The Deep Dark Sleep

I heard shouts and a whistle; the sound of more trashcans being toppled and I could see, somewhere at the other side of the court, torch beams stabbing the fog ineffectually. I ran on, hoping I didn’t trip over anything else in the fog. I was not too concerned about the stumbling coppers behind me, but I knew that if someone actually had the brains to think it through, a car sent around the block, even at smog-driving pace, could catch me when I came out of the passage and onto the street.

I found the passage and sprinted along it and out onto the street. I reckoned at this time of night and in this fog, there would be few cars around and I ran straight out onto the road. I found the tramlines and ran, concentrating only on the small pool of awareness I had in the fog and keeping in the centre of the tramlines. I reached a curve and a TRAM PINCH warning sign, just discernible on the periphery of my vision, told me I was now out of the side street and on the main drag. Still no ringing bells of a pursuing police Wolseley. And now it would be useless in the fog.

I ran on for a hundred yards more, then slowed to a trot, then a walk, then stopped, leaning over to catch my breath, my hands braced on my knees. When I had recovered enough, I straightened up and stood silent in the smog and listened. Nothing.

The only problem I had was that I now had no idea where I was. Suddenly, a vast shape loomed at me out of the smog, a monster with two burning embers for eyes, rattling towards me. I leapt to the side, lost my footing and fell, rolling on my side and out of the way of the tram that trundled past, the driver shouting some obscenity through the window, but not applying the brake to check that I was all right.

The tram was swallowed up again in the smog. I stood up, dusted myself off and picked up my bashed trilby.

‘Bollocks,’ I muttered. Then, as I found my way back to the pavement, I suddenly thought about Senga and Lover Boy, and burst into laughter.

This time, the smog was persistent. It had lurked all night and was pressing against the windows of my boarding house room when I woke the following morning. My tumble in the street was now playing vigorous accompaniment to what had been the decrescendo of the bruises I’d picked up in the alleyway. I headed into the office early, again taking the tram and not risking driving in the murk.

When I got to the office I tried to get Leonora Bryson by ’phone at the Central Hotel, but was told she and Mr Macready were in Edinburgh for press interviews. I was luckier with Fraser, the lawyer: I told him we had to meet urgently and for some reason he insisted that we didn’t meet at his office, so I suggested Central Station in half an hour.

Despite my only having to cross the street to the station, Fraser managed to get there before me. There is a kind of protocol to sitting in railway cafés: if you are just having a cup of coffee, it should always be with a cigarette and you should hunch over your coffee and look miserable, as if the train you are waiting for is scheduled to take you to the final of all destinations. Fraser was breaching this etiquette of gloom. He was sitting with his straight back to the counter, facing the station concourse, his beady eyes alert. He spotted me coming and took his briefcase from the chair next to him. I ordered a coffee at the counter from the glummest man in the universe, carried it over and sat next to Fraser.

‘This is not the ideal place to talk about what I want to talk about,’ I said, casting an eye over the other patrons who might be within earshot.

‘I thought our business regarding these photographs was concluded, Mr Lennox,’ he said.

‘So did I. I got a visit from the police the other day. We’re cooperating on another case. While he was there, my contact let slip that he was dealing with a murder in Govanhill.’

‘I would imagine that’s not a particularly rare or noteworthy event …’ Fraser frowned.

‘Maybe so, but this murder was at the address I recovered the photographs from.’

Fraser looked shocked for a moment, then leaning forward, lowered his voice to the level I’d been speaking at. ‘Paul Downey?’

‘That I don’t know. The flat was rented by his friend, Frank. I’ll probably find out later today which of them is dead.’

‘My God …’ Fraser thought for a moment, then said conspiratorially, ‘Is there anything, anything that can link us and the Macready business to that address?’

‘One of the reasons I’m expecting to have the identity of the deceased today is because I’m expecting the police to call. I asked one of my contacts if he knew anything about Paul Downey. If it’s Downey who’s been murdered, then they’re going to want to know why I was asking.’

‘But you can’t tell them, Mr Lennox!’ Fraser looked around the café and lowered his voice. ‘You know how sensitive this whole thing is. I have to say that I think it was very careless of you to ask the police about Downey.’