The Hanging Shed

TWENTY-SIX

I was at the counter of the Council offices at nine o’clock the next morning. They were helpful in that chatty-I’ll-no’-be-a-minute way that forces you to take a seat and wait till you’ve properly acknowledged the onerous nature of your demand before they hand over the information. Just when I’d reached the last stage of hopelessness and was contemplating throwing my chair over the counter, the clerk came back with the information I’d asked for. But it wasn’t what I’d wanted. The car was owned by a privately held company: Ireland Scotland Shippers. The clerk went the extra distance – it seemed like Edinburgh and back – and found out for me that it was an export/import company headquartered in Glasgow and owned in turn by another unlisted company owned by a certain Miss Elizabeth Reilly.

‘She’s the wife of one of Gerrit Slattery’s henchmen,’ said Sam, putting the phone down in her crammed office. She’d phoned the organisation that registers private and public companies in Scotland. ‘There are no accounts or other company information because it’s not a publicly listed company.’

‘And if I recall, Gerrit Slattery is-’

‘The brother of Dermot, yes.’

‘What else do you know about these characters? I heard of them when I was in Tobago Street nick, but never came across them directly. Just some of their underlings. It was a running joke that if we couldn’t solve a particular crime then we blamed the Slatterys.’

‘Well, you know they’re Irish. Lived in Glasgow for years. They shared a huge house with their mother up in Bearsden. She’s dead now, and not such a happy family, apparently. They say Dermot, the elder brother, did time in Belfast for killing his father. Some sort of drunken fight, I imagine. When he got out, the brothers came here and used their muscle to set up a thriving drugs trade with sidelines in extortion and business insurance – with menaces.’

‘Well, at least we’ve made a connection with the missing Mrs Reid.’ I looked at her arching eyebrows. ‘I know, I know. It’s tenuous and doesn’t prove anything. But we know we’re on the right track.’

Sam ran her hands through her short blond hair and then thrust them out at me as though pushing me away. Which she was.

‘Brodie, I need to prepare this case or we’re going into court next Monday equipped with only a charming smile and a silent prayer. It’s over to you on the follow-up front. What’s your next step?’

‘Maybe it’s high time I visited the brothers Karamazov? Oh, and checked with our local sleuths how far they’ve got with the murder of Patrick Cassidy. Lastly…’ I paused at this; the prospect wasn’t something that made me glad and happy. ‘I’ll try to have a word with Fiona McAuslan.’

Sam looked quizzically at me over her glasses. ‘I assume you mean Hutchinson? Is that wise? What will you get from her?’

The question made me feel guilty. Which was ridiculous. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. But no stone unturned, eh?’

As I walked out into the hard daylight of a cold Glasgow morning I was replaying Sam’s question. I hadn’t told her about my boyhood romance. I assumed Hugh hadn’t mentioned it either, otherwise Sam would have been even more inquisitive. Questioning my motivation. Like me. I mean what the hell was I up to talking to Fiona? Was this some faint echo of our teenage fling? That I had to see her one more time to get her out of my system? God knows, the world had changed since those torrid but simple love affairs at the local dance hall. She’d lost her husband in the war, and then lost her wee boy to a maniac, who might or might not have been my former best pal. She’d found Hugh again but he was the ‘x’ rated version of the boy she’d jilted me for. Was it prurient curiosity to see if Fiona still looked the same or had turned into some haggard old bird that I was glad not to be tied to? Or, daftest of all, did I secretly nurture a hope of starting something again now that all the competition was out of the way?

Idiot.

I ducked the whole thorny question by heading first to Tobago Street nick. I marched up to the front desk. The automatic smile of the desk sergeant froze when he saw who it was.

‘It’s yoursel’, Brodie,’ said Sergeant Alec Jamieson.

‘It is, Alec. How’s it going?’

‘Aye, fine. What can I do you for?’

‘I want to talk to one of your detective pals. White or Kerr. Silver even. I want to hear how they’re getting on with the murder of Father Cassidy.’

Alec’s bland face screwed up to show he was thinking. ‘Murder, you say? That’s no’ what I hear. Killed himself, poor bastard. Seems he was a bit doolally, you ken.’

*

I left a short while later, with the supercilious grin of DS Kerr following me like the Cheshire Cat. As far as they were concerned there was no evidence of foul play and that was what they would be recommending to the coroner. Tragic way to go and all that, God rest his soul, but case closed. And as for the missing Mrs Reid and family, there could be a dozen different reasons for them not being in when we called. Glasgow police had no need to interview them anyway. The verdict was in. Bring on the hanging.

Every opening was turning into a dead end. Every time I had my hands on something, it slipped away like an eel. I decided I was in a sufficiently pessimistic frame of mind to confront some of my old demons. I headed down towards the Clyde and over the Alexandria Bridge into the Gorbals. Within twenty minutes I was standing outside Fiona’s close looking up at the blank windows and praying she was out. Praying she’d flitted with no forwarding address. The street was patched and holed. The pavement ripped up and the stone doorway into the entry was covered with scratched territory markers of the Beehive Boys. The hall stank of pish. This was no place for her. Her family hadn’t been well off in Kilmarnock but they’d never lived in such squalor. How did she fall this far? How had she survived? How had all that grace and promise led to this?

I climbed the spiral staircase, my feet slapping on the bare stone, and stood, heart hammering outside her door. It wasn’t just the climb that had set my pulse racing. I took a deep breath and clacked the knocker on her door. Nothing. I breathed out, tapped again and heard the silence echo away down the stairs. Half disappointed, half relieved, I turned to head down. I’d put my foot on the first step when I heard the door open and a voice call, ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

Her voice tore back the years and squeezed my heart. I turned and walked back. I took my hat off so she could see my face.

‘Hello, Fiona.’

Her hand went up to her mouth. Her eyes, her dark eyes, widened as though I’d hit her. For a confused second I thought I’d got it wrong and that this was her mother. It had been seventeen years.

‘God almighty, Douglas, is it you? Is it really you?’

I nodded and stood like a child in front of his torn dreams. Her long river of black hair had been chopped at the neck by a pair of blunt scissors. A fringe sliced across the pale skin of her wrinkled brow. Her black eyes were framed by sad shadows and crow’s-feet. It was as if a bad fairy had cursed her and sprinkled ageing dust over her. The fire and challenge in her eyes had been replaced with all the cares in the world. And who was I to say she didn’t own them? Her slim frame in her cardigan and loose skirt looked thin, pinched. Was this the lithe body I’d once held? Did she once wrap those dancer’s limbs around me? Her heat enough to scorch my defenceless skin?

In that defining instant, all the anger and longing dissolved and I was left with nothing but pity for this stranger who’d stolen some of the features of a girl I used to know. She was shaking her head and putting her hand out in front of her like a blind woman feeling her way. Her huge eyes were filling and the dark pools underneath each one became more pronounced.

‘It’s too much. It’s a’ too much. I cannae… I just cannae…’

I went to her and pulled her to me, and felt her thin breasts press against me and wept inside for what had happened to her and for what might have been.

‘Fiona, whisht, it’s OK. It’s just me. Just Douglas. Can we talk? For a wee while?’

She shuddered and pulled away. She took a hankie out of her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. She straightened. ‘Sorry. There’s been that much. I never thought I’d see you. Not here. Not now. I’m such a mess, look at me. Look, you’d better come in.’ She smoothed her skirt and blew her nose and held the door open.

It was a typical two-roomed house. Kitchen cum living room and good room beyond. The curtain was pulled across the bed in the wall in the living room. We sat at a tiny wooden table with a blue and white checked waxcloth covering. The place was heavy with smoke. She bustled around and made us tea, all the time with a cigarette going. While we waited for the tea to mask, we began our dance.

‘How have you been, Douglas. What happened to your face?’

‘I’ve been fine. The face? A sort of fishing accident. And you? How are you keeping…?’

And so on, until we came to the heart of the matter, the unquiet heart.

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear about Rory. It was just terrible.’

Her eyes filled and she shook her head, too charged to speak.

‘Look, I’d better tell you why I’m up here. Hugh got hold of me. He phoned me-’

She waved at me to stop. ‘I ken, I ken. I heard you were helping that lawyer woman.’

‘I’m sorry, Fiona-’

‘It’s OK, so it is. It’s OK, Douglas. You’re doing the right thing.’

I looked at her. I’d been expecting her to turn into a wild woman, accusing me of helping her son’s killer. But she was calm and gazing at me steadily.

‘Am I?’

She nodded. ‘That pair man. What happened to his lovely face.’ She forced a teary smile on her face. ‘You and Hugh were that handsome. The pair of you could have had ony lassie at the dance. You still could.’

‘I only wanted you.’ I regretted it instantly.

She shook her head. ‘Douglas Brodie, if I had a pound for every time I wished I could have turned back the years, why, I’d be sitting in Culzean Castle the now.’

I smiled, remembering our youthful fantasies of the high life. ‘With butlers bringing high tea. Fancy cakes and hot scones.’

‘And cream and strawberry jam.’

We gazed at each other in a smiling thoughtful way for long seconds. I wondered what she meant. Had she just said she wished we’d never parted? I’d never understood. Never asked her why. Was she saying it had been a mistake? That I should have fought for her instead of walking away? That would be too cruel all round. I blinked.

‘About Hugh…’ I began.

She waved me quiet. ‘He didnae do it, Douglas. I know that.’ She sat upright in her certainty, and dared me to argue. How could I? For a brief moment her eyes flashed with the nerve and defiance of the girl who’d speared my open heart on the dance floor.

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s no’ in him. No’ Hugh.’

‘He might have changed.’

She shook her head. ‘Folk don’t change. No’ really.’

‘It’s not much to build a defence on.’

She gazed at me for a while. ‘He told me never to say this…’

‘What?’

‘It doesnae matter now.’

‘Tell me, Fiona. We need anything and everything we can.’

She studied her teacup, and then looked up at me. ‘Have you seen a photo of Rory?’ She got up and walked to the mantelpiece. She took down a cardboard-framed photo and placed it on the table in front of me. I held the black and white in both hands. A young boy with a big cheeky grin and dark hair.

The boy I used to play soldiers with.