‘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.
THIRTY-ONE
For me, the rest of that week and the next drifted by in a limbo of reading and walking through Kelvingrove Park and round to the Botanical Gardens. I would sit for an hour in the hothouse in silent communion with the greenery around me, drinking in the scents, letting the humidity soak into my pores. Everywhere I went I kept a lookout for men with razors. Slattery had made it plain he wasn’t going to take his humiliation lightly and was unlikely to stop at one killing. But having silenced my only witness, maybe he could afford to bide his time. I felt his hard mocking eyes on me wherever I went. I even wondered about heading back to Arran to see what I could see, talk to the priest again. But the island was probably hoaching with armed policemen. I didn’t want to get in their way. Unless their marksmanship had been honed during the war, it was best to keep clear.
Instead I took the train down to Kilmarnock and visited my mother. I walked my boyhood routes round the parks and through the rough of the municipal golf courses. And all the time I racked my brains to see if there was something I’d missed, something I hadn’t done. I felt useless and ineffectual. Apart from listening to Sam’s courtroom battles each night and keeping her fortified with fags and fish suppers, I couldn’t help. She was still off the Scotch to make sure she applied every particle of her being to the appeal. And I went on the wagon to support her.
Even in the second week when the judges were considering the appeal and we were left in limbo, we forsook the booze. Perhaps it was in respect for a man’s life being at stake. We visited Hugh a couple of times but we had nothing much to say to each other. Hugh seemed in better heart than we were. Maybe his doctor could prescribe us some of his drugs. Sam took to coming with me on my walks. She sat with me watching the vines grow in the Botanic Gardens. We took the train down to the seaside and walked the deserted sand dunes of Barassie Beach between Troon and Irvine. I put my mac down on a damp sand dune and we sat gazing out at the hulk of Arran.
‘My dad and I used to come down here and walk for miles. A lot of the miners did. For the contrast.’ I pointed up at the huge herringbone sky marching over us. ‘We always talked about having a dog.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Back in ’30. My first year at Glasgow.’
‘An accident? I mean he wasn’t very old, was he?’
‘Just turned fifty. No accident. Unless you count getting accidentally gassed during the war. Then accidentally going down with Black lung when he went back down the pit.’
‘I’m sorry. How did you manage? I mean university and all?’
‘On a coal miner’s wages? Bursaries. I would have left in my first year if he hadn’t made me promise to see it through.’
We were quiet for a while listening to peewits calling and watching the gulls sore and pitch out at sea.
‘You didn’t have much choice either, I suppose?’
‘You mean the law?’ she laughed. ‘My father didn’t badger me. In fact he tried to talk me out of it. Said they weren’t ready for women yet. He was right.’
‘Regrets?’
She gazed away from me. ‘You mean, husband, kids all that domestic bliss kind of regret?’
‘Sorry.’
‘No, it’s all right. Sometimes. Yes. There was a man. A lawyer too, but also a sailor. His first commission was convoy protection on the Murmansk run. No one was protecting him though. Torpedoed. I waited a long time. They still don’t know for sure. I have a secret hope that he was picked up by some fat Russian lady who won’t let him go until he’s sired a new Red Army.’
I came close to taking her to see my mother, but both of them would have read too much into it. And maybe I was ashamed of the room and kitchen by comparison to her palace. I hoped not. I was long over that.
Come the Friday we dreaded, the day of Hugh’s judgement, I joined her in court, or at least I took a seat in the crowded public gallery. Hugh had been brought down from Barlinnie to hear his fate. There was an indrawing of breath when he was brought into the court. He was wearing a shapeless suit and a shirt without a tie. They did nothing to make him look normal. Someone called out, ‘There’s the beast! Hang him!’ The usher called for silence and a large policeman made his presence felt by walking down the gallery steps and standing smacking his truncheon in his hand.