Lawless (7 page)

It was where he and Caroline had taken Simon and where their son had always laughed loudest in games with young playmates. It was also the spot where they had gone with his ashes after driving north with them from Kent. The choice of location hadn’t been difficult to make. All three of them had experienced happiness there and it was a place where there would always be other children to keep him company, even if they went home afterwards and he remained behind.

McBride tried to imagine how Caroline might be spending Christmas, but couldn’t.

He stayed on the swing until his hands and feet had lost all feeling and darkness dropped over him.

The next morning, while the cleaners and chambermaids were still doing their best to remove the debris of the night before, McBride checked out of the Apex. He drove the short distance along the shore to the airport, dropped off his hired car and bought a seat on the London flight that departed twenty minutes later. He was one of only three passengers on the plane. The other two were obviously together but had apparently fallen out. They did not speak to each other or to McBride, which suited him – he had things to occupy his mind.

He had to decide, for instance, how he would explain to the news desks of at least three national papers why he would not be accepting any assignments for the foreseeable future and that he would be moving out of London to live in Dundee again. Whatever explanation he gave, he knew it would not be the truth, which was that he had become convinced an innocent man was languishing in prison for a murder he did not commit, though he had absolutely no evidence for that belief.

And nor could he tell them that he had examined the details of the case many months earlier when he was doing the research for a book and yet had found none of the circumstances exceptional. It would be safer, if he wanted to be offered well-paid employment in the future, to find a more acceptable excuse.

He would tell them he was taking a short sabbatical. Some would see that as a euphemism for laziness, of course, but at least it sounded semi-professional. Besides, if the best possible scenario – reporter springs convicted killer – came to pass, he would have one helluva story to sell them. McBride smiled wryly at the thought.

When he arrived back at the Maida Vale flat, which he had never considered home, he exhaled with relief. Nothing seemed to have been smashed and a quick inspection of his wardrobe revealed that no sleeves had been cut off his jackets. More importantly, the Trek still hung gleaming and unmarked on its hook in the small room that doubled as an office and bike shed. Sarah had evidently moved on to pastures new, taking her promise of destructive reprisals with her.

He was still checking for damage in the more obscure parts of the apartment when his mobile sounded ‘Strangers in the Night’, the song he shared with Caroline.

McBride did not recognise the caller’s number but the voice on the line was instantly familiar. Adam Gilzean was apologetic. ‘Mr McBride? Sorry to trouble you on Boxing Day, while you’re probably still recovering from a riotous Christmas, but it’s about the visit to Bryan. I went to see him yesterday and he can’t believe you might be prepared to speak to him. Actually, he’s ecstatic at the thought and said I couldn’t have taken him a better Christmas present. Will you go?’

It was a plea, not a question. McBride could sense Adam Gilzean’s anxiety as he silently awaited a response. He replied with matching gentleness. ‘Yes, of course, Mr Gilzean. I meant what I said. Can you give me a few days to sort things out? I’m back in London – I’ve got some stuff I need to do – after that, I’ll be heading back up as quickly as I can. We can get everything organised then.’

‘That’s wonderful. Thank you, thank you.’ Gilzean rang quickly off, as though any delay might bring a change of mind from McBride.

It did not take McBride more than forty-eight hours to temporarily close down his life in Maida Vale. In fact, it surprised him just how loose the connections were. Everything he required to transfer his existence to another country fitted easily into the back of his estate car. Reporters do not travel with bulky paraphernalia. What cannot be fitted into jacket and trouser pockets goes into the bag with the laptop. He loaded the car with more than he thought he needed and it was still half empty – even with the Trek carefully protected by a heavy-duty winter duvet.

McBride did not relish the 400-mile journey north. Although he never acknowledged it, he was not a good driver and his short fuse burned at its brightest when he was behind the wheel. His impatience had led to more roadside confrontations that he would admit to. The only reason he possessed a vehicle the size of a Ford Mondeo Estate was to transport his cycle without having to first dismantle it – a simple task which he found difficult.

The trip to Scotland was relatively uneventful, thanks mainly to the absence of heavy lorries, most of whose drivers were still on holiday. McBride had sworn at no more than twenty other road-users all the way north and congratulated himself on his unaccustomed restraint. His most practised motion had been to repeatedly switch off the radio at the sound of seasonal music.

He returned to the Apex on his first night back in Dundee. The following day, he took up the tenancy of a furnished flat. The choice of its location had been straightforward. It was on the Esplanade at Broughty Ferry, three minutes’ walk from The Fort and overlooking the River Tay, the banks of which presented the finest running routes in the entire city. Even without a story to chase, he knew he would be content.

If it’s possible to imagine a smell that combines anticipation with uncertainty and anger with sex, then that’s what rises to meet you in The Tank at Perth Prison. It hits you full on the first time you meet it and you know you’ll never forget it.

The officers who patrol The Tank stopped noticing it long ago, as they did the rest of the aromas that make every penal institution smell the same. They experience it three times daily, every time a group of inmates are brought there to wait before moving through the system to meet their visitors for sixty minutes in the big room half a dozen locks away.

The faces of the prisoners who sit expectantly in the brown seats round the walls of The Tank tell different stories. Mostly it’s excitement at the prospect of the brief reunion with the woman they spend all of their waking time thinking about. Sometimes it’s anxiety about the kind of minor matter you’d shrug off on the outside but which makes your head want to explode when you’re banged up.

The worst thing that can happen in The Tank is to be told your visitor hasn’t turned up and you’re left alone on a plastic seat after everyone else has moved out. Society demands most of what you have when it locks you away. Remove the last link with the real world and you’d be as well dead.

The last thing Bryan Gilzean was feeling was any resemblance to a corpse. The scent he was giving off was hope. He rested his head against the cream-painted wall in The Tank, gazed into the middle distance of the afternoon and began to dream.

As the man serving the life sentence permitted himself to contemplate freedom, McBride was being subjected to the drawn-out security measures at the Gate Complex, the visitors’ section, which fronted the prison. He had remembered previous visits to Her Majesty’s penal establishments and travelled light. It cut down on the rigmarole. The less you had with you, the less chance there was to conceal drugs. Life was easier for everyone if you left the bulky clothing and mobile in the car.

It wasn’t difficult to recognise those who had also been previous visitors to a jail. Without being asked, they dumped their travelling paraphernalia into the lockers, walked through the metal detectors and raised their arms for the pat-down searches. The real pros opened their mouths and effortlessly rolled their tongues around to prove there was nothing there but spit.

Like Bryan Gilzean, McBride sat back but not to think about liberty – nobody does until it’s removed. Just as he had done each time he visited the institutions where you automatically stop at every door because you know it’s locked, he reflected on how wretched the existence was for those who entered the Gate Complex.

Apart from two neatly dressed males who he knew would be solicitors, the rest of those on the benches in the waiting room were women, most of whom had spent the previous half hour trying – but failing – to look glamorous. Those who had forgotten the visiting routine could have saved themselves the trouble of tying their hair up. It would just be shaken out under the scrutiny of an officer who knew a ponytail could conceal a wrap.

The ladies who had come to visit evidently shared the same brand of hair dye and bought their ubiquitous denims and flimsy crop-tops in identical budget shops. Poor diets and drug habits ensured that those waiting to greet them would not have much to cling to in their urgent embrace.

As always, McBride experienced a surge of sympathy. He knew that, without exception, these miserable souls would have been forced to use public transport to travel to the prison. Even for those who lived closest, an hour with their man meant an entire day of waiting on railway station platforms and at bus stops. No wonder they looked defeated. They were as much prisoners as their menfolk and the only crime they’d committed was hitching up with the wrong guy.

McBride was among the first to pass through the search tables and, at the last door into the visiting hall, he found his progress halted once more. ‘Hold out your left hand, please, palm down.’ An officer, who might just as easily have been sitting behind a post-office counter, stamped an invisible mark on the back of his proffered hand. It was a new one on McBride. He raised an eyebrow.

‘This way we know who we should be keeping in or letting out,’ the officer, who had said the words a thousand times before, explained.

McBride nodded but silently he thought it would have made better sense if you’d been able to see the stamp mark.

He took his place at the numbered table he’d been allocated and, as he waited for all the other visitors to be branded, he ran an eye round the long room. Times were changing. Nothing was ever going to make a prison visiting hall look like anything else but someone with imagination had tried. At one end, there was the usual raised dais with its table and chairs for some of the supervising officers while, incongruously, at the other end, a wall blazed with colour. Its bright Disney characters marked a play-area for children where there was a blackboard and more toys than most of the kids who would use it had ever seen.

Trying hard and nearly succeeding to disguise the heavy steel bars of the only outside wall were a dozen paintings completed by inmates. The most impressive – and depressing – of the bunch was a large canvas depicting a group of prisoners who gazed unsmiling and flat-eyed back at McBride.

After the last visitor was seated, the door at the far end opened and the occupants of The Tank filed in, every one of them eagerly scanning the row of faces seated at the tables.

When Bryan Gilzean walked uncertainly across the room, McBride did not recognise him at first. The photographs filling Adam Gilzean’s house showed a young man with a round face, eyes that danced and more rich, dark hair than any male deserved. Taking the seat opposite and extending a hesitant hand was a figure who might have been Adam Gilzean himself. His cheeks had the hollowness of a marathon runner and the close-cropped hair showed spikes of steel that mirrored the pallor of his skin.

For five minutes they spoke pointlessly about the miserable weather as McBride tried to put his companion at ease.

‘All I could think of on the way up here was the warm weather, the freedom of the open road and me on my bike,’ he said, with all the sensitivity of a charging rhino.

But the tactlessness of his remark was lost on Gilzean, whose thoughts were elsewhere. ‘I didn’t do it, Mr McBride,’ he said, polite conversation gone and emotion suddenly filling his face. ‘Honest to God, it wasn’t me. I’m rotting away and nobody believes me except my dad. You do believe me, don’t you?’ His eyes begged for reassurance.

McBride was uncertain how to respond. ‘It doesn’t really work that way, Bryan,’ he said, doing his best to sound reassuring. ‘I’m just interested. The only thing I’m sure about is that your dad believes you. He’s the one who got me here. Maybe you’re kidding him. Are you going to kid me?’

This brought an unexpected but encouraging flash of something approaching anger from the haunted man opposite. ‘Christ! Are you another one of them? I’ve spent more than three years listening to that bilge. I haven’t kidded anybody. They’re the ones you should be interrogating.’ He slapped the palm of a hand on the surface between them and his voice rose loudly above the quiet hum of conversation filling the visiting hall.

One of the half-dozen officers who strolled the room, apparently watching nothing but seeing everything, moved swiftly to the side of the table. ‘Take it easy, Bryan,’ he said. ‘You don’t want this cut short, do you?’

The rebuke was unnecessary. The grey-faced man in the blue sweatshirt had recovered his composure as rapidly as he had lost it. He pulled slowly on his nose with heavily stained nicotine fingers. ‘Sorry, boss, just got a wee bit excited – no problem.’

McBride nodded in affirmation and the officer retreated, speaking softly into the microphone on his left shoulder. McBride knew that, for the rest of the visit, the person monitoring the bank of screens in the concealed room adjoining the visiting room would fix one of the six ceiling cameras on their table.

He smiled reassuringly across at Gilzean. ‘Look, if I didn’t think there was at least a chance you’re telling the truth, I wouldn’t be here. For that matter, I wouldn’t even be in Scotland. Keep calm. All I’m saying is that I’ve been getting vibes about this since your dad buttonholed me in Waterstone’s bookstore. I don’t even know why I feel this way. Convince me this isn’t a waste of everybody’s time.’

McBride was aware of the absurdity of the remark. If Gilzean couldn’t convince a jury, he could hardly be expected to completely win over a hard-nosed journalist inside an hour. Besides, how do you prove a negative? McBride appreciated he wasn’t going to get anything to take to a court of appeal – all he wanted was something to keep his gut feeling happy.