The Assassin's Gift

by C. P. IRVINE, IAN

  In other words, Campbell would most likely be back at work within six weeks, with a suntan and a relaxed smile on his face.

  Or he would be dead.

  Thirdly. Guthrie knew that Campbell had marital problems. Admittedly caused by his own stupidity in the most part, although it was still not clear exactly if the relationship between DI Danielle Wessex and him had been genuine, or if Campbell had been set up. Privately, Guthrie had admitted to Campbell just after it had happened over a beer, that if Wessex had come on to him as part of a setup directed by McNunn, Guthrie, or any man, would have found it hard to resist. Wessex had been a beautiful, sexy and very intelligent woman.

  The point was though that Guthrie was trying to do Campbell a favour. "You're one of our best men. Even without this contract on your head, you're under a lot of stress. The Department needs you, and needs you to be well, clear-headed and not making any wrong decisions. Plus, if DI Wessex had come on to you as part of a bizarre McNunn plan, then in some way, the problems you're having with Fiona at the moment, are partially caused by work. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. Take some responsibility..."

  So, now Campbell understood the intention behind the suspension, he had agreed to take some time out. Go on holiday. Get out of the city. To disappear.

  He would check-in regularly, but not let anyone know where he was.

  In fact, the arrangement was very well-timed.

  He was missing Fiona. A lot. If it had not been for everyone insisting that he should give her space, and not contact her, he would definitely be camping out on her - their - doorstep by now.

  It worried him that Fiona had not called him back or returned any more of his messages to her. He’d stopped sending them, as Brian and his wife had insisted.

  He'd hoped that she would fume for a while, calm down, and then give him some wiggle room to weave his way back to her, without losing too much face over it... but so far there was none.

  He'd heard nothing more from her.

  Was she okay?

  He worried a lot about her. More and more each day.

  He'd known how much he'd miss her. But still, the intensity of his feelings towards her, now that it had happened and they were apart, actually surprised him.

  He had always known he loved her, but only now was he discovering just how much he actually did.

  Leaving the police station, Campbell went for a long walk up and across Salisbury Crags in the Park. Arriving at his favourite spot, overlooking the sprawling city of Edinburgh beneath him, he sat down, thought about Fiona, his life, his suspension, and made a plan.

  First, he would go and visit Fiona. Make sure she was okay. Try to talk to her. To start the healing process.

  Then he would inform her that he had to go away for a while. He wasn't yet sure if he would tell her about the contract out on his head. In some ways it could help Campbell's cause ... The threat of losing him, should the assassin catch him and kill him, might scare Fiona into dialogue and a second chance with her. But it would also worry her. And Campbell wasn't a hundred percent sure that it would be fair to tell her. The flipside would be if Fiona invited him back for the wrong reasons, or too early. He knew that if they were to realistically have a chance to survive, together, then Fiona would first have to work through her feelings of anger, and possibly even hatred, towards him. Otherwise it would just simmer away, and all come out one day in the future.

  But, then again, the Fiona he knew would be furious if he didn't tell her, and something then happened to him.

  Which, actually, was admittedly only still a valid point, if she still cared.

  Which she might not.

  He thought about the best way to go home and collect his stuff. Should he just turn up, and hope that she was there, or should he call her first?

  Should he say he was going to leave town for a while, in advance, thus giving himself the excuse to go home and collect his passport and some personal belongings?

  Then there was a scary thought... if he didn't tell her why he was having to leave town, then maybe she would think he was running away from her, from the situation between them. She might think he didn't care.

  It could make things far, far worse.

  He swallowed hard.

  Maybe it was because he was a professional, someone who dealt with danger and crime and threats all day long, every day, or perhaps because he was blocking it out, but until now he had not really thought about what the 'contract on his head' really meant.

  With a pang of fear, perhaps not unlike that which a person may experience in the onset of a panic attack, Campbell suddenly realised just how serious this actually could be.

  No, not actually 'could be', rather, actually was!

  Shit... a hired killer, a trained and professional contract killer had accepted a large amount of money to kill him. Within the next three weeks? Three-and-a-half weeks?

  He looked around him. Was anyone watching him now?

  This was pretty bloody serious.

  A trained killer would already be hunting him down. Following him. Planning how and when McKenzie would die.

  And what was he doing?

  He was bloody sitting on a rock, sightseeing, looking at his favourite view, and contemplating his navel.

  McKenzie broke out into a cold sweat, and his breathing started to get faster.

  His heart skipped a few beats, and he felt suddenly light-headed.

  Shit... shit....

  He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths.

  He remembered the training that he and his officers had taken on several occasions. Training designed to help them maintain a cool head during moments of extreme duress, enabling them to make the right decisions, at the right time.

  He tried to focus. To breathe properly.

  To calm down.

  Breathe in.

  Breathe out.

  In.

  Out.

  Relax.

  RELLLLLAAAAAAXXXXXXX!

  Slowly, but what seemed like very slowly, the world started to stabilize.

  He started to think rationally again.

  To make plans.

  To puts things into perspective.

  First things first.

  He realised then that the longer he was hanging around in Edinburgh, the more dangerous it was.

  And if he went anywhere near Fiona, he could actually put her in danger too.

  Perhaps it would be better to go home and only collect his things when she was not around.

  But then again, perhaps going home was a bad idea altogether. His address was a matter of public record. You could find it in at least ten different places that Campbell could think of. Someone could be sitting there outside his house, waiting.

  Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out his wallet.

  Looking inside, he confirmed what he already knew: he had two bank cards and a credit card. A driving licence and his gym passes. And a few other cards.

  He looked at his cards. He looked at the city. He stared over towards where his home was.

  And he made a decision.

  Campbell was leaving the city now.

  He was not going home.

  He was not going to meet with Fiona.

  He was leaving immediately.

  Pulling out his mobile phone, he called Brian.

  "We need to talk. Now. Urgently. Meet me in twenty minutes at the bottom of Hillend Ski slope. There's something I need you to do for me... tonight. And can you bring with you some paper and a pen? I need to make a will and have you witness it."

  "You sound weird. What's up?"

  "I just discovered I might only have three weeks to live."

  There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

  “Is this a wind up? You’re the healthiest man I know.”

  “I’ve just been informed I might die of lead poisoning… Listen, I’ll explain it when I see you. Can you make it?”

  "Yes, I'll be there."


  "And one last thing. Can you bring your spare car? Can I swap mine for yours? For the next three weeks?"

  "Your Jaguar for my Volvo? Why?"

  "I'll tell you in twenty minutes. Don't be late."

  Campbell stood up.

  Looking around him, he felt a sudden overwhelming sense of sadness.

  Three weeks to live?

  Is this what it felt like when you suddenly realised that you might die?

  Campbell didn't like the feeling. At all.

  He thought of Fiona.

  And then a strange thing happened.

  He realised that without her, he probably didn't want to live anyway.

  Perhaps this was all karma.

  He had done wrong. And now the universe was getting its revenge.

  Chapter 18

  Scotland

  Plockton

  Thursday

  8.00 p.m.

  Alessandra's day had been mixed, split between making preparations for her mission in Edinburgh, possibly even two missions... and relaxing.

  She'd finally fallen asleep well after the sun had risen, but once out, she had slept like a log until just after 2 p.m. Then she'd risen, showered, and made a number of phone calls through her laptop VoIP phone via the Tor network. The calls had been encrypted, untraceable and free.

  Although money was no longer a problem for Alessandra- so long as the assignments kept coming - she always found it fascinating that the new VoIP software phones on laptops helped people to make phone calls all over the world, without paying a penny for it. How on earth did the people who invented them ever make any money? Alessandra had learned very early on in her life, that apart from anything found in Nature, everything that mankind had ever fashioned, only ever came at a price. Nothing was for free. So what was the catch?

  She made calls to her usual suppliers, ordering a small arsenal of weapons, ammunition, explosives, medical supplies, which included poison and mechanisms for delivering it, and communications devices. She'd also ordered floor plans of HMP Stirling, just in case she was given the job, of which she was quite confident, having identified herself as Salvador and trusting in her reputation to have preceded her.

  She trusted her suppliers. She'd never met them, but their service was impeccable. They were able to procure anything she'd ever asked for, on time, securely and in confidence: information, weapons, drugs, food and even once, a bottle of the most expensive champagne she’d ever purchased. It was a rare bottle, highly sought after, and the favourite tipple of one her targets.

  She managed to get some poison into the bottle through the cork. Her greedy client had bought the bottle from her fake website. Drunk it. Died. Job done.

  The supplies were to be delivered within two days and buried in a wood near Stirling, where her other supplies were still buried.

  How they would be able to get hold of everything she had specified on her shopping list, she could not imagine. How they would be able to smuggle it into the country, undetected, and deliver on time to her chosen destination, she found even more amazing.

  But Alessandra no longer needed to know.

  Over the years, their trust in each other had grown. She trusted them to arm her appropriately, and they trusted her to pay them a lot of money.

  Having everything delivered to Stirling was a good idea. She knew the location well, already having had those who hired her to kill Kuznetsov to deliver and hide the two rifles there which she’d specified for that assignment, along with everything else on the list she’d needed.

  In the end, she'd only used one of the two rifles delivered - she always ordered a backup - and the other one was still lying buried in the wood where she'd reburied it after having moved it to another location.

  For Alessandra, having too many supplies was always preferable to having too few. At present, she did not yet know how she would kill McKenzie. But that did not stop her ordering for any eventuality.

  As the afternoon progressed she started to think a lot about the potential two million pounds which could be earned for killing the Scottish crime lord Tommy McNunn, whom she had started to research and profile in anticipation of winning the job.

  Two million was a lot. Amongst other things it would cover paying for another private nurse, and the restructuring, repair and rebuilding of her mother's home, turning it from a house into a hospice.

  Her mother was increasingly needing more attention. Around the clock care. A new stair lift. A specialised swimming pool with wheelchair access. A hoist to help her get from the wheelchair onto the toilet. And so on. As every new day passed, her care bill went up. And the old family house that Alessandra had been brought up in needed altering so that it could become a hospital for her mother, somewhere she could live comfortably until she died.

  Thinking about her mother too much always made Alessandra very sad. It was just after 6 pm when Alessandra decided she'd done as much as she could, and then wandered out and down to the harbour, in search of a boat.

  Unfortunately it was too late to sail, but she found someone offering trips out to see the seals, and decided to give it a go.

  Just being out at sea would help her take her mind off her mother.

  Alessandra returned to the harbour an hour later, the owner of the boat full of apologies for not having seen a single seal, and offering to honour his advertised "No Seals, You get a free trip!" deal.

  She turned it down. Seeing the seals would have been a bonus. But just managing to get fresh salt air blowing on her face and watching the waves break on the bow of the boat was all she had really wanted.

  A chance to wind down. To shut down her mind and let it rest.

  As always, being out at sea gave her a healthy appetite and she made a beeline for the hotel as soon as she landed.

  She was starving.

  "Aha, our American friend is back!" Mrs Gilmarton beamed as she recognised Alessandra walking through the entrance.

  "Alice," she replied. "I'm back, and I'm famished."

  "Would ye be wanting to try the haggis, neeps and tatties? That'll fill you up."

  "Or make me vomit." Alessandra replied. "I know what's in it."

  Mrs Gilmarton looked genuinely offended, and for a moment Alessandra feared that their blossoming friendship had just come to a swift end.

  "Not my haggis, my dear. It was freshly killed this morning, out on the hills. My husband shot it himself. One of only three that he bagged today. They're getting rarer and rarer, now the Japanese have taken a fancy to hunting them down themselves."

  Alessandra hesitated. She'd tried haggis once before, years ago, and at the time someone had spun her a story that it was made up of all the bits and pieces of an animal that would go rotten over the winter. To avoid waste, the highlanders gathered all the offal together, added some oatmeal, suet, spices, then boiled it all up in a sheep's stomach. Over the winter months, as meat became scarcer and scarcer, the haggis would become more and more tempting, until one day the poor highlander would devour it and swear it was the most delicious meal in the world.

  Or vomit.

  Which Alessandra had first been tempted to do, when she learned what was supposedly in the haggis she had just eaten at a Burns supper she had attended, rather bizarrely, in Spain.

  "What do you mean, 'freshly killed?' I thought you ..."

  "Bought them in the supermarket? Behind the meat counter?" Mrs Gilmarton laughed aloud. "You Americans, you 'crack me up!' Is that what say?"

  Alessandra felt rather strange. As if she was turning red. Blushing.

  She could sense that every eye in the pub had suddenly turned on her. The stupid, gullible American.

  If only they knew...

  "Okay, well, far be it from me to ..." Mrs Gilmarton started.

  "So, where do they come from then?"

  "The real ones? Well, the real ones come from over there!" she said, pointing out the door Alice had just come through. "From the tops of the Scottish highlands. They’re like mini-baby pigs
with bigger noses, and funny little legs. Very rare. So rare, that most of the so called haggis you buy in the shops is synthetic. Made up. Thus perpetuating the ridiculous myth you've bought into. But if you make your way all the way here to the highlands, it would be a cardinal sin not to sample a freshly killed beastie caught in the glens this morning. They’re expensive, but delicious."

  "Caught or shot?" Alessandra questioned, detecting a variation in the woman's story.

  "Could be either. The 'men' like to boast that they shoot them, like pheasants, when they fly overhead, but the best way to catch them is to find them rolling about at the bottom of the glens, trying to stand up... exhausted, and disorientated. They’re easy pickings, and the meat is best when the animal is unharmed."

  "What do you mean, 'fly'? Haggises can't fly!"

  Mrs Gilmarton laughed again. Louder. More people looked over. Alessandra turned redder.

  "You're a right one, aren't you, ma lassie. Of course, haggis can fly. I mean, not all haggis, but some of them. And they're the best. The hardest to find. To hunt. To shoot down. Which is why the men boast about it so much."

  She hesitated, then bent forward across the bar, almost conspiratorially, as if she was about to share a great secret with her. Alessandra leant closer too. Mrs Gilmarton continued.

  "But see me? I can get five haggis for every one they shoot, simply by hiking along the bottom of the glen before the sun comes up, and just picking the ones up that have rolled down the side of the hill and not been able to stand up again, on account of them only having three legs. They're stupid animals really. When they try to turn around on a steep slope, they topple over, roll down the hill and then struggle to get up."

  "How many do you catch? Each time you go out? And how often do you go hunting for them?"

  "On average, three each time. About twice a month. Too often and you wipe out the local breeding stock. Too little, and they become a local pest, worse than foxes or rabbits."

  Alessandra nodded. Convincingly.

  "Okay, brilliant. In which case...," Alessandra said standing back up straight, "I'd like to order one of your best freshly killed flying haggis with three legs, shot just this morning in your local mountains. With some neeps and tatties. Of course." Alessandra laughed. "It's a good story. I loved it. But they haven't yet taken the word 'gullible' out of the American dictionary and I certainly know how to spell it."