The House_Dark Urban Scottish Crime Story

by John Mayer

‘Amen’

  All through the Liturgy of the Word, the Eucharist and even the Concluding Rite, many felt the light of relief and were glad in their hearts that they’d come out to be amongst friends and neighbours and be blessed by Young Father Flaherty in church on this cold rainy night. In particular, the guilt which old Bella McLane felt because of the empty space next to her receded just a little bit. Her faith in him as a boy had never been misplaced. She hoped and prayed - in this very church - that he’d score highly enough to get in to the University of Edinburgh Law School, and he did. She’d once prayed all day, from this very spot, for him to win the prize in something he called Public Law and the Laws of Nations, and he did. She’d prayed that he would return in time to see his mother pass away, but despite his best efforts, he didn’t make it. And she’d prayed that there would be a way for her to continue living in the old flat where he’d been born and she’d come to take care of her sister-in-law for a whole year, and he’d found that way. So while she could feel the stares from unbelievers who thought he’d betrayed them, she knew better. And she felt sure that the One on Most High knew it too. In Parliament House and in Edinburgh New Town dining rooms, he now moved in circles she couldn’t even imagine; of that, there was no doubt. Yes. He would come in his own time. Of that, there wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind.

  As the congregation filed out, after squeezing his hand and thanking the Priest at the door, many of the old women wiped a tear, while in the lane at the back, the children began to prattle and skip home well ahead of their parents. On this dark night, Young Father Flaherty had truly lifted a great many spirits; but in their hearts, everyone knew that tonight’s light relief was only temporary. As Young Father Flaherty closed the thick old front door of his church, across the street, a cluster of easily eighty men centred around Big Joe Mularkey, waved their goodnights to him. But as soon as the church door was closed, over a dozen angry voices demanded of Big Joe an answer to that same question they’d asked the day before and had been on everyone’s lips all day. Their laissez-faire belief, which had lasted for years now, that ‘their Brogan’ could handle anything and anybody, was beginning to feel like it had all just been luck. All through the day before and all day today in the Calton Bar, along the Wee Way, up the streets and down the river they were now demanding to know:

  ‘Where in God’s name is he?’

  ~~~o~~~

  Chapter 6

  Handing him his temporary library pass, the young librarian felt sure she recognised him. In the box for ‘qualifications’ he’d written M.A. standing for Master of Arts and didn’t even use a diminutive for where he graduated. He looked to be in his middle 40s and was wearing a suit that would’ve cost her three weeks’ salary. His accent was local and his face was definitely familiar. He’d handed over photo ID but the photo was all cracked and the address was somewhere in Edinburgh. He was lucky that she could read the issue number in the corner or she might’ve had to refuse him. He said very little and that was unusual. There was no stumbling attempt to tell her a long story about some research project he was on or what had prompted him to write a letter of complaint to the editor of a newspaper. Of all the outside applicants she’d served in her five years, he was the one who looked most sure of himself in a Law Library. But for all that, nothing else helped satisfy her curiosity. Anyway, it was now 8:35 so tonight he didn’t have very long to rummage around in their collections and he’d be in plain sight the whole time:

  ‘There we are Mr Kelly. This pass is good for one week only and we close at 10pm sharp. You mentioned our Public Law Collections. If you’re coming back tomorrow then tonight you can mark your pages with torn paper slips and leave everything in a pile in the glass room at the back there. The room is locked overnight, but your borrowings will be available to you again in the morning at 8am. The records of Glasgow City Council you asked about are all the way through at the back and are kept in boxes marked alphabetically by their City District. Where there’s been more than one issue, the issues are listed by date of sending. If you need any help understanding the records, then provided you sign the Library Waiver we can help you: but we don’t give legal advice, you understand.’

  Clipping on his pass, Mr Kelly smiled at the girl who’d drawn the short straw and was working until the library closed at 10:

  ‘I understand. Many thanks. I don’t think I’ll need any legal help. I just need to look at some records. But there’s just one thing. Do you keep English or Irish council records too?’

  The girl looked very surprised: ‘English? Oh no. We don’t even keep other Scottish records. We just have an agreement that Glasgow City Council will copy everything they issue to the public to us up here at Glasgow University. They used to send them, but now we have to go and collect them. You could say that we don’t keep anything but Glasgow City Council records. We just wouldn’t have the space. I know that Public Law is identical in all parts of the UK but for public issues of the Letters of Requisition of Heritable Property you mentioned, you’d have to ask each individual Council and that would be a mammoth …’

  Raising his hand and broadening his smile, Mr Kelly stopped her with a knowing look in his eyes: ‘I see. Of course. It was a long shot. Thanks for your help. Right through at the back you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir. All the way to the back wall.’

  As he turned to walk away he hesitated, then turned back, raised his hand to his chin and asked confidently: ‘How up-to-date are your records?’ That question gave the girl cause to congratulate herself. He was a professional: for sure.

  Proudly she replied: ‘Oh there was a big issue just two days ago, so we sent the van this morning. At the moment we are fully up-to-date, you can be sure.’

  His knowing nod as he slipped one hand into his pocket and walked straight past some post-grad girls who were eyeing him up, confirmed the librarian’s suspicions beyond doubt that this wasn’t a man using a university Law Library for the first time. But for the life of her, she just couldn’t recall anyone of any rank in the Scottish Legal Establishment by the name of Patrick Seamus Kelly.

  Slinging his jacket over the back of a chair, the would-be Mr Kelly wasted no time in drawing his finger along the manila boxes past Anniesland, Auchenshuggle, Baillieston, Balornock, Barlanark, Barmulloch, Barrachnie, Barrowfield, Blackhill, Blairdardie, Blochairn, Botany, Braidfauld, Bridgeton, Broomhill, Budhill and was expecting Calton to be next; but instead the boxes ran straight on to Camlachie and Cardonald. Checking for a mis-placing, he darted his eyes along the line but to no avail. Beginning to suspect that he’d been played and that someone was watching his every move, Mr Kelly felt very foolish indeed. Without turning round, he sensed a tiny tinge of nausea rising from his stomach. His face was beginning to flush when he heard a voice he recognised behind him:

  ‘I mentioned that the van went out this morning. Sorry. This was waiting below the desk to be filed. These aren’t really a priority. The students never use them. It was just when you mentioned this Collection that I thought I should file this tonight.’

  Swallowing hard, Mr Kelly saw the honesty shine in her eyes. The girl was holding a box titled ‘Calton’ and she’d already begun to shove the boxes on either side of its space to make her Collection presentable once more:

  ‘Sorry about that. I don’t know if you’ll need that one but I didn’t want to leave it under the desk for Miss Armitage to see in the morning. She’s quite the erm … Well, let’s just say she’s quite strict. Sorry to take up your time. I’ll leave you to get on.’

  Waiting until the girl was well out of the way, Mr Kelly took down the newly filed box and opened it on the desk in front of him. A tribute to some Glasgow City Council filing clerk was the way the contents had been carefully arranged. On top was a letter stamped across the text in red ink which read ‘Requisition of Your House’. Immediately under that, was a ‘Resolution of Council’ which had been duly stamped and dated only a week before. Next came a plan of the whole city with
a demarcation line which had been drawn around the Calton with a broad red ink marker. The area inside the boundary was crossed with red lines. Under the plan was an old City Ordinance showing a list of legal titles which had been passed down from the old Burghers of Glasgow. These were mostly about mineral rights to coal buried half a mile under the foundations of the city’s tenement buildings. Then there were the Links in Title down from the original acquisition of the land, through the 1930s 40s 50s and 1960s to the City of Glasgow Corporation and lastly to the latest legal persona ‘The City of Glasgow Council’.

  Leaning back and looking in to the box, Mr Kelly thought the whole contents had one thing in common: they were all local government statutes required by some very old laws and all as dry as dust. Looking for anything recent and in someone’s handwriting, Mr Kelly nimbly leafed through the pile hoping to find Memoranda between Members of Council, their arguments and eventual Resolutions put before committees. A report from the Department of the City Civil Engineer would’ve been useful. Anything at all to help him understand how this process had got started, how long it had been going on and who were the driving forces behind it.

  But the more he looked, the more he was disappointed. True, there were some papers which mentioned committees sitting and what action, if any, would follow their meetings. There were also plenty of notes taken by clerks: but these all seemed to be ex post facto. What Mr Kelly was looking for was the name of the person who, in a formal meeting of the Planning, Finance or Development committee, had first moved this idea to demolish the Calton and why. But after reaching the bottom of the box only one conclusion could be drawn: the cupboard was bare.

  ~~~o~~~

  Chapter 7

  As the train pulled out of the long tunnel and slowed into the bright light of day, the regular commuters closed their books, finished their coffees and made sure they took their raincoats from the rack above. In only a few seconds, they had emptied on to the platform while the impatient staff prepared the train for immediate return to Glasgow. Right at the front of the train, as he passed the only First Class carriage, the platform supervisor was about to turn and wave his flag when he caught sight of something none of them relished seeing. Sometimes they got them. It was inevitable when carrying over two hundred passengers backwards and forwards twelve times a day that sometimes people just died while sitting there. But this time his rap on the window was enough to bring the man round from what looked like a trance.

  Leaving his thoughts of playing in those old streets, bounding up the stone tenement stairs to that tiny flat and hungrily shovelling down his mother’s huge dinners all in a trail behind him, the big strong man in a nice dark blue suit, polished shoes and open-neck white shirt pushed his ticket into the machine and eyed the sign saying:

  ‘Exit : Royal Mile : St Giles Cathedral : Parliament House’

  With a nod of thanks to the servitor, he pushed on the double doors leading to the Box Corridor and the Crossroads Clock. It felt weird that he was here with no case to answer, no lawyers’ bills for years and no-one he knew on trial. Indeed, he wasn’t even sure where he was going; but the man at the door said he should look on something called the Day Roll. That should help.

  In the East corridor, running his finger down a list, he quickly found what he needed. The Commercial Court, No2.

  He’d never seen a court with glass doors before but they were a great help. On the bench sat a woman so tiny she could barely see over the papers in front of her. Her legal wig was tilted to one side and seemed to slide on her head as she moved. Facing her and therefore with his back to the man outside, even in legal wig and ankle length gown, the Advocate was instantly recognisable. He’d found what he came for without going in.

  Sitting on a polished wooden bench seat outside, with no book, no newspaper or other distraction, the time seemed to pass very slowly. A few Advocates came and went, checking the progress of the ongoing case. One asked if he was lost and pointed out the sign saying ‘Witnesses’ some ten metres away. But apart from that brief interlude, the man was lost in memories so clear, it was as though he’d actually returned to those streets, those stairs, those dinners and those friends.

  Being so deep in thought, he didn’t hear the swish of the glass door opening but snapped back when he heard his blood brother exclaim in more than a little surprise:

  ‘Jesus Christ! What are you doing here?’

  Rising to his feet, he offered no handshake. No warm greeting of any kind. Big Joe Mularkey just looked into the face of Mr Brogan McLane QC and barked in a loud gruff voice without a care as to who might hear him:

  ‘Well you weren’t coming to us, so I thought I’d come to you. Where the fuck have you been?’

  Getting out of their taxi, Big Joe looked up at the famous sign he’d only ever heard about but had never actually seen. The crossed spades of the Gravediggers Bar was over a mile from Edinburgh city centre but perfect for a lunchtime meeting when the idea is to make sure no-one from Parliament House is listening.

  No-one turned a head as the two Glasgow men walked in. Their well-practiced push on the door. Their slow deliberate scan of the clientele as they entered. Their confident reach into pockets for cash and the casual way they ordered large whiskies and steak pies before taking a booth right in the corner behind a stout old partition. All of these things showed the locals that these men were well practised at being in such places. In many respects, Big Joe Mularkey thought the Gravediggers Bar was the Edinburgh version of the Calton Bar.

  Once seated, it was Big Joe who broke the ice: ‘So?’

  Letting out a huge sigh and touching the base of his glass to that of his blood brother, McLane shook his head: ‘I know. Believe me man, I know only too well.’

  ‘That’s no’ quite the answer I was hoping for. D’ye know what Ah mean?’

  Downing more than half of his whisky, McLane nodded acknowledgement of his guilty absence:

  ‘Look. It’s just that … Well, it’s more that … Oh dear God. I really don’t know what it is. I was on my way … honestly. Straight from the airport, after my London case. But I kind of … changed my mind. I think it’s just that every time there’s trouble in the Calton, everybody just shrugs it off and says ‘Don’t worry. Brogan will fix it.’ Well, this time I’m not so sure I can fix it. In fact, I’m not very sure that anyone can ‘fix’ this. This is the city. It’s politics, government … All stuff that’s well out of my field. Well at least, my normal field.’

  Big Joe Mularkey checked the regulars who were propping up the bar, made sure the guy who’d passed them on the way to the toilet had come back out and that the barman was busy pulling pints of his famous 80 Shilling Ale for half a dozen working men who’d just finished their shifts in the graveyard on the opposite side of the road:

  ‘Are you finished?’

  ‘Wha’do you mean? Aye … I mean, I don’t know. Joe, what do you want from me?’

  Big Joe stopped rolling his untouched whisky around in his glass and leaned forward:

  ‘Want? Oh, I don’t ‘want’ anything. I’m here with the demands of nearly a thousand families. People you grew up with, went to school with, girls you shagged round the backs of closes who now have husbands and families. And men you sung with every Saturday in Celtic Park. Do you remember the old Calton, Brogan? Or have we done something to offend you in some way?’

  Momentarily, McLane forgot he wasn’t in the Calton Bar and leaned so far back he hit his head on the partition. Blowing out all his breath, he raised his hand to his forehead:

  ‘Well that’s rich. You don’t live in it any longer either.’

  Big Joe bit his tongue and McLane put up his hands: ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Of course, I haven’t forgotten it. How could I? It’s on my mind, night and day. It’s not that I don’t want to help. It’s just that I can’t win every case. No lawyer can. You have to understand that demolition for re-development happens in every city in the country - and in other countries. It’s h
appened in Glasgow before - all over the place. There will have been UK Government Directives, Glasgow City Council meetings, votes taken in committees, financial plans drawn up and maybe even UK Government Assistance Allowances approved by the Treasury Department in London. It’s City Hall, Joe. And you can’t fight City Hall. Haven’t you ever heard that saying?’

  Seeing Big Joe’s eyes roll while he downed his whisky in one, McLane felt sorry he’d been so flippant and was about to apologise when Big Joe looked him in the eye:

  ‘Oh I’ve heard it all right. But what I’ve never heard of, is you waving the flag of surrender without even so much as a look at the evidence. That’s just not the Brogan McLane I …thought I …’

  Wagging his finger up to the ceiling, McLane got ahead of the argument:

  ‘Ah ha! But that’s not true. Just last night I went to Glasgow University Law Library and looked at the municipal materials behind this whole thing. Now I have to say, I’m no expert in local Council dealings. I’ve only ever sued local Councils in accident cases. As you know, my expertise is more in Treaties and Collectives. That’s more ‘country to country’. My point is, I looked and I found nothing incriminating. Anyway, it’s not as though they’re an invading foreign army. Glasgow City Council is offering financial compensation and re-settlement assistance to everybody who’s losing their flat. I think they’re doing everything the law requires of them, Joe. So I don’t think we’d get very far in a court case against them.’

  Big Joe slammed his glass into the table so hard that nearly every head turned. But his narrow eyed red face and brickhouse shoulders were the signs that this angry stranger should not be tackled:

  ‘Listen to you! Just listen! That’s the talk of someone who’s just given-in. No-one wants a relocation allowance for losing their flat. That’s the fucking point. They’ve paid rent, their parents paid rent, their grandparents paid rent. Generations have paid rent to Glasgow City Council and their predecessors for over a hundred years. They belong in the Calton and they want to stay in the Calton. Not leave it. Have you forgotten that? Well … Man oh Man. This has been an experience I never thought I’d have.’