The Hanging Shed

SIXTEEN

‘Where to, friend?’ asked the taxi driver.

‘Do you know Tobago Street police station?’

It caused a big sigh from the front seat. ‘Intimately. Ah’ve bailed ma faither-in-law out o’ there on many’s the occasion. Drunken aul’ sod…’

He gave me his troubles for the next ten minutes of our journey. I contributed with a random few tsks and ayes out of politeness. But my attention was on the fair city streets that I’d pounded in my good black uniform a lifetime ago. I rolled down my window to sample the air and take in the smells and sounds.

There was nothing like the damage done to London. It was a struggle for German bombers to reach this far, and none of their daunting V1s or V2s made it beyond North London. Yet they had tried their damnedest to hit the shipbuilding capacity and ammunition production of the Clyde, and some stray bomb loads had straddled the residential areas in central Glasgow. The place that really took a pasting was the town of Clydebank. Back in March 1940, the Luftwaffe had filled their fuel tanks to the brim and swarmed across the North Sea. I might even have heard the murderous drone of their massing bombers while I lay in a French field as part of the ill fated British Expeditionary Force. The bombers made it to Glasgow but missed the yards and instead razed an entire community. Only a handful of houses out of 12,000 were left unscathed. Hundreds of innocent folk – weans and women mainly – were blown to bits or crushed in the rubble of their homes. I wish I could say me and my mates in the 51st Highland Division took it out on the German army in return. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. Not then. Not for that incarnation of the 51st.

I wrenched my thoughts back to the present. Outside the window of my taxi time had stood still. There were still groups of capped men huddling on street corners puffing on fags, waiting for something to come up at the yards. These were the unskilled, the casuals, the soldiers back from the war with no job and dwindling hope. It had the ominous tang of the thirties again, the years of the Depression and the Hunger Marches. Where were the laurel leaves and the spoils of victory?

The pawnshops with their three brass balls were doing a steady trade. The old gaffers handed over their wife’s wedding ring on the Wednesday to tide them over till pay day on Friday, then they liberated the abused gold bands on the Saturday. Weekend wives, these long-suffering women, some still wrapped in their plaids, oblivious to fashion as much as to the lengthening and warming days. Some of the younger women – Highland lassies mainly – had babies tucked inside their tartan rugs, tight-swaddled like papooses with only fat red faces on show.

Suddenly, out of a close, a squadron of kids with skint knees and holed vests shot into the street. Their leader ran with the balance of a Scotland winger taking on the English defence at Hampden. His right arm was outstretched and holding an iron bar which drove a black metal hoop. This gird and cleek was a top-notch affair. I’d made my own out of an old pram wheel with the spokes and tyre removed for the cleek. And for a gird, we used sticks torn from trees to propel the hoop along. This boy’s must have been made at the yards; it was a blacksmith’s job to fashion the ring of iron and fix one end of the gird to it with another smaller hoop. The best thing was the satisfying ear-splitting noise as the cleek clattered along the cobbles with a gang of shrieking tearaways whooping after it and demanding a ‘shot’. I watched the yelling pack disappear down another close and wished I was running with them, starting again. But that’s the kind of thinking that tortured me through the winter in London. Round and round. Replaying pivotal points in my life and taking a different path. Seeing where I’d end up. Almost anywhere better than the poky wee flat in a bombed out city of strangers, with only my old pal Johnnie Walker to keep me company.

We juddered to a halt outside Tobago Street jail. It hadn’t changed either. A squat rectangle of grey sandstone, built by the Victorians, manned by the Visigoths.

‘You’re no’ the polis, are you?’ He was regretting his intimacies.

‘Sorry? No. Used to be. Not now.’

I paid him and got out. The sun warmed the street, and I was taken back ten years to my first day here in ’33. Fresh from training, my new uniform smelling of warm serge. I’d checked my tie, made sure my cap sat square on my head and marched towards the big wooden door.

Now, I straightened my jacket, adjusted my trilby and walked quickly over the road and in through the doors. The clocks had stopped inside as well as out. Same solid desk and grille, same copper behind it writing in the charge book. He raised his eyes briefly then dropped them back to his work. But then the eyes came back up slowly and he scoured my face.

‘Well, fuck me, if it isnae Detective Sergeant Douglas Brodie Esquire.’

‘You’re not my type, Alec. And it’s just Brodie now. How are you getting on?’

Well, I could see. The three stripes on his arm looked white and new. He’d probably made it in the past couple of years. He’d arrived a new recruit, raw-jawed and gangly in early ’39, about six months before I resigned and joined up. He’d elected to stay on and see the war out on Tobago Street. It had clearly been the right thing for him. Might have been the right thing for me too. I’d probably be a detective inspector by now.

We threw a few clumsy catch-up questions to each other, neither listening to the answer, then Alec Jamieson, Sergeant Alec Jamieson, flushed and said, ‘You’re here about Donovan, the bloke who killed those wee boys?’

‘He was only convicted for one murder, Alec. Anyway, you got the message?’

‘Aye, we got the message. They’re waiting for you roon’ the back.’

Alec lifted the heavy wood barrier and let me through. He told a young constable hovering in the background to man the desk. We walked along the lino floor, my boots squeaking just as they used to as we headed to the offices round the back. Sunlight puddled the floor and climbed the walls where photos hung of former DCIs; a rogues’ gallery if ever there was one. We stopped outside the office of the DCI himself and I looked quizzically at Alec Jamieson. He looked embarrassed and opened the door. The room seemed to have its own cloud system. It’s amazing how much smoke three men can generate.

I’d asked Sam to get her secretary to fix a meeting with Detective Sergeant Bill Kerr and his sidekick Detective Constable Davy White. They were the pair of local cops who’d done the grunt work on the case and who’d been put through the mill by Samantha Campbell. I didn’t know either of them and assumed they’d been posted to Tobago Street after I’d left. I guessed the two nervous-looking blokes in civvies standing either side of the desk were the happy pair. But sitting between them, hands clasped and propping his chin above his desk, was Detective Chief Inspector Willie Silver himself. In front of him a well-filled ashtray held a smouldering cigarette.

I’d known of Silver around Glasgow pre-war. He’d held various positions in nicks across the city, always managing to move on just before his drink problem got him thrown out. He was either a very talented detective or drank with the right folk to have survived this long, far less thrived. But he looked very sober indeed as he stared at me across his office. His eyes were close together above a large broken-veined nose. He raised his bottom lip and sucked at the ends of a smoke-stained moustache.

‘You wanted a wee chat, Brodie?’ he asked. His voice was deep and slow, like an undertaker trying to be sympathetic over an open coffin. I stepped forward into the room and took my hat off. Not deference, heat; the radiators were belting it out.

‘It’s the Donovan case. I’m an old friend of his. I’m helping Advocate Campbell with her appeal.’

‘She needs it. We didnae find her that appealing, did we, boys?’

The two twitchy men twisted their faces in sycophantic grins.

‘Yer right there, sir,’ said the fat one to my left. I assumed this was Kerr. The senior one always speaks first. White, on my right, sniggered into his hand and took another drag on his fag.

‘Sit down, Brodie. Sit down.’ He pointed at the wooden chair in front of his desk. I parked myself in it and found it was a couple of inches shorter than Silver’s. He looked down at me and smiled, or rather he turned the corners of his mouth up. The rest of his face said, I hate your guts, boy. He introduced his minions. I’d guessed right about which was which.

‘You know me, Brodie? From the old days, eh? I heard you were a good copper. Could have gone far. Why didn’t you?’

‘King and Country and all that.’ I bit off the ‘sir’ that came so treacherously to my tongue.

‘That’s not what I heard. I heard you didn’t like our style, how we did business round here. I heard you were a bleeding heart, Brodie.’

‘Let’s say I preferred to look for evidence, not plant it.’

The smirks and smiles left their faces. Silver’s close-set eyes bulged.

‘So, they were right. Is that what you’re up to now, Brodie? That’s what your girlfriend tried to imply, and now you’re coming it too?’

‘All I’m trying to do is get at the truth. I’m sure that’s what you’re after as well… Chief Inspector.’

He sighed. ‘Truth, is it? Is that what they taught you at Glasgow University, then? Fair turns a man’s head, all that learning. Let me tell you what truth is, boy. Truth is here.’ He pointed at his chest. ‘I know the truth when I see it. I saw the truth in Donovan’s eyes. He told me truly that he killed that wean. That’s the truth the jury heard. And that truth will leave him swinging on a rope.’ His lads either side were nodding their toadying heads off by this time.

‘If we’re all so keen on the truth, why did your pals here give different stories at the trial?’

Kerr and White glanced at each other and then looked poisonously at me.

DS Kerr jumped in. ‘It was just a misunderstanding, so it was. That clever lassie was trying to trip us up. We didnae get a chance to explain it right.’

‘Well, explain it to me then. One of you said Donovan confessed before you took him to the coal cellar. The other said it was after. Which was it?’ I challenged.

They looked down at Silver for guidance. He shrugged. Kerr started up.

‘It’s simple, so it is. Donovan confessed, then we took him to the crime scene for corroboration. Is that no right, Davy?’

Davy White nearly shook his head off agreeing with him. ‘Aye, that’s it. I just got confused with all that bloody woman’s talk. You ken what women are like. Always twisting what you say.’

‘Did the court look at your notebooks? You still keep notebooks, don’t you? Showing times and incidents?’

Again the furtive looks between them, before Silver cut in. ‘Of course the officers kept notes. They referred to them at the trial. But you know how it is, Brodie. Sometimes their scribbles need a bit of interpretation. They’re not all as clever or educated as you.’

‘You mean they hadn’t bothered to collude on their notes before the trial? It was such a watertight case, you didn’t think anyone would care?’

‘I think we’ve given you enough of our time, Brodie.’

‘Were the notebooks submitted as evidence?’

A cold look came over Silver’s face. ‘There was no need. The court accepted my officers’ statements.’

‘The defence didn’t. Can I see the books now?’

A look of near panic flitted over DC White’s face. Kerr was quicker to fight back. ‘No you fucking can’t, Brodie! Who do you think you are coming in here and questioning us! We should fling you in one of cells for a couple of days. Kick some sense into your thick skull.’

‘Glad to see things haven’t changed, Kerr. When in doubt, bang ’em up and gi’e them a good hiding, eh?’

Silver seemed to be trying to suck off his moustache. ‘Shut up, sergeant,’ he said to Kerr. ‘Time’s up, Brodie.’

I sat still. ‘I have a couple more questions. If I don’t get answers, we’ll go to the appeal judge and see if he’ll do better.’

Silver lit another fag even though the last one was still polluting the air. ‘Ask.’

‘You found the boy’s body on the Tuesday. Next morning you were round at Donovan’s, mob-handed. A tip-off?’

Silver looked down at his two fags, chose one and sucked on it. ‘A member of the public, is all I’m prepared to say.’

‘Phone call?’

Silver nodded.

‘Did you know this mysterious public-minded citizen? Was he one of your grasses?’

‘I’ve told you all I’m going to tell you, Brodie.’

‘OK. Where was the boy held before his body was found?’

Kerr butted in. ‘In Donovan’s flat, of course. He had him hidden.’

I pounced. ‘In a single-end? It would be like hiding an elephant under your hat. Can I talk to the constable who first searched the flat?’

Silver raised his hand to head off DS Kerr. ‘PC Robertson. A good man. Based at the Cumberland Street shop. But I hear he’s on leave. Sick leave. Convalescing down south somewhere.’ The forced smile stole back round his mouth.

‘That’s convenient.’

‘Your next question is your last.’

I could see he meant it. I decided to ginger things up a bit.

‘What will you do if another child goes missing, Silver? How will you explain that to the press? While an innocent man is rotting in prison or dangling from a rope? What then?’

Frowns rolled down his minions’ faces. Silver didn’t blink but he started turning his fag packet over on the desk. He shook his head. ‘You’ll always get a copycat out there, trying to make his name. You know that, Brodie.’

My anger boiled up. ‘So you’d find some other innocent fella and hang him! You’d go on hanging them one after the other till eventually it stopped!’

‘If need be, Brodie. If need be. And that’s the truth. Now will you be so good as to fuck off. See him out, sergeant.’

Punching his lights out wasn’t an option. Not yet. The two oafs were smirking again as I walked to the door. But I turned and looked back at Silver. His expression had sagged, become introspective. I hope – but doubted – I’d caused him a sleepless night or two. As the door closed behind me, I heard the distinctive sound of a bottle clinking against a glass. Celebration or steadying of nerves?