Kidston Street which ran at 90 degrees to his own Florence Street. He watched her vanish inside and wondered what her husband was like. He wondered if I had kept in touch.

He took to hovering between Cumberland Street and Kidston Street. Over the coming weeks he must have seen her four or five times, usually with the boy, never with a man. Once he followed them to the benches under the trees in Hutcheson Square. He sat on the other side and pretended to read a newspaper. But his talent as a scout was soon laid bare. He’d waited till she walked round a corner before crossing over and peeking round it. She was waiting for him, two yards away.

‘Mister, Ah don’t know who you are but if you don’t stop following me ah’m getting the polis.’

Hugh slumped against the wall. ‘Sorry, missus. Sorry. I thought you were someone I knew.’

‘Oh aye, and who would that be?’ She folded her arms.

Hugh turned and made to walk away. But she took two steps and grabbed his arm. He turned and faced her and said, ‘Fiona MacAuslan.’

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘That was my maiden name. How did you ken? Who are you, mister?’ He lifted his head a little. She could see his eyes under the hat. ‘Oh dear God, is that you, Hugh Donovan? Is that you?’

‘Aye, Fiona. Sorry to have frightened you. Ah’ll no bother you again. Sorry.’

‘You’ll do nae such thing, Hugh Donovan.’ She reached out and held his elbow again, stopped his retreat. Tears were already running down her face. ‘You’ll take some tea.’

They met once or twice a week after that. Fiona’s husband had died in the push through the Ardennes. She got a small war widow’s pension. She lived near her mother and had a parttime job at Miss Cranston’s tearoom in Buchanan Street. Her mother picked up the boy, Rory, after school. At first Hugh’s face made the boy hide behind his mother’s skirts, but soon, with the capacity all children have for absorbing change, Rory accepted him and ignored his blistered skin. Hugh taught the boy card games and made him giggle. Hugh clung to these moments like a rope in a gale. It helped him reduce the intake of heroin, even lessened the amount he would push. Until the world crashed around him.

She was in the street calling Rory’s name when he turned the corner. She was wild with fear, storming this way and that. There was already talk of this being the third or fourth child that had gone missing. The neighbours were out and soon there were little groups of women combing the closes and the washing-filled greens round the back. Rory had been out playing. His pals said a man with a hat and a coat had called him over. Rory had taken his hand and walked off. They hadn’t seen his face. Could have been anyone. Could have been him, they said, pointing at Hugh in his buttoned-up coat and hat. Fiona looked at him in a funny way for a second and then went back to her raging worry.

The police came and took notes and tried to calm the now hysterical Fiona. Her panic was infecting the whole neighbourhood. The press was ramping it up too. Headlines about the ‘Gorbals Ghoul’ were selling newspapers like the announcement of D-Day. A day passed, then another, then nearly a week had gone by and there was no sign of the boy or of the two others. The police interviewed everyone, including Hugh, in the first couple of days. They spent longer with him than anyone. He didn’t have much of an alibi for his time. How could he? They searched his room; it didn’t take them long. They found nothing.

Until the morning they burst down his door and found Hugh Donovan unconscious from a drug overdose. He was still dressed but his clothes were caked with coal dust. Under the sink was a bucket full of evidence. They dragged him from his bed and gave him a good kicking to wake him up. They called him an animal, a child molester, a murdering bastard who would rot in hell. They handcuffed him and dragged him out of the flat on to the landing. As an afterthought they read him his rights and arrested him for the kidnap and murder of Rory Hutchinson, and the kidnap and disappearance of four other missing boys.

SIX

I looked at Hugh with a mix of despair and disgust. I couldn’t comment on the four missing boys. But all the evidence in the world pointed to him having abused and killed Rory in a drug frenzy. What other conclusion could a jury come to?

The rational part of me wanted to ask where had he kept the lad while the coppers were searching his tiny room the first time? Didn’t the neighbours hear something? But surely to God Hugh had never been a homo? Far less fancied wee boys? Was it some stupid revenge on Fiona for having married someone else and had a child by him? But rationality was crowded from my mind with the image of that poor raped child. He must have read my face.

‘I never touched him, Dougie. On Fiona’s life. I’m no’ that kind of a guy. You ken me.’

I nodded. I thought I had known him. Like a brother. Then he stole my girl and smashed the trust. If he was capable of that, he was capable of becoming a drug addict, pusher and murderer, in my admittedly prejudiced book of crimes against Douglas Brodie.

‘What do you remember? Of the day before? Up to the time you were picked up.’

‘Nothing much. I did my usual. I needed a fix and went to one of the pubs I use. It was the Mally Arms near Gorbals Cross. I got enough for me and a bit to sell later, maybe six hits in all.’ He could see what I was thinking. ‘But, Dougie, I wouldnae take the lot at once. I never do. Just enough to keep me going. Enough to keep me sane.’ His poor face was twisted now with the pains racking him. It would be part burning nerves and part withdrawal pains. I stood up. He needed help.

‘You need a doctor.’

‘No! They’ll just knock me oot! That’s what they do. He gi’es me too much. To stop me screaming. To stop me upsetting the screws. For the last couple of days, waiting for you, I’ve refused to take their jab. So I could talk. Explain to you. Bastard said: Good, I should suffer in hell for what I did. But I never touched him, Dougie!’ His face ran with tears.

I studied his poor hands for a while. I didn’t get it.

‘So why are you telling me this, Hugh? What’s the point?’

‘I wanted someone to believe. Someone to know I didnae do it. Just someone. After I’m dead. Ma life’s shite, Dougie. But I don’t want everyone to think this.’

The silence hung between us at the thought of what was to happen a month from now.

‘But me?’ I asked. ‘We were hardly best pals, at the end there.’

‘I know. And that’s the other thing. We used to be the best. I was a stupid prick, Dougie. I couldnae help myself over Fiona, that’s the truth. But I should have. She was yours.’

I’d waited a long time to hear his apology, but it hardly registered now. He had nothing I wanted, nothing I could envy.

‘That’s by with,’ I said, waving my hand – and almost believing it.

‘You’re the only pal that mattered, Dougie. An’ I fucked it up. I didnae want you to hear about me and just write me off. I wanted you to know. To believe.’

‘I’m not into belief any more, Hugh. I’ve given up all that stuff.’

For a moment there was something of the old Hugh flitting across his eyes and mouth. ‘Ya Proddy sod! I always said it wasnae a real religion.’

I smiled and shrugged. ‘I gave him enough chances to prove himself. But there’s just too much… too much shit, Hugh.’

‘You should have been brought up a good Catholic. You don’t get a choice about believing.’

‘Even now?’

‘Even now. There’s a priest that comes by. From my chapel. Actually it’s a help.’

‘Maybe I was with the polis too long. No belief without proof.’

‘OK wi’ me, old pal. Besides…’

‘What?’

‘You wi’ your fancy university education and being a big man in the polis. I need a Sherlock on the case. I thought maybe you’d have some ideas.’

I shook my head. ‘We don’t have much time.’

‘ We? I sure don’t.’

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