‘It’s what worries me most. Look, I phoned the police. From a call box. Didn’t leave my name. I gave them her name, her last address and her address on Arran. I said there were four kids.’
She nodded and sat down. She rubbed her face with both hands. Her eyes were dark-ringed.
‘How did the appeal go?’
‘Oh, they were very indulgent. “What an interesting line of attack, Miss Campbell. We compliment you on your impassioned argument . ”’
‘But?’
‘“But where’s the proof, Miss Campbell? Where’s the proof?” Patronising old buffoons.’
‘How long can you keep this up? I mean is there a deadline for putting your case?’
‘This Friday, the nineteenth. Then next week they sit by themselves and mull. Probably over a good Amontillado. They have to come to judgement by the twenty-sixth if they intend to carry out the sentence by month’s end. Unless I can get a stay that allows us to gather more evidence.’
‘Chances?’
‘Between nil and zero.’
The next day Sam went off to battle against the old buffoons and I did something similar.
‘Morning, Brodie,’ said Sergeant Jamieson. ‘They’re expecting you. This way.’ He held up the desk flap and I walked through and into the back offices of Tobago Street nick.
‘Why are they expecting me, Alec?’
‘About that woman. Yesterday. In the library. It was the one you were telling them about. The woman on Arran, wasn’t it?’
‘Could be, Alec. Could be.’
‘Wait a bit, Brodie. I’ll just go in and tell them you’re here.’ He knocked, went into the smoke-wreathed room, and was out in a second. He held the door open.
‘Come in, Brodie,’ said Silver from behind his desk. His book-ends – Kerr and White – stood either side of him, but the air of arrogance and surliness had gone. These men were worried. I sat down without an invite and took out a cigarette to add to the communal pall.
‘Is it Mrs Reid?’
Silver nodded.
‘How?’
‘We think she was taken in – alive, so far as we know – to the toilets by at least one person. There’s a back way in, so nobody saw anything at the front desk. The forensic boys say there was a strong smell of chloroform on her. So it suggests she was drugged to make her pliant. She was pushed into a cubicle and then stabbed to death. They got her drugged enough for her not to mind what they did to her. There’s also the possibility of drugs. We’re waiting for the full autopsy. Seven knife wounds on her body. One through the heart.’
‘Seven! So, boys, do you suspect foul play?’
‘It’s hardly funny, Brodie!’
The rage tore at my throat. ‘No, it bloody isn’t! I warned you that this woman was in danger! That she and her kids had been abducted! I told you she had specific knowledge about what went on in Hugh Donovan’s room the night before you arrested him. What did you do about it? Bugger all!’ I was half out of my seat, leaning over the desk at him, and as close to punching him as I’d ever been.
Silver saw it in my face and pushed his chair back. The other pair took a step back to demonstrate their loyalty. Kerr was about to say something in their defence but Silver lifted his hand to still him. He sucked at his moustache.
‘Steady on, Brodie. There’s no proof of anything here.’
I gathered my wits and sat down. ‘Really? You say Mrs Reid had seven knife wounds. Sheer coincidence that Rory Hutchinson was stabbed seven times?’ I raised my eyebrows.
Silver tugged at his tie. Even they’d seen it. ‘OK, OK, I admit there may be a connection. But we can’t rule anything out. My main concern is the woman’s children. Do you have any ideas?’
I could see that asking my opinion was costing Silver blood, but this was no time to twist the knife. ‘I wish I did, Silver. All I can tell you is what I told you before. The house on Arran, the kids supposedly out playing, the local priest. And Mrs Reid telling me about the late-night visitor that turned out to be the now murdered Father Patrick Cassidy.’
Kerr couldn’t help himself. ‘It was suicide!’
‘Don’t be so bloody infantile!’ I shot back.
Kerr reddened. Silver again raised his hand for silence behind him.
‘There’s one other thing, Silver. I know who did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Killed Mrs Reid.’
‘Oh aye, Dick Tracy. And who would that be?’ Silver’s nose was heating up.
I told them of Sam’s and my trip back to the island and the neighbour’s description of the car. I told them I’d traced the number plate.
‘Who, Brodie. Just tell us who.’
‘The Slatterys.’
They looked at each other as though I’d just stubbed my fag out on Silver’s pristine desk.
I pressed on. ‘If you want to see those weans alive, I suggest you get the squad cars out and hit every hidey hole you know for Dermot and Gerrit Slattery. Of course you won’t find anything. They’ll be expecting me to give you this lead.’
Silver was red in the face now and his nose close to exploding. ‘So what’s the bloody point then? Of telling us all this… this… story.’
‘You can put pressure on them. Force them to make a mistake. Drive them out of cover. Hell, I don’t have to tell you how to lean on gangsters, do I, Chief Inspector? You worked for Sillitoe before the war.’
I couldn’t help the mocking tone in my mouth, or my bitterness and frustration with their slow-wittedness. By their looks and flushed faces I was making my sarcasm felt.
I eventually left them to it, still squabbling over what to do next, but slowly edging towards a courtesy call on the brothers Slattery. I had nothing else to do except head back to Sam’s and wait for her return. It was her second day for making her case to the Appeals Panel judges. Then it would the Procurator Fiscal’s turn to demolish her arguments. The judges would then retire to consider their verdict. I didn’t think it would take them long.
THIRTY-ONE
For me, the rest of that week and the next drifted by in a limbo of reading and walking through Kelvingrove Park and round to the Botanical Gardens. I would sit for an hour in the hothouse in silent communion with the greenery around me, drinking in the scents, letting the humidity soak into my pores. Everywhere I went I kept a lookout for men with razors. Slattery had made it plain he wasn’t going to take his humiliation lightly and was unlikely to stop at one killing. But having silenced my only witness, maybe he could afford to bide his time. I felt his hard mocking eyes on me wherever I went. I even wondered about heading back to Arran to see what I could see, talk to the priest again. But the island was probably hoaching with armed policemen. I didn’t want to get in their way. Unless their marksmanship had been honed during the war, it was best to keep clear.
Instead I took the train down to Kilmarnock and visited my mother. I walked my boyhood routes round the parks and through the rough of the municipal golf courses. And all the time I racked my brains to see if there was something I’d missed, something I hadn’t done. I felt useless and ineffectual. Apart from listening to Sam’s courtroom battles each night and keeping her fortified with fags and fish suppers, I couldn’t help. She was still off the Scotch to make sure she applied every particle of her being to the appeal. And I went on the wagon to support her.
Even in the second week when the judges were considering the appeal and we were left in limbo, we forsook the booze. Perhaps it was in respect for a man’s life being at stake. We visited Hugh a couple of times but we had nothing much to say to each other. Hugh seemed in better heart than we were. Maybe his doctor could prescribe us
