The Low Road

by A. D. Scott

  “As you like,” she said, and stepped forward to signal to the oncoming bus.

  • • •

  As Mary opened the iron gate to the steps leading down to the basement flat, Mary’s mother opened her door, the main one on the floor above. She must have been watching, waiting.

  “Your tinker friend has gone. He gave me the keys and a message. ‘I’m off to see a man about a horse,’ he said.”

  Mary laughed. “Thank you.” She didn’t move from the lower steps. Speaking upwards to the equally small and equally formidable woman, she said, “Mother, this is John McAllister. I believe you’ve spoken on the telephone.”

  “Mr. McAllister.” Mrs. Ballantyne examined him. He could see the distaste in the shadows on her face. Or maybe it was the light from the streetlamp distorting her features. “I asked you not to involve my daughter in your sordid and dangerous affairs.”

  No, you didn’t ask, you ordered. In the lamplight flickering through the leaves of a wild gean tree, he saw how angry she was. A mother’s anger, he realized. And fear.

  “Mother. Not now.” Mary ran up the steps, took the keys from her, and ran back down to the basement.

  McAllister followed, saying, “Good night, Mrs. Ballantyne.” There was no reply.

  As she shut and locked the door Mary said, “Don’t mind my mother, we’ve been arguing since ever I can remember.”

  McAllister put down his bag, helped himself to a dram, knocked it back, then said, “Right, I want to know what Jimmy is doing back here, and how you are involved.”

  “Jimmy hasn’t told me his reasons for returning. All I can guess is that he needs to finish what was started, perhaps to feel safe.”

  McAllister knew Jimmy had to respond to the attacks, or lose respect. In a rat-eat-rat place like the Glasgow slums, and in the Travelers’ culture, where your name and reputation were everything, Jimmy would never back down. He would stand up to the person who had put a price on his head until he was defeated, perhaps killed.

  “Do you think this is about bare-knuckle fighting?” he asked.

  Mary said, “I’ve been told organized fights died out a long time ago. But if there’s lucrative prize money . . .” She turned her palms outwards.

  McAllister saw a bruise of carbon ink at the base of one thumb. He wanted to rub it clean.

  “It’s a deep part of Traveler culture, those fights won’t disappear entirely.”

  “I know. But Travelers fighting to decide a dispute, that’s different.”

  “Jimmy said he gave up fighting when he returned to the Highlands. I think I believe him.” From her voice, not knowing was clearly frustrating her. “Also, I’ve been hearing names, Jimmy McPhee and Gerry Dochery obviously, but I heard another name again recently—the Big Man, or the Heid Yin, a man so protected no one knows, or is saying, what he’s up to, where he’s from. I do know everyone is terrified of him. But is he the one after Jimmy? Is Gerry working with him? For him? And why? I’ve no idea.” She covered her mouth to stifle a yawn. “If I can break a story on a big crime boss, it could make my career.”

  McAllister did not think less of her for admitting it. But for him it was personal; involving his mother had ensured that. And again the questions haunted him. Why? And why involve me?

  • • •

  He awoke in a strange room with a different light and the sound of a telephone trilling. The phone stopped. He became aware of buses, cars, bicycle bells, a horse clopping by. He checked his watch. Twenty past eight. He’d slept in. When he went into the small galley kitchen he found Mary, looking half asleep but awake enough to have the kettle on and the teapot readied.

  “That was the Herald. The police are looking for you. But no one knows where you are, so . . .”

  It was his turn to yawn. “It’ll be about my mother’s flat.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt.

  “Oh, aye,” she said, but there was a tinge of and what else in the upturned inflection on the aye. “I’ve work to do,” she said. “May as well go in now I’m awake.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  They didn’t wait for the bus. Walking down the long decline to the Herald office, not saying much, there was no tension in the silence between them. It was another particular about Mary he liked.

  A woman behind the reception desk recognized McAllister. “Good morning, Mr. McAllister. I have a message from Detective Inspector Willkie. He asked you to call him. He said it’s urgent.” She handed him a note with a phone number neatly typed.

  “Willkie?” Mary said. “That nasty wee shite?”

  The receptionist smiled. The detective had been nasty and bullying when he called at reception looking for McAllister. He wouldn’t believe the woman didn’t know McAllister’s whereabouts. He threatened to go upstairs to check and to charge her with obstructing the police. She decided that even if she did know where McAllister was, without his permission she’d deny it.

  When they reached the reporters’ floor, Mary saw there was half an hour until the news conference. “I think you should talk to our esteemed editor,” she said. “DI Willkie is not good news.”

  Sandy Marshall heard the brief knock on his door and shouted, “Later,” but Mary was in his office and taking a chair, with McAllister on her heels.

  “DI Willkie is after McAllister,” she said.

  “Is he, now?” Sandy Marshall pushed his papers aside. He knew he would be unable to work until Mary had his attention.

  “It’s probably about the burglary at my mother’s flat.” McAllister was lighting his third cigarette of the day. His mouth felt dry, a mild headache was starting, and he looked dreadful.

  Mary said, “A detective inspector in the murder squad involved in a burglary? I don’t think so.”

  “So who have you murdered?” It was a joke, but Sandy saw the flicker in his old friend’s eyes. Mary didn’t.

  “If curses killed anyone, then guilty as charged.” McAllister was looking up at the ceiling and watching a spiral of smoke, not risking the stare of a man he had known since they were copy boys starting their careers together over twenty-five years ago.

  “So Mary, have you more on the story?” The editor was looking at the layout for the next edition.

  She began, “I’m hearing whispers of the Heid Yin.” She had no need to explain the vernacular; the Glasgow terminology for head man, boss, capo dei capi, was clear. She saw the editor focus his attention on her, and wished she had more than whispers. “He must be involved in something big. He must be more than nasty.” She shook her head in frustration, hair escaping from the hastily tied ponytail. “Mention him and my contacts are suddenly dumbstruck.”

  Sandy thought about it, then said, “Let’s see if we can cobble together a follow-up on the fight in Millport, keep the story alive for another edition. Maybe you could help.” He nodded at McAllister.

  Mary grinned. McAllister looked doubtful.

  “But if nothing turns up,” the editor was speaking to Mary, “I need you to help Keith. The story on council building tenders being awarded to favored businesses is important and—”

  “I’d rather cut off my right hand than work with thon useless piece of sh—”

  “You’re still a junior around here.”

  “I’ll be off.” Hearing the steel in Sandy’s voice, McAllister was reminded why his friend was editor of a prestigious newspaper, not stuck in a backwater like him.

  “Prepare yourself for a long hard session with Willkie—that’s his style, so get a good breakfast down you before you go,” Mary advised. “Come back here after. With any luck there might be a story in it for me, and Mr. Keith, the so-called crime reporter, can do his own research.” She was grinning, any animosity with the editor forgiven and forgotten.

  “Good luck,” Sandy said.

  “Thanks, I hope I won’t need it.” McAllister made for the door.

  “McAllister, a moment . . .” Sandy went into the corridor with him, shutting his offi
ce door before asking, “Is there anything you need to tell me?”

  “No.”

  There was a silence. Sandy sighed. “This is not your fight.”

  “It wasn’t, but it is now.”

  “Aye, I know. Give your mother my regards,” he replied. He knew the destruction of his mother’s flat was a breach of the unwritten gangland code. He knew the betrayal by Gerry Dochery called for revenge. He hoped it could be talked out. But he was not hopeful. “If I can help at all . . .”

  “In return for a cracking front-page story . . .”

  “If it’s publishable.” The editor grinned, held out his hand. “Good luck and be careful. There’s a wedding invitation sitting on the mantelpiece at home, and the wife’s decided we’ll have a wee holiday up north after the wedding. So . . .”

  “And you’re my best man—”

  “So make sure Willkie doesn’t get up your nose.”

  Or worse, McAllister was thinking.

  • • •

  McAllister walked to the Turnbull Street entrance of the Central Police Office. On a corner, the building, taking up two streetfronts, was a large redbrick construction, with red sandstone detailing around the windows. McAllister noted a bay window on the second floor with a strange cupola above. He imagined the chief constable with a brass telescope, surveying his command, much as a sea captain surveys the oceans. More likely a cramped office with too many desks, and too many workers in a fug of cigarette smoke. A detective is as valiant a smoker as a journalist.

  He told the constable at reception he was here at the bidding of DI Willkie. A second or two later a sergeant appeared from the back office.

  He was expected. “If you’ll just come this way, Mr. McAllister.”

  It happened so fast McAllister couldn’t take it in. Five minutes earlier he’d been in a café on West Sauchiehall Street having bacon, eggs, black pudding, and tattie scones; the next he was in a cell.

  He was left there for what seemed an hour but was only forty minutes. Next he was walked through the detectives’ room, everyone turning to stare, and pushed into an interview room. He knew to listen and say as little as possible.

  DI Willkie was alone. That alerted McAllister, but he had no idea as to what.

  Licking his lips like a fox about to seize a fat duck, the detective announced, “You are being questioned over the murder of one William Stuart Smith.”

  McAllister was stunned. He denied knowing this person—true. He denied ever meeting the man—not true, perhaps. He denied causing his death—absolutely true. But all his answers were discarded as lies.

  McAllister knew that if this William Stuart Smith was indeed the person he had grappled with in the close—and he had no way of knowing this unless he admitted to their encounter—the man probably had a few bruises, but was otherwise alive, and fine, when McAllister last saw him.

  Throughout the interview, McAllister kept calm, listening between the lines. Half an hour into the interview, he felt there was something he was missing, another agenda.

  DI Willkie repeated over and over as though it was a football chant. “We have witnesses.” Said in varying tones, varying rhythms, but always in glee, “We. Have. Witnesses.”

  Then McAllister began to make sense of the questions. Witnesses? Plural? The other man, the one who had scuttled away in the first minutes of the attack, he would lie. But his companion? Surely not. Then again, Gerry Dochery is a man to be feared. Then there was the neighbor upstairs. He didn’t know the man other than to nod to, but again, he doubted the man would talk—especially since Gerry Dochery had visited everyone in the close.

  Willkie declared a break. McAllister was locked up in the holding cell. He knew the timing would be too close for Sandy or Mary to drum up a lawyer to argue for bail. So he resigned himself to a night in the cells. He took comfort from DI Willkie so obviously having nothing other than the doubtful witnesses. But he did not look forward to a night with the drunks and the desperate of the city streets.

  What happened next he did not find out until later. When he did, all lingering loyalties to Gerry Dochery, to the City of Glasgow police force, to his colleagues at other newspapers, vanished.

  The late-afternoon edition of a rival tabloid newspaper ran with a screamer of a headline.

  JOURNALIST QUESTIONED OVER GANGLAND MURDER

  How the rival obtained the news in time to run it, given that the Herald heard about it after deadline, was remarked on. But no one was surprised. “Willkie!” Mary shouted across the reporters’ floor when the hot-off-the press edition was delivered to the Herald office.

  • • •

  The revelation made Scottish Television evening news, and the wireless bulletins.

  Joanne heard the story from the wireless broadcast.

  She was in the kitchen, having supper, and thinking about what to take on the camping trip. The background of Scottish country dance music did not register, but the sound of the pips leading to the news caught her attention. The lead story was on political unrest over the nuclear stalemate. Next came a story of a politician involved in a scandal in London. Then the Scottish segment of the news began.

  “Glasgow journalist John McAllister, forty-six years old, is being held on suspicion of murder. The deceased, William Stuart Smith, was found on waste ground near . . .”

  Joanne jumped up. She switched the wireless off. She and Mrs. McAllister and Granny Ross stared at one another. Annie was too frightened to say anything. Jean was in the sitting room with her cat and hadn’t heard. It all sounded much worse because it was announced in the posh news reader’s voice into the homes of everyone who knew them. Or didn’t.

  “Whatever they’re saying, he’s innocent,” his mother said. It didn’t help.

  “I know. John would never do anything wrong,” Joanne told them all, working hard to keep the terror out of her voice and off her face and to steady her hands. And knees. “There’s been a terrible mistake. It will all work out.”

  Annie saw through her mother’s reassurances. “Nothing ever works out in our family,” Annie muttered. No one contradicted her.

  SIXTEEN

  It was left to Sandy Marshall to coordinate the legal help for McAllister. Which he did: he set the newspaper’s legal team to work on the bail application; he himself worked the phone calling in every favor owed. But all his contacts warned that as it was the weekend, little could be done until Monday.

  “Probably a deliberate strategy on the part of DI Willkie, a trick the inspector is very fond of,” the Herald’s solicitor explained. “But we’ll do our best.”

  There was nothing more Sandy could do on that front. Next he telephoned Joanne and explained it was all a piece of mischief on the part of corrupt policemen. He did everything to reassure her.

  “Thank you for letting me know.” He could hear her take a breath to calm her voice. “It’s taken me a while to accept that this is part of his job, and his nature, and I accept that McAllister can’t stop himself getting involved . . .” But it doesn’t make it any easier, she didn’t say.

  Sandy was impressed at how calm, how accepting, she sounded. And before he hung up, he added, “We’re doing everything we can to get him out and send him home.”

  Aye, she thought, as she thanked him for his kindness, but where is home?

  • • •

  Mary Ballantyne hadn’t forgotten the promise to drive Mrs. Crawford to her sister’s in Shawlands. She was pursuing the same goal but with a different strategy; she had an idea that Mr. Gerry Dochery senior would lead her to Gerry Dochery junior and to help for McAllister. Or trouble for herself.

  On Saturday, Mary picked up Mrs. McAllister’s neighbor, calculating that the distance from Dennistoun to the suburb of Shawlands was long enough to establish a rapport with the terrified old lady and ask questions. As they were crossing the River Clyde towards the Kilmarnock Road, she began questioning her. “Do you know old Mr. Dochery?”

  “Aye. A nice ma
n . . . he did his best, but Wee Gerry . . .” She hesitated. Then, remembering his visit, said no more.

  “Did you hear that McAllister is being held on suspicion of murder?” Mary knew she was being ruthless, upsetting an already frightened old lady.

  “I saw in this morn’s paper . . .”

  “He’s innocent, of course, but how to prove it . . .” Mary left the question dangling in the middle space on the leather bench seat that was a feature of her mother’s car.

  “I might have heard something in the close that night, but I didney look. Kept ma door firm shut.”

  “Wise,” Mary replied. “What time was this?”

  “Late. Almost ten o’clock. It’s hard to sleep sometimes and . . . I heard the neighbor above’s clock strike ten . . .” Then I pulled the blankets over ma head, she didn’t say. As I didn’t want to hear what was going on in the close. “Next day, when Wee Gerry came around . . .” She was clutching her handbag tight, holding on to it in case even here, in the safety of the car, the bad men might come for her next.

  “The police were saying a body was found in your close. It’s a wonder none of them came and asked you about it.” Mary kept her tone conversational. But the implication was there—something was not right.

  “The police did come. But no’ that night. Next day, the man above me, a right nice man he is, too, even though he’s a Rangers supporter, he went with them. Came back a good while later, four hours or more. He’s gone, though. I heard he canceled his milk an’ I never seen him since.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “No idea. He has a daughter over the Maryhill Road way. But he doesn’t get along wi’ her husband.”

  They arrived in Shawlands, a district of respectable homes and row upon row of red sandstone terraces. Her sister’s flat was in one such row, three hundred yards from the main road. It curved up a slight hill, and every flat looked as though the curtains were made from a job lot of the same lace.