‘So you knew her prior to this, sir?’ Donna asked, again ignoring those around her. ‘You don’t recall seeing her, so you would have recognized her if you had?’
Ferguson’s jowls quivered, his small, pudgy hands knitting in front of his crotch as though he were trying to protect himself from a kick.
Too late, Donna thought, too late.
‘Why, yes. I, ah, knew Mrs Russell. She was a vocal representative of her constituents in Stirling North, and I believe she was part of the delegation that made representation to me regarding policing in the area.’
The press erupted, questions lobbed like grenades at Ferguson. Donna looked over her shoulder, making sure Gary, the cameraman, had got it all. He gave her a brief thumbs-up, his eye not leaving the viewfinder of his camera. Kid must be psychic.
Donna looked back to Ferguson, and the woman who was trying to regain control of the event, saying they would have to wrap up as the minister had to leave. But it was the man who drew Donna’s attention. He looked at her coolly, a still point amid the chaos that raged around him. Recognition pulled at Donna’s mind, an echo of something almost remembered, like a song where the tune was clear but the lyrics were lost.
Something . . .
And then it came to her. She knew where she had seen him before. Years ago. Before Andrew. Before Stirling. When the fiction that she and Mark had some kind of future was being taken as fact. When Glasgow voted yes and Scotland voted no. When . . .
You have good contacts, she heard Connor Fraser whisper.
She cursed herself. Blind. And stupid. She hadn’t asked Mark if he knew the name of the first victim, been so fucking grateful at what he’d given her that she hadn’t thought to query it.
But she knew now. Billy Griffin. Had to be. The presence of the man in front of her guaranteed it.
A man who, four years ago, had tried to strong-arm the press into banning the infamous image of Billy Griffin torching flags. Flags he cared about very deeply.
Maxwell Higgins was a party man, through and through.
CHAPTER 52
Simon was waiting in Starbucks across from the arrivals gate at Edinburgh airport when Connor arrived. He sat in a corner booth, a coffee in front of him, leaning back in his chair, at ease with the world. Connor had always envied that about Simon, the casual demeanour that spoke of a man comfortable in his own skin.
It was something Connor had yet to master.
He looked up when Connor was halfway towards the table, a broad grin splitting his face as he stood. He was taller than Connor, thinner too, the lack of muscle bulk something he always complained about in the gym. Yet Connor had seen Simon McCartney sprint down Castle Lane in the centre of Belfast in pursuit of a shoplifter at a speed that would have put Usain Bolt to shame. And he could fight. As well as weightlifting, Connor and Simon had sparred together from time to time, mostly to blow off steam, sometimes to establish the pecking order without getting seriously hurt. And those bouts had taught Connor one simple lesson: Simon was a dangerous mix of speed and intelligence in a fight.
‘Well, fuck me if it isn’t the jolly green giant,’ Simon said, grabbing Connor in an embrace and thumping him on the back.
‘Ho, ho, fucking ho,’ he said, feeling the knot of tension that had crawled into his shoulders when he saw that book begin to ease. His friend was here. Whatever was going on, they would figure it out and deal with it together.
Simon broke the hug, taking a half-step back. ‘You look well, big lad,’ he said. ‘This private-sector lark obviously suits you.’
‘It pays the bills,’ Connor said. ‘You weren’t waiting long, were you?’
Simon ran a hand through his hair. ‘Nah, not really. Gave me a chance to get a coffee and see the sights anyway.’ He nodded to his left, where a lithe blonde girl was sitting, long tanned legs showing she was just back from somewhere sunny.
Connor shook his head. ‘You never change,’ he said. ‘C’mon, let’s get you out of here.’
‘Grand,’ Simon said, dipping down beneath the table and pulling up a large kitbag. He dangled it in front of Connor. ‘Don’t worry, I made a wee stop before the flight – got a decent bottle in here for later.’
Connor gave him a quizzical look. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally learnt an appreciation of the finer things in life?’
‘Whisky? Nah, catch yerself on. Red wine, my friend. Got a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in here. You want to kill your tastebuds with paint-stripper, crack on. I’ll enjoy the good stuff.’
Connor chuckled. Same old Simon.
They walked in silence back to the car, Connor having parked in the multi-storey attached to the main terminal by a covered walkway. Simon pulled up short when he saw the car Connor was heading for, whistling between his teeth. ‘“Pays the bills”,’ he said, eyes roaming across the Audi.
Connor popped the boot, Simon stepping to the back of the car and putting the bag in carefully. Then they hopped in and Connor fired the engine, Simon nodding approval as the V8 burbled into life. ‘Very nice,’ he said.
Connor smiled. ‘It does the job.’
He got out of the airport, used the roundabout at the exit as a slingshot and powered up the ramp to Glasgow Road, Simon easing back in his seat.
Connor waited until they got onto the bypass and had settled into the outside lane before he spoke. He had been mulling over how to start this conversation ever since he’d left Stirling. There was no easy way to say it so direct was the only way to go.
‘You manage to find anything on the Librarian?’
Simon sighed. When he had met Connor, he had been relaxed, at ease, a civilian. But now they were talking business. And that meant he was on duty. The earlier humour in his voice was gone. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I checked the death report and it’s sound – got hit by a car on the Shankill, just at the pedestrian crossing at the leisure centre. Some no-mark kid with too much acceleration and not enough brains. No link to his dealing from the UDA that the investigating officers could find.’
Connor glanced down at the speedo, eased off slightly from the 90 m.p.h. he was doing. ‘Nothing else? No activity from known associates? No known leaks in the service that might have given me up to him? Nobody looking like they were wanting to settle scores on his behalf after his death?’
‘Nothing like that. Seems he mostly fell out of favour with the UDA after your little, ah, encounter with him. He lost face with the leadership after the way you put him down in Glencairn, and then the way he got, ah, mugged in town. And besides, Connor, if there was someone looking to settle scores for Hughes, don’t you think they’d come for me first?’
Connor nodded. They both knew it was true. After Connor had beaten the shit out of Hughes, they had known that, as officers who had last confronted him, they would be persons of interest, both to official investigations and those that were carried out in the backrooms of bars on the Shankill. So while Connor was tracking and confronting Hughes, Simon was making sure any video footage of him in town that night was conveniently lost. It didn’t take much, just a few calls to the right people, a few favours called in. The Troubles may have been officially over, the weapons ‘put beyond use’, but there was still an unwritten war footing in Belfast. And the first rule of that was loyalty. A police officer needed a favour from a fellow law-enforcement professional? No problem. Ranks were still closed, reports still lost, shortcuts still taken.
All in the name of justice, of course.
Following the initial clean-up, the alibi Simon provided wasn’t overly examined. They were at his place, having a beer and craic, then decided to head into town, around the Cathedral Quarter. The latter lie was easy to prove: Simon was the first person Connor had contacted from the Harp bar after his gran had called and pulled the pin on the night that ended his life in Belfast.
Simon seemed to read Connor’s thoughts. ‘You seen Karen at all?’ he asked.
Connor had known the question was coming, but still it st
ung like a hard jab to the kidneys. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I know she’s back here, teaching in Edinburgh. With the teacher shortage at the moment, it was easy for her. Seeing someone new, I think. But other than that . . .’
‘Sounds to me like you’ve been keeping tabs,’ Simon said, no judgement in his voice.
Connor sighed. It was true, he had been. He knew it was bordering on stalking, but he had to know she was okay. After what he had done in Belfast, he had shut down, folded himself in on the poisonous anger and pain he felt over what he had done to Hughes, then his mother’s cancer diagnosis. Karen had tried to reach him, even as the distance grew, but it was useless. The relationship broke down, the stress and tension making Connor retreat even further for fear he would lose his temper again and lash out at her physically. He could not, would not, let that happen, let himself become that man.
His grandfather.
She had stuck by him, attended his mother’s funeral with him, both of them knowing they were mourning more than a death that day. But still he checked. Facebook profile, employment records, electoral roll. All the usual stuff.
Day to day for him, really.
‘Look, Connor, whatever the fuck is going on here, we’ll figure it out. If someone is trying to leave you a message, we’ll find out who it is. And why. And then we’ll send our own message.’
‘Okay,’ Connor said, nudging the car up to 100 m.p.h., suddenly eager to get back to Stirling and find some answers.
CHAPTER 53
Donna wrapped up her to-camera piece as quickly as she could after the press conference, the terror of doing a live piece suppressed by the clamour of questions in her mind. That done, and Gary dispatched to the van to edit the footage into an extended package for the afternoon bulletin, she grabbed her phone and called.
‘Hello, Donna, I—’
‘What the fuck are you playing at, Mark?’ she asked, feeling tension creep across her jaw. Seized by the urge to move, she walked down the sweeping hill that ran from St Ninians Road up to the front of the police station.
‘Donna, what are you talking about?’
‘Cut the shit, Mark. I’m talking about that little performance with your new best pal just now. Nice soft question by the way, just the thing to keep the story where they wanted it to go. That’s what your wee tip to me the other day was as well – just another way to help your pals control the story.’
Silence, just long enough to make her think he had hung up. Then he spoke, his voice flattened by exhaustion. ‘Look, if you’re going to shout at me, can you at least do it face to face? I can see you now. Look left. I’m three cars down.’
She turned her head and spotted his car. Hung up without another word and stalked towards it. Considered a moment then got in. ‘Well?’
He looked at her, a mixture of resignation and defiance flitting through his eyes. ‘It’s not what you think, really. But if we’re going to talk, can we do it over a drink? I don’t know about you, but I could fucking do with one.’
He drove to the Golden Lion, a hotel at the foot of John Street, where the redeveloped shopping area of Stirling gave way to the more historic section of the town. He buzzed at the gate and drove into a small car park, the surface of which seemed to consist of pitted tarmac and puddles. They got out and went inside through a small door that would have looked fresh in the seventies, up a twisting flight of stairs and into a reception area that led to a small bar. She got a table as he ordered, glared at his back as he hunched over the counter.
The place was quiet, a smattering of guests taking a break from sightseeing around the town, conversation soft and uneven, periods of silence broken by a burst of laughter or a cough.
‘Come on, then,’ she said, as he slid a vodka and tonic over the table to her. ‘Let’s hear it.’
He looked down at his pint, took a gulp, even though the Guinness was still settling. ‘Okay,’ he said, more to himself than to her. ‘You’re right. Yes, Lucy and I set that question up beforehand. And, yes, the tip I gave you the other day about the first victim was from her as well. But I didn’t give you that to control the story, Donna, I swear.’
She snorted, tightened her grip on her glass. ‘Aye, right. And I take it Lucy wasn’t aware that Ferguson knew Helen Russell?’
Confusion clouded Mark’s eyes. ‘What? No, I . . .’
Impatience rose. Donna took a sip of her drink to dampen it down. ‘So you’re telling me that you weren’t asking planted questions, that you weren’t helping them keep the story pointed where they wanted it? Christ, Mark, has Emma got you so desperate for a shag that you’d drop your pants and your morals for a smile?’
Anger coloured Mark’s cheeks. ‘Now hold on a minute. Yes, I agreed to throw them an easy question but, no, I wasn’t helping them control the story. Course I would have asked about Russell if I’d fucking known. And I was not using you.’
Donna laughed, a brittle sound that drew glances from the few customers dotted around the bar. ‘If that’s the case, then they’re playing you as well. What did Lucy offer you, Mark? An out from Emma? An exclusive with the First Minister? A wee knee-trembler in Bute House? You used to like those.’
Mark opened his mouth. Closed it. Shame drained the anger from his voice as he said, ‘A job. They offered me a job.’
‘What?’
His head snapped up, and Donna was surprised to see tears welling in his eyes. ‘The Westie’s cutting again, Donna, and this time I’m up for the jump. Compulsory redundo if I don’t go – all the senior reporters above a certain pay band are in the firing line. So Lucy got in touch, said that if I helped her out at the press conference, they’d see about getting me a job with the party’s comms team. They need experienced people, especially now with all this Brexit shite and another referendum on the cards any time.’
Donna raised her glass, held a chunk of ice next to her lips. Poor bastard. He really believed the line they had fed him. Christ, what had happened to him? This wasn’t the Mark she knew. She put the glass down, hard, as though it would crush the momentary flare of compassion she’d felt. Not her problem. Not any more. ‘So they gave you the tip-off about the first victim, asked you to get the word out? Did they tell you it was Billy Griffin who had been killed, or did they keep that from you as well?’
Momentary confusion flitted across Mark’s face, before recognition forced his mouth into an almost comical O of surprise. ‘Billy Griffin? Hold on, not Billy Griffin who torched the flags on George Square? How did you . . .?’
‘Your new pals,’ Donna said. ‘I knew I recognized Maxwell Higgins from somewhere, couldn’t pin it down. But then it hit me. It was the day after the referendum and the trouble in George Square, the Yes-campaign press call in Grand Central, remember?’
Mark shook his head slowly, which didn’t totally surprise Donna: he had been running on adrenalin, coffee and post-sex endorphins back then. The press conference had been called by the Yes movement in the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow’s Central station, partly as a wash-up, partly as a wake. It had been a subdued affair: the First Minister had resigned hours earlier and everyone was still licking their wounds from the loss of the referendum and the trouble in George Square the night before.
There was, however, one moment that Donna remembered. As a backbench Nationalist took the podium and trotted out the standard lines about ‘coming together for the country’ and ‘accepting the will of the people’, Craig Mather, a reporter Donna recognized from the Press Association, stood up, holding aloft a copy of the Westie with Billy Griffin’s infamous image splashed all over it. ‘Does this look like uniting the country to you?’ he asked.
The question was dealt with and the press conference wrapped up hastily. But afterwards Donna had spotted Craig huddled in a corner, a tall, wiry man leaning in, his lips close to his ear. She’d asked him about it later and was told that Higgins was warning him about such cheap stunts: his editor would be getting a call. Donna had later found out that every editor in Sc
otland had been contacted, Higgins trying to get the picture of Griffin banned on the grounds that it would aggravate social unrest and sectarian bigotry.
All of which had come to her in a flash as Ferguson flailed around at the press conference. Higgins was trying to control the story. Again. It was a leap to assume that it was Billy Griffin who had been killed, but she knew in her gut she was right.
‘You know this for a fact? Got it stood up?’ Mark asked.
‘Not yet,’ she admitted. ‘That’s my next stop: the DCI who was first on the scene. Get him to confirm what I know.’
‘Think he will?’
‘Someone will,’ Donna said, her thoughts turning to Danny. ‘You want to stand it up with your new pals, be my guest. But I want in on it, Mark. This is my story.’
‘They’re not my . . .’ His words petered out as his gaze fell to his Guinness, as though speaking was too much effort. He took a drink, swilled it like mouthwash, then swallowed. Dared a brief glance at her. ‘I wasn’t using you, Donna, seriously,’ he said. ‘Lucy gave me the tip-off about the injuries on the first body. I let you know. Thought it might help you. Seems I was right. Sky TV, after all. Not bad.’
The coy smile he gave her, which she had once found so endearing, looked ugly. Yeah, it had helped all right. Helped her start to rebuild the career her willingness to believe his lies had destroyed. Helped her get a corpse dumped in front of her car.
Some help.
She drained her glass, stood up. ‘Write your story, Mark. Your pals will need it for your CV. And don’t bother giving me any more help. I’ll work this story on my own from now on.’
She left him, taking the short flight of steps that led out of the front of the hotel. Stopped for a moment, looked around. To her left was the Thistles, the main shopping centre in the heart of the town. To her right was the long, cobbled finger of King Street, which led up to Cowane’s Hospital and the castle beyond.
No Man's Land Page 21
