I washed and shaved and we met at the breakfast table. Our consciences didn’t get in the way of slice sausage and tattie scones. Something had wakened all our appetites at once. Intimations of mortality? After mopping up the juices with our bread, we faced each other over cups of tea to discuss beginnings and endings.
‘You’re off south, then?’
‘Time I earned some money. If I still have a job, that is.’
‘About last night-’
I waved my hand. ‘It’s OK, Sam. It was just one of those things. You don’t have to-’
‘No! I mean I don’t feel bad about it. Do you?’
‘It was lovely.’ I smiled at her, remembering her surprising curves and her sharp teeth.
She toyed with her cup for a bit. ‘And I go north. Ever been up there?’
‘To Skye?’
She shrugged. ‘Just a thought.’
‘It’s a great thought.’ It was. But what then? It would be a strange foundation for a love affair. Was there anything other than guilt to build on?
‘But? Forget it, Brodie. It’s time you went back.’
She got up and clattered dishes in the sink. I went over and put my arms round her and held her to me. She resisted at first but then slumped and I realised she was crying. I turned her round and held her sobbing body to me till she was still.
‘I’m sorry, sorry…’ she began.
‘So am I, Sam. But you know it wouldn’t work. Not…’
She pushed me away. ‘What are you talking about? It’s not about you!’
‘Oh, right. I mean what…’
‘He’s dead and I couldn’t save him.’
‘You did everything possible.’
‘Not enough. I wasn’t good enough. They shouldn’t have appointed me. I shouldn’t have taken the case on. I didn’t have the experience.’ Her face was blinded by tears again, this time with anger.
‘How do you think I feel? My blundering around got Mrs Reid killed. Her four weans are missing! I probably got the bloody priest murdered! If anyone’s to blame it’s me. I used to be a detective! I couldn’t detect a currant bun in a tea house.’ Suddenly we were shouting at each other.
She waved her arms. ‘Listen to us! Mea culpa, and that’s it? We both just let it go at that? This time next year we’ll drink a toast to absent friends, shed a tear of remorse and carry on? That’s bloody it?!’
‘What else can we do? We can’t bring him back!’ Even as I spat it out, I knew what else. So did she.
We stood, chests heaving staring at each other. Her challenge had caught me out. I’d judged victory or defeat solely in the context of saving Hugh’s neck. He’d died. We’d lost. Time to move on. Revenge was surely a tawdry objective. But what about justice? I was a sceptic. Everything I’d seen in the last month had reinforced my view that it was as rare as hen’s teeth. And if it did exist, who would deliver it? The legal brains and the law enforcers had let Hugh down. If Sam and I left the field now, who would pick up the banner? I faced her probing stare.
I smiled. ‘You just don’t like drinking alone.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. I’m good at it.’
‘What, then?’
‘Five wee boys vanished. We found one, dead. This is a habit. If Hugh didn’t do it, who did? It will happen again.’
‘You want us to play detective?’
‘I want Slattery’s head on a plate.’
‘OK Salome, nothing would make me happier.’
She inspected my face for irony. ‘Are you serious? If you are, I am.’
I sighed. ‘Sure. Why not? I’ve got enough bones to pick with him.’
She sat down facing me rubbing her face dry with the dish towel. ‘All right. Where do we start?
I realised I was already prepared for that question. ‘At the beginning. When you got in involved. You told me before that you shouldn’t have been given the job. It didn’t add up. Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Talk me through the process. I mean, tell me how you were appointed.’
She stared at me for a bit longer then nodded her head. ‘I’ll make tea.’
‘It’s all about contacts,’ she said. ‘First, you need to be a member of the Faculty of Advocates, headed by the Dean. We all work as independents but we belong to one of twelve groups or stables. The most senior are King’s Counsel. Normally, KCs get the toughest roles but it’s not mandatory. Though I’m not yet a KC, I’ve been around. I’ve served often enough as junior counsel. It’s not unusual in itself that I was given this work.’
‘Who decides?’
‘Strictly speaking, you get instructions from a solicitor. In this case my old firm were given the case, as a pro bono.’
‘So it was normal to come to you, an old girl of the firm?’
‘Partly, but it’s not clear why they were chosen as Hugh’s solicitors in the first place. And they could easily have picked someone more senior and experienced.’
‘So how does an advocate get selected?’
‘It’s not that formal. You have to serve your time, of course, and senior advocates and judges are always keeping an eye on you. Most of it gets done in the corridors of the Advocates’ Library in Parliament House. Or over a glass of Scotch in the Glasgow and Edinburgh clubs.’
‘ That’s why you practice.’ I nodded at the whisky glasses on the sideboard.
‘That’s for my own sanity. They don’t let women in those clubs. I stand more chance of making Pope. It’s just a wonder they thought of me at all, far less assigned me to lead on a capital case.’
‘Your father’s reputation?’
‘That’s all I can think of. I’m not such a high flyer, you know.’
‘I rather think you are, but you need more than talent to succeed in this game. Still and all, it’s not exactly a favour to drop this one on you. So, there are two possibilities. Either someone thought that no one would blame you if you didn’t get Hugh off, given the sheer weight of evidence. And that you’d come out looking plucky and smart but not having lost anything. A kind of salute to your father.’
‘Or?’
‘Or someone didn’t want to take any risk that Hugh would get off.’
Her face flushed. ‘By giving it to someone incompetent!’
‘No! And I’m not going to butter you up any more than I already have by saying how wonderful you are. You know you are. You’re not a bad lawyer either.’ I smiled.
She threw her tea towel at me. ‘Sod!’
‘Sam, can you find out who put your name up? Because maybe if we knew that, we’d know why.’
She stared into her cup, looking for her future. ‘I should have done this before, shouldn’t I? I didn’t want to find out, Brodie. I just wanted to believe I was good enough. That my father would have been proud. Do you understand?’
‘Only too well.’
‘I’ll make some calls. It’s time I did some more socialising. What will you do?’
‘Go to the bank. I need cash.’ My heart sank at the prospect, not just because I would be dipping into my meagre savings but because of the sheer amount of bureaucratic effort involved in cashing a cheque at a bank other than my own in far-off South London.
‘I can help. You can still be on the case. They pay from public funds.’
‘You’ve been more than generous. But I think that that case is over. This is personal. But if you’d let me stay on a week or two?’
Her cheeks went pink. ‘Of course, Brodie. Your old room’s yours for as long as it takes.’ If I read that right she was saying that the old arrangements – prior to last night – would hold good too.
‘Could I borrow a pad of paper?’
She delved in her briefcase, which sat on the sideboard, and plonked a lined foolscap pad in front of me. She retrieved a propelling pencil and rubber and handed them to me.
I drew five circles on the pad and started to write names into each. I pointed to each one in turn.
‘I’m going to find out what lin
ks the late Father Cassidy, Hugh Donovan, Glasgow’s Finest, Mrs Reid and the Slatterys.’
‘You think the police are bound up in this?’
‘I know they’re incompetent. They’re also arrogant and pigheaded and would rather do time in Barlinnie than admit they’re wrong. Some of them are surely taking back-handers to turn a blind eye to drug-dealing in the city. But it doesn’t explain their sheer monumental cussedness over the murders of Father Cassidy and Mrs Reid. Nor why they should be so ready to see Hugh Donovan swing for a murder he didn’t commit.’
I drew a sixth circle. I put a question mark in the centre.
‘This is for you to fill in. Someone in the judiciary picked you. We need to know who and why.’
She nodded. She leaned over the table and pointed at the pad, at the two circles embracing Mrs Reid and the Slatterys.
‘We’re pretty sure they killed her. We’re also pretty sure it was to stop her testifying about what she heard and who she heard the night before Hugh’s arrest. But what’s the link between these two?’ She pointed at the Slatterys and Father Cassidy. ‘Why would they kill him?’
‘He must have been a risk to them. If Cassidy was the mystery man that brought Hugh home that night, he probably knew something about the real murderer. Presumably one of the Slattery clan. Did the good Father Cassidy learn something in the confessional? Or was he actively involved with these thieves and murderers? What possible service could a Catholic priest be giving to a bunch of gangsters? And if so, why would they want to kill him now?’
‘Do you really think he told them about your Arran trip?’
‘Who else? No one else knew. One day he arranges for me to be tossed off a boat, the next he’s found hanging naked in his own chapel. What happened? I’m certain it wasn’t suicide. Was he going to turn King’s evidence against the Slatterys? And if so, why? A pointing finger from the Virgin Mary or a sudden glimpse of the fires of hell?’
‘But how did he get involved in this mess?’
‘If we knew that…’
‘How are we going to find out?’
‘I wish I knew.’
THIRTY-THREE
Sometimes you need a bit of luck. Mostly it appears out of the blue, looking like a ten-bob note when what you needed was a fiver. But sometimes luck flings itself at you like a long-lost love. Propitiously, it came the next day, May Day, summer’s harbinger, in the form of an early-morning knock on the door. Sam and I were up and about, having risen from our chaste beds. I wondered if she’d lain awake waiting for footsteps on the landing as long as I had?
Sam took the door. I heard a man’s voice and Sam ushering someone into the library. She called out to me to join her. I came in from the kitchen. Sam was standing with her arms folded. A man stood fidgeting in front of her, turning his hat round and round in his hands. You would never normally confuse him with Lady Luck. Anger swept through me.
‘You’ve got a bloody nerve! What have you come to arrest us for this time? Or are you just here to gloat!’
Detective Constable Davy White had the decency to flush, whether from anger or embarrassment or a mixture. Either way, I savoured his discomfiture.
‘If you must know, Brodie, I’m here to help.’
‘A bit bloody late for that, White! How could you possibly help?’
‘It’s this Donovan business. And Mrs Reid.’
‘And Father Cassidy? And the missing Reid weans? It’s a stinking business, White!’
He was nodding and fingering his too-tight collar. ‘Ah ken, Ah ken. It’s why I’m here. I cannae thole it any longer, neither I can.’ His face screwed up. For a horrible minute I thought the wretch was going to break down and cry in front of us.
‘I’ll make tea,’ said Sam.
‘I think you should be here for this,’ I said.
‘Well, talk about football or something till I get back. What do you think of that new winger for Rangers, Detective White? I think he’s got the speed but his passing is rubbish.’
She walked out leaving us in wondering silence. We sat, him on the edge of an armchair, me sunk back on the couch, studying my man. Sam returned wheeling a trolley like an office tea-girl. She did the honours and we turned expectantly to DS White, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his brew in his cup.
‘OK, White, the floor’s yours. This had better be good!’
The man was visibly sweating now and pulling at his tie. Finally he undid it. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘You can turn cartwheels for all I care, Detective. Just tell us why you’re here,’ said Sam with heat.
White lit up. ‘This hanging business. I cannae sleep. It wasnae what I joined for.’
I was getting exasperated. ‘Spit it out, man.’
‘Ah don’t think Donovan did it.’
Sam and I looked at each other. ‘Neither do we. But it’s a bit bloody late for you lot to come to that conclusion!’
‘Ah ken, Ah ken. Look, there’s something you should see.’
‘Show us.’
White stood up and fumbled in his crumpled inside jacket pocket. He pulled out a small black notebook, familiar in shape and colour. I used to have one myself.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s marked at the place.’
I was on my feet facing him now. I knew what this was. I guessed what he was telling us. Hugh’s ruined face swam into my mind, his eyes beseeching as they pulled the hood down over his scarred head. If only this little book had surfaced a month ago. I wondered whether, in the circumstances, if I strangled this so called detective the courts would let me off.
‘What does it show, White?’ I asked quietly. I made no move to reach for it.
His eyes spoke before he did. ‘That Donovan confessed after we took him to the coal cellar.’ He held the notebook out to me. I stepped forward, took it with my left hand and brought my right round and up in one movement that Les himself would have applauded back in his sparring ring in the Old Kent Road. My fist took White on the point of the jaw. It lifted his head up and back. It may even have lifted his whole flabby body up off the floor. He went back in an arc and crashed to the wood floor in a flailing pile of arms and smashed teacups. He lay still for a long second or two and then started groaning.
‘Sorry about the china, Sam.’ I rubbed my knuckles.
‘You don’t think I gave him the best?’ said Sam, picking up his smouldering fag and stubbing it in the ashtray. ‘Shall we see?’ She held out her hand. I passed her the notebook. The elastic band round its middle had been set at a point well into the notebook. She opened it at the place and read quickly through the next few pages. She looked up, her face drawn and resigned. She turned and marched over to the supine detective. ‘You bastard!’ Then, very thoughtfully and with great precision, she kicked him in the side. White yelped and rolled away. Sam spun on her heel and waved the notebook at me. ‘This could have saved him, Brodie! Or at least thrown enough doubt on the facts as to give me a real crack at the appeal. I could have saved Hugh!’ She swivelled again as if to go back and kick him again.
‘Sam! Don’t. Leave some for me. What’s it telling?’
She turned back, her face mottled with fury. ‘It shows this pair lied in court! Perjured themselves! Hugh didn’t tell them where to find the body. He hadn’t confessed before he was taken to the coal cellar. He gave no information about the body, the number of stab wounds, even that the boy was naked. It says here: “Tuesday, 3 December 1945. Report of boy’s body found in coal cellar behind Carol Street tenements.’
‘That’s just two streets away from Hugh’s place in Florence Street,’ I said.
She went on: ‘Tuesday 3 December 1945. Time: 15.35 hours. Accused taken to crime scene. Accused wept at sight of body. Accused said, “No, no, no,” several times. Covered his face with hands. DS Kerr and I took him back to the station where he was questioned again about his knowledge of the crime scene. He refused to talk. He lay on floor. Accused left in his cell. ‘Wednesday, 4 December
1945. DS Kerr and myself returned to the cell. Found the accused calm but staring at the wall. DS Kerr made him sit at table. He was questioned again about involvement in the murder. Finally accused said, “All right, for God’s sake, all right. I did it. I killed him. I might as well have. Let’s get this over with.” At this point, DS Kerr brought the accused pen and paper and made him write out his confession.’
‘And in this confession he describes all the details of the coal cellar and the state of the body?’ I asked. She nodded.
White was sitting up now and nursing his jaw. He had a hankie to his mouth. It was bloody. He got on to all fours then eased himself erect using the armchair.
‘Assaulting a police officer, Brodie. You shouldnae have done that.’ He clutched his side.
‘And I’m minded to assault you again, you little shit! So don’t tempt me! Because of your lies in court, they hanged an innocent man!’
Sam interjected. ‘I saw your chair tip and you fell and hit your mouth on the table, officer.’
He stood swaying slightly, looking at the pair of us, and then he nodded. ‘Ah don’t blame you, Brodie. It’s what Ah deserve. Let me just say Ah was telt what to do by Silver and Kerr.’ He paused and I thought he had finished, but then, miserably, with a shake of his head: ‘It wisnae what I joined up for.’
‘I know another bunch of blokes in uniform who claim they were only following orders. The Nuremberg judges don’t seem to think that’s much of a defence. My betting is they’ll be hanged for acting like sheep! Isn’t that’s what you deserve, White?’
‘Brodie! Let’s hear him out.’ She seemed to have got herself under control.
I took a deep breath and walked back to my seat.
Sam switched to her courtroom voice. ‘Tell me what happened, Detective White. In your own words.’ Her calm authority brought White’s head up and he began his account.
‘We’d been trying for hours to get him to admit it. But he just kept saying he knew nothing about a’ the evidence we found in his hoose. And he claimed he knew nothing about where the boy might be. Nor onything about the two other missing lads. And a’ the time, he was like he was hungover. No a’ there, if you like. In a dwam. I suppose it was the heroin.’
The Hanging Shed Page 18