The Hanging Shed

TEN

I rubbed my face with both hands. Short of a Pathe newsreel showing Hugh murdering the boy, this case was as watertight as a Clyde steamer.

‘To all five?’

‘Just Rory.’

‘Duress?’ I tried.

‘Do you mean is it likely he was forced to confess? Yes. I have absolutely no doubt. Round here, your former colleagues are not known for their compassion towards child molesters, far less child murderers. When I first saw Hugh, his face – such as it is – was badly bruised and so was his body. Resisting arrest, they said. By the time he got to trial the marks had pretty well vanished. And of course the police claimed they’d used kid gloves.’

I nodded. It wasn’t new. I’d seen plenty of interrogations that involved gentle persuasion with a truncheon or a boot. Disillusionment was one of the reasons I joined the army; not that I found many choirboys among my fellow NCOs.

‘Did he retract his confession in court?’

She leaned towards me, and shook her head. ‘Not as such. Hugh was – is – a sick man. Half the time he doesn’t know what day it is. They gave him some painkillers during the trial but either too little or sometimes too much. And there was something about him. A sense of fatality. He just wanted it all over with. The trial. The pain. His life.’

‘The poor wee bastard.’

‘That he is,’ she said. We were silent for a moment.

A thought struck me. ‘ Were there any witnesses? Anyone hear anything? Hugh says he lived up a close. Rented a single-end next door to a family. A mother and four kids. What did they have to say?’

She shook her head. ‘The police took a statement from them at the time, just after his arrest. They said they saw nothing, heard nothing.’

‘Did you question them? At the trial?’

She sighed. ‘They weren’t at the trial. They’d vanished.’

‘Vanished? How do you mean? There were five of them, were there not?’

‘Seems they were evicted a few weeks before the trial started. No forwarding address. No one knows where they went. It happens. The police say they exhausted all lines of inquiry. Convenient eh?’

‘Smelly.’

There was a tinkling of china behind me and then the door was bashed back. The receptionist came in bearing a tray and a grudge. She plonked it down with an unnecessary clatter and ‘Yer tea, miss’ and returned to her lair. For the first time Samantha Campbell and I smiled at each other. It made her look younger.

‘What do you think then?’ she asked.

‘I think we’re in bother.’ I slurped at my tea. ‘Can I read the trial report myself?’

‘Help yourself.’ She swivelled the papers round to face me. ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be back in an hour. I have another client to see.’

I leaned over the desk and began reading and flicking through the papers. She’d summarised it well. It all stacked up. The verdict seemed a foregone conclusion. And yet, and yet, the very neatness and comprehensiveness of the proof was too good to be true. If I’d wanted to build a procurator fiscal’s case I could hardly have done better. Was it just too pat? Why had Hugh not got rid of the bloodstained clothes? Or the knife?

Then there was the question of when the boy had died. He’d been missing for a week. Six and a half days. Last seen on the Monday around teatime with his pals, then found at eight thirty the following Monday morning by the coalman come to deliver some more bags to the coal cellars behind the tenements. The police pathologist reckoned he’d been dead for two to three days. There was very little blood in the coal cellar. It was likely that the boy had died elsewhere and been dumped. So where had Hugh – or the murderer – hidden the boy for three or four days? Surely not in his single room? The police had searched it early on. Could he have kept the kid quiet for four days? Not a whimper? Using the heroin?

Reading the detectives’ reports I recognised several names. The Chief Superintendent in charge was George Muncie. I remembered him from before the war, a big florid man, with red hair and a temper to match and a high opinion of himself. He ran my old Eastern Division as his personal fiefdom. Reporting to him was the case officer, Detective Chief Inspector Willie Silver. He must have got over his drink problem to have risen from detective sergeant in ’39. Or maybe he’d got better at hiding it. As Sam Campbell had put it, ‘Glasgow’s finest’.

‘Anything?’

I turned as the lawyer came back to her office. ‘I need to get below the words here. I need to speak to people, find out what the forensic boys thought rather than just what they wrote. I don’t like this gap between the boy’s abduction and his death. Where was he? Did you ask Hugh?’

‘Of course. So did the prosecution. And the judge. He had no answer.’

‘Well, I guess he wouldn’t, if he didn’t do it.’

‘The prosecution just claimed he was covering up his bestiality or at best was in a drug-induced stupor. Either way he was a sick animal for whom hanging would be a mercy.’

‘This heroin habit of his. Did they ever find his supplier?’

‘I don’t think they looked. Is that relevant?’

‘I have no idea. It’s just a loose end. Another part of the jigsaw. Hugh didn’t have contact with many folk. One of them was the supplier. It might give us a picture of his movements that week.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Witnesses? Friends?

‘The only one who seemed to stick up for him was his priest, Father Cassidy. He kept telling Hugh he believed he was innocent. But even his faith seemed to waver as the case went on. But he still goes to see him at Barlinnie. He might be able to point you at other people who knew Hugh. Including the pusher. I’ll give you his address.’

She scribbled his name and address on a sheet of paper, tore it off and handed it to me. I looked at it. She was staring at me.

‘What?’

‘My turn. From what you’ve just read, what’s your verdict?’

‘If I was on the jury? And only using the evidence? Guilty.’

‘But?’

‘As an ex copper with a suspicious mind, it’s a little too watertight. I’ve never seen such an open and shut case.’

‘Can you suspend judgement?’

‘I’m not sure why.’

‘Will you at least stay and help?’

I thought I’d hardened myself to pleading eyes. But reading the trial papers had set up an itch I needed to scratch.

‘I suppose it does. For a few days anyway. I’ll need to get the rest of this week off from my boss at the London Bugle.’ I was pretty sure I could make up the time by working late or weekends, as long as I could knock up five hundred words of fearless crime reporting to keep my editor interested. I had a couple of half worked out ideas that didn’t require more research. I could write about Hugh’s predicament but it would have little interest for London readers. Besides, I’d just tie myself in knots wondering whose side I was on. Little chance of journalistic objectivity. And it would feel like I was using him.

‘Just use the phone here.’

‘I’m also going to need digs for a few nights. Any suggestions?’

She looked at me coolly for a long few seconds.

‘Do you snore? Get drunk and fall down stairs? Leave clothes on the floor? Leave toilet seats up?’

‘I can’t swear to the loo seat, but no to the rest. Though I’m not teetotal. Is this a temperance hotel you’re suggesting?’

‘I couldn’t make that claim. My folks left me their house. It’s fairly big. There’s a spare room and bathroom. In truth, there’s a choice.’

Was she just trying to make up for the initial brusqueness? I doubted it was animal passion. No need to lock my door at night. She didn’t look much like a man-eater. I hesitated. I didn’t want to be under constant inspection by this tough spinster who looked as if she had a preference for cold baths and hard beds. Cold beds, certainly.

‘Neighbours?’

She stood up, rifled through her bag and placed a key on the table. ‘It won’t be the first time I’ve scandalised them. If your reputation can stand it, so can mine.’

Scandalised the West End? Not washing her milk bottles would be enough. ‘What do you charge?’

‘Hand over your ration book and one pound ten for a week’s grub. Nothing fancy. The bed’s free, if – and only if – you come up with something new for the appeal. Deal?’

‘Miss Campbell, it’s a deal. Thank you.’

‘Call me Sam. Everyone else does. Do you prefer Doug or Douglas?

I shrugged. ‘Most just call me Brodie.’ Only my mother used my first name. And Hugh of course. I wasn’t about to get intimate with Samantha – call me Sam – Campbell.

‘Brodie it is. Are you going to try to see Father Cassidy now? Leave your case and I’ll take it back with me.’

‘Sure?’

She pointed at the corner. She scribbled her own address on a sheet of paper, together with the numbers of the trams that ran by. It was further into the city and up on the smart hillside of Kelvingrove Park. Very nice. I left her gazing at her piles of paper as though by sheer force of will they would file themselves.