Bitter Water (16 page)

I stood at the door, looking around for his red hair, his mad eyes. The words he’d written scuttled round my brain:
Major Brodie . . . your secrets are out.
It wasn’t my war record he was referring to. That was public knowledge; it had been in the papers back in April. Besides, I had nothing to hide and everything to be proud of. You don’t earn a battlefield commission with the 51
^st
Highland Division for nothing. But how much did he know about the Slatterys – or guess? Until four months ago they were the most feared gang bosses in Glasgow. Then they disappeared and their gang melted away. Not that they were missed, unless you were a drug addict or a client of their red-light establishments.

It’s time to choose sides.
In that, they were wrong. I was on my own side. Always had been.

At least there was safety in numbers in this Wednesday night mêlée. Drinkers stood three deep round the bar and every table was covered by elbows, pints and dominoes. Despite the height of the ceiling, the pall of smoke had already reached the level of a gas attack on the Somme. The noise was a crescendo, like a mini-Hampden roar. Flat caps mixed with city trilbies, Clydeside nasals with Hillhead vowels.

I stood nursing a pint until seven o’clock. I hung round the bar area as if I’d been stood up, which indeed I had. I wasn’t conscious of anyone eyeing me over but in that scrum, who could tell? Maybe he just changed his mind. Maybe they were off duffing up some poor bastard who’d failed their probity test. I slid the last mouthful down and headed back to Sam’s.

It was still a good feeling to insert your own key in a fine big portal and not have to share an entry. I called a cheery halloo in the hall and parked my hat on the coat-stand. I could see a light on downstairs under the kitchen door and headed down, wondering if I should have stopped off at the Tallies and brought supper back with me.

The smell should have warned me. I was too late. I pushed open the door and saw Sam sitting at the table facing me. Her hands were flat on the table. Her eyes were strained and her lips pursed. Her face white.

I glanced at the crack where the door hinged. I hit the door with my shoulder. It bounced. I heard a grunt and jumped into the room aiming to follow up my assault on the man behind the door with a good punch to the face, and then as many kicks to the head as it would take before it came off. As I twirled round with my right arm shaping a fist I felt a sharp point crush into my neck.

‘Stop it, Brodie, or she’s dead!’

I froze. Not just because of the gun in my neck but because if there was one man behind the door and one holding the pistol on me, a third man could be waiting to put a bullet in Sam. Anyway there’s no saying where and how a bullet will ricochet. I raised my hands and stood back to see my attackers. The one who’d come up behind me held a revolver steady in both hands. He wore a dark green balaclava, but I knew him well enough. Knew his Highland lilt and his wild pale eyes.

The door eased back and his pal stepped out, rubbing his shoulder. He was in matching headgear and also levelled a revolver at me, either a Webley like Sam’s dad or the Enfield copycat. Not that it mattered. At this range a .38 lead slug from the latter would have the same bone-smashing impact as a .455. Both men wore thick brown sweaters that flapped on their spare frames. A sour unwashed smell hung in the air. There was no third man. But they didn’t need any help. They looked grubby, but alert and competent. Their steady, gloved hands had held guns before. Ex-forces. But who wasn’t?

‘Sam, are you OK?’ I asked.

‘You didn’t warn me you were expecting the infamous Glasgow Marshals for tea, Brodie.’ Her voice was brave, but higher than normal.

‘They weren’t invited. Were you,
Ishmael
?’ I walked backwards very slowly round the table until I was beside Sam. They kept their guns trained on me all the way. I put my hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. I squeezed gently.

‘Verra touching,’ he said, pulling back his woollen mask. The eyes were still mad and intense, but they were framed in dark pools. Stubble lined his twitching jaw.

‘It’s you I want to touch,’ I said.

‘Brave words, Brodie, when you know you don’t have a chance to do anything about it.’

‘Put the gun down and we’ll see.’

‘Enough, the pair of you,’ demanded Sam. ‘What do you want, Ishmael, if that’s your real name?’

‘It’ll do. Your lodger here has caused us a wee bit of bother. We wanted a word with him.’ The Teuchter motioned to his pal and they both sat down facing us with the guns pointing at our chests. I pulled up a chair alongside Sam and sat down.

‘I thought we had a date at the Horseshoe?’

‘Too busy. Too loud.’ He waved his gun nonchalantly at me. I shut up and waited. I pressed Sam’s thigh under the table. It was shaking.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘We’re upset. Your boyfriend here exposed our selection process.’

‘You didn’t have to take it out on David Allardyce!’ said Sam.

‘A simple but effective way of discouraging smart alec lawyers. Always looking for loopholes, you and your kind.’

‘Everyone’s entitled to proper defence. Like your pal Johnson. I got his sentence reduced, remember?’

‘They still put him away! The man died because of you and your kind!’

‘
You’ll
maybe be glad of us. If Davie dies, you’re on a murder charge!’

The men looked at each other. I cut in.

‘What do you want?’

‘More cooperation. From the
Gazette
. We don’t like being lectured.’

‘
We
don’t cooperate with thugs.’

Ishmael sighed. ‘Neither do we. We stop them.’

‘Who gave you the job?’

‘Situation vacant. We took it. The police were doing bugger all. Things were falling apart.’

‘And the centre couldn’t hold?’

Ishmael smiled. ‘Exactly, Brodie, exactly. ’ He capped my quotation:

‘Do you only communicate in quotes? But Yeats goes on to say “the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Is that you, my fine fellow, with your big gun, your trite quotes from the Bible and your liking for exclamation marks?’

I felt Sam’s hand grip me under the table. She obviously didn’t want me to go on goading him. It was hard. I was furious at being set up like this. Even more furious that these clowns had broken into Sam’s house. Threatened her. Any sympathy I might have had for their stance had evaporated.

He shook his head. ‘Someone needs to care enough to
do
something, Brodie. You of all folk should understand that, surely?’

Sam squeezed my leg again.

He went on, ‘That’s right. We know all about the Slatterys. The top gang leaders in Glasgow tangled with Major Douglas Brodie, formerly of the Seaforths, and boom, they’re gone. Vanished. You got rid of them, didn’t you, Brodie?’

‘They left,’ I said.

‘They left all right. This world. Tell him.’

Ishmael turned to his so far silent sidekick. His buddy stiffened, as though he’d just received an order. When his broad Northern Irish accent started up I knew what was coming.

‘Ah’m jist back from visiting the folks in Enniskillen. Ah’ve got a friend who knows someone who knows what happened down by, in Lisnaskea. Knows the weeping widow of Dermot Slattery.’

He raised a gloved hand, pointed at the table with his index finger and started to pound out the list. ‘Three men gunned down, three burials. A trail of blood to Arran. Another two men seriously wounded. Gerrit Slattery missing in action, presumed dead.
Four
men dead at your hand. Yer a feckin’ murder machine,
Major
Brodie.’

‘You can’t count. You’re forgetting the priest the Slatterys hanged and the mother and four children
they
murdered. Not to mention five other kids abused and slaughtered for kicks. What – do – you – want?’

Ishmael replied, ‘I see you don’t deny it. We understand you. They deserved their punishment. You’re one of us, Brodie. Join us. Help the cause.’

‘I’m nobody’s man except my own. And I don’t like causes. The last guy with a cause died in his bunker after wrecking Europe. What’s your excuse for beating up folk and robbing them?’

‘It’s not robbing. Call it a fine. We have to eat. Or do you want us to steal dog food like poor bloody Johnson?’

‘Bullshit. You’re enjoying this. You’re not punishing people, you’re torturing them.’

The raging blue eyes hardened. ‘And what’s five years’ hard labour in Barlinnie?’

‘It’s called the law. Someone breaks society’s rules and gets society’s punishment.’

Ishmael shrugged. ‘Sounds like what I do – what
you
did – right enough.’

‘The difference is a fair trial based on evidence.’ I told them off one by one, on my fingers: ‘Procurator Fiscal, defence counsel, fifteen-man jury, judge, executioner. You’ve stolen
all
the jobs. You’re just another egomaniac with a gun and a sideline in sadism. There’s a man in a coma in hospital right now just for doing his job!’

The maniac’s mouth tightened, then he forced a grin. ‘That’s where you can help, Brodie. If you won’t play an active part, you can provide the balance. You can send out a message to all those flouting the law. It’s verra simple. Mend your ways or feel my wrath.’

‘Whose? Yours or the Lord’s? Or are they synonymous in your mind?’

‘Hold your blasphemous tongue!’ He slapped the table and took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got a rare wit on you, Brodie. It will get you killed one day.’

‘Do I take it that I can tell my editor you won’t be repenting of your ways?’

‘Only the sinners out there need repent. That’s what I want to see in your paper. Is that clear?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s not up to me. I’m only the reporter.’

‘Like it or not, you’re one of us, Brodie. I’m relying on you. If we can’t, the police will have to re-open their files on the Slattery boys.’

‘You’re blackmailers too, then?’

‘Call it civic duty.’

‘Using the law when it suits you?’

‘Any weapon that comes to hand.’

With that he got up and motioned to his pal. They both slid their guns inside their waistbands, pulled their jumpers down over them and walked casually out of the door. Ishmael turned.

‘We’re the same, Brodie. It’s time you admitted it to yourself. This was a warning. Your one and only.’

We waited till they’d clumped up the stairs and heard the front door open and close before breaking loose. Sam fell against me, shaking. I felt her hot tears on my shirt and held her close and stroked her hair, but only for a moment. She shoved herself back from me and stared at me with maddened eyes. She punched the table. Sheer raw anger was pulsing through her.

‘Bastards! Bloody bastards!’

‘I’m sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry.’ I thought
I
was angry.

‘How do you do it, Brodie! How do you attract them!’ They weren’t really questions.

‘Are you throwing me out again, Sam?’

‘You’d better tell me the full story about the Slatterys. If that pair have the details, it’s best I do too. In case anybody asks.’

It made sense. I told her about tracking Dermot Slattery down to his farm in the Fermanagh countryside. How it was kill or be killed when I confronted his two bodyguards. And the hound. But I hadn’t shot Dermot; he’d rammed his own stone gatepost trying to get away. He’d died with a steering column in his chest. She knew about Arran. She was there when I attacked the house. I’d wounded the two men who’d been guarding her captor, Dermot’s younger, psychotic brother Gerrit. As far as I knew the two thugs had survived – more’s the pity – albeit with some scorch marks from hot shrapnel. She knew I’d fought Gerrit on the boat, and that Gerrit hadn’t made it back to landfall.

‘For six years I learned to get my shot in first. Do you think I handed back the reflex with the uniform?’

She studied my face for a while, then said, ‘What do
you
think? You were a policeman.’

‘And you’re a lawyer, sitting on the fence.’

‘I’m on your side. But the law is blind.’

‘And deaf and dumb. You think I’ve got a problem, though, don’t you?’

‘Depends on witnesses. You said only old Mrs Slattery could testify, but it’s easy to buy some others. How would you view it, wearing a blue uniform?’ she persisted.

‘I’d have needed proof of any criminal activity. Proof of deaths. Proof that I was there. It’s a long way to—’

‘—Tipperary?’

‘Might as well be. Enniskillen. The bad lands of the IRA. ’

‘So, you should relax.’

‘I should, shouldn’t I. Why can’t I?’

‘Conscience?’ She kicked back the chair, got up and went to the sink. She slapped water on her face and dried away the tears. She put the kettle on, clattered the crockery and spoons for a bit, then reached inside a cupboard and pulled out a tin. Something rattled.