I put the bottle back in the sideboard. While I was there I pulled out the package. I put today’s Gazette on the table, placed the package on it and uncovered the massive Webley. I hefted it. The cold weight felt good. I took off the safety, cocked the hammer and aimed it at Slattery’s head. All the circumstantial evidence pointed in his direction. But the question I kept coming back to was: Why? Why had they embarked on this murder spree? It didn’t fit with the antics of the typical Glasgow gang. They would be in to dope-running and burglary – off-licences a speciality. They’d be doing extortion, providing ‘insurance’ for local businesses against acts of theft and violence – by their own men. Murders tended to be incidental, even accidental, in the course of their everyday scummy business.
How did this particular mob evolve differently? What led them down this gory path? It had to be something big, something violent, something that knocked them out of the ordinary run-of-the-mill petty criminality. This was a massive cover-up operation, rubbing out the evidence of some much bigger crime. What was bigger than murder? I needed to know more about their background, where they branched off, how they came to this point.
I nudged the newspaper with the barrel, staring at the headlines. Tomorrow’s edition would be sensational. I put the gun down, got up, holding the paper, and headed to the phone in the hall. If Justice was blind she’d never notice if I loaded the scales.
I met him at lunchtime in the Scotia Bar between St Enoch’s and the river. It was a typical lair for his kind. My kind. Cubbyholes, and low ceilings, with light spilling through the stained-glass windows and separators. A rack of mutton pies seethed and dripped behind the counter. It smelt of beer, hot fat, fresh sawdust, and the fags of ages. Its cosy intimacy was a magnet that drew the drinkers in from the clusters of offices all round the city centre.
I was good and early and took a corner seat in one of the small lounges at the back. I nursed a pint and pretended to read the paper. I was nervous. The man I was waiting for had long been a hero of mine, a legend. I’d got through two fags and the crossword before I became aware of a shadow lowering above me.
‘You Brodie?’ He was skinny and sallow and old, the threads of his remaining grey hair carefully plastered across his scalp in a parting that defied the evidence of his mirror. He wore a shiny suit with a missing front button. The tie was more like a piece of string and likely remained knotted every night to be slid on and tightened after his cursory shave and brief wipe with a damp face flannel. But his eyes were searching and cynical, weary and incredulous, the eyes of an ace reporter. He already held a pint in one hand and a sagging mutton pie in the other. Was this my future? I nodded; he sat.
‘I’m McAllister. The Gazette. Fire away, pal.’ He took a bite of pie and a swallow of beer, and waited. He’d seen everything, heard everything. For him this was a waste of good drinking time. I wondered if I’d made the right decision.
‘I told you I had a story.’
‘Yeah. The Donovan hanging. You said. But it’s old news.’
‘Not if they hanged an innocent man.’
He shook his head and lit a fag. ‘You related? Sometimes you just have to get on with your life, you know?’
‘This morning, one of the police officers who handled the arrest confessed they’d set up Donovan. As we speak, he’s spilling his guts to the Procurator Fiscal.’
‘Jesus!’ He stubbed out his fag in the remnants of his mutton pie and dug out a soiled hankie to wipe his hands. From inside his jacket he produced a slim notepad and pencil. ‘Talk.’
‘I’ll talk. But first I need some information from you.’
‘Oh aye?’ His eyes slitted.
‘You’ve been a columnist on the Gazette for years. I remember reading you before the war when I was on the force here.’ I didn’t tell him that his tight, vivid prose had probably contributed to my post-war shift into the inky arts.
‘You were polis?’
‘Detective sergeant. Tobago Street.’ That had him interested again. I went on: ‘You’ve followed the Slattery boys over the years?’
‘They’ve often been my bread and butter. Is this about them?’
‘Could be. But not the story I’m gonna give you. Not quite. When did Dermot and Gerrit come on the scene? Can you recall?’
‘I thought you said you were in the force before the war?’
‘I was. From thirty three up until I enlisted. We all knew about the Slatterys but they were pretty quiet then. We had other fish to fry. Other gangs to bust that were a bit more shall we say, blatant. The Billy Boys, the Norman Conks, the Calton Entry, the…
He shook his head in fond reflection. ‘Glory days, sure enough.’
I went on. ‘The Slatterys had things sewn up by that stage. Everything under control. Out and out villains but never causing rammies in the street. No banners or marching bands for them. Staunch Catholics but never to be seen throwing cobbles at Orange parades or taking hatchets to the Derry Boys. I’m trying to understand how they got going, how they became… untouchable.’
His lined cheeks creased in memory. ‘One of my first stories for the Gazette. Back in… twenty-four, it would be. I’d only just joined the Gazette from the Record.’
His eyes glowed with the memory. It was touching to think he’d kept the tie as a memento.
‘Aye, they hit the scene like a hurricane. Gerrit in his twenties and his big brother Dermot early thirties, I’d say. Fresh off the boat and straight into one of the biggest rammies the Gorbals had seen. They took on one of the razor kings. It was a turf fight. They got the Catholics out behind them and just slaughtered the razor king’s gang. And I mean slaughtered. Glasgow Infirmary was like a butcher’s shop. They never looked back.’
‘What was their trade?’
‘The usual. Bookmaking, drugs, protection rackets, the odd bank, even, as they got more confident. They branched out into street girls, even had a few flats. They installed the lassies there and charged the punters at the close entry. It was quite the wee empire.’ He sounded impressed.
‘Was?’
‘Still is, but it’s changed. As they got more well off they decided to pull back from the mucky stuff. Bought a big house out in Bearsden, installed their mother from the old country and started wearing better suits. But they were still running the drugs racket for half of Glasgow. And from what I hear, they went up market with the birds for hire. Top-quality totty, apparently,’ he said wistfully.
‘I know they were picked up a few times but we never managed to make it stick. How come, do you reckon?’
‘Oh, they were in court more often than a judge. Particularly Gerrit; he was a total bampot. Big brother Dermot was always bailing him out, literally. Old Campbell, the Procurator Fiscal, never gave up. But they always had the best lawyer. Kept getting them off even when it seemed impossible. There were stories that they’d nobbled some heid yins. Never proven, mind.’
‘Did you say Campbell?’
‘The very man. Hard as nails. At times it seemed personal, you know, between him and the Slatterys. Then things calmed down and the war started. And here we are, business as usual for the Slatterys, but all the time trying to change their image. Get respectable. Now what about this story of yours?’ He licked his lips.
I tucked away the connection between old Campbell and the Slatterys and told McAllister how Hugh Donovan had been set up by the police. He jotted notes down in what seemed to be personalised shorthand, only occasionally interrupting to ask questions.