All the Devils

by Neil Broadfoot

  He beckoned to Doug. “Come on, McGregor,” he said, pulling a small flash drive from his pocket, “I think you’ll find this very, ah, interesting. Very educational. Smile! I’m about to make your dream come true.”

  Doug stepped forward warily, bunching his prickling hand into a fist. If Redmonds was going to try something, he wanted to be ready. Or as ready as he could be.

  Redmonds hit the space bar on the laptop and the screen flared to life, almost blinding in the gloom of the street. He plugged the flash drive in and accessed it, smiling at Doug. “You see, McGregor,” he said, nodding towards the screen, the smell of whisky heavy on his breath, “I promised I’d make your dream come true.”

  Doug glanced from Redmonds back at the screen, rooted to the spot. He felt as though he had been wired up to the mains and Redmonds had thrown the switch. The screen of the laptop seemed to pulse in front of him, what he was seeing burning into his mind. He looked back to Redmonds, his face a stark relief of light from the laptop and the shadows of the night.

  Hair tousled, cheeks flushed. The thin sheen of sweat on her naked skin. The sheet a twist of white cotton, pulled down below her stomach, revealing…

  Redmonds nodded slowly, glanced at the laptop. “Now do you see why you’re not going to write a word about me, McGregor? Because if you do, this…” – he jutted his jaw at the laptop – “goes online. Now that would be a story, wouldn’t it?”

  Doug screwed his eyes shut, trying to think. Flexed his hand, felt the pain crawl up his wrist. Thoughts and memories crowded into his mind. Diane Pearson stamping on his hand, the pure savage glee in her face as she attacked him; of his boss being assassinated right in front of him in a spray of blood and shattered internal organs; of the betrayal by Harvey Robertson, the man he had thought of as a second father.

  “So, Douglas, do we have a deal?”

  Doug snapped his eyes open, saw Redmonds smiling down at him, smugly arrogant in his victory. And for an instant Doug saw another face, one that had worn the same look.

  …Harvey…

  He lashed out suddenly, catching Redmonds with a right hook to the temple that sent him staggering backwards, then lunged forward and hit him with a hard left, the agony exploding in his hand and racing up his arm as he felt Redmonds’ cheek give under the force of the blow. Redmonds crashed to the ground, air and expletives forced out of him on impact. Doug snatched for the flash drive and turned to run as Redmonds got to his knees, lunging forward to stop him as he hawked back and spat blood and phlegm on the street in a viscous wad.

  “You little FUCK!” he barked, still trying to catch his breath, the veneer of civility ripped away by the shock of violence. “I’ll fucking end you for this. You and that fucking hoor, I swear I…”

  Doug whirled round and, taking a step forward, kicked out at Redmonds as hard as he could, catching him in the face. He felt teeth splinter and snap against his shoe, Redmonds’ head jerking back at an angle it was never meant to, the shock shuddering up Doug’s leg.

  And suddenly everything he was trying to suppress boiled out of him in a poisonous, fetid torrent. Doug closed in on Redmonds, mouth contorted in a silent scream, the tears and terror too big to come out. He kicked at him again, heard breath explode from his lungs in a gagging, choking cough, forcing him onto his back, trapped between Doug and the BMW. The image from the laptop rose up in Doug’s mind and he stamped down on Redmonds.

  “You twisted fuck,” he snarled, the tears now hot and burning on his cheeks. “Fucking twisted CUNT!” He stamped down again and again, feeling muscles part and bones grind together under his foot. Felt his bile and hatred flare black and burning as his foot hit soft, yielding gut. Redmonds’ cries for mercy – “Stop, just stop, please, I was wrong, I know I was wrong” – were discordant screeches in his ears, fuelling the rage that engulfed him. He stamped down again, losing his footing as he bounced off Redmonds’ shoulder and staggered back, heaving for breath.

  Doug looked up and took in what he had done, his lungs raw furnaces, senses slowly returning as the rage cooled. Saw not a monster but a small, broken man lying in front of him, ink-black blood oozing from his ruined face and glinting in the streetlights. He stepped forward, over the wreck of Redmonds, felt a guilty sting of relief as he heard him moan softly on the pavement. He scooped up the laptop in shaking hands, zipping it back into its bag then backed away slowly. Glanced around the street, no lights suddenly flaring on, no panicked shouts to “Call the polis, some guy’s just kilt a man.”

  He got into his car, fumbled the key into the ignition and started it up, the sound like the Devil’s roar in the charged aftermath of violence. He backed out of the sidestreet, barely suppressing the urge just to floor it and drive as fast as he could. Bore down on the steering wheel, ignoring the pain in his hand as he did so.

  It was the least he deserved after this.

  Doug made it back to the flat, managed to get in and changed before Susie had arrived to tell him that Redmonds was dead. She had stuck around for about an hour, the whisky slowly taking the edge off her shock, but going over and over the rumours and gossip about her that would resurface when Redmonds’ death became public.

  His death. At Doug’s hands.

  Doug shook his head. He was breathing when he had left him. And, from what Susie had said, he had been found at home, not in Portobello. So he had lived at least for a while.

  Doug staggered to the living room. Pulled the laptop bag out from behind the sofa and laid it on the table beside the flash drive. This was what a man had died for. What I killed him for, he thought, and shuddered.

  But he couldn’t accept that. Yet. Yes, he had lost it. Beaten Redmonds badly. But killed him? He couldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t. Not yet anyway. It may only have been a guilty man’s delusion but…

  …but…

  Doug picked up his mobile. It was a call he didn’t want to make. But it was the only one he could.

  Guilty or not. He had to know.

  4

  Rebecca Summers, one of Police Scotland’s senior communications officers, glanced up at the clock on her office wall as her mobile began to ring, smiled slightly in spite of the indecent hour it showed. 5.17am. More than an hour since Burns had called to tell her about Paul Redmonds, the inevitable media feeding frenzy that was about to break on them and the possible backlash on Susie Drummond, who was not only a colleague but an old friend of hers. Rebecca had tried Susie after putting the phone down on Burns, wasn’t totally surprised when the call went straight to voicemail.

  5.17am. Before the Pearson mess last year, she would have bet on this call coming less than ten minutes after she had heard the news herself. But the Pearson case had left its mark on everyone. She picked up the phone, surprised that the thought of just declining the call flashed across her mind, then hit Answer anyway.

  “Morning, Doug,” she said. “I’m guessing you’re not calling to tell me you’ve booked that weekend away you’re always promising me?”

  A brief pause on the line. This was new too. Being able to faze him, throw him off track. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “Ah, no, no, it’s not. Sorry. Listen, Becky, I’m sorry to call so early, but Susie’s just left and I’m guessing you’ve heard about Paul Redmonds by now…”

  Susie’s just left. So that explained the hour’s delay. “And you thought you could get an early quote from me, get the jump on the press statement and a quick splash for the Tribune? Talk about making a girl feel special.”

  “No, it’s not that, Becky. Just… ah, something that Susie said doesn’t make sense to me. I, ah, I just wanted to see if there was anything you could tell me – see if I could help, is all.”

  Rebecca’s eyes crept back to the clock. Too early for him to be drinking, surely. Still drunk from the night before? Or from a late few with Susie?

  It had started at about the sam
e time as he began rehab for the injuries to his hand – the quick nip after work, offering her wine and pouring himself a Jameson when he was cooking dinner. “Just a small one to take the edge off,” he told her, holding up his wounded hand and flexing it stiffly for effect. But the moaning as he slept, the tossing and turning, his sweat stale and heavy with the scent of booze… it all told a different story. She hadn’t asked him about it directly, thought he would come to her when he was ready. Wasn’t so sure now.

  “Doug,” – she swallowed, picked her words carefully – “you okay? It’s just that you sound a bit… ah, addled?”

  A harsh bark down the phone, polite laughter made coarse by its forced use. “Me? Nah. Sorry, Becky, just been a long night. Didn’t sleep well with the hand. And then Susie turned up at the door and, well, you know.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” she said. But it was something else. There was a strain in his voice, a tension that she had only heard once before. The night he was driving to confront a killer. She shuddered slightly.

  “Look, Doug, I’m not sure there’s much I can tell you yet. On the record, I’ll confirm to you that the body of a forty-nine-year-old male was found at his home in the Trinity area in the early hours of this morning. The identity is being withheld until next of kin have been informed which should” – she made a quick calculation in her head – “be in the next thirty minutes.”

  Rebecca paused, considered for a moment then plunged on. “Off the record, the press statement I’m working on now will confirm that the body is that of former Assistant Chief Superintendent Paul Redmonds and yes, the death is being treated as suspicious. This is between us, Doug, but someone beat the living shit out of him.”

  “Has a cause of death been established?” Doug asked, his voice so cold and emotionless that Rebecca almost physically recoiled from the phone.

  “No, not yet. Williams is rushing the post-mortem through, we should have preliminary findings in the next hour. Look, Doug, what’s this about? What did Susie say that didn’t make sense? Has this got something to do with what you’re working on – the brothel sting?”

  She felt the familiar unease in her stomach as she asked the question. Working in the Police Scotland press team and going out with the most inquisitive, well-connected crime reporter she had ever encountered wasn’t the best of ideas, and it made for plenty of stilted silences and awkward conversations. “Call it the thrill of sleeping with the enemy,” Doug had joked early in their relationship when the issue came up over a court case against an officer convicted of using excessive force in the apprehension of a drunken student up at Potterrow. They laughed about it at the time. Promised they wouldn’t let work get in the way of their relationship or vice versa.

  Rebecca was having trouble finding the humour in the joke now.

  Doug’s voice shook her from her thoughts, that same robotic drone chilling her. What was wrong with him?

  “No, it’s, ah, it’s not that. Thanks, Becky, sorry for bothering you. I’ll write it up for the first edition, make sure I double-check everything with the statement you issue on the wires when I do.”

  “Thanks, Doug. Look, sorry about the weekend away crack. Just a hell of a start to the day, and being somewhere other than here sounds even more appealing today.”

  Doug gave a bitter, humourless laugh. “You have no idea how true that is,” he said.

  “I’m going to be busy all morning, and we’ve got a press conference scheduled here at Fettes for 11am. But do you want to get a coffee and talk after it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding distracted. “Sounds great. I’ll see you at eleven. And Becky, if you hear anything from Williams, I’d really appreciate it if you let me know, okay? It’s important.”

  “Yeah, no problem, Doug, I’ll let you know.” She knew there was no need, the timer was ticking on his calling her back to check up on her the moment she had mentioned that Williams was fast-tracking the post-mortem.

  “Thanks, Becky. I owe you, again.”

  “And I will collect,” she said automatically, finishing the exchange that was quickly becoming a cliché between them. She softened her voice, trying to drop the professional pretence for a second. “Look, Doug, I’ve got to go. But I’ll see you at eleven, okay?

  “Will do,” he said, and, before she could say anything else, the line went dead. Not that there was anything left to say. Was there?

  5

  The exhaustion made Mark’s eyes burn and his vision blur for an instant, the screen doubling then trebling in front of him. He lifted his glasses and rubbed at his face, hard, trying to wipe away the fatigue and the memory of what he had just done.

  The call had come at just after 2am, his annoyance at the interruption to the Game of Thrones episode he was watching quickly dissipating as he read the caller ID. He answered quickly, felt the all-too-familiar shiver of tension tangle his guts into a cold, heavy knot. Kept his tone neutral, eyes fixed on the now-muted TV in front of him.

  “Hello?”

  When the caller spoke, his stomach gave an extra clench. The voice was the same as ever: cool, controlled, utterly commanding. But beneath it, lurking in the raised tone and the faster-than-normal speech, he heard something new, something he had thought the caller incapable of.

  Concern.

  “I need you to check for breaches,” the voice said. “Any unauthorised access or withdrawals, anything at all out of the ordinary. If there is, I need to know about it, understood?”

  On the screen, a man was run through with a sword, blood exploding from the wound as he sank to his knees. He paused the image, concentrated on it.

  “Understood,” Mark said, his jaw tight. “What’s the timescale?”

  “Most probably in the last twelve hours, but better check the full day just to be sure. I’ll call you back in forty minutes. And Mark,” – the voice slowed to its more normal speed, the tone as dark as the blood on the screen – “be thorough.”

  “Of course,” he said, his voice suddenly loud in the silence of the room.

  The line went dead and he pulled the phone from his ear, glancing at the clock on the display. Forty minutes was a tight turnaround to check everything, especially if he had to be thorough, but he had no choice. The last thing he wanted was a personal visit from the individual who had just called.

  He moved to the spare bedroom, which he had converted into an office, and worked as quickly as he could, ignoring the growing panic as he glanced nervously at the clock on the wall above his desk. Exactly forty minutes later, the phone began to buzz beside him. He answered it, told the caller what he had found, then waited. Heard soft breath on the line as the information was considered.

  “And you’re sure?” the voice said finally.

  “There’s no doubt about it,” he replied, trying to ignore the small, terrified voice in his mind that screamed, But you could be wrong. Forty minutes isn’t enough time to check everything properly! Is it?

  “Good,” the caller said, as though a decision had been made. “I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”

  Mark threw the phone across the desk when the call ended, wanting it away from him. He leaned back in his chair asking himself again why he had allowed himself to get involved in this. Images of what he had seen flashed across his mind, snippets of horror and terror and fear that he knew would make sleep impossible.

  “Why the fuck are you doing this?” he muttered to himself as he slipped his glasses back down and stood up, heading back to the living room.

  But the answer was simple; evident in the fifty-inch TV mounted on the wall, the top-of-the-range stereo on the shelving unit, and the Audi Coupé that sat in the garage below the flats. As he flopped back into the couch, he remembered visiting his gran a few years ago, when the MPs’ expenses scandal was at its height. She sat in her chair in front of the TV, a small woman with an expansive laugh a
nd white hair stained a jaundiced yellow by a lifetime of smoking.

  “Aye,” she said, nodding as a politician – wearing the standard issue suit and humble, yet self-important expression that Mark guessed must have taken hours in front of a mirror to perfect – bullshitted his way through an interview, “it’s true what they say, the love of money is the root of all evil, right enough. Greedy bastards, the lot o’ them.”

  She had died less than a year later, a heart attack taking her in the middle of Tesco. And, for the first time, he was glad she was gone. He couldn’t bear the thought of her knowing he had become one of the greedy bastards she hated so much, tempted by the thought of quick and easy money in return for his expertise and his silence.

  Mark’s eyes drifted to the TV screen and the frozen image of the silently screaming man, blood dribbling from his mouth and between his fingers as he clutched the sword wound in his chest. He felt something shudder up his back, knew he wouldn’t sleep that night.

  He watched some more TV, tried to read, to distract himself. But the question remained, insistent in his mind. What was going on? He knew the basic facts, but the picture made no sense to him. What did it mean? Why the late-night check? The urgency and panic? He looked at the clock, grimaced at the time. Thought briefly about phoning in sick and just taking the day off, knew that wasn’t a possibility. His caller would find out quickly enough. And they would be displeased. He had seen the aftermath of that displeasure on more than one occasion, the fury written in pumping gouts of blood and yawning, ragged wounds gouged into flesh. For a moment, the thought occurred to him again – the nuclear option he had considered if things ever got too bad. Go to the police. Admit everything. Beg for protection.