‘He was at the gym that night that MacFarlane was murdered,’ said Sean Furie. ‘It was one of his regular nights. He got a ’phone call at the gym telling him to go up to MacFarlane’s house to collect the money he was due for the fight.’
‘MacFarlane ’phoned him?’ I asked.
‘No. It was someone who worked for him. Or so he said. Tommy didn’t get a name. Or can’t remember. Tommy’s a good boy, but not too clever.’
‘I see,’ I said, trying to hide my surprise at the revelation.
‘Tommy went up to the house. He’d never been there before but had the address like. So he went up. Got the tram there and back. He said no one answered when he knocked but the front door was open. He went into the room and found MacFarlane on the floor. Dead. Tommy’s not as tough as you’d think and he panicked. On the way out he knocked over a lamp and picked it up to put it back.’
‘So the police have his fingerprints on the lamp?’
‘Aye, they have.’
‘What else do the coppers say they’ve got on him?’
‘The tram conductress remembered him on the way back. All agitated like. And they’ve got his fingerprints at the house. In the room where MacFarlane was murdered.’
‘That’s it?’
‘It’s enough,’ said Furie, ‘to convict a pikey.’
‘No it’s not. What does the lawyer say?’
‘To plead guilty so he doesn’t get hung.’
‘Brilliant…’ I shook my head. ‘I suggest you get another lawyer.’
With the kind of thing I had planned — the kind of thing that could end you up on the wrong side of a set of sturdy bars — preparation was everything.
I had a small black holdall, which I brought through to the living room and placed on the table. Taking a double page out of the Glasgow Herald, I laid it out next to the holdall. I put a set of heavy-duty wire cutters, a pair of black leather gloves and a black turtleneck sweater into the holdall. I had two corks saved from empty bottles. Taking one at a time, I lit a match and set light to them, allowing them to smoulder for a good while before blowing them out and setting them down to cool. In the meantime, I placed the rest of my toolkit in the holdall: a pair of black plimsolls, a bicycle lamp, a short crowbar-style tyre lever and both my saps.
Once the charred corks had cooled I folded them neatly into the sheet of newspaper and placed them in the holdall. I paused for a moment to reflect on my highly professional selection of equipment. If I were to be stopped by a policeman curious enough to look in my bag, there was enough in there to get me a three-month stretch for intent.
I had deliberately chosen a darker suit, which was probably too heavyweight for this time of year but appropriate for what I had planned for later.
I had a lot of time to kill before I could put my plan into action, but I had to load the stuff into the car now rather than have Fiona White hear me leave the house in the dead of night.
I dumped the bag in the trunk of the Atlantic and drove to the MacFarlane place in Pollokshields, picking Lorna up about seven. I took her to the Odeon Cinema in Sauchiehall Street, where we watched Gregory Peck in The Million Pound Note. A trip to the pictures may have seemed inappropriate, but I was trying to take her mind off her troubles, if only for a couple of hours.
Lorna didn’t say much before, during or after the picture and thanked me politely without inviting me in when I dropped her off. As I was leaving, I noticed Jack Collins’s Lanchester parked in the drive.
Willie Sneddon was a man of habit. Exact habit. Sometimes peculiar habit.
I had arranged to meet with him at the Victoria Baths, where he regularly took a steam bath and swim. The Victoria Baths was a temple of sandstone, marble and porcelain in the west end of the city. It had a swimming pool beneath an Italianate cupola, Turkish baths, steam room, massage tables and a lounge. It was a private club but members could sign in guests. A lot of the guests who were signed in here were Corporation councillors and officials, senior cops and the odd MP. Most left with their pockets heavy. There were allegedly more planning permissions, and public house and club licences granted here than in the City Chambers.
I waited for Sneddon in the foyer. I never swam in the Baths myself, and certainly never in any of the municipal pools, ever since I discovered that ‘swimming pool’ and ‘urinal’ are synonyms in Glaswegian. At least I had company while I waited: Twinkletoes McBride was already there, intimidating the staff and passing bathers. It was purely unintentional and passive; he was intimidating sitting down.
‘How’s it going, Mr Lennox?’ he asked cheerily, when he looked up and saw me; then with an alarmingly sudden change to grave asked, ‘Any news about wee Davey?’
‘They won’t tell me anything because I’m not a relative but I went in to see him today. He’s bearing up.’
‘You find out who did that to wee Davey and I’ll sort the fuckers out, Mr Lennox. Big toes too. And don’t worry, I’ll do it gracious.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘ Gracious…’ Twinkle frowned. ‘No charge…’
‘Ah… you mean gratis.’
‘Aye. That. They have it coming… what they did to Davey was reppy-hen-stable.’
I formed the word reprehensible in my mouth but kept it there: there was no point in correcting him further. And, as I’d already mentioned to Sneddon, I was rather attached to my toes.
‘I appreciate it, Twinkle,’ I said, and smiled.
‘My pleasure. How’s everything else going?’ Twinkletoes was leaning forward, elbows on knees, turning his smile to me. It was a huge wide smile in a huge wide head between huge wide shoulders. Twinkletoes was friendly bulk that could be turned into unfriendly bulk at the flick of a switch. ‘I heard you was going around with a posh bit of skirt,’ he said.
For a moment I thought he meant Sheila Gainsborough. Then I twigged. ‘Oh, yes… Lorna MacFarlane. Small Change’s daughter. She does have a bit of class. Unusual around here. A bit of class and a little sophistication. I go for that in a woman.’
‘Aye? Personally I go for big tits and a fanny tighter than a Fifer’s fist.’
I didn’t get a chance to frame an answer before the Victorian stained-glass panel doors that joined the foyer to the main part of the baths swung open and Sneddon, in an expensive wide-shouldered camel sports coat, tieless and with his shirt’s top button undone, emerged pink-faced and flanked by another of his heavies.
‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’ he asked facetiously, noticing that I was somewhat lost for words.
‘No… I was just getting a few romantic tips from Charles Boyer here.’
Sneddon went across to reception and scribbled into the log that lay open on the desk.
‘I’ve signed you in,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get a drink. Twinkle
… you and Tam wait here. I won’t be long.’
Sneddon led me through into a large clubroom. It was the kind of place where they could have cut down on the decorating costs by simply wallpapering it with five-pound notes. If anything, it was more over-the-top than the Merchants’ Carvery. The furniture was all polished hardwood and leather and the velvet drapes were a deep crimson. The walls were dressed in flock wallpaper — burgundy red fleur-de-lis against cream damask — so thick you could vacuum it. A vast onyx-type marble fireplace dominated one wall. I imagined that this was what hell looked like if you had a first-class ticket.
Sneddon led the way to a corner at the far side and sat down on two-and-a-half cows’ worth of red leather. I sat across the coffee table from him, on the rest of the herd. There were deep red velvet drapes behind us and I felt as if we were in a crimson cave.
‘Listen, Mr Sneddon… you’ve hired me to do a job. But you can’t ask me to do a job and then give me only half the story. You’re holding back vital information. I understand that you’ve got your interests to protect and there are some things I’d probably be better off not knowing, but in this case it means I’ve been up more blind alleys than a Blythswood Square floozy.’ I paused while a burgundy-jacketed waiter came over with two malt whiskies on a silver tray. I waited until he had gone before continuing. ‘The police have got Tommy Gun Furie for Small Change’s murder. And it looks to me like a set-up. More than that, it looks to me like a very well-thought-out set-up. Timing was everything with this. Tommy Furie was summoned to MacFarlane’s by someone calling the gym he trained in. Someone knew he was going to be in the gym at that time on that night and that they could get a message to him.
