by Val McDermid
It felt like a long silence, but it was only a matter of seconds. “I wish you hadn’t said that,” Patrick said.
“Why? Because you’ll have to deal with her the same way you dealt with Tam? And then me? And then Lindsay?” Rory’s voice sounded far more defiant to her than she would have believed possible.
“You don’t know me well enough to heed my warnings. Bernadette should know better, though.”
“What Bernie knows is how her son would end up if she handed him over to you. A cold-blooded killer, fighting a pointless war, just like his daddy.”
“A boy should know who his father is. I have a right to my son.”
“And Tam? Didn’t he have any rights?” Rory stood her ground, her eyes never leaving his face.
“He had no right to my son.”
“He risked going to prison to get your son back to his mother,” she pointed out.
“I’ve risked at least that much to put the boy where he belongs. In my house.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. Murder.” It was, she knew, the key moment. She had to get the admission on tape, had to forge a weapon strong enough to keep this man at bay forever.
Patrick shook his head. “It wasn’t murder. It was punishment. For taking what wasn’t his.”
“She won’t let you have Jack. Not after what you did to Tam.”
A cold smile, his teeth gleaming in the dim light. “Dead women don’t have choices.”
Rory started at the sound of a door smacking open against a concrete wall. She whirled round to see a figure silhouetted against the harsh fluorescence of the stairwell. An unfamiliar voice shouted, “Patrick! She’s set you up! She’s got away with the boy. We lost them!”
Rory’s hand instinctively flew up to protect the microphone in an ambiguous gesture. Assuming she was going for a weapon, Michael’s gun hand came up and he moved into the firing position. But before he could shoot, from behind the grit bin came the flash of gunfire and the backfire boom of a shotgun. Michael, blasted at point blank range, crumpled to the ground without a sound. Shocked at what she’d done, Lindsay stood looking down uncomprehendingly at the still form at her feet.
She was brought back to reality by the sound of shots. Suddenly alert, she took in the scene. Patrick was waving a handgun around, shooting wildly in her general direction, his panic the reaction of a man who hasn’t seen active service for a very long time and is unaccustomed to taking responsibility for his own protection. Lindsay didn’t think he could see her and had no conviction that he could hit her even if he could.
But as she stood motionless in the shadows, she saw Rory whirl back round to face Patrick. As if in slow motion, she saw Patrick’s gun hand waver towards Rory. Lindsay roared, “No,” and left the shadows at a sprint, the shotgun held at waist height, her finger on the trigger.
Patrick’s hand jerked and Rory staggered before crashing to the ground. Lindsay felt her chest constrict as she charged across the roof, screaming unintelligibly. Patrick turned back towards her but before he could fire again, Lindsay’s finger tightened implacably.
The blast caught him full in the chest and he collapsed, blood pouring from a hole the size of a football. Lindsay barely paused, knowing he was beyond help and not caring. She dropped the gun and fell to her knees beside Rory. Blood soaked her shirt and jacket, spreading from a wound high on the right side of her chest. Rory’s face was parchment in the sodium lights, her eyes closed. Tears spilled from Lindsay’s eyes as she checked for a pulse in Rory’s neck. It was there, faint and thready, but it was there. She gently touched Rory’s face with one hand, while putting pressure on the wound with the other. “Rory? Oh God, Rory, say something. Don’t do this to me, don’t die on me!” Her voice was agonised, mirroring the desperation she felt as Rory failed to move.
Lindsay pulled out her mobile phone and dialled the emergency services. “Which service do you require?” the anonymous voice asked kindly.
“Ambulance. My pal’s been shot,” Lindsay gabbled. “On the top floor of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh car park. You’ve got to hurry, she’s bleeding badly. There’s two other people hurt as well.”
“That’s the Mackintosh car park in Garnethill?”
“Yeah, yeah. Get somebody here, please.”
“The police and ambulance will be with you shortly. Can you . . .” Lindsay cut off the call. She didn’t have time for anything except Rory. She leaned over her to check she was still breathing. This time, her eyelids fluttered and opened. Rory looked dazed and bewildered.
“Rory?” Lindsay said, hardly able to believe her eyes.
“Lindsay?” It was a croak, but it was her name, unmistakably.
Lindsay suddenly remembered she was wearing the ski mask and yanked it off. “It’s me, Rory. Listen, there’s an ambulance coming, you’re going to be OK. Just hang in there.”
“Hurts . . . Did we get enough?” she groaned.
“It’s sorted,” Lindsay said.
“You look . . . You never said . . . a gun.”
“You’d only have worried.”
Rory coughed. “Cover your back . . . you need . . . cover your back.”
“Never mind me.” But nevertheless she took heed of Rory’s concern. Lindsay slipped her hand inside Rory’s bra, made even more fearful by the marble coldness of her skin. She pulled the mike clear and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Please,” Rory whispered. “Gun. Get rid.”
“OK.” Lindsay didn’t care about the consequences for herself, but being scared for her wasn’t helping Rory. She grabbed the shotgun and stood up. “Fucking carnage. How do you explain fucking carnage?” She raced down a level to her own car and wrenched the door open. She lifted the bench seat and threw in the gun, the spare cartridges and all the electronic equipment. Then she pulled off her waxed jacket and tossed it on top.
Lindsay raced back up to the roof, the sound of distant sirens cutting through the constant hum of the city at night. She threw herself down beside Rory again, leaning over to press down on the wound. Her eyes were closed again and her skin looked even paler than before. “Oh fuck,” Lindsay groaned. “Don’t die on me, Rory.”
Rory’s eyelids parted in a narrow slit. “Lindsay . . .”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yeah . . .”
“This is really important. Try to remember. We came here in your car. Together. You were meeting Patrick Coughlan. Some IRA story. You were worried and I offered to come along for the ride. OK?”
“My car,” Rory murmured.
“And then it all went off. We’ve got no idea what happened or who was involved. OK?”
Rory’s mouth twitched. It was almost a smile. “Not a lie . . .”
Now the sirens were close, whooping in and out in a Doppler effect as the emergency vehicles climbed through the car park. “You’re going to be OK,” Lindsay insisted.
“Coughlan . . . ?” Rory said so softly it was almost lost in the background noise.
“He’s dead. It’s all over Rory. It’s all right.”
“Tell Bernie.” Then her eyes flickered shut again, just as two police cars and a pair of ambulances screamed up the ramp. Lindsay got to her feet and waved her arms over her head. “Just don’t find my fucking car, that’s all,” she muttered as the headlight beams pinned her like stage spotlights. There would be time enough for her to deal with what she’d done. For now, what mattered was saving Rory. And perhaps, in the process, saving herself.
Epilogue
It was, Lindsay thought, the most splendid bouquet of flowers she had ever spent money on. She didn’t even know the names of most of the things in it. She only hoped the nurses could find a big enough vase. She walked through the hospital corridors towards the lift, still buzzy with lack of sleep and the satisfaction that comes from surviving a terrifying ordeal. She’d never been so scared in her life, nor so relieved at the outcome.
Lindsay emerged from the lift and took the short corridor that led to the pr
ivate rooms. She nodded to a nurse who exclaimed at the flowers. Lindsay paused on the threshold and took a deep breath. Then she grabbed the handle and marched in.
Rory was sitting on a chair by the window, the animation on her face revealing she was in the middle of some anecdote. But Lindsay had no interest in her today. She turned to face the bed, where Sophie sat propped up, nursing Clare Julia Gordon Hartley, 36 hours old and the most beautiful creature Lindsay had ever clapped eyes on. A slow grin spread across her face and she leaned down to kiss Sophie and then their daughter, who remained oblivious to attention while there was milk to be downed.
Lindsay glanced up at Rory. “So, what do you think?” she said.
“She’s gorgeous.”
“That’s the right answer,” Sophie said. “You can come again.”
Rory uncurled her legs from under her and stood up. “Try and keep me away. How long are you going to be in for?”
“They usually keep mothers in for five days after a section, but I’m going to try to persuade them to let me out sooner than that. Hospitals are such unhealthy places,” Sophie said. “Besides, Lindsay’s getting off far too lightly just now.”
“Well, I’ll probably wait till you’re both home.” Rory reached for the flowers. “I’m going off now, I’ll give these to one of the nurses and get her to stick them in a vase. Lindsay, what time are we kicking off tonight?”
“Eight o’clock, Café Virginia.”
“Kicking off what?” Sophie asked, curious rather than suspicious. Doubt had disappeared some months before, for which Lindsay was profoundly grateful.
“Wetting the baby’s head,” Lindsay said. “Work contacts, mostly. All the gang from Radio NMC, plus people like Giles and Sandra.”
“I’m so glad I’m missing that one,” Sophie said dryly.
“See you soon,” Rory said, stooping to kiss Clare’s wispy black hair on her way out.
Sophie watched her leave, then reached for Lindsay’s hand. “I’m glad you forced me to get to know Rory. She’s great fun.”
Lindsay shrugged, embarrassed. “I didn’t see how I could avoid running into her, with us both so involved in the media scene. I just hoped the two of you would ignore me and get to know each other. Self-preservation, that’s all it was.”
“Well, it worked.” Sophie shifted. “She’s asleep. Do you want to hold your daughter?”
Lindsay picked up Clare as if she were a primed bomb and edged round to the chair by the window. “I can’t believe how good she is. Did you get much sleep?”
Sophie grunted. “It wasn’t too bad. She went three hours between feeds at one point, which was blissful. But it’s not restful in here. We’ll both do better once we get home.”
The rest of the day passed in a drift of feeding, changing, bathing and conversation. Lindsay’s parents turned up in the afternoon to drool over their grandchild, and Lindsay left her mother with Sophie for half an hour so she and her father could get some fresh air.
“It’s all worked out for the best, then,” Andy said as they walked along the banks of the Kelvin.
“Amazingly enough, yes,” Lindsay said. “I couldn’t believe it when they put Clare in my arms. It was like a hook going into my heart. Instant love.”
“There’s nothing like it,” Andy agreed. “You forgive them anything, you know.”
“Even stupidity,” Lindsay said wryly.
“Even stupidity. Do you see much of Rory now you’re doing the radio show?”
For the past five months, Lindsay had been the presenter of the midday news programme on Radio NMC. It was one of the few good things that had come out of her encounter with Tam and Bernie Gourlay. The station’s boss had been a close friend of Tam’s, and when his anchorman had left for BBC national radio, he’d called Lindsay to offer her the slot. She’d been at a loose end ever since she’d given up working with Rory as the price of reconciliation with Sophie, and it had turned out to be the perfect slot for her abrasive humour and incisive questioning. “I usually only see her when Sophie’s around,” she said. “It’s safer that way.”
Her father nodded. “Aye. Nice lassie, but trouble on legs.”
Lindsay shook her head. “I’m the one that’s trouble, Dad.”
“Aye, well, that’ll all change now. You’ve got responsibilities.”
Lindsay grinned. “I know. Great, isn’t it?”
She left the hospital in time to get to her counselling session at half past five. She’d gone into therapy while Rory had still been in hospital recovering from the gunshot wound that was bizarrely a mirror image of Lindsay’s own. When she’d woken screaming in Rory’s spare room for the third night running, she’d called Sophie for help. They’d had a cautious lunch together when Lindsay had revealed the truth about the events on the roof of the car park. Sophie had been horrified at Lindsay’s risk-taking and adamant that she needed professional help.
“How can I talk to a therapist?” Lindsay had demanded. “As far as the cops are concerned, I’m just a bystander who got caught up in a Republican revenge shooting by chance. Thank God the only one of them left standing kept his mouth shut or I’d be on remand at Cornton Vale right now. I can’t sit down with some New Age nambypamby and confess that I killed two men. They’d freak out.”
“Leave it with me, I’ll find someone,” Sophie had promised. And she’d kept her word. Anne-Marie Melville was a medically qualified psychiatrist turned counsellor who regarded her duty of confidentiality as highly as a priest in the confessional. Lindsay reckoned Anne-Marie had probably saved her sanity.
That evening as she left Anne-Marie’s consulting rooms, she was astonished to see Rory sitting on the bonnet of her car, soaking up the sunshine. “What are you doing here?” Lindsay asked.
“Nice to see you too,” Rory said, sliding off the car and giving Lindsay a hug. “I just wanted to see you on your own before we got ripped into the drink. I knew this was your night for seeing Anne-Marie and I thought I’d grab you when you were vulnerable.”
Lindsay grinned and hugged her back. “Living dangerously, huh?” She moved away and unlocked the car. “Come back to the house and have a drink, we’ll go into town together.”
They were silent on the short drive, each keeping her own counsel till they were sitting on the living room sofa, both clutching a cold beer. “Mmm, that’s nice,” Lindsay said, rolling the bottle against her forehead.
“Bernie called today. She’s finally found a house she likes and the owners have accepted her offer.”
“Where is it?”
“Cornwall. Near St Ives. Jack likes the sea. She was thrilled to hear about Clare.”
“I suppose that’s as near as we’re going to get to a happy ending,” Lindsay sighed.
“All things considered, we should probably be grateful we came out of it with nothing worse than matching scars,” Rory said.
Lindsay reached for her hand. “I know it’s not exactly what you hoped for. I’m sorry.”
Rory shook her head. “Don’t be. I’d only have broken your heart. And it taught me something important too.”
“What? Don’t mess with married women?” Lindsay said, only half teasing.
“There’s that,” Rory acknowledged ruefully. “But more importantly, I learned that I’m maybe not as much of a lost cause as I thought I was. I always reckoned me and love were as incompatible as a Mac and a PC. But what I felt for you . . . well, let’s just say I’m not really scared any more.”
“Oh, Rory,” Lindsay said, putting down her beer and pulling Rory into her arms. “You deserve better than me.”
Rory grinned up at her. “You think I don’t know that?” She snuggled into Lindsay for a moment, then pulled away and said briskly. “Come on. It’s time to go and paint the town lavender. You’ve got something to celebrate, Lindsay. The new life starts here.”
V. L. McDermid
Val McDermid published her first Lindsay Gordon mystery, Report for Murder, in 1987. Since then
she has written a further five books in the series featuring the Scottish lesbian journalist. The fifth, Booked for Murder, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. She has also written six novels featuring PI Kate Brannigan, four featuring psychologist Tony Hill and police officer Carol Jordan, and three standalones. An international best-seller, her books have been translated into almost 30 languages and the Hill & Jordan series has been adapted for the award-winning TV series, Wire in the Blood. Her many awards include the Gold Dagger (for The Mermaids Singing), the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anthony, the Dilys, the Barry, the Macavity (for A Place of Execution), the Sherlock (for The Distant Echo) and the Grand Prix des Romans d’Aventure (for Star Struck).
Val grew up in a Scottish mining community and is a graduate of Oxford University. She worked as a journalist for 16 years, becoming National Bureau Chief of a major national Sunday tabloid. She quit journalism in 1991 to become a full-time writer. She is also a regular contributor to BBC radio. She has one son and divides her time between the city—Manchester—and the country—a seaside village in Northumberland.
copyright © Val McDermid 2003
Bywater Books, Inc.
PO Box 3671
Ann Arbor MI 48106-3671
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in Great Britain
by HarperCollinsPublishers, 2003
eISBN : 978-1-612-94011-3
