*
I had a habit of taking lunch in tea rooms that sat on the corner of Argyle Street. There was something about the tea rooms’ large picture windows, high vaulted ceiling and black marble that reminded me of a place in Saint John I used to go with my parents when I was a kid back in New Brunswick.
I was on my way there when they took me off the street: two big Micks with busted-up noses and dark business suits.
‘Mr Murphy has sent us. He wants to see you. Now. Get in the taxi.’ My escorts flanked me and indicated the black cab that pulled up to the kerb. I allowed myself to be guided into it. I tried not to think that this was trade- mark Murphy; that God knew how many people had been taken off the street in the same manner, probably, given their obvious accustomed expertise, by the same gentlemen. Except the others who had been spirited away had never been seen again.
They took me out to Baillieston. It sat even greyer and uglier than usual under a moody sky and the scrapyard we entered merged seamlessly with its landscape. There was a huddle of Nissen huts in one corner of the yard. Against this backdrop, the honed razor gleam of the parked silver-grey Bentley announced Hammer Murphy’s presence like a royal standard on a castle.
My escorts delivered me into the main hut and waited outside. Hammer Murphy sat behind the desk. Like the Bentley, there was the sheen of a sharpened razor about him: all grey mohair and freshly barbered and Brylcreemed. Since the last time I had seen him he had grown a pencil-thin moustache. The Ronald Colman look sat with his battered Irish spud face no better than the Tony haircut and mohair suit did.
It’s often difficult to imagine how some people can resort to the most extreme forms of brutality; to equate the inner violence with the outer appearance. That wasn’t the case with Hammer Murphy. He gave you the feeling that he was perpetually on the verge of smashing his fist into someone or something. There was an intense density to his build, almost as if fury was an energy that bound the atoms of his body tighter together.
I considered making a witticism about the new moustache, but decided I would rather survive the encounter.
‘Hello, Mr Murphy. You wanted to see me?’
Murphy looked at me with hate in his eyes. I knew not to take it personally. Hate was always there.
‘I heard you wanted to talk to me,’ he said. His thick Glasgow accent was still tinged with the Galway his parents had left. ‘But something’s come up. Something I need you to explain to me.’
‘If I can.’
‘You’re looking into Tam McGahern’s death. You’ve been throwing your weight around a bit, I hear.’
‘No more than I have had to.’
Murphy stood up. ‘Follow me.’
We went out into the yard and across to another of the Nissen huts. I noticed that I picked up my two-Mick escort again on the way. One of the heavies undid the padlock and we entered. This hut was used for storing engine parts and other smaller items salvaged from the scrap-yard. There was something bigger on the floor of the hut, wrapped in a stained oily blanket. The package was about the size of a human body. I felt my pulse pick up the pace. Whatever was wrapped up in that blanket, I didn’t want to see it. Everyone knew that Hammer Murphy was a life-taker, but no one, least of all me, wanted to be an indictable witness to the fact. That could cut short a promising career.
‘Listen, Mr Murphy…’
‘Shut the fuck up and look,’ said Murphy. One of the goons closed the door behind us. I shut the fuck up and looked. The other goon peeled back the blanket from the body’s face.
‘Fuck,’ I muttered.
‘You do this?’ Murphy asked.
‘Me? Fuck no. I thought you…’
Murphy looked at me blankly for a moment. ‘If we had done this and you was looking at it you would be lying next to him.’ I spent a moment considering my promising career while I looked down at the mortal remains of Tam McGahern’s erstwhile faithful retainer, Bobby. Someone had adjusted his DA hairstyle with a heavy object. His head was caved in on one side and a lot of what should have been inside was now outside his skull. I tried to dismiss the image of a five-pound barrel-head lead mallet from my mind. Hammer Murphy had no reason to lie to me.
‘Then who?’ I asked.
‘Well, you gave him a hiding. And one of his muckers two hidings.’
‘We had a disagreement. We fell out over who should succeed Mr Churchill. He said Rab Butler and I’m a Tony Eden man.’ The gag didn’t take so I moved quickly on. ‘Bobby and his chums didn’t tell me everything I needed to know about McGahern. Added to which they had a little party planned for me. I spoiled their surprise. Anyway, I also gave Bobby here a couple of quid. He was pathetic, in a way. A wanker playing at big shot.’
‘Could it have been that cunt Sneddon?’ Murphy said it as if it was a double-barrelled name. The Wilmington- Smythes and the Cunt-Sneddons.
‘No. Sneddon doesn’t even know about Bobby. If I had wanted Sneddon to get involved he would have sent Twinkletoes McBride to ease the flow of information. But that would have been about the extent of it. How did you come into possession of the body?’
‘Sneddon, Cohen and me are splitting up McGahern’s bars between us. Like always I got shafted. Sneddon got the Arabian Bar, the kyke got the Imperial and I get left with the fuckin’ Highlander.’
‘Good little earner, the Highlander. From what I saw,’ I said conversationally, as if we were discussing the comparative merits of models of car and there wasn’t the stink of stale blood and spilt brain matter from the Teddy Boy corpse on the floor.
‘Anyway,’ continued Murphy. ‘This piece of shite was lying upstairs from the bar.’
‘In the same flat that McGahern was killed in?’
Murphy nodded. ‘We didn’t want the polis finding out. So chummy here is going to the mincer.’
So it is true, I thought. Murphy owned a meat processing plant in Rutherglen, not far from where Tam McGahern had his garage. The rumour had always been that that was where Murphy disposed of any embarrassing reminders of business deals gone wrong. And not just his. He was supposed to have a profitable sideline in processing dead meat for Jonny Cohen and Willie Sneddon. I had become particular about where I bought my Scotch pies.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘He had nothing to give. He knew nothing. Why kill him?’
Murphy shrugged. ‘Wee shites like him get killed all the time. By other wee shites like him. You sure you know nothin’ about this?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t expect to see him again.’
‘You won’t now.’ Murphy nodded and the goon covered up Bobby’s face. ‘You wanted to talk to me about Tam McGahern’s killing. He had it coming. He had it coming from me. But I didn’t do it or order it. It’s like this…’ He jabbed Bobby through the blanket with the toe of his handmade oxblood. ‘All the usual suspects in the clear. There was one thing I wanted to tell you about McGahern. Something that only came up this week.’
‘Oh?’
‘I have a share in a travel agent. A silent partner, you could say.’
I’ll bet, I thought.
‘I’m not connected officially with the business,’ Murphy continued, ‘so McGahern wouldn’t have known I would find out.’
‘Find out what?’
‘Tam McGahern made three trips inside two months. To the same place. Amsterdam. Now what would a wee gobshite like McGahern be doing in fucking Holland?’
‘Tulip smuggling?’ I smiled. Then I stopped. Murphy’s expression suggested he was considering stopping me smiling permanently. ‘I don’t know. You any idea?’
‘None. But it’s new gen and I thought it might be useful to you.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. ‘I’ve got the exact dates here. To and from Holland. No hotel bookings though.’
‘Thanks.’ I looked at the sheet and pocketed it. ‘I needed something new to go on.’
Murphy’s taxi took me back to Argyle Street. No goons. I sat in the back as it bumped its way back into the city centre and thought about what I had got. Why had McGahern made so many trips to Holland? It was only once
