Bitter Water (27 page)

‘You look lovely, Samantha.’

She’d managed to sweep up her shoulder-length blonde bob into a carefully tangled crown. It was held in place by a small cap of silk and sequins. From her ears dangled long sparkling pendants, and round her slim throat, a matching necklace glittered and drew the eye to the gentle swell of her breasts. Mascara brought out her grey-blue eyes, and her slash of red lipstick accentuated them. My words and my inspection brought a flush to her face. She stepped further into the room and twirled to hide her confusion.

‘Now your turn, Douglas. By the way, it’s
Douglas
tonight. None of your common Brodie stuff.’

I smiled and pirouetted in a clumsy imitation of her controlled birl.

She walked over and flicked a hair from my shoulder. ‘So you weren’t just malingering at Edinburgh Castle.’ She pointed at the medals. ‘What’s this?’ She fingered the cross.

‘A bit of stupidity that came off. Just.’

We were holding a position east of Caen and had taken a pounding for ten solid days. Lying in filthy foxholes, with shrapnel and bullets whistling overhead. I suppose I cracked. Certainly it was a kind of madness. A mind-shaking bout of anger which tore up the rule book that said a man with a machine gun always loses against a tank. I got lucky.

She peered closer. ‘It’s the Military Cross, Douglas! You’re a bloody hero!’

Her eyes were big. On impulse, and to hide my blushes, as the music swept into Perry Como’s big hit, I reached out my hand. For a second I thought she’d decline, but then she moved forward, took my fingers and moved into my arms. We smiled at the blatant lyrics:

She was light and warm in my arms, and her scent filled my chest. I wanted to lift her up and carry her to bed. We swayed easily together to the gentle rhythms of the music. It wasn’t dancing. It was reminding ourselves of our one night of love-making. Then I felt her stiffen.

‘Enough, my dear. Enough, Douglas.’

But her eyes betrayed her. I leaned in and kissed her, and felt her mouth tremble and soften on mine. She gave herself up to me and we kissed like lovers reunited after a long break. Then she was pushing me back. She kept me at arm’s length, chest heaving, eyes glistening.

‘Your medals are cold.’

‘I’ll take them off.’

‘We’ll be late.’

‘Isn’t it fashionable to be late?’ In fact as far as I was concerned the soirée could happen without us.

She shook her head and her beaded cap glittered in the lamplight. ‘If you think I’ve just spend the last two hours getting
dolled
up just to have it
messed
up, you can think again,
Major
Brodie, MC.’

I noted she didn’t deny the temptation, just the waste of effort.

‘Perhaps later, Samantha? I mean, I should at least get the second dance.’

‘Hmph. We should go.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘The taxi will be waiting.’

It was. We’d decided to leave her Riley in the garage rather than get our hands dirty with a starting handle. As we stepped outside, I could have wished we were walking. It was a balmy evening, still broad day in this late Northern summer. The park looked tempting. A gentle stroll downhill to the art gallery would have been just the ticket.

Sam must have read my mind. ‘It’s a pity, Brod . . . Douglas, but these shoes wouldn’t make it.’

I handed her into the taxi and we sailed off on the short ride down Clifton Street and along Royal Terrace. As we turned on to Argyle Street and drew near, we could see other cars and taxis disgorging their passengers in front of the Hall. I could see shimmering long dresses and black suits gliding towards the door. I could see . . .

‘Stop!’ I called to the driver.

‘Here, sir?’

‘Right here. Just for a second.’

Fifty yards ahead of us was a massive car, a Rolls by its size and shape. A royal car. The doors on either side were being held open by capped and uniformed chauffeurs. On the left-hand side a man was emerging, straightening his jacket and tugging at his cummerbund. On the right, the pavement side, a wheelchair was being set up and a man was being helped into it. He was also in evening dress. But it was the chauffeurs that had caught my attention.

‘What is it, Douglas? What’s the matter? That’s just . . . wait a minute . . . yes, it’s Colin Maxwell and his son Charlie. Colin’s health’s worse than I thought. What’s wrong?’

‘It’s not them. It’s their drivers. Look closely. And, Sam, steel yourself. ’

THIRTY-FIVE

S
am peered past the taxi driver’s head, through the windscreen. She was long-sighted, so I knew she’d be able to see what I saw. The chauffeur on the left closed the door and limped round the car. His black curling hair pushed out from under his cap. On the other side, the sallow face with the flattened nose turned towards us. As recognition dawned, Sam’s gloved hand went up to her mouth.

‘Oh God!’ she yelped. ‘It can’t be!’ She crushed my hand.

‘Sam, it is. It’s them. But you’re safe now. You’re with me.’

Under smart grey uniforms and caps were the two ruffians we’d last seen on Arran as bodyguards to Gerrit Slattery. They’d failed in that duty and Gerrit had no further need of them, not now he lay full fathom five undergoing a sea change in the Firth of Clyde.

Curly had earned his limp at my own hand. I’d shot him through the foot back in April as a sort of discouragement to the rest of his gang. The last time I’d seen him and his pugilist-faced pal they were diving into the sea to douse the gobs of flaming petrol that clung to them from my booby-trap. It looked as if their shrapnel burns had healed, though it was hard to tell at this distance.

Their eyes darted about before they got in the car and drove off. Their masters were just entering the building, the tall younger man having bounced his father backwards up the steps in the wheelchair.

‘OK, cabbie. Drive on please, and let us out at the entrance.’

Sam clutched my arm. ‘No! Wait! We can’t go on now! We can’t go in! What if they’re waiting? What if . . .’

‘Sam, Sam, it’s OK. They’re gone. There’s no one to fear inside. Interrogate, yes. Fear, no. The Maxwells have some explaining to do. I have no idea where all this is going, but there are some threads beginning to come together.’

I looked at her. She was breathing hard and clinging to my arm as if it were a lifebelt. Her eyes were wide and her face whiter than usual.

From the front: ‘Are we moving, sir, or are we sitting here?’

‘Give us five minutes please. The lady needs a cigarette. Keep the clock running.’

We sat back. I lit two and slid one into her holder. She took it in shaking fingers. I wound down the windows and let the soft evening air in. The memory flooded back. I could see it in her own eyes . . .

Wild seas slapping on Arran’s rocky shore. The big white house. Setting the pier alight to attract this pair like thuggish moths. The exploding can of petrol shredding their faces with red-hot fragments. My assault on the house to find it empty. Sam carried off into the night by Slattery on his fast ketch. Racing after him in my borrowed power boat. Sam, lying tossed and bruised and hogtied on the deck. My raging attack on the ketch, meting out condign retribution to Slattery. Freeing Sam, terrified, battered and groggy with chloroform . . .

I had soothed her, assuring her that it was all over.

Seems it wasn’t.

‘Did you hear their names?’ I asked her. ‘I only know the one with a limp as Curly.’ I was thinking that putting a name to a demon would help.

She swallowed. ‘Curly’s good enough. Gerrit called the other one Fitz.’

‘Curly and Fitz. Do you think there’s a recruitment agency that specialises in hiring out thugs? Maxwell phoned them and asked them to send round a couple of experienced hoodlums?’

We sat until we’d finished our cigarettes and her breathing had slowed. ‘Ready to face this?’

‘I’m fine, Douglas. Shall we?’

We had the car drive forward and pull up at the kerb. I got out and handed her out. I gave her my arm and we walked up the broad steps like a charmed couple. A blonde and her beau. Only the turmoil in our heads confounded the image. We were greeted at the door and I waved our invitation. Tall glasses were thrust in our hands and we chinked them together before sipping the bubbles. Rationing? What rationing? We pressed forward into the huge vaulted nave of this baroque cathedral to art.

We followed the noise of a murmuring crowd, guided on our way by liveried staff who smiled and pointed the direction in their chalk-white gloves. The portal ahead showed Glasgow’s society at play. A gaggle of colours with black punctuation. They looked as if they belonged here. Belonged together.

I’m an upstart and I know it. My dad was a miner and I only had an education through charity. I’d walked out on my old tribe and never been accepted by a new one. After all this time my instinctive reaction to the upper classes and their privilege is still to knock them down. It was petty and puerile, but for a second I was arriving at my first formal dance at university. My throat thickened and my heart raced. Sam must have sensed it.

‘
Courage, mon brave
. Imagine them naked under their fine clothes.’

As we were just passing a particularly plump dowager sporting a pair of fleshy pillboxes on her uncovered chest, I gave Sam a raised brow. ‘Thanks for the image.’

She smothered a giggle.

A tall man and woman stood just inside, greeting the couple before us. His head was shiny bald, hers a piled-up highlight of gold and reds. Her diamonds flashed his wealth.

In a smiling and low-voiced aside, Sam explained, ‘Kenny Rankin and his wife Moira.’

‘The ammunition king.’

‘With an art gallery named after him.’

I just had time to look up at the plaque above the door – ‘The Rankin Wing’ – as we joined the line-up. Then it was our turn to be announced.

‘Samantha! It’s so good to see you. Haven’t seen you in simply ages.’ Lady Rankin was gushingly kissing and hugging Sam while I was having my hand pumped by Sir Kenny.

‘Saw Samantha was being escorted. Delighted to meet you, Major Brodie. Regiment?’

‘Late of the Seaforths, sir. Second Battalion.’

Kenny Rankin was tall, eyes level with mine. In his prime he’d been a big man. He was still vigorous and imposing but his jacket now seemed hollow at the shoulder and bulging round the midriff. He seemed twice the age of his consort, which fitted with Sam being at school with her. Rankin scanned my medals then gazed at me shrewdly.

‘MC, eh? A good war, Major. 51
^st
Highland? North Africa?’

‘Yes, sir. Then the standard European tour.’

He laughed. ‘I was with the Gordons in the Great War. Only ever saw the inside of a bloody trench in France. Not counting a weekend in Paree, eh?’

I felt a hard stare on me, sizing me up. ‘Kenny, you’re not to start your reminiscing already. Now introduce me to Samantha’s young man.’ Moira Rankin was smiling as she said it, but not with her eyes. I remembered what Sam had said about her society aspirations and wondered what she and Sam had had in common other than a school uniform.

It would seem from Kenny Rankin’s reaction that he hadn’t made the connection with Brodie of the Seaforths and Brodie of the
Gazette
. Or if he had, he was too well mannered to mention it. Whereas his wife was now skinning me, analysing my soul and my worth, and finding me wanting on all fronts. Quickly enough her flensing stare flicked beyond me to the next in line, and we were dismissed. As we moved away, in an aside to Sam, I murmured, ‘I thought you and Moira were pals?’

Sam looked puzzled. ‘We are. I’ve known her all my days. She knew I was upset at her stealing Kenny from his first wife, but that’s all history.’

‘Not the way she was looking at you.’

‘Just jealous of my handsome escort.’ She smiled, took my arm and we plunged into the crowd. We swapped our empty glasses for new ones and the evening began to improve. The gallery was high-ceilinged, the walls freshly painted in soft red. Pictures hung beneath discreet lamps on every wall. No one was pretending to admire them. They were here to inspect each other and compare notes on time’s ravages on faces and wallets.

‘Well, if it isn’t Samantha Campbell. We haven’t seen you around for a bit. Been hiding?’

It was a high, clear drawl, without a trace of Scots in it. I felt Sam’s hand pinch my arm. She turned us both to greet the voice. It came from a man about my age, with slicked-back waves and an Errol Flynn moustache. Like Flynn, the absence of decorations on his dinner jacket suggested this guy had managed to sit out the war. He stood behind a wheelchair bearing an old man with puzzled eyes and thin grey hair. The eyes were the same brown marbles, but the younger’s were unblinking and evaluating. The Maxwells.