Doyle held up a hand. ‘Malcolm, the best thing you can do is get out of here and lie low. This was turning into a nasty little political game before this DJ, Evans, was butchered, but now . . .’ He trailed off, distaste twisting his face into something hard and unreadable.
‘Sorry, sir, I’m still not sure I follow,’ Ford said. He knew the words for the lie they were, knew what was coming. It was, after all, politics.
Doyle straightened in his chair, interlaced his fingers on the desk in front of him. ‘I told you yesterday, Malcolm. Helen Russell’s position as a councillor cast this whole case in a new light. It’s why Special Branch have been dragged in, especially with the possible paramilitary link to Billy Griffin. It’s all a bit . . . sectarian, for their taste. But last night’s murder really kicked up a shit-storm. The justice secretary is due to visit today, a private meeting that, surprise, surprise, has been leaked to the press. And, just to really roll out the welcome mat for him, we’ve had another murder. That’s three murders in two days, Malcolm. Makes us look inept, stupid. And it blows a fucking bastard of a hole in the government’s claim that crime is at its lowest level in ten years. So, what do you think they want to do about it?’
It was obvious, really. ‘They want a scapegoat,’ Ford said, more to himself than to Doyle. ‘And as I was the lead officer on Griffin and Russell, I’m in the frame. Right, sir?’
Doyle looked down at his hands, then back up at Ford. ‘It won’t be anything official,’ he said, exhaustion making his voice a low growl. ‘I’ve looked through your case files and you followed every procedure to the letter. Did some good work in pulling the background on Griffin, too. But you know they’ll spin this, Malcolm. With the shit the force is in at the moment, they need to wash their hands of this one, show it was the fault of one officer, not a breakdown of the service or the work of an uncatchable psycho. They’re keeping you off the case pending a review by Special Branch, and the Evans murder has been assigned to other officers who are being brought in from Edinburgh.’
Ford nodded. With the amalgamation of the eight police forces, it wasn’t uncommon for officers to be moved around the country to plug the ever-increasing number of staffing gaps. He felt a surge of anger to have this placed on his shoulders. ‘So, what am I meant to do, sir?’
‘Officially you’re to collate your paperwork for a handover with Special Branch and the Major Investigations team taking over. You’re also to make sure you’re at the disposal of the chief and Ferguson, should they wish to talk to you.’
‘Bollock me, more like,’ Ford said, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them.
‘Quite right,’ Doyle said. ‘So make yourself scarce. Get the fuck out of here and let me try to work something out.’
‘All right,’ Ford said. ‘But what about this Fraser guy? Surely with all this going on, the last thing I should do is talk to him.’
Doyle’s face tightened, and Ford again found himself wondering who had called his boss for a favour yesterday. And what Doyle owed that person that had made him agree so easily.
‘Meet him,’ he said. ‘Everything I said yesterday still applies. I want a result on this one, Malcolm, one last win before I go. Officially you’re not actively part of the investigation. But you’re still one of my best detectives. So meet him, see what he has to say and, if it’s useful, you can show these pencil-pushing fucks what real police work looks like.’
CHAPTER 41
Donna sat on her couch, skin tingling from the scalding shower she had just stepped out of, hair damp, Andrew cradled in her arms. Since getting home, it had seemed important, no, vital, to hold him close, feel his warmth. Keep him safe. And looking at him, studying his face and his tiny, perfect hands, almost kept the memories of what she had seen at bay.
Almost.
She remembered what had happened after she’d found the body in a series of snapshots, random moments flashing before her mind’s eye. Perfectly natural, a police support officer had told her. At times of trauma the memory could be affected.
Her screams had quickly attracted Gina and Mike, the technician who had helped produce the show. They had grabbed her, dragged her from the ground and back into the office. Donna remembered the harshness of the lights, the unyielding glare that seemed to give everything hard, jagged corners and lurid colours that made her head ache.
While Gina called the police, Donna had fired up her computer and, on instinct, started writing up the story. She stared at the screen without seeing it, trying to articulate the horror, the plan forming in her mind. Website copy first, then a news piece, then call Sky. She knew that if she stopped, tried to process what she had seen, rather than treat it as a story, she would grind to a halt, the terror and shock sucking her in like quicksand. And if she let that happen, she would never escape.
She was halfway to the door, camera in hand, when Gina grabbed her.
‘Donna, where the hell are you going? Stay in here until the police arrive. Jesus, whoever did that could still be out there!’
Donna blinked, eyes drifting to the locked door. What did Gina mean, where was she going? She was going to get a picture to go with the story, of course. She was going outside, into the car park and . . .
. . . and . . .
The sobs ripped through her, sudden and overpowering, driving her to her knees again as the memory of Matt Evans’s pulverized corpse crashed into her mind.
By the time the police had arrived and sealed the area, Donna was almost back in control. As the station was an active crime scene they were taken to Randolphfield, then led into a small room where the threadbare soft furnishings, lamps and cheerful watercolours on the walls did nothing to distract from the industrial grey paint and the feeling that this was an office going through the motions of being welcoming.
She answered the barrage of questions as fully as her shock-addled mind would allow, a police support officer giving her an encouraging smile every time she spoke. Yes, she had known Matt had been missing the whole day, but it wasn’t unusual for him to drop off the radar. No, she didn’t know if he’d received any threats or had any enemies. No, she had no idea why his body had been dumped at her car in particular. Yes, she got on fine with him. No, she never saw him socially.
The interview lasted about forty minutes, the constant repetition of the questions giving Donna the chance to process what had happened. There were memories and images her mind would not let her see, and she could feel herself flinch away from them any time they threatened to surface, but she was able to detach that from what had happened and see it as the story it was.
Matt Evans had been killed in the same manner as the first victim, Billy Griffin. Whether the dumping of his body on her car was incidental or intentional was irrelevant: Donna had received the message loud and clear.
These murders were linked. And she was going to report them.
When the interviews were over, she met Gina and Mike at the main doors of the station, huddled together in the pre-dawn chill as they waited for a taxi. The police had offered to drive them home but they had all refused for their own reasons, Gina and Mike not wanting Donna to know they were going home together, Donna not wanting to get out of a police car and face her mum.
Unwilling to talk about what they had seen, the conversation fell to practicalities. With the station deemed a crime scene and off limits, Gina would call MediaSound, make alternative arrangements, then let the staff know what was going on.
Donna offered to help, ignoring the guilty flash of glee that pulsed through her even as Gina spoke. With Valley FM out of bounds, she was free to offer the story, and anything else she found, to Sky first.
She called the night desk at Sky while she was in the taxi on the way home, gave an account on the spot to allow them to get the story on the air, then emailed Gina the copy she had written. It would be uploaded remotely to the Valley website. She felt a momentary pang of panic over the morality of reporting a story to which she was a key witnes
s, but let it fade when the desk editor, Jack Mathis, said he’d interview her as a bystander and not the reporting journalist, with the promise of sending a camera crew to her for follows in the morning.
By the time she arrived home twenty minutes later, Donna had broken the story on TV and online. She couldn’t remember anything she had said to the night desk at Sky or a word she had written for the online story. She wanted to run away and hide, hold Andrew and keep him safe. Knew that if she did that, she would never emerge from the flat again.
It didn’t take the calls long to start flooding in, contacts and fellow journalists literally waking up to the story and keen to talk to her. She switched off her phone as she reached her front door. Time enough for that later.
She’d called her parents from the police station, telling them what had happened. Tears threatened to overwhelm her again when her mother bustled her into the flat, arm around her shoulders, talking to her in a low, soothing tone that Donna hadn’t heard since she was a child.
She showered as her mother made tea, Andrew stirring for a feed by the time she had towelled herself dry. She went to him, sending her parents to the spare room to sleep, then took him to the living room and held him in her arms.
She flicked the TV on, keeping it silent, watching the news ticker on Sky announce, ‘Third murder in Stirling’. A twinge of excitement cut through the exhaustion, shock and horror. Three murders in two days. And she had scooped them all to get the story out. National news. And she was leading on it. A picture of Matt Evans flashed up on the screen, a cheesy publicity shot that had been harshly Photoshopped to make his hair fuller, his skin healthier, his eyes brighter.
A shudder twisted through her, the sudden image of the last time she had seen those eyes barging its way into her mind. She took a deep, steadying breath, forced away the tickle of panic in her chest. She looked down at her son: he was squirming in her arms, repositioning himself on her chest. He was so small, so defenceless. And she had effectively abandoned him tonight to cover this story.
The panic faded, replaced by a resolve that at once calmed and terrified her. The story had come to her now, literally dumped in her lap by whoever had killed Matt Evans. It was hers. She would work the story, get the job she wanted, keep Andrew safe and build a future for both of them.
And if a killer got in the way of that future, she would sweep them aside as she had every other obstacle and setback.
For herself. And for Andrew.
CHAPTER 42
Ford had no idea what Connor Fraser looked like, but he knew him the moment he laid eyes on him.
They had arranged to meet in a small café on Bow Street, less than a two-minute walk from where Billy Griffin’s body had been found. Ford had felt a vague unease when Fraser had suggested the place, given its proximity to the crime scene. The last thing he needed was to be seen talking to a civilian. His anxieties began to ease as he approached the café – it was only a short walk away, but in the narrow cobbled streets around the castle, where tourists thronged even at this time of the morning, it might as well have been on another planet. And then there was Fraser. Whatever else he was, the last thing he looked like was a civilian.
He was sitting in the café, back to the exposed stone wall, as he watched the front door with an attentiveness only police officers had, the outward appearance of relaxation doing nothing to detract from the searchlight intensity of his gaze as he scanned for possible threats. He gave only the slightest nod when Ford entered, eyes never leaving him.
Ford returned the almost-greeting, ordered a coffee at the till, then wove his way through the tables to Fraser, who rose as he approached, uncurling and expanding, like a widening shadow. He was just shy of six feet tall, the broad shoulders, heavy jaw and wide chest offset by striking green eyes that spoke of quick thinking and calculation as they darted across Ford. The DCI took the outstretched hand, surprised by how gentle the handshake was.
‘Thanks for agreeing to this,’ Fraser said, as they sat down.
Ford chided himself for the surprise he felt when Fraser spoke. His accent was typical Central Scotland, halfway between the lyricism of Glasgow and the cooler precision of Edinburgh. What had he been expecting? ‘Not my idea,’ he said, leaning back to allow the waitress to set his coffee in front of him. She smiled at him, then was gone. ‘My boss owes yours a favour. Let’s leave it at that.’
Fraser knitted his hands together on the table in front of him, forming a shield around his coffee. ‘Fair enough. Nonetheless, I’m grateful. Maybe you can help me straighten a few things out.’
Ford bristled, but swallowed the irritation with a gulp of coffee so hot it brought tears to his eyes. Who did this guy think he was? Bad enough he had pulled strings to talk to a DCI on an active case, but to think Ford was just going to sit there and help him solve his own little problems . . . Fuck that.
Fraser raised a hand, obviously reading Ford’s thoughts. ‘Didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘It’s just there’s something about the Helen Russell case that’s bothering me. I was hoping you could help. Who knows? Maybe I can help you too.’
Ford put down his cup, took a second to consider its contents. Old trick. Dictate the pace of the conversation. Show who was in control. But looking into Connor Fraser’s unflinching gaze, he wasn’t honestly sure who was. ‘What is it you think you know?’ he asked.
Fraser rolled his shoulders, eyes darting around the room before settling on Ford again. ‘When I watched the news report on Helen Russell’s murder, something struck me. There were, ah, similarities to the MO of a shitebag I had dealings with back in Belfast. The book you found on the body, well, it was a – a calling card of his. Jonny Hughes. Nasty wee prick, called himself the Librarian. Had family links to the Loyalists, used them as a shield for drug-dealing. I . . . What?’
Ford cursed internally. He’d thought he had a better poker face than that, but obviously not with this guy. He had felt a sting of excitement the moment Fraser had said ‘Loyalist’. It must have shown on his face. Stupid. He pushed it aside. ‘We’ll get to that in a minute. I’m glad you mentioned the book. I wanted to talk to you about that. There was an inscription in it, mentioning a Connie. And now, here you are, telling me you think there’s a link to someone you collared while you were in Belfast. Something you want to tell me, Connie?’
Fraser’s jaw twitched, his eyes narrowing slightly. Not the greatest poker player either. ‘That’s part of the reason I reached out to you,’ he said, his voice slow and measured. ‘It mirrors his actions in Belfast when trying to intimidate a . . . ah . . . witness in a case I worked on. But you looked like you were on to something a moment ago. What?’
Ford ground his teeth. Answer then redirect. Keep the conversation on track, going where he wanted it to. No, this guy was no civilian. He glanced around his surroundings, again wishing for the soothing familiarity of an interview room. But, with what Doyle had said, that wasn’t going to happen, not when the top brass were looking to paint a bullseye on his back. ‘Just something you said there,’ he said, trying to sound casual, ignoring the whispering voice in his head telling him to be careful. He needed to know. Took another gulp of coffee, cooler now, decided.
‘You said Loyalist,’ he said, dropping his voice. ‘That might tie in to something we found at the first murder.’
A glitter of interest in Fraser’s eyes, keen and hungry. ‘What?’ he said, his tone telling Ford all he needed to know about the man. Doyle had told him he was a security consultant now, a former copper, someone they could trust. But in that moment Ford knew that Connor Fraser was none of those things. Fraser was a detective, driven by the desire – no, the need – to find the answer. It was the same compulsion that had driven Ford throughout his career.
‘The first victim had a tattoo,’ he said. ‘Red Hand of Ulster. If you’re saying you think there’s a link between the perp you knew in Belfast and the Russell murder, it links her to the first victim.’
Fr
aser nodded. ‘Who was he?’ he asked.
‘Just a small-time ned. Got into a bit of trouble during the independence referendum a few years ago.’ Ford stopped, let that sink in, the incident taking on new context and significance given what Fraser had just said about Loyalists. The image of Billy Griffin holding a flaming Yes banner aloft flitted through his mind. What the hell was going on here?
Fraser seemed to consider the words, then tilted his head. ‘Any links to Helen Russell?’ he asked. Obvious question. It was the same one Ford had asked.
‘Not that we’ve found yet,’ he replied, his frustration giving his voice a hard edge.
‘And you won’t find it now,’ Fraser said, leaning back. ‘Given that Special Branch have effectively frozen you out of the case.’
Ford started, his coffee cup jangling against the saucer as it jerked in his hand. ‘How the fuck did you find out about that?’ he hissed.
Fraser shrugged. ‘I got a call from our, ah, mutual friend about half an hour ago,’ he said. ‘Your boss called him with an update, apologized that you might not be able to tell me much.’
Ford forced himself to let go of the breath he had been holding. When Doyle had broached this madness, Ford had insisted on knowing where the request had come from – and why his boss would even consider it. Doyle had gone very quiet for a moment, then given him an answer that resolved every question.
‘We served together in the first Gulf War, were part of Desert Storm. He saved my life. But that’s my debt, not yours, Malcolm. So if you don’t feel you can help, don’t.’
Ford wasn’t a military man, but his father was, so he knew what this meant to Doyle. He had agreed to speak to a man he absolutely shouldn’t about a case he was being frozen out of.
Fraser nodded, an expression that might almost have been mistaken for sympathy stretching across his face. ‘You totally out of the picture?’
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