Bitter Water (24 page)

‘There’s no’ that many about, Brodie. Too big an effin’ coincidence for my liking.’

We could have run with an evening edition, a special, but we decided to keep up the daily momentum and save it for Thursday. Eddie even talked about running a Saturday paper to keep the story simmering over the weekend, but the overtime would have cost too much. All the rival papers had a front page on the twin killings. Some of the headlines made ours look like a kirk magazine. ‘Slaughter of the Queers’
,
ran one. ‘Homos Hacked to Death’, ran another. All of them blamed the Marshals.

It was certainly selling newsprint. The corner boys were hoarse, and the
Gazette
’s directors were purring, we heard, but demanding ever more eye-popping scoops. Eddie was wandering around dispensing unremitting zeal and excitement. Summer had returned and the newsroom was sweltering again. It was wearing. Only McAllister was conspicuous by his absence. Until he suddenly popped up just before noon. He came to my corner.

‘Let me buy you a beer, Brodie. We need to have words.’

As we emerged into the warm September sun I naturally turned towards Ross’s, McAllister’s usual haunt. Wullie grabbed my arm and we set off in the opposite direction. We cut across West Nile Street, ploughed up Blythswood Hill, and stood panting on West George Street. We looked back down at the undulating criss-cross of Georgian streets. I pulled out my hankie and wiped my brow.

‘I didn’t have you down as a mountaineer, Wullie.’

‘We could do wi’ some o’ they wee tram cars they have in San Francisco,’ he gasped. ‘Come on. We’re earning that pint.’

We struck west again along Bath Street. Along the way we talked about the vigilante story and how it was unfolding, but Wullie refused to be drawn on his own investigations into the Morton murder. The matter had sunk from the public mind except for the odd newspaper castigation of the police for making zero progress. The
Record
had an interview with poor Mrs Morton. She seemed in a daze, uncomprehending and bereft. Wullie himself had written nothing lately about the murder. I assumed he wanted to fill me in on the latest.

We pressed on downhill, past the New Mitchell library, then down a side street. Halfway along was an unprepossessing pub: the Sodger’s Lament, with a badly painted picture of a tartan-clad warrior lying, dying, on some distant battlefield. He was clutching a thistle in his pale hand to hammer home the point that this was a
Scottish
soldier. As if the spelling wasn’t enough.

‘This looks fun, Wullie.’

‘It’s quiet. That’s the main thing. And the beer’s no’ wattered.’

We pushed inside. Coming in from the sun, we felt we’d entered a coal hole. As my eyes adjusted I could make out a big man standing behind the bar, smoking. He nodded at Wullie. ‘Usual?’

‘Make it two, Alec. We’re through here.’ He walked to the left of the bar and pushed through into the saloon. It was only big enough for two small tables. Six drinkers would crowd it. The walls were brown, the ceiling brown, the fading photos of shipyards were brown. A brown study. Two pints of heavy materialised. We sat. Wullie did his usual sleight of hand and a roll-up appeared. We supped our beer, lit up and then he started.

‘I’ve had a breakthrough, Brodie.’

I nodded and waited.

Wullie now had names. Names of big-time developers operating as a cartel to corner the market in development sites and building contracts. The name of a senior councillor who was acting as the conduit for dirty money. It was his job to sprinkle cash among his fellow flexible officials. Fairy dust to grease the passage of certain proposals and specific contracts.

‘No guesses who the councillor is . . .’ Wullie raised his nicotine-stained finger to his nicotine-stained mouth. He pulled out his notebook, opened it and showed me the name he’d written.
James Sheridan
. It was underlined.

‘What’s your proof?’

‘Mind I said his long-suffering wife, Elsie, was loyalty incarnate? Well, even she’s had enough. Three weeks back, just after we had our wee talk with him and they’d found Morton with his head in cement, our man set up a wee nest for himself with some floozy from Edinburgh. Installed her in a nice flat in Hyndland where she can flaunt her Athenian airs and graces.’

‘And you’re hearing this from Elsie Sheridan?’

‘The fury of a woman scorned.’ Wullie shook his head. ‘I’ve met her once now. This’ll be the second.’

‘What! You mean she’s coming here? Does she know I’ll be here? Why do you want me involved?’

‘Yes and yes. And I want you to listen in, take notes, and to be another link in this story. As I said before. Just in case.’

‘In case . . .?’

‘A link gets broken. And here she is.’

THIRTY-ONE

A
tiny woman stood in the now opened doorway. She was wearing a headscarf and a buttoned raincoat despite how warm it was outside. Her eyes were darting between McAllister and me. We got to our feet.

‘Hello, Elsie. Come ben. Take a seat. This is Douglas Brodie. He answers to Brodie.’

‘Hello, Mrs Sheridan.’

‘Ah’m Elsie, jist Elsie.’

‘What’ll you have, Elsie?’ asked Wullie.

‘Port and lemon.’

Her voice was like sand running off velvet, rough but enticing. The product of a lifetime of marinating her tonsils in fortified wine and fags. She sat down opposite me and took off her scarf. She didn’t look around so I assumed this was where she’d met McAllister before. Not that there was much to see. Elsie herself looked to be in her late forties. Pretty dark eyes, and hair now a denser black than the original. Plucked and redrawn black curves over her eyes. Sweet bow mouth and perky nose. Heavy make-up just about hiding crows’ feet. I realised I’d seen her photo alongside her man. Her
former
man, by the sound of it.

She took off her coat and sat down again in a summer frock of pink and red roses. Her too-strong perfume quickly filled the tiny space. Wullie stepped back from the counter and plonked down a glass. She took a swig, delved in her handbag for cigarettes and I lit her.

‘Thanks for coming Elsie,’ he said.

‘It’s a’ right. It needs dain’.’

Her accent was local. Deeper and more nasal than her petite form and gamine face suggested. Hedy Lamarr plays Glesga fishwife.

‘Why don’t we start with you telling Brodie here what you telt me last time?’

Elsie polished off her drink and indicated her vocal cords required more lubrication. Wullie got her another. Then she seemed ready.

‘Whit’s gontae happen? You’se gontae put a’ this in the paper?’

Wullie responded. ‘Eventually, Elsie. But the only bit that we’ll be putting in to begin with is about Jimmie’s new-found wealth. I know you’ve got other information which will come out in due course. But we need more hard evidence otherwise they’ll sue my erse off.’

‘We wouldnae want that, Wullie, would we? Ye need yer erse. Somewhere to hing yer legs frae.’ Her cackle would have emptied the Citizen’s Theatre. Elsie had a sense of humour. I supposed she’d needed it.

I asked her, ‘So tell us about Jimmie going up in the world. You told Wullie that he’s come into money. Do you know where he got it?’

‘Aye, I ken fine. He’s been wining and dining wi’ some big spenders for months. Rogano’s, can you believe it? Never took me.’

‘And who are these big spenders?’ I asked.

‘Wait, Elsie. Don’t say it out loud. Just write it down here.’ McAllister placed his pad in front of her and gave her his pencil.’

In a slow, schoolgirl hand, as though she was being tested, and with tongue sticking out, Elsie wrote three names:
Kenneth Rankin, Tom Fowler
and
Colin Maxwell
. She didn’t have to spell out any more. These names were synonymous with some of the biggest deals in Glasgow’s history. Big men. Each reputed to be worth millions. Rankin had made it in the shipyards and then the ammunition factories. Fowler’s wealth was in shipping. He was said to have tripled the already sizeable fortune handed down by his granddaddy from the slave trade. Maxwell was said to own half of the West End and a fair chunk of land east of Loch Lomond in the Forest of Ard. Rich company for a jumped-up Glasgow councillor to keep.

‘This is all suspicious stuff, Elsie, but circumstantial,’ I said. Her eyebrows went up.

Wullie interpreted. ‘What Brodie is saying is, so what? You cannae hang a man for having expensive friends. Even in Glasgow.’

‘Oh, Ah ken that. But after these nichts oot, Jimmie – when he was still wi’ me – would come rolling hame, fu’ as a monkey with French brandy and tell me how clever he was. How he’d be showing a’ the doubters. How he was gontae come out on top.’

‘But again, Elsie, it’s only your word against his. I assume there was no one there to witness what he said? Other than you?’ I asked.

‘Naw.’

‘So we’ve no proof. No hard evidence?’

‘I suppose.’ There was silence for a bit. ‘Except for the flat, the car and the suits, you mean?’

I looked at Wullie. He raised his eyebrow. ‘Right, Elsie. Why don’t you tell us all about Jimmie’s good fortune.’

‘Ah’ll tell ye first about his
bad
fortune. I mean, that man was always broke. Never a farthing to his bloody name. Ah had to keep working at the hairdresser’s to keep him in white shirts for his politicking. Ah kept the bank account and the cheque book. Ah kept the savings book. You don’t live wi’ a man for twenty-five years without kenning his worth. An’ his was zero.’

‘Until recently . . .’ Wullie suggested.

She nodded. ‘About a year back. Roon about the time there was a’ this talk about knocking doon Glasgow and rebuilding it in the Campsies. Or wherever. It was wee things. New socks.’

‘Socks?’ I asked.

‘Ah’ve been darning his bloody socks a’ ma days. There’s mair darn than sock noo. So you notice a new pair. Then there was the new suit. And a few ties.
Another
suit. No’ just any suit. You could tell the quality. Quite the spiv getting. He said it was paid for by the Cooncil. For keeping up appearances. That everybody was getting an allowance. But Ah never saw ony other cooncillor wearing onythin’ other than the shiny auld suits they’d hud for the last twenty years.’

I’m not one for coincidence, but it was worth a try. ‘Elsie, do you know where he got his new suits?’

‘Aye. Ah checked the label. Yon fancy Jew tailor in the Gorbals. Only the best for oor Jimmie, noo.’

‘Isaac Feldmann?’

‘Aye, him.’ Her glass had emptied again. Wullie refilled it. Thirsty work, betrayal.

‘Then there was the other woman, Elsie?’ he asked.

‘The whore, ye mean. She micht have come from Edinburgh, but ye ken a whore when ye see wan. Jist makes her a high-class whore. Supposed to be his secretary or campaign manager or some such guff. Jimmie was drooling. Next thing, he’s aff and set up a wee love nest in the West End. Jist about a month ago.’

‘After his pal Alec Morton was murdered?’

‘It was like Jimmie got a burr up his bum.’

‘The flat, was it rented?’ I asked.

‘Bought. I mean
bought
! Paid for outright. Ye hear everything at the hairdresser’s. It’s a wee place, Glasgow.’

‘It could be her money?’

‘Aye, that’s what Ah thocht to begin with. But the word Ah got back from certain enquiries—’

McAllister butted in. ‘Elsie hired a private investigator.’

‘Word was that she was being kept by a fancy man in Edinburgh but his money ran oot. And so did she. A’ she had to her name when she got aff the train at Buchanan Street was a pair o’ high heels and a coney stole. Nae need for drawers,’ she sneered.

It was a powerful picture. Wullie and I tried not to look at each other.

‘An’ then there’s the car.’

‘Jimmie’s got a car?’

‘Brand new Morris Eight. Toad of Toad Hall, he is. Flaunting his motor and his whore. Living it up at parties in his fancy hoose. Is that enough hard proof, then?’

Wullie and I smiled.

When Elsie had left us, we sat with our notebooks in front of us, supping at our pints, and staring at each other.

‘Jimmie got spooked by Morton’s murder?’ I asked.

‘So he decided to live life to the limit while he could, you mean? Either that or he was given the choice of being bought off or wearing a concrete hat.’

‘Some choice.’

‘What do you think, Brodie? Have we got a case?’

‘We’ve got innuendo, circumstantial evidence, and a bitter wife. In themselves they hardly add up to a conviction. But if you can find out who paid for all the trappings of his newfound wealth you’re well on your way.’

Wullie nodded.

I continued, ‘It certainly adds up to a story. And if you wanted to run it now, you could pose the questions about Jimmie Sheridan’s sudden good fortune, and see what he says.’

‘That’s what I thought. We’ve got enough incontestable facts.
He
has to explain himself. Or sue. I’ll pen something, then stand back while Jimmie starts screaming blue murder about slanderous allegations from the right-wing press.’