The Hanging Shed

by Gordon, Ferris,

  ‘So he can confess his sins?’

  ‘Better to go with a clear conscience, surely?’

  ‘Well, he’s not dead yet.’ I slurped my tea.

  ‘You’ve found something?’ asked Sam.

  I glanced at the priest. She saw my question. ‘It’s all right. You can talk freely in front of the father, Brodie. He’s on our side.’

  I told them about my day. Sam confirmed my perspective on the trial from my morning’s review of the newspapers.

  ‘One thing that leaped out’, I said, ‘was that Rory wasn’t the first child to go missing. Four others had vanished before him. Never found?’ I asked.

  Cassidy looked pained. ‘Nothing to this day. I know one of the other families. I’m not sure which is worse: to have to bury your child or never to know…’

  ‘Do you think there’s a lead there?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I find it convenient that the fifth abduction resulted in a body being dumped where it could be found, and that Hugh Donovan’s house should be choc-a-block with evidence to hang him.’

  ‘Are you suggesting some sort of frame-up?’ asked Patrick.

  ‘Criminals tend to work a pattern. A thief tends to have a trademark style of operating. Same with a murderer. The way they kill, when they do it, who their victims are. If Hugh was the abductor and murderer of all five children, why would he change his pattern with the last? Careless? Stupid? Drugs… maybe. But it doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘Did you get anything from the police?’ asked Sam.

  I shook my head. ‘They were never going to turn round and say: “By God, Brodie you’re on to something. Why didn’t we think of that?” But you obviously rattled them in court, Sam. They were still moaning about how this clever lassie had got them all confused and made them look stupid. But they’ve had time to work on their story so that it all adds up.’

  ‘So, nothing?’ asked Patrick.

  ‘There’s a couple of angles. I asked to see their notebooks. And to interview the constable that did the first search on Hugh’s flat. They just laughed. Can you get them hauled in front of the Appeals Court and force them to hand over the notebooks?’

  ‘We can try.’ She jotted a couple of notes down on her pad.

  ‘What are you looking for, Brodie?’ asked the priest.

  ‘Differences. In their stories,’ said Sam. ‘Muncie claimed in court that the constable on the first search was blind or stupid. If he wasn’t, and there was no sign of the boy a week before they found his body, then where was he kept? And as for the other pair, I’m betting their notebooks conflict with each other over when Hugh Donovan provided intimate details of the crime scene.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m being naive. Won’t they just conveniently lose the notebooks? If they haven’t already burned them?’ Patrick Cassidy was leaning across to me, his face creased with scepticism.

  I raised my palm to him. ‘Losing your notebook was a hanging offence in my day. And it would look awfully convenient to lose two. Samantha here would have an open goal in court. But you’re right, Patrick. There’s a lot of “ifs” about. And we’re stuck if we can’t prove any of this. The police can be remarkably uncooperative when they put their mind to it.

  They both sat back letting the gloom descend again.

  ‘There might be something else though…’ I began. I described my visit to Hugh’s house and my meeting with the neighbour and her smart kid.

  Sam was the first to speak. ‘You must go, Brodie. You have to go to Arran and find them!’ Her face was as animated as I’d seen it. Colour suffused her pale cheeks and her eyes shone behind her specs.

  ‘It’s a big island.’

  ‘I think I can help,’ said the priest, who seemed freshly animated. ‘I know the priest in Lamlash. Let me make a phone call.’ He was digging into the mysterious folds of his cassock as he spoke. He retrieved a small diary and flicked through the pages. ‘May I use your phone?’

  Sam and I looked at each other as he dialled and got put through to his clerical pal on Arran.

  ‘Now that’s what I call divine intervention,’ I said sotto voce and got an admonishing look over her glasses.

  The Arran priest was to call us back in the morning with news. Sam and I wandered back to her house, and en route I prevailed on her to let me buy supper, no expense spared. We picked up speed on the last leg of our journey so that our newspaper-wrapped feast was still warm.

  In the posh dining room of her parents’ home, on the massive oak table, beneath paintings of rampant stags and highland skies, we made two paper pokes and divvied up the fish and chips. The irresistible stink of salt and vinegar perfumed the air and we licked our stained fingers like naughty kids. I don’t know if it was the carefree attack on the fish suppers or the glimmer of hope I’d brought, but Samantha Campbell cast off her glum schoolmarm air and looked positively girlish.

  ‘It must have felt strange going back to your old police station.’

  ‘Like using H. G. Wells’s time machine. Same faces, same low morals. It even smelt the same!’

  Sam suddenly went quiet. ‘But that’s what we’re up against. Same dour policemen who’d rather see an innocent man hang than admit they’re wrong.’

  ‘So you really believe he’s innocent?’

  ‘Yes. And you sound as though you’re coming round?’

  I sighed. ‘I was just checking that you did. That it wasn’t just lawyer’s platitudes.’

  ‘I didn’t know you then. And I’m not sure I do now. Well? Do you think Hugh did it?’

  ‘Nothing about the crime scene adds up. And where’s the motive? Saying that, I believe anyone is capable of anything.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  I sure as hell did but I didn’t want to explain. Didn’t want to drag the whole aching mess out on the table. My post-War special duties. Visiting the newly liberated camps. Using my language training to interrogate SS officers and camp commandants. Getting witness statements from some of the wretches who survived. Adding to my already swollen pack of nightmares. I slammed the barriers down and turned the question back on her.

  ‘I’m just amazed that in your line of work you haven’t become as jaundiced as an ex copper like me. How do you manage it?’

  She thought for a bit, and daintily sucked the last traces of salt from her fingers. ‘My parents. They were always optimistic about folk. Always ready to see the good side. Even my father.’

  ‘Even?’

  She looked embarrassed for a moment, then defiant. ‘He was Procurator Fiscal in Glasgow before the war.’

  I smiled. ‘So this is a family business.’

  ‘Sort of. I thought it was time the Campbells supported the other side for a change. Even things out a wee bit.’

  ‘Do you mind my asking what happened? I mean…’

  ‘How I became an orphan, Mr Brodie?’

  My big mouth. ‘Sorry, Sam. It’s none of my business. Forget it.’

  She got up and left the room. I heard a tap running. I wondered how much I’d offended her. Was she off to bed? She came back, drying her hands on a towel. She flung me a warm wet flannel and a hand towel. I cleaned myself up.

  She went over to the big sideboard and opened the front. She pulled out a bottle of Scotch and two cut-glass tumblers and placed them on the table. Then she went back and pulled out a drawer. She took out what looked like a family album and sat it on the table beside the whisky. She put her glasses on, opened the album towards the end and pushed it round so I could see it. There was a photo of a middle-aged couple smiling in front of a loch. They wore rough tweeds tucked into long socks, hiking boots and backpacks. The woman was simply an older version of Sam; fine white hair tied back, same intelligent eyes challenging the viewer. The man – her father, clearly – had bequeathed her his strong chin and mouth.

  ‘They were on a walking holiday by Loch Lomond. Dad’s favourite sort of holiday. Summer of thirty-five. I was minding the fort here. The day after this photo was t
aken they took a boat across to Inchmurrin Island and a squall got up. They were found two days later, along with the boat owner and his nine-year-old son. All drowned. You wouldn’t think you could drown in a pleasure boat on an inland loch, would you? Such a stupid waste. So stupid.’ She took off her specs and brushed her treacherous eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘Me too, Brodie. Me too. A bloody waste. And I’ve got all this.’ She waved her hand round the room. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Look, Sam, it’s my fault-’

  ‘Shut up, Brodie, and pour the Scotch. We’ve got work to do.’

  NINETEEN

  We managed to leave some whisky in the bottle, so morning wasn’t too spiked with remorse. I followed Sam into her office to wait for news from our clerical spy across the water. I made use of my time by checking through rail and steamship timetables. Just before noon Samantha came through looking flushed.

  ‘Looks like we’re on,’ she said. ‘Lamlash. A new family arrived there in January. Mother and four kids. They’re renting a place. The priest there will take you to them. He’s been told to say nothing to them before you arrive. He’s expecting you off the first ferry in the morning.’

  I took the slip. ‘Cassidy’s come up trumps. Let’s hope it’s the right family. And that they can be persuaded to talk. And, finally, that they have something to talk about.’

  ‘We’re desperate, Brodie. This has to be a lead.’

  I nodded, wishing I hadn’t forced the optimism to retreat from her eyes.

  ‘Look, we can speed things up a bit. I can just about catch the last ferry from Ardrossan. I’ll be in Brodick by seven o’clock. I’ll stay overnight and catch the bus round to Lamlash first thing. It’ll gain us half a day.’

  She was nodding, ‘Fine, just fine. Here’s some money for expenses.’ She handed me a big white fiver. ‘Go on. I can put it down as trial costs.’

  I took it from her reluctantly, but glad enough for the contribution to my dwindling cash supply. In preparation for the possible jaunt, I stuffed a spare pair of socks, pants and a clean collar into the pockets of my coat. My safety razor and a toothbrush were in my jacket pocket.

  I stepped out into a cloudy afternoon with a rain-tinged breeze blowing from the west. I thought I could smell the sea salt in the air but it was no doubt just smoke from the shipyards. The tram took me to Central Station and I caught the train to Ardrossan. The Glen Sannox was a turbine steamer, not a magical paddle steamer. But it reminded me of the Duchess of Argyll, that my dad took me on just after the Great War. The Sannox’s twin funnels and sleek prow made me every bit excited as the small boy of twenty five years ago. I half expected to hear my dad shout out to me to hang on to the railing as we eased our way out of the harbour and into the Firth of Clyde between the Ayrshire coast and the long hump of Arran island. This boat was quick too; its turbines sent the water racing away behind us in a long furrow. We were aiming straight across the firth at Brodick, bang in the middle of the east coast of the island.

  By now the rain was whipping steadily into our faces from out of the Atlantic and the waves were slapping grey and white along our bows. The boat began plunging into the swell and I decided a cup of tea and a fag was called for to steady the stomach. I sat looking out of the splashed windows. Before the war the Firth of Clyde was thick with steamers, cargo ships and the occasional liner. Schools of grey warships would ply these waters: new ones fresh out of the yards or older ones being patched up and sent back out again to face the wolf packs that infested the waters around our coast and all the way across to America. The ferries themselves were clad in heavy metal and given popguns to defend themselves and sent off to look for submarines. I shuddered to think of dying in the slate-cold sea. Was it worse to be on a surface ship with its bows staved in by a torpedo? Or in a submarine with depth charges booming in the deep and blowing in the plates that kept the sea out? Drowning was one thing, but being trapped inside a metal tomb as it slid to the bottom of the Atlantic, water gushing in through sprung rivets, was my idea of hell.

  Nowadays the Clyde is quieter. The ferries that survived their wartime duties – some had Dunkirk battle honours – renewed their daily service to the isles of Cumbrae, Bute and Arran. The wartime frenzy had stilled and it would take time for the world markets to recover and raise demand for peacetime ships again. With the amount of tonnage sunk during the war, the Clyde was expecting a boom period to follow.

  For a treat I had a scone and jam and a second cup of tea as I watched the island loom larger through the forward portholes. The boat wasn’t full by any means. Too early for summer trips and too late in the day for business. It suited me fine. I was glad of the brief respite and the chance to sift my thoughts. Once again I’d found an excuse for not visiting Fiona. Was this the same warrior leading his company into battle? Scared of an old flame? Probably.

  I touched the healing scab on my forehead from the knife attack. It made me wonder about the thugs who’d attacked me in the bogs at Doyle’s pub. What had they known? And why did they react the way they did? Was it an automatic response to any stranger wandering into their patch and asking tricky questions? A kind of ‘nice to make your acquaintance, stitch that, you bastard’? Maybe. Or were they on the lookout for just such a meddling stranger? I needed to meet their boss, Dermot Slattery, and find out what he knew. If I could find this Reid family and get them to help, I could be back in Glasgow by Saturday afternoon and putting out feelers for a rendezvous with this latter-day razor king tomorrow evening. Time was running out. It was already 5 April and we had to get the appeal in by the fifteenth, ten short days.

  We bumped against Brodick pier and I shuffled out with the rest of the handful of passengers on to the wet decking of the jetty. It had stopped raining. There was even a glimpse of late evening sun behind the clouds. A portent of hope? I began walking along the seawall towards the small town itself. In the far corner of the bay, veiled by drifting clouds, I could make out Brodick Castle. I recalled my father pointing it out to me on our one and only day trip here in my other life.

  I breathed deep and enjoyed the tang of seaweed and salt water in my nostrils. Maybe I should come back here in the summer, go for long walks by the sea and in the hills. The exercise would be good for my leg. And I’d get some colour in my London cheeks. See if Sam had inherited her dad’s love of hiking. Which was a funny unbidden thought. She was a prim lawyer mostly, but the fish-and-chip supper had shown another side. It would be a challenge to break through the ice more often.

  Today the town was quiet. Few of the bed and breakfasts had boards up, saving their energies for the chip-eating, icecream-sucking invasion at the Glasgow Fair. Arran got the classier holidaymakers, unless they were camping or caravanning of course. The neat Victorian houses and hotels that lined the seafront were magnets for the factory supervisors and the insurance company managers and their wives with hearts set on the next promotion and a three-bedroom semi in Helensburgh.

  One of the tall houses that looked out across the road to the sea and to the Ayrshire coast beyond had a Vacancy sign swinging nonchalantly in the wind. Take me or leave me, see if I care. I crossed over, went in and secured a bed for the night with sea views and a shared bathroom for the knock down out-of-season price of 5/6d. Though there was no one to share it with, as it turned out. I could have breakfast – limitless cups of tea, square slices of fried sausage and a real egg with as much toast as I could eat – for a further shilling. Perfect. I allayed the suspicion of the large-bosomed landlady at my travelling without a suitcase by patting my coat pockets and explaining I had a short meeting in Lamlash the next morning and then back to Glasgow.

  There was a cafe open in the town centre – such as it was: a souvenir shop, a newsagent, a butcher and a fishmonger, each with desolate counters. I thought of taking some Arran rock back to Sam but it looked like it was pre-war stock. For the second night runni
ng I had fish and chips, but the company was less distracting. I missed Samantha Campbell’s abrasive tongue and sharp brain, and the no-nonsense way she stuck her hair back behind her small ears. I turned in early, slept well and sought out the Lamlash bus with a stomach filled and warmed by fried sausage topped with buttered toast. The morning was warm and the steam rose from the damp roads as we chugged out of town and up the steep hill. We were heading due south now along the ragged coast to Lamlash.

  We ground our way up and over, and practically freewheeled down into the next bay. Through the dense trees that marshalled the road, I caught occasional glimpses of the crescent of Lamlash Bay and the village itself. Offshore was the big lump of rock that was Holy Island. It looked just the sort of out-of-the-way retreat to stymie prying policemen or desperate reporters.

  We trundled to a halt one stop away from the centre but near the Catholic church, according to the driver. Though Lamlash Bay had sheltered the northern fleet of the Royal Navy during the war it was smaller than Brodick and less well set up for the holiday trade. Much of the village comprised small fishermen’s houses arranged in a tidy row with trim gardens out front. The Protestant kirk dominated the far end of the town.

  I got out and walked along the front. I paused on a bench overlooking the sandy beach, took out a fag and watched the waves lap in. I hadn’t gazed mindlessly at the sea in years. I used to love walking along the dunes at Troon or running through the shallows in my bare feet. A rare calmness settled on me. It wasn’t just the nicotine. I hadn’t realised how weary I was. Weary of the war and its sour aftermath. Weary of London and the faceless anger of the ruined city, rationed in food and hope. I listened to the harsh gulls and wondered if I could find sanctuary here, maybe get a wee boat, catch fish, grow my own vegetables. Drop by the local pub most evenings to catch up on village gossip or attend the occasional ceilidh or darts competition.