Bitter Water (2 page)

I walked nearer and could see the dilemma. It was a body all right. A man’s. Podgy with skinny white legs. Shockingly naked apart from a pair of fouled pants. His mother would have ticked him off. His hands were tied behind him and his feet strapped together, with his own belt. But no matter where you looked, your eyes were always dragged back to the head. Or where the head should be. For the moment it was merely a presumption. It reminded me of a curious kid at the infirmary with its head stuck in a pot. To see if it would fit. But this very dead man-child had chosen a bucket. A grey knobbly bucket.

As I joined the crowd the officers turned their eyes to me. The impatient one snapped: ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘Brodie. From the
Gazette
.’ Our eyes met in a spark of mutual recognition. And dislike. His name would come to me.

‘Brodie, is it? Aye well, here’s something to wake up your readers, Brodie.’

‘Who is it?’ Then I realised what a stupid question that was. ‘I mean any identification? Anyone reported missing?’

I cast my eyes around the shadows looking for a pile of clothes. There was just a shovel and a small mound of grey. The sergeant cut in: ‘We’re just waiting for the man wi’ the X-ray machine to come by.’

That earned some guffaws. The detective tried to trump the witticism.

‘Are you like this on Christmas Day, Brodie? Desperate to open your presents?’

Now I could see properly. The body wasn’t
wearing
a bucket. He was wearing the contents of the bucket. I could also see the long rope trailing away from his ankle strap. I looked up. Sure enough there was a beam above us. I guessed this poor sod had been hung upside down by his ankles and then lowered until his head was fully in the bucket. Then they would have poured in the concrete. Whoever did it must have waited patiently until it set, and hauled the dead man up a couple of feet to get the bucket off. Prudence? Meanness – was it their only coal scuttle? Or to remove all evidence? Then why dump the shovel? Maybe it was as simple as wanting to leave as brutal a message as possible. This man had to be silenced and that’s what they’d done. I shuddered at the horror of his last moments.

I glanced again at the detective: rheumy-eyed and mean-mouthed, long broken-veined nose. Hat pushed back on his head. The name came back. Sangster. Detective Inspector Walter Sangster. I’d run into Sangster before the war when I was a sergeant with the Tobago Street detectives. By reputation he was volatile, someone with a short temper and an even shorter concentration span. I had taken an instant dislike to him in ’37 and found no reason to change my mind on renewing our acquaintance today.

Sangster turned to his fresh-faced sergeant, whose forehead was sheened in sweat. ‘Get me something heavy.’

The sergeant flicked his head at his even younger constable. The lad handed his uniform jacket to his sergeant and set off into the piles of rubble. He eventually came back with a silly grin and a torn strip of steel girder.

Sangster sized it up. ‘What are you waiting for, man? Hit it!’

The constable raised the girder in both hands and swung it at the dead man’s thick head. A lump of concrete broke off. Encouraged, the young officer swung again and more cracks appeared.

‘Go canny, now. Don’t smash the face up or we’re back to square one.’

The officer began delicately jabbing at his target using the steel like a spear. Suddenly the bucket-shaped lump broke in two. Too much sand in the mix. The constable used his boot to push aside the two halves of the concrete death mask and revealed the face itself. The tortured skin was bleached and burned by the lime. The nose and cheekbones were blue where the sadists had beaten him before drowning him in cement. His last moments had contorted his face in terror and anguish.

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘In the name of the wee man!’

‘You ken who
that
is?’

I’d been otherwise engaged for the last seven years, so I asked the dumb question. ‘Who?’

Sangster curled his lips. ‘Ah thought you were a reporter? Do you no’ recognise Councillor Alec Morton?’

I stared down at the man. He looked worse with a name. My spirit revolted at this latest addition to my mental gallery of violent deaths. Was there no end to it? Then, behind us, came steps and a familiar cigarette- and booze-roughened rasp.

‘Did I hear you right, Chief Inspector?’ he called out.

I turned to see Wullie McAllister, doyen of crime reporting at the
Gazette
, strolling towards us. He was able to pose his question despite the fag jammed in the corner of his mouth. He had his jacket slung over his shoulder and his sleeves rolled up. His thin scalp shone in the greasy light. The years of mutton pies and booze had not been kind, nor had his choice of profession. He would be lucky to draw his pension for a year beyond retirement. Glasgow statistics were against him, against all of us. Was he my ghost of years to come?

I assumed Wullie’s query was aimed at Sangster. Seems Sangster had taken advantage of the war to get himself promoted.

Sangster turned to me. ‘The organ grinder’s arrived. You don’t have to rack your brains coming up wi’ penetrating questions any more, eh, Brodie?’ The remark garnered some sycophantic chuckles from his cronies.

‘Your sense of humour hasn’t kept up with your promotions, Sangster.’

I had the satisfaction of wiping the grin off his sallow face.

Wullie got between us. ‘I see you two are getting on like a hoose on fire.’ Then he saw what – who – lay at our feet.

‘Alas, pair Alec! I knew him, Brodie: a fellow of infinite jest, who liked his pint. That’s an awfu’ way to go.’

Wullie and I didn’t stay long. No one knew anything. No one had any idea why Morton had been murdered, far less why it had been so brutal. Sangster had run out of sarcasm. We left them to ruminate and walked out into the blinding light.

‘You knew Sangster, then?’ he asked me.

‘I knew
of
him. Saw him about. But never had the pleasure of working with him.’

‘He’s a hard bastard, but fairly clean. Relatively speaking, of course. Not the sharpest truncheon on the beat. More low cunning than great deductive brain. Watch your back, Brodie.’

TWO

W
ullie let me try my hand at writing up the story. Though, truth to tell, apart from the gory details, all we had was speculation. The gore was enough for Big Eddie. Though many’s the voter might have cursed their representative by inviting them to
go stick yer heid in a bucket
, it would still be a shock to read about the gruesome reality of it over the toast and jam in the morning. Next day I had the dubious delight of seeing my words – most of them, and not necessarily in the order I’d submitted – appearing in bold print on the front page of the
Gazette
. A fortnight on the job and making headlines. That’s not to say Wullie was yet ready to share the credits with me.
Your time will come, Brodie, soon enough.

As to the crime itself, the police remained at a loss, despite blustering statements from the Chief Constable’s office. Alec Morton had gone missing the night before. His panicking wife had phoned in about eleven o’clock, long after the pubs had closed. The search had commenced properly this morning at first light, but it had been a bunch of wee boys playing in the ruins that had found the murdered councillor suspended from the beam. They’d gone screaming to their mammies, who’d raised the alarm. And someone within the central nick at Turnbull Street had passed the word to Big Eddie.

There were no obvious clues about Morton’s private or public life that might have earned him such a miserable death. But Wullie seemed more than a little excited. I was beginning to find that murders always raised his pulse.

‘Ah’m no’ saying anything just for the moment, Brodie. But there’s a smell here. A stink. Something big is under way and I will pursue it!

‘Bigger than murder? What was Morton’s role on the council?’

‘
Finance
,’ said Wullie, caressing the word like a pair of silk stockings. ‘He was head of the Finance Committee.’

‘How do we follow this up? Do you want me to have a go at the police? See if any of my old pals are around and want to talk?’

‘Aye, you can do that, Brodie. But I think you and me need to interview a couple of Morton’s fellow councillors. I’ll set it up. It’s time you got your hands dirty.’

I made a few calls to Central Division, where I assumed Sangster was based. But I ran into either a blank wall of ignorance or deliberate obtuseness. My name and my time on the force before the war meant nothing to anyone I talked to. Or maybe it did? Nobody wanted to comment on a hot potato like the savage murder of a prominent official. I got some mawkish guff from the Provost’s office about it being a terrible tragedy and how Mr Morton was irreplaceable. But nothing that gave any insight into who or why.

I left the newsroom just after six. I had a clear evening, no plans or commitments, the sun was shining, and I felt I’d earned a pint. Or two. As I walked down the narrow slice of Mitchell Lane I became aware of footsteps quickly gaining on me. I glanced back. A tall gangling man was striding towards me. The gap was about twenty yards and closing. His head was up and he was staring straight at me, an intent look on his face, as though he held a knife and had just decided to use it. On me.

I walked another couple of steps, then stopped, turned and faced him full on. Automatically I found myself crouching slightly and moving on to the balls of my feet. The man came on, his face alight. When he was about ten feet away he stopped dead and stared at me with blue unflinching eyes, the hue accentuated by the shock of red hair.

‘Mr Brodie.’ It wasn’t a question. He knew who I was.

‘What do you want?’

‘Talk. I need to talk. I
have
to talk.’

There was the lilt of the North in his voice. A Highlander. And therefore referred to contemptuously by all we Lowlanders as a Teuchter. I once looked it up in the university library. Probably from the Gaelic:
peasant
or
drink
. It was in retaliation to Highlanders calling us Sassenachs,
Saxons
.

I sized him up and down. About my height but thin to the point of emaciation, though there was a hint of wiry strength. I thought I could take him. Unless he had that knife and knew how to use it. The face was all bones and angles, the eyes unslept and fevered. Despite the heat he wore leather gloves and a faded ex-army pullover. His trousers had perfect creases but they ran down into frayed cuffs. If this had been a dog I’d have diagnosed rabies. And run for my life.

‘So, talk. What do you want?’

‘Not here. I need help. We need help. We
must
have help.’ His voice was rising.

‘If it’s money, I could give you a couple of bob.’

He shook his head. Annoyed. Affronted even. He took a deep breath. ‘I read about you. You and your lawyer woman, Campbell. You tried to save your pal from a hanging.’

His words stung. It had been over three months ago, in all the papers, but people kept bringing it up. I’d been quietly pulling my life together in London, easing up on the booze, making some inroads into a new career as a freelance journalist when I was summoned north by advocate Samantha Campbell to try to save the life of a man on HMP Barlinnie’s death row. Not just any man, my boyhood pal, Hugh Donovan. We failed. But Sam and I had the bitter satisfaction of proving they’d hanged an innocent man. The coppers had framed Hugh for murder. He’d died on the gallows because it was easier to blame him than do some proper police work.

‘What about it?’

‘I’ve got a pal. A good soldier. We served together. He’s in trouble. Can. We. Talk?’

I had a choice. I could turn and walk away and have him jump me. Or I could knock him down and then run for it.

‘Can we talk,
Major
?’

That got my attention. The press had mentioned my old army rank but only in passing. Someone had paid attention.

‘Not here.’ The smell of piss wafted at us down this dark tunnel between the lowering buildings.

He straightened. ‘First pub? I’ll buy.’

‘OK, pal, here’s how it works. You’re going to stand there until I’ve walked ten paces, then you follow, keeping that distance. Fair?’

He nodded. ‘Fair.’

I started to back away and when I was two or three steps distant I turned and walked on, trying not to run, trying not to squeeze my back muscles which were tensing in anticipation of the thrown blade. Or bullet. I counted to ten and heard him start. His pace matched mine and we emerged into Buchanan Street. I crossed over, sidestepping the buses, and slid into McCormick Lane. You’re never more than a thrown bottle from a pub in Glasgow. It was a rough dive but this didn’t feel like a social occasion. Besides, I still had my thirst. I pushed through the doors and went to the bar.

‘Two pints of heavy please.’

I heard the door behind me swing and clunk into its frame. He materialised by my side.

‘I will get these,’ came the soft, correct lilt. A reminder of some of the men under me in the Seaforths. He was beside me, staring at the barman whose eyes flinched first. From the Highlander’s worn clothes and wild manner I expected him to smell. Just another demobbed soldier prowling the dark lanes and sleeping rough. He didn’t. A small personal triumph, at some cost, I imagine. He was freshly shaven, the nick on the jaw a recent encounter with a blade. Between gloved finger and thumb he held out half a crown for inspection. The barman took it, hit the till and dropped the eight pence change back in the Highlander’s still outstretched hand. He clenched his hand round the coins, opened it and counted the money. I almost said, I’ll get them. But he’d forced this meeting.