Douglas Brodie 03 - Pilgrim Soul

by Ferris, Gordon

  ‘I didn’t want to talk about it. Even think about it. Why should I burden other folk with it?’

  ‘I’m not other folk.’

  ‘What are you then, Sam? To me?’

  We stared at each other for a long moment. Then she broke into a smile at the same time I did.

  ‘I’m your landlady and this tea is the nearest you’ll get to room service. Now, Douglas Brodie, it’s time I went to work. Glasgow today then over to the dragon’s lair tomorrow.’ She stood up, pulled her skirt down, leaned over the bed and kissed me on the forehead.

  ‘Is that part of a landlady’s duties?’ I called as she sailed out of the door.

  Long after I heard the front door close and her shouted Byeee, I forced myself up and on to unsteady feet. I felt hollowed out. An empty gourd. I went through the routine that got me to the hall, shaved, fully clothed and warmed by tea and toast and jam. I jammed on my hat and set out into the winter’s day.

  As I passed his office, Eddie jumped out and grabbed my arm.

  ‘Come by, Brodie.’ He pulled me into his fug. ‘Sit doon man. Now then, are you going to take some time off or what?’

  ‘I’m fine, Eddie. Really.’

  He studied me. ‘Oh aye? You’re like death warmed up, so you are. Take a few days off. Other folk are coming down with the flu. Why not you? We’ll manage. We’ve got a few more days of your Hamburg stuff to use. Ah’ll knock something up if need be.’

  ‘I’m better here. Better working, Eddie. What have you got for me?’

  ‘Well, there’s the thieving-from-the-kirks story.’

  ‘Collections?’

  ‘Pews. For firewood.’

  I laughed at the image of some rough household feeding their fire inch by inch with a long bench.

  ‘Leave me to it. I’ll phone around.’

  I picked up my pencil and a fresh sheet of paper. To get me in the mood I began toying with headlines such as ‘Purgatory for Pew Pinchers’ and ‘Fires of Hell for Kirk Robbers’ . . .

  ‘See! Ah telt ye! He’s been like that for hours now.’

  I grew aware of Eddie’s voice. Close. I lifted my head. Eddie was hanging over my filing cabinet. He was talking to someone and pointing at me. I blinked and turned my head. There was a small crowd. Two men and, behind them, Sam, looking anxious.

  One of the men spoke. ‘He’s in a dwam right enough.’ It was Duncan Todd. Who was he talking about? What did he want?

  The other man leaned closer. His face was familiar but thinner and older than I remembered. And there was a white scar cutting through his red hair like a wide and wayward parting that finished up just above his right eye.

  He said, ‘Hello, old pal. It’s been a while.’

  I stared at him until he was fully in focus both visually and in the pantheon of my mind.

  ‘Hello, Danny. What are you doing here?’

  Sam pushed herself forward. ‘I asked him to come, Douglas. We thought he could help.’ Her bonny face was lined with concern. Help me? Why were they all here?

  ‘Help? What for? What doing?’

  ‘How about Nazi-hunting, Brodie? Ah’m good at that.’ Danny McRae smiled wolfishly at me.

  FORTY

  Sam cut in. ‘Let’s get him out of here. Douglas? We’re all starving. We’re going to take you back to the house and give you some tea. OK?’

  ‘Tea? What time is it?’ I peered at my watch. It said three in the afternoon. I’d lost half a day. Had I fallen asleep? From all the fuss going on it seemed more than that. My legs started to shake. My feet were drumming on the floor. The shakes seemed to be travelling up my body. I couldn’t control it. Panic flooded me. I wanted to run.

  ‘Douglas! Douglas!’ Sam wrapped herself around me. I held her tight. My lifebelt. She cooed and stroked until I’d calmed. She faced me.

  ‘Why the tears, Sam?’

  ‘I’m not. I’m fine.’ She stroked my face. ‘Can you boys help him? Let’s get him home.’

  Danny and Duncan crowded round me and I felt their arms lift me to my feet. That was nice of them. I swayed but they kept me up. They pulled on my jacket, stuck my hat on my head and threw my coat over my shoulders. They all but frogmarched me out of the newsroom. It seemed very quiet and people were staring. Should I wave?

  We stumbled down the stairs and out into the chill afternoon. The freezing air hit me and I slumped, but the boys were still holding me up. Was I drunk? Did I have secret bottle in my desk? Just another reporter whose drinking session had got out of hand? A taxi was waiting with its engine running. Sam went ahead and opened the door. I stopped.

  ‘Wait. Wait – a – minute! Danny! Danny boy. What the hell are you doing here? Heard you were beating up the London polis.’

  Danny smiled that ferocious smile again. ‘That’s me. They deserved it.’

  ‘Good man. Did they do that to you?’ I indicated the scar still visible beneath the brim of his hat.

  ‘Naw. I had this done professionally. Gestapo. In France. Ah’ll tell you later.’

  They poured me into the taxi. Sam and Danny joined me, squeezing me between them. Duncan waved us off. They coaxed me into the house and up to the library. I sank into a deep leather armchair and tried to clear the fog in my brain.

  Sam lit a fire while Danny patrolled the bookshelves, picking up one book after another, flicking through it and putting it back. Then Sam returned with a tray of steaming soup and half a loaf. She made me slurp it down and I could feel it warming my very bones. She and Danny took a bowl each. Life began returning to my body. Then, warmed inside and toasting in front of the flickering fire, I let sleep overwhelm me.

  I woke to the sound of the clock chiming five. Danny was sitting reading. Sam had her glasses on, peering at the crossword. They looked up as I stirred. It was as though this pair had always been in my life and were now in their proper places. I nodded to Danny and cleared my throat.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Danny.’

  He put his book down. ‘Back with us again, old pal?’

  ‘How did Sam track you down?’

  ‘Through Duncan. As it happens, he and I have been in touch just lately. I get the occasional Glasgow paper in London. Just to see what this mad place is getting up to. And I found that a certain newshound for the Gazette has not only been writing the headlines, but generating them.’ He grinned. It was good to hear his Ayrshire accent again. The lilt of home.

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk.’

  ‘True enough, Brodie, we’ve both earned a certain amount of notoriety.’

  ‘You win, Danny, hands down in the infamy stakes. As I recall, you were up for murder.’

  He bristled. ‘You ken what newspapers are like. It was a set-up by my old boss in the SOE, Major Tony Caldwell. The shit! Pardon me, Sam.’

  ‘It’s all right, Danny,’ she said. ‘From what I’ve heard that seems to sum him up. What happened?’

  ‘Caldwell recruited me into the SOE. He dropped me in France a month before D-Day near Toulon. He was used to coming out personally to control the wider ops in that part. Seems he took up with a girl – a Resistance fighter. I don’t know what happened – row or something – but he killed her. And then stuck the blame on me.’

  I saw his eyes cloud.

  ‘Did you know her?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh aye, I kent her fine. I fell for her too.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, her pals betrayed me to the Gestapo by way of punishment. Can’t say I blame them. Ended up in Dachau. With this.’ He pointed to his head. ‘The Yanks got me home, and after a while I began looking for Caldwell.’

  ‘Did you get him?’ I asked.

  He stared off into the flames. ‘Yeah. Finally. He’d been at it again. Got the taste for it. Five other girls murdered in London. Street girls. But yeah, I got him.’

  I didn’t ask what he meant. Danny McRae was a persistent sod. We were both detective sergeants before the war, and I’d seen him in action. He was three years younger than me but they called
us the terrible twins. And that was just our fellow officers.

  Sam said, ‘How’s the head now, Danny?’

  ‘Aye, well, there’s the thing. I’ve got a plate in here.’ He knocked on his head where the scar ran. ‘So that’s fine. But I still get bad heads. And dreams. Let’s call them nightmares.’

  ‘Snap,’ I said ruefully. ‘Though I don’t have a lump of metal as an excuse.’

  ‘Douglas, with what you’ve been through, you don’t need another excuse.’

  ‘Maybe, Sam.’ I turned to Danny to change the subject. ‘But other than upsetting the polis, what have you been doing down south?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘Playing detectives. I hung out a sign. “Finders Keepers”. I’m a private investigator. Can you believe it?’

  ‘I can believe anything about you, Danny. I’m doing a bit of freelancing myself. Does it pay?’

  ‘Keeps me in Black & White.’

  ‘Your taste hasn’t improved.’

  ‘Ah’ll drink anything, as you know, Brodie.’

  Sam cut in, ‘Before the pair of you take that as a cue to start celebrating this reunion, you need to eat something more, Douglas Brodie. Anyway, it’s too early in the day.’

  While she was gone, Danny and I inspected each other.

  ‘She’s a fine lady, Brodie. You’re a lucky man.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Are you going to marry her? You should.’

  ‘She’s a hard woman to pin down.’

  ‘You mean you huvnae asked her.’

  ‘We keep dancing round it. But what did she say about me? Why did she get you up here?’

  He leaned forward and spoke softly. ‘She said you were having a bad time. Nightmares. Shouting in your sleep. That you’re just back from the Hamburg trials and that it dredged up a lot of bad stuff.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘I know how that goes, Brodie.’ He rapped his skull. ‘But it’s more than just physical. I’ve seen a good few brain doctors this past year or so. Psychoanalysed until I didnae know my own name. Even some shock treatment.’

  ‘They plugged you into the mains?’

  ‘It was like having your brain scrambled. Afterwards it goes calm, but in bits. Then over a few days it starts to join up again. You start remembering better.’

  ‘This was the result of Dachau?’

  He looked down at the carpet and nodded. ‘It was shite, Douglas. Absolute shite.’ His head came up. His features were suddenly made gaunt and savage by the tension in his jaw and neck muscles. ‘How did they get like that, Brodie? How does anyone – any human being – get like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a kind of madness. Mob hysteria.’

  Danny shook his head violently. ‘Naw, too easy! Lets them off the hook. They wurnae dafties. They knew what they were doing. Bastards! They liked it!’

  We were stilled by our thoughts.

  ‘How are you now, Danny?’

  ‘No’ bad. The headaches have pretty well stopped. I just get down at times. Whisky works.’

  Suddenly I recognised myself. Clever Sam.

  ‘Is there a girl in your life?’ I asked.

  Pain drifted across his face. ‘They’re a bloody nuisance, aren’t they?’

  ‘Escaped your clutches?’

  He got up and poked some life into the fire. ‘I seem to know how to pick them. She was a reporter in London. Like you, Brodie. Eve Copeland. Heard of her? She had her own column in the Trumpet.’

  ‘You’re using past tense.’

  He rubbed his face. ‘Turned out she was also an agent.’

  ‘As in secret agent? Good God, man. Who for?’

  He sighed. ‘Who do you think? She’d been coerced. Nazis had her parents. Jews. Her real name was Ava Kaplan.’

  ‘How did you find out that – Eve? Ava? – was an agent?’

  ‘Eve. Scotland Yard. But she got away before they did.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story. She went off to Berlin looking for her folks.’

  ‘And?’

  He looked sheepish. ‘I went after her.’

  ‘Christ, Danny! And I thought I was a magnet for trouble! Did she find them?’

  ‘Nup. Long since dead. The Nazis had been playing Eve along. So she went after them.’

  ‘Retribution? And I suppose you tagged along for the ride?’

  ‘Oh aye. And we had a wee bit of help from the Irgun Zvai Leumi.’

  ‘The ones that blew up the King David Hotel? You’re kidding.’

  ‘The same. But they see themselves as freedom fighters.’

  ‘I can’t completely blame them. After what was done to them.’

  He eyed me closely. ‘That’s how I see it. We’ve got ourselves in a right bloody fankle. We’re supposed to be in charge of Palestine, but really we’re siding with the Arabs, which means we’re trying to stop Jewish refugees getting in. Or, as they put it, going home. Our boys get shot or kidnapped or blown up, and all the while we’re trying to help them create a Jewish state. Eve’s part of their delegation in London.’

  ‘Your girl’s part of the Israeli negotiating team?’

  He stopped pacing. ‘She’s not mine, Douglas. She’s chosen a different way. But yes, she and her pals are hammering out proposals for the UN. She could be prime minister of Israel one day. A tough lassie. But hie, we’re not here to solve my problems.’

  ‘You think you’re here to solve mine?’

  He looked me up and down. ‘Not me. You. No one else can do it for you. It will get better, Dougie. I promise you. It just takes time. Time and talking about it.’

  ‘Are you some kind of amateur Freud? The talking cure? I don’t want to talk about it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, don’t then. You were always a thrawn bugger, Brodie. Just let me say this: I’ve been through it. Still going through it. It’s like a kind of battle fatigue. Oh, by the way, congratulations, Colonel.’

  I waved it down. ‘A contrivance. Short term. While we sort out this mess.’

  ‘Good. If it keeps you busy. Stops you feeling sorry for yourself.’

  I looked at him, seeing briefly the slim young detective from thirteen, fourteen years ago. The shining-eyed energy and sharp intelligence. How we’d recognised each other instantly though we’d never met. The door opened. Sam’s head came round.

  ‘I hope you like coney stew, Danny.’

  FORTY-ONE

  We pushed our plates away and, for the first time in days, perhaps weeks, I felt more than just nourished by the hot food. Danny had talked about some of his escapades as a private eye and had Sam and me laughing out loud at the tales of missing dogs and husbands. It seems I’d been starved for not just meat. I filled him in on the details of the pursuit I was leading in Glasgow. I told him about the twenty-one hunters I’d set loose last night. Was it only last night?

  ‘They sound a motley crew, Brodie.’

  ‘They’re keen and well motivated. Maybe over-motivated.’

  ‘I can imagine. And can we just get this clear? I want to help. If you’ll have me – Colonel – you’ve got twenty-two. I’ll fit in. I’m as motley as the next man.’

  ‘OK, Captain. But can we drop the titles? It’s just going to get in the way.’

  ‘Sure. But we need a leader. You’re it, Brodie.’

  I suddenly glanced at my watch. ‘Damn! We’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes.’

  Sam threw her napkin down. ‘Are you totally daft, Douglas Brodie? You could hardly stand this afternoon. You were – as Duncan put it exactly – in a total dwam at your desk. Now you think you can just bounce back as though nothing had happened? You’re aff your heid!’

  Danny was smiling. ‘She has a point, Brodie. You could get hold of – Belsinger, is it? – by phone and cancel. We could make it tomorrow.’

  ‘Nup. It’s no way to start. They need to get used to a routine. I need to be there. Are you coming?’ I was on my feet. The dizziness hit, but then die
d down. I seemed to be nearly under control. Fresh air would help.

  ‘I’ll grab my hat,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Where are you staying, Danny?’

  He looked at Sam.

  ‘He’s staying here, of course, Douglas. I invited him.’

  Danny grinned.

  I groaned. ‘I hope you can afford your own whisky. Let’s go.’

  We hacked and slithered our way down through the frozen streets and up the steep hill to our rendezvous at Garnethill. We arrived blowing steam like a pair of old locomotives. I introduced McRae to Shimon and Isaac and we had just enough time to get our coats and hats off before the first of the group started arriving.

  As they gathered in front of Danny and me, I sensed a new mood. There was more talking, more recognition of each other. We got them seated, I counted heads – I made it twenty-three – twenty-four, counting Danny. I spotted two new faces. Swarthy characters sitting either side of Malachi at the back. One wore glasses and looked professorial.

  ‘Mal, can you introduce your new pals?’

  Malachi turned to them and said something. Then he spoke up. ‘They are Paulus and Emmanuel. Hungarian. They got out in ’39. They wanted to help.’ First one and then the other got up and nodded.

  ‘Shalom, Colonel.’

  ‘Welcome, both. But please, it’s just Brodie. OK?’

  They sat down and I noticed a quiet watchfulness about them. Self-contained and wary. They looked handy.

  ‘I’m also bringing someone new this evening. This is Danny McRae, formerly captain in the Scots Guards and then SOE agent. But perhaps there is something special about his background you might want to hear. Danny?’

  Danny stood up, calm and assured as ever – cocky even – and briefly described his year in captivity in Dachau. It gripped them and got them on side. One man even stepped up and shook his hand in fellow feeling. Bathsheba’s eyes glittered in scrutiny.

  I got them to settle down and we began taking reports. As each got to his feet I asked him to call out his name and his map reference, his beat. I asked what languages he spoke, and what he’d been up to today. It was hardly a model reporting session from Central Division, and scarcely a team briefing of NCOs before battle. But it would do.