Bitter Water

by Ferris, Gordon

  ‘You think Morton was on the make? Or getting in the road of someone who was?’

  ‘One of the two, that’s for sure.’

  ‘If I could be devil’s advocate, does it really matter who fills their pockets? I mean, if the job has to be done, does it matter who does it?’

  It was as though I’d punched him. He twisted round on the seat and with blazing eyes began a finger-pointing exposition.

  ‘It matters to the poor bastards whose communities are going to get a worse kicking than Clydebank in the blitz. Because you can bet your granny’s best silk drawers that corners will be cut, expediency will reign, tin shacks will rise fifty storeys tall with the sole aim of making as much stinking profit as possible. Councillors willnae take decisions that will materially improve the lot of the ordinary working man. Not if the councillor’s wife wants a hoose wi’ a view at Helensburgh instead of a tenement in Partick. Not if a big developer can provide said councillor with said hoose in return for the councillor swinging a vote to buy a shitty swamp in Timbuctoo aff the developer in order to house the Glasgow dispossessed. The forces of greed being unleashed will leave this brave metropolis a gutted shell. Its outcast citizens will be left wailing in the hills. It will be like the Clearances in reverse!’

  A woman in a pram veered away from us, thinking we were a pair of alkies.

  ‘Good God, Wullie, we’re only talking about moving to Easterhouse! I had no idea you were such a socialist.’

  He sat back, surprised by his own outburst. ‘Aye, well, ye ken noo.’

  ‘So, what’s the story? What have you found?’

  He paused to roll another fag. ‘I’ve got a man in the council offices. He’s given me some names. He’s handed over some documents. There are nefarious deals in the offing. If I can expose them, the council will implode and half the developers in Scotland will be basking in a cell at the Bar L. But I still don’t have a cast-iron case. I’m close. I just need the final stuff that ties a certain councillor with certain big men in the building game.’

  ‘Sheridan?’

  He put a finger to his lips. ‘Wheesht.’

  ‘What do you want me to do? How can I help?’

  ‘You saw what happened to pair Alec Morton?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Just watch my back, Brodie. And if anything happens, go see my brother Stewart.’

  I studied McAllister. He was clearly torn between filling me in fully and hogging the story to himself. His last big scoop. But he wasn’t a dramatist. Morton had died in agony.

  ‘You’re six months off retirement, Wullie. Is a last front-pager worth it?’

  He looked at me as though I was daft. ‘If not, what’s the point?’

  ‘At least get the police in?’

  ‘Ah’ve no hard proof yet. We’re dealing with big names here and unproven accusations. The polis would make a mess of it and the sky would fall in on me with nothing to show for it.’

  I argued with him for a while but it was pointless. And on a glorious summer day surrounded by folk in their shirtsleeves and light frocks, it was hard to believe anything too bad could happen. I left McAllister sitting in the sun gazing into his future. I hoped he’d have one.

  EIGHTEEN

  By Sunday evening, the weather was breaking at last. The first spots stirred up the dust and then the deluge made rivers of the gutters. The rain drummed on the roofs and the city exhaled in relief.

  On the sodden Monday morning I borrowed Sam’s car to take the heavy pile of her father’s suits into Isaac’s shop. I left him smoothing and admiring this material treasure-trove. I’d barely parked near the Gazette and reached my desk when I got the call that put Wullie’s fears in perspective. It was a response to my revelations about how the Marshals selected their victims. A call from Sam. From the infirmary.

  I ran out of the Gazette offices and found the car. By the time I’d cranked the engine into life my back was soaked. I scudded through a deluge that was driving weeks of dirt down the steep city hills. I flung myself up the stairs into the hospital and down the brown lobbies. I found Sam in the accident ward.

  I stood panting and dripping beside her. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Davie Allardyce. He’s an advocate pal of mine. A different stable but, like me, based in Glasgow rather than Edinburgh. His wife’s with him. Let’s see how he is.’

  She walked towards a curtained enclosure. She stuck her head in, and then signalled to me. I followed her into the partitioned area. A red-eyed woman sat by the bed. She was holding the hand of a man lying flat out under a sheet. His head was heavily bandaged. A drip ran into his arm. His eyes were closed. The woman looked up. Her eyes were full of fear.

  ‘He hasnae said a word, Samantha.’

  ‘They’ll have sedated him, Maisie. Don’t you worry. I’ve told him often enough he’s got a thick skull. He’ll be fine. This is Douglas Brodie. He worked with me earlier this year on the Donovan case.’

  She nodded at me. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Now he’s a reporter with the Gazette.’

  ‘The one who spotted what these madmen were up to?’ Did I see blame in her eyes?

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Allardyce. What happened to your husband?’

  She gulped and looked down at her man. ‘We were just sitting having breakfast this morning. Davie, the girls and me. Shona and Leslie are twins. Aged four. There was a knock at the door. It was only half past eight. When I went to see who it was, two men bashed past me, shouting: “Where is he? Where is he?” They had hoods on. Balaclavas, I suppose. Davie came out to ask what all the noise was and they hit him. They just smashed him on the head.’ She stopped and broke into tears.

  Sam went round and held her.

  ‘Sorry, sorry . . .’

  ‘Wheesht. Take your time, Maisie. Has someone got the girls?’

  ‘Aye. My mum came round.’

  ‘Mrs Allardyce, you say they smashed him on the head?’ I asked.

  ‘With an iron bar. They both had iron bars! One of them hit him on the head and then when he was down, hit him again across his poor wee face. The other gave him a whack on his body and then his legs. They were trying to do something to his hand when I flew at them. I was screaming and kicking at them. They just laughed and said it’s what you get for defending vermin. Then the girls came out and they started screaming. They were greeting and Davie was just lying there, a’ covered in blood and groaning. Then the pair of them just up and walked out. Casual as you like.’

  Maisie was shaking in Sam’s arms. ‘He didnae do anything. He was a good man. Why did they pick on him?’

  Sam looked up at me and held my gaze. My fault?

  ‘Did they say anything else, Mrs Allardyce?’

  ‘It was something like, someone who sins before his maker . . . and the hands of his physician . . . I’m not sure. What does it mean? Davie’s not a sinner. He’s a good man. He’s a good man!’

  Sam and I walked out of the hospital together.

  ‘Will he be fine, Sam? Did you speak to the doctor?’

  ‘It’s touch and go. They split his skull open. They had to remove some of the bone.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘You’re right there, Brodie. Shit!’

  ‘At least his brave wee wife saved his fingers.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t tell her. She’s in enough of a state.’

  ‘I assume he was one of the defence lawyers?’

  ‘He got two of the men on your list off. It’s a high price to pay for doing your job.’

  I didn’t say it, couldn’t say it, but she said it for me.

  ‘Just as well all my clients have been getting banged up, eh, Brodie? At least I can tell them I’ve saved them a kicking. And me, I suppose.’

  I didn’t try to soft soap her. Anything I said would get me in trouble.

  We walked on for a while before I asked the next obvious question: ‘Did my article provoke this?’

  ‘Who knows? Maisie was right. They’re m
admen. There’s no point applying reason or logic to their actions.’

  I drove Sam home and garaged the car. I took a tram back to the newsroom and gave Elspeth the gist of the quote flung at Maisie Allardyce. I could see her brain whirring through her mental archives.

  ‘Interesting, Brodie. It’s from Ecclesiasticus. Chapter 38, I think.’

  ‘Ecclesiastes?’

  ‘No. Ecclesiasticus. Or Sirach. You’ll find it in the Catholic bibles. The Douay. Ecclesiasticus is one of the so-called Apocrypha. One of the books that didn’t make it into the latter-day Protestant versions of the King James’.’

  ‘No wonder we have arguments in the West of Scotland. We don’t even have the same handbook. How does the quote go?’

  She turned her eyes up, presumably seeing the words on the ceiling. ‘“He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand of the physician.”’

  ‘They certainly made that happen.’ I explained the source of the quote. ‘But it’s a wee bit obscure, is it not?’

  ‘I think your man just likes showing off. Intoning a few words from the bible lets your conscience away with murder.’

  ‘No bodies yet, Elspeth. Not yet.’

  I turned in a short article about this latest escalation in lawlessness and it appeared on Tuesday with heavy headlines: ‘LAWYER IN COMA’. And sub-heads: ‘Vigilantes Strike at Heart of Justice System’.

  Sam was keeping me up to date with Davie Allardyce’s progress. It wasn’t good. The poor man remained in a critical condition, his predicament causing uproar in all the papers. It seemed to be one thing for those narrowly acquitted of a crime to get their comeuppance by illegal means. But attacking the man who got them off went beyond even the elastic moral code of the man on the Glasgow tramcar. I was certainly off the fence. Any guilt I had felt about Ishmael and his pal Johnson had been washed away with the rain. Same with my ambivalent and tacit support of rough justice. The whole point of the blundering legal system was its checks and balances. No one was checking the Marshals.

  Then we really found ourselves in Wonderland. I met Sam on Tuesday evening at the hospital to see how Davie was getting on. There was no change. But at least he wasn’t worse. They’d drained some blood from his skull, which seemed to have eased the pressure, but he hadn’t regained consciousness. Sam and I were sitting over a fag in the waiting room.

  ‘The world’s gone mad, Brodie.’

  ‘I know that. Any particular aspect?’

  ‘I have a case just now. A man caught stealing some booze from Whyte and Mackay where he works.’

  ‘They all do that. The odd bottle in their pocket. A perk of the job.’

  ‘This was ten barrels and involved a horse and cart.’

  ‘That would have been some party.’

  ‘I was pretty sure I’d be able to get him off on a technicality.’

  ‘Like he was just borrowing them for safe keeping?’

  ‘Never mind, Brodie! That’s not the point. Anyway, he told me today that he didn’t want to get off. He was ready to do some time.’

  ‘To avoid an encounter with the Marshals? God help us!’

  On Wednesday came a rather more direct response to my revelatory article and challenge. It came to the newsroom by second post. It wasn’t the reply I’d expected.

  Major Brodie,

  Now we know who you are and what you did! Your secrets are out. It’s time to choose sides.

  ‘Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.’

  Come alone to the Horseshoe, Drury Street, tonight, Wednesday, six o’clock. Don’t even think about involving the police. We’ll know if you do.

  The Glasgow Marshals

  Ishmael was breaking cover. Major Brodie. Now we know what you did. The words ran through me like a blade. It flung up all my guilt, all my fears that one day I’d feel the heavy hand of the law on my shoulder with a personal invitation to appear in the dock to account for my sins. But was he bluffing? How could anyone know all the details? Only Sam knew about the fight with Gerrit on the boat, though not the precise outcome, and she was hardly going to talk. The other deaths took place in the remote backwoods of Northern Ireland. But all those kirk sermons must have had more impact than I thought. Thanks, Dad.

  My first instinct was to ignore the letter and hope it would just all fade away. Who did they think they were anyway? Who would listen to a bunch of malcontents and criminals? On the other hand, maybe I ought at least to find out what they knew. What Ishmael knew. For I was certain it was Ishmael who was summoning me to another tête-à-tête in a pub. His choice of a meeting place was low threat. A public space. What harm could befall me?

  NINETEEN

  He’d chosen well. Six o’clock on any night of the week, any pub in Glasgow is heaving. The Horseshoe in particular. It’s a secular cathedral whose centrepiece is a massive circular altar of polished wood and brass. Growing from the bar is a fence of wood panels which swivel and provide intimate enclosures for two men, head to head, to gossip and slander with impunity. I pushed open the swing doors and walked into a mass confessional. Sinners circled the bar. The priests behind it dished up pies, pints and homilies. Unholy communion.

  I stood at the door, looking around for his red hair, his mad eyes. The words he’d written scuttled round my brain: Major Brodie . . . your secrets are out. It wasn’t my war record he was referring to. That was public knowledge; it had been in the papers back in April. Besides, I had nothing to hide and everything to be proud of. You don’t earn a battlefield commission with the 51st Highland Division for nothing. But how much did he know about the Slatterys – or guess? Until four months ago they were the most feared gang bosses in Glasgow. Then they disappeared and their gang melted away. Not that they were missed, unless you were a drug addict or a client of their red-light establishments.

  It’s time to choose sides. In that, they were wrong. I was on my own side. Always had been.

  At least there was safety in numbers in this Wednesday night mêlée. Drinkers stood three deep round the bar and every table was covered by elbows, pints and dominoes. Despite the height of the ceiling, the pall of smoke had already reached the level of a gas attack on the Somme. The noise was a crescendo, like a mini-Hampden roar. Flat caps mixed with city trilbies, Clydeside nasals with Hillhead vowels.

  I stood nursing a pint until seven o’clock. I hung round the bar area as if I’d been stood up, which indeed I had. I wasn’t conscious of anyone eyeing me over but in that scrum, who could tell? Maybe he just changed his mind. Maybe they were off duffing up some poor bastard who’d failed their probity test. I slid the last mouthful down and headed back to Sam’s.

  It was still a good feeling to insert your own key in a fine big portal and not have to share an entry. I called a cheery halloo in the hall and parked my hat on the coat-stand. I could see a light on downstairs under the kitchen door and headed down, wondering if I should have stopped off at the Tallies and brought supper back with me.

  The smell should have warned me. I was too late. I pushed open the door and saw Sam sitting at the table facing me. Her hands were flat on the table. Her eyes were strained and her lips pursed. Her face white.

  I glanced at the crack where the door hinged. I hit the door with my shoulder. It bounced. I heard a grunt and jumped into the room aiming to follow up my assault on the man behind the door with a good punch to the face, and then as many kicks to the head as it would take before it came off. As I twirled round with my right arm shaping a fist I felt a sharp point crush into my neck.

  ‘Stop it, Brodie, or she’s dead!’

  I froze. Not just because of the gun in my neck but because if there was one man behind the door and one holding the pistol on me, a third man could be waiting to put a bullet in Sam. Anyway there’s no saying where and how a bullet will ricochet. I raised my hands and stood back to see my attackers. The one who’d come up behind me held a revolver steady in both hands. He wore a dark green balaclava, but I knew him well enough. Kn
ew his Highland lilt and his wild pale eyes.

  The door eased back and his pal stepped out, rubbing his shoulder. He was in matching headgear and also levelled a revolver at me, either a Webley like Sam’s dad or the Enfield copycat. Not that it mattered. At this range a .38 lead slug from the latter would have the same bone-smashing impact as a .455. Both men wore thick brown sweaters that flapped on their spare frames. A sour unwashed smell hung in the air. There was no third man. But they didn’t need any help. They looked grubby, but alert and competent. Their steady, gloved hands had held guns before. Ex-forces. But who wasn’t?

  ‘Sam, are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘You didn’t warn me you were expecting the infamous Glasgow Marshals for tea, Brodie.’ Her voice was brave, but higher than normal.

  ‘They weren’t invited. Were you, Ishmael?’ I walked backwards very slowly round the table until I was beside Sam. They kept their guns trained on me all the way. I put my hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. I squeezed gently.

  ‘Verra touching,’ he said, pulling back his woollen mask. The eyes were still mad and intense, but they were framed in dark pools. Stubble lined his twitching jaw.

  ‘It’s you I want to touch,’ I said.

  ‘Brave words, Brodie, when you know you don’t have a chance to do anything about it.’

  ‘Put the gun down and we’ll see.’

  ‘Enough, the pair of you,’ demanded Sam. ‘What do you want, Ishmael, if that’s your real name?’

  ‘It’ll do. Your lodger here has caused us a wee bit of bother. We wanted a word with him.’ The Teuchter motioned to his pal and they both sat down facing us with the guns pointing at our chests. I pulled up a chair alongside Sam and sat down.

  ‘I thought we had a date at the Horseshoe?’

  ‘Too busy. Too loud.’ He waved his gun nonchalantly at me. I shut up and waited. I pressed Sam’s thigh under the table. It was shaking.