The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5 Read online

  But that bothered me in itself: no one now seemed to be looking to jump me. Thinking it through – and remembering the similarity in our height, build and sartorial taste – brought Tommy’s suit back to mind. I had dispelled the idea of the attack being a case of mistaken identity, but Tommy’s sudden, unlikely and silent demise a week later cast everything in a different light. But if someone had broken Tommy’s neck and thrown him from the roof, it was a professional job; the attack in the street certainly hadn’t been.

  And while I was watching out for faces in the crowd, I also kept an eye out for a lopsided one; but Mr McNaught was conspicuous by his absence too. Maybe, I thought, he had read about Tommy’s death and decided, like me, that the best thing for him and his anonymous client was to keep as clear of the mess as possible. I kept his down payment to hand, just in case.

  In the meantime, I tried to get on with my life.

  3

  ’Pherson’s was a bit of an institution in Glasgow and a regular habit of mine. No one ever explained, nor even mentioned, the fact that the ‘Mac’ had got lost somewhere in the post and everyone referred to the man as ’Pherson and his business as ’Pherson’s.

  Old man ’Pherson himself was what would have been euphemistically described as a ‘confirmed bachelor’; in his case, a very confirmed bachelor. He was a frail, birdlike man aged somewhere between fifty and a hundred, whose own hair was preternaturally dark and whose hands and scissors seemed to flutter around your head without making any kind of contact. He was also probably the best barber I’d ever had and I visited him every couple of weeks. After the events of the weekend before, I was doing my best to keep to my usual routine; the next day was one of my regular appointments for a trim and one of old ’Pherson’s surgically close shaves.

  There are places you find, places you build into your routine, that give you a strange sense of belonging. Anchor points. Places you rely on not to change, to stay constant. ’Pherson’s was like that for me. It was a uniquely masculine environment: the impossibly robust leather and polished steel barber chairs – raised, lowered and tilted by unseen pneumatics and levers – were as self-evidently pieces of engineering as battleships, tanks or sports cars. ’Pherson himself wore an immaculate white mandarin-collared overjacket of the kind you’d expect a movie surgeon or a top-end-no-National-Health-patients-thank-you dentist to wear, indicating that gentleman-barbering was a science rather than an art; the radio on the shelf was tuned permanently to the Home Service; the unguent odours in the air were as much chemical as perfumes; the tiles on the wall were pastel-hued but spoke of surgical wards and were broken with calendars of pneumatic young starlets stretch-testing the tolerance of their knit or cotton tops. It was all a declaration that there was some science and robust engineering and indisputable manliness in a place which was, after all, dedicated to male grooming.

  As usual, while he trimmed, old man ’Pherson chatted in the way he always did: amiable but lacking in depth. I guessed that when you were a ‘very confirmed bachelor’ in nineteen-fifties Scotland – a society that actively persecuted, and imprisoned, ‘very confirmed bachelors’ – you learned to talk a lot without saying anything. Old ’Pherson restricted himself to what was happening in the news, chirruping his way with his overly formal delivery through several of the happenings locally and nationally.

  ‘Was that no’ a terrible thing the other week with that young fellow at Central Station? Don’t you have your offices near there, Mr Lennox?’

  ‘I do . . . I saw all the comings and goings but don’t know much more about it.’

  ‘Terrible thing . . . just terrible,’ ’Pherson intoned with the florid relish he reserved for really bad news. ‘Young fellow like that throwing himself in front of the train. Just terrible. His guts and everything spilling oot like that . . . terrible. Did you know he wis cut clean in half?’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t know it was a suicide either.’

  ‘Oh yes . . . A good friend of mine saw it. Saw the whole thing. They was waiting for the train to come in and seen that poor boy standing away at the far end of the platform, nowheres near where the train would stop. That’s why he noticed him. Why my friend noticed the young laddie, I mean. And then when the train was coming into the station, this young fellow simply jumps off the platform and chucks himself under the wheels. My friend says.’

  ‘I thought it happened near the Broomielaw, not in the station. That’s what it said in the paper.’ I turned a little to the old man but thin, bony fingers dug into my scalp and turned me back to face the mirror. The scissors resumed their butterfly fluttering.

  ‘No, no . . . my friend saw it all,’ said ’Pherson, emphatically. ‘It was in the station, so it was. Loads o’ folk screamin’ and cryin’. Dreadful thing. Just dreadful.’

  I thought about what the elderly barber had said. It would make sense of what I saw: the body being brought out through the main entrance.

  Old birdlike ’Pherson continued to twitter about other things while he tilted my chair back and shaved me deftly and assuredly with a cut-throat, before our conversation was stifled by the application of a hot towel.

  I had absolutely no idea what practical purpose laying an almost scalding damp towel on my face served, but it certainly always had a therapeutic one. There was a ritual to it: the chair tilted back further, hot cloth applied, all conversation suspended while the customer was left in towelling-insulated solitude. And once the towel came off, there was no feeling like it, the skin glossy, taut and tingling.

  After a while, ’Pherson kicked the chair lever and whipped off the towel as the chair came upright. There was more fluttering: tiny slaps and the cold sting of cologne; a dance of soft brush bristles on my neck. When he finished he asked me matter-of-factly if I would be needing ‘weekend supplies’ and I told him I would. No matter what day of the week I called in, ’Pherson always assumed the ‘supplies’ were for the weekend. In a Presbyterian society like Scotland, fornication seemed to be considered a strictly weekend activity – the last commodity yet to be freed from rationing.

  *

  Ten minutes later I came out of ’Pherson’s into a typically muggy Glasgow Saturday, the air hanging damp, warm and sullen and muting the fresh tingle of air on my smooth-shaved and cologned skin. My ‘supplies’ were discreetly wrapped in the brown paper bag I carried.

  I walked the block or so to the dry-cleaners. Dry-cleaning was still something of a novelty in Glasgow, home of the tenement basement ‘steamie’ where a history of industrial soot and grime meant clothes were traditionally boiled to destruction. The dry-cleaners I used – the Saturn Laundry – had decided to go for a space-age futuristic theme. From the decor, it was clear they firmly believed that Formica and coloured Perspex would feature as heavily as interplanetary travel in the Space Age to come. The regular woman there was Maisie: a short, heavyish sort of around forty who was just, and no more, clinging to the last vestiges of youthful prettiness, her moon-round face framed in hair that was about as naturally blonde as ’Pherson’s was black. Maisie looked like she’d been around the block several times and had always given me the impression that she’d go round once more with me any time I wanted. We exchanged banter whenever I came into the shop, although we both knew that that was as far as I’d take it, but we kept up the kidding as if I might. Just a bit of fun; one of those games you played. And anyway, experienced sailor that I was, I liked to keep a light burning in all ports in case of storm.

  ‘Just come from the barber, Mr Lennox?’ she enquired, looking pointedly at the brown paper bag that I carried instead of at my haircut. ‘It was just the two suits, wasn’t it? No lipsticky shirts this time?’

  ‘Just the suits, Maisie.’ I smiled. ‘I’m leading a morally reformed life.’

  ‘Aye . . . and I’m Audrey Hepburn’s twin sister.’ She returned with the suits – a dark blue of mine and Tommy’s Prince of Wales – on hangers in the same bag.

  I thanked her and turned to leave when
she called out to stop me.

  ‘Oh aye . . . I forgot about this . . .’ Reaching into a drawer, she took out a Yale key with a blue tab attached to it and placed it on the Formica surface of the counter. Next to it she placed the stub of a theatre ticket. ‘You left these in a pocket.’

  ‘They’re not mine,’ I said. I hadn’t seen the key before.

  ‘Aye, they are,’ she protested. ‘The key was in the outside pocket of your suit. Maybe one of your girlfriends put it there.’

  ‘Which suit?’

  ‘The checked one. Prince of Wales.’

  Tommy’s suit. I shook my head as if annoyed with my own stupidity.

  ‘Yes . . . yes, of course. Sorry. I’d forget my head if it weren’t screwed on. Thanks, Maisie.’ I snapped up the key and headed out. ‘Give my regards to Audrey when you see her . . .’

  4

  I drove home with the roof down on the Alpine, trying to sustain the fresh feeling of the shave, but when I got back to the apartment building all I felt was grimy. I had a date with the kiosk redhead from the Gaumont that night and decided to take a shower.

  Before I showered, I emptied the packets of condoms from the paper bag and into the bedside drawer, then took both of the suits I’d picked up from the dry-cleaners and hung them up, still encased in the bag. It made me feel like I was putting Tommy’s ghost into my wardrobe but, at that moment, I couldn’t think what else to do with the suit. Again it struck me that it was so very like the Prince of Wales check I’d ruined during my dance routine with Victor McLaglen and his chum. Once more I thought about Tommy’s death making no sense and found myself wondering if my ambush had been a case of mistaken identity, the two goons confused by our matching tailoring. I wanted to let the whole thing go, but Tommy’s death just didn’t make sense.

  I took the key from my pocket and looked at it. Rather carelessly, I hadn’t gone through Tommy’s suit when I had put it into the cleaners, assuming he wouldn’t have lent me a suit with anything in the pockets. It was a Yale type key for a pin tumbler type lock. There was a blue plastic tab attached to it with the number 47a stamped on it. I remembered that that was the number on Tommy’s door. That was why Tommy hadn’t missed it: it was a spare key to his flat.

  I dropped the key into the ashtray on the sideboard and went for my shower.

  *

  Agnes – the redhead from the Gaumont kiosk – had a bit of a busman’s holiday attitude about going to see a movie so we went for a drink instead. Keen to steer clear of the West End, I drove out of the city and north to Drymen. By and large, the Scots were indoors drinkers; partly because of the shitty weather and partly because they didn’t like to be distracted by scenery from the serious business of drinking.

  I’d found this country pub on the outskirts of the village and, although the Scots viewed beer gardens with scepticism and even mistrust (the Germans and the English were big on them), there were a few benches outside where you could sit and take in the views. Agnes talked, although I tried to encourage her not to, and told me all about the ins and outs of running a tobacco kiosk. After about an hour, I could have told you when the Players No 5 were delivered and exactly how many ounces of loose leaf sold in an hour. All this information was disclosed in a gravelly baritone and Govan accent that were beginning seriously to blunt my ardour. But when Agnes wriggled closer to me and suggested we go back to my place, I blocked out Finlay Currie and reached for my car keys.

  I was just draining my beer when a ship of a car pulled up into the pub car park. It was a smoke-grey Bentley S1 and when the doors swung open I could almost smell the walnut, leather, Axminster and new money from twenty yards away. A medium-height guy with too-oiled hair slicked back from a too-long, slack-jawed face got out of the driver’s seat and stood taking in the view. He was dressed in an expensive suit that was more flash than style and the face was dressed in the kind of smug expression you instinctively wanted to wipe off with your knuckles. He made no effort to come round and aid the woman who stepped out of the passenger seat. She was too tall and too slim for my taste and again was dressed in a way that suggested a bank balance that had overtaken a sense of taste. She would have been unremarkable-looking had it not been for the expensive silk turban-style hat and the acre of Arctic fox wrapped around her shoulders – she was obviously expecting the mild July evening to turn a bit nippy. The long gown she wore underneath the pelt suggested she was also expecting Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly to be minding the bar.

  The husband indicated the pub with a nod and they both headed into it.

  ‘Did you no’ see who that wus?’ said Agnes, clearly awed.

  ‘Who?’ I shrugged.

  Agnes looked at me as if I had said something profoundly stupid.

  ‘Frankie Findlay.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  Agnes was now open-mouthed. ‘Frankie Findlay the comedian. You know, Frantic Frankie Findlay . . . Dinnae tell me yuv no’ heard uh Frankie Findlay.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ I feigned enlightenment, looking at the Bentley. I still had no idea who he was. There again, I was purposely ignorant of Scottish comedy. Scotland had much of which to be proud: it had been the birthplace and heart of the Industrial Revolution; it was a small country that had produced a truly disproportionate number of engineers, medical pioneers and inventors for its size. But that pride didn’t extend to comedy: I had seen enough Scottish comedians to know that, as a nation, they should have stuck to building bridges. Scottish music hall comedy, which had now filtered into radio and TV, was truly, spectacularly dire. Only one act I’d seen, a deadpan comic called Chic Murray, had had any subtlety or sophistication to it; the rest had been crass and moronic.

  ‘He’s been on the telly and everything,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Oh yes . . .’ The truth was that in that instant the name did become familiar: I realized I’d seen it somewhere before. ‘Frantic Frankie Findlay, you say.’

  ‘Aye . . .’ Another incredulous look. ‘That’s him.’

  5

  I didn’t take Agnes back to my place. The Forestry Commission had long been an accomplice of mine in matters romantic and, taking the scenic route back to town, I pulled into a forest track off the road, far enough to be hidden by trees but not so far as to risk getting the Alpine stuck. We went through the usual obligatories and preliminaries before Agnes yielded to the inevitable. As it turned out, it was all a bit of a disappointment.

  As a horizontal dance partner, Agnes was nowhere near the same class as Irene; she was unresponsive and expressionless to the point of catatonia, and I had to resist the temptation in passion’s midst to check her for a pulse. I liked to think that my performances were worthy of some show of appreciation – in Irene’s case usually a couple of encores. I suppose at least Agnes had remained quiet throughout the proceedings, which was preferable to having her whisper Finlay Currie sweet nothings in my ear.

  After we adjusted our dress, smoked our cigarettes and drove back into town, I dropped Agnes off near her digs. She had remained quiet, almost sullen, throughout the journey. The quiet treatment wasn’t anything unusual: a lot of women went like that afterwards. Some even cried, which did my ego no end of good.

  I could never really understand why so many women felt guilty afterwards when we had both made the same choice, both done the same thing. I never forced my attentions on anyone, always retreating when the slightest resistance was met, and I always made sure when ascending the heights of passion that my chosen co-pilot had a licence and had already clocked up several hours of previous flight time. But the landings always seemed bumpy and a sense of shame, in varying degrees, seemed to seize them – Irene being the obvious exception. I supposed it was just another of those codes and double standards that women seemed to get the shit-end of – and the kind of thing I imagined philosopher–thief Quiet Tommy Quaid would have had a theory about.

  As I drove home I thought about the over-oiled, slack-jawed comic with the flash Bentley. The name, that
much to Agnes’s frustration I hadn’t recognized when she’d mentioned it, now sat picking away at a thread in some fraying corner of my brain.

  When I got home I dug out the ticket stub the cleaner had found in Tommy’s suit. I had been right: when Agnes had told me the spivvy-looking comedian we saw outside the Drymen pub was Frankie Findlay, it had rung a bell. This bell. The ticket stub was for a show at the King’s Theatre, called Frankie Goes Frantic! and starring none-other-than. I had been right; but for some reason, the thought still picked away at the same frayed corner.

  *

  Another few days passed without any contact from the police and I found out that Quaid’s body had been released and the funeral would be the following Saturday. I decided I’d go along to see who made an appearance, hopefully without drawing too much attention to myself. I stopped strapping up my ribs and reckoned that whatever damage had been done had been superficial and was well on the mend, so long as I didn’t over-exert myself too much.

  I got a call at the office from Irene, whom I hadn’t seen since before the night I got jumped. In two short sentences she explained she was free for an hour and she’d see me back at my flat. I thought she sounded strained on the 'phone and I agreed, but when we went up to the apartment it became clear that her urgency was of the good old sort and she was just seizing the opportunity.

  We indulged in the kind of over-exertion I’d sworn to avoid, but I rose to the challenge and my ribs held out. The vigour with which Irene performed sex was a stark contrast to Agnes. Irene was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and took it, which probably intimidated and riled most men, but which I always found attractive in a woman. She did, however, seem concerned about the livid bruising on my torso – perhaps only because it could have an effect on my performance – and listened patiently and with a show of interest, feigned or otherwise, while I sketched out what had happened, deliberately erasing Quiet Tommy from the picture and being vague about where exactly it had all taken place.