back up at my face. He smiled. It was a smile I didn’t like and I contemplated the ignominy of having the crap beaten out of me by an Old Age Pensioner.
‘Sorry,’ I said swiftly and held my hands up. ‘It’s just that I’m willing to pay for the information.’
He looked at my foot again and I removed it from the doorway.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you know… or did you know someone called Bert Soutar?’
‘Aye, I knew Soutar. What’s it got to do with you? You’re not police.’
‘No, no… nothing like that. I represent a group of investors who have an interest in a sporting event. Mr Soutar is involved with this event and we’re just doing a check into his background. You see, Mr Soutar has a criminal record.’
‘You don’t fucking say.’ Irony was not his strong suit.
‘I do say,’ I continued as if I had missed his sarcasm. ‘Not that that is, in itself, a problem. But we’d like to know the kind of people we’re dealing with. Did you know Mr Soutar well?’
‘You said you was willing to pay for information.’
I took out my wallet and handed him a five-pound note, keeping a second fiver in my hand. ‘Maybe we could…?’ I nodded along the hall.
‘If you like,’ said MacSherry, and he stood to one side to let me in.
The living room was small. Cramped. But again surprisingly clean. A large window with no curtains looked out over the street below and there was a bed recess, a typical feature in Glasgow tenements, in one wall. The furniture was cheap and worn but there was the occasional item that looked incongruously new and expensive, and I was surprised to see a small Pye television squashed into one corner of the room. It had a set-top aerial sitting on it, its twin extendable antennae each stretching at a wild angle from the other. I understood MacSherry’s reluctance to let me into the flat: the mix of new and old was the difference between the legitimately owned and the knocked off.
The fat woman whom I’d guessed was MacSherry’s wife left the room. It was clear that business was often conducted here.
‘Are you a fucking Yank?’ MacSherry had a charming, welcoming manner about him. I guessed I wasn’t going to be offered a cup of tea.
‘Canadian.’ I smiled. It was beginning to make my jaw ache. ‘About Soutar…’
‘He was a Billy Boy. And a boxer. He fought bare-knuckle. Hard cunt. I know what this is all about. It’s about his nephew. Bobby Kirkcaldy. That’s your fucking sporting event, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say, Mr MacSherry. Soutar was a member of the Bridgeton Billy Boys about the same time as you, is that right?’
‘Aye. I didn’t know him that well, though. He was a mental bastard with a razor in his hand, I can tell you that. And with his fists. But then when it got all military, you know, when the Billy Boys started having morning drills and stuff like that, he fucked off. He hated fucking Fenians but he liked making money more. He was still boxing though. It was after he cut them coppers, that was him finished.’
‘I thought you said he’d left the Billy Boys?’
‘He had. This wasn’t a rammy. It was after a match, right enough, but he was breaking into a credit union. He had some fucking mad idea that the mounted polis would be too busy dealing with the rammy. But two coppers caught him in the back close of the building. From what I heard, Soutar got lippy with them and they was going to give him a bit of a doing. That was his biggest problem, too fucking mouthy for his own good. Anyways, he always kept two razors in his waistcoat pockets. The two cops made a move on him and he cut them both. Popped an eye on one. You seen the state of his face?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He must have taken more than his fair share of beatings in the ring.’
‘That’s got fuck all to do with boxing. Bert Soutar was too light on his feet to get battered like that in the ring or in a bare-knuckle fight. No, that was the fucking polis that did that to him. They half-killed him. Took fucking turns with him. You see, it was a message… you don’t cut a Cossack.’ MacSherry referred to the Sillitoe Cossacks, the gang-busting mounted police squad set up by the then Chief Constable of Glasgow, Percy Sillitoe. ‘When Soutar came out of prison he gave up the Billy Boys. Apparently he was a model prisoner inside and got out after six years. And he came out with big ideas. He said he wasn’t interested in the Billy Boys any more. He said there was no money in it. And he was finished as a boxer. The beatings he took in prison fucked up his face. He couldn’t take any more damage, and couldn’t get a licence ’cause of his face and ’cause he was an ex-con. It was about then that he started hanging around with some Flash Harry who filled his head with all kinds of money-making schemes.’
‘Who was the Flash Harry?’
‘I didn’t know him at the time. He wasn’t from Bridgeton and I think he was younger than us. Quite a bit younger. But, like I say, flash as fuck. Soutar and this bloke got into the boxing game for a while. Fixing up fights, in more ways than one if you get my fucking drift. Never saw him after that, but I don’t think the partnership lasted. Soutar just disappeared and MacFarlane became a big fucking success.’
‘MacFarlane?’
‘Aye. Small Change MacFarlane. That was the Flash Harry. Became a big-time bookie. Fuck all good it did him considering he ended up having his coupon smashed to fuck.’
I sat and nodded as if I had been processing the information, hiding the fact that a dozen possible combinations of people and events were now running through my head. The flat door was still open and I heard voices out on the hall. The old fat woman and a male voice. Time to go. I stood up and handed MacSherry the other five pounds.
‘It’s not enough,’ he said.
‘What?’ I put on my best confused expression. I wasn’t confused at all.
‘Another ten.’
‘You’ve been paid for your time, Mr MacSherry. More than adequately paid.’
He stood up. I heard a sound behind me and turned to see the collarless sentinel had been the voice out on the landing and was now blocking my exit through the hallway. He smiled maliciously at me.
‘Another ten. Hand it over. In fact, let me save you a lot of trouble. Just hand over your fucking wallet.’
I weighed up the situation. Sticky. The old guy would have been tough enough to deal with on his own, but the younger man tipped the scales well and truly against me.
I shrugged.
‘Okay. I’ll give you all the money in my wallet. It’s nothing to me. I just claim it back from the investors I was telling you about.’ I frowned pensively then made out as if an idea had suddenly struck me. ‘Why don’t I just get them to come and see you in person. You can sort out remuneration with them. Mr William Sneddon is my employer. Mr Jonathan Cohen is the other investor.’ I kept my tone friendly, as if I really didn’t mean it as the threat it was. ‘I know Mr Sneddon is very angry about people interfering in his business arrangements. So I’m sure he’ll take your request for more payment seriously. Very seriously.’
MacSherry looked over my shoulder at the younger guy and then back at me. ‘Why didn’t you say you worked for Mr Sneddon? Maybe you’re just pissing down my back and telling me it’s raining.’
‘If there’s a working callbox anywhere in this shithole, then we can take a wander to it and you can ask him yourself. Or I could simply ask for Twinkletoes McBride to come down here and convince you of my credentials.’ I dropped the friendly tone. It was a careful balancing act. Some people don’t have the sense to know when to be scared. I’d have bet my last penny on MacSherry being one of them.
He gave a jerk of his head in a signal for the younger man to let me past.
‘Thanks for your help, Mr MacSherry.’ I turned and walked out of the flat casually and unhurriedly.
But I didn’t take my hand from the sap in my pocket until I was out on the street and around the first corner.
CHAPTER EIGHT
By the time I had waited for a tram it was nearly six before I got back to my office. It was turning into another oppressive evening, the air clinging, humid and heavy, and I felt my shirt collar damp at the nape of my
