The Deep Dark Sleep

‘There was a witness?’

A couple of other drinkers jostled past Ferguson and he frowned. Our conversation had been half-shouted to be heard and Ferguson overdid a weary expression, but I guessed he was using the interruption to decide if or how he was going to dodge my question.

‘The van driver,’ he said eventually. ‘He said there were five robbers. They all wore stocking masks, but one was tall and all the others were no bigger than five-six, five-seven. In my book that fingers Strachan as the shooter. So maybe there’s no mystery to Gentleman Joe taking the deep, dark sleep: he put a rope around the neck of every man in that gang. Maybe they made him pay the price.’

‘How do you know that it was Strachan at all? I thought that the identities of the Empire Exhbition Gang were all unknown.’

‘Strachan …’ Ferguson paused again, this time while Big Bob placed two plates in front of us, each with a small, round meat pie centred in a pool of viscous grease. ‘Strachan went missing right after the robbery. Dropped out of sight. And Joe Strachan wasn’t one to keep a low profile.’

‘That’s it? God, Jock, we now know that Strachan was at the bottom of the Clyde. That’s the lowest profile I can think of. It could be a pure coincidence that he was topped about the same time as the robbery.’

‘You’re right, we don’t know who the other gang members were. But that in itself points to Joe Strachan. He was a stickler for security. We could never get the bastard because no one talked about a job if they were doing it with Strachan. No one knew in advance what was going to be hit or when or who was in the team. If there’s one thing I can say in his favour, it’s that when it came to planning and executing bighaul robberies, he was the best. No one came close. Even if he hadn’t gone missing he would have been at the top of a list for the Empire Exhibition job. A list of one. Anyway, the Empire Exhibition robbery was only part of it. The Triple Crown.’

‘The Triple Crown?’ I knew the story, but sometimes being an outsider to Glasgow helped: you could plead ignorance and people told you more than they had intended to.

‘That’s what the older boys call it. The ones with enough years under their belts to remember it. Three massive robberies, committed in fast succession, but planned right down to the last second and penny. And there’s a very good chance that they’re linked to a series of other, smaller robberies that took place a few months before. Trial runs, they reckon, to sharpen the team for the big ones.’

‘And the biggest of the big ones was the Empire Exhibition robbery?’

‘Totally different targets but carried out with the same military precision. The first was the National Bank of Scotland in St Vincent Street. Twenty thousand pounds in wages and God knows how much else from the safe deposit boxes. Then a van on its way with wages cash to the Connell shipyard in Scotstoun — the kind of run you’re doing now. The bastards actually wore police uniforms for that one. Thirty-two thousand. Then they hit the real jackpot: the Empire Exhibition. Fifty thousand.’

I blew a long whistle and probably looked more impressed than I should have in front of Ferguson. One hundred and two thousand in total was a massive amount of money, particularly in pre-war Glasgow. It was no surprise that everyone assumed that Gentleman Joe had done a disappearing act. It was, after all, the kind of money that could buy you a new, luxurious life anywhere and have enough left over to buy the silence of others. It was also, I realized, more than enough to post off three thousand a year from small change.

‘And you’re convinced it was the same crew?’

‘Absolutely convinced. I don’t want to badmouth your social circle, but I don’t see Hammer Murphy or Jonny Cohen having that amount of brains or style.’

‘Like I said, I don’t have many dealings with them any more. And less as time goes on. But I know what you mean.’

And I did: Jonny Cohen’s mob were the most successful when it came to hold-ups, but it was small-league stuff compared to what Ferguson had described. I noticed that he hadn’t mentioned Willie Sneddon. Of the Three Kings, Sneddon was the one with the biggest ambitions. And the biggest reach. Sneddon had never been successfully convicted of a single crime, and his personal empire now had as many straight enterprises as crooked ones.

‘Like I said, Lennox, there’s a lot of history attached to the name Joe Strachan. And a lot of grudges and scores to be settled. If you know what’s good for you, stay clear. Tell Isa and Violet that it really was Daddy sleeping the deep, dark sleep, then take the money and get clear of it.’

‘But what if it wasn’t?’ I persisted. ‘What if it’s somebody else’s bones you’ve got?’

‘It’s Strachan all right. But if it isn’t, then that’s even more reason for you to stay out of this business. If Strachan is alive, then you don’t want to be looking for him and you definitely don’t want to find him. Joe Strachan is a legend amongst Glasgow’s scum. All of this “Gentleman Joe” crap? Trust me, I’ve heard all about the real Joe Strachan and read the case files: he was a merciless bastard of the first water. Just take my word for it, Lennox, stay out of this one if you know what’s good for you. Some skeletons should be left in their cupboards … or at the bottom of the Clyde, for that matter.’

‘Listen, Jock, I’m not interested in pursuing this any further than I have to. I just want to establish for his family that it was Joe Strachan they found. That’s all.’ I didn’t make mention of the fact that I was also on the trail of whoever was sending large sums of cash to the twins. ‘Just give me something to go on. Someone who might be able to point me in the right direction.’

Ferguson looked at me for a long time. That cold, empty stare of his. You could never tell if he was appraising you, seeing deep into your soul with his copper’s gaze and unlocking your darkest secrets, or if he was simply thinking about whether he was going to have pork chop or fish for dinner.

‘What I will do for you,’ he said at last and wearily, ‘is give you a name. But don’t bring me into this, Lennox.’ He took out a notebook and scribbled something on it with a stub of pencil.

‘Billy Dunbar.’ Ferguson tore the note from the pad and handed it to me. ‘That’s the last address I have for him. Dunbar was a peterman and occasional armed robber. He used to hang around with Willie Sneddon, way back in the days when Sneddon didn’t count for much. Dunbar did ten years for an early job but never got caught after that. He was brought in after the Empire Robbery.’

‘You think he was one of the crew?’

‘No. He had a cast-iron alibi. I don’t mean the usual I-was-with-my-aunty-and-uncle-just-ask-them type of cast-iron alibi. It was genuine. And there never had been any link between Joe Strachan and Billy Dunbar, but there again, there was never any link that we could prove between Joe Strachan and anybody else. That didn’t stop a few in CID having their own ideas. The other thing about Dunbar was that he was making a real effort to go straight. But he was a name and a face … so, for a few hours, he had it hard.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. With a copper dead, the mere inconvenience of your innocence wouldn’t save you from the beating of your life if the police thought you had even the smallest scrap of information.

‘You say he used to hang about with Willie Sneddon, before Sneddon became big game; what about Hammer Murphy? Was there any connection there?’

‘Not that I know of. I think it’s highly unlikely. Like Sneddon, Billy Dunbar’s a true blue ultra-loyalist Prod. The only contact he was likely to have with a Catholic would be with a razor.’

‘You say he’s straight now?’ I asked.

‘Since before the war. Or at least as far as being caught’s concerned. But, from what I’ve been told, Billy Dunbar wouldn’t hold up a teashop these days.’

I nodded, dispelling the image of masked raiders escaping with twenty pounds in half-crowns and a crate of Darjeeling. Although the thought did cross my mind that teashops probably had been the target of hold-ups in Glasgow. Everything else was. Any business that handled cash was seen as fair game by the city’s armed robbers. I had once met an ex-bank teller-turned-policeman who told me that one of the reasons for his career change was that as a copper he was much less likely to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

‘He’s maybe even out of Glasgow,’ Ferguson continued. ‘Someone told me some story about him being a ghillie on some country estate somewhere. Or a gamekeeper.’

‘He must stand out from the others,’ I said. ‘I mean, he’ll be the only gamekeeper with the barrels sawn off his shotgun. Anybody else you can think of that might give me a steer, Jock? What about the witness?’

A roar of laughter from a bunch of flat-caps behind us swelled the clamour and Jock made out that he hadn’t heard me.

‘What about the witness you mentioned? The van driver?’