‘He must have bashed his heid on the side o’ the ship when he went ower,’ the stranger observed, eyeing the deep cut on Tam’s forehead. ‘You cannae do nothing more for him. I’ll tell you what, I’m in a bit o’ a hurry, but I’ll report it to the polis, and you’d better wait here wi’ him so you can tell them what happened.’
‘Thanks.’
Tommy’s teeth were chattering now, and he stood up out of the pool of water which surrounded him, his senses dull. He had wanted his father dead, yet he had tried to save him; it didn’t make sense. His head was still pounding from the blow Tam had struck, and when he put his hand to his temple, he wasn’t surprised to find a lump the size of an egg, nor that it wasn’t only water that was running down his cheek. Wiping his blood-stained fingers on the leg of his trousers, he looked down at the huge hole in his father’s forehead, and his heart gave a sickening jolt.
What would the bobbies make of this?
Chapter Thirty-three
It was almost two o’clock in the morning when a thunderous knocking on the shop door catapulted the Phimisters out of a deep sleep, and Hugh still hadn’t got his wits together when it was repeated. ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’
Before he unlocked the door, he called, ‘Who is it?’ and was astonished when someone answered, ‘The Leith police.’ It brought back memories of his childhood chums trying to say the old tongue-twister – ‘The Leith Police dismisseth us’ – three times quickly. When he opened the door and saw two men regarding him sternly, his smile faded.
It was the shorter man who spoke. ‘I’m Inspector McVey and this is Sergeant Inglis. Does Cissie McGregor live here?’
Mystified, Hugh said, ‘Yes, she’s my wife, and our name’s Phimister.’
‘Does your wife have a brother called Thomas?’
‘Tommy’s her oldest brother. What’s happened?’
‘All in good time. May we come in?’
As Hugh took them into the store, Cissie came in by the back door. ‘Who was it, Hugh?’ She halted, her sleepy face filling with apprehension when she saw the two men.
‘It’s the police, and it’s something to do with Tommy,’ Hugh told her.
The Inspector took over. ‘Mrs Phimister, was your brother here this evening?’
‘We were half expecting him, but he didn’t show up. What’s wrong? Has something happened to him?’
‘He is being questioned at the police station.’
‘Questioned? What’s he supposed to have done?’
‘Was he on good terms with his father?’
Cissie’s anxious glance at her husband was not lost on the Inspector. ‘You’d better tell me if there was bad blood between them.’
‘He hasn’t seen my father since before the war – 1913 some time.’ Thinking that it might be best to deny any knowledge of Tam being out, she added, ‘I don’t know what this is about, for my father’s serving fifteen years in Peterhead.’
McVey shook his head. ‘His sentence was reduced to ten after an appeal, and he was released on parole two years ago. He broke his parole, however, and disappeared. Didn’t you know he was out?’
‘No, and Tommy didn’t, either.’ She crossed her fingers as she told the deliberate lie.
‘Are you sure about that? They were seen tonight in the same public house, and witnesses say they left together.’
Hugh put his arm round Cissie’s shoulders. ‘Tommy wouldn’t have been drinking with his father.’
A brief look of triumph crossed McVey’s face. ‘So! They were not on good terms? I didn’t say they had been drinking together, but they certainly went out together, and less than half an hour later, Thomas McGregor senior was drowned in the docks.’
Giving a small sigh, Cissie collapsed against her husband, who lifted her up and set her on the only chair available. ‘Did you have to tell her like that?’ he demanded, angrily, running to the sink to fill a cup with water.
‘I had to make sure she wasn’t in on it. McGregor swears it was an accident, but two of the crew on a nearby ship heard them having a heated argument, and there’s no doubt they had a fight, for both of them had head wounds. It looks very bad for him.’
Kneeling down, Hugh forced some liquid through Cissie’s white lips, and with a splutter, she came round. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Phimister,’ the Inspector said, ‘but you must understand my position. Now, if you’re feeling up to it, I’ll have to ask you some questions.’
Over the next thirty minutes, she told him why Tommy had left Aberdeen, why she had left Aberdeen, why her father had been in prison, what she had done since leaving Aberdeen. The one question she could not, dared not, answer was why her father had been in Leith. If she told the Inspector what she thought, it would make things much worse for Tommy.
When the questions came to an end, Hugh said, ‘Would it be possible for me to see my brother-in-law?’
McVey’s mouth pursed briefly. ‘I don’t see why not. Just for a few minutes.’
Hugh turned to Cissie when the two men left. ‘One of us has to stay here for Ricky, and you’re not fit to go, but will you be all right on your own? I could ask Betty next door to come and sit with you.’
‘I don’t want anybody else knowing about this,’ Cissie whispered. ‘I’ll be all right. Get on your clothes and go to Tommy as quick as you can. He’ll need some support.’
When he went out, she huddled over the black-out fire, shivering with shock as much as cold, to try to make sense of her confused thoughts. Was Tommy guilty? He’d hated their father, and suspecting Tam of wanting to harm her, it was quite possible that he could have lost his temper and pushed him into the water. The water of the docks. A faint memory stirred in her, of something she hadn’t thought of, hadn’t wanted to think of, since she was seven years old. When she had asked her mother where Da was taking the dead baby, Mam had said, ‘He’s going to throw it in the docks.’
And there had been two other dead babies born after that, she recalled, the last on the same night Mam died, and they had likely been thrown in the docks, too.
Her thoughts took a jump forward. What was it Mrs Barbour had said once? Something about a higher power than us that shaped our destiny. Had that higher power guided Big Tam to the quayside in Leith? If so – she gave a hysterical giggle – it was a fitting end for him.
Hugh was horrified at how pale and distraught Tommy was when he was brought through from the cells wrapped in a dark grey blanket. Only a week ago, he had been bouncing with good humour; now he looked like a man on his way to the gallows, his sunken eyes filled with the deep despair of a man who recognises that his life is ebbing away. And maybe it was.
‘You’ll soon be out,’ Hugh said, making a valiant effort to sound bright. ‘They can’t hold you long without charging you, and they can’t do that when you’re innocent.’
‘They say I held him under the water,’ Tommy muttered, his voice flat. ‘Nobody saw what happened, though they’ve witnesses to say I went out of the pub with him. I only followed him out to see where he was going. We’d a few words and he hit me, and I was on the ground when I heard the splash.’
‘Was nobody else about at the time?’ Hugh urged.
‘A man helped me to get him out, but he went to report it to the police and I never saw him again.’
‘Surely they took his name and address before they let him walk out of the station?’
‘He just phoned, and they say he hung up before they could ask him anything.’
‘Can’t you give them a description? Good God, Tommy, he might have seen what happened. Maybe he could clear you.’
‘I’d never seen him before.’
‘Think, Tommy! What did he look like?’
‘I was in such a state I didn’t pay any attention to him, but I think he was older than me, maybe fifty or so.’
‘What was he wearing?’
Tommy shook his head. ‘Something dark.’
‘Was he a seaman?’ Hugh persisted.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been over it a dozen times already, and I can’t remember a thing about him.’
‘Did he say anything to you?’
After thinking deeply for some moments, Tommy told him as much as he could recall of what the stranger had said. ‘He’d a Glasgow accent.’
‘A Glasgow accent? That’s something, but not enough.’
‘No.’ The tiny fragment of hope left Tommy’s eyes.
Hugh was frantically trying to think of something else to jog his memory when a sergeant appeared. ‘Time’s up.’
As Tommy got to his feet, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s a bugger, Hugh.’
‘Don’t lose hope, man. Something’s bound to turn up. I’ll stick around for a while, just in case.’
Hugh went to sit in the front office, his heart as heavy as lead. It didn’t look good, and he couldn’t go home yet, for what could he tell Cissie?
About two minutes later, a burly man was brought in, drunk and incapable, and swearing at the poor constable who was doing his best to keep him upright. This was followed by the loud cursing of a woman who had been lifted for soliciting in the street, and it took some time for her to be charged and taken away. Hugh was grateful for the diversions; they made the time pass more quickly. The next customer, as he had begun to think of them, was a thief who kept denying that he had stolen anything – even when three bulging pocket books were found on him. Then the door burst open again as two policeman dragged in a couple of youths who had been arrested for fighting.
When at last quiet reigned again, Hugh looked across at the perspiring desk sergeant and remarked, with a smile, ‘I see you’re kept busy.’
The man ran a finger round his damp collar. ‘You should see us on Saturday nights. It’s Paddy’s Market in here.’
In the lull that followed, Hugh suddenly remembered the cryptic telegram Tommy had sent from Aberdeen. All it said was ‘Still out’, and when he had forced Cissie to explain, he’d been shocked to learn that she was living in fear of her father’s revenge. His assurances that he would let no harm come to her had had no effect, so it was providential that the man was dead.
His wife’s safety no longer in question, he had dozed off when a short stocky man came in and walked briskly up to the counter. ‘I thought I’d better come and see you afore you charged an innocent man wi’ murder.’
The Glasgow accent made Hugh’s head snap up, his spirits soaring as the man went on: ‘I saw that ould fella falling in the water last night.’
‘Just a minute sir,’ the desk sergeant said. ‘You’ll have to speak to Inspector McVey. He’s in charge of the case.’
Hugh glanced at the clock as the man was taken away by a constable. Twenty-five past eight. It shouldn’t be long now. He would have given his eye teeth to have heard what was being said in the interview room, but at least there was a good chance of Tommy being cleared.
‘A rum business,’ observed the desk sergeant, scratching his head with the end of his pencil. ‘Why has it taken him so long to come forward if he saw what happened? And if he’s the man who phoned reporting it, why didn’t he give us his name and all the details at the time?’
Realising that they were rhetorical questions, Hugh said nothing, but it was a rum business, and he prayed that the man could convince McVey that Tommy had been innocent of causing his father’s death.
Having ascertained the name and address of the witness, McVey got down to the meatier business of finding out how much he knew about the drowning. ‘You say you saw exactly what happened, Mr O’Shaughnessy?’
‘Aye, sir, I did. I was walking along the quay when I heard two men arguing. A right barney they was having, but I couldnae see much at first. Anyways, when I got a wee bit closer, I saw one o’ them had on a uniform and the other man had white hair, a ould man, bent a bit.’
‘Could you hear what they were quarrelling about?’
‘Naw, but I’d say the ould fella was fighting drunk, and I sees him gi’e the young lad a thump on the side o’ the heid, and down he goes, out for the count.’
‘The younger man?’
‘Aye, and the ould lad loses his balance, and he sways for a minute then staggers about a bit. He was awfae near the edge and I could see he was gonnae go in, but I wasnae near enough to stop him, and down he goes, between a cargo boat and the side o’ the quay. Then the young lad comes round, and he gets to his feet canny like, for he’d got a right wallop, and he runs to the edge and looks down. I think he gets a shock seeing the ould man in the water, and he jumps in and tries to get him out.’
‘He actually tried to save him? He didn’t push his head under, or hold him down in any way?’
‘I tell you! He was trying to get him out, and me being so close by this time, I ran to gi’e him a hand.’
McVey leaned back and tapped his pencil on the table. ‘So between you, you fished him out? Did either of you try to resuscitate him, Mr O’Shaughnessy?’
‘Resuss . . . Get him breathing again? Aye, we tried, but he was a goner. I couldnae say if he drowned or no’, for he’d a helluva hole in his heid.’
Unwilling to relinquish a promising murder case, McVey asked, ‘Did you see young McGregor hit his father at all?’
‘His father, was it? That’s how he’d been in such a state about him. Naw, he didnae hit his ould fella once. I’d say he banged his heid on the side o’ that boat when he went in, for the young lad was still flat on his back.’
‘Is there any chance that he had hit his father before you caught sight of them?’
‘Naw, naw! He was well behind till he ran up and spoke to him, and it was the ould fella that was – aggressive. Aye, that yin was just looking for a fight.’
McVey stared at the table. ‘Had you seen either of the men before?’
‘I’d never clapped eyes on none o’ them.’
‘Two things puzzle me, Mr O’Shaughnessy. Why did you not give us this information when you telephoned, and what made you come and tell us now?’
The Glaswegian pulled a face. ‘I’d better come clean. I didnae want to get involved. You see, I was gonnae see a wumman, and she expects me at ten on the dot. She’s a married wumman and I’m a married man, but we’ve had this thing going for years.’ He stopped and eyed McVey apprehensively. ‘This is just between me and you. You’ll no’ go and tell the wife?’
A slight smile crossed the Inspector’s face. ‘No, no, that will not be necessary. You were saying . . .’
‘Aye, right! I was telling you I was gonnae see Mary, and her man’s on night shift, see, so I’ve aye to leave early in the morning, and I was walking back to my ship when this man asks me if I’ve heard about the murder. “A murder?” I says, interested now, and he says, “Some lad pushed a ould fella intae the dock last night.” “That wasnae a murder,” I says. “He was blazing drunk and he fell in.” Then I starts to think. If the polis is holding an innocent man, I says to myself, it’s up to me to get him off. And here I am.’
‘We’ll have to check with your lady friend . . .’
‘Mary? Oh, for God’s sake, Inspector, her man’ll kill her if he thinks she’s taking up wi’ somebody else.’
‘You said her husband’s a night-shift worker. He’ll sleep during the day, and I’ll tell my men to be quiet.’
‘You’re a jewel, Inspector. Is that the lot?’
‘For the time being. I take it you’ll testify for McGregor at the inquest?’
‘We’re here another week. I shoulda gone hame to see the wife, but . . . you ken how it is. Will it be before that?’
‘I should think so, and we do have the name of your ship.’
‘Right, then, I’ll testify for him. Poor bugger, he must have thought his days was numbered.’
‘They likely would have been if it hadn’t been for you.’
O’Shaughnessy leaned forward. ‘D’you ken this, Inspector? My wife aye says I’m good for nothing and I wish she coulda heard what you said the now. Me, Patrick J
ohn O’Shaughnessy, actually saving somebody’s neck. But it’s just as well she’ll no’ hear about it, for she’d kick my arse out the door if she found out about me and Mary.’
McVey was grinning broadly as he told his sergeant to show Mr O’Shaughnessy out.
It was fully another hour before Tommy was taken through in his half-dried uniform and had the contents of his pockets returned to him. Hugh had finally succumbed to sleep by that time, and had to be shaken awake.
Rubbing his eyes and yawning, it took him a few seconds to remember where he was, and only Tommy’s, ‘Come on Hugh, I want to get away from here,’ prodded him fully conscious. ‘Was that the man . . .’ He broke off, stifling another yawn.
‘I’ll tell you going up the road.’
Before Hugh struggled to his feet, Tommy was outside, filling his lungs with the not-very-fresh misty air. ‘God, I’m glad to be out,’ he said, with deep feeling, when his brother-in-law joined him. ‘I never want to see the inside of another police station as long as I live.’
Hugh nodded. ‘They’re not the best of places, I know that. You’d better come to Duke Street with me, and Cissie’ll give you some dry clothes. Now, what did that witness say?’
‘McVey was laughing fit to burst when he came through to me. “I’m sorry, Mr McGregor,” he said, “I know this is not a laughing matter, but that O’Shaughnessy would make the Pope laugh, though you wouldn’t be walking out of here if it hadn’t been for him.” ’ Tommy related as much as he could remember of what the Inspector had told him, ending by heaving a lengthy sigh. ‘I wish I could find O’Shaughnessy to thank him. If he hadn’t been walking along that . . .’
‘Aye, you were damned lucky he’d a lady friend in Leith.’
‘A wumman friend,’ Tommy chuckled.
‘Do you think your father was looking for Cissie?’ Hugh wanted to know if Cissie’s fears had been justified.
Tommy hesitated, then said, ‘He was going to kill her.’
‘What?’ The blood drained from Hugh’s face.
‘He blamed her for him being put away, and he’d stored it up all these years. He was right off his head, and do you know this, Hugh? I was angry enough to kill him – I might have ended up shoving him in – but when I saw him in the water, I tried to save him. Does that make sense to you?’
Waters of the Heart Page 36