Gallowglass (15 page)

THIRTY-ONE

I
n the morning we put in at the Erskine Ferry pier in a smooth exhibition of steering and furling of sails. I was finally getting the hang of the ropes and beginning to be a half-useful member of the crew. Anyone glancing at us would have seen two red-bearded old salts happily and easily working together. I went ashore and phoned Harry to tell him what I was up to. I was glad to find him at his desk on a Sunday. Showed commitment. Like me.

‘Higgins will play ball?’

‘Yes, but he had conditions.’ I explained what they were. Harry laughed but promised to see what he could do.

‘Any results on Roddie Adams and Frankie Elliot?’

‘Sam’s description of Adams bears out. Apparently a very dodgy lawyer in a very dodgy corner of the profession. As for Elliot, he runs a drinking club in Glasgow. On the face of it, all clean. But we’re pretty sure it’s a cover.’

‘Drugs, sex trade, laundering? The usual?’

‘The usual. Good luck, Brodie. And don’t forget, old chap…’ The apology was in the tone.

‘If I’m caught, I’m on my own. I know, Harry.’

‘Sorry and all that. And clock’s running, Brodie. We have nine days. The Chancellor is being pressed to make a statement about how sterling will hold up and whether we’ll get a big enough slice of the Marshall Plan cash.’

‘I’m sure I should be feeling the weight of history on my
shoulders, Harry, but just at the moment, I’m a wee bit more concerned about my own skin. If this all goes tits up, and I need to go on the run, can I count on HMG? Get me out of the country? Honorary Consul to Mongolia or the like?’

‘Depends if we’ve got any money left. We might afford
Outer
Mongolia, but if you had your choice?’

‘Anywhere that’s still pink on the map. Canada or New Zealand might work. They’re full of Scots running away from something. And that would be papers for two, Harry.’

We collected Sam further upriver at noon and whisked her off back down the Clyde. Once we were out in mid-river I emerged from the cabin to enjoy the air and her company. Eric waved from the helm. We were sailing on mizzen and jib; he didn’t need any help. And I didn’t need to show off my rope lore for Sam. For a while we sat side by side on cushions just forward of the main mast holding hands like a courting couple. The sun and warm breeze bathed our faces.

‘A Sunday jaunt to Arran?’ I asked.

She smiled ruefully. ‘No time, my dear. But when we get out of this…’

I didn’t say ‘if’ back to her. I got us on to business.

‘You saw Duncan?’

‘I met him this morning. He’s still in a bad way over you. Castigates himself for not coming to see you.’

‘He was ordered not to.’

‘He thinks he should have told Sangster where to get off.’

‘And lose his job? He’s got a wife to look after. I wish I wasn’t duping him like this. Will he help?’

‘Oh yes. In fact he’s already been doing some digging. He said it all reeks of the midden. Said he’s seen it before when the boys are up to something, trying to hide something. He said they go quiet and go around smirking.’

I nodded. ‘Like kids. Have you ever been with a gang of other school pals and suddenly they’re avoiding you? You
catch them huddled together, whispering and glancing your way?’

A look flashed across her face. ‘Once. I must have been about fifteen. I’d fallen out with my best friend at the time – Shona – God knows what about. But she sided with some others to get at me.’

‘Did they?’ I studied Sam. It had obviously rankled for – what? – twenty-three years.

‘One of them clyped to my form teacher that I’d been smoking.’

‘Had you?’

‘At a party. Everybody tried it, including the wee clype.’

‘What happened?’

A wicked smile thinned her lips. ‘I tearfully confessed and got off. The wee nyaff that told on me got four of the belt for being a tell-tale.’

I grinned. ‘Your personal motto, Sam:
Nemo me impune lacessit
.’

‘For me and mine. That includes you, my dear.’

‘Other than the feeling he’s being ganged up on, what’s Duncan found out?’

‘Two things. You won’t like the first at all.’

‘Try me.’

‘Seems that after you were pronounced dead, Sangster held a wee party in his office. They kept the door shut, but they polished off half a dozen bottles of Whyte & McKay.’

‘Poor choice. I deserved a good Glenlivet. A toast to my memory, I’m sure. Who was at this party?’

‘I’ve got the names. Here.’ Sam dug out a slip of paper with four names on it. I read them out.

‘Inspector Geddies, and Sergeants Hamilton, Caldwell and Gillespie. A fine bunch. They’ve been around a while.’

‘Did you work with them?’

‘No. But I knew of them. All I’d say is that like attracts like. Funny, I knew Sangster didn’t like me, that I’d made him look
even more stupid than usual. But I wouldn’t have bet on him dancing on my grave.’

‘I don’t think you realise how annoyingly talented you are, Douglas. For someone like Sangster, who’s smart enough to know it, but too thick to do anything about it, it must grate.’

‘To the point he’d be happy to see me swing? That seems a bit of an overreaction.’

‘Don’t underestimate the driving force of an inferiority complex.’

‘You believe that Alfred Adler stuff?’

She shrugged. ‘It fits. I think that was Shona’s problem.’

‘What was the other thing Duncan found out?’

‘That they’ve closed the Gibson case.’

‘What! How can they? Sangster knows two men abducted Gibson from his house. Unless that was completely made up? Sangster even claims that while they were handcuffing me, my fellow conspirators were vaulting the back wall. Even Sangster – if he really believed I was involved – should be out looking for at least two other kidnappers.’

‘Unless he got orders not to?’

‘From the top? You think my old pal the Chief Constable would take him off? After what I did for him?’

‘Malcolm McCulloch thought highly of you and what you did. Perhaps even to the point of saying stop, enough raking up dirt.’

‘To spare my good name? But?’

‘But he’s a politician as well as a cop. This case was dynamite. A senior member of the establishment, kidnapped and shot on his patch? Life becomes much quieter if there’s a dead scapegoat to hand.’

‘Hmmm. That sounds more likely than being concerned about my image after death. You don’t think there’s more to it than that? McCulloch is straight, isn’t he? He’s not in anyone’s pocket?’

Sam frowned. ‘I’ve never heard anything.’

We let that notion simmer.

‘Back to Duncan. What can he do?’

‘I told him I was determined to clear your name. I asked him to find out who warned Sangster about Marr Street. Who was the informer? And why Lady Gibson denies ever meeting you? I suggested he has a quiet word with Cammie the chauffeur and Janice the maid.’

‘Will he?’

‘He’s knows he’d be taking a big risk. He’s wound himself up to try. But he said the widow’s in mourning and has let it be known that she’s talking to no one. Everything’s being done through her lawyer.’

‘Not Adams, I hope!’

‘No. A big aggressive firm though. Armed with writs.’

‘I need to talk to Duncan. I’m going to have to face him. Soon.’

‘Let’s give it a day or two. See what he comes up with.’

We basked for a bit longer before she said, ‘Douglas, I can feel my nose burning and I didn’t bring my bonnet. Besides, I have to get back. I’m in court tomorrow. I need to prepare. And not show up with a peeling neb.’

I squeezed her hand. ‘I need to prepare too, Sam.’ But my appointment was with a bank.

THIRTY-TWO

I
was in much better shape for my second assault on Scottish Linen that night. I carried a range of makeshift tools in an old gas-mask case. If it had been just me, I’d be near to brimming with confidence, except for the small matter of making sense of the ledgers. It was eleven o’clock when I entered the graveyard on North Street. I peered around but couldn’t see Airchie. Then I caught a cigarette glow between the headstones. I found him sitting, head in hands on top of a flat stone. A small ghost taking the air.

‘You OK, Airchie?’

‘Ah suppose so. Huv ye had a word?’

‘About what?’

‘Aboot ma medal?’

‘I spoke to London this morning. It should be no problem.’

‘Did ye?’ His voice lifted. ‘Yer no’ bullshitting me, ur ye, Brodie?’

‘I’m perfectly serious. There’s a bloke called Harry in London. He’s our contact. He said he’d raise it with the boss. My boss.
Your
boss in head office. He thought the only problem might be the need to keep quiet about it. For a bit anyway. They don’t make public awards in the Security Service.’

‘Whit’s the point o’ that? Ah want tae flaunt it. Doon the pub. Among ma’ pals.’ His voice lowered. ‘Show ma wee mither Ah’m no jist a nae user.’

‘We’ll sort something out. But first, you need to earn it. Let’s go.’

It wasn’t much of a battle cry, but it got him on his feet.

The back lane was quiet and shadowed. It was important that I didn’t allow Airchie time to think about the dangers or size up the obstacles. I told him to wait in the doorway in the lane wall, shinned up the stone dyke and dropped down on the other side. I knelt down on the inside of the door and searched in my bag. My last action the night before had been to inspect the lock carefully. It was a very standard lock screwed on to the heavy wood. I pulled out a couple of screwdrivers and three long nails bent at the end. Eric and I had angled them to slightly different specifications on the ketch this afternoon. If none fitted, I’d at least be able to unscrew the whole block. I told Eric it gave me a rueful reminder of my former pal, Danny McRae, who’d pitched up earlier in the year to stir things up. Lock-picking and stirring were two of Danny’s special talents.

‘I thought he was helping you, Brodie? Against those bloody Nazis?’

‘He was. Sort of. Turned out he was doing it for a woman. Lust trumps friendship.’

‘An old story. Are they happy?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. But she was using him. She might well have dumped him after she got what she was after.’

‘Women, eh?’

After a poke or two, and a change of nail, I felt the lever give and the lock slid back. I was inordinately pleased with myself. I opened the door. Airchie fell in. We tiptoed across the dark yard and I dragged the crates back under the fire escape. I felt in my bag and pulled out a tin. I opened it, dug into its viscous contents, stretched up and smeared the grease on to
the runners of the pull-down ladder. I tugged and had the satisfaction of having the section slide down with barely a moan. I turned to Airchie. He was staring up through his specs, mouth agape. Paralysed. It was what I’d feared when I saw his face as I’d described how we were going to get in.

‘Ye didnae say we hud tae sclim up there, Brodie.’

‘There’s no actual climbing. It’s just a ladder.’

‘Ah’m feart o’ heights. Ah cannae dae this.’

I wiped my hands on the rag I’d brought and pulled out a half-bottle of Teacher’s.

‘Here. Take a big sook.’

He grabbed it and sank several mouthfuls of raw whisky. He gasped as it scoured his throat.

‘Better?’

‘Better. But Ah’m still feart. Ah cannae even see the top.’

‘Turn round.’ I took out a strip of sacking and tied it round his eyes.

‘Oh, Christ, Brodie. That’s worse. It’s left tae ma imagination noo.’

‘Hold the sides and start climbing. Pretend you’re a commando.’

He reached out blindly and gripped the ladder. I prodded him.

‘Get on with you. I’m right behind you. And go quietly.’

He began climbing and I followed him on up. At each landing, he’d ask, is this it? No, nearly there. Until finally we were at the top.

‘Christ, Brodie, Ah can tell we’re high up. Ah can feel the wind on my face.’

‘You’re doing great, Airchie. Just step over this wee wall. Then it’s easy.’

I pulled on his leg and got him to step on to the department-store roof. I looked down and decided it was better to keep him blindfolded until we were on the Scottish Linen roof. I got behind him and steered him gently along the wide
gutter towards the divide of the roofs. I had him sit down with his back against the roof and his feet braced on the parapet.

I gave him another slug of whisky and a fag, and took out the last bits and pieces from my gas-mask case: a four-foot strip of jute sacking and a can of varnish. I unrolled the foot-wide cloth and sprinkled the varnish over it. The smell caught my lungs and I gagged. I rubbed the material against itself until it was well coated over all of one side. I laid it out carefully over the top of the rounded glazed tiles on the wall between the two roofs. I pushed down on the sacking. It held. Now for the hard bit.

‘Airchie, I need you to stand up. I’ll help you.’ I got behind him and made him stand facing the sacking. ‘Hold on to this.’ I put his hands on the sacking. ‘Now I’m going to give you a leg-up and you’re going to fling your right leg over this wee wall and sit astride it. Just like climbing on a bike. OK? Then I’m going to get up behind you and we’re going to slide over the other side. OK?’

‘That easy, eh? Disnae sound it. Huv you ony rope? Like real climbers?’

‘This is kid’s stuff. You’ll be fine.’

‘Aye, right. Ah’m OK, Brodie. Lead me to it.’

I may have overdone force-feeding him the Dutch courage. He might well have been self-medicating before I met him in the graveyard. Bugger. Too late now.

‘Right, up you go.’ I cupped my hands and gave him a leg-up. As he pushed up I was just able to get behind him and balance him before he tipped the wrong way. I pushed him forward, face down, pointing up the ridge. There was barely enough room for me to get behind him. I jumped up, got my leg over the sacking and swung round and dropped on to the bank roof. Without stopping, I grabbed Airchie and pulled him down beside me. In the course of the manoeuvre the blindfold came off and we lay panting, side by side, backs on the roof, gazing up at the stars.

‘It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht, eh, Brodie.’

God, he’d be singing next. A drunk on a hundred-foot-high roof.

‘Shut up, Airchie. Roll over on to your side and don’t look down.’

All his addled brain heard was
look down
. He looked.

‘Oh shit! Oh shit!’

He flung himself back and tried to merge with the tiles.

‘Airchie! Listen! Turn on to your face. Start sliding along. Do it!’

Inch by inch I made him crawl sideways until he could feel the steel certainty of the fixed ladder going up to the skylight. It seemed to calm him. I kept cajoling him until he’d climbed the half-dozen rungs and his face was just below the skylight. I crawled up beside him and levered back the skylight. Then I hauled up the free ladder and slid most of it into the dark hole. I was holding it by a rung with my head stuck through rungs higher up.

Its weight wrenched at my arm muscles and where it sat on my neck. I couldn’t hold it for long without being dragged into the yawning gap. I began to swing it until it banged against the balustrade. The judder ran through my arms. Sweat dripped from my forehead into the pit. I pulled it up one more rung and got the pendulum going again. I could just make out that its tips were now sailing over the wooden rail. I let it perform one last arc out over the drop and then back. Just as it sailed over the balustrade, I ducked my head and grabbed the next rung up, so that it dropped two feet.

It fell back from the apogee of its swing and caught against the balustrade. I paused and caught my breath. Slowly and awkwardly I lowered the ladder rung by rung until it was touching the floor of the landing. I then secured its top rung to the wide hook under the forward lip of the skylight. I pulled my body out of the hole and eased my aching limbs. Airchie was hugging the roof ladder as though his life
depended on it. Which it did. His eyes loomed large behind his glasses.

‘Airchie, I’m going first. Then you follow.’ I eased my lower body inside and searched for my footing on the ladder. I felt it and moved down a couple of rungs.

‘Right. Come on.’

‘Ah cannae. Ah jist cannae,’ he whispered.

‘Airchie, you’re dead if you stay there. You’ll just slide off. This is the easy bit. Move up until you can get your legs inside, then I’ll help you down. The worst is over.’

That wasn’t what his face said. It said,
I don’t believe you. I’m a dead man
.

‘You’ll deserve your medal. This is what it was like, Airchie. Going over the top. Going into battle was about being afraid, but doing it anyway.’

He searched my eyes for the truth. I don’t know what he found but he nodded and began to rise. I pushed and tugged and got him on to the ladder, and guided his steps one by one. Shortly, we were on the landing, collapsed in an exhausted heap. I checked my watch. Midnight.

‘Come on, Airchie. Now it’s your turn to show me what you can do. Let’s go.’