The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5 (18 page)

Just as I remembered from the funeral, her hair was dark and cut unfashionably short. She was dressed in a knit jumper and tweed skirt that suggested when it came to choosing her wardrobe, functionality always won over fashion. Despite the unflattering clothes, I could see her figure was still slim and good and the ghost of a pretty, happier girl lingered. Her face was naked of make-up and full of character and I could see she was a handsome woman with a special kind of attractiveness. Her unlikely connection with Tommy started to seem more likely.

I had practised my opening gambit on the way from the car; being a stranger at the door was always an obstacle to overcome; revealing yourself to be a professional snooper often turned that obstacle into a drawbridge. I had decided to keep things personal rather than professional, introducing myself as a friend of Tommy’s, not an enquiry agent, and then explaining that his sister had asked me to look into his death.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ she said dully, before I had a chance to say anything; then, standing to one side, ‘You had better come in, Mr Lennox.’

I followed her mutely into the apartment, leaving my unwrapped opening gambit on the doorstep. The walls of the narrow hall were decked with modern art prints and politically themed posters for the CND and the Communist Party of Great Britain, a framed cinema poster for
Battleship Potemkin
, as well as an ugly, modernist one for Bertolt Brecht’s
Mother Courage and her Children
. By the time we made it to the living room I had worked out she wouldn’t be joining the local branch of the Women’s Institute any time soon.

‘You know who I am?’ I asked.

‘Tommy told me about you.’

‘And you were expecting me?’

‘He said there was a chance you would come. If anything happened to him.’

‘He told you he thought something would happen to him?’ This was getting interesting. Whatever else had been going on between them, Tommy – who confided in so very few – had trusted this unlikely confidante.

‘He said he was mixed up in something dangerous. That there were people who might wish him harm. He told me that if anyone ever came asking about him – including anyone
official
– I was to plead ignorance. Except you. He told me that you were to be trusted.’

‘How did you know it was me? How did you recognize me?’

‘Tommy described you. He said you were a good man – someone I could rely on – but you looked bad. A little like the actor Jack Palance. It’s not that common a look in Glasgow.’

I shrugged. Comparisons with Hollywood stars were indeed rare in Glasgow. Although I thought I’d spotted Lon Chaney a couple of times.

‘I don’t know your name,’ I said. ‘Other than you’re Nancy.’

‘Nancy Ross,’ she explained. ‘I’m a lecturer at the university.’

‘Did Tommy say who he thought might wish him harm?’

‘He was vague about that. Specific enough to scare me, but vague enough to leave me in the dark. But he said they were powerful people. Not criminals – or at least not the accepted kind of criminals. He said these were people in positions of real power.’

‘What kind of positions?’ I asked. ‘Military . . . army?’

‘Like I told you, he was vague about them. He never said anything specific enough to make me think they were military. But he said I should understand what he meant. Can I get you something to drink?’

‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ I said, but she was already over at the sideboard on which there was a tray with tumblers and bottles of sherry, whisky and gin. I obviously wasn’t going to be offered tea or coffee. She poured herself a heavy-handed measure of gin, only letting it get a sniff of tonic. She waved the gin bottle at me but I shook my head: I was an Olympic-level drinker, but I’d learned from experience not to drink with those who use alcohol to self-medicate. It was clear that booze was the anaesthetic Nancy Ross used to blunt the sharp edges of her loss.

She indicated an aged leather armchair and invited me to sit; I took in the room as I did so. The side table beside the armchair was heaped with magazines and periodicals, topped with the current issue of
Tribune
. Two of the walls were filled with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and there were books anywhere else there was a free surface: philosophy and political textbooks mainly, with heavyweight-looking fiction dotted through them, some in the original French or German. Like her non-membership of the WI, it was clear that Nancy wasn’t the Agatha Christie or Barbara Cartland kind of girl either.

‘What do you think he meant when he said you should know who he was talking about?’

‘My subject is political philosophy. My whole life is devoted to the study of the acquisition and use – and abuse – of power. I suppose that’s what he meant. If it was, then it suggests people in all kinds of positions – people who are part of the Establishment. Maybe people in direct political power. Whoever they are and wherever they are, Tommy had something on them. And whoever they are, they have a long reach.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Tommy left something for you. A sealed envelope. He told me not to open it, for my own safety, but to keep it for you. It felt like there were documents and other stuff in it. The strange thing is he told me not to get in touch with you. You had to come to me. If you hadn’t found your way to my door within three months of anything happening, I was to put the envelope unopened into another one and send it to the editor of the
Glasgow Herald
. But he said that wouldn’t really do much good. Whatever I did I was to make sure the envelope couldn’t be traced back to me.’

‘And you didn’t open it?’

She shook her head. Another gulp.

‘Well . . .’ I said somewhat impatiently. ‘Can I have it?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s gone. Disappeared. Two days after Tommy died, my flat was broken into while I was at the uni. Broad daylight.’

‘You reported it to the police?’

Her laugh was almost a snort. ‘The police? The police would love a chance to have a sniff around my stuff. The
other
police. The
secret
police. The kind of police we’re not supposed to have on this sceptred isle. Do you know I had someone from Special Branch at the door only a couple of months ago? He sat right where you’re sitting and questioned me about all my trips abroad. He knew everything about me. Every academic contact I had in Europe, every man I had ever been involved with. Other things . . .’ She lowered her eyes for a moment, then took another swallow of gin. ‘Anyway, there was no point in me reporting the break-in.’

‘Why?’

‘Because only I could tell there had been one. Whoever it was, they were very professional, very clever. The only thing that had been taken was the envelope Tommy had left for you.’ She walked over to the bookcase behind her and pulled a volume from the shelf. Holding it out to me, she opened the cover to reveal it was a dummy, the inside a box. ‘This is where it was. They must have gone through everything, taken every book from the shelves, before they found it. It must have taken hours.’

‘Maybe they knew exactly where it was hidden.’

‘No, they didn’t. That’s how I knew someone had broken in.’ She waved an arm at the books on the shelves and scattered on tables and the desk by the window. ‘All this looks like chaos to you, to everyone, even did to Tommy – but I have this weird memory for books, where I put them. They tried to put everything back the way I had it, but I could see where one title was out of place here, another there. And there were other, tiny hints that someone had been in the flat.’

I thought about what she had said. If she was right, whoever had broken in had had skills very similar to Tommy Quaid’s. ‘But the only thing missing was the envelope Tommy had left for me?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I think you can see why I didn’t report it. At best I would sound like a paranoiac. And anyway, I’m not at all sure it wasn’t Special Branch themselves who broke in.’

‘You said this Special Branch guy knew all the men you’ve been involved with. What about Tommy? Was he mentioned?’

‘No. Tommy was the only one who wasn’t. I felt he was conspicuous by his absence.’

‘What did Tommy say about the visit from the Special Branch?’

‘He told me not to worry, but I could see he was shaken up by it. And you know Tommy, very little had the power to shake him. He told me to forget all about it.’

‘Why would Special Branch have a particular interest in you?’

‘I was a member of the Communist Party when I was a student, but I quit years ago. Since then I’ve been a member of the Labour Party, but very much on the left. But I wouldn’t be flavour of the month even with Labour Central Office. I’m a Bevanite. That’s not a problem up here in Scotland, but the Labour Party down south prefers pink to red. I hate Gaitskell and what he’s done to the party. A Tory in socialist clothing. Special Branch think the rest of us get our orders direct from Moscow.’

‘But that’s not enough for them to make house calls – either openly or surreptitiously.’

‘One of the men I was involved with, before Tommy . . .’ She lowered her eyes. ‘He was a Czech. He was over here on a university exchange and we got involved while he was here. He was only interested in people who were communist party members and I think I was pretty naive not to pick up he was more than an academic. I’ve been . . .
scrutinized
ever since.’

‘Where does Tommy fit into all this?’ I asked. ‘What was he to you?’

‘You mean what was I to Tommy? You’re struggling to see what someone like Tommy would have to do with someone like me?’ There was no bitterness in her tone or in the dully frank way she looked at me. It was blank, disinterested, detached.

‘I’m just trying to establish how well you knew him.’

‘We were lovers. For the past four years. Tommy would come into my life for three to four hours, one evening a week. And during those three or four hours he would make me feel like there was no one else in the world who mattered to him. I know Tommy was involved with a lot of women, but I think – or I like to think – he was closer to me than any other woman he was involved with. I think I knew him better than anyone. Which means hardly at all.’

I knew exactly what she meant.

‘How did you meet?’ I asked. There was a sofa facing me – or at least the shape of a sofa beneath a draped candlewick spread – and she sat down on it, balancing her gin on the arm.

‘The Mitchell Library, of all places. Tommy was looking for the same book as me. I bet you didn’t know he was interested in political philosophy?’

‘No I didn’t, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about Tommy until recently. Tommy had depths. I don’t think any of us who knew him knew him completely. He was a clever guy. A clever man born in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Was he? Tommy would argue he was who he was exactly because of his time and place. But yes, he was one of the brightest people I have ever known.’ Her voice shook a little; the gin was losing the battle to keep her grief contained.

‘Apart from his interest in political philosophy,’ I asked, ‘did Tommy ever express political leanings? I mean, did he share your views, for example?’

Nancy Ross snorted. ‘Tommy hated state socialism almost as much as he did the Tories. He said we were out to control everyone’s lives just as much as they were. You know the saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely”?’

I nodded.

‘Well Tommy believed that
any
power corrupts. He believed in direct, not representative, democracy. He said as soon as someone has a position of influence or power, they instantly abuse it to one degree or another. So no – he hated all politicians and authority figures equally. If I were to give Tommy’s political views a name – which he never would – then I would say he was an anarchist. An anarcho-syndicalist. Or maybe just bitter. His contempt for those in authority seemed to get much worse shortly before he died.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘Oh yes – there was a particular reason all right. I could see that. But Tommy being Tommy, he kept it all locked up and to himself.’

She took another sip of gin. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

I shook my head. ‘Did you and Tommy ever go to the theatre together?’

‘We didn’t go out much. Tommy would come here and we would stay in, mostly. Talk. I did take him to the Citizens a couple of times. Brecht. The truth is Tommy found theatre pointless, frivolous. He said we already lived in an acted-out fantasy.’

‘Did he ever suggest he’d be interested in variety shows? At the King’s or the Alhambra? Frantic Frankie Findlay?’

Nancy laughed and looked at me incredulously. ‘What on earth would make you think that?’

I told her about the ticket stub. Her bemusement was genuine.

‘It’s probably of no significance,’ I said. ‘It could have ended up in Tommy’s possession any number of ways.’

She went over to the sideboard and generously refilled her glass before sitting back down.

‘Is there anything else you can think of that struck you as strange?’ I asked. ‘Anything that happened in the weeks leading up to Tommy’s death that was out of the ordinary?’

She returned to the sofa, her tumbler refilled. She shrugged. ‘Not that I can think of.’ She took another sip, smaller this time. ‘There was one thing, but I don’t know if it really has anything to do with anything . . .’

‘What?’

‘Tommy seemed to get upset about something that had nothing to do with him. You know what he was like – nothing ever seemed to faze him, especially anything that was unconnected to people he knew – but this seemed to get to him. You maybe didn’t hear about this, but maybe a week or so before Tommy died, there was this young fellow who threw himself in front of a train at Central Station.’

‘I remember it.’

‘Tommy got very low when he read about it. There was no name given in the paper, but Tommy seemed to have an idea who it was. It was about that time that he began to get really bitter about “the powers that be”. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the two things were connected or not.’