A tall copper got out of the passenger seat and walked over to the front of the Georgian terrace. He leaned over the railings and looked down and along the basement entries, beneath street level. Again, he didn’t even look in my direction. The patrol car inched slowly along the Quadrant while the constable checked every basement court. I was relieved that they weren’t coming in my direction, but at the same time they were moving so slowly that I couldn’t move on. And that was a problem because very soon there would be more police cars and more flatfoots scouring every nook and cranny.
The copper moved on, still checking basements along the other side of the road. The black police Wolseley prowled beside him at walking pace. I decided to make my move: I climbed swiftly over the railings and eased myself down, my legs dangling above the bushes a dozen or so feet below. Again I spared a thought for my poor ankles, then let go of the railings. I crashed into the undergrowth but not loudly enough for the coppers to hear me. The angry fingers of the bushes scratched at me and I came to a tangled rest. Again no busted ankles, but my back protested with a stab of pain. I struggled through masses of bushes and emerged onto the thankfully empty path. Again I brushed down my suit and bashed the Borsalino back into shape before putting it on my head at an angle that would, hopefully, hide most of my features from passers-by.
I had just finished dusting myself off when I heard voices close by. It would have been perfectly normal to encounter other people in Kelvingrove Park, even on a weekday morning, but an old instinct told me to take cover.
Fortunately the civic authorities had chosen to place a vast commemorative statue directly in front of me. Even more fortunately they hadn’t replaced the railings that would have been melted down during the war to supply munitions factories. I ran around the massive rectangular base of the statue and pressed my back against an elaborate heroic frieze on the entablature: gallant soldiers of the British Empire liberating grateful natives around the world from the burden of self-determination. I looked up at the statue mounted above me. A dyspeptic, geriatric general on horseback looked out across Kelvingrove Park to the university and beyond, probably to the Empire that no one had told him was gone. The head of his steed was turned down towards me disdainfully.
The voices stopped but I heard the sound of boots on gravel. More than one pair. I stayed pressed into the entablature and waited until the footsteps had moved on. When I did look I saw the backs of three coppers. Once they were around the corner I headed off in the opposite direction. I had to get out quickly: it wouldn’t be long before the park was full with even more Highlanders in uniforms, beating bushes with sticks. I never understood why police searches always involved giving the undergrowth a damned good thrashing. Maybe it took them back to their childhoods in Stornoway or Strathpeffer, beating heather, tugging forelocks and dodging shot for the local grouse-shooting toffs.
I half-ran along the path, slowing down at corners in case I encountered anyone else: people remember a running man. And there was no guarantee that the policemen I’d dodged were the only ones in this part of the park.
I reached the north gate of the park and found a policeman on watch at the Eldon Street entrance. I cut through the trees and kept close to the edge of the River Kelvin, eventually passing under the bridge at Gibson Street. I crossed the river at the old Botanic Gardens station bridge. I climbed the railings and dropped down on the other side, attracting the attention of a couple of pedestrians. I pulled my Borsalino down over my eyes and moved swiftly away, up to where Great Western Road crossed the Kelvin Bridge.
I watched my lodgings from across the street: there were no police cars outside and everything seemed normal. Of course that didn’t mean there weren’t half a dozen Hamishes waiting for me when I got in. I crossed swiftly and went straight up to my digs. I stripped off and took a hurried bath. The carbolic stung like hell on the scratches that covered my hands and shins. Scratches that would be pretty good evidence of flight.
I shaved again and put on a fresh shirt, tie and suit. Blue this time. I bundled my other suit in wrapping paper and tied it up with string. My Borsalino could be saved and I hung it up, chose a trilby to match the serge and headed out.
I drove to the Horsehead Bar and set about buying Big Bob and a couple of the lunchtime regulars a drink. Parks was long dead but at least I would have someone to say they’d seen me relaxed and not dressed in a brown wool suit: my reckoning was that there was a chance that the two pedestrians who had seen me drop into Great Western Road from over the park railings would have mentioned it when they found a copper guarding the gate.
I forced down a Scotch pie and a pint and left when lunchtime licensing hours were up. I was walking back to the car when the sun was eclipsed. I turned to see Tiny Semple filling my universe.
‘Mr Sneddon wants to see you.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’m parked round the corner. Where shall I meet him?’
‘Leave your car. I’m to take you.’ I could have been getting paranoid, but I detected a lack of warmth in Tiny’s tone. He led me to where he’d parked the Sunbeam that Twinkletoes normally used. We drove in silence. We headed south across the Clyde and down Eglinton Street, eventually turning into a street of dingy houses overlooking the railway. There were already three cars parked outside one of the houses and Tiny parked behind them. The cars were conspicuous because no other house in the street had so much as a stick and hoop outside.
The house looked derelict, but a glance into one of the rooms off the hall revealed stacks of crates. I guessed the house was a store for stolen goods. Sitting in the middle of a street where, no doubt, the neighbours would rob you blind, this little cache would be as secure as Fort Knox. You didn’t need padlocks and bolts to keep this lot safe. All you needed was a name. Willie Sneddon. The Robin Hood of the South Side: stole from the rich, terrorized the poor.
Sneddon, Twinkletoes and another thug, DA-quiffed and shorter and leaner than Tiny but every bit as deadly-looking, were leaning against the dilapidated fireplace, smoking. There was a chair in the centre of the room. Cosy, I thought. Like in Parks’s flat, enough room to work. Twinkletoes didn’t smile at me and I did a quick scan of the room: no bolt-cutters. That I could see.
‘Sit down,’ said Sneddon. I didn’t want to. With four guys like this in the room, it wasn’t good to be the only one sitting. Chances were you’d never stand again.
‘Listen, Mr Sneddon,’ I said, still standing. ‘If this is about Parks-’
‘Sit the fuck down,’ said Sneddon in a cold, angerless way. I sat the fuck down in a cold, gutless way. I was having deja vu: my cosy chat in Murphy’s scrapyard came to mind.
‘Were you round at Parky’s this morning?’
‘Yes. Like we arranged.’
‘Do you remember me telling you I didn’t want Parky upset?’
I nodded.
‘Maybes I’m a man of too few fucking words. Maybes I should’ve made myself clearer. Parky upset would have been bad. Parky dead is ever so fucking slightly worse.’
‘Listen, Mr Sneddon. I had nothing to do with Parks’s death. Or not directly. I think someone didn’t want him to talk to me. What’s more, I think they wanted him to talk to them. Parks knew something. Or they thought he knew something. When I arrived Parks was already dead. Someone had rearranged his face over a long time and then strangled him.’
‘He’d been worked over?’ Sneddon drew on his cigarette and dropped the butt on the grimy, naked floorboards before grinding it out with his toe. I worried that he maybe needed his hands free.
‘Let’s put it this way, he was going to have trouble chewing gum. Whoever went to work on him knew they were going to kill him after. Whether he talked or not. When they got or didn’t get what they wanted from him they smashed the fuck out of his face. It wasn’t a beating Parks took. It was torture.’