Bitter Water

by Ferris, Gordon

  A man died today. He was a singer. He had a lover. He wore women’s clothes. Do these things add up to punishable crimes, far less crimes punishable by death?

  These cowboys who style themselves ‘Marshals’ have gone too far. As we always knew they would. If you set barbarism in motion you need strong reins to keep the madness in check.

  A man died today. Another will die tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow while this ignominious crew of anarchists are allowed to walk the streets. We urge all our readers to reject the invitations for petty revenge that are being scrawled on our city walls. Such actions are not only cowardly, they make the citizen who nominates someone for punishment an accessory to crime.

  A man died today and the accessory to such a crime will surely share a scaffold with the perpetrators.

  ‘You’re bloody joking, Brodie! Who do ye think you are? Tommy Handley? We cannae print this! It makes the Gazette sound like we support bum boys!

  ‘We support the rule of law, Eddie. That’s all. If we don’t put a stop to this it will become an epidemic!’

  Eddie was pacing up and down by my desk. Sandy stood like an exclamation mark in front of me waiting for Eddie to come to a halt. I could see other journalists had paused to listen. In fact I’d noticed an all-round difference in attitude in the newsroom following my telephone shouting match with the Marshals and their attack on Sam and me. A wariness, as if they had a dangerous animal in their midst and had to be nice to it in case it bit.

  ‘We are the people’s paper, Brodie. I know the people. They don’t like this . . . this behaviour.’

  ‘Which behaviour? Being a poof or being a murderer?’

  ‘It’s what they do to weans. Our readers wouldnae thole that sort of caper.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Eddie! Just because a man prefers buggery to shagging doesn’t mean he’s a child abuser!’

  That brought a hush right across the newsroom. I could see Morag’s mouth falling open. I lowered my voice and stood up to get closer to Eddie.

  ‘They’re different things, Eddie. In all my time with the Glasgow polis ninety-nine times out of a hundred the kiddies who were abused were wee lassies and their abusers were Uncle John or Cousin Jimmie.’

  By this point Eddie and I were nose to nose. Or to be precise, chin to top of head. Both our faces were flushed. The newsroom was agog. Eddie grabbed the draft from my hand and stormed off. He shouted to Sandy to follow him and they closeted themselves in Eddie’s office. His room quickly filled with smog. I waited, trying to read the smoke signals. Half an hour later, Eddie stuck his head out and waved at me to join them. I walked over, wondering if I was about to have my short career as a journalist nipped in the bud.

  ‘Brodie, if I lose my job with this, you’re coming with me! Get back to your desk and do another draft. This time, I want detail. You’re an effin’ reporter, are you not? Well, where’s the stuff about what he was wearing? Where’s the description of this gorilla club?’

  ‘Monkey Club.’

  ‘Eh, aye. Exactly. This effin’ Monkey Club. Where’s the bit about the Gazette being the first on the spot. Before the bloody polis!’

  I looked at the subie. He just raised his eyebrows. ‘What are you waiting for, Brodie?’

  I took the crumpled page, now punctuated with ash, blue pencil and teacup rings, and headed back to my typewriter. This was going to get some attention from our readership.

  Behind me, in one of Eddie’s Parthian farewells, came, ‘And don’t mention Oscar effin’ Wilde!’

  When I got into the Gazette early next morning, the phones were ringing off the hook. We’d got a reaction all right. The girls were jotting down the comments and adding them to sheets on their desks. There would be an editorial review later. I didn’t try to sneak a look at what people were saying. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.

  I’d been at my desk for only twenty minutes when I noticed a lull in the voices of the girls taking the calls. They had all paused, looking at Morag. She was standing up, holding a phone against her soft round breast so that the mouthpiece was covered. Lucky phone. She was pointing at me, then at the phone.

  I walked across. She said something to the caller, then mouthed, ‘It’s him,’ to me. I seemed to have struck a nerve. I recognised the voice but before I could say more than my name he hushed me with instructions. He wanted to meet. Right now. Alone.

  ‘Why the hell should I?’

  ‘It’s about the murder. Call it a scoop.’

  ‘Why don’t you drop me a note?’

  ‘Face to face. We didn’t do it!’ There was urgency, tension in his voice.

  ‘You stood me up before.’

  ‘No tricks this time.’

  I hung up. Morag was looking at me with her big eyes full of concern. Eddie was chewing on a fag by my elbow.

  ‘It’s a personal invitation to meet Mr Balaclava.’

  ‘Great! Where? We’ll get the polis.’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t follow me, Eddie.’

  I walked out in the silence. It wasn’t bravado. It was curiosity. If Ishmael wanted to kill me he wouldn’t give me a warning wrapped up in a personal invitation. I hoped.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I worry about people. Not all of them. Just the ones standing by themselves at the edge of railway platforms or sitting on a wall over water. We’re each alone, and inside our heads are worlds with only one inhabitant. Some of the worlds are vague and woolly. Some are bright and joyous with hope. Some are dark and distorted. It’s the denizens of those warped worlds I worry about. In relation to me.

  He’d told me to come to the bridge above the subway station at Kelvinbridge. Someone would meet me. If I’d been coming from Sam’s it would have been a short and pleasant walk through the park. From the Gazette, I caught the inner circle line at Buchanan Street and travelled the three brief stops anticlockwise to Kelvinbridge. Even if I’d wanted to, I’d had no time to arrange any welcoming party. I emerged from the subway into the grey mid morning. It was cool and threatening to rain. I came out on the south side of the bridge and saw a man on the far pavement near the middle, about twenty yards along from me.

  He was leaning on the parapet, gazing into the 200-foot depths below. The Kelvin itself flowed brown and sluggish far beneath. He wore a trilby not a balaclava, and a trench coat belted tight.

  He turned as he felt my stare. He would have heard each train come and go and would be checking each time. He was expecting me. I crossed directly over the road and started walking towards him. He kept his face in shadow but I could tell from his stance and his hunched shoulders it wasn’t Ishmael. Nor was it the bog Irish who’d denounced me at Sam’s. Which meant there were at least three of them. As I got near he looked up and down the road. He flicked his fag into the air. I saw it glow as it fluttered into the depths. He nodded once at me and then turned and walked away. I followed about twenty paces behind as he walked into the park along Kelvin Way. From time to time he glanced about him and behind, but kept up an easy rhythm. We dropped down and down past the great dark bulk of the art gallery, into the run of streets around Kelvinhaugh.

  The tenement blocks mingled with factories and open ground where the bombs had hit. We came to an office block built in sandstone. Part of its wing had been sliced off by the Luftwaffe. The rest seemed deserted. All the windows were still blacked out a year after the final whistle. We came to a big metal door. He hammered twice. I saw a blackout curtain twitch, then the door creaked open. My new pal stepped up and, halfway in, beckoned me with a jerk of his head.

  It felt like a really stupid thing to follow him into the black interior. But I’d come this far. I stepped into the dark. Suddenly the door was slammed shut behind me with a great crash, and a torch blazed into my face.

  ‘Alone?’ It was addressed to the man I’d followed. He stood to the left of the man holding the torch.

  ‘Aye. Naebody ahint. As far’s I could see.’

  The torch dropped from my face and o
n to the floor. ‘Walk this way, Brodie.’ It was said in a Highland accent.

  We went through a further two doors into a well-lit, cavernous space. There were a dozen or so desks and chairs scattered around near the walls. Three men were draped over the furniture. Incongruously, each wore a balaclava. That made a squad of five counting the man I’d followed and Ishmael with the torch. The man I’d tailed sauntered over to join them. With his back to me, he took off his coat and hat and donned the standard headgear. Now, of the four in woolly helmets, two were in shirtsleeves, open-necked shirts and braces. Two wore brown pullovers. But regardless of what they were wearing, it might as well have been full khaki. I’d seen similar tableaux in every battleground where men were stood easy. This was a bunch of ex-soldiers. All the hooded eyes were on me.

  Two held shotguns. The other two had revolvers stuffed in their belts. The torch-bearer shut it off and turned to me. Ishmael’s great sculpted forehead and cheekbones faced me. His red hair was close-cropped, his face newly shaven, giving the pale skin a ghastly pallor. He grinned and showed ragged teeth.

  ‘Welcome to our wee den, Brodie.’

  I walked forward and stopped four feet away from him.

  ‘How did you know I wasn’t going to arrive with three Black Marias?’ I asked.

  ‘An officer and a gentleman?’ he sneered.

  I closed the gap with one step and punched him right in his smirking mouth. He went down and I stood over him.

  ‘Retired officer. And never a gentleman. That’s for scaring my mother, you prick!’

  Around me four men jumped off tables and streamed towards me. At least they didn’t open up with their shotguns and pistols. Arms pinned me roughly and threw me back against the nearest wall. One put my head in a vice of muscled arm. Ishmael scrambled to his feet, wiping his bloody mouth. He pulled a hankie out of his pocket and held it to his torn lips.

  ‘You bastard, Brodie!’ His words were thick and muffled.

  An enthusiastic follower tried to wrestle me to the ground. I managed to break his grip and smashed my forehead into his face. He went down, but others jumped me and we fell over a chair in a jumble of legs and arms and twisting bodies.

  ‘Stop it! Enough! Let him up!’ Ishmael was waving his hankie like a white flag. ‘I’ve no time for this, Brodie. We need to talk.’

  I got to my feet, my limbs shaking from the burst of action. I was panting.

  ‘Shame. I don’t. I just want to hit you again.’

  I saw him consciously steady himself. He could have had two of his cronies hold me while he punched my head in. He chose not to. Which took some self-control.

  ‘Do you want the truth or not?’ he asked.

  ‘Your truth? Why should I believe a psychopath?’

  His blue eyes blazed. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you!’ He stopped to spit out some blood and dab his mouth. ‘We didna kill the queer. It wasn’t us.’

  ‘So where does your flexible morality stop? Tarring and feathering? Frightening old women?’

  He shook his head and took some deep breaths. ‘We’re not murderers. “Thou shalt not kill.” Not unless it’s warranted. Not unless a man gets off with murder and should have hanged.’

  ‘Oh, I see. That’s a nice distinction. I lost a friend on the gallows because at least eight jurors decided he was guilty. Turns out they were wrong, but at least he had a sporting chance. What right has one man – what right has one loony, and I do mean you, to take a life-or-death decision? Some kind of sign from your jealous god?’

  ‘You’ve got a blasphemous mouth, Brodie!’

  ‘“Vengeance is mine,” says your Lord. Which of us is really committing the blasphemy? And before we go any further, who the hell are you, Ishmael?’

  By now colour was flooding back into his bony face. As much anger as reaction to being felled.

  ‘You don’t need to know that, Major Brodie. But I know you. You, with your medals and your battlefield promotions. Fields of glory, right enough.’

  ‘How do you know all this? And why does it seem to bother you?’

  I saw his eyes flicker and wondered what was going on.

  ‘All you need to know is that the Marshals didn’t kill this queer you’ve written such a fine eulogy for.’

  ‘For God’s sake, listen to yourself, man! You sound like a bunch of wee boys playing cowboys and Indians. The Glasgow Marshals! We used to have names for our gang too. When we were about eight.’

  ‘Sneer away, Brodie. But don’t underestimate the power of a name. Ask the people. They know who we are now.’

  ‘And they think you murder homosexuals.’

  ‘We didn’t, I tell you!’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘I can hardly provide proof of something we didn’t do. I need you to tell your readers.’

  ‘Need? You don’t like bad publicity? You don’t strike me as a sensitive wee flower.’

  ‘We’re doing the right thing. We don’t want it tarnished.’

  I laughed. ‘Tarnished? It’s a bit late for that, Marshal Earp. If that’s all you wanted to say, I’ll be on my way.’ I turned and started to head for the door.

  ‘Brodie! We didna kill the boy!’

  I stopped and turned. ‘Yes, you did. One way or the other, you killed Connie Jamieson. You started this madness. You set a bandwagon going. A green light to all heidcases to have a go. Give it up, man, before anyone else dies.’

  ‘Tell me this, Brodie! Was the dead man marked in any way? For instance, did he have all his fingers?’

  I stared at him. He looked embarrassed. As he should. Mutilation crosses the line, even if you think you’re doing God’s work.

  ‘Other than a broom handle stuck up his arse? If you’re trying to say the murder didn’t have your calling cards all over it, you’re wrong.’ I flung the words at him. ‘The written accusation. The sadistic violence. The biblical intolerance prescribed by a bunch of desert nomads four thousand years ago!’

  His shoulders slumped. He turned to his men. He nodded. For a split second I thought I was going to die. I tensed. One of the four men stood forward. Ishmael said, ‘Tell him.’

  The man was awkward, head down, but then he pulled up his mask to reveal the lower half of his face, his nose and mouth.

  ‘I’m a poof. OK?’ It was brave and defiant, and I believed him instantly.

  I turned to Ishmael. ‘I thought your God didn’t like homosexuals?’

  ‘It’s an abomination. A sin. But if a man’s strong enough he can change. With help. With my help.’ His eyes burned with certainty.

  I turned to the man. His face was red, his mouth tight. He nodded. It wasn’t a clincher. And there was no way of proving that one of his men was homosexual. But it was just such a bizarre thing to do that I’d been convinced. It might still not prove their innocence, but it went a long way. I came back to Ishmael. He and I stood facing each other like gunslingers. Around me the four men on his team stood quietly waiting for orders. I hoped he wasn’t going to tell them to break out the iron bars. There was a long pause. I nodded. His eyes flickered at his men. I turned and walked away. No one stopped me. I got to the door and stepped out into drizzle and walked back through the park.

  Ishmael left me troubled. There was something different in his look. I couldn’t pin it down. It wasn’t regret, more a wistfulness. As though he wanted to say more, to explain himself. But that’s how the obsessed worked; always trying to convince you, to turn your mind, to make you part of their belief system. And there was the undercurrent: the references to my army career. It seemed to fester with him, as though our paths had crossed and I’d somehow slighted him. Had we met? Had he been in the army and been passed over?

  Whatever it was, I didn’t have time or inclination to psychoanalyse him. I was just glad to have had the chance to hit him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I got back to the newsroom and found it in pandemonium. Big Eddie was waiting to pounce. He saw the signs of my brief strug
gle: tie askew, lump on my forehead, nursing my bruised knuckles.

  ‘Christ, what happened, Brodie? Did you have a fight? Did you meet him? What did he say? Who is he? Why are they doing it? What’s our story?’

  ‘Eddie, Eddie, give me a chance to get my coat off. What’s going on?

  All around was a hubbub of shouts and girls scurrying about. Eddie grabbed my arm.

  ‘Keep it on! You need to get back out there. There’ve been two more murders. Homos again. Down at Glasgow Green. In the Winter Gardens. McAllister phoned it in but he’s tied up. But tell me first what happened with you. Did they hit you? What—’

  ‘OK, OK. Just listen.’ I gave him a speeded-up version of my encounter with the leader of the vigilantes. Eddie’s excitement was making him hop up and down as though he needed the toilet.

  ‘You were taken to their den and took the lot o’ them on? Single-handed? That’s brilliant, Brodie. We’ll get the polis round and raid them. A good siege and a shoot-out! Oh, I can see it now . . .’

  ‘You don’t think they’ll still be there, do you?’

  His face dropped, but then brightened again. ‘You actually hit the boss? We can use that. Oh, we can use that.’ He did his headline in the air thing: ‘“Fearless Gazette reporter battles with murderer”! No! “. . . with gangster leader”! I love it, Brodie. Tell me more!’

  ‘I’m not sure he did it, Eddie. I don’t think he murdered Connie.’

  ‘What? Of course he did! You read the note in the poofter’s mouth. He was set up for a killing by these bloody Marshals. It all fits. You don’t really believe that one o’ them is a queer? That’s a try-on. And it proves nothing. Actually, maybe you should stay and write it up. No, no, we need you over at the Green. Oh fuck. It’s all too much.’

  ‘Eddie, I’ve given you the outline. Why don’t you and Sandy scribble something down and I’ll go off and find out more about these other killings. Then I’ll come back and we’ll piece it together.’