She was about to shake her head, but then she said, ‘Just the once. A big fella. About your height, but heftier. I heard him mucking about with the key. I came out just as he opened the door. He said he was checking the place was all locked up and tidy for the factor.’
‘A big man, you say? Anything else about him?’
‘He had a ’tache, a wee ginger one. But I think it was to hide the lip. A hare lip, ye ken. It looked like he was grinnin’ a’ the time.’
I could have hugged her but she might have called the neighbours.
‘You’ve been a great help, missus. I really appreciate it. I think I’ll take a wee look inside now.’
‘How will you get in?’
‘Could I borrow a safety pin? And a kirby grip? And it would really help if you had a knitting needle or a crochet hook.’
Locks had been a fascination for me since my dad found me playing with some old padlocks he kept in his shed at the allotment. She gave me a look which wasn’t all admonishing and went inside. She came back with a selection of possible tools. I strode to the door of number 8. I felt Jim’s eyes on me, bulging with excitement at this cavalier approach to others’ property. There were two locks: a big padlock and a mortise. I chose the crochet hook and slid it into the big padlock. I soon felt it ease and open. I pulled back the hasp. I tried the kirbies then the knitting needle on the mortise and scrubbed at it till I felt the pins lock up in the mechanism. I turned the handle and pushed the door open.
It was dark and sour inside. Dust covered the bare wood floor and eddied up as I stepped in. I doubted the gas lights would work, so I stepped across to the window and drew back the torn curtain. Behind me the woman and boy stood looking in with fascination at the murderer’s den. Their looks soon turned to disappointment.
There wasn’t much to see in a room that was barely ten feet by twelve. There was a recessed bed with a curtain over it, a warped Formica table and one wooden chair, a sink and a tiny stove with two rings. There was no sign of who had lived here or what had happened. No splashes of gore. I don’t know what I was expecting.
I pulled back the curtain concealing the bed in the wall. There was no mattress or bedclothes, just the bare boards. I assumed everything had been carted off by the police for forensics. I gazed round the tiny room and thought about Hugh Donovan spending his last months here. Lonely, sometimes drugged to the eyeballs, and perhaps always wondering if he would have been better off going down in his plane after all. I used to envy Hugh’s life. There were eight of them: four boys, two girls and his parents all on top of each other in a big messy house in the next close. Quarrelling and laughing, fighting and loving, a real family. For an only child like me they made a strong case for a Catholic approach to contraception. When I called in to see if Hugh was coming out to play, I was simply swept up in the family currents; plied with jeelie pieces, regaled by some story about the neighbours, taking sides in an argument about football. I was an honorary Donovan. Apart from the hair of course; eight blue-black heads to one ruddy brown.
Hugh’s was a noisy carefree upbringing surrounded by love and attention. He was the youngest and – though I’d never have admitted it – the bonniest. The result was that he was both spoiled and ignored in equal measure. He was one of the few pals to keep in touch with me after they all went off to jobs or apprenticeships at fourteen. It made his betrayal all the harder. And, looking round this pitiful silent box, it made this passage of his life so much more wretched. I’m sure one of his brothers or sisters would have taken him in, in England or Canada where they’d gone to roost and establish their own families. But Hugh couldn’t face them, not looking like he did now. His final vanity. He’d walled himself up inside the shattered shell of himself, hanging on for his next fix, until he’d bumped into Fiona again. And Rory. There had been an upswing in Hugh’s life last year, making this hovel bearable, bringing hope. Only for the God he worshipped to dash it from his burnt lips; this isn’t for you Donovan. No wonder he didn’t much care if he lived or died.
I thought of Fiona living and breathing within five minutes of here. But I’d had enough stumbling down memory lane for one day. I caught the tram on Crown Street, changed at the big interchange at Gorbals Cross and crossed the river past Central Station and all the way north to Cowcaddens. From there it was one tram to Hillhead along the Great Western Road and to Samantha Campbell’s office.
I sat smoking on the top deck taking in the city. The red sandstone grandeur was tarnished from the noxious outpourings of the heavy industries. Glas gow: the green meadow. There were few enough green meadows left, but in their place was a sense of permanence and certainty. The city fathers back in the nine-teenth century had known where they were going and how to get there. The Second City of the Empire. The trouble was we no longer seemed to have much of an empire. There was even talk of handing over India. It seemed unthinkable. The pennies I just handed over to the conductor still said Ind Imp. And thousands of British lads had fought and died to fling the Japs out of South-East Asia. Queen Vickie would be rotating in her mausoleum. At least we still had our shipyards; the boom times would surely come again when we’d got over our Bavarian hangover. We had to replace all that tonnage sunk in the Atlantic and the Pacific, or lying at the bottom of the Barents Sea. According to my mother, the Ayrshire pits were working at full blast, and you only had to glance at the trailing clouds of steam from train stations I was passing to know we had the basics right. All we needed was some money to get things going again. That was the rub. We were as broke as tinkers.
EIGHTEEN
It was just after six when I walked into Samantha Campbell’s office. The reception area was empty. I called out and Sam answered.
‘Come on through, Brodie.’
I pushed open her door to find a cosy scene: Sam taking tea with Father Cassidy. They were even sharing a plate of digestives. For one daft moment I felt annoyed – no, jealous – at Patrick Cassidy’s intimacy with Samantha. Which was simply ridiculous. The man had stood by Hugh throughout this sorry tale. I resolved to like this man and not let my stupid prejudices about God-botherers blind me to his qualities. He’d been right about the pubs to look in to find Hugh’s drug dealers. In short, he was useful.
Sam nodded at the tea cosy. ‘There’s a spare cup and the pot’s still warm. I’ve nothing stronger,’ she added with a shade too much spice.
‘You have a low view of the drinking habits of newshounds, Miss Campbell. Tea is exactly what I need.’
‘You can get another chair from the outer office, or…’ She indicated one of the piles of papers.
I poured myself a cup and gingerly squatted on a shaky tower of files. ‘Well, isn’t this nice.’
‘Father Cassidy was visiting Hugh today. He came by to see how we were getting on.’
I nodded at him. ‘Good of you to see him, Patrick. How is he?’
The priest put his cup down on the edge of Sam’s desk. ‘They’ve put him back on his medication. He wasn’t really with us, I’m afraid. I asked the warder about it and he told me that Hugh had been in lot of pain. It was for his own good.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Just drifting away. A man should be compos mentis if his time is short.’
‘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.’
