Hamish Macbeth 12 (1996) - Death of a Macho Man (19 page)

He hurried out of the car-park and raced round to police headquarters. Bill was standing outside, waiting impatiently. “Come on,” he snapped. “I’m beginning to regret this.”

He led the way upstairs after signing Hamish in as Mr. Sinclair. He put Hamish in a bleak cubby-hole of a room and said sternly, “Wait here.” So Hamish waited, listening to the night-time sounds of the city, trying to clear his brain, which was becoming even more fogged with anxiety. After some time, Bill came back carrying heavy books of photographs. “You can start with these,” he said curtly. All his previous friendliness had gone. Bill was obviously regretting his decision to help Hamish.

Hamish took off the glasses and blinked for a moment myopically to get his own very good eyesight back into focus. He began studying the faces in the books while a white-faced clock on the wall ticked away the minutes and then the hours. What would Randy have changed about his features? Nose? Chin? Hairline? He wouldn’t have had plastic surgery for beauty, that was for sure, but simply to hide his identity. At six in the morning. Bill came in and thumped a cup of coffee in front of Hamish. “Going to be much longer?” he asked curtly.

Hamish sighed and ran his thin fingers through his short dyed hair. His brain suddenly seemed to clear up. He tapped the books. “Which of these villains has been involved in major robbery? Or, look, let me put it another way. Let’s go for the big time. What was the biggest robbery of cash in Glasgow in recent years?”

Bill sat down, suddenly curious. “I suppose you mean unsolved robbery. Well, let me see, there was the break-in at the Celtic Bank. No, wait a bit, we got someone for that I know, nineteen eighty-nine. Another bank.”

“The Scottish and General?” asked Hamish, suddenly remembering John Glover.

“No, it was the Clyde and South-Western Bank. The head office in Hope Street.”

“What happened?”

“They hijacked the manager from his home. One man stayed behind with a gun held at his wife and children. Manager did what they said. Opened up the bank. Opened up the safe. Got away with over two millions pounds.”

Hamish fingered the books eagerly. “Who was suspected?”

“There’s a villain we’ve only heard about from our underworld contacts. Known as Gentleman Jim. Supposed to have been the brains behind it. We pulled in several of the usual low life who might have done this but couldn’t crack any of them. This Gentleman Jim seems to run a reign of terror. But unlike the Kray brothers, no one on the force knows who he is. Villains get drunk, villains brag, but no one will give us a murmur about him.”

“So who did you pull in to question on this robbery?”

Bill pulled forward the books and began to skim through them. “Usual lot. All of them with alibis. Where are they?”

“Holding a gun on a woman and kids,” mused Hamish. “Who have you got that would be nasty enough for that?”

“I’ll scribble you a list of names and leave you to it. But one hour more, Hamish, and that’s your lot.”

Hamish stared at the list of names and then the books. Forget about what Randy had looked like when he knew him. Think of really bad villains. His brain now very sharp and clear, he opened the books again. The door opened. Bill came in and put a photo of Randy on the desk. “You might need that,” he said.

Hamish looked at the photograph. It was not one made up from the cleaned-up corpse of Randy. It had been taken by someone of a group standing in the Lochdubh bar. It was a good clear shot of Randy. He couldn’t have known the photograph was being taken, for he was not looking at the camera but talking to a group of locals, including Andy MacTavish and Archie Maclean. For once he wasn’t wearing his ridiculous slatted glasses and his hat was tilted back on his head.

Keeping the photograph beside him, Hamish studied the list of names again and began to find photographs in the books to match them.

His eyes kept returning to one photograph. It was of a thin-faced man with short straight hair. His very shoulders were thin. He had had previous convictions for armed robbery and inflicting grievous bodily harm. His name was Charlie Stoddart. But there was something about that face, about the arrogant, malicious gleam in the eyes that the camera had caught.

He looked from the photo in the file to the one of Randy beside him on the desk. What if Randy had gone in for bodybuilding as well as plastic surgery? What if he had become a big heavy-set, powerful man?

He became aware that Bill was standing in the doorway, watching him curiously. “Got anything?”

“Come and have a look at this,” said Hamish.

Bin walked forward and peered over his shoulder. “That’s never Duggan!”

“There’s something about it,” said Hamish. “Same way of looking. Think, man. He could have gone in for body-building or taken steroids. Then the plastic surgery. Is he currently under arrest?”

“No, I remember we pulled him in for questioning over that bank robbery, but he had an alibi and we had to let him go.”

“Can you get me his last known address?”

“Sure.”

Bill left and Hamish waited impatiently. When Bill returned, Hamish seized the address.

“I should keep clear of you,” said Bill, “but I’m off duty and I’ll go with you. But if anyone recognizes you, I’ll swear I didn’t know it was you.”

“All right,” said Hamish with a grin. “Let’s see if we can find Charlie Stoddart.”

The rain continued to fall in the Highlands, dampening the souls of the inhabitants of Lochdubh, causing general depression, which meant that the staff of the Tommel Castle Hotel kept falling ‘sick,’ with the usual Highland-excuse ailments of bad backs and viruses.

John Glover and Betty John would be leaving the following morning. Priscilla, who was manning the reception desk, had said she would have their bill ready for them before they left. John had issued no more invitations to lunch or dinner and Priscilla was glad of that. She had taken a hearty dislike to the couple. She gave a little start when she realized both were standing before her. “I see your Hamish has his photo in the newspapers this morning,” said John. “It says he’s gone missing. Know where he is?”

“Not a clue,” said Priscilla.

“Do you believe someone really shot at him at the Cnothan games?” asked Betty.

Priscilla gave her a long cool look. “Yes, I do. Hamish is never mistaken in things like that.”

“Someone in the village said he had been told to take a week off because they thought he was suffering from stress,” said John.

“He suspected that Randy Duggan had not been killed by Beck,” remarked Priscilla, “so I think Strathbane wanted him out of the road.”

“Well, let’s hope he’s all right,” said Betty, taking John’s arm in her own. “The bar’s open. Let’s have a drink.” Priscilla watched them as they walked away. She had thought her dislike of them was because of Betty’s fling with Hamish, but now she decided she did not like either of them I just because of the way they were. There was a cockiness I about them, an insolence, and she began to wonder if John had briefly courted her as some sort of joke.

Willie Lamont ran home from the restaurant and waved a newspaper in front of Lucia. “Do you see this? Hamish has I gone missing.”

“Let’s hope he stays missing,” she said coldly. “He was causing a lot of trouble with his stupid suspicions.”

“But he could be dead!” wailed Willie. “He could have driven over a cliff.”

Lucia gave a little curved smile. “Good,” she said, and tossed the paper away.

§

Annie Ferguson was serving tea to Geordie Mackenzie. Annie had made one of her rare visits to the Lochdubh bar the night before. It had been nearly empty, as the fishing boats were out and the forestry workers were all at Andy MacTavish’s birthday party. But Geordie had been there and she had issued the invitation to tea.

“I cannot understand this business about our Hamish going missing,” said Geordie primly. “It bothers me. Look at it this way. Hamish goes around saying Duggan was not killed by Beck, Hamish gets shot at, and then no one can find him.”

“Och, our Hamish is a bit o’ a drama queen,” said Annie. “He says he was shot at but we’ve only his word for it. Take it from me, Geordie, that man is sulking because he won’t admit he was wrong about Randy’s murder. Forget about him. Hamish Macbeth has a slate missing, if you ask me. Have another scone.”

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

—
William Shakespeare

C
harlie Stoddart’s last known address was in a depressing block of tower flats on the south side of the city.

Bill said it was due for demolition, and it had such a cracked, rusted, deserted air that it looked as if the demolition process had already started. Children did not play on the scrubby, balding, litter-strewn grass outside. At some point an attempt had been made to plant trees, but they had been savagely destroyed and only a few cracked, white shattered stumps lay around for mangy dogs to pee against.

The entrance hall was covered in graffiti. The lifts did not work and Bill said gloomily that they probably had not worked for some time. From checking the flat number in his notes, he said with even more gloom that Charlie lived on the top floor. They climbed onwards and upwards. There were occasional sounds of life to show that some flats in the block were still tenanted: a baby cried, a dreary, lost wail of sound; a man swore suddenly and violently; a woman shouted abuse. Nobody wanted to live in these tower blocks, and so gradually the decent people had left and the flotsam and jetsam of humanity stayed behind, corrupting each other with their violence and misery and filth. No one, reflected Hamish, had such a talent as the bottom rung of the Scottish social ladder for sheer filth and decay. There were smells of urine and vomit, stale beer, and the cooking diet of the poor fish fingers, chip and baked beans.

By the time they reached the outside of Charlie’s flat, Hamish was beginning to feel light-headed with fatigue. He took off the late Mr. Sinclair’s glasses and tucked them in his pocket. The lenses were beginning to give him a headache. The balconies outside the flats with their rusted railings were open to the salty, muggy, wet air blowing up from the river Clyde. Litter blew along the passageways. A dirty newspaper wrapped itself around Hamish’s legs and he impatiently tore it away.

“Well, here it is,” said Bill, stopping outside a chipped and scarred door. “But if there’s anyone still here, it’ll be a miracle.”

He knocked loudly on the frosted glass of the door and they waited while the wind shrilled through the metal railings. Hamish leaned against the wall and wished it were all over and he was back home again.

Bill knocked loudly again and shouted, “Police! Open up!”

The door next to the one he was hammering on opened suddenly and a woman looked out.

“You’ll no’ get anyone in there, Jimmy,” she said. “Hisnae been anyone there for a bit. Mrs. Stoddart left wi’ the weans last month.”

Hamish found the Glaswegian way of addressing everyone as Jimmy highly irritating. “Where did she go?” he asked.

“Ower Castlemilk way, Jimmy,” said the woman laconically.

“And what about Charlie?” asked Bill.

“Och, that one went off a few years ago. Meant for better things.” She screeched with laughter.

“Have you an address in Castlemilk?”

“Wait a wee bit. Sharon, come here!” The woman was small, stunted and ill-favoured. Sharon, on the other hand, was a giantess with dyed blond hair, thick lips, and vacant eyes. “Whaur in Castlemilk did Jeannie Stoddart go?” asked the woman, who seemed to be Sharon’s mother. “Lenin Road,” said Sharon. “Nummer 52. I ken ‘cos I wrote it doon. I always remembers what I write doon.”

Bill and Hamish left and made their way down the miles of stairs and back out again. On the road to Castlemilk, Hamish fell asleep in the car, and when he awoke for a few moments he did not know where he was or what he was supposed to be doing.

Lenin Road did not seem to be any improvement on the tower block. Although it consisted of a row of two-storey houses with gardens, most of the windows were boarded up and the gardens were untended, and practically all had either no fences or the ones that had had wooden ones were contained now by only a few smashed pieces of wood. They knocked at Mrs. Stoddart’s door. To Hamish’s relief, there were sounds of movements inside. Bill shouted, “Police, Mrs. Stoddart.” The door opened suddenly. A woman stared at them. She was middle-aged with thick hair dyed yellow-blond. She was heavily made up, wearing ski pants and a low-cut cotton top. A tom, thought Hamish. Whatever she was before, Jeannie Stoddart is on the game, a prostitute. “What d’ye want?” she asked sullenly.

“Where’s Charlie?” asked Bill.

Two women stopped behind them at the garden gate and stared curiously. “Come inside,” said Jeannie. She led the way into an overcrowded, fussy living room which seemed at first glance to be full of stuffed toys, magazines, and dolls from different countries.

She sat down and lit a cigarette and then said evenly, “I don’t know where Charlie is and that’s a fact.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Nineteen eighty-nine.”

The year of that bank robbery, thought Hamish, waking up.

“Where did he say he was going?”

“I’m telling you, Mac, by that time he wasnae even speaking to me. I wasnae good enough for him any more. Went off with his posh friends.”

Bill looked at her cynically. “Charlie with posh friends? Pull the other one.”

“It’s true! Man wi’ a big Mercedes used tae drop him off.”

“And who was this man?”

She gave a half-ashamed sort of laugh. “It seems daft now. But I believed it at the time. Charlie said he was working for British Intelligence.”

“Why would British Intelligence want to employ a toe rag like Charlie?” Bill’s tired voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“He made it sound very convincing,” she said defensively. “He said they got hold of him during his last stretch in prison, and they said if he worked for them, they’d shorten his sentence. There wus a play on the telly about that.”