Read Bitter Water for Free Online Page A

my clutches, laddie, I’ll give you solace all right .
    ‘You might see what comfort you can bring to Mr Docherty. Bed three on the left. Though whether he deserves it, I’ll leave to you to decide,’ she said meaningfully and stood
aside.
    Jimmie Docherty wasn’t expecting a visitor. His dented face – duelling scars from a hundred pub fights – screwed up at the sight of me sitting down on the
chair by his bed. He would have pushed me away if he could. Indeed, with his heavy physique, flung me across the ward. But the job is that much harder when both arms are in stookie up to the
shoulder.
    ‘How’s it going, Jimmie?’
    His eyes scuttled around the room. ‘Aye fine. As ye can see. Who’s askin’?’
    ‘Brodie. From the Gazette . I’m the crime reporter.’
    ‘Crime? Whit’s that to dae with me?’ he growled.
    I wished I had a pound of butter to see what would happen if I shoved it into his innocent big gub. It wouldn’t so much melt as steam. From the look of him, Docherty had been inside
Barlinnie more times than its governor.
    ‘Jimmie, it’s Sunday morning. After Saturday night. The big night out for hard men in Glasgow. They get drunk, they fight, they end up here, and I come along and get some material
for the first edition of the Glasgow Gazette on Monday morning.’ I took my pencil out and pointed at his plastered hands and arms. There wasn’t an inch of skin showing from
fingertip to shoulder. ‘What happened?’ I held the pencil poised above a clean page in my notebook.
    ‘Ah’m no’ a clype!’
    ‘I’m not asking you to tell me who did it. I just want to know how you managed to break both arms. In several places. That takes talent. Or extreme
carelessness.’
    ‘Ah fell.’
    ‘Where from? Ben Nevis?’
    Jimmie stared at me for a while, his cogs grinding away. Then he embarrassed himself and me by letting his piggy eyes fill.
    ‘There was two of the bastards. Ah admit Ah’d had a few. Saturday night as you say. And Ah was kinda stottin’ doon the road when they jumped me. Twa big fellas. Big as me. Wan
grabbed ma heid. The other tied a rope roon ma wrists, then flung the rope up ower a lamppost. They strung me up, so they did. A drunk man. That’s no fair, neither it is.’ His eyes
moistened again at this failure to play by the street rules.
    I pointed at the arms, queasily reluctant now to know the details.
    ‘So how . . .?’
    ‘They had a crowbar, so they did. Ah was on ma tiptoes, ma airms up in the air. And then they started bashin’ them. Great big swings. Ah tell you they made me yelp. Ah was
greetin’ Ah don’t mind telling you. Ah might have had a skinfu’ but they bastards fair sobered me up. Ah could hear the bones going, so help me God.’
    There was a sucking in of teeth from the beds on either side. I felt my own arms wince in sympathy. I’ve seen bad things, heard terrible tales, but rarely such cold-blooded brutality.
Except in the camps, of course.
    ‘Good God, Jimmie! What did you do? Forget to buy your round?’
    Jimmie was quiet for a bit. ‘They kept saying this is what you get.’
    ‘For what? Get for what?’
    He spat it out. ‘They said Ah was a collector. For a shark. And that this was to stop me collecting for a while. Anybody that can dae that to somebody else . . .’ He shook his
head.
    ‘And were they right? You’re a – were – a collector, Jimmie?’
    ‘The judge didnae think so.’
    ‘But you were accused?’
    ‘There was nae proof. Naebody would talk.’ Said with all the pride and arrogance of the professional muscle-man.
    ‘You’re a scary guy, Jimmie.’
    It was hard to preen flat on your back with your arms plastered and hauled above your head but Docherty managed it fine. He lowered his voice.
    ‘Look, pal, somebody has to do it. If you get a wee borrow, you have to pay it back. That’s how it goes. But Ah’m sayin’ nothin’ else. In case it incriminalises
me.’ His face set in a stubborn scowl.