A Carriage For Lochee (Detective Watters Mysteries Book 6)

A Carriage For Lochee (Detective Watters Mysteries Book 6) by Malcolm Archibald

Book excerpt

Detective Sergeant George Watters glanced upwards, where shifting clouds part-obscured the scimitar moon. He grunted, for he had hoped for more light, and checked the time on the sadly battered watch that Marie had given him on their tenth wedding anniversary. Watters valued that watch and smoothed his fingers across the maker’s name. Benson was a quality watchmaker from London. Marie must have paid a packet for you. He waited until the minute hand moved to the number ten.

Ten minutes short of midnight.

“Are you ready, boys?”

Detective Constable Scuddamore nodded. “Yes, Sergeant.” With his immaculately groomed side whiskers, straight nose, and cleft chin, Scuddamore considered himself the most handsome man in the Dundee police force. Watters knew he notoriously tried to avoid situations that might endanger his looks. However, here he was, crouched outside a filthy alley in the village of Lochee, about to raid a shebeen where the inhabitants could prove highly violent. Scuddamore sighed, checked the staff in its long pocket and prepared for trouble.

“Ready, Sergeant,” Detective Constable Duff was the opposite of Scuddamore. Short for a policeman, he was villainously ugly and, with broad shoulders and mighty muscles, could stand toe-to-toe in a prizefighting ring. He flexed his knuckles and thought of Rosemary sleeping peacefully at home.

Behind the plain-clothed detectives, eight uniformed constables gripped their long wooden staffs, stamped their boots on the unpaved ground and waited for Watters’ orders.

Watters rechecked the time, watching the minute hand hovering on eleven. He snapped shut the lid and tucked the watch into his waistcoat pocket. “Right boys, follow me!”

Duthie’s Wynd was long and narrow, with a dog-leg bend in the centre and a sweet scent that Watters recognised as whisky. The moment Watters stepped past the wynd entrance, he heard raucous singing and a high-pitched screech.

“Holy Mary, it’s a banshee,” Constable Halloran said and crossed himself.

“No,” Scuddamore corrected. “Just a drunken woman. We’ll have none of your superstitious nonsense here, Halloran.”

Watters paused as he found a man face down in the central gutter and checked to ensure he was still breathing.

“He’s as drunk as a lord and passed out,” Watters said. “Leave him until later.” He hurried to the dog-leg bend with his men pounding behind him. The tenement on the right was three storeys high, with no lighting and a strong smell of alcohol drifting from an open window. Watters heard more laughter and bursts of drunken singing, with some voices raised in anger.

“Duff! Stay here with two men and stop anybody who tries to escape. Scuddamore, take two men to the back entrance to the close!”

Watters would have preferred to have Duff’s muscles with him as he mounted the worn stone steps two at a time, but the broad detective was the most effective stopper in the force. The noise was louder here, with the sweet smell of whisky strong in the confines of the close. A woman screamed, a man swore, and Watters stopped at the middle door of the second floor.

He banged on the door as his four uniformed constables gripped their staffs and tensed themselves.

“Dundee Police!” Watters roared. “Open up in there!”

When the noise continued unabated, Watters tried again, with the same result.

“Let me, Sergeant,” Constable MacHardy said. When Watters nodded, MacHardy stepped back, lifted his foot, and smashed his boot against the door. The lock burst open, and Watters was first inside, swinging his cane and shouting.

“Dundee Police! I am Sergeant Watters of the Dundee Police!”

MacHardy followed, yelling, “Lochee Police!”

About twenty people crowded the two-roomed house, men, women, and children. Most were singing drunk, some were fighting drunk, and a few had collapsed on the floor in near paralysis.

“Who are you?” A red-faced man leered at Watters. “I dinnae ken you.”

“I am Sergeant Watters of the Dundee Police,” Watters repeated. “Who runs this shebeen?”

“I do,” the red-faced man said. “How?”

“You’re breaking the law,” Watters said. “This house is an unlicensed outlet selling alcohol on a Sunday, contrary to the Forbes Mackenzie Act.”

“Bugger your Forbes Mackenzie Act,” the man said and swung a meaty fist at Watters.

Watters ducked, lifted his cane, and cracked the lead-weighted end behind the man’s ear, knocking him to the floor. Before the man recovered, Watters dragged his arms behind his back and screwed on his D-pattern handcuffs. All around him, the constables arrested the most truculent of the crowd and checked the identities of the remainder. The noise rose to a crescendo and then dropped away. One woman was violently sick on the floor.

“Do you want us to arrest them all, Sergeant?” MacHardy asked.

“No,” Watters said. “Only the known thieves and troublemakers. Take the others to the foot of the close, give them a warning and let them go.” He tapped his cane on the head of the man he had felled. “This is the fellow we want. The others are unimportant.”

MacHardy smiled. “Maybe so, Sergeant, but we’ve got a fine collection of rogues and blackguards here. Two prostitutes and known thieves, one habitual pickpocket and a brute wanted for assault.”

Watters grunted. “Well, MacHardy, you’re the local Lochee man here, and I’m glad we helped clean up your village. Take your blackguards to your South Street station lockup but leave this man for me.” Watters nudged his prisoner with the side of his foot. “You! What’s your name?”

“Bugger off, Bluebottle!”

Watters kicked him harder. “That’s not your name. Try again.”

“That’s Sean Kelly,” MacHardy said. “He’s known to the police.”

“Is that right, Kelly?” Watters asked.

“Yes, damn you. I’m Sean Kelly!”

“Save Kelly for me,” Watters said to MacHardy. “The rest you can book and hold or warn and release.” He grabbed Kelly’s hair and hauled him to his feet. “Up you get.” Watters caught a constable’s eye. “Halloran! Take this man into the close and look after him until I want him!”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Halloran grabbed Kelly by the shoulder. “Come with me, Kelly.”

With the house cleared of all its occupants, Watters called up Scuddamore and Duff and began a thorough search.

“I want proof that Kelly used this place as a shebeen,” Watters said. “Not just a few bottles or Kelly could claim he was celebrating his birthday.”

They had not long started when Duff shouted across, “Here we are, Sergeant! A cashbox full of money!”

Watters stepped over. “That’s a start,” he said. “It’s not definite proof, though. Kelly could hold his wages in a cashbox.”

The cashbox sat on top of a small table, and when Duff moved it, he found a small notebook underneath. “Sergeant!” He opened the book. “A list of names and figures.”

“That’s better, Watters said. “Put it with the cashbox. We’ll take both to Bell Street and count it there.”

“In here, Sergeant,” Scuddamore called from the second room. “I’ve found two barrels!”

Both barrels sat snug against the back wall, one larger than the other. A simple tap fitted into the side of each.

“You’re the expert, Scuddamore. What do you think?” Watters asked.

Scuddamore lifted a cheap glass tumbler from the dozen that littered the room and wiped it with his handkerchief. “This had better be the good stuff,” he said and held it under the tap of the smaller barrel.

When he opened the tap, a clear liquid poured into the tumbler. Scuddamore sniffed at his glass. “Whisky,” he said, “of a sort.” He tasted it carefully and gasped. “Kill-me-deadly,” he said hoarsely. “Straight from the still. I doubt it’s matured more than two weeks.”

“Peat reek?” Watters asked. Peat reek was illegally distilled whisky.

“Undoubtedly,” Scuddamore said and placed the glass on the floor without tasting more of the content.

“Are you not going to finish it?” Duff asked. “You’re a drinking man, Scuds.”

“I’m a drinking man,” Scuddamore said, “not a born bloody fool. That stuff would rot your liver.”

Watters hid his smile. “Try the other barrel, Scuddamore.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Scuddamore lifted his glass, emptied the contents onto the cold embers of the fire and held it under the tap. He allowed a finger’s width of the barrel’s contents to dribble into the glass and closed the tap. “This looks worse,” he said.

“Go on, Scuds,” Duff encouraged.

Scuddamore sniffed the contents, grunted, and tilted the glass to his lips. “Jesus Christ!”

“Watch your blasphemy!” Duff warned.

Scuddamore ejected the contents of his mouth into the fireplace. “Christ turned water into wine, but even he couldn’t make that filth palatable.”

Watters nodded. “We’ll take it away and find out what it is,” he said. “And more importantly, from where it came. We have to discover who supplies this poison.” He glanced around the room. “Well done, lads. I think we have sufficient to convict Kelly and close this place down.”