The Deep Dark Sleep

‘I don’t know his name offhand,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I’ll get back to you with it. I’ll tell you what, you should speak to Archie McClelland about it.’ Ferguson referred to the retired policeman I had hired to ride security with me on the wages run. ‘Archie was in the force back then. I’ve no doubt that he can tell you something about it. Now … I think you owe me another pint …’

I smiled resignedly and, shaking my empty beer glass, turned to Big Bob, who was at the far end of the bar.

I arrived on time for my meeting with Donald Fraser, the solicitor. Disappointingly, he was pretty much as I had expected from his voice: unremarkable and dour. He was tall and dull looking in the way only lawyers and bank managers managed to look dull, dressed in an expensive blue serge suit that was very carefully just out of fashion. It was also several cloth weights too heavy for the time of year and the elbows had glossed with too much desk leaning. Like his elbows, the dome of his skull seemed worn and his scalp shone through the thinning dark hair. The small, beady eyes that watched me through wire-framed spectacles had a look that I guessed was meant to be superior or intimidating. It didn’t work. He took half a dictionary to ask me to sit down and I did, taking my hat off and hanging it on my knee.

‘I was fortuitously supplied with your name by Mr George Meldrum, a colleague of mine,’ said Fraser.

‘I know Mr Meldrum,’ I said, without adding that I was surprised that Fraser knew him professionally. Everybody knew George Meldrum by reputation, of course: he was Glasgow’s most flamboyant defence lawyer and had represented some of the more colourful members of the city’s underworld, his principal client being Willie Sneddon, one of the Three Kings. Meldrum was the kind of oleaginous creep who treated people like crap whenever he could get away with it, yet when in Sneddon’s presence displayed an obsequiousness that would embarrass any self-respecting lickspittle.

‘I appreciate his recommendation,’ I said as if I meant it.

‘Quite …’ Fraser’s tone suggested that it had been less a recommendation, more of a needs-must. ‘Mr Meldrum assures me of your discretion. Particularly with regard to the more unsavoury aspects of some investigations.’

‘I see,’ I said, guessing that Fraser expected me to polish up my lead-and-leather sap. ‘I hope you understand that I operate within the law at all times, Mr Fraser.’

‘Of course,’ Fraser said, emphatically and with a hint of wounded integrity. ‘I would not expect anything less. We would not be having this conversation if I thought otherwise.’

‘Why don’t you tell me what it is you want me to do? The thing you didn’t want to divulge telephonically.’ I threw his twenty guinea phrase back at him.

‘You’re American, Mr Lennox? From your accent I mean …’

‘No. I’m Canadian. Scottish parents but brought up in Canada.’

‘Ah,’ he said approvingly, as if he found the latitude of my childhood more commendable; there was a strong fraternal link between the Scots and the Canadians — as could be seen by the three-block queues of eager soon- to-be-ex-Glaswegians outside the Canadian Consulate in Woodlands Terrace. By contrast, the British generally had a distaste for the upstart vulgarity of Americans, particularly for the insolence with which they had saved Britain from defeat during the War, and then from bankruptcy after it. ‘Like Robert Beatty, the actor?’ said Fraser eagerly. ‘My wife is something of a fan of Robert Beatty.’

‘Not quite. Beatty’s an Ontarian. I was raised in New Brunswick. Atlantic Canada.’

‘I see,’ Fraser said with a hint of disappointment. I had gotten the latitude right, but not the longitude. He opened a buff foolscap folder and slid a large, black and white portrait photograph across the desk at me. An unfeasibly handsome face grinned a one hundred-watt smile at me. I recognized the face right away.

‘That’s not Robert Beatty,’ I said.

‘No … that’s the American actor John Macready,’ said Fraser, telling me something I already knew. ‘Mr Macready is over here in Glasgow at the moment. He’s been participating in a film currently being made in Scotland. The filming has been mostly done in the Highlands: an adventure story, I have been led to believe. Mr Macready will be flying back to the United States at the end of the month or thereabouts, from the new airport at Prestwick. Until then, he is resident in the Central Hotel, which I believe is directly opposite your offices, Mr Lennox.’

‘Where do I come into this?’ I asked.

‘My firm here is affiliated to Hobson, Field and Chase, a most prestigious law firm in the City of London. In turn, they represent the UK interests of the studio currently undertaking the production of the film, set here in Scotland, in which Mr Macready is appearing. I believe it is a film of a historical theme.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘What’s his poison?’

Fraser frowned. ‘I don’t quite understand …’

‘Don’t you? I’m guessing that you’re looking for a chaperone for Macready. My experience is that these people tend to need a governess more than they do a bodyguard. What’s Macready’s deal? Booze, prostitutes, pretty boys or narcotics? Or all of the above?’

Fraser looked at me with distaste, which I rather enjoyed and smiled back as insolently as I could. The beady-eyed lawyer needed me more than I needed him, I reckoned. He had been asked by someone he couldn’t refuse to dip a toe into the gutter. And that, it was clear, was where he thought someone like me belonged.

‘There is absolutely no need to be vulgar about this, Mr Lennox.’

‘Oh I know I don’t need to be … but I’m right, aren’t I? You want me to nursemaid him till he gets his flight?’

The distaste in Fraser’s eyes didn’t abate. ‘Actually, no. The studio has sent over two of their security people to do just that.’

‘I see. Why do I get the feeling that I’m here to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted?’

‘Your train of thought in relation to things like this seems rather well informed, Mr Lennox.’

‘What can I say? I lead an interesting and varied life. I’m right, I take it: John Macready has done something questionable and he’s under five-star house arrest until he can be gotten out of the country. In the meantime, you’re looking for someone in the tying-up-loose-ends business. How loose are the ends?’

‘Very loose, I’m afraid. Mr Macready is something of a heart-throb as I believe our American friends describe it. He has sex appeal, which is bankable at the box office. And he has a reputation as an incorrigible ladies’ man and is regularly seen with some of Hollywood’s most beautiful actresses on his arm.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ I said. ‘But your reminding me of it suggests that this trouble Macready is in either relates to the truth of that reputation or its falsity.’

Walking over to a robust filing cabinet, Fraser unlocked it with a key from his pocket. He took out a brown envelope and handed it to me before retaking his seat behind the vast desk.

‘I think you’ll see that we are in a very delicate and very serious situation here …’

I took the envelope and braced myself before slipping out the photographs.

‘My God …’ I said, not enough under my breath for Fraser not to hear.

‘Indeed …’ Fraser’s voice was filled with malicious satisfaction. ‘I was very impressed with your cynical seen- it-all attitude, Mr Lennox, but I see it has its limits. I take it you recognize who is in the photographs with Mr Macready?’

I stared at the photographs. For a moment, I found it difficult to take it all in. The young, bent-over gentleman beneath Macready in the photograph was clearly not having the same trouble.

‘I don’t follow the society pages but yes, of course I recognize him. That is the Duke of Strathlorne’s only son and heir, isn’t it? I’m guessing that’s one noble lineage that’s run its course …’ I glanced through the photographs as quickly as I could. Not quickly enough to stop me feeling queasy. ‘Blackmail?’ I asked eventually.

‘Yes. Or, in effect, yes. The person making the demands is not concealing his identity and is taking the utmost care to word things in a way that cannot be seen as a threat. And he is claiming that it is in the public interest that these photographs be made public.’

‘Unless someone buys them from him?’

‘Exactly.’