Murphy found God, relinquished control of his outfit and last I heard was sequestered in a seminary studying to become a priest.
All of which, of course, is total crap: Twinkletoes still tortures, Tiny Semple still looms menacingly for a living and Hammer Murphy is still the concentrated nucleus of hate at the heart of his violent little empire.
Different day, same shite, as they say in Glasgow.
But I was never free of the image of Helena Gersons lying with her face blown off. No one told me if she had been working for the Israelis or not. But there again, no one told me if Jonny had, either. Not that I think either had been a spy or an agent or crap like that. I just think that, after what had happened during the war, they had become part of something big that I would never fully understand. But whatever her involvement, I couldn’t forget Helena. While I had been recovering in Israel, the pain of what happened to her became anger and the anger became hate. I had burned with the need to get even.
When I got back I didn’t tell anyone for a couple of months or so. Other than my landlady, Mrs White, and Jonny, that is. Mrs White had kept my place for me and had even seemed better disposed towards me despite my prolonged and without-warning absence. It turned out that Jonny had called in and explained that he had engaged me at short notice to investigate an urgent security problem he had in one of his distant foreign operations. He had paid six months’ rent in advance plus a bonus for the inconvenience. When I returned bearing a tan that was impossible to pick up in Britain, Mrs White had clearly abandoned what doubts she may have had. I think Jonny’s handsome outward respectability and the idea of an overseas posting convinced her that my work was, at least in part, above board. And the cash would have helped.
When I got back into my digs I checked that everything was where it should be: my Niebelungsgold hoard and the stash of sterling and dollars I’d relieved from Tam McGahern’s bathtub hiding place. What I had to do next was expensive, but there was more than enough to cover it. And anyway, for once I don’t give a fuck about coming out of this with my pockets lined.
I made sure that it stayed that Jonny and Mrs White were the only people who knew I was back. I steered clear of the Horsehead Bar and I left the Atlantic parked outside my digs where it had been parked throughout my absence and got Jonny to lend me a less conspicuous car. He did so without asking and I think he knew all along what I was going to do.
It took me six weeks to find Lillian Andrews. Not that that was what she was calling herself. As I had expected, the trail had been difficult to pick up. But I did pick it up. I would have found her earlier if I’d not had to keep such a low profile. But as Mr Morrison had pointed out, I’m a natural stalker. Lillian had moved south, to England. The accent had changed as had the appearance, this time without the benefit of plastic surgery. But it’s amazing what hair dye and a change of wardrobe can do. I established her movements and kept a detailed log. After a week I drove all the way back to Scotland without stopping.
So now I’m standing in the rain in a churchyard looking down at a grave. Whose grave? That I don’t know because the name has been abraded by Scotland’s corrosive climate. And anyway, it doesn’t matter: it’s not the occupant of the grave who interests me, you see. Instead I reach down and ease up a broken corner of stone and take out the tobacco tin hidden beneath it. I place a piece of paper in the tin and replace it under the stone. I turn my back to Kirk o’ Shotts and head back into the valley.
What’s on the piece of paper I have left behind? Just the number of the Horsehead Bar and the day and time I can be reached there. Mr Morrison will know who to ask for. And I still have the cash I found beneath Tam McGahern’s bathtub.
Funny thing is, I always considered myself too cynical to go in for revenge.
