‘Yes, ma’am; we’re on our way now. We’ll check in with the comms centre as soon as we’re on the move.’ She put the phone down, picked her jacket from the back of her chair, and snatched a key from Montell’s desk. ‘Forget the tea, Griff,’ she said. ‘Arse in gear; this is our lucky night.’
They ran downstairs and out through the back door of the old police station, into the yard. Their car was a black Mondeo Cosworth, innocuous to anyone other than an expert, but capable of keeping pace with any other saloon on the road and with all but the most exotic sports models. ‘Gimme the key,’ Montell demanded, as they reached it.
‘In your dreams,’ Cowan replied, as she opened the driver’s door.
‘One, I know where we’re going, two, I know what the orders are and three, I’ve done an advanced driving course. Do you tick any of those boxes, big boy?’
He smiled and slid into the passenger seat. ‘I like it when you call me big boy,’ he murmured as she started the engine.
‘All boys do,’ she replied, enigmatically, ‘regardless.’
She pulled out of the car park and headed for Salamander Street, then on to Seafield Road. As she drove, Montell took the radio microphone and called the communications centre to report their position and to be patched through to the patrol car in position at the golf club entrance.
‘Anything happening?’ he asked his nameless colleague, once contact had been made.
‘No,’ came the reply through the speaker, ‘but they’re still in there. Where we are we can see the top of their vehicle. It’s one of these pick-up things, four seats in front and platform behind with a hard top over it.’
‘Any chance they can see you?’
‘Nane. We’re tucked up a wee side street wi’ no lighting. How far away are you?’
‘Less than a minute,’ Cowan shouted for the mike to pick up. ‘We’re crossing the bridge in Seafield Road.’
‘Roger,’ said the patrolman. ‘Here, they’re moving. They’ll be coming out into Craigenside Drive. If they go left, they’re heading for you. If they go right, you’ll need to catch them up. We won’t show ourselves. Hold on, here they come. It’s a white vehicle, registration Sierra Lima zero six X-ray Charlie Oscar, and it’s turned . . . left, heading your way.’
‘Copy that,’ said Montell.
‘Shit,’ Cowan hissed. They were almost upon the junction of Craigenside Drive and Seafield Road. ‘Choice to make.’ She drove straight on, and as they passed the junction, they saw a white extended pick-up approaching the turn, indicating left. ‘Sorted,’ she murmured. ‘Keep an eye on them, Griff, let me know when they’re out of sight.’ She slowed her speed, checking in her rear-view that they were clear behind.
‘OK. They’re gone.’
She swung the car in a violent u-turn then tramped on the accelerator, retracing their steps.
‘Heading west,’ Montell told the communications centre, as they cleared the bridge and the target vehicle came into view once more, ‘and in pursuit.’
‘What’s your bet, Alice?’ he asked as they cleared a green light, and as Seafield Road became Salamander Street.
‘I don’t have one yet. They could be local; we’ll have a better idea soon. Look,’ she said, glancing at a woman standing on the pavement as they passed, ‘the massage parlours are shut, so the hookers are back on the street.’
‘Ladies of negotiable affection,’ he corrected her. ‘Sounds more refined.’
They drove on, up Constitution Street and along Great Junction Street, lucky with the lights until the pick-up was stopped by a red at its end. ‘Bugger!’ Cowan cursed. ‘I’d rather not be directly behind them.’
‘It’s OK,’ Montell reassured her. ‘They can’t see us for the top on the load platform. They don’t even know we’re here.’
As the signal changed to red and amber, the vehicle’s left indicator came on and it turned into Ferry Road. ‘I’ll place that bet now,’ she declared. ‘They’re not from Edinburgh. If they were heading for Glasgow they’d have gone right at Seafield. Assuming that the driver knows where he’s going, I reckon he’s taking us across the Forth Road Bridge.’
‘To infinity and beyond,’ Montell drawled.
‘Wherever, Griff,’ said Alice. ‘When he gets there I’ll still have him in my sights.’
Seventy-seven
‘There’s no response from inside the barn, sir. You probably heard us giving him the megaphone warning to come out. There’s been not a whisper.’
Skinner and Martin could hear Sergeant Doreen McSeveney’s report on the radio that Greatorix held.
‘Is the rear secure?’ he asked.
‘There’s only one entrance; the big sliding door at the front. It’s open wide enough to admit one person.’
‘So Henry could be in there, waiting?’
‘If he’s gone, it wasn’t in his car,’ she pointed out. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to get any older wondering. We’re going in.’
‘Take no unnecessary risks, Doreen,’ Greatorix warned.
‘We won’t. We’ve got a high intensity light with us. The plan is we shine it through the opening. It’ll blind anyone who’s looking into it for long enough to let three of us roll inside.’
‘How about stun grenades?’
‘We’re not the SAS, sir. Besides, it’s a big space in there; they’d be less effective.’
‘OK, go for it.’
Skinner and Martin could see little or nothing in the moonless night, only the dim outline of the barn and the shape of Brown’s car in front of it. They watched nonetheless, waiting, in silence. Then suddenly they saw a burst of bright light, and heard the sergeant’s sharp command, ‘Go!’ though the radio.
They tensed, ready for the sound of shots, but none came: only the sergeant’s voice once more, but different, much less in control. ‘Oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck! Get up here, sir. Henry’s here all right . . . at least I think it’s him.’
Seventy-eight
‘I win,’ said Cowan, as they cruised round the long curving bend and on to the slope that led down to the mighty, but decaying, Forth Road Bridge, the only direct road connection between Fife and the Lothians. She had followed the white truck carefully on the way out of Edinburgh, varying the distance between the two vehicles, even letting her quarry out of sight on occasion on stretches where she knew there was no turn-off available.
‘Too bad for you we didn’t have money on it,’ Montell pointed out.
She ignored his reply. ‘He’s watching himself,’ she murmured. ‘He hasn’t been over the speed limit at all, but he’s never far short of it either. This is a guy who doesn’t want to take any chance of being pulled over. Once he’s over the bridge, he’ll probably think he’s free and clear. Out of our area.’
Her companion picked up the radio mike. ‘Control, we’re on the point of crossing into Fife,’ he said. ‘What’s our status? Do we hand over to them?’
‘ACC Steele again, Griff,’ a voice crackled through the speaker. ‘Maintain pursuit; repeat, maintain pursuit. This is a joint force operation; Fife are aware of your presence and of the orders in relation to the target. They won’t interfere, or attempt to stop it under any circumstances, but they’ll be available to assist if you request it.’
‘Understood, ma’am. Just as well you said that, for we’re in Fife now.’
‘And the pick-up is speeding up,’ Cowan added. ‘Doing eighty as we join the motorway.’
‘We’ve done a check on the number. No help there; it belongs on a red Dodge Caliber; the owner lives in South Shields. Don’t let him lose you, Alice,’ Steele cautioned. ‘We’ve no way of tracing him if you do.’
The constable laughed. ‘Ma’am, Nigel Mansell couldn’t lose me in what I’m driving.’
‘Any feel for a destination?’ the ACC asked.
‘He’s ignored the turn-off for Dunfermline, still heading north. There’s nothing significant between here and Perth or St Andrews. What’s he got in the truck?�
�
‘Seventy grand’s worth of top of the range golf clubs and clothing, we’re told by the club pro. He’s on site now. That probably rules St Andrews out. It’s the last place you’d go with knocked-off kit. The town’s full of that stuff as it is. Check in when you know for sure, and I’ll let Tayside know you’re coming.’
‘Understood, ma’am,’ said Montell. He returned the mike to its holder, and looked across at Cowan. ‘Jesus, Alice, did you hear that? Seventy thousand in stolen goods and we let them drive away from the place. We’d better recover this stuff or the top brass are going to be in shit as deep as the crew in front of us.’
Seventy-nine
Skinner slammed on the brakes, skidding slightly as he pulled up alongside Henry Brown’s abandoned car. The beam of his headlights picked up one of the armed response team; he was doubled over, throwing up as if he was never going to stop. And it found something else; a dark trail on the ground leading into the barn.
The chief constable and Martin stepped out, just as Greatorix pulled up beside them. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, following their gaze.
‘It’s a blood trail.’ Skinner’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘You’ve seen one of them before, Rod. Let’s follow it and find out where it goes.’
‘It goes here, sir,’ said Doreen McSeveney. She stood in the open doorway. ‘We’ve got our light on a stand. Maybe you shouldn’t step inside,’ she ventured as the three approached her. ‘Contamination of the scene.’
‘You’ve contaminated it already, Sergeant,’ Martin pointed out. ‘We know what not to do.’
‘Then prepare yourselves,’ she warned.
Skinner patted her on the shoulder. ‘I gave that up years ago, Doreen,’ he told her, ‘when I stopped being surprised by the things that human beings can do to each other.’
He stepped into the barn. It was flooded with brilliant light, centred on a fearful tableau. Two men hung there, no more than ten feet away, suspended by their rope-bound wrists from a steel beam that ran from wall to wall. Their feet were bare and bloody. The top of each man’s head was missing. What was left lolled backwards, and the ground beneath their feet was stained red for yards around.
‘Ohhh,’ Greatorix moaned as he took in the carnage.
‘Don’t vomit in front of the other ranks, Rod,’ Skinner whispered. ‘Bad for the image. You don’t want anyone telling the story at your retirement do.’
‘Is that how you keep it in check?’ The chief superintendent’s words were mumbled, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Absolutely.’ He took a step towards the dangling bodies, and pointed towards the one on the left, the one with the massive lower jawbone. ‘This will have been Henry, I take it.’
‘It could be no other,’ Martin confirmed. ‘You only need that chin to identify him.’
‘Who’s the other one?’
‘I’d guess that would be Dudley, Brown’s sidekick.’
‘Sidekick now, all right. Except nobody’s kicking any longer.’
His friend nodded. ‘Deadly Dudley, the drug dealers call him, out of fear rather than respect, after what he did with a pair of them who were caught flogging their own stuff. The rumour was he took them to a pig farm, shot them, chopped them up and fed them to the livestock. Dudley was pure pond life.’
‘Was he on McCullough’s payroll as well?’
‘Officially he was a site agent with the building company. And in another way; Dudley was shacked up with his daughter Inez. He was family too.’
‘A lousy night for the McCullough ladies, then.’
‘And for Grandpa,’ Martin added. ‘For him it’ll be like losing your right and left arms at the same time.’ Pause for thought. ‘Unless they upset him badly enough, that is; badly enough for him to get involved himself.’
Skinner shook his head. ‘No, no. Your man wasn’t responsible for this. Not directly, at any rate.’
‘I suppose you know who was.’
He nodded. ‘Sure I do,’ he whispered.
‘Then shouldn’t we get people looking for him?’
‘They’d never find him. How long have these guys been dead?’
‘Given when Goldie said that Henry left home,’ the recovered Greatorix suggested, ‘it could be four hours or more.’
‘Then your man is well gone.’
‘Man?’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you telling me that one man took care of these two monsters?’
‘Yes. Henry’s phone call, the one that brought him here might have been from Dudley. If you find a mobile in his pocket that’ll confirm it. But by the time Henry got here, Dud was deid, so to speak. Look at Henry’s legs . . . they’re in tatters. That’s where the blood trail came from. As soon as he stepped out of his car, he was shot, hit over the head, maybe . . . we’ll never know . . . then dragged in here and strung up, ready for his execution. Not that he was killed right away. Look at the ground beneath the two of them.’
The chief superintendent peered, at several shapeless red objects. ‘What the fuck are those?’
‘Their toes.’
‘Oh my God!’ He retched.
‘I know,’ said Skinner, ‘you’re going to tell me that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Dundee. Well, it does now.’ He took his colleague by the elbow and tugged him, stumbling, towards the exit. ‘You need to waken up your crime scene people and tell them to get here.’
‘We have to ask them, now they’re a central service.’
‘Bollocks to that. Dorward in Edinburgh still jumps to it when my people call for him. I don’t care whose damn payroll he’s on; he’s a police resource.’
The three officers stepped outside. ‘You and your team can stand down now, Doreen,’ Martin told the firearms squad commander. ‘We’ll be calling in the cavalry.’
‘We’ll wait till they get here,’ the sergeant replied.
‘If you wish.’ He turned to Skinner. ‘Who’s going to tell Goldie?’ he asked.
‘Neil, if he wants. I’ll give him a call on his mobile, and tell him what’s happened here. We’ve got no reason to hold Murtagh now, so he can turn him loose. If he wants to tell Daphne she’s a widow, he can, but maybe somebody should find this Inez woman and let her know that she’ll have an empty bed tonight.’
‘What about her dad?’
‘The women can go and cry on his shoulder, get it softened up for us when we call on him.’
‘We’re going to see him? You and me?’
‘Too fucking right we are. Not tonight, though. There’s a few things to sort out before we do that. Meantime . . .’ He fell into a contemplative silence.
‘What?’
‘The farmhouse, the one that’s only occasionally used: can you reach it from here?’
‘Directly, no. You have to go back out on to the main road.’
‘Then do you fancy taking my car and having a look at it for signs of entry? Rod’s a bit flaky; I should stay here and give him support. I suppose it’s possible that the guy who did this checked it out, to make sure there was nobody there to disturb him. This scene’s such a mess that it’ll be a miracle if we find traces of him here, but if he’s been in there, you never know.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that. The way things have turned out tonight, anything’s possible.’
Eighty
As he turned into the roads that led to the Hillside Mains farmhouse, Andy Martin felt a hand grip the pit of his stomach. He had to will himself to defeat the urge to pull his car over and follow the example of the response team constable. If it had not been for the fact that he had not eaten for almost twelve hours he might not have succeeded. Bob Skinner had the apparent ability to switch off all feeling when confronted with the aftermath of the most violent of crimes, but it was something that he had never mastered. Of course, he recognised, who knows what’s really going on inside another person’s head?
The deaths of Henry Brown and his henchman Dudley . . . the question, What the fuck is a hench? ran, uncontrollab
ly and unanswered, through his mind, making him realise that he was not very far away from hysteria . . . had left him with what had become already an indelible memory, yet another that he would carry to the grave, unless Alzheimer’s or some other affliction erased it first.
Martin was shaken by his own weakness. Although he knew that he was regarded as a hard guy, as international-class rugby flank forwards invariably are, he did have a soft side and he was quietly proud of it. Nonetheless his CID career had developed under Skinner’s tutelage, which tended to work on what he called Billy Ocean principles; as the song went, when the going got tough, the tough got going.
For sure, something had knocked him off kilter, and he knew what it was. There were two people in the world that he loved totally, simply and without complications, and their names were Danielle and Robert Martin, a toddler and an infant. For all that he was presenting the break-up of his marriage as an agreement to part by two mature intelligent people facing up to the truth, and for all his talk of having been an absentee father all along, he had been keen to lead his friends in their pursuit of Henry Brown simply because it postponed the moment when he would have to go back to his empty house in Edinburgh, knowing that in Perth his daughter would be asking why he wasn’t in his appointed place at her bedtime, talking to her and reading her a chapter from her chosen book. And when he did go home, what a picture he would be taking with him, in his head . . .
He glanced at the dashboard clock; it was showing five minutes after midnight. The household would be quiet, Robert permitting. He smiled at the thought but felt his eyes moisten. ‘Go back, Andy,’ he whispered in the darkness, but he knew that there was no way. There were too many obstacles between him and Karen.
And then there was the job. It had all happened very quickly; vacancy circulated, applications invited, and then, before he had even completed the form, a direct approach. He had accepted on the spot, but after one day in his new office he found himself wondering whether his enthusiasm had been based in part on its fortuitous timing, and the opportunity it had given to put up a smokescreen to conceal from the world the truth about his break-up. But that notion had gone as quickly as it had arrived. He had never taken a job without one hundred per cent certainty that it was right for him, and the SCDEA post was the destination for which his entire career had been headed.
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