Pilgrim Soul (3 page)

The old man walked over and sat beside his wife on the couch. He took her hand and rubbed it, shushing her all the time. I’d witnessed scenes like it a dozen times when I was a copper working out of Tobago Street in the thirties. It wasn’t the cost of an item, or its value. It was their story, their connection with the living or dead. For these old people, who’d fled fascism and left so much behind, it was a further severing of ties.

I listened to their outrage and their hurt. I learned that a uniformed policeman had visited a few days later and taken a perfunctory statement but he’d never come back. They’d never been told what was happening.

‘Mr Bernstein, did the burglar break in? Was there any sign of damage to the door?’

‘Nothing. Not a mark. It was all locked up like I left it.’

‘Who has keys?’

He looked at me as though I was daft. ‘Only me. And of course Mrs Bernstein. You don’t think I am careless with my keys?’

‘Good. What about visitors in the past month or two?’

Mrs Bernstein chipped in, ‘My sister Bella came round. Such a lovely daughter she has. But no man yet. She needs—’

‘Mrs Bernstein!’ said her husband. ‘Mr Brodie wants to know who has been here. He doesn’t want their personal history.’

‘So – Mr Bernstein?’ I asked.

‘Apart from my good-sister Bella, no one.’ He shook his head and his glasses gave up the ghost. They fell in two bits on to the carpet and there was confusion and exclamations until they were joined back together by fresh Elastoplast.

‘Papa? There was a gas man, you told me.’

‘Ach, what news is that?’

‘When was this, Mr Bernstein? And why was he here?’

‘Papa, it was before the burglary. About a week or so.’

‘Mr Bernstein, did you let him in? How did you know he was a gas man?’

Old Bernstein’s jaw jutted out. ‘He had a board with a sheet of paper on it. He looked at the meter. Am I stupid?’

I left them, apologising as I did. Apologising explicitly for my old police comrades and for their cavalier attitude. Apologising implicitly for what had happened in Austria and across Germany and Poland and Russia without the West lifting a finger until it was too late. We’d hanged ten of the top Nazis at Nuremberg last month, but it hardly compensated for the hell they’d visited on millions.

THREE

I did two more interviews that afternoon, all within walking distance of each other and of the Garnethill synagogue. It seemed the gas board had been unusually solicitous lately. I was explaining my findings to Sam that evening.

‘That’s a pretty clear pattern, Douglas.’

‘It’s only three out of nine, and I don’t want to draw conclusions, but . . .’

‘See, you’re a natural.’

‘You mean I should ditch the reporting life and go back to sleuthing?’

She coloured. ‘I wasn’t trying to push you down one track or the other. It’s your life.’

I paused and decided to use the opening. ‘Would it make any difference to us if I did? I mean if I was earning more?’

Sam turned away. ‘It’s not that, not at all.’

‘Then what is it, Sam? We could turn this house of sin into a happy family home.’

She rounded on me, her eyes glittering. ‘House of sin, is it? That’s the worst proposal I’ve ever had.’

‘How many have you had lately?’

‘As in
I’m an old spinster and I should grab the chance because it’s likely to be my last
?’

Bugger. ‘That’s not what I meant!’

We were poised like boxers, waiting for the next blow. I took a deep breath.

‘Samantha Campbell, I love you. I want to marry you. Why are you crying?’

‘I’m not. Well, I am. You made me.’

‘Tears of joy, then?’

‘Shut up, Brodie.’

I stepped forward and held my arms open. She welded herself against me. Her heart hammered against my ribs. I could smell her hair. Her voice vibrated in my chest.

‘We only met in April.’

‘Long enough to know me.’

She pushed herself back and studied me.

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘We don’t have to rush it. Just have the intent.’

‘If I got married I’d have to give up my job. There are no married women in our chambers, not even secretaries.’

‘And I couldn’t support us both on my pittance. Hardly even the coal bill for this grand place.’

She turned away. ‘It’s not that. We’d manage. Somehow. But I worked so hard to get here. I don’t want to give it all up. I promised myself and I promised my parents I’d get silk. Hah! The way I’ve been flapping around all year I’ll be lucky to have a job by Christmas.’

‘We could keep it quiet.’

‘They’d find out. And I don’t want a Gretna Green do, thank you very much!’

She was right. Neither did I. We were better than that. I hoped.

She wiped her eyes, poured us each a glass of whisky and we put the argument aside for another day.

The next day I spread my search to the south side, over Glasgow Bridge and into Laurieston. Into another world. Radiating out from the imposing synagogue in South Portland Street is a network of streets and courts studded with shops garlanded in Hebrew. Posters in Yiddish adorned spare walls, and distinctive hats and beards and long black coats stood out among the whey-faced natives. The smells were richly different; leavened bread and sugary cakes; barrels of herring standing outside for inspection. And everywhere a sense of bubbling life, language and accents competing and clashing in a joyous babel.

I called in on Isaac Feldmann’s tailor’s shop. I nodded to the ageless and familiar mannequins in his window and went inside, the bell heralding my entrance. Isaac stuck his head out from behind the curtain to the back room.

‘Douglas. It’s you. Welcome. Come have coffee. Meet my boy, Amos. See if you can talk some sense into him.’

‘It’s been a long time, Amos.’ I shook the young man’s hand. I’d last seen him as bright-eyed teenager before the war. This was a man coming into his prime. Tall, with an assured manner and his mother’s great eyes behind the specs. I wondered what his younger sister Judith looked like now.

‘He’s a doctor, Douglas. A doctor in the family!’

‘Congratulations!’

Amos flushed. ‘Not yet, Father. Still two years to go, Mr Brodie. If I finish.’ His voice was smart Scottish, the product of good schooling.

‘Ach, listen to him. Of course you will finish. Your mother would turn in her grave.’

‘That’s not fair, Father. I have to make my own way.’

‘And what is that? What nonsense are you telling me?’

I’d obviously come at a bad time. Amos sighed and explained to me: ‘I’m thinking of going to Palestine. It’s where we belong.’

So this was the family trouble Isaac had mentioned.

‘Well, Amos, they certainly need doctors over there.’

Isaac picked up the thread. ‘See! Douglas is right. It’s a bloodbath over there! At least wait till it settles.’

‘That could be years away, Dad! I want to be there at the start.’

I asked gently, ‘How would you get in, Amos? We’re blockading the ports.’

Palestine was a cauldron. Arabs and Jews competing for the same strip of desert, each claiming ancient rights. No give either side. All or nothing. And the poor bloody British Army stuck in the middle trying to keep the peace while the infant United Nations tried to find a solution. No sign of a Solomon. It seems I’d touched a nerve. Amos turned on me.

‘Yes, you are! And it’s shameful! After what our people went through!’ He calmed himself. ‘Mr Brodie, the ones that are left need a home. Israel is our home.’

‘I can’t argue with that. The world should die of shame for what the Nazis did. But it needs to be done by agreement. By law.’

His dark eyes blazed behind his glasses. ‘Pah! My people were gassed and burnt in ovens waiting for the law. Laws don’t apply to Jews. People do what they like to us. And we let it happen. Never again!’

I had only one argument. ‘But, Amos, you’re killing the peacekeepers. Are you going to join one of the gangs? Take up a Tommy gun? What about your family?’ I knew he had a wife and young daughter.

‘Go on, answer Douglas! You’ll join Lehi. Become a murderer. Is that what we raised you for?’ Isaac was on his feet, stabbing a finger at his son.

It summed it up. The disputatious peoples of the Middle East had fought for centuries over which strand of monotheism was best. Fought each other; fought themselves. Within the Jewish tribe, the latest argument was about Zionism – the creation of a Jewish State – and how to achieve it. While we were at war against Nazism, the Middle East was having its own convulsions. And now it threatened to be the new battleground for the world.

‘Never Lehi! They supported the Nazis, Father.’

‘So which is it to be? The gentle souls in Haganah? How about the peaceful Irgun Zvai Leumi? Or the angels in Palmach?’

Isaac was ticking off on his fingers the amoeba-like factions spawning terrorism across Palestine and now shipping it to Britain. They’d captured a member of Lehi – we called them the Stern Gang after their dead founder – in Glasgow last week. God knows what he was up to. They’d bombed our embassy in Rome last month.

‘Stop, stop! I know you think I’m mad. Well, I’m not. I’m just angry, Father. Don’t I have a right?’

Isaac let his arm drop. His face collapsed. I thought he was going to weep.

‘Amos, no one is angrier than me. I just don’t want to lose you.’

I left Isaac and his son embracing in tearful reconciliation, but I didn’t think it was the end of this debate. In the meantime, however, I had a much simpler Jewish puzzle to solve.

FOUR

By Wednesday night I’d interviewed all the robbery victims. I had a clear enough picture of the crimes and I was rehearsing my findings with Sam before explaining to Shimon Belsinger and his pals.

‘The thief was picky. He followed public displays of wealth.’

‘Folk flaunting it?

‘Not necessarily. But deducing who might have money. Car dealers, shop owners. Businessmen. Professional classes.’

‘But that could apply to non-Jews.’

‘The timing helped. He would know they’d all be at prayer.’

‘But again, why not Protestants or Catholic businessmen on a Sunday morning?

‘Sundays are dead. A thief would be more obvious. Whereas . . .’

‘The Saturday Sabbath . . .’

‘Then there’s the refugee aspect. The Jews fled here with all the jewellery and gold they could carry.’

Sam was nodding. ‘Adds up. How did he do it? Shimon said there was no sign of breakins.’

‘Each theft was preceded by a visit from the gas board. Or rather someone pretending. Everybody opens the door for the gasman. He’d have been able to confirm there was stuff worth nicking. He’d establish the layout for the raids, and probably took impressions of the keys. I looked at some of the keys; they felt waxy.’

‘You’ve cracked it, Douglas! All you need is a name.’

‘I’m going to follow the loot. Unless the thief is stockpiling his personal treasure cave with trinkets to admire, he’d have to fence the stolen goods. Anywhere in Glasgow – other than Hyndland and Bearsden – you’ll find pawnshops and small jewellers.

‘That’s your next step?’

I nodded. ‘But I’ll need help. Seven years ago I knew every fence in the East End and the Gorbals. Some of them might still be in business. But looking round Laurieston today, the pawnshop business has being doing a roaring trade. New shops on almost every street. And Garnethill was never my patch so I have no contacts there.’

‘So?’

‘It’s time I bought Duncan Todd a drink – or three.’

‘How will he take finding out you’ve become a gumshoe?’

‘Not well.’

I got into the newsroom early next morning. I went over to the empty secretary desks, picked up a phone and dialled Central Division. Finally, I got put through to Detective
Inspector
Todd, Duncan having been bumped up a month ago after endless years as a sergeant, on the strength of his showing during the recent crime wave. I took some small pleasure and pride in having a hand in his long-overdue recognition.

‘
You’re
in bright and early, Duncan. Trying to impress folk now you’ve scaled the heights?’

There was a sigh. ‘Brodie, if Ah could go back to my wee quiet corner here, nobody minding what Ah did, nobody caring if Ah lived or died, Ah would. Like a shot.’

‘Away! You’re loving it. And the money’s handy, is it no’?’

‘There’s that. But Sangster’s running me ragged. He still thinks you put one over on him, and that Ah helped. But he can’t quite see how. It’s festering in his wee brain. Ah expect to see pus oozing oot his lugs just before his brain explodes wi’ all that pent-up confusion.’

‘I want a ringside seat for that. In the meantime, can I buy you a beer the night?’

‘Thought you’d never ask. Ah need to get Sangster aff ma chest. Someone who’ll no’ clype back to him. See you at McCall’s. Six on the dot.’

I was hanging about waiting for the doors to open. I got in the first double whiskies and a brace of supporting pints. Duncan must have been waiting round the corner. A minute after I sat down he was immersing himself in strong liquor. I got to the point:

‘Dunc, amidst all your arduous duties cleaning up after your boss, have you been involved in any of these thefts among the Jews in Garnethill and South Portland Street?’

He licked his lips and sighed as the Scotch went down. ‘Not me, Brodie, but Ah heard about some goings-on.’

‘There’s been nine burglaries in a month. Why’s no one doing anything about it?’

‘Ah assume that’s a rhetorical?’

‘As in,
because they’re Jews
?’

‘Christ, Brodie, Ah hope you’re no’ gonna quote me? Ah’ve only just got used to being ca’d Inspector. It could be a gie short promotion.’

‘No names. No pack drill. Besides, this isn’t for an article. I’ve been asked if I can help. You know, take a wee peek.’

‘Oh, God. Is this you with your Sherlock hat on again? Can ye no’ just leave things alone, or just write aboot them? Ye know it only brings trouble.’

‘You’re wrong, Dunc. The trouble’s already there. I just lift the stone.’