“We’d better be off,” Sandy said draining his glass. “It’s good to see you all.”
“Come again, soon,” Mrs McDonald shouted after us, as we walked though the bar. We were nearly at the door, when it opened and in walked Tom Kelly, his long dark hair flowing freely over his shoulders. He wore a black T-shirt, a tattoo of the Sea Witch clearly exposed on his forearm.
“My, my, my Ms Lighthorn. What a lovely surprise. And Ross,” he nodded to Sandy. “I hadn’t realised you two were such good…”
“I wanted to see a bit of the Highlands, and Mr Ross kindly offered to show me Tarbert.”
“I’m sure he did. He loves it here… like I do. Our greatest love, wouldn’t you say Ross? Never let’s you down.”
Sandy brushed past him with a curt nod, me close on his heels. As we left, I saw a man with a gold earring following in behind Kelly. A gold earring with a small cross at the base. His head was shaved and he had a body like a gorilla. I thought of Mrs Livingstone’s description of one of the men, who had called for her husband, the night he disappeared.
I started to tremble as we walked back to the cottage, partly from the cold. Sandy put his arm round me and drew me closer to him.
Once back in the cottage, he rekindled the fire and we sat together on the sofa, watching the roaring flames, their burning warmth dispelling the chill. I put my feet up, and leant against his firm body, and, like on the boat, he began gently stroking the back of my ears, and then my neck. I felt him relaxing, too, and after a while I asked about Tom Kelly again. This time, he was more forthcoming.
“Black sheep of the family. Wanted nothing to do with the brewing business when he was younger. Kicked out of Fettes. Oh yes. Only the best for our Tom. There was some incident involving a local girl, who worked at the school. Depends who you believe. Rape, indecent assault. Whatever it was, Jack paid her off, and the police were kept out of it. Fettes kicked him out though, and he went off to art school.
“There, he met another student Frankie McSherry. Poor kid. Dragged himself up through the school of hard knocks. East End of Glasgow.
“They dropped out of college, the pair of them. Lived a feral existence for a few years. Then I suppose Jack Kelly put his foot down. They went into business together.”
“The nightclub….”
“And other stuff. He’s got a few clubs, a casino and rumoured to have,” he hesitated, “other interests.”
“When did all this start?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Not all that long ago. They must have bought the first club about five years ago, I guess.”
“Five years? Where’d he get the money?”
“Jack Kelly, I suppose.”
“Do they get on?”
“Not particularly, I don’t think. Tom’s got a reckless streak, too wild for his father. Jack can’t understand with all that education how he amounted to so little.”
“Thinks he’s an idiot?”
“He did when he was younger. I get the impression, they’ve become closer of late.”
“You said he started investing in Tom’s clubs about five years ago. What if…”
“Sshhh…enough for now.” He silenced me with a long deep kiss, and I felt desire stirring for the first time after a very long absence. He began gently kissing my face, all over my face, as he unbuttoned my blouse. His lips were on my lips again, and I sucked at his breath, as his hands moved up and down my back, a sweet pleasure sweeping over me. And I wanted more. Much more. I had waited so long for this moment. A new desire, stronger now, started to possess me, one I wasn’t sure I could control.
Sandy sensed it, and flicked the clasp on my bra loose, lowering his mouth to taste my breasts. At the first touch of his lips, a flame burst through me. But it was too powerful. It frightened me. It was too much….too soon. I panicked. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I sat up, pushing him away.
“Julia, what is it?” he looked genuinely concerned.
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” a flash of hurt passed momentarily across his eyes.
“I’m really sorry.”
He nodded, but I’m not sure he understood.
“Of course,” he got up and left the room. I heard him filling the kettle in the kitchen.
I re-clasped my bra and headed up to bed. Alone.
Chapter 37
7.30am Sunday, November 11,
The West
It was a long drive back, so we left early the next morning. The weather had turned. Much of the journey was spent in silence, broken only by my occasional raptures over the spectacular scenery, with Sandy adding a few comments or explanations about the places we travelled through. It wasn’t as awkward as it could have been, but hardly easy companionship either. Something had come between us.
He dropped me on the outskirts of Glasgow, so I caught a bus to the hotel, and spent the evening having a bath and trying to read. But the weekend had unsettled me, and I couldn’t concentrate.
First thing the next morning, I rang Sister Robert to see if she could spare me half-an-hour. I needed to catch up with her. She was coming into the city an hour or so later, so we arranged to have a coffee in the Museum of Religious Art at eleven.
Pitcher called at about 10am and said he would meet me at the hotel at 8.30pm, which would still leave the afternoon free.
I bit hard on my thumb nail for a few seconds, then dialled Mary Kelly’s number. Angus, her assistant, answered the telephone. Without consulting his employer, he invited me to Kelly Castle for lunch at 1.30pm.
My heart was heavy, as I approached the museum, close to St Mungo’s Cathedral. Thoughts of Strachan’s funeral came flooding back. I arrived first, so bought two coffees, and had sat at a table, taking my first sips, when Sister Robert arrived.
Her face broke into a sparkling smile as she said hello and sat beside me. There is something magical about people whose smiles literal light up everything around them, and give us all courage and hope. Unfortunately, she had not brought anything by way of good news with her. She had asked all the centre’s regulars to put feelers out, but there were no new leads indicating what might have happened to the child Roxy.
“We must hope and pray for the poor child, but she hasn’t been seen anywhere,” Sister Robert said.
“Does anyone have any theories about what might have happened?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” Sister Robert replied. “Many young women,” she paused, a look of pain flashing momentarily across her eyes, “and girls, illegal immigrants particularly, can find themselves locked up in brothels. If she’s alive, almost certainly, that’s where she’ll be.”
Brothels seemed such a strange word to emanate from the lips of a nun, and in a religious museum at that. But sex and religion could become very muddled.
“No one knows where any of these places are?” I asked.
“If they do, they won’t tell me or the authorities.”
“You’ll keep trying?” I asked. She nodded and then, barely stopping to catch breath, she related all the latest news at the Stella Maris. I didn’t know anyone who could speak so quickly, and so long, with such few breaths. She spoke of the regulars and newcomers, and always with that sparkle in her eyes.
She drained the last dregs of her coffee and started fishing in her bag, finally pulling out an aerosol, which she placed on the table. It looked like a perfume spray.
“It’s for you,” she said. “I want you to take it.”
“What is it?” I said, picking it up.
“It’s a pepper spray, just in case...”
“I don’t need this sort of thing, sister,” I said, handing it back to her.
“Of course not. We can trust in God. But it would ease my mind, if you would take it.”
“Really, there’s no need.”
“Julia, there is a need. These people, and the world they inhabit....” she didn’t finish.
“Please for me.”
I took one more look at the self-defence spray and put
it in my coat pocket. Coffee finished, we said our goodbyes. Before we parted, she turned towards me taking both my hands in hers.
“I’m doing everything I can to find out what has happened. If I hear any whisper, you’ll be the first to know. But you must keep trying too, Julia. We must find this child.”
We parted and I hailed a cab to take me to Kelly Castle. Mary Kelly stood waiting for me on its wide, stone steps. It wasn’t a castle of course, but a folly. In fact, it was all a fake. There was no ancient Kelly clan, and no amount of Rapunzel towers, gothic arches and stained glass could change that. I asked the taxi to wait for me.
I was surprised by how frail she looked. I came expecting a dominatrix, yet was met by a tiny figure, exuding courtesy and charm.
“Ms Lighthorn,” she said, descending the steps. “At last we meet. I trust you had a good journey?” She spoke with a gentle, but crisp enunciation.
I followed her into the grand entrance hall, big enough for a family to live in. Rich, oak-panelling rose up to a stunningly white ceiling. Everything was pristine, just like her immaculate white blouse and blue tartan skirt.
“The cornicing dates back to the 19th century,” she said, as she caught me staring at the elaborate ceiling. A man servant, dressed in a kilt of the same tartan, announced lunch in the “Laird’s Parlour.” I recognised his voice immediately.
“You’ve spoken to Angus,” she said, introducing me formally and leading me into the parlour.
Huge windows opened out onto the loch below, edged by hills. Even in the depths of winter, it possessed a rare beauty.
“It was my husband’s favourite room,” she said.
A light lunch of salad and cold beef had been laid out on small occasional tables in front of the fire. She signalled for me to sit in a rather stiff-looking leather arm-chair.
“Please,” she pointed to the food.
I picked at it to be polite, but I did not plan to stay long.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” Mary Kelly began.
“Not good, I doubt.”
“Ah, the menfolk, with their big clumsy feet, trampling over everything,” she paused. “I understand and admire you for your concern. It has all been a terrible business. The Strachans.”
“Ken and his family.”
“We feel for the family. Poor Maggie, Mrs Strachan. We were at school together, a very long time ago now...”
I wasn’t sure what to make of this information, but it added another twist.
She paused, as if to catch her breath, and I noticed a slight rasping sound, as she inhaled.
“Did you know there had been bad blood between the families years ago, the Strachans and the Kellys?”
I shook my head.
“Long before we were all born. There was a bishop in the family. He tried to stop people buying our beer and whisky. Led a campaign against Robert’s father. Came to nothing.”
“Robert?”
“My husband.”
“Yet Ken worked for you?”
“We were one of Scotland’s biggest companies. Feuds get buried in the past. We learn to let sleeping dogs lie. Close-knit community. Live side by side, marry our neighbours, work t’gether and then we…”
She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t say that they died together and were buried together.
“The pension,” I brought us both back to the here and now.
Her expression hardened slightly.
“Aye, you think our family’s to blame,” she was wheezing again, and I realised for all the polish of her appearance, she was truly frail. “Certainly, the pension has not been our greatest success. Trying times.”
“Ken Strachan and others believed the fund had been illegally raided.”
“Ken Strachan was as mad as his ancestors. He used to claim lots of things without a shred of proof.”
“In my experience there is seldom smoke without fire,” I said.
“The Kellys are not criminals, Ms Lighthorn, whatever Ken Strachan may have tried to persuade you.”
The picture of Robert Kelly and Joe Kennedy working together to bust the US Government’s prohibition on alcohol came into my mind, followed by Tom Kelly, running drugs on his boat the Sea Witch.
“My husband, Jack’s father, was a good man,” she said, as if reading my mind. “He didn’t have an easy life.”
Her eyes circled the room.
“You look at all this and you think, we’ve got it made. This is the fruit of hard graft and sacrifice. Glasgow was poleaxed by the depression. The great days of the empire were over. People were starving. The rest of Britain forgot about us. We endured 60 years of poverty.
“Ship-building, coal mining, any kind of business went to the wall. But Kelly’s stayed alive. The men couldn’t find work, not for a few years or for a few decades, but for generations. Fathers, who had never worked, had sons, who bred more sons, all destined for life on the slag heap.
“Robbie’s father took over the brewery when he was 17. You could spit its profits into an egg cup and not splash the sides. Sales were low. The men always wanted more money. Two strikes, nearly bankrupted us. He wouldn’t let them win.
“He fought the men and he fought the depression and he made this company great. He went out into the world and found new markets, new enterprises. He let nothing stand in his way.
“My Robbie built on his success. He always said while there was breath in his body, they’d ne’er stop Kelly’s barrels rolling. And they never did. They rolled through the wars and the dark times. And so they do still today.”
This was becoming too much for me to swallow in silence. “The firm called in the receivers over six months ago,” I quietly reminded her.
“Aye, modern times brought new challenges, but we restructured. We’ve been through bad times before.”
“Is that why Jack took money out of the pension fund?”
“Our money, our business,” she shot at me.
“So you admit it?”
“I admit nothing. I can assure you, if any money was removed, it was all done legally. We are a reputable company.”
“Your workers lost their pensions. Their dreams of a happy old age,” my voice was quiet, but firm. A tiny part of me felt sorry for this old woman, whose world had vanished.
“What old age did my Robbie have?” She wouldn’t give an inch. “Died at 42 from pneumonia. He kept those miserable ungratefuls in well-paid work, and he paid for it with his life. Jest like his father before him, he went to an early grave. They drove him there. So before you start attacking us, remember the suffering and trials we went through to keep this brewery going. We provided jobs when no one else would. Without us, they would have starved.”
“I’m not sure what any of this has to do with pensions,” I said politely.
“No story here, Ms Lighthorn. There are no secrets. You can dig as much as you like. This company has always acted legally, to the letter of the law. We’re all sorry the pension scheme didn’t work out. But, as they say, that’s life.”
“Is that why you asked me here, to tell me that?”
“I wanted you to understand about us. I want you to leave my family alone. We’ve got a chance of a new start, and I want them to be able to take it. Jack and Tom.”
“Tom has his own business affairs. The brewery means nothing to him.”
“You are wrong, Ms Lighthorn. The brewery means everything to Tom.”
“He refused to join the business.”
“He was young. Like all young men, he can be hot headed. Says and does the wrong thing. Still does at times. He doesn’t need people bothering and fretting him. He can be...”
“Reckless?”
She opened her lips to reply, but closed them again, distracted by the sound of a car driving on the gravel outside. She had a visitor, and my pulse raced at the thought it could be her son or grandson.
“I must go,” I said, standing and thanking her for lunch. I held out my hand to say goodbye.
She picked up the tea pot and poured herself a fresh cup of tea. The message was clear. I could show myself out.
Chapter 38
2.30pm, Monday November 12,
Central Glasgow
I relaxed when I saw a district nurse getting out of her car on the drive. I wouldn’t have to face either of the Kellys, at least, not yet. My taxi was still waiting and drove me back to the hotel. I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening going over the encounters with the two women, Sister Robert and Mary Kelly; both strong female characters, but so different. I thought, too, of Margaret Strachan and her childhood friendship with Mary Kelly.
Pitcher arrived on the dot of eight-thirty.
“Unusual habit for a plod,” I said, as I emerged from the stairs and pushed my way through the swing doors onto the street outside. “I thought the filth had perfected the art of being late, as in arriving after the event.”
“Unlike gutter hacks,” he snapped back. “You arrive before a crime is even a twinkle in a villain’s eye, and what hasn’t happened you make up.”
“I suppose it’s being so funny keeps you going,” I retorted, adding “Where’s the car?” There was no vehicle in sight.
“I thought I’d take you on an adventure. If you can risk your life on the high seas with an actuary, walking through Glasgow with a copper won’t stir a hair on your pretty head.”
The club was at the other end of Sauchiehall Street. We passed through modern shopping precincts, followed by the small yet significant financial quarter. Scenes of affluence gave way to the shabby end of town, largely populated by students. We continued beyond this, too, and reached the streets too rough, even for the adventurous young.
The exterior of the club was a deep blue, and the letters of the Sea Witch shone in silver neon against the dark background. There were four bouncers on the door. They were dressed in sharp suits, but their faces looked like they’d been hit by a lorry. Pitcher handed over our tickets. We were waved inside.
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