‘I’m sorry to bother you. I wondered if I could have a room for a couple of nights? I know it’s too early to take up residence, but if you have a vacancy, I’d be grateful if you would hold on to my bags until I can check in properly.’ His accent was a soft American one – or Canadian; Annie could never tell the difference.
‘You’re in luck, sir. We’re damn near empty as far as guests are concerned. I can gie you the keys tae a room right noo. I’ll need a credit or debit card number, or cash up front if you’re so minded.’
He handed her a credit card and smiled again. ‘Thank you. I hope this will do?’
She studied the card, didn’t recognise the bank, but saw the Visa logo. ‘Aye, that’s just fine, Mr . . . ?’
‘Macmillan – Tom Macmillan. I’ve wanted to visit this town for years, and now here I am.’
‘You’ve picked a quiet time of year. We get a wee turn jeest before Christmas, but up until then it’s like a ghost town.’
‘Suits me.’
‘Are you here on business?’ Annie regarded him suspiciously, thinking of the surveyors and how she’d welcomed them with open arms, only for them to pull the rug from under her feet.
‘Yes and no. To be honest, I’m not sure. I have some thinking to do.’
‘Aye, well, you’ll have plenty time tae think here.’
‘This place has been around for a long time.’
‘Aye, but not for much longer.’
‘How so?’ His expression changed, smile suddenly gone.
‘In their wisdom, the owners intend tae turn the hotel intae flats. We’ll close after the New Year.’
‘Wow! I’m so sad to hear that, I really am.’
‘We all are. It’s been a shock, I’ll no’ lie.’ Annie handed her new guest the key to his room on its large wooden fob. ‘There you are, room fourteen. You get a good view o’er the Main Street. Jeest up the stairs and turn right. Any problems just gie me a shout.’
‘Much obliged to you, ma’am,’ he said in the American fashion.
As Annie watched him heft his holdall on to a broad shoulder she reckoned there was something familiar about Tom Macmillan, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Bin day. Sheena McKay hated it, mainly because she could never remember which bin was to go out on a particular week. Peering from the kitchen window of their modest home on one of Kinloch’s private estates, she saw that her neighbours’ blue bins were missing from their respective back gardens. So it was recycling bin day. She congratulated herself on this small triumph as she slipped on a pair of crocs and her jacket in order to take the bin to the collection point at the end of the road.
The cold hit her like a slap in the face, but it was refreshing, too. Everything seemed new and clean under the blanket of white frost. Its pattern glinted in the morning sunlight, and looked quite beautiful, Sheena thought. She dragged the bin wearily along the back path, remembering the times when the bin men came and did that themselves, in the days when everyone only had one bin to worry about. Now, she had to send her husband to local recycling points with their empty wine bottles. This was Kinloch, and she knew that the contents of their bottle bin would be noted and discussed if they looked to be in excess of what was considered normal consumption. What hypocrites, she thought. Her husband had told her of the long line of cars in the local supermarket car park on the day before the bottle bins were collected. Shifty-looking people doing their best to disguise the fact that they were doing just what he was. But, she supposed, it was nice to be part of a tradition, no matter how contrived and bizarre.
She left her blue bin neatly beside the rest and, watching her step as the paths were treacherously slippery, began to make her way towards her own back garden again. She was thinking about Alison – Alice Wenger, remembering how her friend had suffered in her early life: penniless, abused, unloved, the product of a family who didn’t care. Her own life had been privileged in comparison, up in the old mansion overlooking the loch. As she regarded her present home, she reflected upon the dispiriting nature of a life that had moved backwards instead of forwards. There was Alice, glamorous, attractive, rich, while she was a dowdy housewife in a home that more nearly resembled a box than a mansion. But then she thought of her family – husband, children, dog – and instantly felt better.
If Sheena McKay heard the thud of the muffled shot that hit her in the back of the head, nobody would ever know. Had any of her neighbours been peeking through their net curtains they would have seen her pitch forward in a spray of crimson blood, ending up face down on the frosty path, all thoughts of houses, bins, bottles, old friends, husbands, children and dogs gone in an instant.
38
Brian Scott eyed his toast with displeasure. It was ‘over-brown’ as his mother would have said, when she really meant burnt. He looked across at his wife as she downed a glass of orange juice in one. He shook his head and sighed.
‘What’s up wae you?’ said Ella.
‘Just remembering how great it is no’ tae wake up wae a drooth or a thumping heid every morning, dear.’
‘Oh, aye. Well, you’ve got plenty o’ experience tae draw on, since you were battered oot o’ your napper for the best part o’ thirty years.’
‘That’s a bit o’ an exaggeration, Ella.’
‘No’ from where I’m standing it isn’t.’
‘It was part o’ the job back in those days. You had tae take a drink or no bugger would trust you. Everybody was the same.’
‘I cannae mind Jim Daley commandeering an ice cream van tae take him hame, drunk as a lord.’
‘That was a friend o’ mine!’
‘He wisnae very friendly when you got him oot o’ his bed tae drive you all the way across Glasgow at three in the morning.’
‘I paid him.’
‘How much?’
‘I bought a double cone wae a flake.’
‘And he near lost his trading licence.’
‘That was his own fault.’
‘In what way?’
‘He should have telt me no’ tae press that button.’
‘You fell on the button, Brian.’
‘Pressed, fell – what’s the difference?’
‘Five pints o’ heavy and half a bottle o’ whisky, that’s the difference. They chimes o’ his were always deafening enough during the day, never mind at that time o’ night. Yous woke everybody up fae the Broomielaw tae Shettleston.’
‘I cannae mind much aboot it.’
‘No, but I mind me and him trying tae get you up the close stairs while “Greensleeves” was banging away oot in the street.’
‘How did he no’ turn the chimes off?’
‘Because you’d broken the switch. The poor man was beside himself. Half o’ the neighbours didnae speak tae me for weeks.’
‘You just remember all the bad stuff, never anything good.’
‘Aye, like the time you asked my big cousin Jane when her wean was due?’
‘That was me being nice.’
‘She was fifty-nine! Poor woman had been battling wae her weight for years. That took a lot o’ putting right, I’ll tell you.’
‘Ach, don’t take your bad temper oot on me, just because you’ve got a hangover. It isnae my fault.’
‘Huh!’
‘How’s Lizzie, anyway?’
‘A poor bugger, like me.’
It was Brian Scott’s turn to roll his eyes and look at his wife askance. He was about to think up a suitable retort when his phone rang. It was DC Fleming who had taken the place of the unfortunate DS Potts while he was recuperating from his broken arm, inflicted by one of the Doigs. ‘Aye, what is it, son?’ said Scott through a mouthful of toast.
‘Sir, we have a dead body in Dalryan Terrace.’
‘There’s a lot o’ aulder folk stay up there. It’s this cold, they drop like flies, the poor buggers.’
‘Not this one, sir. Someone shot her in the head. DCI Daley is attending from home. He asked me to inf
orm you, too.’
Scott put the phone down, looking pale.
‘What’s up, Mr Whippy?’
‘Some poor woman’s just been shot deid o’er the other side o’ the toon.’
‘Bugger me. We’d be safer staying in the Bronx.’
Scott took a gulp of tea, stuck a piece of toast in his mouth, shrugged on his jacket, and hurried out of the kitchen.
Mike Strong was tired. The drive to Kinloch was longer than he’d remembered, and he hadn’t managed to get much sleep. The forestry car park was in the middle of nowhere. He needed some breakfast and especially a large shot of coffee. Strong was more irritated when he looked at his watch and realised the person he’d come here to meet was nearly half an hour late.
He was listening to the Rolling Stones track ‘Thru and Thru’ when an SUV appeared from the main road.
‘Where have you been?’ said Strong, winding down his window to talk to the man advancing towards him from the other vehicle.
‘You asshole,’ said Vito Chiase. ‘You get me over here to do one job, and I end up having to clip half the population. You better have my money.’ He wagged his finger angrily in Strong’s face.
Mike Strong reached behind into the back seat of his Jaguar and produced a bulging A4 envelope. ‘You take this and pay it into the account in the bank on the note enclosed. When you get home, it’ll be wired to the business you told us about, no questions asked, just as we agreed.’
Chiase fingered the envelope. ‘It seems okay,’ he said with a shrug.
‘I have another proposal to make.’
‘You crazy? I’m outta here. Even in this shithole place the cops won’t be long in figuring out who did it.’
‘I have a boat ready to pick you up and take you to Glasgow as soon as it’s done. I can offer you the same again.’
Chiase looked at the heavy envelope. ‘As this, you mean?’ He looked about, taking in his surroundings, thinking. ‘I dunno.’
‘Strictly speaking, you didn’t fulfil your contract.’
‘Strictly speaking, I’ll blow a hole in that smug face of yours, cocksucker.’ Chiase made for the waistband of his trousers, revealing a pistol.
‘No need for that. It’s your choice, take it or leave it.’
‘So a hundred grand, just for one more job?’
‘Yes. You have my word.’
‘And how do I know you won’t just disappear?’
‘You don’t. But I’m here now, am I not?’
Chiase thought for a few moments. ‘Same deal – with the notes and the bank transfer, yeah?’
‘Yes. Just go in the bank, ask for Vicky and hand her the bag. Wait until she gives you the receipt of transfer. That’s all there is to it.’
‘As long as the bank’s not in the middle of that shithole town, I’ll do it.’
‘Good man.’
‘Until then, what am I gonna do, just sit here?’
‘I’m going into Kinloch. I’ll bring back some food and coffee, then we can talk.’
‘You got it, old man.’
Mike Strong eyed Vito Chiase up and down. ‘What age are you?’
‘Never mind. Just go get the fucking coffee.’
Again Daley and Scott were wearing white paper suits, their shoes covered, masks over their mouths. The local personnel were doing their best to secure the scene while they waited for SOCO to arrive from Glasgow. But as the morning began to warm and the frost melted, time was of the essence. Daley looked on as a young DC took pictures of frosty footprints on the path. She looked pale. Daley knew this was her first murder scene and made a mental note to have a word with her when there was time. He remembered well his revulsion as he stared into the blank eyes of the first person he’d seen murdered. It wasn’t pleasant.
Sheena McKay’s body was spread-eagled on the path, a dark red pool of blood stark against the white frost like the frame of a picture. Her arms were outstretched, the back of her head missing, the jagged edge of her skull a darker shade than the brain tissue that lay at the heart of the wound.
‘I hate tae say,’ said Scott, ‘but this looks like the work o’ a pro as well.’
‘But she’s just an ordinary housewife. We’re trying to get hold of her husband, but he’s away with his work and isn’t answering his phone.’
Daley remembered the mixture of horror and sheer anger he’d felt when Liz had told him about the attack she’d suffered. He found himself sending a silent prayer of thanks for the fact that she’d made it and wasn’t lying here in a pool of her own blood and gore.
‘Close range, tae. Must have only been a few feet away,’ said Scott.
‘Judging by the footprints he was about three metres away from her when she was shot.’
‘Metres? I hate that bollocks. Aboot three yards, you mean?’
‘Have you not been touched by any part of the modern world, Brian?’
‘As little o’ it as possible, Jimmy. I cannae see how things have improved in any way. Folk are all o’er the place now. The youngsters don’t even go oot for a pint. The experts might think it’s progress, but I’m no’ so sure.’
‘Maybe we spent too much time going out for pints, Brian.’
‘Maybe we had a life – met folk, had friends, shared a laugh. No’ just staring at a screen all day. Kids are like zombies these days.’
‘And so endeth the lesson from the Reverend Brian.’
‘Look at this, for instance. Poor woman oot at her back door, then – well, then this.’
‘Looks like she’d been putting out her bin.’
‘Bins! There’s another bloody thing. Soon you’ll need a garden three times the size o’ the one you’ve got just tae fit a’ these bins intae it.’
Daley ignored the rant. ‘We can’t forget that Sheena McKay is one of Alice Wenger’s best friends. Someone tries to kill her – or scramble her brains, at least – then her brother is killed, and now this. I want her out of that hospital and placed somewhere safe – if she’s fit enough to be discharged, that is.’
‘Where? The hotel?’
‘Nah. The hotel’s not safe, as we’ve found out.’
‘Three choices then: the office, a safe hoose, or tell her tae bugger off back tae California.’
‘No, I want her here. All this is going on and she’s at the centre of it. I want to clear it up once and for all.’
‘You don’t think it was that torn-faced auld bitch, do you?’
‘You have a real way with words, Brian. If you think this is the work of Ginny Doig . . .’ He shrugged.
‘She’s the common parameter, Jimmy.’
‘Denominator, Bri.’
‘Shit. I just learned that word, tae.’
‘But you’re right, she is – but this, and murdering her son? I can’t see it. She’s no professional killer.’
‘How dae you know? I wouldnae put anything past her. If you came up an’ telt me she was Auld Horny himself I widnae be surprised.’
‘No, there’s a third party, and he or she knows exactly what they’re doing.’
‘But who, and why are they doing it, Jimmy?’
‘There are two people at the centre of all this, and they’re mother and daughter.’
Scott pulled the mask off his face as they walked away from Sheena McKay’s body. ‘I was thinking last night. Whoever it was that had a go at Alice Wenger – you know, tae scrub her brains, an’ that?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was small, right?’
‘She?’
‘I think it was Ginny Doig.’
‘She was in custody, remember. We let her go that morning.’
‘Aye, but at what time, eh?’
‘I can’t remember, Brian, but before the attack on Alice. But she wouldn’t have the time – would she?’
‘And if it was her, surely the victim would recognise her ain mother right enough.’
Daley nodded slowly, taking on board what Scott had said. It would have been tight, but he supp
osed that Ginny Doig could have made it to Machrie in time to attack her daughter. But how did she get into the hotel?
The young DC Eva Welsh approached them. She was as white as the frost, but wore a determined look.
‘Sir, we’ve taken images, as you’ll have seen.’
‘Yes,’ said Daley.
‘We have isolated two clear sets of prints. Mrs McKay was wearing quite distinctively soled shoes – crocs.’
‘She likely kept them at the back door for going in an’ oot. That’s what Ella does – easy tae slip on,’ Scott suggested.
‘And the other set?’ said Daley.
‘Mrs McKay is about a size four, as far as we can judge, sir. The other set of prints are larger, size nine, ten, something like that. But they have no tread, so not trainers or anything.’
‘Dress shoes – like wae a leather sole?’ asked Scott.
‘Yes, sir. That’s what I thought.’
‘Thank you,’ said Daley. ‘How are you holding up? This is your first murder, yes?’
‘I’m okay, thank you, sir. We all have to go through it.’
‘We do, but it’s never pleasant.’
‘I’ve only ever worked in rural areas. So not many murders.’
‘Aye, until you came here,’ said Scott.
Two things happened simultaneously. The distinctive buzz of a helicopter sounded in the clear cold air overhead, and Daley’s mobile rang.
‘Here’s the cavalry,’ said Scott, recognising the aircraft carrying the SOCO team as it came into view over the loch.
‘Yes, John?’ Daley’s call was from an old friend at the forensic department. He listened intently, putting one finger in his ear to block out the sound of the helicopter. ‘Okay, much obliged, mate. Ping me over the report and I’ll have a look.’
‘Who was that?’ said Scott.
‘John Hartley at ballistics. They have a match for the bullets that killed Thorbin Doig. The same gun’s been used in two shootings in the last year.’
‘Where?’ said Scott.
‘Glasgow. Used by the Trimble family – we think.’
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