The Deep Dark Sleep

but he’s flown home early. We have kept the booking open in case we needed it. I guess tonight we do.’

‘I’ll pay, of course …’

‘No need.’ She took a long, thin cigarette of a brand I’d never seen before from a specially made silver case. I held out a light for her the instant it met her lips. She took a draw and nodded a perfunctory thanks. ‘It’s paid for whether you use it or not. And, anyway, you’re working for Mr Macready. Just tonight?’

‘Just tonight.’

‘Was there anything else, Mr Lennox?’ She frowned at me over her sipped daiquiri, as if my presence was seriously compromising her enjoyment of it.

‘As a matter of fact there was. How much do you know about why I’ve been employed by the studio? About Mr Macready’s situation?’

‘Everything,’ she said blankly. ‘I am Mr Macready’s personal assistant. To do my job, I need to know everything that’s going on, good or bad. I am how Mr Macready connects with everybody and everything around him.’

I was about to say he’d done some pretty enthusiastic connecting himself, but let it slide. ‘Did you know about his … tastes before this incident?’

‘Of course.’ A little defiance now. And resentment.

‘Where were you when Macready was at the cottage with his friend?’

‘I was at the hotel. Not this hotel … the one up north. Up past that big lake. We were there for the shooting.’

‘And Macready gave you the night off?’

‘That’s right. He was in the bar of the hotel drinking with Iain.’

‘When I asked him about it, he said it was a spur of the moment decision to go to the cottage.’

‘That’s what he told me,’ she said, holding me in a blue glacier gaze. ‘Iain’s family owned the estate we were shooting on and the cottage was one he used now and again. He paints, you see. An artist.’ She said the word with disdain. ‘Mr Macready said that Iain suggested they go to the cottage to continue drinking.’

‘But as a guest of the hotel, Macready could order drinks after closing time …’

Leonora Bryson shrugged. ‘I don’t think drinking was what was on either of their minds. Why is this so important?’

‘Have you seen the photographs?’

A split second of outrage, then the storm passed. ‘No, Mr Lennox, I haven’t.’

‘I have. I had to. They were taken with some kind of hidden camera. In a wall void or something. I can’t tell for sure because the other party … Iain … is not, I’ve been told, to be made aware of this difficulty. That means I can’t examine the cottage. But it was an elaborate set-up. That means organization. Planning in advance.’

‘And that doesn’t fit with them going to the cottage being a spur of the moment thing … is that what you’re saying?’

‘Exactly. But that leads to the conclusion that his Lordship’s — or is it his Dukeship’s? — son and heir was in on the setup. And that simply doesn’t make any sense at all. He — and his father — have as much to lose as John Macready. More, probably.’

‘So where does that leave you?’

‘Tracking down the blackmailer. Paul Downey. Believe it or not, Miss Bryson, this city is a tough place to stay hidden in. And I’ve got the kind of contacts who can tell me exactly where to look.’

‘So why haven’t you spoken to these contacts? Shouldn’t you be bumping into more mysterious objects in the smog, instead of sitting here?’

‘It’s not as simple as that. These contacts I have are, to be frank, criminals. If there’s a crooked way of making a buck, then these guys have done it. With something as delicate as this, I have to be careful about what I say and to whom.’ I noticed she had finished her daiquiri and beckoned to the waiter. ‘May I get you another?’

‘No.’ When the waiter came over she ignored my protests and told him to put the drinks on her room bill. ‘I’ll ask reception to give you the key for the room.’

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll nip over to my office, if I can find it in the fog, and pick up my bags.’

‘Bags?’ She arched an eyebrow.

‘I keep some stuff in my office.’

It was a lame answer and she saw through it. I could see her reappraising the wound on my cheek.

‘Mr Lennox, I do hope that we can rely on you. I have to tell you that I was not in favour of you being hired. From what Mr Fraser told us about you, you have a lot of colour in your background. I wouldn’t like to think that that colour could interfere with you sorting this mess out for us.’

‘It won’t. For your information, Miss Bryson, it is exactly that colour that could lead me to Downey and the photographs. May I ask you a question?’

She shrugged.

‘What is it about me that you dislike so intensely?’

‘I’ve not given you that amount of thought, Mr Lennox. But if you’re going to push me on it, there isn’t anything in particular I dislike about you. It’s probably true to say that I dislike everything about you.’

I smiled. ‘How wonderfully simple yet all-embracing.’

‘I think you have made all kinds of judgements about John. You think of him as less of a man because of what he is. Well, I can tell you that John Macready is more of a man than you’ll ever be. I can tell to look at you the type you are. Arrogant, pushy, violent. You use women and have no conscience about it. You had only met me for a few minutes and you tried your moves on me. Men like you make me sick.’

‘I see,’ I said and drained my drink. ‘If I ask you for a reference after this job is over, would you mind awfully leaving that bit out?’

She laughed, but it was a twisted laugh full of distaste. ‘And you think you’re so funny. So smart. Well, make sure you’re smart enough to sort this mess out, because I’m going to make sure you don’t get a penny more until you do. Good night, Mr Lennox.’ Turning abruptly, she marched out of the lounge.

I stood there, somewhat stung by her comprehensive character assassination of me.

But it didn’t stop me watching her ass as she walked off.

I brought my cases over from my office and a porter carried them up to the room for me. I tipped him too much as I always tended to do when dealing with Glaswegians. They always chatted and joked with you, and the fact that they weren’t doing it for the tip, just because it was in their nature, always made you tip more.

The room was a smaller encapsulation of the luxury I’d seen in Macready’s suite and I decided, not for the first time, that I was definitely in the wrong business. Once I was alone, I locked the door and slid the heavy safety chain into place. Opening my suitcases, I took out the bundle and the copy of The Shape of Things to Come and laid them on the bed. I unwrapped the shirt and the oilskin from the bundle and took out the heavy, top-break Webley thirty-eight and the box of ammunition. After I’d loaded it, I thumbed down the safety, rewrapped it in the oilskin and shirt and put it back in the case. I spent more time with the copy of H.G. Wells’s chef d’oeuvre. I opened it and checked the contents: the pages had been hollowed out and in it were tightly rolled fifty-pound notes and a small bag with a handful of diamonds.

This was my Nibelungengold. It had started off with the money I had made in Germany. I had been lucky to get out of the occupation zone with it: the military police had neither understood nor appreciated my spirit of private enterprise or my trailblazing in establishing post-war trading partnerships with the Germans. Then, while I had been in Glasgow, I had been able to add to my little trust fund significantly, given the fact that the people I had been working for were not the most assiduous bookkeepers. Between us, we had eased the taxman’s workload significantly.

My move out of my digs, temporary or otherwise, had not been the main reason for me bringing my leather- bound trust fund with me: I had, for a long time, worried about the security of keeping it in my digs. I couldn’t put it in a bank without the inland revenue taking notice, and carrying it around in a suitcase or keeping it in my office were not viable options either. However, since I had been doing the wages run, I had opened a business account with the commercial house who banked the wages cash. I had also rented a safety deposit box. I was due to do the run tomorrow, and I decided to deposit the gun and the cash in the box.