the peril of the Israelites. I rested my hand on her forearm and felt it tense, as if she had stifled a start. She turned to me and smiled.
‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ she said, and turned back to the screen.
After the movie, we stopped off at Giacomo’s to get the girls an ice cream. I had a coffee from one of those machines that hissed like a steam train but Fiona had nothing.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ I asked and rested my hand on hers. She pulled her hand away as if scalded and cast a meaningful look at the girls. I had broken the cardinal rule: no shows of affection, or any other kind of behaviour that might suggest a romantic involvement, in front of Elspeth and Margaret.
‘I’m fine,’ she said through her teeth, then, with the same ersatz jollity as before, started to talk to the girls about the movie.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
I had intended to push Fiona for a truthful answer about what was going on when we got home, but she used the girls as a shield, saying that she needed to get them to bed. I got no invitation to come in for a drink or a cup of coffee and Fiona kept me on the threshold.
‘That was a great night out, thanks, Lennox. If you don’t mind I’m just going to turn in. Like I said, I didn’t get much sleep last night.’
‘Fiona, I don’t know what’s going — ’
I was cut off by the ringing of the wall ‘phone in the hall. Fiona squeezed past me to answer it.
‘Yes, he’s here…’ she said and held the receiver out to me to take. It looked large and heavy in her small, slender hand.
‘Hello, Mr Lennox?’ I recognized the voice instantly.
‘Hello, Mrs Ellis, what can I do for you?’
‘You told me to telephone you if Andrew went out unexpectedly. Well he has, he’s just getting into his car now.’
‘At this time?’ I looked at my watch. It was five after ten.
‘He got a ’phone call just a minute ago,’ she explained. ‘Same as always, very short.’
‘Did you hear the word “Tanglewood” mentioned this time?’
‘I couldn’t hear much of anything, I was in the lounge and the radio was on, but I don’t think so. He just seemed to keep saying “yes” then he hung up. It’s almost like someone’s telling him what to do. As if Andrew is being given orders or instructions or something. I have to tell you, Mr Lennox, there’s something about this frightens me.’
‘He hasn’t given you any idea where he’s going?’
‘Just the usual “I have to go out, something’s come up with a customer”.’
‘And how was he? His demeanour, I mean?’
‘He didn’t seem anything in particular. He tried to make out he was annoyed at being disturbed… but whatever was going through his head, that wasn’t it.’
I thanked her and said that I had better go and see if I could pick up his trail.
‘I’ve got to go out. Sorry,’ I said to Fiona, who shrugged, went into her flat and closed the door. Normally I would have expected to sense her annoyance, but all I picked up this time was relief.
I drove too fast to Maryhill Road, trying to close a distance greater than Ellis had to travel. I took the turning Ellis had taken before, just around the corner from where my Teddy Boy Scouts had helped me get the Atlantic started again, and swung the car around to face back out towards the junction where I could see passing traffic on Maryhill Road.
I switched the engine off and waited five minutes before deciding to give up, working out that Ellis must have already passed by, or had taken another route. The Atlantic conked out on me again and it took me a couple of expletive-urged turns to get her started. It was not a good night for hunting, anyway: the darkness was starting to tinge greenish as smog began to turn the air grainy. I would be lucky to see anything ten feet in front of me — which was exactly the distance I was from the glossy claret flank of Ellis’s Daimler as it sleeked past the road junction.
Startled, I clunked the lever into first, offering a silent prayer that the Atlantic didn’t stall again, and swung out onto Maryhill Road behind him, sticking close to his tail. The fog-turning-to-smog was getting thicker and I worked out that it was maybe drifting in from the North, which meant it had slowed Ellis’s drive into town while mine had been unimpeded. I decided to leave the dentistry of this particular gift horse unexamined and focused on
