‘So it would be reasonably easy to hide it in other stuff and lose it in a ship’s cargo manifest,’ I said, imagining a small rank of ugly jade demons.
‘I told you that already. It’s like the A-bomb. Small package but big punch when it hits the streets. What you got, Lennox?’
‘Maybe nothing… A hunch… that’s all at the moment. But I think part of Largo’s last shipment was stolen by some of the local boys. Amateurs who are scared out of their wits. It means I might be able to give you Largo and some of the dope.’
‘Lennox, if you’re sure about this…’
‘I’m not, Dex. I’m not sure of anything. Like I say, a hunch, and it would waste your time chasing it. If it turns out to be worthwhile, I’ll hand over everything to you and you can lead the local police by the hand to make the arrests. But I need to get someone out of the picture first. Thanks for the gen, Dex. I’ll be in touch.’
I hung up before Devereaux could pressure me any more. I was putting a picture together in my head and I needed to concentrate. I also needed time to follow up a few things.
There was one thing getting in the way of everything: Small Change MacFarlane’s murder. It nagged and nagged at me and I couldn’t work out why. I had all but accused Maggie MacFarlane of a bedclothes entanglement with Jack Collins, but I had no reason to imagine it as anything more than that. I somehow couldn’t cast Jack Collins as a smitten Walter Neff, and Maggie, although she was a satisfying piece of art, was no Barbara Stanwyck. I had asked Lorna, as subtly as I could, about insurance policies and a will. Both Maggie and, to a much lesser extent Collins, would benefit right enough, but the lion’s share went to Lorna. Under Scottish Law, Maggie, as the surviving widow, would have a reasonable case in challenging MacFarlane’s provisions but, according to Lorna who certainly was not free from suspecting her stepmother, Maggie had made no suggestion that she would.
But it all still bothered me.
I’m paid to stick my nose in. More often than not, I’m paid to stick it in where noses aren’t welcome. My most irritating habit was sticking my nose in where it wasn’t welcome when I wasn’t being paid for it. When I walked into the Vinegarhill camp, my nose had never felt so shunned. I was seriously concerned that it was going to be put out of joint.
I had performed an act of faith parking the car in Molendinar Street, trying not to think what odds Tony the Pole would give me against it being in one piece, or even being there, when I got back to it. The traveller camp was set up on a barren, grubby walled square, entered by a double iron gate, permanently open, next to the sugar works. There were a handful of modern touring, car-drawn caravans, but the vast majority were the traditional vardo or burton wagons: painted, horse-drawn jobs with arched roofs, that went hand-in-hand with everybody’s romantic image of gypsies. The rough humps of bender tents domed between some of the wagons.
There was no enticing odour of simmering goulash or impassioned violin-playing to accompany my arrival. These travellers did not hail from the Hungarian plain or Carpathian mountains, unless the Hungarian plain and the Carpathian mountains had a view of Galway Bay. And the most romantic thing I saw were two unleashed mongrels copulating over by the works’ wall. A handful of kids without shoes rampaged about the camp, and I was aware that a couple of young men had moved in behind me as soon as I had entered the yard.
That would normally be my cue to reach for my sap but, in a place like this with people like these, it would have been an inadvisable move. A painfully inadvisable move. Instead, I would have to talk my way out of here, like the cavalry captain with the white flag sent into the Indian encampment to parley. I strode across to where an older man leaned against a wagon, smoking a pipe. As I did so I passed a vardo wagon with the shutters drawn and deep crimson ribbons wrapped around the shafts and tongue.
‘I’m looking for Tommy Furie’s father,’ I said, when I reached the old man. ‘Could you tell me where I could find him?’
‘The Baro? What do you want with him? Who the fuck are you?’ The old man stopped leaning and took the pipe from his mouth. He spat a greeny viscous glob which splashed close to my shoe. Jimmy Stewart or Randolph Scott were never treated like this.
‘Like I said, I want to talk to him. And I’m pretty sure he’ll be very keen to talk to me. Now, do you know where I can find him or not?’ I was aware that the two youths had positioned themselves behind me, at either shoulder. The old man jerked his head in the direction of one of the modern-style caravans, the largest on site. I nodded and walked over to it, leaving my honour guard behind.
Sean Furie was a big man in his fifties. He was tall, and had probably been heavily muscled when younger, but had turned to fat. His full head of jet black hair was without a trace of grey and was oiled and combed back from a huge face. He and Uncle Bert Soutar had obviously gone to the same place for their nose jobs. The difference with Furie was that the tip of his nose was swollen and red and river-mapped with purplish capillaries. Romany rosacea, I decided to call it — the effects of bare knuckle and bare alcohol.
I told him who I was and what I wanted to talk to him about. I braced myself for his reaction, but it took me off guard anyway. Furie was remarkably soft-spoken and politely asked me into his caravan. There was a distinctive odour inside the caravan. Not dirty or unpleasant, just distinctive. The caravan seemed huge in comparison to the vardos I’d seen outside. It was wood-panelled and had a small kitchen, a lounge, and a room closed off by a door. I assumed the bedroom lay through there.
Sitting at the far end on a built-in sofa was a large, dark-haired, doleful-looking woman in her forties. We sat and, without word or glance, she stood up and left the wagon, squeezing past me to reach the door. It was an accustomed exit; it was clear that when Furie had business to do, the womenfolk left. He offered me a whisky and I took it.
‘I saw some ribbons tied onto one of the wagons as I came in. Red ribbons.’ I decided to be conversational. It often paid to ease into the main business. ‘Is that a celebration thing?’
‘You could say…’ Furie gave a bitter laugh. ‘We’ll have the same on this wagon soon. When they hang my boy.’
‘Oh… I see.’
‘It symbolizes death,’ explained Furie. ‘And mourning. Red and white are the Romany colours for mourning.’
‘Who died?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a Nachin family I don’t know.’
‘Nachin?’
‘Scottish gypsy. We’re Minceir, from Ireland. The travellers from England are called Romanichals and the ones from Wales are called Kale. But everyone here is either Minceir or Nachin.’
‘I see,’ I said. I lit a cigarette and offered him one, which he took but tucked behind his ear.
‘They’re going to hang my boy for something he never done, Mr Lennox,’ Furie said in his soft brogue. ‘It’s a fit-up, that’s what it is. Then you’ll see the red ribbons on this caravan.’
‘Tommy hasn’t even stood trial yet, Mr Furie, far less been found guilty and sentenced. If he didn’t do it, then they’ll find it difficult to prove he did,’ I lied.
‘Well, he never done it. But that’s just what you expect me to say anyway, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You think that I’d deny it even if I knew he done it. We’re all liars and thieves, after all. Isn’t that right?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But you was thinking it anyway, wasn’t you?’
‘As a matter of fact I wasn’t. I don’t know anything for sure. But there’s something bothering me about MacFarlane’s murder. Maybe your son is being framed for it, but if he is, who by and how?’
‘He’s a traveller. That’s all the reason they need.’
‘With the greatest respect, no, it isn’t. There’s much more to this than your son being the wrong type in the wrong place at the wrong time. What do the police say happened?’
Furie ran through it all. Tommy Furie had been one of the boxers whom Small Change MacFarlane had been involved with developing. Reading between the lines, Small Change had been organizing bare-knuckle bouts and running a book on them, and it struck me that there was maybe another reason behind Sneddon wanting me to find any hidden log kept by the deceased bookie. I wondered who had started the regular bouts out at Sneddon’s recently acquired Dunbartonshire farm. Sean Furie explained that his son had started to work as a sparring partner at a couple of the gyms and that Small Change had gotten him a number of legitimate ring fights. Small Change was notoriously tight with his cash and there had been a dispute over payment for a bout. Tommy Furie had complained to Small Change, several times, and in front of witnesses.
