Motive

by Alan McDermott

  “Suit yourself. Paul, get the hammer.”

  Ryan watched Paul pick up a sledgehammer in his right hand. He tested the weight against his left hand, then swung it up over his head and brought it crashing down on Ryan’s right knee.

  Ryan had never experienced pain like it. It was like a lightning bolt shooting up every nerve ending and coming together for an enormous explosion in his brain.

  Ryan cried. He didn’t even try to stop himself, he just let the tears come and wailed like a baby. Maybe they would take pity on him and stop the torture, or at least give him time to recover before they inflicted more torment.

  It wasn’t to be. Paul brought the hammer down on Ryan’s left knee, smashing the cap into thousands of pieces. Another surge of pain racked his body, and Ryan screamed, an animal sound he didn’t know he was capable of.

  Marsh waited until he was almost coherent before moving to stand in front of him. “You can end this now by telling me the truth, or I can get Phil to cut your balls off. What’ll it be?”

  Ryan tried to squeeze his legs together, but any effort he exerted brought a fresh wave of agony.

  “Better make your mind up quick, “Marsh said. “Phil’s been begging me to let him do this all day, and I can’t wait to hear your scream when he does. You cost me a fortune, you little shit. I can’t do the Albania run anymore because of you, and that was one of my biggest earners. Do you realise how many shooters and how much cocaine you can fit in the shell of a Transit? A shit load, that’s how much. And now I’m gonna have to come up with a new way of getting them across.” Marsh grabbed Ryan’s cheeks and squeezed. “But the biggest disappointment is knowing you lied to me. You treated me like an idiot, and for that you’re gonna pay, big time. After Phil chops your cock off, we’re gonna use a hacksaw to cut your feet off, then your hands, and we’re gonna cauterise them so you don’t bleed to death. We kept the last one alive for forty hours. Nearly two fucking days! Think about that.”

  Ryan could only shake his head. He wanted to speak, to protest his innocence, but the words wouldn’t come. Perhaps it was the shock, or the futility of the situation. He’d undergone basic interrogation resistance in the army and a more intense course during his training with Brigshaw, but it hadn’t prepared him for the real thing. Marsh was going to hurt him for the fun of it, not to get information. Whether he was MI5, National Crime Agency or the police, it didn’t really matter. They knew he’d betrayed them, and it was pointless denying it. The pain was going to come, again and again, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Please…” Ryan managed to say, but Marsh didn’t seem in a merciful mood. He stood back so that Phil could take over.

  “No…please…”

  Ryan could offer no more resistance. His body was in preservation mode, shutting down to protect the vital organs.

  Phil stood before him with a look of pure malevolence, then everything got confusing. Phil’s demeanour changed, his eyes widened, and there was a loud crash somewhere in the room, but Ryan couldn’t make out where it had come from. There was shouting, then Ryan’s entire body tensed as a loud bang filled the small space. He knew it was a gunshot, but didn’t feel the bullet hit his body. Then his vision was filled with people he didn’t recognise. They were shouting and holding guns, and Marsh was standing with his hands in the air.

  A face appeared in front of Ryan’s. It was a man, and he was talking, but Ryan couldn’t hear him. He just knew it was a friendly face. Then everything went black.

  Chapter 29

  The room was bathed in a dull light, like a cinema just before the curtains are raised. Ryan saw several LED bulbs recessed into the ceiling and knew he wasn’t in his own apartment. So where was he? All he could remember was darkness. He heard a beep from the side of his bed and turned his head to see a contraption with lights and moving graphs.

  A hospital?

  The floodgates opened. The small garage…Marsh…his toes…the sledgehammer…

  The machine gave shrill warble and he turned to see the heart rate monitor spiking.

  Ryan almost jumped out of his skin when a hand grabbed his arm.

  “It’s okay,” a familiar voice said. “You’re safe now.”

  Ryan looked to the other side of the bed and saw the chubby face of Marcus Hayes smiling at him.

  “Glad to have you back,” Hayes said. “You had us worried for a moment.”

  The monitor’s high-pitched alarm continued to fill the room, and Ryan flinched when the door flew open. He didn’t need a machine to tell him how hard his heart was pounding, but it wasn’t Marsh or one of his men come to finish him off. Instead, a nurse ran in and silenced the alarm with the press of a button. She adjusted a drip, and Ryan immediately began to feel drowsy.

  “You can’t go exciting him,” she berated Hayes. “He needs his rest. You should leave and come back in the morning.”

  Hayes tried to stand, and Ryan threw a hand in his direction, managing to grab hold of his suit jacket at the second attempt.

  “Stay. I need to know what happened.”

  Hayes looked at the nurse, who glared back, clearly unhappy at having her authority questioned.

  “Five minutes,” she said, “then he needs to sleep.”

  She closed the door on her way out.

  “How bad is it?” Ryan asked when she was gone. He tried moving his legs but got no response. At least there was no pain, just a heavy fog behind his eyes.

  “The doctors are optimistic,” Hayes told him. “It’s only been five days—”

  “Five days?”

  “Yeah. You weren’t in good shape when they found you. They’ve had you sedated since you arrived, and have operated on your legs twice. They seem confident you’ll be back on your feet in a few weeks and fully recovered within a year.”

  Ryan was struggling against the drugs to stay awake. “Did you say a year?”

  “They had to do reconstructive surgery on the joints of the tibia and femur, and you’ve got brand new synthetic knee caps. The doctor said you should be walking without a limp this time next year.”

  “I’m supposed to go back to Two Para,” Ryan said. “How long before they let me back in?”

  “Well, we’ll see.”

  Something in Hayes’s reply told him that wasn’t going to happen. It would take some time to get back to full fitness, a lot longer than twelve months. That was just to walk properly again, and then he had to learn to run once more. To be fit enough to go into battle would take another two years at least, and even then the doctors might not sign him off. If he couldn’t get back into his old unit, any hopes of joining the special air service were over. He was three weeks past his twenty-fourth birthday, and his dreams were over before they’d begun.

  Anger flushed through him. If Brigshaw hadn’t approached him, he’d be in the regiment now, perhaps already deployed abroad. Now he was facing life outside the army, a prospect he wasn’t prepared for.

  “What took them so long to find me?” Ryan asked. “I thought they were supposed to be minutes away. I stalled them for at least three minutes.”

  “I checked the log,” Hayes told him. “From the beacon activating to the team finding it was one minute, thirty-six seconds. They missed the van leaving your street by about ten seconds, and from then on, they were playing catch up. When you’re in those situations, time plays tricks with the mind.”

  “So how did they find me?”

  “Pure, blind luck,” Hayes smiled. “The team leader had a choice to make: stay on the motorway, or get off. He got off, which was the right call. If he’d stayed on, it would have been at least another fifteen minutes before they got to you. I’d hate to think what state they would have found you in.”

  Ryan didn’t want to even think about it. Marsh’s last order had been to castrate him, and Phil had looked eager to carry out his orders.

  Escaping with his tackle intact didn’t make Ryan feel any better, though. He was still angry, mostly at
Brigshaw for getting him into this in the first place.

  “At least tell me you got Marsh.”

  “We did,” Hayes said. “Marsh, Paul Gardner, Phil Walker and George Atkins. They’ll be going down for some time. They’re charged with kidnapping and grievous bodily harm with intent. That gave the police grounds to search Marsh’s home and businesses, so hopefully we’ll be able to pin more on him. Tax evasion, for one.”

  It was the outcome they’d worked towards, though the manner in which they’d achieved it had come at a huge personal cost. Two missing toes and a year of rehab hadn’t been part of the bargain, and now that Marsh was behind bars, Ryan was effectively unemployed.

  “So, what happens next?”

  “At some point, you’ll be asked to give evidence at their trial. That’ll be done via video link and your face and voice will be obscured, obviously. In the meantime, we’re moving you to a safe house in London to begin your recuperation. You’ll be paid your normal salary until that’s complete, and Brigshaw mentioned a little something as compensation for your injuries. I’ll let him fill in the details. He’ll be along in the morning.”

  “Tell him not to bother,” Ryan said wearily. “I don’t want anything to do with him. If he hadn’t come up with this stupid idea, I wouldn’t be in this mess. I’ll speak to you only from now on.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Hayes sighed, and checked his watch. “I’d best be going.”

  “Hang on. What about security? Marsh will be looking for me. If I’m silenced…”

  “Not going to happen. They’ll be looking for you in the Manchester hospitals, not here in London, and we signed you in under a false name. If anyone asks about a male your age being admitted for trauma to the knees, the hospital is under instructions to deny knowledge. This place is the best private medicine has to offer, and discretion is guaranteed.”

  Ryan yawned as the drugs in his system began to win the battle.

  Hayes tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some rest.”

  Ryan had so many more questions, like who had fired the shot he’d heard, but fatigue overcame him. He drifted off to sleep, and fell almost immediately into a dream that he later suspected would haunt him for years to come.

  Chapter 30

  “Hello, Ryan,” Malcolm Brigshaw said.

  “My name’s Scott Davison now, remember?”

  “Of course. Mind if I come in?”

  Ryan hesitated. There was no conversation he wanted to have with this man. He’d said all he wanted to say the day Brigshaw had visited him in hospital against his wishes.

  “It’s important,” Brigshaw pressed, “otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  Ryan sighed, then stood back and opened the door fully. Brigshaw walked inside and made straight for the living room.

  “You still dress like a spymaster, I see.” Every time Ryan saw him, he was wearing the long wool coat and trilby, regardless of the weather.

  Brigshaw took his coat off and draped it over the back of the sofa, then placed his hat on top. “It’s a double bluff. No self-respecting spy would dress like a spy, so anyone dressed like me couldn’t possibly be a spy.”

  Brigshaw smiled, but Ryan didn’t reciprocate. Instead, he went to the kitchen and put the coffee machine to work. “How do you take yours?” he shouted through to the other room.

  “Milk and half a sugar.”

  While the machine chirped and gurgled, Ryan wondered what could have forced Brigshaw to leave his comfortable desk to visit him. If it was to convince him to go back to work for MI5, then it would prove to be a wasted journey.

  Ryan poured the drinks, then took them through and put one on the table in front of Brigshaw, who had taken a seat on the sofa. Ryan chose to stand.

  “How are you holding up?” Brigshaw asked.

  “I thought this wasn’t a social visit.”

  Brigshaw looked thoughtful for a moment. “Then I’ll get straight to the point. When was the last time you visited London?”

  It seemed a strange question, but there was no harm in telling the truth. “A couple of weeks ago. I stayed overnight at the Radisson. With a friend.”

  “What date?”

  “The fourteenth. It was a Friday.”

  “And what did you do while you were there?” Brigshaw asked.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, I watched a movie in the afternoon, then we ate and spent the rest of the night in our room. What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Robert Waterstone.”

  “Never heard of him,” Ryan said truthfully, and took a sip of his coffee.

  “Perhaps, but you’ve met him. Remember that day in the supermarket car park. The builder who confronted you over the handicapped parking space?”

  Ryan would never forget it. The video had gone viral, and he suspected that was how Marsh’s men had managed to track him down months later. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “The builder was Robert Waterstone. There was a name and shame campaign on Facebook and plenty of people recognised him. The story even made the London Standard.”

  “I never knew that. Once the video was in my feed every day, I quit social media. So what happened? Did he finally get a parking ticket?”

  “He was murdered,” Brigshaw said.

  Ryan felt…nothing. No remorse, no joy. He’d rarely thought about the man whose actions had led to Marsh finding him again, so news of his death barely registered. “You couldn’t have put that in an email? You had to come all this way to tell me in person?”

  Brigshaw stared at him. “He died on or around the fourteenth. Your DNA was found at the crime scene.”

  “What! That’s impossible!”

  “They also found your fingerprints on the murder weapon.”

  Ryan flopped into an armchair, unable to believe what he was hearing. How on earth could his fingerprints be on a weapon? “This can’t be happening,” he said. “When I was in London, I dropped my friend off at her office, then watched an Avengers film alone. When she was finished, we met at the hotel, had a meal together, then went to bed.”

  “That’s not how the police see it.” Brigshaw took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Do you have any footwear that match this shoe print?”

  Ryan took the paper and studied it, but it wasn’t familiar. Then again, he wasn’t one for studying the soles of his shoes. “I’ll take a look.” He went through to the hallway and picked up his black leather shoes, but the sole was devoid of any pattern. He tried the trainers next, his heart pounding as if it knew what was coming. When he turned them over, they matched the printout perfectly.

  He turned to find Brigshaw standing behind him.

  “They match, don’t they.”

  Ryan nodded. “I can’t…this doesn’t make any sense. I know for a fact that I didn’t take my trainers to London.”

  “So how do you explain it?”

  As far as Ryan was concerned, only one thing made any sense. “Marsh must be setting me up.”

  “I thought that, too,” Brigshaw said, “but how would he know what footwear you use? He could only know if one of his people was in this apartment, and if they had access to you, why frame you for murder? Why not just kill you?”

  “Maybe he wants me convicted so that I’m sent to the same prison as him and he can finish me off personally.”

  Brigshaw made a non-committal face and walked back into the living room. Ryan followed him, still unable to believe what he’d heard in the last few minutes.

  “Obviously, the police want to speak to you. I held off giving them your location, but I can’t stall forever. Not even MI5 officers have immunity from prosecution for murder.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone!” Ryan said, and immediately realised how defensive he sounded. How else to react, though?

  “I believe you,” Brigshaw said, “but you have to turn yourself in. Speak to them, explain your side of the story.”

  “My side is that I’m in
nocent. Don’t you think they’ve heard it all before? ‘It wasn’t me, I’m being framed!’ They’ll have me banged up for life before they can stop laughing.”

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that. If you can—”

  “You were sure I wouldn’t get hurt when I took the job, but that didn’t turn out too well, did it?” Ryan picked up his coffee. It was now tepid, but he emptied the cup anyway. “Twice they got me. Twice!”

  “I was going to say, if you have an alibi, we can explain the rest away. Who is this friend you mentioned?”

  “Her name’s Kelly,” Ryan said, aware that Brigshaw was avoiding the subject. “I met her a few weeks ago. She works for an advertising agency.”

  “Give her a call, ask her to join you in London to give a statement.”

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with her for the last two weeks. She was transferred to Melbourne, but I haven’t heard from her since. I was going to call her new office tonight.”

  “Do it. She can probably make a statement at her local police station and they’ll forward it on. They might want her to travel back so that they can question her, though.”

  It wasn’t what Ryan wanted. If she turned up, she would soon learn his real identity. Would she be willing to forgive him, especially after dragging her all the way across the world to defend him against a murder charge when she’d only been in her new role for a matter of days? Ryan doubted it. She’d likely get straight back on the plane and he’d never see her again.

  He had to do this without her.

  “Okay, I’ll speak to the police, but I’m not going to the station. I’ll meet him on my terms.”

  “That’s fair enough, but do it soon. If we drag this out, he’ll chase it up the ladder and eventually I’m going to have to tell him about your Scott Davison legend. When that happens, they’ll come for you.”

  “I will…and thanks…for coming to see me first.”

  “It was the least I could do.”

  Brigshaw picked up his coat and put his hat on. “I’d better be going.”