The stone gallows, p.8
The Stone Gallows, page 8
And those, Cameron, are betting odds.’
I said nothing. I was surprised that he knew my name.
‘Now, the thing is that there will always be some scumbag lawyer that will be able to claim that all I have is circumstantial evidence, and they would be right. And because they’re both still young, even if we got a conviction, we’d be lucky to get more than a couple of months in a young offenders unit. But I think that everybody could agree that both Jerry and Derek are headed down a slippery slope, and perhaps by intervening now, we might be able to prevent not just further attacks on members of the general public, but possibly even prevent these two young mean wasting what might turn out to be relatively productive lives.
‘I’m not going to lie to you; things could get a little rough. But it’s up to you to decide what kind of cop you want to be. Whether you want to be the rule follower, or the one that does what’s right.’
Put like that, it didn’t take me long to decide. ‘I’m in.’
4.2.
After Joe’s description of the McConnells, I expected a tenement flat with wet rot and used needles on the stairwell, a couch mouldering on the street outside. Instead, they lived in a smart detached house in a new estate. But it wasn’t a complete contradiction. Compared to those of neighbouring properties, the garden was unkempt, the grass long, the weeds rampant. Joe nodded as we pulled to a halt outside. ‘Mummy inherited a nice wee sum and decided to invest in some property. Guess she’s used to having the council do all the maintenance.’
‘Where is mummy, do you think?’
‘She’s got a job in a bar. Long hours. Uses it as an excuse every time the boys get into trouble. Daddy’s been gone for years. He saw which direction the boys were heading and moved onwards and upwards.’
Joe stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, and then, remembering he was in a pool car, emptied the ashtray out of the window. ‘Come on.
Let’s go pay our respects.’
Walking up the path, he spoke softly. ‘All I want from you is to stand in the corner and look pretty. I spoke to some of the officers that have interviewed them. Gerry’s bad enough, but Derek’s supposed to be a fucking headcase. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. I don’t think they’ll try anything, but with idiots like these, you never can tell.’
It took forty seconds of persistent knocking before the door was answered. A stick insect with a towel wrapped around his waist and a can of lager in his hand said, ‘I wis takin’ a bath.’
There was a livid scratch running down his left cheek.
‘Gerry, is it?’ Joe waved his badge as he pushed past and into the house. ‘Where’s Derek?’
There was a frown as Gerry registered the badge. ‘What do you want? We haven’t done nothing.’
‘Just a wee chat. Where’s your brother?’
‘Listening to music with headphones on. That’s how I had to get out the fucking bath.’
‘Where? Living room? Kitchen? Shed at the bottom of the garden?’
Gerry pointed sullenly. ‘Living room.’
‘After you.’
‘It’s through there. I’ll just go and put some clothes on.’
The kid made to go back up the stairs, but Joe put a hand on his arm. ‘That won’t be necessary. We’re not going to be long.’
Gerry grumbled as he led us into the living room. The place was a tip, with old newspapers and half eaten plates of food littering the floor. Derek was sitting on a settee eating crisps, an oversized pair of headphones balanced on his head. He whipped them off as we entered the room and I caught a quick burble of techno before he hit the off switch. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
Joe waved his badge for the second time, directing Jerry to the opposite end of the settee. The kid sat down, the towel riding up and falling open. Not a pretty sight, but at least there wasn’t much to look at.
They weren’t identical, but the facial resemblance was there. Both had high foreheads and monobrows. Joe had said they were my height, but after seeing Jerry standing upright, I put them at a couple of inches taller. They were certainly big enough and ugly enough to scare the shit out of the average person. It didn’t worry me. I’d been strong before, but four months of torture up at the police training college at Tulliallan had left me in better physical shape than I had ever been in my life. They were willow trees compared to my oak. If it came to a one on one fight, I’d break them in half.
Joe swiped an empty pizza box off an armchair onto the floor, checking there was nothing unpleasant that could stain the seat of his trousers before sitting down. ‘You know, it wouldn’t kill you guys to do a bit of a clean up around here.’
‘Mum’s at work.’
‘And wouldn’t it be a surprise for her to come home to a nice tidy house?’
The two boys looked at each other and laughed. ‘Fuck that.’
‘I bet she’s proud of you.’ Joe reached into his pocket. ‘Anyhoo, I didn’t come here to chat. I was wondering if you knew this lassie.’
He passed a Polaroid to Gerry, who studied it. I was only three months in the job, but I saw his eyes flick to his brother and back, and understood the significance.
‘No, pal. Never seen her.’
‘What about your brother?’
This time, Derek’s face didn’t give him away. He gave the picture a cursory glance before shaking his head and passing it back.
‘That’s strange. Her name’s Louise Brennan. She lives less than two hundred yards away. Walks her dog past your house every single day.’
Derek gestured to the closed blinds. ‘Do I look like I give a fuck what goes on outside?’
‘Fair enough.’ Joe passed another picture over her. ‘What about this one?’
This time, both their faces remained clear. They looked at the picture a long time before shaking their heads. Derek said, ‘Looks like somebody hit her with a bus.’
‘Close enough. It’s actually the same lassie. The first picture was the
“before”, and what you’ve got there in your hands is the “after”.
Doctors say that she might need reconstructive surgery on her nose.’
‘That’s fuck all to do with us, pal.’
‘So why’s she saying that it was you two fine gentleman?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Go out much at the weekend?’
A smirk passed between the two brothers. Any doubts I had as to their guilt disappeared. Derek ate a crisp. ‘We mostly stay at home and read our bibles.’
‘I’m sure you do. What happened to your face, Gerry?’
‘Walked into a door.’
‘A door with false nails?’ Joe slapped his knees with both hands.
‘Let’s cut the bullshit. I know that it was you two.’
Derek crossed his legs and studied his fingernails. ‘Aye, well. Knowing something and being able to prove it are two different things.
That’s how you’ve not arrested us. You know she’s not going to testify, and even if you make her, she’ll just say that she made a mistake. So why don’t you just fuck off back to your sty and leave us alone?’
Joe looked at me. ‘Don’t you love it? We’re pigs, so we must live in a sty?’
Derek said, ‘You’re a pair of fucking wankers is what you are. You think you can come into my house and play it fucking cool? Try and scare us? Even if you could prove anything, the worst we’re going to get is a year or so in borstal. Warm beds, good food. We’d fucking own the place. We’re fucking laughing at you.’
This from a seventeen year old boy.
He stood up. ‘You can both just fuck off. Tell Louise she’s a good lassie for doing what as she’s told. Maybe one night I’ll go round andpay her a visit. I’ll wait until she’s not quite such a swamp donkey though. . . mind you, they do say ugly birds try harder. She might not be so choosy this time.’
The expression on Joe’s face never changed, but there was something. . . a deadening of the eyes, the muscle in his jaw. He sighed and got to his feet. ‘It’s a slippery slope you’re on, lads.’
‘Thank you, Mr Policeman, for showing us the error of our ways.’
I moved for the door, disappointed that our social call hadn’t had a more conclusive ending. Then something made me hesitate. I turned, just in time to see Joe knee Derek in the balls, the impact like a concrete ball wrapped in wet blankets bouncing off a wall. Derek went down, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Gerry was up in a shot, the towel falling to his feet. I intercepted him as he moved toward Joe, seizing him, putting his arm up his back like I had been taught.
Joe loomed over the fallen boy. ‘Did you think we were finished?
Did you think that we were just going to go home?’ He planted a vicious kick into Derek’s side. ‘We’re just getting started, son.’
Gerry struggled in my hold, so I increased my grip, jamming his arm further up his back. I had my left hand on his neck, ready to stick my thumb into his brachial artery, a nasty little trick they don’t teach you in Tulliallan but I had discovered on my own. I kept him facing his brother on the floor while Joe proceeded to do to Derek what Derek had done to nine people before him. I made him watch, having to watch myself, not wanting to but perversely enjoying it all the same. This was what it was all about. No paperwork, no warrants, no fucking hours wasted outside the High Court waiting to testify only to see some arsehole that we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was guilty walk away because some dumb twat had forgotten to sign a report in triplicate or whatever.
I’ve seen, given and received a few kickings since then, but in over ten years, nothing has ever come close. Joe fucked Derek up bigstyle.
Ugly, indelicate, but that’s the only way I can describe it. While the boy struggled for breath, Joe flipped him onto his front and kneeled on his back, forcing the arm until the shoulder cracked loudly. Then Joe went to work on the hand, snapping the thumb and fingers one by one like a fistful of twiglets. At some point between the index finger and the pinkie, Derek passed out from the pain.
Joe got to his feet and turned his attention to Gerry. ‘That’s your brother in a cast for the next month. So I guess the question remains. . . what are we going to do with you?’
Gerry was white with fear. ‘Oh Jesus. . . Oh Jesus Christ. . . you can’t. . . you can’t do that. We’re just kids. . .’
‘YOU ARE NOT FUCKING KIDS!’ Joe screamed in his face. ‘YOU
FORFEITED YOUR RIGHT TO CHILDHOOD!’ Spittle landed on Jerry’s face. And mine. ‘You forfeited your right to be children the second you started to commit adult crimes!’
‘I’m sorry. . .’
‘I don’t fucking care that you’re sorry. Louise Brennan doesn’t know that you’re sorry. She doesn’t care. Sorry isn’t going to make up for what you did to her. Sorry is just a word that cunts like you use to weasel out of accepting responsibility for things that you should never have done in the first place.’
Joe looked at me. ‘Let him go.’
I released my prisoner. Gerry spared me one terrified glance before turning his attention back to Joe. ‘Please. . . please don’t. . .’
‘Oh, shut up.’ Joe’s voice was toneless. He went and sat back down on the armchair. ‘I know that Derek’s the brains behind the two of you.’
Gerry bent and picked up the towel, tucking it back around his waist. He nodded frantically, agreeing with Joe.
‘Now, my colleague and I are going to go in a couple of moments, and you can then dial emergency services and get some help for your brother. I think he’s going to need it. They’ll want to know what happened, and I don’t care what you tell them.’ He nodded at the scratch on Gerry’s cheek. ‘Tell them he walked into a fucking door.
Anyhoo, the point is that I have a dozen witnesses that will swear blind that both of us were elsewhere, and besides, everybody knows that the pair of you are pond life. Derek was right. Knowing that something is the truth and being able to prove it are two very different things.’ He looked at the mess at his feet without the slightest trace of pity. ‘You really did bring this on yourselves, you know.’
Gerry nodded. He was at the stage where he would agree to anything that was said. If Joe suggested that it would be fun to get out the baby oil and grease him up, he’d have run to the bathroom in his eagerness to help.
Joe stood up and studied Derek. His chest was moving; the kid was breathing alright. Joe turned his attention to Gerry. ‘Now, I won’t waste anybody’s time by saying that it’s up to you to turn your life around. What I will point out is that I can always come back, and the next time, I’ll hand out some real punishment. To both of you. So if you and your dumb little buddy find yourselves contemplating getting up to something naughty, just remember. . . I’ll find you.’
4.3.
We made it half a mile before I had to stop the car. I pulled in at a bus stop, opened the door and threw up all over the tarmac. I could feel Joe’s eyes boring into the back of my head. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘That’s OK. And it’s Joe. While it’s just the two of us. You can go back to sir when we get back to the station.’
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It’s shock.’ He held out his right hand in front of him. I noticed a barely perceptible tremor. ‘I feel a little bit like that myself.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s nearly knocking off time. Let’s make a little detour. Take the next right.’
Joe directed me to a pub called Yesterday’s Promise. Never had a drinking establishment been so aptly named. It was on the edge of a mostly abandoned industrial estate and had obviously collapsed onto hard times. Once it might have been a place for tired workers to go at the end of a long day, but as the businesses had moved out, so had the clientele. Exterior paint had long since peeled away to the bare wood, and the once white walls were now a dirty shade of grey. Joe caught me looking and said, ‘I know, it’s a shithole. . . which means there’s not much chance of running into management types.’
Once my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, the place was better on the inside than I expected. Yesterday’s Promise was never going to make the Good Pub Guide – the promise of yesterday apparently failing to become the reality of today – but it was reasonably clean, with polished wood tables and an impressive selection of whisky. The place was deserted except for a barman who was about five feet tall, with a pointy nose and prominent teeth that made me think of a rat.
I was going to order a Coke, but before I could speak, Joe put a ten down on the bar. ‘Two half and halves, Des, and get one for yourself.’
He looked at me. ‘Why don’t you go and grab us that table in the corner?’
I did as I was asked, taking a seat where I could watch the bar.
Ratman – Des, as Joe had called him – prepared our drinks, the ten pound note disappearing into the till with not even an offer of any change. They chatted for a few seconds before Joe brought the drinks over. He sat down opposite me and polished off the whisky in one go.
‘Christ, I needed that.’
I didn’t especially want to have an alcoholic drink – I was still a probationary constable, remember – but my mouth was a desert. I took the tiniest sip of the lager, but my thirst outweighed my sense and I ended up downing half of it in one go. Now that the adrenaline was leaving my system, I was angry. Things had gone too far. Way too far.
But what could I say? Joe was the senior officer, and I had watched without even trying to intervene. And hadn’t there been a little voice in the back of my mind all along, whispering that the little shit was only getting what he deserved? Wasn’t that what I was really angry about?
Joe seemed to know what I was thinking. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t plan for that. I didn’t go in there with the intention putting the kid in a cast.’
‘But you meant all along to hurt him. I mean, why else were we there?’
Joe nodded soberly. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘I could lose my job for this!’
‘That’s not going to happen. Guys like Gerry and Derek don’t call the police. That’s not their style. Besides, I wasn’t kidding. I really can get a dozen people that will confirm we were elsewhere.’
‘But we could have waited! Got enough evidence to put them away!’
For the first time, I saw a shadow of anger on his face. ‘For how long, Cameron? How long would you wait? Until they beat somebody else up? All it takes is one lucky punch to kill someone. Maybe you’d rather wait until they succeeded in raping some poor lass like they tried with Louise Brennan?’
‘No, but. . . ’ I had no answers.
‘Cameron, I’m not proud of what I just did, and I don’t want you to be thinking that’s the way I conduct myself. Most of the time, I behave myself. But every once in a while there comes along something that can’t be resolved by procedure. I didn’t walk into that room with the intention of hurting Derek as badly as that. I thought a wee slap on the face would be enough. But I. . . ’
‘You lost it.’
‘I didn’t lose it.’
‘You fucking well did.’ That was the only way I could account for the sickening level of violence. I remembered the sound Derek’s arm had made. ‘You lost it.’
‘That’s not true, Cameron. It’s just. . . after what Derek said, I realised that this guy wasn’t going to respond to a slap. He was just going to keep doing exactly what he wanted. What he did to that lassie meant nothing to him. Gerry’s nobody. He’s a follower, not a leader.
