slammed the door shut. I stopped the snib catching by shouldering the door. The chain held. I rammed my foot into the gap and slammed my shoulder into the heavy teak again. This time the chain snapped and the door flew in and threw the girl backwards. She staggered into the wall and a scream started to rise in her throat. I caught it for her.
‘Listen, sister,’ I hissed as menacingly as I could manage, pinning her to the wall with the hand I had around her throat. ‘This is your choice. You can start screaming and I’ll strangle you to death here in your hall, or we can sit down, nice and civilized, on your sofa and chat. But you’ve got to understand something here and now. You’re finished with whatever business you’ve got with Sally Blane or Lillian Andrews or whatever the hell her real name is. You’re playing a different game now. It’s called survival. We’re going to talk and I’m going to ask questions, then I’m going to deliver you to the Three Kings. And, believe me, if they hand a dolly over to their boys it ends up broken. So whether or not you end tonight raped, tortured and dead depends on how well I can satisfy the Three Kings that you’ve given me all the answers I need. Do you understand?’ I loosened my grip enough for her to gasp a breath and nod vigorously. I tightened it again. ‘No funny business. Okay?’
She nodded again. I let her go. She looked at me with wild eyes and rubbed at her throat. I grabbed her arm and frogmarched her through to the living room and threw her down into the armchair. I sure was in a nice business. It was when I found myself pushing women around that I felt most proud of my career choices.
The flat was expensively furnished. And surprisingly tasteful. There was a dining table and chairs against one wall and I dragged a chair over and sat opposite her.
‘Are you Molly?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
‘No. My name is Liz. Molly was Margot… Sally’s sister. She’s dead.’
‘You worked for this special set up, didn’t you? I’m guessing the name of the game was blackmail?’
Liz nodded. ‘I don’t know much about what they squeezed out of the punters we set up. I just did as I was told.’
‘How did it work?’
‘We were given a mark… some rich or important bloke. Sometimes the mark would know we were chippies, other times they didn’t know they were being set up. But they was always married. Respectable. After a while Tam McGahern would burst in on us, shouting and swearing and threatening the mark. Sometimes he’d soften them up with a wee beatin’. Whichever one of us was working the mark, Tam made out that he was our boyfriend. He’d say he’d had a detective on us and then show the pictures. Then he’d say he was goin’ to send the pictures to the mark’s wife or the papers.’
‘Unless the mark did exactly what Tam wanted.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘And John Andrews was Sally Blane’s mark?’
‘That had been goin’ on since long before I got involved. And I only ever knew Sally as Lillian Andrews. I only found out later that the girl what got killed was her sister and that Lillian’s real name was Sally.’
‘So Margot really is dead?’
‘Aye. And because of what we was doing. Tam did his usual angry boyfriend act in the street outside a club Margot and her mark had been at. Lillian was with them. Tam had the photos and everything. He started to pull the guy out of the car but the mark panicked and drove off with Margot and Lillian still inside. In the car, I mean. Tam chased the mark through the city and out onto Paisley Road West. The mark lost control and smashed into a railway bridge. Him and Margot was killed right off. Lillian was in the back. She was knocked about a bit but all right. Except her nose and jaw got busted up. She thought she was going to lose her looks, but Tam got some specialist to take care of it.’
‘Who told you all of this?’
‘One of the other girls. Wilma.’
‘Wilma Marshall?’
‘Aye. You know her?’
‘We’ve met.’
Liz rubbed her throat and frowned. ‘Can I get a glass of water?’
‘Okay. But I’ll keep you company.’
We went through to the small kitchen and she filled a glass from the tap. I leaned against the door jamb and smiled at her. I was feeling pretty smug. We exchanged a look and in that second she knew that I knew who she really was. The fear was gone from her eyes: it made way for a cold, dark hate.
‘You’ve got a great job, Lennox,’ she said. I grinned more broadly.
‘I don’t recall introducing myself,’ I said.
‘Yeah. A great job. You must spend half your life looking back over your shoulder.’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I tend to be a forward-thinking type. I fit in with the new age.’
‘Really? Maybe it’s time you started looking over your shoulder.’ She smiled. A smile that made me think oh fuck.
Before I had time to react, something flashed past my eyes as it was looped over my head and around my neck and drawn tight. A thick band that felt like leather. Suddenly breathing became something no longer to be taken for granted and I was pulled back against the body of my attacker. He twisted something at the back of my neck a couple of times and both my head and my chest felt like they were going to explode: one from want of blood, the other from want of air. I was going to get it the same way as Parks and Smails.
I clawed at the strap and then, uselessly, vaguely over my shoulders. The lack of oxygen started a buzz-saw in my head and I started to panic. Something of my wartime training kicked in and instead of struggling I let my legs go from under me and dropped like a stone. I went down so fast that I shifted my attacker’s centre of gravity. He maintained the pressure on the garrotte but had to stand with his legs apart and hold me like a sheep being sheared.
I reached into my jacket pocket and freed the catch on my switchblade. I put all of my strength into a sweeping upwards arc and aimed, blind, for a point about a foot above my head. I guessed that was where his balls would be. I must have been there or thereabouts, because he screamed in agony and the garrotte around my neck loosened. I still had a grip on my knife and I gave it a vicious twist to mash the potatoes. Another scream and I cheered myself with the thought that he wouldn’t be passing his strangulation skills onto the next generation.
I scrambled to my feet and spun around to face him. He was about five-eight and dark-skinned and had a Middle Eastern look to him.
I pulled the knife from his groin, giving it another malicious twist as I did so. He sank to his knees, his hands clutched to his genitals, blood spilling from between the fingers. He was retching in great big spasms. He represented no further threat to me, but the bastard had tried to kill me. And he had killed Parks and Smails.
I took my time and made sure the kick I planted hit him square in the mouth, dislodging teeth. I was back in a place I’d been too many times in the war. I got the old tingle, the slowing down of time, the total absence of any kind of feeling for the man you were killing. And I knew that was what I was going to do. I grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up so that I could get my knife in behind his windpipe before thrusting it forward and out. Then the fucker would know what it was like to fight for breath.
The thing that I hadn’t accounted for was that, in the war, there tends not to be a woman in the room behind you with access to heavy cooking implements. I had forgotten about Liz. Mainly because she hadn’t done the usual hysterical screaming thing in the background. I was just about to finish my Arab chum off when a train ran into the back of my head.
I went down but wasn’t out. She swung some cast iron at me again and caught me on the temple. This time the lights dimmed so I could enjoy the fireworks that sparkled in my head. I was really dazed but still not out and she knew she’d have to get out quick. I heard her pulling her dusky chum to his feet and rushing him out of the apartment. I pulled myself upright, leaning on the kitchen counter. My head hurt like a bastard, I felt a warm trickle of blood down my neck and the world was still a little tilted on its axis. I looked down to where she’d dropped the cast-iron pan. I counted myself lucky that she hadn’t thought to pick up a knife instead. Glaswegians kill each other in the kitchen more than in any other room. Admittedly they usually do it by cooking, but I still considered myself fortunate to get out in one piece.
I soaked a cloth and held it to my head, but still made a stab at catching up with them. There was a smear of blood along the linoleum floor and out onto the common stair. I ran down the steps, my head throbbing with every
