The House_Dark Urban Scottish Crime Story

by John Mayer

  Both with eyes closed, Bella and Brogan McLane held each other close and remembered the day when he’d rushed back from Edinburgh and arrived an hour too late. By the time he’d jumped off the moving bus, run like the wind along the Gallowgate and bounded up the stairs three at a time, Bella had put on a fresh white bed sheet and combed her hair. With her arms out from under the sheet and blanket, her wedding ring still on her finger, his mother looked for all the world like she was just asleep and would wake at any moment to ask about his Devilling and point to her calendar where she was marking off the days until he was Called to the Bar of the Court in Parliament House. After Agnes’ first spell in hospital, Bella had mentioned the idea. When Agnes pooh-poohed the idea saying there was no need to go to that extent, Bella had insisted that there was: she would move in and sleep in Brogan’s old bed. The two sisters-in-law had always gotten along well together and now there was every need for Bella to be there at a moment’s notice. So the matter was settled. When Brogan came back, he could stay with someone nearby; or even go to a hotel. People from Edinburgh did that, she’d argued.

  Now both a little tearful and sniffing, they stood in that solid old tenement house and held each other tight. Bella recalling losing her brother on the night his son was born, while McLane recalled how he’d had to insist that Bella take Mum’s room and when he occasionally came back, he’d sleep in his old recess bed. After kisses on the cheeks and a wipe each from his big handkerchief, Bella let go. Looking deep into his eyes, she almost cried again as she said:

  ‘We’re all so proud of you. You know that, right? And if anyone knows that life has a way of moving us in directions we don’t want, it’s you. But we get over our fears and just have to live life. So whatever happens, everybody in the Calton will always be proud of you, Brogan son. Very proud.’

  With more tears welling in his eyes and all of his powers of advocacy departed, McLane could only nod. Wiping his eyes, his aunty Bella kissed him again on the cheek and pulled him towards the table. Pulling her chair round to touch his, she laid her hand on his arm and asked:

  ‘Well? I’m sure you didn’t come up here just for my soup. So out with it. What’s on your mind?’

  Turning and looking out of the window, McLane felt more than a little foolish and for a second considered making up a story that he’d be less embarrassed to reveal. But if there was anyone else beyond his wife and precious daughter to whom he could open his heart, it was his aunty Bella:

  ‘Oh, it’s crazy, really. I was in the car, going to the University and I couldn’t get the sound out of my head. Do you remember when she used to play to us? Up here in the house and down in the Calton Bar? Boy, she could rattle any tune out of that old piano. I used to hear her when she thought I was asleep. She’d tinkle the keys very softly and sometimes sing along with herself. Irish tunes mostly, but sometimes she’d play something from the pop charts. It used to make me sad that we didn’t have my father. I used to worry that some other man might come along and take her and not want me. She’d never have done that, I know. When it was just her and me in this house, I felt safe. You know - secure. I wanted it to last forever. It was a childish dream, of course. But I loved her playing and tonight as I was driving, I just couldn’t go to look at legal documents before coming here to see you and just touch that old piano.’

  ‘Aye, she could play anything on that old thing. She was a talented woman in many ways, your mother. You know, when my Martin died of the pneumoconiosis and of course, we had no children of our own, I was a wee bit apprehensive about living with my sister-in-law. But after a wee bit of discussion, I moved in here; and I was so glad I did. We were only one year apart in age your mother and I and we had some great nights; eatin’ our dinner, her playin’ that auld thing and Jean would hear it and come in. We spent many a night just laughin’ all the time. I remember a lot o’ laughter among the three of us. Aye, grand times. Until she got the cancer from all the free cigarettes they gave the girls in that factory she worked in where they made them. And then, like so many before her, it wasn’t long. Oh Brogan son, she was so proud of you.’

  Wiping a tear from his eye, McLane could only nod again his understanding of how right she was.

  Rising and taking him by the hand, Bella led her nephew into her room. Up against the dividing wall where Jean next door could hear it, the piano had stood silent for too many years. Pulling out the stool and lifting the lid, McLane sat down but with his knees to one side: as his way of remembering that only she would sit squarely on to the keys.

  ‘It’s a wee bit dusty because I can’t reach the far end so easily now.’

  Waving away his aunty Bella’s apology, McLane looked left and right and at the gap between the door and the end of the piano:

  ‘Err, aunty Bella, has it been moved? It seems to be a wee bitty to the left of where it always sat.’

  Shaking her head, Bella only got out a sort of low hum when she remembered:

  ‘Oh, aye. When the Council lads put in the North Sea gas pipe to all the houses they needed to lift a wee bit of the floor. I think it was moved then. Aye, I’m sure it was. I asked the workmen to put it back just where it was. So it could be a wee bitty off to one side, I suppose.’

  Looking underneath, McLane noticed a slight wrinkle in the old rug around one wheel: ‘Would you like me to flatten that out for you aunty Bella?’

  Half rising, he’d instinctively slipped one hand around the back of the piano when Bella put both of her hands on the end of the instrument and went into something of a fluster: ‘No! No. Just leave it. It’s a’right as it is. It’s fine.’

  Only moments before, as they’d embraced, she’d been as sweet as any old lady ever was, but now there was a steely look in her eye and she wouldn’t look him in the face. Immediately sitting back down, McLane put up both hands in mock surrender but couldn’t imagine what had triggered such an instant reaction to a simple thing like flattening a rug. And then it struck him:

  ‘Is there something under that rug? Something you …?’

  Bella had the lid of the piano half down and still wouldn’t look him in the eye. Half turned away, she shook her head: ‘I know you pay the rent Brogan, but there’s … Och, it’s something and nothing any more. Just something Jean gave your mother many years ago. Your mother used to keep it in her wardrobe; but I don’t like to have it in the house. So after she died I put it under the floorboard. I had to tell the men who fitted the gas pipe about it but they said they see things like that all the time. It’s nothing. When I’m cold in the ground, you can do what you like with it.’

  Listening to her long explanation which had revealed absolutely nothing about the thing, had he been in court, McLane would've eased in for the kill. Instead, he rose and picked up his jacket: ‘OK. Anything you say. Sorry if … if I touched a wee nerve. My mother and Jean were like sisters. Anything between them was never any of my business and I certainly don’t want to pry now. I pay the rent and I’m very glad to do it. But this is your house. That’s for sure. So, sorry again. OK?’

  With his suit jacket back on, he’d transformed himself back into the big lawyer from Edinburgh. Wiping his lapels and stepping back to look him up and down, Bella McLane’s face returned to that of the sweet old lady she’d been for most of his life. After rising onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek, Bella did something he’d seen her do to others, but hadn’t done to him for quite a lot of years. She laid her hand on his heart:

  ‘Now you get yourself away to the university or wherever it is you’re going and look up those documents you talked about in the Calton Bar. And give my best to Joanne and that beautiful daughter of yours.’

  ~~~o~~~

  Chapter 17

  By the wonders of digital technology, his Installation in the House of Lords had been transmitted up to Parliament House and copied for the staff not on duty at the time to see it during their breaks. But McLane didn’t know that. So while he signed in at the night desk, rummaged through his
Advocate’s Box and even when crossing Parliament Hall, he was a little surprised that the night cleaning staff were bowing and one girl he’d seen around for the last year or so, actually stopped to curtsey while holding her slopping metal water bucket in one hand and her mop in the other. To one and all, McLane bowed back and smiled kindly. It was warming to think that the Parliament House staff was so loyal. For all the low-lifes he’d come up against since Calling to the Bar of the Court eighteen years before, he’d always found the staff to be helpful and discreet.

  Being Keeper of the Advocates’ Library brought more responsibility than perks, but McLane didn’t mind that. Others were welcome to the Hong Kong trips, the invitations to dine around Edinburgh tables which had hosted several Princes of Wales and their consorts. The older he got, the more McLane just wanted to get home at night, forget about his clients’ cases and spend time in the house with Joanne and Ababuo; though every month she was growing in every way and the occasions when she was happy to stay home at night were getting fewer. But sometimes it was simply impossible to get home at a reasonable hour.

  As he scooped up the mail from his tray under the Library desk, the junior librarian who’d come to the Faculty fresh from a year of collating ancient missives from Parliament House to the Vatican caught his eye:

  ‘Good even … Oh sir, may I say how proud we all were when we saw you Installed.’

  ‘Thank you Caroline. It’s very nice of you to mention it. Erm, are you on till ten tonight?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve just finished filing in the Law Room. Someone is researching a big case on Vesting and they’ve had nearly our whole collection out. I still have about thirty other borrowings to replace. I’m sorry to say, sir, that Members aren’t really obeying the Memo about replacing books overnight.’

  The poor girl did seem a little bedraggled as though she’d been filing from up the Law Room ladder and disturbed years of dust. McLane momentarily closed his eyes in recognition of this little Library difficulty:

  ‘Yes, it’s a problem. But tell me please, can we now see scans of old land dispositions held by the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland? I seem to remember talk in a meeting about a year ago of us sharing those.’

  Putting down about six dusty leather-bound volumes and blowing upwards to clear her blonde fringe off her eyelashes, the young librarian was glad of some respite. Turning and touching a pad on a newly installed computer, she automatically typed in her own pass code:

  ‘We can, sir. We can also print from screenshots. Not all of what the Keeper has is available to us quite yet, but most of Scotland is.’

  ‘Hmm. Well you lost me at ‘screenshots’ so I’ll just sit here while you finish your replacing. I’ll wave if I need help.’

  A twinge of guilt at letting the girl log in on her own account slowed up his search; but at this stage it was better to be safe than sorry. Navigating to Scottish Land Dispositions, McLane felt proud of the Library staff. Logical and chronological, this part of the Faculty intranet couldn’t have been easier to use. With no particular boundary in mind, he typed in a simple search ‘Glasgow Calton’.

  There seemed to be only one hit. The original land transfer between the owner and the old Burghers, Provosts and Procurators of the City of Glasgow. The men who’d pass on the land down their chains until in 1974 the new statutory body entitled City of Glasgow Council had legally inherited the land and every rented house in the Calton. Attached but counting as one document, was nearly a thousand pages: one for every tenancy created up every tenement staircase and some references he didn’t have time to examine. Just for fun, McLane searched the document for his own name. Several ‘McLeans’ popped up, but only two McLanes. Oddly, his mother Agnes was still listed as the tenant of the house where he was brought up and not Bella. But it was only an oddity; often when folk took on a tenancy they didn’t bother to tell the City Council which might object: so in the Council’s Office and on the rent book the original name remained while new occupants moved in their few bits and pieces of furniture and a bed or two. The rent would be paid without missing a beat; so the Council didn’t need to know.

  Leaning back into the chair, McLane felt the impression of the girl’s coat; as though she was pricking his conscience. Searching for ‘Mularkey’ brought up five addresses - all of them Jean Mularkey and her extended family. Musing at all those families now facing eviction, McLane was miles away when Caroline returned:

  ‘I’ve finished my replacing, sir.’ Looking at the screen, she pointed and asked ‘Is there something I can help you with?’

  The idea of printing out a thousand pages would take all night and anyway, went completely against his own orders to others to have a care for the environment. So McLane only shook his head and tried to shut the thing down. After a few attempts, Caroline leaned forward and took control:

  ‘It’s the top right command, sir. There, it’s closed.’

  Strolling up the library towards his desk, McLane shuffled through his mail. He hadn’t been in his seat ten seconds when a folded note dropped out of the bundle, landing by his feet. The paper bore no crest and wasn’t even sealed, so the correspondent probably wasn’t a Member of Faculty. Slipping on his reading glasses, McLane opened the note:

  ‘You may wish to check tomorrow’s Petition List for Court 4.’

  Unsigned and undated, McLane began to wonder if this missive really was for him. He had no case coming into Court 4 in the morning. He was just about to drop the thing into the bin when the handwriting pricked his interest. Old fashioned and very scratchy, this wasn’t the hand of anyone used to writing regularly. Then it hit him where he’d seen this hand before. It was that of the Queen’s Own Macer, old Jimmy Robertson. Nothing in Parliament House got past old Jimmy and this note was personal. So only one conclusion could be drawn: this was a tip-off.

  Walking briskly past Caroline who was now busy with a pile of borrowing requests for the morning, McLane just smiled an approving ‘Good girl’. Across Parliament Hall and down the stone slabbed corridor towards Court 4, his pace didn’t ease.

  Running his finger down the list, it was obvious that The Keeper of the Court Rolls had saved up a bunch of local government issues which he could put in front of Lord Elmtree; by far the cleverest judge for the job. No1 was Aberdeen Council who wanted to expand their harbour - again - and didn’t want to go through the tedious process of Planning Appeals lasting months and costing the taxpayers a fortune. No2 was Dumfriesshire Council (Police Authority) who wanted approval to alter a cross-border agreement with Northumberland Police in England. Down the list he went, beginning to wonder why old Jimmy had sent him along this winding lane when at the bottom of the list he saw only an asterisk and an arrow written in pencil. Had it not been for the staple he mightn’t have seen it at all. Undoing the pin holding the List to the board, McLane turned the parchment over.

  ‘The sneaky bastards! Clever though. Use ex-parte procedure and you save yourself the time and trouble of a full Hearing. Very clever.’

  At the end of the List, the Keeper had added a case which must have been intimated at the last minute earlier in the day. No 17 on the List read:

  ‘Application by Glasgow City Council for a Declarator by the Court to the effect that the area of ground shown as hatched in red on the land plan attached to the principal Petition hereunder is:

  Owned by Glasgow City Council under reference to the original title deed creating the area of Glasgow now known as the Calton.

  That the recent so-called consecration of that ground by the local priest, namely Father Seamus Flaherty, be declared illegal for want of proper consecrational procedure and lack of Notice to the landowners, the said Glasgow City Council, and;

  That the said so-called consecration being clearly a stunt to obfuscate the effects of Statutory Compulsory Demolition Order GLW/CAL/DEMO 2018 being a lawful Order of the Petitioners; the costs of all legal action concerned with this Declarator, should be ordered to be deducted from the compens
ation fund available to the tenants of the Calton for re-location and re-housing.

  In some admiration for their legal dexterity, McLane stood open-mouthed, looking at this hurried addition to the business of Court 4. Down the corridor, he could hear the sound of the night servitors clacking down the big brass switches, darkening Parliament Hall for the night. Walking slowly back, he could only think of the whoops and skirls of the founding members of the Calton Residents Association; their faces aglow with confidence and expectation.

  Back at his desk, alone in the Advocates’ Library, McLane leaned back and looked out at the night sky. Something about the last-minute addition of this ex-parte Petition bothered him. Local government work was well-known for its ill-conceived ideas and inept preparation. Anything to do with local government always took months to drag along. This idea must’ve positively speeded through a committee, whistled like the wind to the legal department and flashed like lightening over from Glasgow to Parliament House.

  Tapping his fingers on his chin, McLane questioned his own knowledge and experience of local government workings. This was no new efficiency drive. No. This was positively turbo-charged. Yes. Somewhere in the grandness that was Glasgow City Chambers, someone was shepherding Statutory Compulsory Demolition Order GLW/CAL/DEMO 2018 down the field.

  ~~~o~~~

  Chapter 18

  As bright as any lighthouse warning salty sailors of impending danger, with each passing cloud blown by the wind, a full moon shone intermittently down over every roof in Glasgow. Big and bright, for some it shone as a welcome illumination. The cloud pattern painted the river estuary a sparkling silver. Ships’ crews large and small could breathe more easily as they left behind the dangers lurking everywhere in the inky black sea behind them. For others waiting to catapult their tightly bound parcels over jail walls, that brightness thwarted their nefarious plans and gave the police an evidential advantage. For young lovers such a moon was never unwelcome. Years from tonight, they would recall the romantic warmth it provided while they walked home through the city streets to her parents’ house. In each other’s eyes they’d see how - just for them - it lit the pavements and vacant lovers’ lanes and helped guide them into their future as hand in hand two shadows became one. Surely, such a celestial gift would cradle the good people of Glasgow all the night long.