The Stone Gallows (11 page)

“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.

But Derek. . . he's got all the makings of a serious psychopath. I'm not talking about your garden variety nutjob. I'm taking about a predatory sexual killer, the kind of guy that rapes and tortures and abuses and kills for the fun of it. Like Fred bloody West. And of course, in Gerry he's got a perfect audience. I could be wrong, but I think there's every chance that in a few years we'll be watching Derek's neighbours being interviewed on the evening news. They'll be the ones saying he was such a quiet man, always said hello.'

I said nothing. All I wanted to do was finish my drink, go back home and put this day behind me. Once again, Joe seemed to read my face. ‘Look, Cam, I'm sorry. The only regret I have about this afternoon is putting you in the position I have. You're young, you haven't been in the job long. . . it was too soon.'

‘Let's just forget about it.'

‘That might be for the best.'

4.4.

Of course, we didn't just forget about it. I never told anybody what happened that afternoon. For the next few days, I expected to feel a hand on my shoulder, hauling me off to a disciplinary hearing. I kept my head down and my profile low, knowing that if what we had done ever came to light, it wouldn't just be a question of losing my job.

We'd been told what happened to crooked cops in jail, and I had no desire to find out first hand.

It never happened. Two mornings later, my supervisor pulled me to one side and asked how things had gone. I almost blurted out the truth, but managed not to. ‘Fine. It was just a routine thing.'

‘Oh, aye?'

‘Aye.'

‘Joe tell you not to talk about it?'

‘Sir.'

I love that word. It's neither a confirmation or a denial. It just makes people think that you're listening.

‘Well, whatever it was, you did well. Joe said that you've got the makings of a good copper. And I know for a fact that he's not easy to impress.'

‘Sir.'

High praise indeed, but it was a while before I forgave Joe for that particular afternoon. I was young, remember, and not as cynical as I am now. At the time, I believed that there had to be a better solution.

Now that I'm older, I'm not so sure. I've seen a thousand kids like the McConnells, and most of them continue to re-offend, the escalating violence of their crimes proof of Joe's theory.