Vaulting over the dry-stone wall, I dropped down onto the lane, a thin grey ribbon of dusty earth between grassy banks. There was something about the lane and the evening light that made me feel I should be in a collarless shirt, sleeves rolled up and with a scythe over my shoulder. But that wouldn’t really be me: as a character I always thought of myself as more Leslie Charteris than Thomas Hardy. Ruddy-cheeked farm girls and frothy ale weren’t my thing. Although I’d probably give the ruddy-cheeked farm girls a go.
I put these bucolic musings out of my head and made my way along the lane at a steady, unhurried pace. There was no sign of Claire Skinner until I came to a bend in the lane. I could see her up ahead, about a hundred yards distant. I ducked behind the cover of the grassy bank and watched as she headed towards a farm cottage tucked into a tangle of bramble and bush. Scotland’s latitude made for long summer evenings, but the sun was low now and I would have expected to see a light from inside the cottage. There was none. Claire knocked on the door and had to wait for a minute or so before someone unseen to me admitted her.
I watched the cottage for five full minutes, just to make sure it wasn’t going to be a flying visit. Seeing as Claire had dismissed the taxi at the lane’s end, and the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere, my guess was Claire had no plans to make the return journey to Glasgow that night.
I considered my options. I would have a long loiter if I waited until it got truly dark before approaching the cottage; but in any kind of light I would be visible on the path a hundred yards away. Time enough to put a party together and shout ‘surprise!’ when I came in through the front door. I didn’t know what I was dealing with and it would be best to check it out unseen first.
Backtracking up the farm lane, I climbed over another stone wall and took a long, wide sweep around to the side and rear of the cottage where I was sure I’d be obscured by the bushes and brambles. It was my only option, but I felt exposed up on an elevated field and silhouetted against a shield of sunset sky. It took me five minutes to get into position around the back of the cottage. As I drew close, I could see that this was a camp-out. Much of the glass in the windows was cracked or broken and what wasn’t was fogged with grime. What I guessed had been a small vegetable garden at the back was now waist-high overgrown and I gently had to scythe my way through it, pushing the vegetation as quietly as possible from my path. By the time I reached the back door, I could hear voices from inside — this was not somewhere you would feel the need to whisper. The voices were urgent. Two voices. One male, one female.
Edging along the rough stone wall, I reached one of the small, grimy windows and peered in. I snapped my head back immediately when I realized that Claire Skinner was sitting directly in front of the window, with her back to it. I wasn’t able to see where the man was, but I could hear him talking. Then I heard Claire saying exactly what I’d been waiting for her to say since I had first started to follow her.
The name ‘Sammy’.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They both turned abruptly when I entered. Claire stood up so suddenly that the old chair she’d been sitting on crashed onto the grubby floor. The young man stood up too.
I had been wrong about there being no light on: a kerosene lamp sat on a table improvised from a crate, but its wick was turned so low that its light was dim and weak. Bright enough, though, for me to see that this was the kind of place you could call a hovel if you raised the tone sufficiently. A tumble of bedclothes and a large army-style knapsack were piled onto a low-slung camp bed in one corner, a primus stove sat next to a half dozen unopened cans on another crate. Empty cans and bottles lay piled in another corner. You had to be really scared to hide out this much.
I barely recognized Sammy Pollock as the cocky, smooth youth with the expensively barbered hair in the photograph Sheila Gainsborough had shown me. His dark hair was now lank and greasy and his jaw hadn’t seen a razor for several days. He looked unwashed and tired. There again, the facilities here were not all they could be. But there was something more to the tiredness that dulled his expression and draped itself around his frame: it was the high-tension, electric exhaustion of a man on the run.
‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ I said. ‘Fixer-upper?’
Sammy slipped a hand into his jacket pocket.
‘Did Largo send you?’ he asked.
‘Largo?’ I asked and smiled. I leaned forward and turned the flame on the kerosene lamp up. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked. ‘I’m doing a piece for Better Hovels and Gardens and I’d like to have a good look at the place.’ As I did so, I became aware that there were four of us in the room: me, Claire, Sammy and a two-and-a-half-feet-high, very green, very oriental demon. Or dragon. Or devil. Whatever he was, he was an ugly son-of-a-gun, for sure. He grinned at me, his long tongue lapping between jade fangs. Sammy saw me looking at it.
‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Tell Largo to leave me alone. I won’t go to the cops. I won’t do anything. Just take it and go.’
‘Thanks for the offer,’ I said, ‘but it would clash with my colour scheme. I’m not here about ornaments, I’m here for you.’ Whatever it was he had in his jacket pocket, he closed his hand around it. I tutted and shook my head. ‘Don’t even think about it. Sammy. You’re a big boy, but not big enough.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Claire, staring at me with wide, terrified eyes.
‘It’s okay, Claire. I’m the guy who wanted to talk to you about Sammy. I was hired to find him by his sister, Sheila Gainsborough. She’s been worried about him.’
Both their expressions changed and a sense of enormous relief filled the small, filthy cottage. The same kind of relief as if someone had found a whole bunch of lifeboats that no one had known about immediately after the Titanic had hit the iceberg. ‘I’m sure Paul Costello has told you all about me,’ I said. ‘Paul and I had a little chat before he followed you out of the limelight. Where is Costello, by the way?’
I got my answer. Someone was kind enough to switch out all of the lights so I could enjoy the firework display in my head better. After the fireworks, I went somewhere deep and dark and timeless.
I woke up in hell. Or at least that was the first thought I formed after my vision started to come together again. The demon I was looking up at hadn’t been carved out of jade. It was made of much sterner, tougher material.
‘What happened?’ I asked, even though I knew that Singer was incapable of answering. He helped me up to my feet. I was still in the cottage. Sammy, Claire and the little green god weren’t. Instead Twinkletoes McBride stood, hunched over because of the limited headroom. He looked like he was holding the whole roof up. Which probably wouldn’t have been a challenge. Willie Sneddon was there too, eyeing me maliciously and smoking a cigarette.
‘There’s an ashtray somewhere,’ I said as Singer eased me down into a sitting position on the crate-cum- table. ‘Don’t get ash on the carpet… I’ve just done the spring cleaning.’
‘You never tire of the wisecracks, Lennox?’ asked Sneddon.
‘I find them comforting in challenging times.’
I held my head in my hands, trying to keep it still and stop the pounding in my skull. I gingerly felt the back of my head. The skin hadn’t been broken but there was half an egg tucked behind my ear and it hurt like hell. I’d been sapped from behind. The kind of blow with a sap that can kill a man. I pictured the sap swinging through the air behind me and when I followed the imagined hand, arm and shoulder behind it, it led me to Costello’s face. I’d catch up with young Costello sooner or later. Then it would be party season.
I looked up at Sneddon and frowned; a thought suddenly hit me, which was becoming a habit. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Singer’s been on your tail for a while. Quiet, like,’ said Sneddon. Then with a malicious grin. ‘He’s good at that… quiet.’
‘Why d’you have Singer tailing me?’
‘Let’s call it insurance. I get all worked up about you maybes experiencing a crisis of interests.’
‘How did he-’
‘He had someone with him. Tam. Always does. He got Tam to drive into the nearest village and ’phone me. The rest he writes down for me. He said two men and a tart came out of here like bats out of hell. When Singer and Tam saw you didn’t, they came in and checked. Thought you was dead.’
