The Hanging Shed

by Gordon, Ferris,

  There was a satisfying crunch, the wood splintered and tore, and the door half opened. I hit it again and crashed through, raising my shotgun as the door slammed back against the wall. I kept running straight through the kitchen into a front room. It was pitch dark and empty. I raced down a corridor kicking the doors back as I went. Nothing. I went back to the front room, chest heaving, and looked around me. It was too dark. No electricity, so no light switches. I fumbled my way across to the windows and pulled back the heavy blackout curtains and took in the room. Nondescript couch and a couple of easy chairs whose inners were spilling from cracked seams. A silent wireless and plenty of ashtrays. A couple of oil lamps.

  I wandered back through the house. At the front a lounge, to the rear, the kitchen that I entered through. Off the short corridor, two bedrooms facing each other. But at the far end of the corridor was a locked door that I hadn’t noticed in the dark. The door wasn’t just locked but it was secured on the outside by heavy bolts top and bottom. To the right of the door a large key hung from a nail embedded in the wall. Below it an oil lamp hung from another nail. I listened again and could only hear the blood rushing in my ears.

  I propped the shotgun against the wall and took down the lamp. It was there for a purpose. I shook it; plenty of paraffin. I struck a match and lit the wick. It caught quickly and I trimmed it and lowered the glass. I put it on the floor and took down the key. I slid the big bolts back and put the key in the lock. It groaned and turned. I took the lamp in my left hand and the shotgun in my right. I used my left hand to turn the handle, and kicked the door open. At first I could see only floor, then as I paced forward holding the lamp up before me, I could see and smell more than I wanted.

  I knew this place. One of my interrogations had taken place in the SS commandant’s house outside the camp near Bremen. He’d made himself at home. It was a pretty house from the outside. Inside it had comfortable armchairs and Alpine pictures on the walls. The curtains were rich red to match the sweep of good carpets. It also had a cellar. They had unchained the young women by the time I got there.

  *

  This was no flashback. The stench hit me first. Foetid and heavy, the outpourings of bodies racked by pain and incontinence.

  A mattress lay sprawled in one corner of a bare wood floor. Nameless brown stains mapped its filthy surface. I lifted the lamp higher. Two heavy hooks dangled from wooden beams of the ceiling. They weren’t for hanging game. Confirming my fears was a pile of coiled ropes and chains on a wooden table by the wall.

  Completing the sordid picture was a contraption that looked like the wooden horse we used to jump over at PT in the Army. Two crude A frames joined by a horizontal spar about waist height. A thin mattress had been slung over it. It too was stained.

  I backed out of the room gagging with nausea. I fled down the corridor and out into the back yard gasping for air. I stumbled over to the shrubbery and threw up. I fell to my knees and emptied my stomach on the grass until the dry heaving convulsions were past. My body was covered in sweat and I walked back to the wooden terrace and sat down till the perspiration cooled on my body. The pressure began lifting behind my eyes and I took out a cigarette and lit it.

  All along I’d been wondering where they kept Rory before dumping his abused little body in Hugh’s house. This place fitted the bill. This was where he’d been violated and finally murdered. And if so, Rory wouldn’t have been the first. The setup of the room wasn’t a one-off. This was planned by Gerrit Slattery, who would have been just at home running a Nazi death camp, taking pleasure and pride in his work. Where he got his ‘dirty treats’ as Mrs Slattery so nicely put it.

  It was handy having the Clyde at the back door; some rope, some weights and the evidence is gone. A way to get rid of opponents and have some fun in the process. A place to bring two missing buys and abuse them before dumping their tortured bodies in the river. Somewhere to bring an interfering advocate whose father had been a constant thorn in the side? To punish her, make her beg for mercy or death, before dumping her slim body in the grey water? I punched the ground.

  But why not dispose of Rory’s body the same way? Why bring it out into the daylight? Maybe they’d been feeling the heat? Maybe even the Glasgow police force were getting interested? So Gerrit needed a scapegoat. Someone disposable to take the rap until things died down. He used Rory to frame poor old Hugh. Pitiless murdering bastard.

  I had another fag and walked back to the car. I turned it round and headed back towards Glasgow and the Erskine ferry. En route I stopped at a call box and dialled 999. I told the police where to come and what to look for, and to bring a forensic scientist from Glasgow University to identify the stains and look for prints. They might also need a boat and a frogman.

  I crossed the Clyde and headed west to Ardrossan and yet another ferry. I should have bought a season ticket, or a boat. Dumbarton had been a fruitless detour. It was always likely that Gerrit would have put as much distance and water between himself and retribution as possible. But I hadn’t wasted much time checking out the mainland den. If I’d started with Arran it would have cost me at least a day. This time I knew where I was going and what I had to do there. My clarity had returned. After what I’d seen I wasn’t expecting to find Sam Campbell alive. Either way, someone was going to die. I hoped it wasn’t going to be me.

  FORTY-FOUR

  I bumped off the ferry at Brodick and headed south, back towards Lamlash and Whiting Bay. Kildonan was on the southern point of the island looking down the Firth of Clyde towards Ailsa Craig and Ireland. Mrs Slattery had described the place: about a mile beyond the village, a white house standing by itself on a piece of land that jutted out into the water. It had its own moorings. Gerrit fancied himself as a bit of a sailor and had a boat, though it had always made Dermot seasick. But it was a handy route between Northern Ireland and Scotland if you didn’t want close scrutiny from the exciseman or the police.

  I looked at my watch and the clear sky. It wasn’t the best time for a frontal attack on a well-defended peninsula. In truth there was never a good time to attack a redoubt protected on three sides by deep water. Not unless you were Royal Navy. I could either wait till morning and make a dawn raid when Gerrit and his merry men would be at their lowest ebb. Or I could just get on with it now, and make the best of the fading light and the element of surprise. Always assuming it would be a surprise; Mrs Slattery would have had her phone fixed by now.

  Passing through Lamlash I made a brief detour. I found the Catholic chapel tucked behind the line of the main street, small and discreet, unlike its Protestant counterpart at the village end with its tall square tower looking out to Holy Island. I picked up the Dickson and walked towards the front entrance framed by pretty panes of glass that glowed in the afternoon light. I pushed open the heavy door. I stepped into the hushed hall lit by candles and daylight pouring through the glazed Stations of the Cross. A figure in white knelt in front of the altar, praying.

  I felt completely calm. I walked towards him until I was six feet away and close enough to hear the droning repetition of his litany. I broke the shotgun and closed it again with solid clunk. The supplications stopped. He turned and climbed to his feet. He looked older. His eyes were red and staring. His floor length white robe was belted by a dark cincture like they’d used to truss Cassidy before hanging him. O’Brien didn’t look much like the man I met on the beach at Lamlash so long ago now. My instinct to trust him had been wrong, so wrong. He looked at my shotgun and then back at my face. He didn’t look scared or surprised.

  ‘Are you here to kill me?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I’m here for information. I don’t have much time so I want answers right now.’

  He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘You haven’t heard the question. And you haven’t heard what I have to say.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ He was sullen, stubborn.

  ‘I’m going to tell you anyway. There’ve been more
deaths. More blood. Perhaps on your hands, eh, Father? They’ve been covering their tracks, the Slatterys. Three days ago Gerrit strangled a high court judge. Now why would he do that? Then he kidnapped Samantha Campbell. Brought her here to the island. I’m going to find her and then I’m going to kill him.’

  Father Connor O’Brien’s face contorted as if he’d been kicked in the belly.

  ‘There’s more. I tracked Dermot to his lair in Ireland. He’s dead and so are his two minions. Afterwards his wife and I had a bit of a wake, if you like. Over a glass or two she told me that her darling husband murdered Samantha’s parents back in the thirties. Drowned them in Loch Lomond to stop him making life difficult for young Gerrit. So, on top of all the others – Hugh Donovan, Mrs Reid and her daughter and sons, and of course the good Father Cassidy – a lot of folk have died to keep a wee secret, wouldn’t you say?’

  He had his hands up to his mouth as though he was going to be sick. I pressed on.

  ‘And I haven’t mentioned Rory Hutchinson. And the four others that are missing, presumed raped and murdered. Gerrit’s work, I imagine. I found his torture chamber. Did you know about that, Father?’

  ‘What do you want?’ he screamed.

  ‘What was the link between the Slattery boys and Patrick Cassidy?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t have time for this, Connor.’

  I lifted my shotgun, took careful aim, and fired. He dropped to his knees as the shot echoed round and round amidst the sound of glass falling and breaking. O’Brien turned and looked behind him. A large section of stained-glass window had vanished leaving St Paul not just blind but headless. A real Damascene conversion.

  ‘That’s blasphemy!’

  ‘No, Father. What Cassidy and Slattery have been doing is blasphemy. Now what’s your next favourite?’ I raised my gun again and pointed it at the Virgin Mary.

  ‘Stop! Stop! In the name of God, stop!’

  ‘God seems to have lost interest, lately.’ But I lowered my gun anyway.

  The priest sagged against the altar. ‘He regretted it. You must know he bitterly regretted it.’

  ‘Who regretted what?’

  ‘Father Cassidy. He told me he couldn’t help himself. It was when he was teaching at the Nazareth House in Belfast. He got close to some of the boys. He transgressed…’

  ‘You mean he buggered them?’

  He winced. ‘It wasn’t like that. The Slattery boys were sent there by their father. The father had been abusing them for years. Dermot was strong. He got over it. But Gerrit… Gerrit got changed by it. He grew to like it, may God have mercy on him. He seduced Patrick. He corrupted a good man. You must believe me!’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Patrick fled to Glasgow and tried to put his past behind him. The Slatterys appeared one day, and from then on, they blackmailed Patrick to help them. Provide cover for them. Patrick was doing good work in the Gorbals. A sort of penance. He couldn’t let them take that from him. Gerrit continued his perverted ways in Glasgow. Finding young boys. Harming them as he had been harmed. He found others like him. He procured boys for them. There was a group of men, some senior in civic life.’

  Oh, shit. ‘Chief Justice Allardyce?’

  ‘I don’t know their names. It’s possible.’

  ‘Senior policemen?’ I didn’t need to hear his answer. Muncie and Silver hadn’t just been worried about looking stupid if they admitted they’d got the wrong man. It was likely they’d colluded in rape, torture, murder, perjury and perverting the course of justice. They’d as good as murdered Rory Hutchinson and his father, Hugh.

  He stood there in his virginal white with a face like a martyr, what could I do? I had an almost uncontrollable impulse to give him his wish. To tarnish the white with his own tainted blood.

  ‘So they got rid of Procurator Fiscal Campbell and replaced him with the biddable Allardyce? Perfect.’ Then it occurred to me. ‘How do you know all this, Connor? How are you involved?’

  ‘I’m not! – as you put it – involved. Patrick was my tutor. He confided in me.’

  ‘But why are you protecting him? I wouldn’t go this far for my old Latin teacher.’

  He looked down. Then he ran a hand over his face from brow to chin as though washing himself. I should have felt disgust. All I felt was weariness at the way we were blown and driven through life by our natures. As if we had no choice.

  ‘Not in the confessional box then? More like the bedroom, eh Father?’

  ‘Don’t say that! I was the only one he could turn to! It was a burden too heavy for one man!’

  ‘Believe me, Father, if you knew all about this burden and didn’t tell the police, you are involved. And your relationship, all the sordid details of it, will come out at the trial.’ I thought he was going to throw up or have a heart attack. I pressed on. ‘What about Hugh Donovan? Was that part of the “cover” Cassidy provided?’

  He was tugging at his cincture as though it was cutting him in half. ‘It was Patrick’s lowest moment. It drove him mad. Slattery wanted a scapegoat, someone who’d take the blame for the missing boys. Donovan was a drug addict. He depended on Gerrit to supply him. Gerrit saw Donovan with the boy and had the boy picked up. Then he arranged for the evidence to be planted.’

  He saw the look of contempt on my face.

  ‘Donovan’s life was meaningless compared to Patrick’s work. You must see that!’

  The fury rose in me like bile. ‘I thought your God took those sort of decisions?’ My gun came up and I aimed at O’Brien’s head. ‘Who planted the evidence?’ I asked quietly.

  The priest stared at me as if I really was the avenging angel. Perhaps he hoped I was.

  ‘Who planted it?’

  He swallowed. ‘Father Cassidy.’

  The wind whipped in from the hole in the window. It stirred the folds of cloth on the pulpit and sent the candles fluttering and waving. I lowered my gun, turned and walked away, my heels clicking on the wood floor.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he called after me. I didn’t turn.

  ‘What shall I do?’ he screamed.

  I opened the chapel door and stepped out into the cool of early evening.

  FORTY-FIVE

  I drove slowly into the tiny village of Kildonan, letting my anger cool, trying to find that still calm centre I needed before action. It was illusive. I felt the mounting pressure in my head that presaged headaches and despair, as though my life force was draining away, leaving me bereft. O’Brien’s forced confessions had depressed me more than I expected. Was nothing untainted? I thought I could trust him when I first met him. It seemed like I’d lost my ability to judge folk. I wasn’t too surprised about his revelations about Cassidy. But their relationship…

  I was getting more naive as I get older, not less. I thought I’d seen and heard the worse of mankind in the eyes and from the mouths of the SS officers I’d interrogated. I’d seen their handiwork in the camps near Bremen and put it all down to an aberration of the Hitler inspired Reich. That he’d been a messiah to the minority: the loonies and fanatics, the psychopaths and criminals, the inhabitants of the seventh and eighth circles of hell. That while the rest of the nation had been asleep in the back seat the fiends had grabbed the wheel and driven Germany over the Rheinfalls. I truly hadn’t expected evil to be a commonplace. That I’d find it here in the soft hills and sandy shores of my own country.

  *

  I stopped the car, rolled down the window and lit a fag. The views drew the eye. Away to the east was the mainland of Ayrshire. To the south, about half a mile out in the bay, was a small wedge of an island. A lighthouse jutted phallically from its midpoint. Far out to the south east sat Ailsa Craig, the peripatetic lump of granite. Beyond that but out of sight, lay Ireland.

  Kildonan itself was a scattering of white houses and a fine beach. It would be a pretty place to spend a few days; a bit of fishing perhaps, paddling, and reading a good book in a deckchair on the sliver of fin
e sand. Was it a good place to die? As good as any. The odds were probably worse here than Lisnaskea. And I’d given up on finding Sam alive. I was weary of it all, sickened by endemic wickedness, careless of life. I was ready to trade it for taking Gerrit Slattery with me.

  So, did Kildonan have what I needed today? It was early in the year and they might not have geared up for tourists. There was a hut on the beach and in front of it, lying tipped in the sand, were four wooden boats each with a two-stroke engine strapped to its stern. I drove forward and drew up opposite the hut. The boats would take three or four people each for a spot of light fishing. A chain linked each of them through a ring on their prow. The chain was tethered to boats one and four by padlocks. A sign offered them for sale by the hour for 9d or, for the day, 2/6d. Fishing gear could be hired separately. Trips to the island of Pladda could be arranged with tours of the lighthouse. There was no sign of the boat owner. It was nearly six o’clock. Perhaps two more hours before sunset.

  The village was quiet, teatime quiet. I drove on and out, looking for a turn-off about a mile outside. The coast dipped in and out at this point. Past the bay of Kildonan the land cut back in and the road followed it. To my right a second bay opened up, much smaller than Kildonan. On the promontory partly obscured by trees was a white house, a two-storey job with windows all round. A jetty extended into the sea. A good-sized yacht stood alongside rocking gently in the waves. It was two masted, with the mainmast forward. The sails seemed to be lying folded along the booms. The hull had a simple beauty of line that suggested effortless speed. No bulking cabin cluttered the deck. In the driveway leading to the house stood a car. Its distinctive sloping rear suggested a Standard Twelve. There was no sign of activity.

  It was all still, until I saw a figure walk past a downstairs window. If my sums were right, Gerrit Slattery would have three of the remaining gang members with him. And one of them would still be nursing a hole in his foot. But that wouldn’t stop him from firing a gun at me. I had to assume they were armed at least as well as Dermot’s team. I checked the line of fire in front of the house from the driveway leading up to it. No cover, simple to defend, permitting good triangulation of fire on attackers. My old unit had a term for it: Victoria Cross Posthumous – VCP. It would be VCP level of futility to make a full frontal. It wasn’t that I was scared to die this day; it would just be such a waste to go without having a fair crack at Slattery.