The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5

The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid: Lennox 5 by Craig Russell Page A

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Authors: Craig Russell
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to sleep, but my ribs ember-glowed with a malevolent ache and the events of the evening kept running like an endless film loop against the screen of my closed eyelids. In a city where violence was common and generally senseless, I couldn’t understand why I was struggling so hard to make sense of my ambush.
    The birds had already started singing by the time I fell asleep.

6
    I spent the next two days recuperating. Irene and I had made no arrangement to meet because, it being the weekend, she was playing the role of mother and wife. In any case, the stiffness I was feeling as a result of my encounter with pavement and boot was not the kind of rigidity that would have been of any use to Irene.
    By the Sunday, the pain had dulled into a persistent but manageable ache, but when I removed the strapping to soak my battered torso in the bath, I saw that both sides were covered with livid blossoms of purple, maroon and black. Amateurs or not, I’d taken a kicking all right. The bruise blooming out from my hairline onto my forehead was also diffusing into a fudged rainbow, and I was already planning out my Monday morning explanation for Archie, whose seemingly slow, dull, watery eyes missed nothing.
    I hadn’t slept well either night, small electric jolts in my ribs wakening me regularly. When I had managed to find some sleep, it had filled with vivid dreams, including the one that had haunted me so often: a terrified face that was more boy than man desperately begging me. In German. The same dream that seemed to re-emerge every time I’d gotten myself into a fight, like some kind of echo reminding me how hollow I had become.
    I eased myself gingerly into the day. I knew I had to be by the 'phone at one p.m. to take McNaught’s call, but first I wanted to pick up the newspapers and a supply of cigarettes. As the sun was making an unaccustomed appearance, I decided to walk instead of drive, thinking the activity might loosen me up. So, once I’d done my best to strap my ribs up tight, I headed out into the sunshine and down Great Western Road. The Glasgow sky rewarded my spirit of endeavour by clouding over before I had reached the newsvendor outside the Gaumont Cinema, which for some reason the locals still called the Ascot. I could hear him from half a mile away, shouting out ‘
Heeeeauheennyoooos! Geaytyooheeeeauheennyoooos
’ in that near consonantless language of newsvendors that was unintelligible everywhere, but in a Glaswegian accent was doubly encrypted.
    Tucking the papers under my arm, I nipped into the foyer of the Gaumont: I’d been cultivating the redhead who worked the tobacco kiosk and while I picked up some cigarettes I shot her a line or two. It was less of an angling trip and more of a fish-shoot in a barrel and I got a note of her days off. She was cute enough all right, but had a smoked-deep voice and a grit-and-glass accent that made me hope desperately that she didn’t get vocal at times of passion. Generally, I found it off-putting for Finlay Currie to come to mind during intimacy.
    ‘Ah’m no’ on the phoan, but,’ she rumbled. I assured her that I’d call by the kiosk later in the week to make final arrangements.
    *
    I was back in my flat by twelve-thirty and, at exactly one p.m., my 'phone rang. I recognized the voice right away as belonging to my new friend with the lopsided face.
    ‘Have you fixed a schedule for what we discussed?’ he asked without preliminaries.
    ‘Next Monday, one a.m.,’ I said.
    ‘And you can rely on your associate to stick to that time?’
    ‘I can,’ I said. ‘I’ll be taking him there.’
    ‘Good. This is an important mission. I was hoping you would personally supervise it.’
    ‘How do I contact you to arrange delivery and payment?’ I asked.
    ‘You don’t. I’ll 'phone you again after that date to arrange collection of the information and payment of the rest of your fee.’ He hung up. I guessed we weren’t going to be close.
    *
    Tommy Quaid’s

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