cabin.
There was a cooking range with a vertical pipe set into one corner of the cabin and I decided that warming up was worth the tiny risk of someone seeing smoke from the stack in the dark. The bargee had left a pile of chopped wood in a wire basket next to the stove and it took me a couple of drawer-rifling minutes to find matches and paper. Once the fire was lit, I left the door of the range open and was amazed at how quickly it heated up the small cabin. Feeling the tiredness sweep over me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay awake for much longer; but I had things to do before I slept and before daylight; last traces to be wiped off.
I donned the waders that were hanging in a curtained closet and, fighting the sleep that welled up and tried to claim me, I took a grappling pole and climbed back out onto deck. Once I checked there was no one within hearing, I stabbed down repeatedly at the bottom of the rowboat moored at the barge’s side. I couldn’t risk anyone identifying it as the boat stolen from the Queen’s Dock, bringing the River Police to my barge door. It took longer and more effort than I could spare, but eventually the clinker splintered and I unhooked the tether as the rowboat began to fill with oily water. I helped it to the bottom by leaning hard on the grappling pole.
Back in the cabin, I filled a kettle with water and let it boil. I stripped out of the greatcoat and prison outfit before filling a basin with hot water and rinsing my face and body as much as I could. Dumping the filthy water in the sink, I refilled the basin with more clean, warm water and, gently peeling off the soiled and shredded silk socks, I carefully washed my feet, the darkening water blooming black-red with blood and dirt. I let my feet soak until the water began to cool, relieved when they started to hurt.
I would get my stuff from the hold and clean up properly later. But now I would sleep. I crawled into the cabin’s bed space, pulled the blankets over me, and fell asleep. Instantly, deeply.
I slept most of the next day, but woke with a start every time I heard footsteps on the quay close to the barge.
I had let the fire die, not wanting to risk making smoke in daylight despite the fact that no one would notice it, far less think it unusual; but I had it in my head that I should make the barge look as unoccupied as possible. The wood panelling, and the fact that I hadn’t once opened the door, seemed to keep captive in the cabin the heat I had built with the stove. When I wasn’t asleep I sat on the edge of the bunk, naked except for my shorts, the scratchy blanket wrapped around my shoulders. My body ached and my feet now throbbed from the abuse they had suffered the night before but at least I was warm and, for the first time since I’d been arrested, I felt reasonably safe. For now, at least. And as the day passed, and I became accustomed to the comings and goings around the barge, my paranoia eased a little.
To get my stuff from the barge’s hold would mean going back out on deck and I decided it would be best to stay put until late afternoon, when it became dark again. While I waited, I scoured the cabin to see if I could find any morsel of food the bargee had maybe left behind, but there was none. All I could manage to find were the scrapings of a tea barrel with just enough leaves to brew up a tinful. But my self-imposed injunction against making smoke meant I wouldn’t be able to boil the kettle until after dark. I had water to quench my thirst, but I was ravenously hungry.
About three times during the afternoon I heard voices and footsteps directly beside the boat, causing me to tense, then relax as they faded into the distance.
Then came the fourth set of footsteps. The ones that didn’t fade.
I heard them approach. Heavy, deliberate. When they reached the boat, they stopped. I went to the side of the cabin that flanked the quay and stood on the low bunk-type couch so that I could peer through the narrow ribbon of window that ran along the wall, just below ceiling height. From this vantage point, I could just about see the top of the quayside and no more. Whoever it was who had stopped and was standing there, surveying the boat or considering their next move, I couldn’t see them. From the footsteps, I was pretty sure there was only one of them; maybe a single beat policeman checking the moorings. The worst it could be, I reckoned, was a routine and random check. If the police had known for sure I was here there would be more of them and, in any case, I couldn’t see any way they would have found me here so fast.
I listened intently, holding my breath: for a moment there was nothing, then I heard the footsteps again; but this time not on the stone quay. The cabin resonated as my visitor made his way along the side of the barge. Then I saw him: just a flash of trouser cuffs and shoes as he passed the window. Not a uniform, not work boots. A suit and Oxfords.
I dropped down into the cabin and looked around for something to use as a weapon. Grabbing the range poker, I got as far to the side of the door as the cramped cabin would allow and gripped the poker tight, ready to bring it down on the first head that appeared.
I desperately tried to think the situation through. I was in enough trouble as it was without coshing a copper, whether he was in plainclothes or not. The City of Glasgow’s constabulary took a dim view of such assaults on one of their number and were wont to demonstrate their disappointment physically. But I couldn’t let them take me back in now; I remained the only one who could come up with the evidence to prove my innocence.
But if I misjudged the blow and killed a copper…
I tensed as I heard the cabin door slide open, raising the poker in a double grip above my head, and the cabin filled with light before whoever was on deck blocked it with his frame as he came down the steps.
I readied to swing.
‘Mr Lennox?’ asked a baritone voice so deep it resonated through the cabin’s wood panelling, and probably down into the Clyde water the boat sat in. I imagined a whale somewhere in the mid-Atlantic pausing in its tracks to consider replying.
‘Twinkletoes?’
McBride lurched into the cabin, head bowed, massive shoulders hunched and probably doubling the barge’s displacement. His arms were full with a couple of large brown paper bags and when he turned to see me, he looked up disapprovingly at the raised poker.
‘Sorry about that, Twinkle,’ I said, lowering the poker. ‘I didn’t know it was you. Could you shut the hatch?’
Before he went up and drew the cabin door closed, he set the two large brown paper bags on the cabin table.
‘I brung you some comm-est-ables,’ he explained when he came back, nodding to the grocery bags.
I dived into the bags. Tea, a bottle of chicory coffee, powdered milk, bacon, bread, sausages, eggs, three packets of cigarettes, matches and even a half-bottle of Scotch. In the other bag, a safety razor, brush, shaving soap, a comb and some pomade sat on top of a folded jacket, trousers and shirt. There was even a smaller bag inside with bandages, antiseptic cream, sticking plasters, a brand new toothbrush and a tin of tooth powder.
‘I heard you was app-re-hended by the police, but managed to scarper.’
‘Is it in the papers already?’
‘Naw…’ He frowned, obviously wondering if he was being too sweeping with his answer, given that the only papers he read were the News of the World and the Beano. ‘Naw… you know how word gets around.’
I did.
‘I remembered that you said we was the only people to know about this boat. How I wasnae to tell nobody. So I reckoned you was likely to head straight here, so I thought I’d come to help.’
‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. But how did you know what to bring with you?’ I said, holding up his improvised first aid kit.
‘The clothes and that? Well, you know, I have been in the same pree-dick-ament, in the past like. I remembered the kind of things you need.’
‘I see. All I can say is thanks, Twinkle… you’ve restored my faith in people.’
‘You’ve always been decent to me, Mr L. Not like Mr Sneddon always making jokes about me being stupid. Snide remarks, nasty like, about me being not all there. And some of them I didn’t understand. And he didn’t app- ree-ciate my effort to improve my mind and my voh-cabbie-larry, so he didn’t. You’ve been very considerate with giving me work an’ that.’
I smiled. In a way, Twinkletoes McBride was a child, viewing the world with childish simplicity. A six-foot-six, twenty-stone, occasionally psychopathic child, admittedly, but still a child.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘And let me tell you, you’ve more than paid me back for anything I’ve done for you. I don’t know what I’d have done without your help. You’re a good man.’
McBride shook his massive head dolefully. ‘No, I’m not, Mr Lennox. I’ve done some really bad things. I’ve hurt
