He beamed at me.
‘And I’ve got to hand it to you,’ I said, ‘your psychological approach with the bolt cutters really works. For a moment there even I thought you were going to start cutting off his toes.’
McBride looked at me vaguely for a moment, uncertainty in the childlike eyes beneath the Neanderthal brow.
‘You know… the way we were bluffing in there…’ I explained
‘Oh aye…’ he said eventually, slowly. ‘Bluffing… That’s right, the piss-eye-co-logical approach. That’s what we was doing.’
I smiled again and started the car up, making a mental note to be clearer in my intentions in future.
I asked Twinkletoes if I could hang on to the Cresta for another day or so and he said it was no problem. I dropped him off at his house. Before he got out of the car, he paused and turned his huge Easter Island face towards me.
‘Are you gonna be all right, Mr. L?’
‘Sure, Twinkle. Everything’s going to be fine. You’ve helped me clear up the Frank Lang thing. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. All I have to do now is sort out this other business.’
‘After that, is that you going to be in the clear and that?’
‘It is.’
‘And will you still want me to do jobs for you?’
‘Of course. You can count on it.’
‘Mr. Lennox… there won’t be any other stuff like today, will there? You know, with the bolt cutters? I’m sorry and that, but it’s just I’m kinda trying to put all of that shite behind me…’
‘Trust me, Twinkle, I know the feeling. And no, it’s not going to be like that again.’
He grinned and got out of the car.
I drove off, shaking my head in disbelief. An ex-gangland torturer, possible killer and all round thug had just expressed concern that I was perhaps the wrong company to be keeping.
After I dropped Twinkletoes, I stopped at a pay ’phone and called Jock Ferguson at his home. I waited while he bombarded me with curses, threats and then instructions about handing myself in.
‘I will,’ I said. ‘But I’ve still got unfinished business. And that’s what I’m ’phoning about. I’ve left a package for you. I’ll give you the address in a minute. It’s a long-firm fraud specialist called Dennis Annan, but you’ll know him as… well, as a matter of fact, you’ll know him by a couple of names. The first is Frank Lang, neighbour to the recently deceased Mr and Mrs Thomas Dewar. Except there never was any Frank Lang. It was all set up by Annan as part of his scam. The second name you know him by is Paul Lynch, Connelly’s deputy.’
‘Lynch and Lang are the same person?’
‘Yep. They’re both Dennis Annan.’
‘What was the scam?’
‘Frank Lang was supposed to be a shadowy go-between hired to deliver cash from a special fund on behalf of Joe Connelly’s Amalgamated Union of Industrial Trades — providing relief funds for labour and trades union organizations in oppressed countries. Except the labour organizations were bogus and the cash was being diverted to accounts for the non-existent Frank Lang.’
‘You have proof of this?’
‘The ledger with all of the details in it is waiting for you with Annan, who’s all trussed up for you like a Thanksgiving turkey. Oh, and his car is parked outside. It’s a green Morris Traveller, one of those jobs that looks half-car, half-garden-shed. If you show it to Maisie McCardle she’ll confirm it was the car she saw being used by the neighbour she knew as Frank Lang. By the way, Lang killed Sylvia Dewar. He’s signed a confession and that’s waiting for you too.’
‘Tell me where he is and I’ll meet you there,’ said Ferguson.
‘No can do, Jock,’ I said. ‘Not when Dunlop still has me in his sights for Andrew Ellis’s murder. You deal with Annan, I’ll deal with Ellis’s killers.’
‘You’re going to get yourself killed, Lennox. Come in and we can sort this all out.’
‘I’ve told you Jock, can’t do it. But if you want to do me a favour, there’s a guy called Larry Franks being held in the Newton Mearns cells for police assault. Get him out. And I don’t mean bail. He clobbered a copper to get himself arrested deliberately because… well, let’s just say if the story gets out it’s going to reflect badly on the City of Glasgow Police. I need this as a favour and you owe me one. And you’re going to owe me plenty more when I’m finished. I know who killed Andrew Ellis and I’m going to find them.’
Ferguson started to protest, but I silenced him.
‘Everybody has been trying to cut out a piece of me, the police as well, and I’m too tired and too pissed off to argue. In the meantime, you go and pick up Annan.’ I gave Ferguson the address.
‘Lennox,’ he said, ‘if it’s any consolation, I’ve been trying to keep the heat off.’
‘I know, Jock, and it is. I have to go. I’ll talk to you later. But listen, when you pick Annan up, everything you need will be there with him, but I have to tell you he’s not looking any too pretty.’
‘Okay…’ he said. I could hear him take a breath to say something else, so I hung up.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I was still a hunted man. I had given Ferguson everything he needed to clear up Sylvia Dewar’s death, but no one had seriously been looking at me for that. They were after me for killing Andrew Ellis and — until I could find out what or where Tanglewood was and who Ferenc Lang was — I would remain the number one suspect for Ellis’s murder.
I headed back to the barge and cleaned up. I made up some sandwiches from the stuff McBride had brought me and ate them slowly, thinking through what I was going to do next.
I folded out Ellis’s map again, calculating times and distances. From his home in Bearsden, which was on the right side of the city, to the mark on the map and back, allowing for an hour’s meeting, the timings fitted with those given to me by Pamela Ellis. This was the regular rendezvous, not somewhere in Garnethill. They had changed venue the night I found Ellis with ‘Magda’ simply because of the smog, I guessed. Or maybe he had picked her up at the translation bureau to go on together to some other location. But this place on the map was their principal trysting point. I would have bet all my money on it.
The thought of money made me set to my next task. I took the wax-paper-wrapped bundles of cash in three denominations and gave them a second wrapping in newspaper. I took the brown paper shopping bag McBride had brought the groceries in and cut it up to improvise wrapping paper. Before I wrapped the money up and addressed the package, I wrote a brief note.
Dear Mrs Ellis,
The enclosed money was placed in my trust by your husband to be given to you in the case of his death or disappearance. His primary concern was always that you be catered for should something happen to him. He instructed me to tell you that under no circumstances were you to inform the police or anyone else about this money.
Nothing can make up for the loss of your husband, but the enclosed was his way of ensuring some comfort in the future.
Yours,
A Wellwisher
I folded the note and placed it in the parcel before wrapping it up, writing the address and securing the package with string.
Then, after washing the dishes, I fell into bed. It was going to be a big day tomorrow.
My moustache was coming in well, and again I complemented the tweed and flannel outfit with the navy duffle coat before heading out to a camping store I knew about in the West End of the city. It was the kind of place that catered for the serious canvas-shelterer and I picked up a good quality bivouac, a camping stove and gas canister, a trenching tool, sleeping bag, as well as a kitbag and canteen. From the outdoor clothing section, I picked out the kind of pullover anorak favoured by Sir Edmund Hillary, archaeology field-trip students and secondary
