The Hanging Shed

EIGHTEEN

It was just after six when I walked into Samantha Campbell’s office. The reception area was empty. I called out and Sam answered.

‘Come on through, Brodie.’

I pushed open her door to find a cosy scene: Sam taking tea with Father Cassidy. They were even sharing a plate of digestives. For one daft moment I felt annoyed – no, jealous – at Patrick Cassidy’s intimacy with Samantha. Which was simply ridiculous. The man had stood by Hugh throughout this sorry tale. I resolved to like this man and not let my stupid prejudices about God-botherers blind me to his qualities. He’d been right about the pubs to look in to find Hugh’s drug dealers. In short, he was useful.

Sam nodded at the tea cosy. ‘There’s a spare cup and the pot’s still warm. I’ve nothing stronger,’ she added with a shade too much spice.

‘You have a low view of the drinking habits of newshounds, Miss Campbell. Tea is exactly what I need.’

‘You can get another chair from the outer office, or…’ She indicated one of the piles of papers.

I poured myself a cup and gingerly squatted on a shaky tower of files. ‘Well, isn’t this nice.’

‘Father Cassidy was visiting Hugh today. He came by to see how we were getting on.’

I nodded at him. ‘Good of you to see him, Patrick. How is he?’

The priest put his cup down on the edge of Sam’s desk. ‘They’ve put him back on his medication. He wasn’t really with us, I’m afraid. I asked the warder about it and he told me that Hugh had been in lot of pain. It was for his own good.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Just drifting away. A man should be compos mentis if his time is short.’

‘So he can confess his sins?’

‘Better to go with a clear conscience, surely?’

‘Well, he’s not dead yet.’ I slurped my tea.

‘You’ve found something?’ asked Sam.

I glanced at the priest. She saw my question. ‘It’s all right. You can talk freely in front of the father, Brodie. He’s on our side.’

I told them about my day. Sam confirmed my perspective on the trial from my morning’s review of the newspapers.

‘One thing that leaped out’, I said, ‘was that Rory wasn’t the first child to go missing. Four others had vanished before him. Never found?’ I asked.

Cassidy looked pained. ‘Nothing to this day. I know one of the other families. I’m not sure which is worse: to have to bury your child or never to know…’

‘Do you think there’s a lead there?’ Sam asked.

‘I find it convenient that the fifth abduction resulted in a body being dumped where it could be found, and that Hugh Donovan’s house should be choc-a-block with evidence to hang him.’

‘Are you suggesting some sort of frame-up?’ asked Patrick.

‘Criminals tend to work a pattern. A thief tends to have a trademark style of operating. Same with a murderer. The way they kill, when they do it, who their victims are. If Hugh was the abductor and murderer of all five children, why would he change his pattern with the last? Careless? Stupid? Drugs… maybe. But it doesn’t feel right.’

‘Did you get anything from the police?’ asked Sam.

I shook my head. ‘They were never going to turn round and say: “By God, Brodie you’re on to something. Why didn’t we think of that?” But you obviously rattled them in court, Sam. They were still moaning about how this clever lassie had got them all confused and made them look stupid. But they’ve had time to work on their story so that it all adds up.’

‘So, nothing?’ asked Patrick.

‘There’s a couple of angles. I asked to see their notebooks. And to interview the constable that did the first search on Hugh’s flat. They just laughed. Can you get them hauled in front of the Appeals Court and force them to hand over the notebooks?’

‘We can try.’ She jotted a couple of notes down on her pad.

‘What are you looking for, Brodie?’ asked the priest.

‘Differences. In their stories,’ said Sam. ‘Muncie claimed in court that the constable on the first search was blind or stupid. If he wasn’t, and there was no sign of the boy a week before they found his body, then where was he kept? And as for the other pair, I’m betting their notebooks conflict with each other over when Hugh Donovan provided intimate details of the crime scene.’

‘Perhaps I’m being naive. Won’t they just conveniently lose the notebooks? If they haven’t already burned them?’ Patrick Cassidy was leaning across to me, his face creased with scepticism.

I raised my palm to him. ‘Losing your notebook was a hanging offence in my day. And it would look awfully convenient to lose two. Samantha here would have an open goal in court. But you’re right, Patrick. There’s a lot of “ifs” about. And we’re stuck if we can’t prove any of this. The police can be remarkably uncooperative when they put their mind to it.

They both sat back letting the gloom descend again.

‘There might be something else though…’ I began. I described my visit to Hugh’s house and my meeting with the neighbour and her smart kid.

Sam was the first to speak. ‘You must go, Brodie. You have to go to Arran and find them!’ Her face was as animated as I’d seen it. Colour suffused her pale cheeks and her eyes shone behind her specs.

‘It’s a big island.’

‘I think I can help,’ said the priest, who seemed freshly animated. ‘I know the priest in Lamlash. Let me make a phone call.’ He was digging into the mysterious folds of his cassock as he spoke. He retrieved a small diary and flicked through the pages. ‘May I use your phone?’

Sam and I looked at each other as he dialled and got put through to his clerical pal on Arran.

‘Now that’s what I call divine intervention,’ I said sotto voce and got an admonishing look over her glasses.

The Arran priest was to call us back in the morning with news. Sam and I wandered back to her house, and en route I prevailed on her to let me buy supper, no expense spared. We picked up speed on the last leg of our journey so that our newspaper-wrapped feast was still warm.

In the posh dining room of her parents’ home, on the massive oak table, beneath paintings of rampant stags and highland skies, we made two paper pokes and divvied up the fish and chips. The irresistible stink of salt and vinegar perfumed the air and we licked our stained fingers like naughty kids. I don’t know if it was the carefree attack on the fish suppers or the glimmer of hope I’d brought, but Samantha Campbell cast off her glum schoolmarm air and looked positively girlish.

‘It must have felt strange going back to your old police station.’

‘Like using H. G. Wells’s time machine. Same faces, same low morals. It even smelt the same!’

Sam suddenly went quiet. ‘But that’s what we’re up against. Same dour policemen who’d rather see an innocent man hang than admit they’re wrong.’

‘So you really believe he’s innocent?’

‘Yes. And you sound as though you’re coming round?’

I sighed. ‘I was just checking that you did. That it wasn’t just lawyer’s platitudes.’

‘I didn’t know you then. And I’m not sure I do now. Well? Do you think Hugh did it?’

‘Nothing about the crime scene adds up. And where’s the motive? Saying that, I believe anyone is capable of anything.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

I sure as hell did but I didn’t want to explain. Didn’t want to drag the whole aching mess out on the table. My post-War special duties. Visiting the newly liberated camps. Using my language training to interrogate SS officers and camp commandants. Getting witness statements from some of the wretches who survived. Adding to my already swollen pack of nightmares. I slammed the barriers down and turned the question back on her.

‘I’m just amazed that in your line of work you haven’t become as jaundiced as an ex copper like me. How do you manage it?’

She thought for a bit, and daintily sucked the last traces of salt from her fingers. ‘My parents. They were always optimistic about folk. Always ready to see the good side. Even my father.’

‘Even?’

She looked embarrassed for a moment, then defiant. ‘He was Procurator Fiscal in Glasgow before the war.’

I smiled. ‘So this is a family business.’

‘Sort of. I thought it was time the Campbells supported the other side for a change. Even things out a wee bit.’

‘Do you mind my asking what happened? I mean…’

‘How I became an orphan, Mr Brodie?’

My big mouth. ‘Sorry, Sam. It’s none of my business. Forget it.’

She got up and left the room. I heard a tap running. I wondered how much I’d offended her. Was she off to bed? She came back, drying her hands on a towel. She flung me a warm wet flannel and a hand towel. I cleaned myself up.

She went over to the big sideboard and opened the front. She pulled out a bottle of Scotch and two cut-glass tumblers and placed them on the table. Then she went back and pulled out a drawer. She took out what looked like a family album and sat it on the table beside the whisky. She put her glasses on, opened the album towards the end and pushed it round so I could see it. There was a photo of a middle-aged couple smiling in front of a loch. They wore rough tweeds tucked into long socks, hiking boots and backpacks. The woman was simply an older version of Sam; fine white hair tied back, same intelligent eyes challenging the viewer. The man – her father, clearly – had bequeathed her his strong chin and mouth.

‘They were on a walking holiday by Loch Lomond. Dad’s favourite sort of holiday. Summer of thirty-five. I was minding the fort here. The day after this photo was taken they took a boat across to Inchmurrin Island and a squall got up. They were found two days later, along with the boat owner and his nine-year-old son. All drowned. You wouldn’t think you could drown in a pleasure boat on an inland loch, would you? Such a stupid waste. So stupid.’ She took off her specs and brushed her treacherous eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Me too, Brodie. Me too. A bloody waste. And I’ve got all this.’ She waved her hand round the room. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s none of your business.’

‘Look, Sam, it’s my fault-’

‘Shut up, Brodie, and pour the Scotch. We’ve got work to do.’