the toilets for any stragglers.
I went back through the door marked WC and closed it behind me but didn’t lock it. There was a tall, narrow window of frosted glass beside the cistern, but high up. This is getting to be a habit, I thought to myself as I braced one foot on the toilet, the other on the wall and eased myself up, undid the catch and swung open the window. It took all that was left of my strength to haul myself up and wriggle my head and right shoulder out through the window. I found myself looking straight down at a two-storey drop onto the car park below. I continued to ease myself through, gripping the wooden frame of the window. I got a leg free and eased a foot down onto the sill. I heard voices in the hall outside the toilet. I pushed through and eased the window closed.
I was outside, but I would still be seen against the frosted glass. The sill extended a foot or so on either side of the window and I worked my way along to its end. There was no downpipe this time; no projection on the stadium’s architecture to use as a stepping stone. I turned my back to the window, remained motionless and hoped that no one would pay too much attention to the window. I heard voices in the toilet. Then nothing.
I looked down at the car park. It was getting dark but I could see the police cars and a van parked outside. There were still a few punters milling about. I felt another lurch in my gut, this time from the sight of a figure leaning against the van and smoking, wearing a peaked driver’s cap with a City of Glasgow Police chequered band around it. Don’t look up, I thought. Whatever you do, don’t look up.
I knew the coppers would come out with their captures soon and my chances of being seen would increase to the almost certain. As I was too well-dressed for a window cleaner, I decided the best thing was to climb back into the toilet. I moved as quietly as I could and slid back through the window. I could still hear voices from the entertaining suite, but, having checked the toilet once, I didn’t think they would come back.
Not so clever Lennox. The one thing I didn’t take into account, of course, was that while my place of hiding may have been checked out, it was, after all, a toilet. I only just managed to duck behind the door as it swung open and a large uniformed figure stepped through and into the cubicle. He had his back to me and was clearly unbuttoning his fly. A man is never more vulnerable than when he’s got his dick in his hand and I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t let him see me and I couldn’t be captured. I cursed inwardly and took the sap from my pocket and swung it at the back of the copper’s head. He stumbled forward but steadied himself with his hand against the wall. He wasn’t out. I swung again, harder, trying not to think what would happen to my neck if I killed a copper. He went down, his face smashing into the porcelain of the toilet bowl and splashing it with blood.
It had been quiet. Messy, but quiet. But had it been quiet enough? I stood stock still and listened for anyone approaching. Nothing. I went back along the hall. The door at the end was open and revealed the suite was empty. The copper I clobbered had obviously come back to take a leak. But he would be missed.
I moved swiftly across the suite and out onto the stairwell. Making sure that the last of the coppers was heading out of the bottom door, I ran silently down the steps and watched through a crack in the door as the police piled the Three Kings and their bodyguards into the van. The tablet I’d taken earlier had really kicked in and I was back in a Technicolor world. I saw several faces streaked with blood, glistening in the stadium lamplight that seemed to me to sparkle in the dusk.
A small crowd had gathered in the car park and was watching the proceedings. As a group of onlookers passed by the entrance to the suite, I slipped out into their number and walked into the main racing stadium.
I watched three races before I risked going back to the car park. When I did, the police cars were gone and I assumed they had not yet missed their colleague. I found a pay ’phone, made a pithy call to Greasy George and explained he had better get his Bentley and his ass into gear. I made my way to the Atlantic and drove off. I knew that when the copper with his face in the toilet came to, or was discovered, then the Three Kings would each get very special treatment to cough up who had been left behind. But I knew they wouldn’t give me up. Not through any sense of comradeship or loyalty — just because I was the only hope they had of getting out of this mess.
Some hope, I thought to myself as I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror of the Atlantic.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I’ve always considered myself a smart cookie. It’s one of these things you get smug about, having brains. Generally, I thought of myself as someone who always had an answer. Tonight, however, that answer must have been moving all over Glasgow, because I found myself driving through the city aimlessly, not seeing the streets, my bruised and drugged brain refusing to give me directions.
But maybe it had. I found myself back in the future. Ahead of me the partly built monoliths of Moss Heights loomed black into the night sky. Again I parked some distance from Jackie Gillespie’s brand-new house, although it did little to make the Atlantic, one of only three cars parked on the entire length of the street, less conspicuous.
The back door was still ajar. I made my way into the kitchen and cursed the fact I hadn’t brought a torch. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing there. I was alone. The Three Kings were out of the picture for God knew how long. No Twinkletoes or Tiny to call on to add muscle. I wasn’t even here on a hunch.
I went through to the living room. It was easier to see in there because of the nauseous yellow light cast in from the streetlamp. It was still the tumbled mess it had been earlier. The only difference was the figure sitting in the corner, partly concealed in shadow. I noticed him mainly because of the yellow gleam on the sawn-off double- barrelled shotgun he had pointed at me. I put my hands up but otherwise didn’t move.
‘Hello, Jackie,’ I said. ‘You okay?’
‘No.’ The voice from the corner was deep but weak. ‘You Lennox?’
‘Were you expecting me?’
‘Kinda,’ said Gillespie. He lowered the gun and I lowered my arms. ‘You’re a favourite topic of conversation for McGahern and his tart. You was supposed to sit still for the frame. Like me.’
‘Funny thing is I was half-expecting to find you here,’ I said.
‘Everybody’s turned this place over once. They’ve crossed it off their list. It’s the one place in Glasgow I’m safe.’ Gillespie moved slightly to the side and his face became etched in yellow. From the look of him, I guessed it would be yellow even without the streetlight. I could see a glistening patch, black in the streetlight, on his shirt and jacket. There was a pool of it on the floor next to him.
‘Fuck, Gillespie. Let me have a look at you.’ I moved towards him but he hinted I stop by raising the barrels. I took the hint.
‘Forget it, Lennox. You’re talking to a ghost. You was in the war too. You know when someone loses this much blood, he’s fucked. Anyway, I could have gone to a hospital a day ago. What would be the point? Nursed back to health just to be dropped through a fucking hatch at Barlinnie. This way I choose where and when I die.’
‘I guess I’m right to think it was McGahern and Lillian who fucked you?’
‘Full fucking shaft.’ Gillespie lowered the gun again. He nodded when I asked if I could sit next to him. I could see his torso more clearly. He was right. There was no point in discussing it any more. ‘McGahern shot me. He executed those fucking soldiers. They didn’t die in a fire-fight. They was conscripts. Kids. Then he turned, calm as fuck, and shot me. But I got a shot off too. Missed the bastard, but he ran for it and drove off in the van. I took the car. Could hardly fucking drive. Dumped the car, waited till dark and walked here. The walk nearly fucking killed me. I was hoping you’d turn up.’
‘I kinda guessed you’d be here. Can I get you something? Water?’
Gillespie shook his head. ‘The only thing I want you to get me are those bastards. McGahern and his whore. She planned the whole fucking thing.’
‘Not McGahern?’
‘Naw. His idea. She put it all together. Now shut the fuck up and listen. I don’t have a lot of breathing left in me. And remember what I tell you. The Carpathian Queen. She’s one of the three ships McGahern’s been using. It sails at eleven the day after tomorrow. But the big payoff takes place tomorrow, noon. McGahern gives sight of the goods and gets half the money. Then the other half on delivery. The agent is a big fat Dutch fucker. We only ever called him The Fat Dutchman, but McGahern slipped once when he was talking to Lillian… he called the Dutchman De Jong. You have to watch the Dutchman: he has a couple of Arabs in tow. Dangerous bastards.’
‘One of them isn’t any more,’ I said. ‘We had an episode. I’ve ended his lineage.’
‘Watch your back anyway, Lennox. They’re all meeting at an empty warehouse on dock thirteen. Like I said,
