across the pale brow and as his eyes locked with mine, they burned with a cold, dark fire. ‘Stay the fuck out of this. It’s not your business.’
I looked at the girl, still desperately trying to wriggle free from his grasp.
‘Help me, mister…’ she pleaded. ‘Please help me.’
‘Let her go.’ I crushed the cheap gabardine of his coat and pulled him away from her. Then, I said to the girl, ‘On you go, love. I’m going to have a little chat with Pete here.’
I watched her run all the way to the junction of Bain Street, where she disappeared around the corner. She had run as if her life had depended on it and I knew she had seen in Pete’s black eyes the same thing I had seen that night in the Horsehead. I let him go.
‘I think you need to calm down, fella,’ I said as soothingly as I could. But the dark fire still burned in his eyes.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he said, and I knew then how this was going to have to end. ‘Sticking your nose into my fucking business. You think you’re so fucking great, don’t you? Big man, are you?’
‘Well, truth be told I’m more of a man than you are,’ I said, still calmly. ‘I don’t feel the need to knock women about. And anyone who does is less than a man.’
‘What? Her?’ He jerked his head mockingly in the direction the fleeing girl had taken. ‘That hoor? She was in there, in the dance hall. That place is no more than a shagging shed and tarts like her go there for one thing and one thing only. They’re all sluts. They only want one fucking thing, then they make out they’re virgins.’ He stepped forward and looked up at me, doing his best to push his face into mine. I was tempted to ask if he wanted me to find a crate for him to stand on, but I decided it wouldn’t do much to defuse the situation.
‘You think you’re so fucking big, don’t you?’ he hissed at me. ‘A big fucking man. Let me tell you, you’re a nothing. A fucking nobody. But I’m somebody. No one is ever going to remember you. Nobody’s going to give a shit about you.’
‘But I suppose your name is going to be carved into immortality, is that it?’
‘Aye. That’s right. No one is ever going to forget my name. I’m going to have a big name all right. I already have, it’s just that nobody knows about it… yet. But they will. They’ll remember all right. People are going to remember my name and my face long after I’m dead. You can bet on it.’
‘Okay, fine. I get it: in my old age I’ll tell my grandkids I knew you. Now why don’t you go home and cool off, that’s a good boy. But take the opposite direction from your girlfriend.’
He sighed, took a step back from me and let the tension ease from his shoulders.
‘Okay…’ he said dejectedly, as if defeated. It was this sudden and complete change of demeanour, intended to put me off my guard, that alerted me to his real intention. But even with me being ready for it, when he made his move it was so fast and expert that he managed to catch me on the side of the head. Not just a fist, and I felt a trickle of blood from my temple. He swung again and I saw something metal flash in the streetlight.
I slammed a kick into the middle of his abdomen, just the way they’d taught me in the army, and he didn’t have enough weight to stay on his feet. I followed through on his fall and dropped down on top of him, squeezing the air out of him with my knee on his chest and pinning the hand with the weapon in it to the asphalt. I was relieved to see that it was a short length of steel tube and not a razor. I smashed the heel of my right hand into his nose and gouts of blood spurted from the nostrils. Then I started to punch him. Over and over and over. This wasn’t like the episode with Dewar in Sauchiehall Lane: I was dealing with a bad bastard here who walked around with a weapon in his pocket. So I kept hitting him.
I was still hitting him when the two uniformed coppers hauled me off.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They threw me into a cell on my own, although the previous occupant was still there in spirit if not in substance. I sat on the edge of the bed contemplating how long someone would have to go without bathing and how much cheap hooch you would have to have in your system to stink a place out like that.
I was pretty pissed with the way things had turned out. Sure, they had chucked Sheriff Pete into a cell further down the block, and I could hear him giving forth in his fake American accent to the custody sergeant as if they were long lost buddies, but I knew things didn’t look too good for me. I’d banged Pete up bad enough for them to call out the police surgeon and, after all, it had been me they’d had to haul off of him, and I had no witnesses to back up my side of events. Even the girl Pete had terrified had disappeared into the night.
In all of my time in Glasgow, despite several brushes with the police and having gotten involved in all kinds of dodgy goings-on, I had managed to keep my dance card unmarked. And now, all because of a psychotic little loudmouth, I was going to chalk up an aggravated assault charge and probably thirty days in chokey.
But things never turn out the way you expect.
I had only been in the cell for an hour when the custody sergeant opened up and told me to follow him. That was confusing enough, but he had tied it up in ribbons: he had said please.
There were two other uniformed coppers waiting at the custody desk, one with inspector’s pips on his shoulders. Again, I got the polite treatment, and I formed the distinct feeling that the custody sergeant would have liked to shake my hand.
‘Have you found the girl he was harassing?’ I asked.
‘No, Mr Lennox,’ said the inspector. Mr. ‘Unfortunately we haven’t. But let’s just say your story is consistent with what we know about your chum. Unfortunately we can’t charge him with anything either, but we’ll keep the little shite overnight, anyway.’
‘He’s no chum of mine. Am I free to go?’
‘Aye… you are, Mr Lennox. But we have a favour to ask… would you mind coming across to St Andrew’s Square?’
‘You want me to go to police headquarters? At this time of night?’
The beefy custody sergeant leaned his stripes on the desk. ‘CID would like to talk to you. About chummy in there, if you don’t mind.’
‘It really is important…’ the inspector added. ‘I can’t tell you why, but it is.’
I shrugged. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Always happy to help…’
The streets were empty and shades of slate and black, sleek in the early morning rain, as we drove through them. I was dog tired, but nevertheless enjoyed the unusual experience of travelling in the back of a police Wolseley without the encumbrance of handcuffs.
When we arrived at St Andrew’s Square, I was conducted into a normal room, not a cell, with a table and four chairs. They left me in it for five minutes until a policewoman came in with a large china mug of tea for me. The five-star treatment was beginning to make me itch.
As I sipped the too-sweet tea, the door opened to reveal Jock Ferguson. I was genuinely surprised to see Jock. He was a nondescript sort of man, tall and lean and with a hooded look and tired eyes.
‘I hear you’ve been administering justice on our behalf, Lennox.’
‘What can I say? There was a maiden in distress and my armour was shining. You seem to be taking the chivalry thing a bit far yourself, Jock. You really turn out of bed at this time of night because I got myself lifted?’
‘Your celebrity isn’t that great,’ he said, offering me a cigarette. ‘It’s the fellow you roughed up that we’re interested in. Or to be more truthful, I’m interested in. I think he’s a killer. One of the kind that do it because they enjoy it. But my colleagues think I’m off down the wrong track because we’ve already got somebody else lined up for the murder.’
‘Well, that must be it,’ I said ingenuously. ‘I know that the City of Glasgow Police never make mistakes.’
Ferguson gave me a look.
‘I don’t know what I can tell you about him, Jock,’ I said. ‘I don’t really know him.’
‘I know, I’ve read your statement. You say you’ve only met him once before?’
‘Met, once; but I saw him in the Horsehead once or twice before that.’
‘And you say he bought you a drink? Why would he do that?’
‘Because I have ears, Jock. Sheriff Pete’s the kind of loser who’ll make friends with anyone who’ll listen to
