Lawless

by Alexander McGregor

  He was quite correct. There was nothing particularly enlightening to read there either. He was riveted, however, by what was absent. Removed from the report, which recounted in detail the finding of guilt and subsequent sentence of life imprisonment, was what he presumed from the layout had been a photograph of someone involved. Of much greater interest was another extraction. Cut from the body of the main text were several sentences from the middle of a long-winded testimony by a forensic scientist witness.

  Both removals had been carried out with surgical precision and almost certainly by someone using a razor. There was no indiscriminate butchery or lack of regard for the rest of the article. Whoever had carried out the meticulous operation had gone well prepared for the task in hand. It was deliberate to the point of fastidious. The same result could have been more easily achieved simply by ripping the paper at the relevant section. That was what someone with less precise habits would have done.

  McBride stared blankly at the page for a full five minutes, trying to make some kind of sense of what he had stumbled upon. Then, aware that his lack of movement was beginning to attract the attention of the now-bored students, he quickly flicked over a handful of pages, afraid his discovery might be shared by others.

  Back at the reception desk, Elaine was also eyeing him suspiciously. In spite of his innocence, he experienced pangs of guilt and knew that, if the file was examined after his departure, he would inevitably be blamed for its defacement. It only made him feel more furtive and anxious to hoard his find.

  He tried to appear casual. ‘Hi again. Thanks for that. Fascinating things, old newspapers – I could spend weeks here,’ he said with another attempt at a coy smile. He avoided adding the obvious ‘especially if you were here’. Instead, he tossed in what he hoped sounded like a conversation-making afterthought. ‘Do you get many folk in digging about in your files?’

  She smiled back, trying to make the old joke sound original. ‘Nostalgia isn’t just a thing of the past, you know. It’s an endless procession, especially after your book with all the would-be Rebuses who have read it coming in to look up the facts for themselves. Some right dodgy types too. Did you get everything you wanted?’

  McBride lied, ignoring another chat-up opportunity: ‘Absolutely.’ He wasn’t about to disclose the existence of the treasure trove he had unearthed, even if he hadn’t the faintest idea if it had any value at all.

  Outside, sleet was swirling along the freezing corridor of Murraygate. The buskers had disappeared and the buggy-pushers without money hurried to God-knows-where.

  McBride also moved quickly. He had urgent business in his old newspaper office.

  7

  Richard Richardson never knew whether he liked his name. All his life, folk had joked about it. At school they called him Double Dick and pubescent girls sniggered at the thought of what that could mean. He pretended to be offended but inwardly hoped they would believe he had been blessed.

  As he grew older, he realised there were other benefits to having had such unimaginative parents. Few forgot his name though some occasionally got it wrong and referred to him as Dick Dickson.

  When he decided to become a journalist, he faced a dilemma. Should he use his own name on articles and risk further ridicule or change it to something more mundane? He decided that unforgettable was best and every story he ever wrote in The Courier carried the exact words his birth certificate bore.

  It would not have mattered what he called himself. Richard Richardson was a legend in local journalistic circles and not just for his odd handle. He received Christmas cards from half the police force, most of the publicans and every dignitary. His appetite for fine food was surpassed only by his taste for cigarettes and outlandish neckties. It was a constant source of irritation that ash from the former frequently dropped into his food or, worse, on to his tie.

  He also wrote magnificently. When Richard Richardson was of a mind, only a handful of reporters in the country could match his insight. Even fewer had his elegance with words.

  Campbell McBride and Richard Richardson had started on The Courier within days of each other and had rapidly become ferocious rivals and bosom friends. They fought dishonourably for the best stories and worst women and mocked each other’s work. When they wanted to drink, which was often, they did it together. After they returned to their respective flats, they reread the articles each had in that day’s paper. Sometimes, they scrutinised them three times. There was no greater tribute they could pay each other. Of course, they never spoke of such things.

  The job offers to move away from Dundee came from the same national newspaper on precisely the same day. One post was in Glasgow, the other in London. It did not matter to the Daily Express which of them took which position. The nation’s biggest-selling daily wanted both of them but in different cities.

  McBride always knew that, when the call came, he would respond with alacrity even if he had to feign initial hesitation to help jack up the money on offer. Richard vacillated too but for different reasons. His head told him to start packing his bags but his heart desperately tugged the other way. He loved his home town.

  McBride chose London and moved away. His great friend and rival stayed. They never knew how things would have turned out if, that day, the Express news editor had offered two jobs in the same town when they could have gone together to seek their spiritual and financial fortunes in a faraway place.

  In the twenty or so years since, they had met only twice – once, in the early days, when McBride had persuaded his old sparring partner to spend a long weekend in London and then when Richard learned Simon had died. He had heard the news shortly after arriving for work one morning and by early afternoon he was with McBride and Caroline in their home in Kent. He had not even gone home to pack a bag or change his tie for a black one before catching the midday flight south.

  As time passed, the regular exchange of phone calls became less and less frequent until they stopped altogether. They had not spoken for almost four years. It was not anyone’s fault – it just happened.

  When McBride had arrived back in town to sign books, he had fully expected to witness Richard charge his way to the head of the queue to unleash a volley of good-natured barbs. His non-appearance prompted the celebrity author to leave messages for him at every likely venue where he could have been expected to turn up. There was no response to any of them.

  Now McBride was waiting to greet him in the reception area of The Courier’s offices on the Kingsway city bypass and wondering how he would explain to his old friend and rival why he wanted to scrutinise back copies of the paper.

  He could tell him the truth – that he was desperate to solve the mystery of the missing sentences that had been razor-cut from the one in the City Library. But old habits die hard. Every journalistic instinct he had acquired told him that you never parted with a bit of intrigue to anyone who might make use of it before you did – especially when it was the kind that made hairs stand up on the back of your neck. And, unless he had changed, Richard Richardson, whose dictionary did not include the word scruple, would shamelessly have availed himself of every detail. Furthermore, he would have been proud to have boasted of it.

  When the lift doors slid apart, it might have been a time machine that had opened up. The man who exited and was walking eagerly across the highly polished floor, hand extended to greet McBride, had made only one concession to modern times. He did not have a cigarette in his hand – not because he had stopped smoking but because a foolish law prohibited him from contaminating his workplace. Apart from that, Richard Richardson had remained in a time warp. The sleeves of his shirt were still turned back to midway between wrist and elbow, the collar was unbuttoned and the nightmare necktie, unaccountably smudged with ash, was loosened. He even wore grey shoes, which had not been fashionable twenty years ago or at any period in history.

  ‘God, you’ve aged,’ he roared at McBride. ‘Has it really been thirty-five years since I saw you?’


  McBride had been prepared for a jibe. ‘No. Judging by the clothes you’ve got on, it was only yesterday. Still wearing the safari-suit at the weekends?’

  ‘Still the smart-ass, I see,’ Richardson replied quickly. ‘At least I continue to get my name in the papers. Can’t say I’ve noticed much of yours of late – unless, of course, you count the free plug we gave you and your book. Haven’t read it yet, by the way. I’m holding off for a couple of days until the price is slashed and it hits the bargain shops. Might even wait until next week when I’ll be able to pick it up in Oxfam.’

  The exchanges continued all the way up in the lift to the editorial floor, normal conversation commencing only when McBride looked directly at his companion for the first time and asked, ‘How are you, Richard?’

  He did not expect the response he received. ‘Crap. But who wants to hear that?’ Richard struggled with a smile and unexpectedly put an arm round McBride’s shoulder. ‘Look, sorry about not picking up on any of your messages. I’d heard you were going to be making an appearance in Waterstone’s but I had to go out of town on a job. By the time I got back, I assumed you’d left. I was going to give you a bell in London in a day or two. Anyway, great to see you – we’ll grab a pint later. In the meantime, are you going to tell me what’s brought you to the great citadel of truth where pale-faced scribes toil for a pittance?’

  McBride shook his head at the line he’d heard Richardson use a dozen times. ‘Can’t beat the old ones. Actually, it’s the old ones I’ve come to see – not your collection of decrepit women but The Courier files.’ He tried to sound casual. ‘Any chance of half an hour in the file room?’

  There was practically a click when Richardson’s head jerked round. ‘Easily arranged, old son. Anything special I can help you with?’ It was his turn to appear laid-back.

  McBride shrugged. ‘No. Thanks all the same. I just want to have a look at some old stuff I did for the paper years ago for a bit of a feature I’m trying to work up. Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid.’ He knew Richardson hadn’t been convinced but it was as much as he was getting.

  Five minutes later, he was alone in an extremely cold basement room surrounded by the history of a city. Everything worth recording, and much which wasn’t, about what had happened in Dundee and the surrounding area was contained in the once-white but now ochre pages of the bound volumes that were stretching before him. He quickly located the one he required and feverishly flicked over the pages until he came to the murder trial report of Bryan Gilzean’s case.

  Although he hadn’t been sure what he’d expected to find, he was disappointed with what was there. As he had suspected, the largest extraction had been a photograph of Alison Brown, evidently taken when she had been a bridesmaid at a wedding. The other piece of the report, which had so meticulously been removed from the file in the Central Library, could not, on the face of it, have been more ordinary or unexceptional. Had they not been so precisely sliced out, the missing three and a half sentences could have been selected at random.

  McBride gazed at the words in bewilderment, even reading them out aloud to make sense of why someone had gone to such extremes to excise them. He gave up after several minutes, even more baffled than when he’d seen them for the first time. Taking the notebook he never left home without from his jacket pocket, he carefully copied every detail of the text into a new page.

  The expunged passage, which started midway through a sentence, read:

  … though this is not unique. These activities happen from time to time and can be confusing. Care has to be taken to ensure a dispassionate analysis and conclusion. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got it wrong and it won’t be the last.

  The words were those of Dr Christopher Rae, a forensic scientist, and had been spoken by him during his testimony for the prosecution. He had examined the corpse of Alison Brown and his evidence had been instrumental in the Crown achieving such a swift and unanimous guilty verdict. He could be said to have been Bryan Gilzean’s executioner.

  McBride studied the context in which the expert witness had used the words and noted that the doctor had been speaking generally, making broad references to the removal of DNA samples and the need to avoid contamination. The information didn’t help. McBride shook his head in frustration once more, closed the file and replaced it on its metal, utilitarian shelf. Then, before he found himself sharing the same fate as brass monkeys, he left the silent, bone-chilling file room.

  Back upstairs, the air-conditioned newsroom was a hubbub of chatter and ringing telephones. More than fifty reporters and sub-editors, all starting to write and package the words that would appear on the next morning’s breakfast tables, were in varying stages of stress. Later the same day, the different editions of the paper would be gathered and taken away to be given their own place in the file room.

  Richard Richardson was just submerging himself in a think piece about the extravagances of the Scottish Parliament, a theme he explored at least once a month. It did not matter how often he wrote about the subject, there never seemed to be a shortage of material. He looked up, still deep in crusader mode, as McBride approached.

  Double Dick’s eloquence occasionally deserted him. ‘See those bastards in Edinburgh?’ he said with venom. ‘They spend our dosh like water. And what do we get for it – sweet Fanny Adams. They’re a shower of useless pricks – and that includes the women.’

  He remembered who was with him and the red cloud lifted. ‘Sorry, Campbell, old son, you have no idea of these parasites. They get me going every time. Find what you wanted?’ He was getting interested again.

  ‘Yes – more or less,’ McBride replied with an air of offhandedness. ‘It was useful to remind myself why I was the star man in the old days.’

  Richardson almost growled. ‘Star man, my backside. Good to see you still have a sense of humour. Anything else you need before we kick you out?’

  McBride had hoped to hear that. ‘Thanks for reminding me. Can I have a couple of minutes on a terminal to check something on the Web?’

  ‘Help yourself – but, if it’s porn you’re after, forget it. Our systems are crawling with firewalls.’ Richardson pointed at a row of blank screens awaiting the arrival of the evening shift. ‘Take your pick.’

  McBride chose the one furthest away. Then he accessed a little-known people-tracer website and keyed in the name Adam Gilzean. Five seconds later he had his address.

  Richardson, meanwhile, had reverted to his jackboot assault on anyone associated with Holyrood and barely lifted his head as McBride, his mission completed, approached.

  ‘That’s at least two pints you owe me,’ Richardson said into his computer screen. ‘If you’ve no objections, I’ll collect them tonight.’

  ‘You’re on. Still The Fort?’

  ‘Where else? I’ll be released from the salt mine about eight. Now, piss off and let a real star get on with illuminating the masses.’

  Two seconds after the lift doors closed behind McBride, the man he would be sharing a drink with rose from his desk and moved quickly to the computer terminal which had just been vacated. His fingers ran expertly over the keys and swiftly clicked on Internet Explorer’s History icon to learn which page had last been accessed.

  8

  By the time the two were reunited in The Fort, 8 p.m. was long past and McBride was growing weary. He had revisited all of Dundee FC’s European Cup triumphs with John Black, who, if pressed, would probably have been able to name every family member of every player in each of the teams. He was a human encyclopaedia on the matches. Click the remote and he moved instantly from game to game, effortlessly replaying in precise sequence every one of the moments when his beloved Dark Blues swept up the park. Listening to him may have been tedious but it was at least restful. It was not necessary to speak, even if there had been an opportunity. All that was required was an occasional nod in appreciation or a sharp intake of breath at the beauty of what had taken place on the football pitch.


  Richardson barged through the swing doors at the exact point when Dundee had scored their eighth goal against Cologne on the way to the semi-final, a memory that always brought Black close to the point of breakdown. Sometimes he was forced to turn his back on his listener lest the tear welling its way to the surface was detected.

  The emotion of the moment was lost on Richardson, who was loudly apologising about his lack of punctuality while still ten feet away. ‘Forgive me, old son,’ he called out over the heads of a group who were also squeezing their way to the bar. ‘The bastard sub-editors who masquerade as journalists were playing their usual little game of not understanding some of my finer phrases, which is hardly surprising given their lack of education. You’d think they’d find jobs more appropriate to their abilities, like on a building site.’

  Long before he arrived at the counter, McBride was aware of the heavy smell of tobacco smoke fitting like an invisible shroud over Richardson. He may have been running late but he’d still found time for a last cigarette outside before joining the other forced abstainers inside.

  ‘Real good of you to turn up, Richard,’ said McBride, elaborately pushing back his jacket sleeve to look at the time. ‘Just in time for a nightcap.’

  ‘OK, sorry, sorry. Want a whisky to go with the pint I’m about to get you?’ he offered by way of compensation.

  McBride shook his head, declining the short and in resignation at his friend’s lateness. ‘Haven’t touched the hard stuff since I started trying to run marathons. We finely honed athletes have to watch these things.’ He knew this would trigger a predictable response and was not disappointed.

  ‘Christ, another marathon bore. I remember when you used to have two fags going at the same time in the office, usually when you were struggling to find one of your “masterly” intros to a story. Some of them were that laboured you went through the best part of a packet.’