Hal nodded. “Come on, they’ve got me set up in an office down the hall. I’ll grab my stuff and we can get out of here – Colin and Jen are dying to see you.”
Doug followed Hal down a long corridor to a small corner office, just enough room for a desk with a chair on either side. Hal slid in behind the desk, motioned Doug to sit down, busied himself typing on the laptop sitting in front of him.
“Just give me a minute to send a couple of emails, then we’re out of here.”
“No problem,” Doug said, looking around the office. It was typical Hal. Clean, uncluttered, efficient. The only hint that he was working here was the picture of Colin and Jennifer on the desk beside the laptop. Doug smiled, realising he had taken that photo himself.
“So,” Hal said distractedly as he poked at the keyboard. “You mentioned something about a laptop and a flash drive on the phone, but you were pretty cagey. What’s up? And why was it so urgent that you had to come down here today?”
Doug’s throat felt dry, everything that had happened over the last couple of days suddenly came flooding back. The pain, the terror, the look on Susie’s face when he had shown her what was on the flash drive. When he had seen that image…
He shifted in his seat, coughed. Hal looked up at him, immediately concerned. His voice was soft, urgent. “Jesus, Doug, I had no idea it was this bad. Listen, whatever it is, we’ll figure it out, okay? Just tell me what’s going on and we’ll sort it.”
Doug nodded, grinding his palm into his eyes. Relief and sorrow and fear clawed at his chest, churning his insides. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s a hell of a story. Might even be better than the Heroic Red Giant.”
Hal laughed at Doug’s attempt – as usual – to deflect anything serious or heartfelt with a bad joke or a worse pun. At least that hadn’t changed. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get going. You can tell me about it on the way home.”
Doug nodded, took a shuddering breath that somehow felt cleaner than before. “Great,” he said. Then paused. “But can you do me one favour?”
“Sure. What?”
“I wondered if we could take the scenic route back.” He saw the question etch itself onto Hal’s face. Thought of the small, squat man he had run into at the airport, the bluntness in his eyes, the feeling of being watched when he was downstairs.
Probably nothing.
Probably.
“Let’s just say the last couple of days have made me a little, ah, overcautious. And potentially allergic to men in grey suits. So let’s take the long way home, okay?”
Hal shrugged, happy to pander to Doug’s whim, motioned to the door.
• • •
Vic sat watching the entrance to the building McGregor had disappeared in from a small café-bar across the street. After Mark had tracked McGregor’s credit card details, call log and internet history, it had been easy enough to get another ticket for London and follow him down. He had a moment of panic when the stupid little shit walked right into him, would have grabbed his bag right there if not for the two transport cops standing nearby.
He’d watched McGregor go into the City Consolidated building, and was prepared to wait, ready to grab the little shit the moment he walked down the wrong street or into the wrong shadow. But then he had called Mr James. And the story changed. It was meant to be a routine call, an update – the uptight wanker was crawling up everyone’s arse after Mark’s previous mistake. Instead, it sent Vic careering off course.
“You are to stand down,” he had said in that aloof tone that was like a hot needle being pushed into Vic’s ear. “Under no circumstances are you to take any action against McGregor, is that clear?”
“Then what the fuck am I doing here? Fucking sightseeing?” Vic had snarled. All this way, and for what? To watch the little fucker hobnob with the great and the good while Vic froze his balls off outside? Fuck that.
“Get Mark to put you on the first flight back, get McGregor when he touches down. Clear?” James had replied, anger glinting like a blade. “It would appear that McGregor’s acquaintance, Mr Damon, has some, ah, interesting connections, including in government, and you are not to do anything that would alert him or McGregor to your presence. Is that absolutely clear, Vic? Or do I have to spell this out to you in person when you get back?”
Despite himself, Vic sat up a little straighter. He had heard the stories about Mr James. About the beatings, the stabbings, the sudden disappearances. Of people being offered the impossible choice of which limb to lose first, or whether they were going to lose an eye or tongue to a skewer that glowed white hot in James’ hand. And then there was what Vic had done for him the other night. He felt no pity or remorse over killing Coulter – the snivelling little shit had moaned and whined like a bitch the entire time, and finally killing him had been a relief – but Vic knew that James would do the same to him, or worse, without a moment’s hesitation.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But what if I get him alone? What if –”
“What if I cut your fucking ears off and stuff them down your throat?” James exploded. “Don’t fuck with me on this, Vic. Leave them alone. Get home. Grab McGregor when he gets back to Edinburgh. You know his car, you know where he parked at the airport. Wait for him to get back, grab him then. Clear?”
“Clear,” Vic had replied, then listened as the line went dead.
Despite himself, he briefly considered ignoring James. Taking out McGregor and his pal, dragging the laptop home along with McGregor’s severed head and dropping it onto James’ desk like a trophy.
But no. No. That was madness. Better to wait for the right moment to strike. Keep James happy.
After all, thanks to Mark, finding McGregor wasn’t going to be a problem. Any time.
35
Burns wandered the aisles of his local supermarket, arms draped across the front of the trolley as though it was a Zimmer frame, glancing between the shopping list Carol had sent him and the shelves on either side of him. It had, over the years, become a routine for them – when leaving the office, he would call to see if there was anything she needed him to pick up on the way home. There always was. Sometimes it was a jar of coffee or a pint of milk, sometimes a full weekly shop.
He didn’t mind – to him, the stop on the way home was like a first step back into family life, a buffer between the chaos and misery and pain he so often confronted during the day, and the life he had when he closed the front door. And, if he were to be honest with himself, Burns enjoyed the mundane rhythm of shopping. There was something comforting in wandering around the store, steadily ticking off the items Carol had requested, thinking of nothing more than where the next item was, or the old dodderer in front of him who was bound to stop dead in the middle of the aisle at any moment.
But tonight was different. No matter how hard he tried, his conversation with John Wallace echoed in his thoughts. He wasn’t sure why. So Redmonds and Alicia Leonard didn’t hate each other as much as she had made out. So what? Who speaks kindly about an ex, even a murdered one, to strangers? Especially when their new, wealthier, husband was in the room?
But there was still something about the way she had bristled when he pushed her on the last time she had seen Redmonds. It was a routine question. And being a former officer herself, Leonard would have known that Burns would follow up with John Wallace, so why act so defensively? After all, it wasn’t as if John had told him anything revelatory about Redmonds – on the contrary, he had only underlined Redmonds’ credentials as a world-class arsehole who liked to shag around and didn’t care about the collateral damage.
Burns chewed his lip, tipped a bag of onions into the trolley then kept walking. So, Redmonds was a bastard. Was that what this was all about? A spurned lover? Or the spouse of a lover catching up with him? It would explain the beating he took before the fatal blow, which could have been delivered in a moment of madness. But if tha
t was the case, why had Redmonds agreed to go out and meet his attacker in the first place?
He sighed, busied himself with Carol’s list as he tried to ride out the latest nicotine craving. Cursed silently as he saw he’d forgotten the ream of paper at the bottom of the list. Which was in the stationery aisle, on the other side of the store. He turned around grudgingly, annoyed to be detoured from the wine aisle and the bottle of Merlot he had promised himself for that evening. He loved Carol, supported her in her work as a primary school teacher, but he resented the fact that he was effectively bankrolling the school by buying her what she needed to do her job. He knew the ream of paper was for printing handouts for the next day’s lesson, for instance. He shook his head. An education system that couldn’t afford to equip its schools or staff, meanwhile a bunch of over-privileged wankers from a very shallow gene pool lived in cosseted luxury, their only qualification for the job being that they were born into the right family. Sometimes, he thought, he was investigating the wrong criminals.
He made it to the stationery aisle, grabbed a ream of A4. Paused, then added another one. She’d need it eventually, and it would save him a trip later. He continued up the aisle, his gaze falling on the brightly coloured riot of children’s soft toys on the shelf opposite the stationery. He stopped, thinking, the image of the playpark from earlier in the day coming back into his mind.
What?
Playpark. Alicia Leonard. Michael Leonard.
What…?
Michael Leonard. Playpark. Alicia.
He stopped dead in the aisle. Michael Leonard worked for Paradigm Investment Solutions. One of the big players, made their home on George Street. And didn’t they, a few years ago…?
Burns opened up the web app on his phone. Tapped in the company name, added another search term. Hit Go. Clicked through to the news hits.
Bingo. It seemed the Leonards were not being quite as straightforward about things as they could have been.
Burns headed off in the direction of the wine aisle, added an extra bottle of Rioja to the bottle of Merlot he had promised himself.
He felt he had earned it.
36
Susie collapsed on her couch, chest burning and legs pumped full of acid from the run she had just completed. After checking on Coulter’s flat with Eddie and, unsurprisingly, finding it empty, she had requested a warrant to enter, and any details of his next of kin. While his parents had been contacted and were coming down from Dundee to view the body in the mortuary in the morning, she knew it was only a formality. She had known the moment she had seen the mole above his eyebrow.
The man in the morgue was Brian Coulter. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind.
She had sent Eddie off to make arrangements for the warrant, made a bet with him that his parents would arrive with a spare key before the warrant did. Then she had headed home, changed and hit the streets, trying to deaden the thoughts that clamoured in her mind.
Had Colin seen the image yet? What had he found? Had Doug kept his word and not looked, or was he peering over Colin’s shoulder as he worked, leering? Sitting on the couch, she shuddered, her skin prickling with a chill that had nothing to do with her cooling sweat.
She had spent her life making herself strong, independent, despising those women who played to the perceived weakness of their sex and used it to attract men who would play their knight in shining armour. She built her strength in the gym and on the streets, making sure she could handle whatever was thrown at her on her terms by taking a few martial arts classes. She had dabbled with karate and flirted with Krav Maga, attracted by its links to the Israeli military. But it was the punchbag and footwork of boxing she loved most. She stopped short of entering the ring, but hammering away at the punchbag, or building up a rhythm with the speedball, was like a meditation to Susie.
And yet, despite all her training and preparation, despite her determination to make it in a career where sexism was a way of life and misogyny was routine, despite the fact that she had never complained, never buckled, never cried “it’s not fair” and given up, here she was. Another woman humiliated by a man’s base desire to control and dominate. To see her not as a person but as an object there only to fulfil his sexual needs.
A victim.
She rocked forward on the couch, trapping her hands under her thighs, not trusting them to be free. She remembered hitting Doug earlier in the day, felt a pang of shame when she remembered his words. I was only thinking of you. She stood, made for the shower, stepped in and turned it up as high as she could bear. Let the scalding heat wash over her, blotting out thoughts of the flash drive and Redmonds and Doug.
She got out of the shower, wrapped herself in her robe and padded back through to the living room. Checked her phone, bared her teeth at the screen that showed her Doug hadn’t called. She hesitated for a moment, considered calling him, demanding an update.
But no. He had promised he would call her as soon as he had any news. She just hoped it was the news she wanted.
The thought had come to her earlier. While one picture was bad enough, the inescapable thought was that there was more than one image. And if so, where were the others? Who had seen them? Was there, even now, some sweaty little shit beating one out to an image of her lying naked on that bed, exposed, quite literally, for the world to see through the power of the Internet?
She shuddered again. She wouldn’t, couldn’t think like that until Doug told her what was going on. If it was that bad, she would deal with it then. Until that time, and until Burns found out what she was doing with Doug and what they were hiding, she would do her job.
But she was damned if she was going to do it sober.
She made for the kitchen, came back with a bottle of white and a glass. Opened up her laptop and called up the files on Brian Coulter. Somewhere in here there was an answer, or at least a clue, to why he had died. Something to make sense of everything that had happened, something to help her start to impose some form of order on the chaos that was threatening to engulf her. It was here. And she was going to find it.
She let out a small cry when the phone chattered across the table in front of her fifteen minutes later. She reached for it, hand shaking. But the message wasn’t from Doug. It was Rebecca: Long day. Just done. Could do with a drink after the clusterfuck caused by the CC. Fancy it?
Susie put the phone aside. Rebecca. There was another problem. Not only were she and Doug lying to Burns, they were lying to Rebecca as well. And, ultimately, it was her who was going to have to go in front of the TV cameras and the news reporters to explain all this.
And what would she say when she did? “My boyfriend perverted the course of justice and committed an act of grievous bodily harm so severe that it could be classed as attempted murder to save the blushes of our mutual friend, who was daft enough to shag a complete fuckwit that took candid nude shots of her for the family album”?
No. Maybe not. She typed in a reply, excusing herself with a headache. Took a moment to ponder why she didn’t feel as guilty lying to Rebecca as she thought she should have, then turned back to the files.
The answer was there. And she would find it.
37
Doug crept out of Jennifer’s room, The Heroic Tale of The Red Giant tucked under his arm. They had got back to Hal and Colin’s place just after 8pm – delayed only by a short stop in a local pub. They kept the conversation light, Doug avoiding Hal’s attempts to get an explanation of what the hell was going on. It could wait until they got back to his place and Colin. It wasn’t a story he wanted to repeat. After finishing their drinks – a pint helping Doug relax almost as much as getting a seat watching the pub door and satisfying himself that no one wearing a grey suit was following them – they made their way home.
Colin and Hal lived in a three-bed, split-level garden flat in Kensington, which probably cost as much as a mansion in a few acres of grounds would
in Scotland. They had bought it when they were young and carefree, before Jennifer came along and tore through their carefully ordered existence in a blur of nappies, sleepless nights, adjusted career goals and baby-related expenses. Stepping into the flat, Doug could see what Hal meant. The tasteful design was there: the muted colours, the artful print on the walls, the state-of-the-art TV. But instead of being the focus of the flat, they were now the afterthought, drowned out by the clutter of toys, colouring books and family pictures that seemed to encroach on every inch of free space.
Colin greeted Hal with a kiss, then turned his attention to Doug, engulfing him in a bear hug. Again, it struck Doug how different Hal and Colin were. While Hal always gave the impression he had just walked out of a tailor’s shop, Colin was short, barrel-chested and always looked a little dishevelled. The first time he had met Colin, Doug couldn’t see how he and Hal worked as a couple. The thought was quickly dispelled after watching them in each other’s company. Yes, they bickered, argued, disagreed – especially over how they were spoiling Jennifer rotten – but they just worked together. And, despite himself, Doug never failed to feel a faint pang of jealousy at that.
“Right,” Colin said. “Get your jacket off, and get up the stairs. Jennifer’s waiting for Uncle Doug to read to her.”
After the story, dinner was waiting downstairs. They caught up as they ate, the conversation dwindling away along with the food, finally petering out as Hal took Doug’s plate and started clearing the table.
“So, Doug,” he said. “It’s great to have you here, but isn’t it about time you told us what’s going on? You said you needed Colin’s help with a laptop?”
Doug nodded, stood up, took the laptop from the sofa where he’d left it and placed it on the table between them. “Before we get to that, there are a few things I need to tell you first,” he said, his voice calm. It took him a moment to realise he was slipping into interview mode, hiding his fear behind his training. Slowly he laid the whole story out for them: Redmonds, the image of Susie, the fact he had effectively stolen the laptop from a crime scene and exposed the Tribune to legal action for the splash he had written. He didn’t tell them he had kept all this from Rebecca. There was time for that later.
All the Devils Page 15
