Long Time Dead (Gus Dury 4)

by Tony Black

  He handed over the cutting, watched me read.

  The story was dated 1979 and had the eye-catching header: CITY SHOCKED BY UNIVERSITY HANGING.

  I read on.

  Genuinely intrigued.

  The story told of a boy about the same age as Ben Laird being hanged, in an almost identical manner, some thirty years previously.

  ‘Well, well, well …’ I said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘This puts quite a different complexion on things.’

  ‘Doesn’t it just … What a fucking story!’

  I’d been a hack too long to be shocked by the crassness of Rasher’s statement. ‘If there’s a link, you mean.’

  ‘Oh, aye … of course. But if there’s a link, you’ll find it, eh?’ What he was saying was, Go find the link so I can put it in the paper.

  ‘Why aren’t you working it?’

  ‘Ha!’ Rasher leaned back in his seat, looked out to the newsroom. ‘That lot out there are struggling enough with rewriting fucking press releases. There’s not one of them capable of chasing this, Dury!’ He snapped forward in his chair, put serious eyes on me. ‘But you go digging, and bring back that story … it’s a page-one exclusive!’

  I stood up, leaned over the file, said, ‘Can I take this?’

  Hands went up. ‘Be my guest.’

  Chapter 26

  ELVIS COSTELLO WAS ON THE radio, ‘Accidents Will Happen’. Didn’t seem like an appropriate track. Not in the slightest. I walked into the doocot and took off my jacket, hung it on the back of the door. The dustcoat was flung over the chair, inky stains on the sleeves and around the pockets adding a hint of authenticity. Stevo and I hadn’t spoken since the bust-up. Well, if you could call it that; I’d be going with outburst. On his behalf.

  I filled the kettle, took out a packet of Jammie Dodgers I’d bought, said, ‘Fancy a brew, Stevo?’ I was trying to break the ice; was glad I had. When he turned I saw he had a large Elastoplast above his left eye; his lip had been split too. ‘Jesus … what happened to you?’

  He mumbled a bit, cleared his throat, ‘I walked into a door … It was on the nightshift, all the lights were out. I couldn’t get the flashlight to work.’

  It was borderline believable. I’d broken the flashlight when I dropped it the night I found Calder swinging from a rope in the Grand Hall. The memory of his white face, his toes pointing to the floor, made me flinch. The fact that nobody seemed overly concerned about his hanging made me furious.

  ‘Aye, well … sorry about that. I dropped it the night I found Calder.’

  He didn’t press me. I got the impression he was a bit more approachable than the last time we had spoken. He came over to where I was standing at the sink, gave me his cup.

  ‘I wanted to say … y’know, about that exchange of words we had,’ said Stevo.

  ‘Exchange of words’ – it was such a poor euphemism. I knew what he meant, but tried to look innocent. ‘What’s that, Stevo?’ Wasn’t that the way to handle these things?

  ‘You remember … you were asking about the hanging.’

  I poured out the tea, motioned him to sit down. He was a good bloke, I could tell that. But he was stressed about something. I had a fair idea what. Sooner or later I’d have to apply some stress in Paul’s direction, see which way the little shit squirmed.

  ‘Which one?’

  Stevo’s lips drained of blood. ‘Calder … Mr Calder.’

  ‘We could have been talking about Ben of course.’

  His eyes blinked a spasm. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Or,’ I amped it up, ‘I could have been talking about the kid that was hanged here in the 1970s.’

  Stevo took up his mug of tea. He looked as though he wanted to hide behind it. I walked over to him, offered a biscuit. ‘You knew about that, didn’t you?’

  He nodded, started to twiddle with the handle of the cup; stirred in more sugar. ‘H-how did you find out?’

  There didn’t seem any point in keeping my hand from him: figured he either knew already or had guessed. ‘Stevo, Ben Laird’s mother hired me to look into his death … I’m a private investigator.’

  ‘I know that.’

  I’d half guessed he did but the abrupt assertion blindsided me. ‘How did you find out?’

  He coughed into his fist, ‘Paul … Paul told me.’

  I put down my cup, stood up again, loomed over Stevo. ‘Was that the day I saw you arguing with him?’

  His voice was barely a whisper. He couldn’t look me in the eye. ‘I didn’t know you’d seen that.’

  ‘Well, now you do.’

  Stevo stood up to face me. His breathing had stalled, his face ashen as he faltered on his words. ‘Gus … I’m …’

  ‘You’re what?’

  He looked away, trying to find something to distract him outside the window, ‘These people, Gus …’

  ‘Stevo, have they put a scare on you?’

  He didn’t move, stood still. Nodded. His head dropped onto his chest; he looked exhausted by it all.

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They wanted me to … warn you off.’

  I let out a low laugh. ‘Do you think that’s likely?’ I wasn’t expecting an answer.

  Stevo started to grow twitchy, like a rabbit in headlights that didn’t know which way to run. He slumped back in the chair, started to skin up. I noticed his knuckles were scraped as he brought out his Rizlas.

  ‘You’ve been in a stramash, Stevo.’ I pointed to his hands. ‘Think you should give me the low-down on this crew that’s putting the shits up you.’

  Stevo crumbled in some Moroccan rock. His top lip glistened with sweat as he spoke. ‘They’re part of an … order.’

  ‘A what?’

  His voice dipped, began to quiver. ‘Ben was part of it too … It goes back years, decades and decades.’

  I was having some trouble getting my head around this. ‘Like some kind of secret club?’

  ‘Have you heard of Skull and Bones?’

  ‘The fucking pirate flag?’

  Stevo managed a staccato laugh. He wiped his lip. ‘It’s an old fraternity in America … George W. and so on were members. It’s like an on-campus old-boys’ network. They have their rituals and … their secrets.’

  It sounded far-fetched; I’d never encountered anything like it. Then it struck: of course I hadn’t – I was never likely to, coming from my side of the tracks. ‘And it goes on here too … in Scotland?’

  ‘It started here.’ Stevo fiddled nervously with a flap of skin under his chin, his voice trembled some more. ‘They call themselves the Seriatim.’

  ‘It means one after the other … What’s that about?’

  A shrug of heavy shoulders. ‘I think they like to think of themselves as links in a chain.’

  ‘How do you know about this, Stevo?’

  ‘I don’t really … but, well, I see things … hear things.’

  ‘What do you mean, you see things?’

  He sparked up the joint, inhaled deep. It seemed to calm him slightly. ‘In this job … you see things, see the meetings at night and …’

  I didn’t know if I wanted to hear what he was saying. If Stevo had the kind of information I thought he had, then he was in some danger. Two people had died already, three if you included the kid in the seventies. I didn’t like what I was hearing. I didn’t want to see any more names added to the death list.

  ‘Are you telling me you know something about these hangings?’

  He picked a piece of stray tobacco from the end of the roach. He looked reluctant to speak. I prompted him again: ‘Stevo … do you know something?’

  He pressed the roach to his mouth, inhaled. He took some time to speak again, gasped, ‘The Seriatim – Ben was a member and so was Joe Calder. I’d hazard a guess that the one who died years ago was too.’

  ‘It goes that far back?’

  ‘Shit, yeah … years and years, hundreds even, I don’t know how many. They pick out
half a dozen overprivileged idiots on each intake and, y’know, look after them …’

  I pressed, ‘No, I don’t know … what do you mean, “look after them”?’

  Stevo’s fingers tapped at the joint. ‘They induct them, I suppose. I’ve seen some old boys who must have been past members from time to time. It’s all a fucking game to them, think they’re it. It’s about connections and looking out for each other … that kind of bullshit.’

  That might explain the Craft’s involvement; it wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine some of the Seriatim’s past members joining the force. If they knew about the first death or had some involvement with it – it made sense they’d want any more killings hushed up. It stank. I pressed: ‘And Paul … is he part of the group?’

  Stevo nodded slowly, his eyes sunk in his head. ‘I think he’s got some wee fiefdom. Seen him chatting to the top dogs, taking directions and that …’ He seized up, said, ‘I shouldn’t be talking like this. If they knew, I’d be …’

  ‘You’d be what, Stevo … killed?’

  He held schtum.

  ‘If you know anything about who killed Ben … or anyone else, you need to tell me. People have died – do you want there to be more?’

  He shot out of the chair, growing frantic. There was terror in his eyes as he tugged at his hair. I’d put too much pressure on him. ‘Leave me alone, Gus,’ he snapped.

  I saw I’d gone as far as I could for now, but I had to give him a warning. ‘Stevo, if you won’t talk to me, you should go to the police. I know a man.’ I took out one of the cards Hod had printed up for me, wrote down Fitz’s name and number. ‘Seriously … talk to Fitz … if you won’t talk to me. He’ll help you … help you sort it all out, Stevo. Trust me on that.’

  He took the card, tucked it into the pocket of his dustcoat. I didn’t hold out much hope that he’d use it.

  Chapter 27

  I CALLED HOD, MADE SURE he was keeping a close check on Amy.

  ‘She’s watching Hollyoaks … quiet as a mouse.’

  ‘Good. See she stays that way.’

  ‘Nae danger.’

  I had a few hours to kill before I met up with Fitz. I had it all straight in my head what I needed to say to him – and what I needed to hear from him. But there was something else worrying me that needed to be attended to. Call it my age, call it the advanced state of entropy I found myself in, but I’d been thinking a lot about my mortality. For some that means finding peace with God, for others it means tidying up their financial affairs. For me it meant getting to the bottom of the chaos of my childhood.

  I knew my mother had put up with so much from my father; what I didn’t know was why. Beyond that, what I needed to know was – where did it all come from? All the hate, all the bile. From one man towards his family. None of it had made any sense in my boyhood and it made no more sense now. I needed to know what it was all about: how did it happen? Why did we all have to bear so many scars?

  As I walked towards my childhood home I felt old memories assail me; I saw my brother Michael playing in the garden. He could only have been five or six; in a few more years he would try to kill himself after suffering a violent beating from my father. Some people will tell you they find it hard to look back, hard to remember their childhood after a certain age. Not me. I found it hard not to remember. The beatings, the scoldings, the harsh words … I carried them with me everywhere. I replayed them on a daily basis.

  Debs had said I should let them go, that I was keeping the pain alive in me – it wrecked our marriage for her to see me so miserable, ruined. I pulled out my mobile phone. I had no missed calls, no texts. I wanted to dial Debs’s number, to tell her I was about to face my demons, but it seemed pointless now. She didn’t want anything to do with me. I was coming to realise what that meant. I would no longer have Debs in my life. She was gone. Just like my father was gone. I needed to let them both go.

  As I opened the gate to my old family home, my heart stilled. I spotted my mother behind the net curtains. She moved slowly; she was older now, but she was unmistakably the same woman who had battled to raise us for all those years. She caught sight of me and hurried to the door. She had opened up before I had the chance to knock.

  ‘Oh, Gus, oh my …’ She raised her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Hi, Mam.’

  ‘Oh, come away in, son … You look like death warmed up.’

  Did I tell her I felt that way too? … Let it slide. My mam needed no more hurts in her life.

  Inside the place was tidy and spare; neat as ninepins, as the saying goes. My father’s picture was still on the sideboard, Cannis Dury, in his World Cup shirt of 1982. It had been his final taste of glory; after that, his only audience had been under this roof. Every one of us would walk on fire to have missed that show.

  My mother sat on the arm of the chair. Her hair had grown white. ‘Gus, it’s been so long.’ She reached out, placed a hand on my shoulder. I started to cough. I could hear my lungs rattling.

  I said, ‘It has that … Sorry, I’ve been a bit, y’know …’

  She pressed out a thin smile, rubbed my arm, ‘I was sorry to hear about you and Deborah …’

  I was shocked that she knew. I don’t know why, it had been long enough now – surely my own mother had the right to know such things. How had we grown so far apart?

  ‘You heard?’ The words seemed feeble, pathetic even.

  She nodded. ‘Catherine bumped into her in the Co-op.’

  It was a small city. I tended to forget that.

  ‘Well, yes … it’s over. Has been some time now.’

  She rubbed harder at my arm. ‘Maybe you’ll get back together … again.’

  I sensed the hope in her voice. She had every right to expect we’d patch things up – we had done it so many times in the past; but never again. I shook my head. ‘No, not this time, Mam … not this time.’

  She stood up. ‘Well, they say time’s a great healer … Give it time, son.’ She walked towards the kitchen. ‘Will I make us some coffee? I know you don’t like tea.’

  I nodded, and watched her turn away from me. She walked stiffly, uncomfortable with the rheumatism in her hips.

  Alone in the room I couldn’t bear to have my father’s eyes upon me, I rose and turned over his picture. As I touched it I saw that my hand had started to tremble again. I reached into the pocket of my tweed jacket and removed a can of Guinness, took a quick belt. I chased it with a lengthier blast as my mother walked in carrying a tray with cups. I spluttered and removed the can from my mouth.

  ‘Sorry, I’m virtually off it.’ It was a lie and she knew it. She’d given up trying to stop me drinking; hadn’t everyone. I put the can away and she went back through to the kitchen to wait for the kettle to boil.

  My mind was racing. Whenever I came back to this place I felt a flood of memories assail me. The time I remembered most prominently now was the day my father died. He’d been up in his bed, confined indoors with a weak heart, but it hadn’t stopped him roaring and shouting at my mother with every ounce of breath in him. She had taken it all too; had trotted up those stairs like the doting wife of old. Why? I wanted to know why she never left him. Surely we would have all been better without him.

  She came through with the pot of coffee, placed it on the tray. I thought about pouring the cups out, but in my current condition, knew I’d spill the lot. I waited until she offered me a cup, my hand remained thankfully steady as I took it.

  ‘So, you look well,’ I said.

  She smiled, knew she wanted to say, Wish I could say the same about you, but went with, ‘Well … it’s a quiet enough life.’

  I wondered if that was a dig at me being absent for so long. Thought better of it – knew my mam didn’t have it in her for digs. She was as close to the perfect human being as you could get; perhaps that’s why her suffering hurt me so much.

  ‘Mam, I’ve been thinking a lot …’ I stalled, looked out the window. Could I really do this? My m
ind wandered off track, a long silence stretched out between us.

  ‘Yes, son?’

  I turned back, refocused. Her face looked open and approachable. ‘Mam, I’ve had some time to think … a lot of time, actually, since the split from Debs.’

  Mam sipped her coffee. ‘Is that so wise?’

  ‘What? I mean, I know … thinking’s never a good idea, is it?’

  She seemed to agree but gave nothing away. Did she sense what I was here to ask her? The thought slayed me. I knew my mother had been through enough grief in her life – now she was old, she had earned her peace. Who was I to come here and disrupt that? And for what? To satisfy my ego, to let me sleep better at night? Christ on a bike, if any one of us deserved to sleep soundly it was her. I couldn’t bring up the past in this house again. She deserved better.

  She put down her coffee, clasped her fingers together, spoke: ‘These walls have seen a lot over the years, have they not?’ It was as if she knew what I was thinking, what it was I needed to know. ‘At times these walls felt like a prison to me, Angus …’

  ‘They did?’

  ‘Oh, I think they felt like that for us all.’

  I knew what she meant, but we had never spoken about him like this. It felt strange to be treading towards this territory. ‘Mam, why?’

  ‘Why what? Why did I stay with him? Why didn’t I take you all away to safety … somewhere else?’

  The words faltered on my lips. ‘I-I guess so …’

  My mother looked at me, but at the same time seemed to be staring straight through me. ‘Where to, Angus? I had nowhere to go … Back to my family? Oh, I tried. They sent me back to him … It wasn’t the done thing, then. You didn’t leave a marriage, not when you had children. I had no choice.’ Suddenly her eyes flickered. It was as if she sensed I wanted more. ‘Angus … it would have made no difference, he would have found us. He would have found us wherever we went.’

  She made him sound like a monster; my own mother conceded that my father’s actions had harmed us all. She knew all we had suffered at his hand, she knew Catherine and I were still damaged and confused children at heart and she knew it was all because of him.