‘Aye, and then you poke away at what’s beneath. Disturbing bugs, snakes, toads. Could ye no’ have taken the Chief Constable’s offer and done it legit? We need a’ the good cops we can in this talent-free backwater. Some of the guys Ah work wi’ make Sangster look like Lord Peter Wimsey.’
‘It’s a one-off, Dunc. Not a career move.’
He looked at me sceptically. ‘Oh aye?’
‘And I’m not competing. Just sharing your burden.’
‘Ah’m all for that. As long as you don’t steal my job. So what do you want?’
‘The amount that’s been nicked could start a new jeweller’s. The stuff must be going through somebody. Who’s the likely fence?’
‘Unless it’s gone south, of course.’
‘England? London? Sure. But unless things have changed, when it comes to dumping hot goods Glasgow’s average criminal mastermind tends to stray no further than the city limits. Debts to be paid. Drinks to be drunk. Women to be wooed. Instant gratification.’
‘For that sort of priceless information, it must be your round, Brodie.’
‘Again?’
That evening the first real gales of winter hit. Just to remind us of our fragile grip on the Earth’s surface, furious seas smashed the coasts and drove ships aground. Hurricane winds whipped off roofs, flattened garden sheds, felled trees and sent old ladies’ shopping flying down the street in a whirlwind of spilled spuds and soggy brown pokes. Sam used the storm as an excuse to seek refuge in my arms that night. More gales, please.
Afterwards I was falling into a sweet sleep when she touched my shoulder.
‘Douglas? Are you awake?’
‘I am now.’ Women have a special sense of timing with their wee chats: when we’re at our most vulnerable.
‘Two things I meant to mention. This place is like a tip. I used to have a housekeeper but she went up home – Tomintoul – to look after her mother. She’s back now. Her mum died. And she’s starting here again. Three days a week.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘She’ll iron your shirts too.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Only a pound a week. Is that OK? Ten bob each?’
‘I’ll cut back on the caviar. What’s the second thing?’
She was silent for a long moment. That got me worried.
‘I had call from an old friend of mine. Iain Scrymgeour. He’s a lawyer working for Shawcross.’
‘Hartley Shawcross? In the Nuremberg trials?’
‘Iain and I were intrants at the Faculty of Advocates at the same time. Farquharson Stable. Same as me. Iain was a high-flyer. Wants to be an MP eventually.’
‘He thinks Nuremberg will make his name?’
‘It’s Hamburg now. The first of the Ravensbrück trials. In the British sector. High-profile and on the side of the avenging angels. It will look good on his CV when he stands for parliament. We’ve kept in touch.’
‘That’s nice.’ I immediately disliked this bloke.
‘Are you really listening?’
I’d turned over on to my back and reached for my cigarettes when the reference to Ravensbrück came up. I lit one and we passed it between us.
‘Shoot.’
‘He wants me to help him.’
‘Do some research?’
‘Prosecute. Out there.’
‘In Hamburg? At the war crimes trials? Are you serious?’ I was wide awake now and it wasn’t the nicotine. Memories were flooding back.
‘The first trial starts on the fifth of December. He’s run off his feet. He’s already asked for help from our chambers. I don’t know if he suggested me or they offered me.’
‘Can you say no?’
‘Not really. You know my chambers have been nagging at me to go back to Edinburgh. I’ve had a rotten year and they want to bring me back under their wing.’
‘I thought you were all self-employed? Why do they care?’
‘If I’m not doing well, I don’t get new briefs. It’s a downward spiral. And they don’t like having low-earners on the team. Bad for the stable’s reputation.’
‘How does that fit with Hamburg?’
‘It’s a solid slab of work with guaranteed fees from the government.’
‘Not a punishment?’
‘More a test. I’ll be on the other side.’
‘Prosecuting war crimes? God, I hope it’s not a growth business.’
Long after she had fallen asleep, I lay trying
not
to remember my own post-war confrontation with madness and depravity. Interrogating murderers and seeing them tried. Samantha Campbell was tough, but this might test her to the limits.
FIVE
She was up and away first thing so we didn’t discuss it further. I headed into work just in time to take a call from Duncan. He had the names and addresses of three slippery entrepreneurs known to be actively passing parcels in central Glasgow. One was a major pawnbroker, and the second the proud owner of a pair of jewellery stores. It meant that in both cases they could nicely combine the brokerage of hot goods with the retail. They made a turn buying and selling. The third fence tripled his chance of facing awkward questions at the Pearly Gates by fronting the fencing with an illegal bookmaking business and arranging dog fights.
Duncan explained about the third man: ‘Sanny Carmichael thinks there’s safety in numbers. That he’s running so many crooked scams the polis will get confused and give up. He’s no’ far wrong. And he’s got a wee arrangement with the local station that gets him a phone call to warn him he’s being raided.’
I knew Sanny. ‘It’s only polite, Duncan. Otherwise they’d get accused of being unfair to hard-working criminals.’
I’d had a run-in with Carmichael before the war when we raided one of his unlicensed bookies. He was operating it from a pair of ground-floor tenements in the Calton. I decided to start with him.
The rain had stopped and the winds had died down by the time I set out from the
Gazette
. But the water was still puddling the streets and flushing the gutters. I’d checked with the
Gazette
’s sports editor. There was a big meet at Ayr over the weekend. Carmichael would have set up shop in one of his known haunts around the Trongate.
It didn’t take me long to pick out a couple of spotters, doing sentry duty on opposite corners of a busy street of tall tenements above shops. The spotters were the least casual street-corner smokers I’d seen. They twitched and paced. Their heads were on swivels and their caps were pulled down. I could either be furtive myself and wait to see which shop or close was being used and run the risk of kicking off a panic when I was spotted. Or I could go straight at them, hoping I looked less like a cop than I used to. I tucked the newspaper under my arm, racing page on display, and nonchalantly approached the nearest. I could feel his eyes running up and down over me and then sweeping beyond me to see if I had back-up. Cops on a raid never arrived solo. He took the fag from his mouth as I got close. I took out my own packet and walked up to him, waving a fag as I got close.
‘Got a light, pal?’
‘Aye, sure. Here you go.’ He held out his red-tipped cigarette to light my own. As I puffed mine alight from his ember, I said quietly, ‘I’ve got a sure thing in the three thirty.’
‘They a’ say that. An’ maistly they’re wrang. But it’s your dosh. Nummer twelve, the grocer’s shop. In the back. Don’t hing aboot.’
‘Thanks, pal.’
The only gamble I was about to take was whether Sanny was still personally involved at the makeshift bookies. I needed his expertise and street knowhow. Duncan had told me that though he was getting long in the tooth he was still very much a hands-on crook. He liked to keep a close eye on his wealth and how it was accruing. I was also gambling that I wouldn’t get my head kicked in when I started asking him questions.
As I walked towards the grocer’s I saw men like me entering and leaving. They left with lighter wallets but without evidence of purchase: no string bags of spuds and carrots. I pulled the door open and walked in. A man in a suit stood admiring the tinned goods and keeping an eye on the door. He saw my paper and nodded me through a door by the counter.
It was a bare room with a wooden table and a few chairs. A wireless whined off-tune in the background. On one wall a number of newspaper pages were tacked up displaying today’s fixtures at Ayr. Four punters in caps and coats stood squinting at the form guides, the odds and the conditions, as though they had relevance. They sucked pencils and scribbled on their own newspapers or fag packets, doing mental arithmetic to ensure they were picking winners. They might as well have been examining chicken entrails.
But what interested me most was the group of three men round the table. Each wore a coat and a bunnet. Each was smoking. Two bruisers were pretending to read the paper. I knew it was pretence. Their lips weren’t moving. Old Sanny sat in the middle staring at the punters through red, darting eyes. A big leather bag was perched in the front of him. The clockbag. Just as I stepped in, one of the four men analysing form stepped forward to the table.
‘Florin each way, Constant Dreamer, two thirty.’
Sanny pulled a little pad forward, scribbled the details and tore off the slip. He removed the carbon and tucked it into the next pairing. Then he handed the top copy to the punter and thrust the carbon into the compartment on the clockbag for that race. He dropped the two coins into the open bag. Later, when the race was ‘off’, the clock would be locked. It was supposed to give the punters confidence, but mostly it was to stop the bookie’s runners from making a little side money by taking a later bet – perfect forecasting – from a pal.
Throughout, the old man’s eyes flicked his gaze between the bag, the punter and me. When the punter stepped away, I was left staring into Sanny Carmichael’s face. He raised an eyebrow.
‘Ah heard you wuz back, Brodie. Kicking up trouble.’ His voice was a rasp going over wood, his face a lump of pumice, grey and pitted.
‘I don’t go looking for it. How’s it going, Sanny?’
‘No’ bad. Have you had a hot tip then? Want a few bob on the nose? I could make you good odds. Old times’ sake.’
‘I’d like a word, Sanny. Some friends of mine have been turned over.’
‘Oh aye? An’ who might these pals be?’
‘Let’s put it this way: they’re from the Garnethill area.’
Sanny studied me for a while; then he looked either side at his cronies who’d long since put their papers down. ‘So these are
Sheeney
pals, ur they? Fuck’s sake, Brodie, have ye lost the end of yer willie? Shot off by the Boche?’
His pals sniggered at his great humour. Sanny stared at me, waiting for me to dig a bigger hole for myself.
‘Everything’s intact, Sanny, thanks for asking. But yes, the leaders of the Jewish community are my pals. Do you have a problem with that? I’m helping them run down a thief.’
‘An’ what makes you think I’d know anything aboot thievery? A man could take offence.’
At the word, his guard dogs perked up, as though Sanny had said ‘rabbits’. Their juices were running at the thought of some action. Preferably some violent action.
‘A man who wants no trouble in his life wouldn’t dream of giving offence. I just want a word.’
Carmichael’s brain whirred for a while; then he turned to his men. ‘Mind the bag. Let’s take a wee donner, Brodie. I could do wi’ some air.’
We walked out into the street. Sanny seemed to have got shorter. He was barely up to my shoulder. The cold air rushed at us and he pulled his coat tight.
‘First right, Brodie.’
We walked past his corner scout, who looked at us askance, querying what his boss was up to. We turned round the corner and into a quiet side street. Carmichael walked purposefully along the road and pushed into a crumbling café. A warm fug of smoke, hot fat and sweaty clothes wrapped itself around us like a sticky blanket. There were six tables. We had a choice of six. Carmichael steered towards the one farthest from the window and door. A swarthy man in a manky pinny nodded at Carmichael and inspected me.
‘Twa teas, Bertie. The big yin’s paying,’ said Sanny as he took a seat. Two mugs of tea materialised, hot and grey, like thin kaolin. Carmichael filled his with sugar.
‘Now, whit’s goin’ on, Brodie?’
I told him about the nine thefts and the cocky gasman. Carmichael stirred his tea throughout the explanation. I kept waiting for his spoon to come to a halt in the syrup.
‘. . . and your name came up, Sanny, as someone who might be aware of – shall we say the
flow
of goods?’
‘Is that a fact? And who gave you ma name, might I ask?’
‘Inspector Duncan Todd.’
‘I ken Todd. So he finally made inspector? No’ a bad lad. A left-fitter, mind. And he’s wrang aboot this. But, haud on, Brodie. Why the fuck should Ah tell yous anything?’
‘For a quiet life, Sanny. Todd needs to meet his quotas. New inspector? You know how it is. I talked him out of raiding your very well-known set-up here on the strength of you giving us a wee nod in the right direction. It would be seen to be a help, Sanny. And you could be left in peace.’
He sat back and chewed his tea for a while. ‘That’s a kind o’ blackmail, Brodie.’
‘Between friends? It’s more a kind of
you help me, I help you
.’
He leaned forward. ‘Once a cop, always a bloody cop.’ I waited. Sanny drummed on the table with his fingers. ‘Ah’ve heard McGill’s got some new stock in.’ There was a hiss from my cup. He got up and walked out, leaving his fag floating in my tea.
I had a name. Interestingly it was one of the other names Duncan had given me. Whether it was the right name or not, I’d aim to find out on Monday.
SIX
Over the weekend Sam and I began tidying up the house in advance of the first inspection by our new housekeeper.
‘I’d be ashamed to let Izzie Dunlop see this place. The state of it.’
‘Isn’t that the point?’
‘Just carry the hoover upstairs, Douglas, and don’t be difficult.’
The rest of the time we spent dodging questions about Sam’s impending assignment in Hamburg. I could tell she was both anxious and excited by the challenge. I didn’t want to terrify her by recounting my own experiences. She didn’t want to talk about it in case it turned out as horrible as she expected.
On Monday morning I set out for McGill’s. The pawnbroker is an essential part of Glasgow life. He oils the machine that permits the working man – or more often, the non-working man – to live from one week to the next in the absence of five bob for food or a shilling for the electric. He’s the bridge that connects one slim pay packet with the next, when an unsuccessful flutter on the dogs or a successful session on a Saturday night in the Drouthy Drover has left a mortal dent in the readies.