Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘My arse they’re anxious. Relieved’s more like it. Him especially. Some people should never have weans.’

  Was it possible that she saw herself as a caring mother?

  ‘I thought you were going to ask about Crosbie,’ she said.

  ‘In good time. When did you last see Helen Cooley, Michael?’

  ‘On Saturday.’ He really was hoarse.

  ‘What time on Saturday?’

  ‘About eight o’clock.’

  ‘Where was this?’

  ‘In the main street. She was waiting for a bus.’

  ‘Did she tell you she was waiting for a bus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was she going to Glasgow?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Did you actually see her get on?’

  ‘No. Johnny and me didn’t wait.’

  ‘So Johnny was with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you do afterwards?’

  ‘Johnny went home.’

  His mother intervened. ‘And he paid a visit to that fat trollop Annie Burnet. I expect you’ve heard about that. What’s this all about anyway? Are you trying to connect Helen Cooley with what happened to Crosbie? I thought that was an accident.’

  ‘It may well have been, Mrs Dykes.’

  ‘That wouldn’t suit you, would it? You want an excuse to hound that poor lassie. Dykes says why don’t you go after the rich guys that don’t pay their taxes. We have them in Lightburn too, you know.’

  With that she dragged Mick in and slammed the door shut. Unlike her sister-in-law she made no allowances.

  ‘That boy suspects Cooley,’ said McLeod, in the car.

  Black shook his head. ‘I just can’t see her going to Glasgow on Saturday night, returning on Sunday, bashing Crosbie’s head in, leaving him for dead in a close, returning to Glasgow, and getting a lift to London on Monday morning. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Murder seldom makes sense, Harry. But never fear. I am keeping an open mind.’

  By three o’clock that afternoon McLeod’s mind was closed, as regarded the manner in which Crosbie had met his death. Dr Imrie’s colleague confirmed his findings: Crosbie had been murdered. The Glasgow police were immediately requested to trace the driver of the bus which had taken Cooley to Glasgow. By six o’clock they had found him. He remembered Cooley because of the Singapore Airlines bag she had been carrying, and also because of her woe-begone expression. She had come off at the terminus and so far as he could see had not been met by anyone. No driver, however, could be found who remembered her on his bus on Sunday, and no ticket clerk remembered having sold her a rail ticket.

  It was given out to the news media that the investigations were continuing. Nothing was said about murder. Anyone with information was asked to come forward. The Lightburn police were particularly concerned that a local girl, Helen Cooley, should get in touch with them as soon as possible. It was believed she had gone to London. A photograph of her, making her look every inch a murderess, appeared in some national newspapers.

  Detective Sergeant McLeod’s first stroke of luck in the Crosbie case had been his happening to be in the station when the workmen had come to report the discovery of the body. The second was his being in the station on Sunday morning when the telephone call came. The third, and best, was that the call was for him.

  On his way back from church he went into the station to find out if there had been any fresh developments. He was not surprised to find George Milne in charge. Already a number of telephone calls had been received, mainly from cranks and troublemakers, claiming that Helen Cooley had been seen in places as far apart as Aberdeen and Plymouth. Nothing so far had been heard from the London police.

  George had taken command of the telephone. When it rang he picked it up and switched on the recorder. McLeod heard the voice in the ear-piece: it sounded female and angry. He felt justified in listening in on the other phone.

  ‘Is this Lightburn Police Station?’

  ‘It is,’ said George. ‘Who is calling?’

  ‘Who am I talking to?’

  ‘This is Sergeant Milne.’

  ‘I thought so. I don’t want to talk to you. Can I talk to Teuchter.’

  ‘There is no one of that name here. Who are you?’

  ‘You know who I am. Teuchter’s his nickname. McLeod’s his real name. I know it’s Sunday but if he’s not at the station give me his house number.’

  ‘I cannot put you in touch with Detective Sergeant McLeod until I know who you are and what your business is.’

  ‘You know who I am all right. I’m Helen Cooley.’

  It certainly sounded like her, being young, female, Scottish, and aggressive.

  ‘Can you give proof of your identity?’ asked Milne.

  ‘What do you mean, proof?’

  ‘Any girl could say she was Helen Cooley.’

  ‘She’d be a bloody fool to say that if she wasn’t. There’s nothing special about being me.’

  ‘Where do your parents live?’

  ‘32 Alloway Street.’

  ‘Can you give me the name of the chairman of the Children’s Panel?’

  ‘Tight-pussy Porteous. For Christ’s sake, get McLeod or tell me his number. This call’s going to cost me a fortune.’

  ‘Where are you phoning from?’

  ‘Do you think I’m daft? Look, I’m going to hang up.’

  McLeod then took over ‘Hello, Helen. This is Detective Sergeant McLeod. What is it you want to tell me?’

  ‘First, I want to tell you that I had fuck-all to do with Johnny Crosbie getting killed. You’ve got it in the newspapers that I did it. I’m thinking of suing.’

  ‘No one has accused you. It was merely stated that you might be able to assist us in our enquiries. What you should do, Helen, is to go at once and report to the nearest police station.’ His heart sank. Here he was helping others to gain the glory.

  ‘No thanks. I’m keeping well clear of police stations. I didn’t do it. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, I know who did it. I wish I didn’t.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘Killed Crosbie.’

  ‘No one has said that Johnny Crosbie was killed.’

  ‘I can read between the lines. Anyway, I know what must have happened. I’m not saying all this for your sake, don’t think that, if it had been anybody else that had done it I’d have let you find out for yourselves and hoped that you didn’t. I’ve never shopped anybody in my life, not even people I’ve hated.’

  He had to speak responsibly. This conversation would be listened to and assessed by his superiors.

  ‘Giving information to the police is not shopping. It is doing your duty as a citizen.’

  ‘To hell with that. Just a minute.’

  She put more money in. He wondered where she was phoning from. Detective-Constable Anderson was trying to find out.

  ‘This is somebody I like. Somebody I like a lot. Somebody I’d die for. That sounds like crap but it’s true.’

  This palaver and hesitation were typically feminine. Flora too could be slow in coming to the point.

  ‘He’s got himself into one hell of a mess,’ she said.

  ‘Who has?’

  ‘I don’t think I can bring myself to tell you. Maybe I’ll just put this phone down and forget it.’

  ‘Don’t do that. What you should do, for your own good and that of your friend, is to go to the nearest police station and explain who you are. They will arrange for your journey back to Lightburn.’

  ‘Come into my parlour. No thanks. What I’m afraid of is that somebody else might get killed.’

  Was the silly girl suggesting there was a murderous lunatic at large in the town? She sounded very serious.

  ‘Such as Tight-pussy.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Or her daughter.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘Mrs Porteous and her daughter Margaret. What happens if a person’s
mad and kills somebody?’

  ‘It would depend on the circumstances.’

  ‘Maybe I should think about it a bit more. The trouble is, the person he’s most likely to kill next is himself. Do you know how he’ll do it? He’ll burn himself to death. You’ve seen pictures of people doing that. That’s what he’d do. All right. I’ll tell you. His name’s Duffy. You won’t have heard of him. He’s never been in trouble. He lives in Kenilworth Court, number 86.’

  She was wrong. He had heard of this Duffy. Constables Green and McHarg had reported questioning a boy of that name in Ballochmyle Avenue near St Stephen’s church last Sunday. He had been well-dressed and well-spoken, though a bit on the simple side perhaps. He had claimed to have been at church with Mrs Porteous. Green and McHarg had made enquiries and found that he had been telling the truth.

  What connection could there be between Cooley and such a boy? Had she pestered him with her affection and been repulsed.

  ‘Everybody thinks Duffy’s simple, but that’s because he wants them to think it. He’s the very opposite of simple. That declaration of war on the town hall, it was Duffy who did that. Abusers of authority. Defilers of truth. He hates them. It was his idea to tear pages out of the library books and put shit on the hymn-books. Acts of war. Symbolical, he said. He wanted to show everybody what hypocrites they were. As if they needed to be shown! He got Johnny Crosbie to help him. That was his big mistake. Make use of evil to bring about good, he said. He got rid of Johnny because he didn’t trust him. I warned him it would come to that.’

  After a pause she went on, while McLeod listened in open-mouthed amazement and Milne in scowling incredulity: ‘He said that if you declared war anything you did after that wouldn’t be a crime. I don’t know if he believed it or not. It’s true, isn’t it, that when countries are at war they drop bombs and kill lots of people but they don’t think of themselves as murderers. It must have been Flockhart the history teacher that put the idea into his head. Flockhart told him about a famous writer who said judges should have a roll of toilet paper in front of them when they were sentencing people. That gave Duffy his idea of putting shit on the hymn-books.’

  McLeod had heard of Mr Flockhart’s imprudent opinions but not that they included the advocacy of terrorism. ‘You are not asking me to believe that Mr Flockhart encouraged this boy Duffy to commit crimes?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Don’t blame Flockhart. But he did tell Duffy that books tell lies.’

  Surely no sane teacher ever told a pupil any such thing?

  ‘Look, Mr McLeod, I’ve told you. It’s up to you now. You’ll have to do something quick before he kills someone else. Like Mrs Porteous. Or himself.’

  ‘Why on earth should he want to harm Mrs Porteous?’

  ‘She’s the biggest hypocrite in town, isn’t she? For Christ’s sake, look after him.’

  Those were her last words. She seemed to be weeping.

  McLeod found it hard to imagine the Helen Cooley he knew in tears.

  He and Milne stared at each other.

  ‘What did you make of all that, George?’

  ‘We know she’s a liar, we know she does not like the police, so it would be foolish to believe her.’

  ‘But she couldn’t have made all that up.’

  ‘Liars have fertile imaginations.’

  ‘Yes, but all that stuff about declaring war and hypocrites and books telling lies and Duffy burning himself to death, she couldn’t have made that up. Do you know anything about this Duffy, George?’

  ‘I spoke to him once in the main street, the day that rubbish was painted on the town hall. He struck me as a quiet inoffensive boy.’

  ‘That’s what Green and McHarg thought. Was he by himself?’

  ‘Crosbie and Dykes were with him. I got the impression he did not want their company.’

  ‘You think they were taking advantage of him because they know or think he’s a bit simple?’

  ‘Yes. His mother is a barmaid at the Caledonian Hotel. She is highly regarded there. She is at present on holiday in Spain.’

  ‘So he’s on his own. He didn’t give you the impression that he was capable of all those things Cooley accused him of?’

  ‘He did not.’

  Detective Constable Anderson then came in to confess that he had not been able to trace the call. ‘London somewhere. A public call-box. Very difficult to trace. Sorry.’

  When he was gone again McLeod remarked he couldn’t understand how Mrs Porteous came into it.

  ‘She may well be the biggest hypocrite in town.’

  McLeod was startled. ‘She’s one of the pillars of society.’

  ‘Which is why her private life should be above reproach.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It is not, and has not been for some time.’

  ‘What do you mean, George?’

  ‘She has a lover.’

  McLeod remembered Cooley’s lewd word tight-pussy and felt embarrassed. He wasn’t sure what George, a bigger prude than himself, meant by a lover. ‘Well, she’s a single woman.’

  ‘He isn’t. He is a married man. Therefore she is an adulteress.’

  Could a woman who wasn’t married commit adultery? Surely her sin was fornication.

  ‘Is he a local man, George?’

  ‘He is a well-known Edinburgh lawyer. His wife is a Catholic and will not give him a divorce.’

  ‘He can’t be very young.’

  ‘He is about fifty.’

  And she was about forty-five. Both of them well past the age of hotblooded and reckless romance. ‘I had no idea,’ said McLeod.

  ‘It is a very well-guarded secret.’

  ‘So how do you know, George?’

  George would have been an important man in John Calvin’s Geneva. He would be an important man today in Brezhnev’s Russia.

  ‘But Cooley wouldn’t know it, or this boy Duffy.’

  ‘I hardly think so.’

  Still, Duffy must know her, Mrs Porteous I mean, if she had him at church with her.’

  ‘I know nothing about that.’

  ‘Suppose it’s all true, George. At this very moment he could be prowling about Mrs Porteous’s house. It’s just as well she’s got that big yellow Labrador.’

  ‘She also has her paramour, who used to play Rugby.’

  Flora says I’ve got little sense of humour, thought McLeod. She also says George has none; in his case she’s right.

  In all his forty-six years of membership of the Free Kirk of Scotland (having been enrolled at birth) under a succession of ministers to whom sexual immorality was anathema, McLeod had never heard anyone use the word paramour.

  ‘I think we should go and have a talk with Duffy,’ he said.

  ‘This is a C.I.D. matter, Angus. Take Black or Anderson with you.’

  ‘I’d rather you came, George. You heard what Cooley said about him.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Like much else of Lightburn Kenilworth Court was a bit run down, with the roadway pot-holed, the pavements cracked, some street lamps smashed, and the closes in need of repainting. Many of the inhabitants, however, still clung to respectability and did not necessarily regard the police as enemies. McLeod and Milne therefore, though the latter was in uniform, were in little danger of being reviled from distant corners or having the hub-caps removed from their car.

  The name on the small brass plate was I. Duffy. McLeod rang the bell.

  As he waited he tried to look relaxed and friendly. Milne was as tense and stern as ever.

  The door across the landing opened. A woman showed her face. It was hardly welcoming but it was not quite hostile either.

  ‘I’m Mrs Munro,’ she said. ‘I promised Duffy’s mother that I would keep an eye on him while she was away. She’s in Spain on holiday. I hope nothing’s happened to her.’

  ‘Not that we know of, Mrs Munro,’ said McLeod, smiling. ‘It’s the lad we’d like to have a word with.’

  ‘May I
ask what about?’

  ‘It’s a private matter. He doesn’t seem to be at home.’

  ‘He’s gone to church.’

  ‘Did you see him go? Did he tell you he was going?’

  ‘He didn’t have to. He was dressed for it and he was carrying a Bible.’

  ‘Did he say what church he was going to?’

  ‘He didn’t, but last Sunday he went to St Stephen’s. He seems to have made friends there.’

  ‘Have you any idea when he’ll be back?’

  ‘He could be visiting his friends, couldn’t he? He was carrying something else, wrapped in brown paper. It could have been a cake.’

  ‘A cake?’

  ‘That’s right. You wouldn’t believe it but he’s a good baker. Is it about these rascals that have been pestering him that you want to see him?’

  ‘Who are they, Mrs Munro?’

  ‘First it was that Helen Cooley, then Dykes and that boy Crosbie that’s been found dead, and worst of all if you ask me that big trollop Molly McGowan. She spent the night with him.’

  ‘Have all these visited him recently?’

  ‘They have. His mother would be very angry if she knew. She’s quite a lady body, Mrs Duffy, though she’s only a barmaid.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you very much, Mrs Munro. You’ve been very helpful.’

  In the car, which still had its hub-caps and windscreen wipers, McLeod said: ‘Just what has been going on, George? Have they been taking advantage of him because he’s a simpleton?’

  ‘It would look like it?’

  ‘Or is Cooley right and he’s not a simpleton at all? I think we should go and have a chat with Mr Flockhart. If anyone can tell us about Duffy it’s him.’

  Chief-Inspector Findlay’s three-bedroomed bungalow was in the same new housing estate as Flockhart’s two-bedroomed semi-detached. McLeod was aware that he ought to go there first and report Cooley’s telephone call. There was a point when initiative on the part of subordinates became unpardonable presumption. He was already past it. If his luck did not hold he would be censured, not praised.

  ‘Perhaps I should warn you, Angus,’ said Milne, ‘that we may find Mr and Mrs Flockhart not on the friendliest of terms.’