The Hanging Shed

THIRTY

‘You did what?! Are you absolutely stark, staring, raving bloody mad!’ Samantha Campbell was stomping up and down the dining room, pirouetting and waving her arms.

‘I take it you’re not impressed?’

I was in my shirtsleeves at the table, nursing a whisky and soaking up my punishment. I let her splutter to a halt. She stood facing me with her arms crossed like an irate wife who’d been waiting for her man to come home fu’ and hadn’t been disappointed. With hindsight it was a daft thing to do. The sort of thing that earns you the military cross. Posthumously. Sometimes I wondered if I could have been a role model for Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll with whisky as my transfiguring potion.

‘Sam, we’re stuck. You’re in the middle of an appeal case without any hard proof. I had to try something.’

‘And what did you do to help my legal action? You shot a man!’

‘In his foot.’

‘You shot him. Then you dragged Glasgow’s biggest gangster out by the scruff of his neck, at gunpoint! And made him beg for his life! The whole pack of criminals, murderers, drug pushers and God knows what else are out there right now, hunting for you! They want to skin you alive and put your head on a pole at the Trongate!’

I shrugged and smiled in as chastened a way as possible. Sam reached for her glass and took a big swig. She wiped her forehead with a trembling hand and stared at me. She grew calmer. She found her normal voice.

‘Monday’s too late. Even if they produced the Reids. The appeal starts then.’

‘I know, I know. Assuming they’re on Arran it’s going to take Sunday for Slattery’s crew to get over there and bring them back. And I wanted this done publicly with loads of people around. You’ll just have to stall, Sam. If they hand them over first thing Monday, and Mrs Reid will talk, you can spring the surprise Tuesday.

She shook her head. ‘You’re a madman, Brodie.’ She took another mouthful and regarded me for a long minute. A smile broke to the surface of her lips. ‘I wish I’d been there. To see Dermot Slattery’s hard wee face.’ Her mouth tightened and thinned again. ‘But we’re still in trouble!’

‘Not we, Sam. You’re fine. They don’t know I’m here. In fact I’d better leave. Find digs somewhere.’

‘You’re going nowhere. Stay in. Read some books.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t expect Slattery will deliver Mrs Reid on Monday, but I need to follow it through. I’ll go to the meeting point and see. You never know.’

We laid low on Sunday, gathering our strength, pretending to read the papers. Sam made some last changes to her case and I heard her do some practice runs up in her library. I couldn’t make out the words but I liked the passion. I made a start on some of her leather-bound books. Sir Walter Scott always worked for me.

Come the morning, Sam piled her papers into a battered old briefcase and packed her robes and curly wig into a small suitcase. She looked every inch the professional. She would need to be. A car picked her up at nine and whisked her to the appeals court. I closed Ivanhoe and headed out into the warm streets.

At quarter to ten I was lounging by the street corner within view of the Townhead Library. There was no sign of Slattery and his crew, far less Mrs Reid. I chain smoked and changed my position. I walked past the library and stood looking up and down the road checking for cars or unusual movements. By quarter past, I had given up. I gave it till half past and wandered back to the library. I threw my butt into the gutter, and turned to walk home when I heard the clang of a police car.

It shot past me and shrieked to a halt in front of the library. Four men jumped out, two in uniform, two in plain clothes. The plain-clothes men ran into the library and the two uniforms took up position by the doors. A few moments later, people started flooding out. They looked distressed. A woman was crying. My stomach knotted and I walked back towards the front doors and up to the nearest copper. He was young, barely of shaving age.

‘What’s happening, officer?’

‘Can’t tell you, sir. You cannae go in. Bit of a problem inside.’

‘What sort of problem? Fire? An accident?’

‘Cannae tell you, sir.’

‘Look, constable, I’m a friend of Willie Silver. I was a detective sergeant before the war. Tobago Street.’

He looked me up and down, then he looked round to check his pal wasn’t within hearing. He was young enough and inexperienced enough to be bursting to tell someone. ‘Seems there’s somebody dead in the library. A woman.’

‘Why didn’t they call for an ambulance?’

His young face took on the thrill of encountering horror. ‘She seems to have been murdered.’

*

I walked away and kept walking till I was by the Clyde. By instinct I kept a lookout in case I was being followed, but otherwise I was numb. I stood staring at the turbid waters and tried to make sense of the nonsense that my life had become since Hugh Donovan phoned me just two short weeks ago. I thought he was guilty then but the murder of poor Mrs Reid finally pitched me over on to his side. My copper’s training said we were still short of incontestable proof, by some way. But I didn’t need an ounce more hard evidence to shift my gut belief that Hugh didn’t kill Rory, or either of the other missing kids. War had taught me to trust my instincts.

There was no doubt in my mind that the dead woman was Mrs Reid. Slattery’s revenge for his humiliation. I should have shot him when I had the chance. Instead, my moment of madness, my need for action, had resulted in the murder of an innocent woman. I felt revulsion well up in me. Revulsion for Slattery. Revulsion for me for provoking this, for being so egotistical, so stupid. No good blaming Mr Hyde; I had wanted to hit back at them, show them they weren’t winning. That Douglas Brodie wasn’t easily taken out of the picture. There was never any chance of them complying with my demands. The price of my vanity was a woman’s life.

The evening papers were full of it. Woman slaughtered in public library. Body found in the toilets. Stabbed several times and propped up in a cubicle. Her blood had pooled under the door. No one saw anything or anyone. The woman’s identity was not known, but she was thought to be mid-thirties, dark curly hair and of medium height. The public were asked to contact the police if they were aware of a missing person that matched the description.

I was staring out of the window, with the paper in front of me on the table, when Sam came in. She looked drained. Before I could open my mouth, she said, ‘I’ve heard.’

She flung her wig and briefcase on the table and pulled the paper to her. She read it and pushed it back to me.

‘It’s my fault, Sam. You were right. I pushed them too far.’

She looked me up and down, then shook her head. ‘Scum like that don’t need much provocation. Even by their base standards, this plumbs the depths. Have you been to the police?’

‘If I had, do you think I’d be sitting here now? This being the second murder I’ve been associated with in a week. They would have been interrogating me for a fortnight.’

‘But they need to know who she is.’ Then she added quietly, ‘And what about her children?’

‘It’s what worries me most. Look, I phoned the police. From a call box. Didn’t leave my name. I gave them her name, her last address and her address on Arran. I said there were four kids.’

She nodded and sat down. She rubbed her face with both hands. Her eyes were dark-ringed.

‘How did the appeal go?’

‘Oh, they were very indulgent. “What an interesting line of attack, Miss Campbell. We compliment you on your impassioned argument . ”’

‘But?’

‘“But where’s the proof, Miss Campbell? Where’s the proof?” Patronising old buffoons.’

‘How long can you keep this up? I mean is there a deadline for putting your case?’

‘This Friday, the nineteenth. Then next week they sit by themselves and mull. Probably over a good Amontillado. They have to come to judgement by the twenty-sixth if they intend to carry out the sentence by month’s end. Unless I can get a stay that allows us to gather more evidence.’

‘Chances?’

‘Between nil and zero.’

The next day Sam went off to battle against the old buffoons and I did something similar.

‘Morning, Brodie,’ said Sergeant Jamieson. ‘They’re expecting you. This way.’ He held up the desk flap and I walked through and into the back offices of Tobago Street nick.

‘Why are they expecting me, Alec?’

‘About that woman. Yesterday. In the library. It was the one you were telling them about. The woman on Arran, wasn’t it?’

‘Could be, Alec. Could be.’

‘Wait a bit, Brodie. I’ll just go in and tell them you’re here.’ He knocked, went into the smoke-wreathed room, and was out in a second. He held the door open.

‘Come in, Brodie,’ said Silver from behind his desk. His book-ends – Kerr and White – stood either side of him, but the air of arrogance and surliness had gone. These men were worried. I sat down without an invite and took out a cigarette to add to the communal pall.

‘Is it Mrs Reid?’

Silver nodded.

‘How?’

‘We think she was taken in – alive, so far as we know – to the toilets by at least one person. There’s a back way in, so nobody saw anything at the front desk. The forensic boys say there was a strong smell of chloroform on her. So it suggests she was drugged to make her pliant. She was pushed into a cubicle and then stabbed to death. They got her drugged enough for her not to mind what they did to her. There’s also the possibility of drugs. We’re waiting for the full autopsy. Seven knife wounds on her body. One through the heart.’

‘Seven! So, boys, do you suspect foul play?’

‘It’s hardly funny, Brodie!’

The rage tore at my throat. ‘No, it bloody isn’t! I warned you that this woman was in danger! That she and her kids had been abducted! I told you she had specific knowledge about what went on in Hugh Donovan’s room the night before you arrested him. What did you do about it? Bugger all!’ I was half out of my seat, leaning over the desk at him, and as close to punching him as I’d ever been.

Silver saw it in my face and pushed his chair back. The other pair took a step back to demonstrate their loyalty. Kerr was about to say something in their defence but Silver lifted his hand to still him. He sucked at his moustache.

‘Steady on, Brodie. There’s no proof of anything here.’

I gathered my wits and sat down. ‘Really? You say Mrs Reid had seven knife wounds. Sheer coincidence that Rory Hutchinson was stabbed seven times?’ I raised my eyebrows.

Silver tugged at his tie. Even they’d seen it. ‘OK, OK, I admit there may be a connection. But we can’t rule anything out. My main concern is the woman’s children. Do you have any ideas?’

I could see that asking my opinion was costing Silver blood, but this was no time to twist the knife. ‘I wish I did, Silver. All I can tell you is what I told you before. The house on Arran, the kids supposedly out playing, the local priest. And Mrs Reid telling me about the late-night visitor that turned out to be the now murdered Father Patrick Cassidy.’

Kerr couldn’t help himself. ‘It was suicide!’

‘Don’t be so bloody infantile!’ I shot back.

Kerr reddened. Silver again raised his hand for silence behind him.

‘There’s one other thing, Silver. I know who did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘Killed Mrs Reid.’

‘Oh aye, Dick Tracy. And who would that be?’ Silver’s nose was heating up.

I told them of Sam’s and my trip back to the island and the neighbour’s description of the car. I told them I’d traced the number plate.

‘Who, Brodie. Just tell us who.’

‘The Slatterys.’

They looked at each other as though I’d just stubbed my fag out on Silver’s pristine desk.

I pressed on. ‘If you want to see those weans alive, I suggest you get the squad cars out and hit every hidey hole you know for Dermot and Gerrit Slattery. Of course you won’t find anything. They’ll be expecting me to give you this lead.’

Silver was red in the face now and his nose close to exploding. ‘So what’s the bloody point then? Of telling us all this… this… story.’

‘You can put pressure on them. Force them to make a mistake. Drive them out of cover. Hell, I don’t have to tell you how to lean on gangsters, do I, Chief Inspector? You worked for Sillitoe before the war.’

I couldn’t help the mocking tone in my mouth, or my bitterness and frustration with their slow-wittedness. By their looks and flushed faces I was making my sarcasm felt.

I eventually left them to it, still squabbling over what to do next, but slowly edging towards a courtesy call on the brothers Slattery. I had nothing else to do except head back to Sam’s and wait for her return. It was her second day for making her case to the Appeals Panel judges. Then it would the Procurator Fiscal’s turn to demolish her arguments. The judges would then retire to consider their verdict. I didn’t think it would take them long.