The Low Road (38 page)

A swarm of bees seemed to have been dislodged from the rafters of the high-ceilinged room. James Gordon waited. When the buzz quieted, he continued. Mary shook her head, muttering to herself, “Got us all in the palms of his sticky hands.”

“Unfortunately for me and my family, this brother was in trouble before. But he paid the price.”

“Three years in Barlinnie,” Mary's friend said. “Got out in two for good behavior.” They both snorted at that. Someone behind them hissed, “Wheesht.”

“My solicitor informed me that there is a possibility—yet to be proven, I must stress—that this brother might also be involved in a matter of tax fraud.” Gordon had been reading from the sheaf of notes. At this statement he looked directly at his audience, his face composed in pain and sorrow, just right for a photograph, and the photographers suitably complied. “Now, these are very minor matters, and none of it involves me. However, some members of the press”—he searched the crowd for Mary—“Good morning Miss Ballantyne.” He grinned. “Some journalists from of our esteemed broadsheets could perhaps misinterpret this unhappy state of affairs, but, as they say, you can't choose your family.”

That brought a laugh and glances from her colleagues.

“Pompous wee shite of man, who's been giving him elocution lessons?” Maureen commented. Receiving no reply, she looked at Mary, saw her bright red face, saw she was trying to control her breathing, and said, “Quite right, hen, say nothing. The cheek o' that man will be his downfall.”

“As I said,” Gordon continued, “these activities of my brother
could, very indirectly, be seen as compromising my position as a city councilor. Therefore, to maintain my good name, and that of the City Council, I have resigned from all committees relating to building and planning matters, but will continue to serve my constituency, unless the voters decide otherwise at the next election.”

There came a roar of questions, and the flashes of many cameras. It took some minutes for Gordon to quieten the crowd.

“I will be happy to answer written questions. Thank you for being here today.”

Mary despaired that she was the only one not fooled. All read from a script, his grammar was English, his accent cleaned up. She understood Gordon's strategy and thought he and his solicitors had been clever. And forewarned.

Councilor Gordon stuffed his notes into his jacket pocket, taking his time with the gesture, and, with his face artfully composed to show gravitas, he made his way down from the podium, two burly henchmen on either side. They cleared a path through the reporters and photographers, making sure no one came too close. Somehow Mary managed to dodge them and planted herself in front of the councilor, so he would have to push her to squeeze past her. Her head came as high as his shoulder.

She looked up, saw his fury and his smile, and loudly and clearly asked, “Who told you?”

“Miss Ballantyne, please excuse me, but written questions only.”

“You're a disgrace of a man, Councilor Gordon. Who told you?” The councilor's men grabbed hold of her. One thug had one arm, a second one her other, and they were pulling her to one side. Mary kicked out, catching an ankle. A hand tightened on her wrist. She knew she would have a bruise, but thought it worth it.

“Hey, leave her be.” Maureen pushed at the bullyboy, but he wouldn't let go.

“Aye, leave the lassie be, she's only doing her job,” another journalist, someone Mary didn't recognize, said.

“Aye, leave her.” Gordon smiled. He reminded her of a gargoyle high up in the cathedral parapets. “Miss Ballantyne is a respected journalist—when she's not entertaining gentlemen friends.” This he said mostly to entertain the crowd, but also to imply that he knew who her friends were, whom she drank with, who had visited her basement flat. It was enough to make her step aside.

“Telephone my office for an appointment, Miss Ballantyne. Always happy to cooperate with the
Herald
.”

There was little she could do but watch him leave with a posse of newsmen and photographers in his wake.

“You owe me,” Maureen said. “One o' thon bruisers deliberately stepped on my foot, and it hurts like hell. So share. Who told Gordon what? And what do you know that I don't?”

“I'll share,” Mary said, “promise. But later. First I have to strangle someone.”

• • •

Mary told the editor about the press conference. Then she told him there had to be a leak at the
Herald
.

“Maybe,” Sandy said. “It's too good a story to keep quiet, and journalists are the biggest gossips ever. Bring me proof, and I'll make sure whoever it was never works on a decent newspaper again.”

“I'll bring you your proof,” she said. “Then I want him fired. He's a disgrace to the profession.”

Neither said who “he” was, but they both guessed his identity.

Next she had to think of a way of making her colleague
incriminate himself. It took her the rest of the morning to come up with a plan. Then she commandeered a cadet who was not unhappy at helping the star crime reporter, even when it meant retyping fifteen pages of single-spaced documents, most of it figures, and all of it comprehensible. She told him to use a typewriter in the features department, hoping no one would discover what she was up to.

She then went to a corner shop near the Renfrew Street bus station where they sold everything from groceries to hardware to small bags of coal. Next stop was the
Herald
stationery cupboard. She then took the purchases to the toilet and prepared a large heavy-duty envelope, one that closed by wrapping string around a circle of cardboard. For the next step she put on the pink rubber gloves she'd bought at the general store. Working over the toilet bowl, she tipped the contents of a mimeograph machine ink refill into a small plastic bag, and tied it loosely with an elastic band.

Her desk was within talking distance of the sub-editors' table, if you raised your voice, and definitely within hearing range of Derrick Keith—formally known as Mr. Sleazy.

“Hey, Lachie,” she called out, “those documents I showed you earlier, surely there's something there we can use to get Gordon.”

“You heard what the editor said, he's off the hook. Printing something now would seem like sour grapes.” The man was busy, but looking up at Mary he gave her a fierce glare. “Weren't you supposed to hand them documents in to the polis? Don't want you up on a charge of withholding evidence.”

Mary had briefed the cadet earlier. He had no idea what she was up to, only that she was out to get Derrick, a man he had no time for.

“They're in my locker. I'll take it over to Central when I've finished this.” She started to type furiously. Ten minutes later she
rolled the article out of the typewriter, saying, loudly to Lachie on the subs' desk, “Right, better get this to the editor to approve before I waste your time.”

As she left she winked at the cadet. He was as baffled as Lachie but, intrigued, he was ready to play his part in Mary's scheme.

She waited fifteen minutes. When she came back, she was told Derrick had left on a break.

The cadet said, “I followed him like you asked. I saw him go into your locker—” He saw the question on her face. “No, he didn't see me.” He started to laugh. “He's in the gents', scrubbing his hands wi' the lavvy brush.”

Mary marched down the corridor, ran down one flight of stairs, and went into the gents'. The cadet followed.

“Hey, you can't come in here!” a man shouted as he turned his back to her to button up his fly.

She ignored him, marching up to the washbasins, where Derrick, seeing her in the mirror, snarled, “I'll get you for this!”

She looked at the ink-stained basin, looked at his blue-black hands, and said, “So are you going to tell me what you were doing in my locker? Or do you want to complain about me to the editor?”

In the mirror she could see the cadet with the borrowed camera.

“Watch the birdie,” he called out.

Derrick Keith half turned, giving a clear view of the ink-stained sink, the right hand dark to the wrist, the left hand also marked. A flash bounced off the mirror. A second flash followed. Derrick rushed towards him, inky water dripping over the black and white tiles. He was grabbing at the young man, at the camera, shouting, “Give me that! You've no right—”

“You had no right to go into my locker.” Mary was leaning
against the wall, grinning. “I can guess what you were up to—stealing the documents to pass on to your pal Councilor Gordon.”

“They were stolen from him in the first place.”

Mary grinned. “No denials? No excuses?”

A man came in, saw her, did a double take worthy of a music hall comedian, and said, “Whatever's going on will you please finish coz I'm desperate.” And he held his knees together miming a wee boy about to pee his pants.

“He's desperate too.” Mary pointed at Derrick. “And finished.”

Later the cadet reporter confessed to Mary that there was no film in the camera. “I didn't have time to load it,” he apologized.

“Never mind,” she said. “It did the trick.”

“What about the documents I typed up?” the cadet asked.

“Sorry, I didn't give you the real ones, I . . .” She didn't want to say she trusted no one. “They were my mother's estate accounts for nineteen forty-seven to forty-eight,” she told him.

“It's okay, I get it.”

That did it. He was now, at least in Mary's mind, the new journalist on the crime desk.

“D'you fancy a job on the crime desk to replace Mr. Sleazy?”

“You're kidding. I want nothing more.” His grin was as wide as a basking shark's, basking. “But what about Derrick?”

“He's resigned, apparently to take up a senior post on the
Kirkudbright Courier
.”

And they laughed. More than necessary. He said, “A drink later?” and she looked at him. Saw a good-looking bright man maybe a couple of years younger than her and was tempted. “Aye, a drink. But colleagues.”

She took in the flash of disappointment and was flattered. And pleased. Then told herself,
Good decision, no episodes with colleagues. Ever.

That night, alone in the flat—Jimmy having disappeared yet again—Mary considered her alternatives. More and more, even one of the best newspapers in the country was beginning to feel parochial. She was twenty-eight. Her birthday had passed, forgotten by her but not by her mother, ten days ago.

I vowed I'd be an internationally respected journalist by thirty,
she reminded herself.
Maybe it's time to make a move.

Six months back, she'd sent her curriculum vitae to one newspaper only. She knew where she wanted to be; it was either the
Manchester Guardian
or else she'd take time off, go abroad for a year.
France
, she was thinking,
a complete change of scene,
but she wanted to be there on assignment, with a salary.

Next morning the reporter newly on the crime desk unearthed a new twist in the brothers Gordon saga. Trying to impress Mary and the editor, he'd come in early to study the documents bequeathed by Gerry Docherty via Sheena his girlfriend.

Calum—his name was Calum Sangster of the Oban Sangsters two generations back—told her. “Those documents you came across” (he hadn't been told how they came into the
Herald
's possession). “It shows here . . .” He held up two or three sheets of aging paper, as the
Herald
had kept the originals and sent copies to the police.
Just in case they get lost
, Mary had argued.

“The Gordon & Sons company,” Calum continued, “was started by one Mr. James Gordon, grandfather of Councilor Gordon. There's not much information because it was a wee family operation. Then his son, father of the Gordon brothers, joined the firm, developed the business, and turned Gordon & Sons into a limited liability company. That was when they bought the warehouse in Whiteinch.” He laid down a separate document detailing the purchase.

He was being pedantic. Mary didn't mind. It showed he was good at research and careful with the facts.

“Then he, the father of Councilor Gordon, was killed in the war, a bomb landed on his house, and the business went to his four sons.”

“Four sons?” She got it instantly. “So where is number four?”

“Actually he was a twin—to Alasdair Gordon . . .”

“The psycho?”

“Aye, but we canny call him that in the
Herald
.” He grinned at her through a thick lock of hair falling over his left eye, and she saw again how attractive he was.
No more men, right?
She chided herself.
Besides, he's far too young.
A few years was no age difference when it was the man who was older.
But if it's a woman?
It was another of those prejudices that infuriated her.

“I searched ‘Births, Deaths and Marriages.' It seems he is still alive. But I can find no trace of him, which is strange, as he's registered as a director of the building company, and his name and signature are on most of the documents. Then I found this. It was on the wall of a boxing club I visited.”

He unrolled a small poster, the type that would have been mimeographed and stuck on lampposts. She knew the format, had seen them often enough around the city. It was for a match in a small venue in Paisley, a formerly prosperous town, southwest of Glasgow, now a shabby place, the Victorian Era weaving mills long since closed down.

“A fight between Jimmy McPhee and Smart Alec Gordon? Right. But what does this have to do with anything?” Mary asked as she studied the poster.

He caught Mary's look of inquiry. “I don't follow boxing. I'm a film buff.”