No Man's Land

by Neil Broadfoot

  She took a deep breath, decided. Started walking up the hill to the site where Billy Griffin had been dumped.

  She would call Ford on the way.

  CHAPTER 54

  After a warning call from Doyle about the press conference and Ferguson’s eagerness to talk to him, Ford had decided to get lost for a while, try to clear his head.

  He had driven back into town after dropping Mary at home with promises to get back as early as possible, no real destination set in his mind. Parked at the Albert Halls and taken a walk up the Back Path that led from the hall. The crooked path hugged the old town walls as it snaked up towards the castle, the Old Town Cemetery and the Holy Rude Church, where Billy Griffin’s head had been found.

  Ford knew it was a tourist attraction, found the notion of a place that commemorated death being of interest alien to him. But still the visitors came to wander through the sprawling site, marvelling at the ornate statues and headstones dotted around it. One of the most striking and, to Ford, disturbing, was a marble piece mounted on a granite plinth depicting an angel looking down on a woman reading to a child. The figures were sealed in a glass-fronted dome, its whitewashed metal roof pitted and bleached grey with the passage of time. Ford stood in front of it, unease crawling through him. There was something about the frozen expression of the angel looking down at the pair, hand clutching its forehead, that awoke childhood memories of faceless ghosts and the terror he had felt at Sunday school when he had been told about the Angel of Death sweeping through Egypt, killing firstborn sons. As an only child with a vivid imagination, the story had horrified Ford, instilling in him a lifelong distaste of angels in particular and religion in general. It had driven him and Margaret to be married in a register office in Edinburgh, rather than the church her parents had tried to insist on.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, jerking him from his thoughts. He looked back at the monument, mouthed a silent admonishment as he pulled out his phone. It was a text from Doyle, as blunt and to the point as the man himself: Reporter Blake stirring the shit again. Seems Ferguson knew Russell before her murder. Break for us – press harassing him instead. But stay lost for now. Any more word from Fraser?

  Ford pocketed the phone without sending a reply, uncertain of what he should say. He still didn’t know what to make of Fraser. The man knew the right questions to ask, gave the impression of wanting to help, but still, ex-copper or not, he was a civilian and shouldn’t be within a mile of the case. But, despite himself, Ford felt Connor Fraser could help, even if he had to be forced into doing so.

  Ford walked deeper into the graveyard, heading towards the castle and an area known as Drummond’s Pleasure Ground. A huge pyramid dominated the skyline atop a grassy mound, its sandstone sides dulled and blackened with age and damp. Ford struggled to remember its purpose, knew it was something to do with Presbyterians who had suffered during the Protestant Reformation back in the 1600s.

  And there it was again. Religion. And what people would do in the name of their particular brand.

  He stopped, Billy Griffin’s mottled Red Hand tattoo flashing across his mind. And then there was Helen Russell’s attempt to hide her own tattoo, the symbol for the Loyalist, mainly Protestant, Alba Gheal Ann An Aonadh. Whatever was going on, it was something to do with two Loyalist groups. But how the hell did Billy Griffin get mixed up with either of them? What was Helen Russell doing with the mark of a proscribed paramilitary group on her hip? And where did Matt Evans fit into all this? The murders were linked: the level of violence and similarity of the wounds on the bodies indicated as much. The fact that Special Branch had swept in and frozen the local cops out of the case practically screamed ‘paramilitary links’, which, in these days of cars being driven into crowds of pedestrians, and alienated youths killing those who didn’t believe as they did, was a red flag that demanded the most serious response.

  He knew it was one of the reasons they weren’t formally connecting the cases yet. Let the public draw their own conclusions about a bloodthirsty serial killer stalking the streets. Once, the authorities would have done the same. But now, in a post-Manchester, post-Borough Market world, three ritualistic murders with some kind of sectarian link would instantly be ascribed to the twenty-first-century bogeyman: the radicalized terrorist acting for the honour of their God or country. And while the thought of a serial killer would cause parents to hug their children tighter and make sure their doors were locked at night, the prospect of a terrorist would ignite the flames of racial hatred being fanned so effectively by every nasty perma-tanned homophobe with a Twitter account and an axe to grind.

  And if that happened, there was the very real prospect of blood on the streets.

  But, still, Ford had to know. He had seen Griffin’s body, knew it was no random act of terrorism designed to shock. No, it was murder as a message. But to whom? And what was the message? What linked the three victims? Why had someone decided they had to die?

  Ford shuddered, glanced back to Cowane’s Hospital as the squeal of the metal spike rocking in the wind echoed in his mind. Something caught in his thoughts, just for a second, a shape emerging from the fog of confusion. Something about the head. About the rat . . .

  He sighed as the thought slipped away half formed, the need for a cigarette tugging at him. He had quit smoking about five years ago, had never got the hang of the modern trend of vaping. But there were days, when he needed to think, that he craved a cigarette. He considered buying a packet, along with a bottle of mouthwash, on the way home.

  One couldn’t hurt, could it?

  He kept walking, heading for the exit to the cemetery that would lead him to the castle, decided he would walk back down past the front of Cowane’s Hospital, check in with the officers who had been left on the scene, see if there was any update. He had been warned off the case, but there was nothing to prevent him checking in with his fellow officers. And if they happened to tell him the theory had been confirmed, that Griffin’s body was driven up to the bowling green and dumped, then so much the better.

  He had just turned out of the castle esplanade and back onto John Street when he saw a familiar shape marching up the hill, phone in hand, jaw set, dark hair whipping in front of her eyes in the wind. He felt no surprise when his phone vibrated in his pocket, just reached in to kill the call. He watched Donna Blake stop walking and pull her phone away from her ear, her face contorting in frustration.

  Ford smiled despite himself. He was about to walk away when a thought occurred to him. Donna Blake had found Matt Evans’s body. He had read the statement she had given, felt a certain grudging respect that she was still trying to work the story after what she had seen. But she had known Evans. And maybe she knew something that could help Ford link his death to Griffin and Russell.

  Decision made, Ford started walking. Time for another interview with Donna Blake. But this time he would be asking the questions and, whether she liked it or not, it would most definitely be off the record.

  CHAPTER 55

  After Donna left, Mark Sneddon did the only thing that made sense to him: he ordered another drink. He took it back to his table, cracked open the laptop and filed his copy with the Westie. He wrote it quickly, clinically, the confrontation with Donna bleeding out the little enthusiasm he had left for the story. The job done, he placed a call to Lucy to see if there were any other lines she could give him, something he could use to help either her or himself. Felt nothing but resignation when the call went straight to her voicemail.

  Of course he knew Donna was right – he was being used. And in his desperation to get a job and keep the money flowing he had allowed it to happen. But now he had played his role, done what was asked of him, and Donna had blown the story open anyway, torpedoing Mitchell’s oh-so-clever plan to keep Ferguson talking about what she wanted him to talk about.

  So where did that leave Mark?

  Was this really it? A pitiful pay-off from the Westie, just enough to buy him a month or two before he plunge
d headlong into the abyss?

  And after that, then what?

  It was his own fault, of course. When Donna had told him she was pregnant, he had panicked. His marriage to Emma was dull, tedious, routine – routine lives, routine boredom, routine sex – but that was what he needed. Routine. He had never been good at organizing his own life, preferring to live as he worked: from deadline to deadline, crisis to crisis. And his marriage allowed him to do that. So when the moment came, and the choice of diving into the chaos of parenthood and creating a new life with Donna or staying with the safe, reliable, ultimately empty marriage he had that let him live his life, he did what he always did.

  He chose himself.

  Emma, of course, knew something was wrong. It was in the pointed questions, the lingering looks, the rolled eyes every time he picked up his phone. So Mark took the only option he had: he threw money at the problem. Holidays, presents, the new kitchen she had wanted, even a new car the moment her two-year-old BMW coughed the wrong way one cold morning. Anything to make her feel loved, special, the centre of his world.

  He had bought his way back into the routine of his marriage. And as the credit card bills had mounted and the loan amounts had risen, he’d told himself it would all be okay. His marriage, his life, was worth it. And, besides, he was scraping by.

  Just.

  And then he had been told about the redundancies at the Westie, with the specialist reporters – who had laughingly been deemed to be on the highest wages – up for the chop.

  Mark had panicked. One lost wage was all it would take for the house of cards he had built to come crashing down, for the lie of a life he had built around Emma to be exposed. He had looked for a job, any job, to jump to – a life raft to keep things moving. And, in his desperation, Lucy Mitchell had found him.

  Looking back on it now, it was so obvious it was embarrassing. The offer of a job with the party, a job ‘tailor-made to use his political expertise’. With a snap election a very real possibility, there was work to be done, the case for independence to be made.

  Mark didn’t need to be convinced. He’d written the stories, knew how much special advisers and high-ranking party officials could earn.

  They had him at ‘civil service pension’.

  But then he had seen Donna again, the way she was throwing herself at the story, and the shame had boiled up in him. He had left her with a child on the way and nothing but a bagful of broken promises. And yet she was out there, chasing the story, being the reporter he had once thought he was, while he did . . .

  What?

  He put the pint down, slid it out of reach. Forced himself to focus through the beer buzz. Thought of Donna and the press conference, Ferguson’s reaction to her question. Faced the question he should have asked the moment Lucy Mitchell had got in touch with him.

  Why was Ferguson so scared about being linked to Helen Russell?

  He thought about it for a moment, staring at the blank screen of the laptop as if he could see the answer there. They both moved in political circles and, the Scottish media village being what it was, it was almost inevitable they would know each other.

  So what was Ferguson scared of? No. Wrong question. What was Mitchell so scared of?

  He splayed his fingers across the keyboard, thought for a moment, then started typing, gingerly at first, pecking at the keys hesitantly. If Mitchell had no further use for him, fine. There was something she was trying to hide. And if she had something to hide, then maybe, just maybe, he had something to sell.

  CHAPTER 56

  ‘Fuck’s sake, you’re not pissing about, are ye?’

  Connor glanced at the Glock-loaded pancake holster he had laid on the coffee-table. In truth, he had almost forgotten about the gun, its weight becoming familiar on his hip all too quickly. He looked up at Simon, who had paused in uncorking the bottle of wine he had produced from his bag. ‘Can’t take any chances,’ he said. ‘Even in peacetime, you always check under the car before you drive.’

  Simon smiled. It was a phrase he had instilled in Connor early, a reminder of the Troubles, when paramilitaries would booby-trap police officers’ cars with bombs strapped under the tyre sills or wedged further in the chassis. Even though a ceasefire had been called and such attacks were now less common, the message was simple: keep your guard up. Be prepared. Don’t take chances.

  Simon sat down, went back to the cork with his waiter’s mate, his eyes not leaving the gun. Connor knew why it was bothering him. He had dropped everything, flown to Scotland, all on the hunch of his former partner who thought that, somehow, a dead man was stalking him. The gun was a sign that he was taking the threat seriously. And they both knew that Connor Fraser with a gun was not a happy mix for anyone who got too close.

  The cork came out with a dull pop, and Simon poured the wine into the glasses Connor had brought from the kitchen when they had arrived at the flat – Simon again commenting on how well Connor was doing for himself. Looking back at the last twenty-four hours, Connor could have argued with him on that but decided to save himself the bother. There were bigger issues to discuss.

  Simon took a glass, went through the pantomime of swilling the wine around, watching its legs as they crawled down the sides of the glass, taking a deep sniff. Connor smiled inwardly. Simon McCartney, the great wine snob. Not bad for a guy who used to think a pint of Guinness and a fish supper with a wooden fork was the height of sophistication.

  Simon took a sip, gave an appreciative sigh. Then put the glass down and leant forward, elbows on his knees. Looked down again at the gun. ‘Let’s go through it from the top,’ he said, the cold, on-duty edge returning to his voice.

  ‘I’ve told you most of it already,’ Connor said. ‘There was a murder two days ago. A man called Billy Griffin was decapitated and left at a church at the top of the town. Didn’t pay much attention when the first news reports came in, nothing really to do with me. But yesterday there was another report. A councillor had been killed. She’d had the shite beaten out of her like yer man Griffin, then was dumped at a hotel on the grounds of the uni. And . . .’ he paused, catching Simon’s gaze and holding it ‘. . . that was when I heard about the book. Misery by Stephen King. A reporter who’s been ahead on all of this found out about the inscription in it: “Not the same edition but the same horror story. Hope you like it, Connie. See you soon – L.”’

  ‘And you think that’s a message for you, from someone who was linked to Jonny Hughes? Someone who’s looking to settle scores now that he’s dead?’

  Connor swallowed his frustration with another slug of wine. ‘What else could it be, Si? The message is almost identical to the one that bastard left in the book he sent Karen – and “Connie”? Who else could it be? The question is why: why Helen Russell, and what does this have to do with the Red Hand and the UDA?’

  Simon let the silence stretch out. It was a tactic Connor had known him use in countless interviews. Let the quiet gnaw at the interviewee, pressure them into filling it with something, anything. And all the while Simon would sit across from them, implacable, like he had all the time in the world.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, when Connor felt his patience was about to snap. ‘I see what you mean. It’s an intimate message, and one that only you or I would understand. But I told you, Jonny is dead and, from what I could find out, there’s no one actively looking to settle any beefs for him. He was on the outs with the UDA, just another small-time pusher trying to use the paramilitaries to make a rep for himself and buy a bit of street protection. Way I heard it, his uncle was getting fucked off with the whole thing. Don’t think there were too many tears when he died.’

  Connor felt something catch in his mind, a train of thought that hid in the shadows every time he tried to look at it. Pushed it aside. He needed to stay focused. ‘Any indication Jonny’s death wasn’t an accident?’

  Simon gave him a withering look. ‘Come on, Connor, this isn’t the movies. There’s no big conspiracy here. He got stupid, t
ried to cross the Shankill at the wrong time, ended up with half his dome caked on some boy racer’s exhaust, nothing more.’

  ‘Okay,’ Connor said, that nagging discomfort needling him again. What was he missing? ‘But that still leaves the fact that three people are dead, and if it is one killer we’re looking for, they’ve got some link to Jonny Hughes and know about what went down between him and us.’

  ‘Why use Helen Russell to send that message?’ Simon asked. ‘Makes more sense to dump the book with the first body. From what your copper pal said, he’s the one with the Red Hand on his chest, links to the Loyalists. Right up your street.’

  ‘Yeah, but the woman, Russell, had links too. The detective, Ford, asked me about the Red Handers, if I’d had any run-ins with them. Seems she had work done to try to erase an old tattoo from a Unionist group here, active in the seventies, which ran training camps with the Red Hand across in Northern Ireland. Rumour is they came across here too, had a few survival weekends in Perthshire.’

  ‘You mentioned Russell’s husband said she was shagging around. Any chance it was with Griffin?’

  Connor wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘From what Ford said, Griffin was only in his late twenties, while Russell was closing in on her seventies.’

  Simon smiled at some private joke. ‘Even if they weren’t shagging, there’s something that links them together, and you to them. So what? Have you heard of either of them before today? Has Sentinel done any work for Russell or someone linked to her?’

  It was a good question, one that had occurred to Connor after his conversation with Ford. ‘Nothing. I checked earlier. We’ve done some private work for the Tories, shadow security for some cabinet ministers who get a nosebleed and a case of the shits any time they have to go further north than Clapham Junction. But nothing for Russell.’