Gordon Ferris: The Hanging Shed

‘I never touched him, Dougie. On Fiona’s life. I’m no’ that kind of a guy. You ken me.’

I nodded. I thought I had known him. Like a brother. Then he stole my girl and smashed the trust. If he was capable of that, he was capable of becoming a drug addict, pusher and murderer, in my admittedly prejudiced book of crimes against Douglas Brodie.

‘What do you remember? Of the day before? Up to the time you were picked up.’

‘Nothing much. I did my usual. I needed a fix and went to one of the pubs I use. It was the Mally Arms near Gorbals Cross. I got enough for me and a bit to sell later, maybe six hits in all.’ He could see what I was thinking. ‘But, Dougie, I wouldnae take the lot at once. I never do. Just enough to keep me going. Enough to keep me sane.’ His poor face was twisted now with the pains racking him. It would be part burning nerves and part withdrawal pains. I stood up. He needed help.

‘You need a doctor.’

‘No! They’ll just knock me oot! That’s what they do. He gi’es me too much. To stop me screaming. To stop me upsetting the screws. For the last couple of days, waiting for you, I’ve refused to take their jab. So I could talk. Explain to you. Bastard said: Good, I should suffer in hell for what I did. But I never touched him, Dougie!’ His face ran with tears.

I studied his poor hands for a while. I didn’t get it.

‘So why are you telling me this, Hugh? What’s the point?’

‘I wanted someone to believe. Someone to know I didnae do it. Just someone. After I’m dead. Ma life’s shite, Dougie. But I don’t want everyone to think this.’

The silence hung between us at the thought of what was to happen a month from now.

‘But me?’ I asked. ‘We were hardly best pals, at the end there.’

‘I know. And that’s the other thing. We used to be the best. I was a stupid prick, Dougie. I couldnae help myself over Fiona, that’s the truth. But I should have. She was yours.’

I’d waited a long time to hear his apology, but it hardly registered now. He had nothing I wanted, nothing I could envy.

‘That’s by with,’ I said, waving my hand – and almost believing it.

‘You’re the only pal that mattered, Dougie. An’ I fucked it up. I didnae want you to hear about me and just write me off. I wanted you to know. To believe.’

‘I’m not into belief any more, Hugh. I’ve given up all that stuff.’

For a moment there was something of the old Hugh flitting across his eyes and mouth. ‘Ya Proddy sod! I always said it wasnae a real religion.’

I smiled and shrugged. ‘I gave him enough chances to prove himself. But there’s just too much… too much shit, Hugh.’

‘You should have been brought up a good Catholic. You don’t get a choice about believing.’

‘Even now?’

‘Even now. There’s a priest that comes by. From my chapel. Actually it’s a help.’

‘Maybe I was with the polis too long. No belief without proof.’

‘OK wi’ me, old pal. Besides…’

‘What?’

‘You wi’ your fancy university education and being a big man in the polis. I need a Sherlock on the case. I thought maybe you’d have some ideas.’

I shook my head. ‘We don’t have much time.’

‘ We? I sure don’t.’

I looked long and hard into those blue eyes and wondered if I had enough magnanimity in me to spend precious time on a hopeless quest on behalf of a man I’d come to hate. ‘Why should I?’ I meant, why should I do it for you. He saw my thoughts.

‘Don’t do it for me, Douglas Brodie. Nor for Rory, even. Though that’s plenty. A maniac like that will do it again. Another wee boy…’

I left Hugh nodding away and wringing his hands. He’d put a load on my back and I was minded to fling it off. If no one else was asking the hard questions, why should I? I had a life to lead and it wasn’t here, chasing ghosts. I felt soiled with travelling and with exposure to new horror. I’d had my share. I walked away from the prison, walked until I came to the first tram lines. I boarded a majestic ‘Coronation’ climbed upstairs and pulled out a much-needed cigarette. By the time I was coming into the city centre the air was thick and blue with the other smokers, mainly older men on their way back from picking up their pensions. I dragged deeply on my fag wondering where the hell to begin if I took it on. But mainly wondering why I should bother with such a hopeless case. Why I should care. I looked out the window and saw a pair of wee boys playing marbles in the dust. Their grey shirt-tails hung out and their feet were bare and filthy.

Pals for life, Dougie? Pals for life, Shug.

By the time the train reached Kilmarnock it was smirring, that fine West of Scotland rain that doesn’t seem much at the time, but soaks you as thoroughly as falling in a river. I pulled my mackintosh out of my case and put it on. The road up to Bonnyton was achingly familiar but it looked more rundown, the sandstone blacker. Maybe it was the rain. I felt the now familiar black mood descend and I fought to banish it. I didn’t want to spoil my homecoming. But as I took the hill my stride grew shorter, my gait slower, as though the rain was lead. I paused under the railway bridge and smoked a fag until I got hold of myself.

It was a bleak return. I was in civvies this time, the kilt handed back last October together with the major’s crowns. It would have been nice to have had just one last saunter down the High Street in full dress uniform in my acting rank before they bumped me back to captain on demob. Sporting the medal ribbons of the Africa Star, the Italy Star and the France and Germany Star; like the awards at primary school for spelling, writing and sums. To have dropped casually into the Wheatsheaf, and bought a round or two for my old mates, and let them mock me gently: ‘I hope the guy was deid when you stole his uniform, Brodie.’ Or: ‘I didnae think the Catering Corps gave oot medals.’ And so on, and so on, but seeing in their eyes just a hint of the envy or admiration that they’d rather die before admitting.

It wouldn’t have the same impact to roll up in my demob outfit and explain exactly what a freelance journalist did for a living. They’d call me the ‘paperboy’ or ask why I couldn’t get a full-time job. They’d mock me all the harder when I said I specialised in crime reporting, and that there was more to it than sitting in the Old Bailey fleshing out lurid stories of straying spouses being caught in flagrante delicto. The phrase always made me smile: while the crime was blazing. It conjured images of wild passion and pounding bed springs. The truth was usually duller; it was generally a set-up in an accommodating hotel to get the divorce. The ‘lovers’ would be found in their underwear waiting for the photographer to show up. At which point they’d grapple a bit on the bed and look as enamoured with each other as two strangers could in front of a grinning audience.

Then there was the limp from the shrapnel I took in Sicily in ’43 after chasing Rommel up the North African coast. The leg wounds earned me two pleasant months in a hospital in Alexandria and a ticket to officer training back in Blighty. When I kept up the exercises the limp didn’t show. But since I got back to London last autumn, I’d let things slide. If I wasn’t exploding at the bureaucracy involved in getting my hands on my Army pension or a nice bit of bacon, I was sunk in gloom feeling sorry for myself. I’d meet a girl in a pub and we’d get on great until I went into one of my fugues and spoil it all. My local quack said I should buck up and prescribed iron tonic. He said it was normal, that London was full of men like me. Which would explain the punch-ups I got into in the bars I frequented.