‘I’m looking for a bit of information.’
‘Vell you’ff come to ze right place… I know my onions.’ He laughed his girlish laugh and indicated his counter stock with an open-armed gesture.
We were interrupted by a small woman in a headscarf, pinnie and faded tartan baffies — as carpet slippers, for some reason light years beyond my ken, were known in Glasgow. She was somewhere between thirty and eighty. Glaswegians generally bypassed middle age, taking the direct road from youth to decrepitude. The indeterminately aged woman placed her order and Tony snapped open a bag with the kind of theatricality that only greengrocers and stage conjurors seem to attach to paper bags. He dropped the onions into it and, with the same conjurer’s flourish, spun the bag around to seal it.
‘Zere you go, hen…’ Tony beamed as he handed the bag to the woman in slippers. She shuffled from the shop.
‘Vad kind of invormation?’ he asked after she was gone.
‘This is all very discreet, Tony. Just between you and me… No one will know that you are my source. I just need to know if anyone’s been trying to tout a big bet on the Bobby Kirkcaldy-Jan Schmidtke fight. I mean a serious wager.’ I was relying on Tony’s good will. No bribe or threat here: it was always easier if your source was poor or yellow.
‘Oh aye, here vee vucking go… “Between you and me”, my Silesian arze… You’re vorking for one of ze Zree vucking Kings, I’ll bet. Who zent you here, Villie Zneddun?’ said Tony. It was like having a conversation with Count MacCula.
I ignored the question. ‘That’s not important, Tony. Has anybody been trying to lay over the odds on Bobby Kirkcaldy losing?’
‘Naw. I vould have heard about it. I’d have had to broker it wiz zome o’ ze bigger buoys…’ The skin on his brow corrugated, the limit of his frown indicating the ghost of a long-dead hairline. ‘Hold on… zere vas something. A couple of wee gobshites…’ Tony pronounced the insult ghubzhides. ‘Zey vere in ze Zaracen’s Zord… about zree veeks ago. Zey vere comin’ ze big bollogs…’
I knew the Saracen’s Sword, the pub Tony referred to. He used it as an informal office much in the same way I used the Horsehead Bar.
‘And they wanted to place a bet?’
‘Naw… no’ qvite. Zey made oot zat zey vere just interested in finding oot vat vey it vood vork. Zey vere a couple of vee bambots acting ze big bollogs, like I zaid. I got ze impression zat zey didn’t have ze money to lay a big bet, but zey vere expectink to get ze money.’
‘Where from?’ I asked and only through a monumental effort resisted the impulse to turn my ‘w’ into a ‘v’.
‘Vuck knows, Lennogs. I zink zey vere just talkin’ shite. Ken vat I mean?’
‘But they were talking about placing a bet against Bobby Kirkcaldy?’
‘Naw… I didnae zay zat. Zey didnae zay vat vay zey vanted to bet. Zey just vanted to know who vould take on a big bet like zat. I didnae pay zat much attention tae zem, tae be honest. Like I zaid, zey vere just a couple o’ vee vankers talking shite, like.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘Zat it vould be me vot vould broker a big bet like that. Get ze big buoys involved. Me or Zmall Change MacFarlane. But zat vas bevore Zmall Change got his coupon stoved in.’
‘Small Change MacFarlane?’ I felt a tingle in my scalp.
‘Aye… ’course I vould normally zend zem to Zmall Change. But ze only bet Zmall Change iz takin’ now is who’z next to get it up ze arze viz ze devil’s pitchfork…’ Tony chuckled more than giggled this time.
‘Have the police been to see you since the murder?’
‘The Polis? Naw… zey dinae bother wiz me. As far as zey’re concerned I’ve nae got a record. Zey dinnae know half ze shite I’ve been up to. And everybody kens zat I’m straight noo.’
‘So these two young wideboys… do you know who they are? Did you recognize them?’
‘Naw. A couple ov vucking Flash Harrys, iv you azk me. Didn’t pay much attention to zem, ken vot I mean?’
‘Okay, thanks, Tony.’ I shook his hand and made to leave. Something occurred to me and I turned back to the short, smiling Pole. ‘What do you know about Jack Collins? He was Small Change’s partner in a couple of businesses.’
‘Aye… Did you know he vos also MacFarlane’s bairn? Illegitimate bairn? Zmall Change and Mamma Collins had been playin’ a vee game ov hide-ze- kielbasa, as vee used tae zay back in ze ol’ country.’
‘Was that common knowledge?’
‘Oh aye… Everybody knew zat. I’ve never had vuck all to do vid young Collins, zough.’
‘One other thing. Bobby Kirkcaldy has a minder of sorts. Claims he’s his uncle…’
‘Oh aye… I ken zat old skurvysyn vell.’
‘ Skurvysyn? ’ I asked. I had been concentrating hard, untangling the Breslau from the Glasgow in each of Tony’s utterances, but he’d taken me beyond any recognizable landmark.
‘Aye… skurvysyn. Bad vord in Polish. How do you zay in English? Fucker… no. Zat’s no’ right. Arzehole… Maybes. Vanker? No, zat iznae right eezer. Zon of a Bitch…’
‘All right, I get it Tony…’ I held my hands up. ‘What do you know about him?’
‘Just zat he’s a bad bastart. Bare kinuckle fighter vay back ven. Zen he vos a fixer. Used to fix boxing matches by scaring ze shite out ov fighters. Bad vee bastart no mistake. But zere’s no vay he vould be involved in fixing up Kirkcaldy’s fight. Or at least so zat it vent against Kirkcaldy. He kens vat side his vucking bread iss buddered.’
‘Thanks, Tony. See you around.’
‘Vaddya zay? Vaddya hear? Eh, Lennogs?’
I left the beaming Pole behind his counter. I still hadn’t got anywhere, but someone was playing with the light switch in that small, dark room at the back of my brain.
I tried Lorna again from a call box. Still no answer. I was becoming seriously concerned and I decided that once I’d done all I had to do that day, I’d take a drive down to Pollokshields and see what, as Tony would have put it, voz occurin’.
I drove up into Partick, parked on Thornwood Drive and walked to Craithie Court. There was a pleasant, late afternoon light and I had that cloyingly melancholy feeling again. The Young Women’s Hostel in Craithie Court was off Thornwood at the top of a gentle hill and I had a view down the street, a corridor of sandstone tenements, to where the forest of cranes marked the edge of the Clyde. There were more cars parked in the streets here and cars were beginning to change the shape of the area. For the last six years there had been plans to dig a tunnel under the Clyde to make it easier to move from north to south. Whether the local inhabitants were keen that Govan, on the opposite bank of the Clyde, should have such ease of access to Partick was something I couldn’t comment on.
When I got to the Hostel, I knocked on the administrative office door. Difficult though it was to believe, I did have some hard and fast moral codes and rules of behaviour, one of which was that I would never hit a woman. The matron who answered the door was one of the best arguments for my moral stance I had encountered. Burly isn’t an adjective normally attached to women, but it stuck to the hostel matron like crap to a shirt-tail and I would never have hit a woman like her for fear she might hit me back. She was dressed in a dark grey suit of tweed so abrasive that I was sure some religious order somewhere must use it for mortification.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked. I didn’t answer right away, mesmerized as I was by the way her eyebrows knitted themselves together above the bridge of her nose and by the rich baritone of her voice. I explained that I was looking for Claire Skinner, and that it was business-related.
‘Then you’ll have to arrange to meet her somewhere else. No male visitors here.’
Such steadfast but ill-placed guardianship of virginity brought to mind empty stables with locked doors. I brought all of my weapons to bear on Hairy Mary, including my not-inconsiderable homespun Canadian charm. None of them worked on her and she raised an eyebrow, or more correctly one half of her cyclopean eyebrow in weary disdain. I decided, because I had a Plan B up my sleeve, to drop it for the moment. I shrugged as if it had been no skin off my nose but big trouble for someone else and made to leave. She let me. She’d seen that trick, along with all the others, before.
