We sat in stillness for a while, each of us, I’m sure, imagining that wee broken body lying in the dark. And wondering about the missing lads. Her hair shone silver in the flickering light. She shook her head, as though puzzled with the badness in the world.
‘When is it?’ She meant when would they hang him.
‘Four weeks. April the thirtieth.’
‘What will you do?’
Not it’s no business of yours; keep away from this because mud sticks; what will the neighbours think? No question that I wouldn’t, shouldn’t, get involved.
‘I don’t know. The odds are against him. So is time. I’d just be wasting my efforts.’
‘But you said there were questions.’
‘But who’s going to answer?’
She must have read something in my face. Even before I admitted to myself. She nodded. ‘Just like your dad. He always had to know.’
‘If Hugh didn’t do it, somebody did.’
‘It’s not about Fiona, is it?’
‘No, no. That was a long time ago.’ I hoped I sounded convincing.
‘I’ll make up a bed in the front room. It’s back to sharing the scullery, son.’
I shook my head. ‘Just the one night, Mum. I’ll get digs up in Glasgow for a week or two. That’s where I’m going to be spending my time. I’ll visit a lot though.’ I smiled to soften the blow as she failed to hide her disappointment.
NINE
By practice, Hugh Donovan’s defence counsel had been picked by the solicitor appointed to Hugh by the court. I travelled back up to Glasgow and trekked round the hard streets of the West End to find an advocate called Samuel Campbell, working at the offices of Harrison, Campbell, MacLane. It was the name left by the secretary who’d phoned my mother. I’d used Mrs Cuthbertson’s phone first thing to fix an appointment and get the address, but I hadn’t anticipated how far along the Great Western Road I’d need to travel. Especially carrying a suitcase. I was getting hot, bothered and asking myself for the umpteenth time why I was doing this for Donovan.
Scottish advocates, if I remembered from my sergeant’s exams, were self-employed members of the Faculty of Advocates. I assumed Campbell was using his old office at the solicitors he’d trained with. I found the nameplate on the side of a sandstone pillar on a fine Georgian townhouse. The terrace sat on a side road back from and looking down on the Great Western Road itself. They must have made wonderful homes a hundred years ago, but now most of them were given over to offices.
Inside was less pretty. The carpets were worn and the chairs sagging. So was the woman in the receptionist’s chair. She managed to achieve looking bored and harassed at the same time and directed me to sit and read some of the pre-war magazines while I waited for the lawyer. I sat and smoked and fidgeted, wondering what this bloke Campbell expected of me. Then a woman appeared from down a dark-panelled corridor to take me to him. She was slim, blond and bespectacled with a careworn frown. Her boss was giving her a hard day.
She strode towards me and stuck out her hand. ‘Sam Campbell.’
I was on my feet and shaking her hand before I could wipe the surprise off my face. Her eyes registered a habitual weariness at the puzzlement she provoked in folk meeting her for the first time.
I smiled warmly at her to compensate. ‘Brodie. I’m here about Hugh Donovan, Mrs Campbell.’
There was no answering smile, just a shrug. ‘I know, Mr Brodie. We spoke this morning. I left my number at your mother’s. And by the way it’s Miss.’
Her tone was schoolmarmy and her face registered at best disinterest, at worse, hostility. I could see why she’d been left on the shelf. ‘Well, miss, I’ve come at your bidding. How can I help?’
She cocked her head to one side. ‘Frankly, I don’t know, Mr Brodie. It wasn’t my idea. My client seemed to think there might be some advantage in it.’ She made it plain that she found that idea pretty bizarre.
Don’t ever believe that Scotland doesn’t have a class system. That we’re somehow immune from England’s stratification by birth and vowel sounds. For one dizzying moment, her cultivated accent pushed me right back to my first days and weeks at Glasgow University, surrounded by so much privilege and gentile upbringing that I could hardly open my mouth for fear of sounding like an Ayrshire farmer. When I worked up courage to ask a girl out I felt like Rabbie Burns arriving among Edinburgh’s society: patronised. Samantha Campbell with her common touch – call me Sam – opened old wounds.
I felt my ears heating up. Then six years of soldiering cut in. I’d led a company of 250 fighting men. Accents meant nothing. Only actions. Only whether you got up out of your foxhole and charged when the piper blew.
‘He was my friend. Is,’ I added.
‘He needs one,’ she said dryly. ‘Come on.’
She turned and led the way down the gloomy hall and into a gloomy room. Despite bookcases filling the walls floor to ceiling, there was no room for the piles of papers bound in red ribbon and marching inexorably across the floor. She climbed nimbly round one pile and dropped into her seat. I did the same on my side of her desk. She had only one file on it. It didn’t take much talent for upside-down reading to read Hugh Donovan’s name across it. While she leafed through the file, I sat getting more and more huffy at her being so offhand with me. I’d made this pilgrimage to her office on behalf of her client whose neck I’d wanted to wring for half my life. Why should I make any effort to prevent someone else doing it for me? Officially.
I studied her. Several years older than me. Late thirties, maybe forty, but far from the dour old man I’d been expecting. She was no doe-eyed dolly, but then she didn’t seem to be trying. Face pale and devoid of all make-up so that the freckles stood proud on her nose. I bet they annoyed her. Short ash-blond hair pulled hard back behind each ear with kirby grips. Blue eyes obscured by thick glasses. Slim figure in grey cardigan and skirt. Maybe ten years ago she’d been the cliche of the mousy librarian who could turn into the slinky vamp, in the right light, with the right make-up and with the right amount of beauty sleep. Maybe a week’s worth.
She looked up and pulled off her specs, showing the dark rings of tiredness and the beginnings of lines at the corners. ‘Finished, Mr Brodie?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The inspection.’
‘It’s my job.’ I hoped she hadn’t been reading my mind.
‘Oh yes. The crime reporter.’ She made it sound like a distasteful hobby, like eating your own toenail clippings. Hislop was one thing but why should a bloody lawyer be so snooty about what I did? I was getting fed up with this. I didn’t need to be here, especially for a back-stabbing bastard like Hugh Donovan. I stood up, my anger at the whole damn thing boiling up inside me. Enough.
‘Shall I come back when you’re having a better day?’
She coloured. The pale skin glowed over her cheeks and on her neck. She rubbed the bridge of her nose where it was marked by her specs. ‘You’re very touchy.’
‘I don’t like being anywhere under sufferance.’
‘Sorry, sorry. Please sit down.’ She took a deep breath and placed her hands flat on the table as though to support her tired body. ‘I shouldn’t have been so rude. It was Hugh’s idea but I am glad you’re here. I’m at the end of my tether. You’re my last resort.’ She smiled ruefully.
‘Things are that bad?’ I whistled.
She ignored my sarcasm. ‘That’s if you’re willing to help?’
I shrugged and retook my seat. ‘How?’
She tapped the file. ‘We have an appeal in two weeks’ time. I’ve got nothing.’
‘Two weeks!’
‘You weren’t that easy to track down!’