No Man's Land

by Neil Broadfoot

  No fucking way.

  He snapped his head straight ahead, focusing on Amy Hughes’s face. It was a mask of hatred, teeth bared, eyes dark pits as she used her weight to try to force the knife down.

  Connor let it happen. He released his grip, darted his head to the right, dragging Amy forward with the sudden momentum, the knife biting into the cobbles. Drove his hips up, bucking her, adding to her speed. He whipped his head to the side, crashing his forehead into her temple with a sickening crunch that detonated a shrapnel grenade of agony in his mind. Amy screamed and slumped to the right, Connor following her. He grabbed for the knife, his fingers thick and clumsy, the world swaying and nausea squeezing his gut. With the blood loss and the blow to the head, he had to finish this. Fast.

  Grabbing the knife, he reversed it, drove the butt into Amy’s other temple. She gave a gargling grunt, blood exploding from her mouth in a fine, warm spray that peppered Connor’s face. Then her head lolled forward, eyelids fluttering over glassy eyes that were filling with the rain.

  Connor watched her breathe, blood bubbling on her lips. Then he got to his feet slowly, his good leg screaming at being forced to take his weight, his wounded leg strangely numb.

  ‘Bravo, Connor,’ Jameson called, stepping over Simon and approaching him. ‘I was sure you’d get the best of Mrs Hughes, but it was entertaining to watch.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Connor snarled, closing one eye to focus on him, thinking. He needed him angry if he had any chance of ending this. ‘You’re fucking diseased, Lachlan. You kill three people to save a minister’s career, then drag me into it to get revenge for a clapped-out gangster’s ex? Christ, how the hell did she make you agree to that? Or did she go the extra mile to seal the deal?’

  ‘How fucking dare you?’ Jameson spat, and lunged. He killed for money and pleasure, but by insulting his professionalism, Connor had made it personal.

  Connor staggered back, feeling his leg threaten to give way as he dodged Jameson’s blind swing. He took a firmer grip on the knife, held it butt forward, the blade tight against his forearm.

  Jameson turned, took a moment to aim, swinging for the open target Connor had left him. Connor dropped low, letting his leg give way and drag him down, then whipped the knife out, drawing a long slash across Jameson’s exposed midriff. Ignoring the pain, he drove up and forward, charging Jameson, pinning his arms to his sides in a bear hug and sending him stumbling backwards. He felt breath on the top of his head, hot as Jameson thrashed and writhed, trying to free himself.

  No fucking chance.

  Connor tightened his grip, put everything he had into it as he kept charging forward. Jameson, off balance, lost his footing and fell backwards, breath erupting from him as he hit the hard cobbles.

  Connor reared up, a blood-streaked god in the rain-soaked shadows. He dropped the knife and drove his fist forward, splinters of teeth stabbing into his knuckles as he felt the back of Jameson’s head bounce off the stone ground, the shock juddering up his arm, like a gun’s recoil. ‘Fucking bastard!’ he roared, hitting him again. Jameson’s nose exploded, the crack reverberating deep in Connor, a cry to action for the part of himself he hated. He threw punch after punch, selecting targets on instinct – cheekbones, jaw, eye sockets, temples. As he struck Jameson, his mind was a kaleidoscope of pain – his mother’s funeral, his gran’s pleading confusion, the loathing he felt when he thought about what Jonny Hughes had made him become, the loss of . . .

  He whirled as a hand fell on his shoulder, lashing out with a wild left.

  ‘Fuck, man, easy,’ Simon said, his words mangled by his obliterated jaw, his eyes glittering and over-bright. Connor could see he was going into shock.

  ‘That’s enough, Connor,’ Simon drawled. ‘Leave him now. Not worth it.’

  Connor looked down at Jameson. His face was a bloodied, pitted ruin, the scaffolding that had held his features in place shattered by Connor’s blows. He tried to feel guilt, then looked back at Simon and knew he never would.

  He staggered back, the act of getting to his feet robbing him of the last of his strength. Sat down, hard, the pain of the landing bringing his thoughts into focus. He fumbled for his belt and looped it round his leg, pulling it tight in a rough tourniquet. Grabbed his phone, squinted against the gathering dark as he looked for the number he needed. He hit call, then waited for an answer.

  ‘Ford? It’s Connor Fraser. You wanted that update? Cowane’s Hospital. Now. And if you could bring an ambulance . . .’

  He let the phone fall to the cobbles without waiting for an answer, then looked at Simon. Fingers of guilt prodded him, even through the shock and the pain. ‘Sorry, man,’ he whispered. ‘I should have trusted you.’

  Simon shook his head, eyes still over-bright. Concussion. Definitely. ‘No,’ he whispered, voice fading. ‘You shouldn’t. Rule one, Connor. Even though it’s peace time, always check under the car.’

  Connor leant forward to catch him as he toppled forward. He held him close, refusing to let his body touch the cold cobbles greased with Jameson’s blood, and forced himself to ignore the warm blanket of unconsciousness that threatened to wrap itself around him.

  Instead he listened to the sound of the rain.

  And waited.

  CHAPTER 72

  In the week that followed, a feeding frenzy erupted over a story that was part murder, part political conspiracy and all embarrassment for the government.

  Ferguson endured a trial by media, forced in front of the cameras to admit his affair with Helen Russell but deny any knowledge of her links to Alba Gael Ann An Aonadh or sympathy with their aims. Watching one interview, in which he was cornered by a crowd of reporters in the corridor leading to the Scottish Parliament’s debating chamber, Connor almost believed him. The blend of stress-induced scruffiness, bewilderment and righteous fury was convincing. And, besides, it was all circumstantial. Yes, Ferguson knew Russell, but did that mean he was really a Unionist in disguise, willing to kill to bury the truth that he was working against a party he had been a member of for more than twenty-five years?

  In the end, it didn’t matter. As the embarrassing questions piled up, and the lurid speculation hit fever pitch in the media, Ferguson was suspended. In the minority administration, the loss of the justice secretary triggered a major cabinet reshuffle and growing calls for a snap election.

  Connor didn’t care if that happened, had no intention of heading for the ballot box if it did.

  For his part, Lachlan Jameson kept quiet, confirming only that he had carried out work for Ferguson back in 2014, providing security services during the referendum. He even offered emails between himself and Ferguson’s office to prove it, in which he stated Sentinel would be ‘delighted to assist with any further issues he may have in the future’. He admitted assaulting Simon, claiming it was self-defence because Simon had turned on him ‘for reasons unknown’. Reading that in the interview transcript Doyle had shared with him, Connor was forced to smile. If Jameson didn’t know the reason for the attack and what had happened that night, Amy Hughes did. And, unlike Lachlan Jameson, she was more than willing to talk.

  Displaying the kind of blind loyalty that always mystified Connor, Amy had gone back to Jonny as soon as she had been released from custody, forgetting his abandonment of her after their arrest when he had told her he loved her. But following his confrontation with Connor, Jonny Hughes had struggled, an embarrassment to his relatives as an unsafe pair of hands in their drugs business. That was why he had been on the Shankill Road the day he died: reduced to trying to sell steroids to gym users, he had been confronted by the staff at the leisure centre and forced to flee – straight into the path of the car that had killed him.

  It had been too much for Amy who, as the grieving widow, had tearfully asked Jonny’s uncle, a low-level UDA thug called Miles Hughes, to seek vengeance on the man who had brought ‘our Jonny’ low. Miles agreed, and put an open contract out on the peeler who had beaten the shit out of Jonny Hughes
. Connor read this with no great surprise: ordering a hit on a copper who had left the island was little more than lip service to keep Amy happy and ensure family honour was maintained.

  Until, that was, Lachlan Jameson had heard about it.

  Connor could imagine how it had happened. Jameson had received a call about him from a contact in the PSNI – a contact Connor was determined to find one day in the near future. Deciding to check Connor out, he had found out about the open hit on him, either from his PSNI contact or his network of informants from his private contracting days. Connor knew how that world worked: contractors looked after each other, shared information and potential business. It was a dark, violent world, which bred a strange loyalty among those living in it. And in that world, information wasn’t just power, it was a survival tool. So Jameson had approached Amy.

  ‘I really thought the fucker was going to do something there and then,’ she had told Doyle, when asked about her first meeting with Lachlan Jameson, eighteen months before. ‘He asked all the right questions, even how I wanted that shite Connor Fraser done and if I’d like to see pictures as proof he had suffered. But then he went quiet and I didn’t hear from him for months, until he called out of the blue two weeks ago.’

  Connor paused when he read that. Jameson had known about Amy Hughes the day they’d first met, the day he’d offered him the job. What was it he had said about Robbie? If he’s not an asset, he’s a liability. This is a business, after all. Was that what he had been thinking when he had offered Connor the job? If he works out, great, but if he doesn’t I can always make a profit by executing him for that bitch back in Belfast?

  Sitting in his flat reading the report, his wounded leg bandaged and resting elevated on a pillow on the sofa, Connor pushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter, not really. What did matter was Amy’s confession that it was her, not Jameson, who had killed Russell. ‘He asked me to do it, told me that, if I did, he’d do Fraser for free. Good deal for me. After all, what do I care about some dozy bint who’s shagging around?’

  But Connor didn’t need to read the confession to know that Jameson hadn’t killed Russell. It was something that had been niggling in him, an observation Simon had made about the murders: why go so medieval on two of them, beheading only Higgins and Evans? Now he had the answer: beheading was Jameson’s calling card, a bloody little flourish he had learnt during the war.

  Connor closed the file, laid it aside as he struggled up from the couch. Let Jameson keep his silence. Amy had said more than enough to make sure he would spend the rest of his days in prison. A prison Connor intended to visit from time to time.

  He tested his leg, felt a flash of pain when he put his weight on it. He’d been lucky, the doctors had said. The blade – a wickedly sharp implement that matched the wounds on Griffin’s and Evans’s necks – had just missed his femoral artery. If it had hit that, he would have bled out in minutes, improvised tourniquet or not.

  Connor hobbled for the door, grabbing his keys as he glanced at his watch, calculating. Simon had been transferred to a specialist unit at St John’s Hospital in West Lothian to treat his shattered jaw. The drive would take about forty-five minutes, and he had to factor in a stop on the way. He had no idea how he was going to smuggle a bottle of wine into Simon’s room, but he would figure something out. He owed him that much.

  The Audi’s clutch was heavy and unyielding to the pressure Connor could exert with his wounded leg. He got out of Stirling, felt a pang of guilt as he passed the turn for Bannockburn, and resolved to see his gran on the way home. Maybe smuggle something in for her as well.

  He joined the M9, the quiet of the car filled with thoughts of his gran and whether she would recognize him when he visited. Restless, he flicked on the radio, unsurprised to hear Donna Blake’s voice. Connor had no idea what sort of deal she’d cut with Sneddon, but he’d let her break the story about the links between Russell, Ferguson and Sentinel Securities, the founding partner of which was now ‘assisting the police with their enquiries’. She ran through the case again, cutting back to Ken Ferguson’s latest stumbling attempt to defend himself.

  ‘Yes, I had a relationship with Helen Russell, which, in hindsight, was inappropriate. And, yes, arrangements were made to engage the services of Sentinel Securities and Lachlan Jameson for the duration of the independence campaign in 2014. I stress, I am a proud Nationalist who would never . . .’ He droned on for a few seconds longer, Donna mercifully cutting him off before the desperation in his voice could hit a crescendo. ‘Mr Ferguson remains suspended pending a full investigation of his relationship with Mrs Russell, which party sources say is being expedited. One source, who asked not to be named, cited the rise of the “Me Too” movement, saying it gave “added impetus to get to the truth”.’

  Donna wrapped up the report, sounding confident and assured. She’d done Connor and Simon a favour by keeping them out of the coverage as far as she could, all on the condition that Connor gave her the exclusive when the time came. ‘Won’t mention your name, but I want that story,’ she’d said.

  Connor knew she needed it. With a new contract as a Scotland reporter with Sky, to go with her work at Valley, she had to hit the ground running. He found he was happy to help. There was something about her hard-headed defiance that he found appealing.

  The Kelpies flashed past as Connor drove on, the two massive horse heads looming over the motorway. He found his gaze drawn to them, pulling his eyes off the road as they slid past.

  He felt a twinge: something wanted to step out of the shadows in his mind as random thoughts tumbled and collided.

  Two heads.

  Ferguson’s words now, from Donna’s report: Arrangements were made to engage the services of Sentinel Securities and Lachlan Jameson for the duration of the independence campaign in 2014.

  A nail driven into Billy Hughes’s wall, the ghostly after-image of where a picture had hung almost visible in the fading on the paint.

  Jameson: If he’s not an asset, he’s a liability.

  Arrangements were made to engage . . .

  He eased off the accelerator, took the first off ramp he saw and found a lay-by. He leant over to the glove compartment, his leg protesting as he shifted his weight, fishing out the iPad that was there. He’d given all the files on the case to Doyle and Ford, including the tapes of Evans’s interviews with Billy, but he had kept copies of them. He wasn’t sure why at the time, chalked it down to his own paranoia, but now . . .

  He tapped into the files, found the one he was looking for. It was the same set-up as usual: Billy sitting in the chair, looking straight to camera. But this time, about halfway through, Billy got up, heading for the small bookshelf Connor had inspected. The camera tracked with him, Matt pivoting to keep him in shot as he walked around the room, past the picture . . .

  The picture . . .

  Connor spooled the recording back. Froze it. There it was. On the wall, just to the left of Billy’s shoulder. He took a screenshot of the frozen image, enlarged it as much as he could, then fiddled with the contrast and tone, trying to clean it up. Squinted at it, then called up a web page on his phone, keyed in a name and compared the images even as he felt his breath quicken, the pain in his leg forgotten.

  Not conclusive. Nothing that would stand up in court. But it was enough for him.

  He tossed the iPad into the passenger seat, started the car again, fumbled for his phone and called Donna Blake, even as he punched Holyrood Road into the satnav.

  CHAPTER 73

  Maxwell Higgins, Ferguson’s senior special adviser, was waiting when Connor arrived, pacing around one of the ponds set in the concrete at the front of the Scottish Parliament. He was taller than he appeared on TV, and bristled as Connor limped towards him, striding forward to cut the distance between them, as if he were impatient to get the conversation over with. Or, more likely, Connor thought, to make sure no one heard them speaking.

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Fraser?’ he sp
at, face pale, eyes glinting behind his glasses. ‘Calling me out of the blue, making wild accusations. This whole business with Ken is distasteful enough. The last thing we need . . .’

  Connor smiled, heard Lachlan Jameson’s words again as he raised the iPad and unlocked it.

  If he’s not an asset, he’s a liability . . . If he’s not cutting it, we cut him.

  ‘I’d be happy to discuss this in court, Mr Higgins. Perhaps when we do, you can explain what I have here.’ He tapped the video still he had taken, the picture on the wall in Billy Griffin’s flat. The image Jameson had broken in to steal. It was blurred by magnification, but it was still clear enough to drain the colour from Higgins’s face, make him flinch from the iPad as though he had been slapped.

  It was another semi-military pose, a group of ragtag youths clustered around the Nazi-like 4A flag, flanked by two figures standing to attention. Helen Russell. And Maxwell Higgins.

  ‘Well, I just don’t, I can’t . . .’ Higgins said, taking a half-step back as he glanced around, desperately checking who was in the vicinity.

  Connor smiled, warm and genuine. ‘So, about that date in court, when were you thinking?’

  Higgins stared at him, hate and feral desperation stripping the mask from his face. ‘What do you want?’ he hissed. ‘I’ll buy that from you or . . .’

  Connor locked the iPad and dropped it to his side, out of Higgins’s reach. ‘I’m sure you could too,’ he said. ‘After all, Mummy and Daddy have a few quid – I bet they’d be happy to shell out to help you.’

  Higgins blinked rapidly, confusion diluting the hatred in his gaze. ‘What do you . . .?’

  ‘I did a little checking on my way here,’ Connor said, shifting his stance as his leg began to ache. ‘Quite the story back in the day, wasn’t it? You, the son of a minor Tory peer, breaking generations of family party loyalty to side with the cause of independence? A coup for the party, and it seems you made yourself useful, working in just about every position you could until you found Ferguson and became a senior special adviser. And he was very, very useful, wasn’t he?’