I smoked too many
cigarettes, sipped too much Highland Park and let Bessie Smith tell me just how
bad men were. For once thin afternoon sun shone on Glasgow; the last traces of
winter just a distant memory. Old Joe started up “Just One Cornetto” in the shop
downstairs. I didn’t have a case, and I didn’t care.
It was Easter weekend, and all was right
with the world.
I should have known it was too good to
last.
I heard him coming up the stairs. Sherlock
Holmes could have told you his height, weight, shoe-size and nationality from
the noise he made. All I knew was that he was either ill or very old; he’d
taken the stairs like he was climbing a mountain with a Sherpa on his back.
He rapped on the outside door.
Shave and a haircut, two bits.
“Come in. Adams Massage Services is open
for business.”
At first I thought it was someone wandering
in off the street. He was unkempt, unshaven, eyes red and bleary. He wore an
old brown wool suit over a long, out of shape cardigan and his hair stood out
from his scalp in strange clumps. I’ve rarely seen a man more in need of a
drink.
Or a meal.
He was so thin as to be almost skeletal,
the skin on his face stretched tight across his cheeks. I was worried that if I
made him smile his face might split open like an over-ripe fruit.
“Are you Adams?” he said as he came in. He
turned out to be younger than I’d first taken him for, somewhere in his fifties
at a guess, but his mileage was much higher. “Jim at the Twa Dugs said you
might be able to help me.”
I waved him in.
“It’s about time Jim started calling in
some of the favors I owe him. Sit down Mr…?”
“Duncan. Ian Duncan.”
He sat, perched at the front of the chair,
as if afraid to relax. His eyes flickered around the room, never staying long
on anything, never looking straight at me.
“Smoke?” I asked, offering him the packet.
He shook his head.
“It might kill me,” he said.
I lit up anyway… a smell wafted from the
man, a thick oily tang so strong that even the pungent Camels didn’t help much.
Time for business.
“So what can I do for you Mr. Duncan?”
“I’m going to die sometime this weekend. I
need you to stop them.”
I stared back at him.
