Shores of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  The thing that had surprised Swan was that the girls loved Cue Ball. Always polite, he treated every one of them with respect – which was more than they got on an average week, and certainly not from their employer. When he took advantage of the freebies he never messed the girls about and always dropped a few notes in their pocket for a drink. All in all, Swan liked having him around, and he knew that if there was a problem that required an extreme and violent response then he had the right man for the job. Like all weak cowards Swan admired the men of violence, fascinated by what they had that he clearly lacked, and if McMartin had researched her job properly then she might have avoided meeting Cue Ball the following evening.

  14

  As the hospital stirred with the early-morning business of cleaning and feeding the customers, Ingrid Richter opened her eyes again and wanted to stay awake. She’d dreamt since the nurse had let her sip some water during the night. The dark shapes in the fog were beginning to take form and they terrified her, but she still couldn’t remember why.

  A different nurse came into the room and smiled broadly. ‘Look at you!’

  Richter understood her and smiled back. She was hungry, alive and her body had made a good recovery, though her mind would take time to accept the horror it had locked away. What she had that would save her was that special elixir of youth and a fierce desire to live.

  The doctor came in, examined her and the smile on his face said all she needed to know. He ordered her to eat, drink, sleep and she would be well again. The doctor suspected that was only partly true though: her body would recover, but her memories might disturb her for a long time.

  Richter gave her name and where she came from to the police officer on duty and within an hour the information had been relayed to the British office in Europol in The Hague. In less than two hours Richter’s frantic parents had been contacted and were making arrangements to fly to Edinburgh.

  McGovern was at home eating his favourite breakfast of fried everything with toast and reading the paper without rushing, which he considered one of life’s little luxuries. Even though it was a Sunday this was a rare day off; he felt weary and kept thinking about the anniversary holiday he’d booked to prove to his wife that they actually had a life. When his phone went off on the table next to him he tried to think of a reason to ignore it but caved after the fifth ring. His office gave him the news that Ingrid Richter was back in the land of the living and seemed ready to talk. McGovern’s wife came through to the lounge to pour him more tea and he looked up while he was still speaking and gave her the hangdog eyes. She shrugged and cancelled all their plans for the day; she’d been there too many times before.

  McGovern RV’d with a young female detective, Pam Fitzgerald. She’d just joined his team and couldn’t believe her luck at having her day off cancelled to get in on the case about the girl on the beach. McGovern saw her raw enthusiasm and remembered he’d been the same before the hard years and the bogeymen had replaced it with a healthy dose of cynicism.

  When they arrived at the hospital the duty consultant was friendly enough but insisted that they kept it short because the girl’s memory of whatever had happened needed to be recovered slowly and very carefully. The doctor could only guess what she’d experienced out there in the cold water, but there had been a massive shock to her system and he’d arranged for psychiatric backup as part of her recovery. McGovern’s instinct was to plough on, but he was pretty sure he knew what she’d been through and wasn’t surprised that her memories were buried for the time being. If what he suspected was correct, she’d survived a living nightmare that would haunt her for the rest of her life once she remembered what had taken place on the Brighter Dawn. McGovern had a daughter and when she came into his mind he shivered at the thought of something like this happening to her. It was the same thought that every detective experienced when they stared at the human wreckage left by the scum they pursued.

  Richter looked tired but well enough when they spoke to her. She’d eaten some food and swallowed the hospital coffee as if it was the best she’d ever tasted. She smiled at the two police officers, and before they could ask her anything further she wanted to know if her parents had been informed.

  ‘They’ll be here soon, Ingrid, don’t worry. And they’re so happy you’re safe and well.’ McGovern said it as softly as he could, as tears of relief flowed down her cheeks.

  ‘Where am I?’ She knew she was in the UK but was not sure where.

  ‘You’re in Edinburgh. It’s a beautiful city, and you’ll love seeing it.’

  She repeated the word Edinburgh once and closed her eyes for a moment. They managed to get a brief story from her before she fell asleep mid-sentence and the staff nurse moved between them like a boxing referee demanding a break.

  Richter had told them she could remember being abducted and was sure that along with some other girls they been loaded onto a fishing boat in Scheveningen. That was as far as they got, but McGovern thought it would do for the time being. He wanted a steer on where to go with it, and although Macallan wasn’t due in till the following morning he called her. He was glad to have an excuse to speak to her; he hadn’t shown it in front of the troops but he was a happy detective knowing that she was back in the game. Even the sound of her voice on the phone gave him confidence that they might just get answers to the puzzles that were erupting all over the case. He told her what they had and that it wasn’t much so far.

  ‘No problem, and there’s no way we can force her. Christ, it’s hard to get your head round what might have happened to her out there. You keep thinking you’ve heard it all and the next case proves you wrong.’

  He could hear her scribbling notes as she spoke.

  ‘I’ll be there early doors and sit down with you to get a full briefing. No doubt I’ll have to spend the whole morning speaking to everyone in the building before I can get on with the job. We’ll want to get these guys from the boat back in again as soon as. Do we know where they are or should be?’

  ‘Don’t know about the other two but guess you’ve read the report that they fished Eric Gunderson out of the Tyne with the side of his skull caved in. They think he took a header into the river when he was pissed, and he certainly had a bucket of alcohol in his blood. Apparently it’s not unusual for deep-sea fishermen to say au revoir to the world like this. Who knows?’

  ‘First thing, Jimmy, is to get a hold of the other two and get them in. They’re going to say nothing, but it gives us a look at them. The other priority is to set up a meet for us with the investigation team in Newcastle. That’ll do for now. By the way, how’s the family?’

  ‘Pissed off at me for never being home, but what’s new?’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear – everything normal. We’re being punished for something we did in a different life – I’m convinced of it. One last thing. Make an arrangement for us to see Ricky Swan before we do anything. There might be something he can help us with, and we need to make sure he doesn’t become the next corpse.’

  Macallan put her phone down and watched Jack lay out the table as if they were celebrating something special; he’d done the whole bit with flowers and wine as well. She smiled to herself, thinking how good they were together, and promised she’d let nothing take that away. Jack and the baby were going to follow her over to Edinburgh later in the week and settle back into the flat, where she’d be waiting for them.

  15

  Swan had calmed down since his handler had broken the news to him about the problems with their missing UC. He’d come up with a good cover story for the Flemings: the UC had been introduced to him by a Northern Ireland businessman who used the sauna on trips to Edinburgh. The Flemings would be reluctant to fuck about with anyone over the water and Swan would stick to the story that the businessman hadn’t been back over for months. If they wanted to start poking their noses about in Belfast then that was probably their funeral.

  He’d spent most of the day in the sauna after giving Gnash
er a run around in the park. That was about the only exercise Swan ever got apart from his sessions with the girls in his business. Cue Ball had arrived around six and they’d had a good night with a regular stream of punters who just wanted what they came for – no drunks or bother. A senior police officers’ conference on ethics was being held in Edinburgh and Swan smiled behind the backs of a couple of the punters who were probably high flyers in their day jobs. They almost sprinted out of the door when they’d finished their sessions. Business always picked up for working girls in the capital when there was any professional convention taking place.

  ‘God gave us all the same working equipment.’ Swan laughed at his own wit and Cue Ball thought again that the man was a twat, but he was the twat who paid his wages and took care of his other needs so he did a pretend chuckle.

  ‘Amen to that, and the more the merrier with these guys. They look terrified when they come in and last about two minutes. My kind of punters.’

  Swan wouldn’t have been in such a positive mood if he’d realised who was sitting watching the sauna no more than a hundred yards from the door.

  Brenda sat in the darkened Beamer with Fanny Adams at the wheel and one of the McMartins’ terminators brought in for the lift. His name was Joe Baker and he’d worked for them on and off since they were teenagers. Baker had done a lot of time inside and nearly all of it for extreme violence, some of it football related when he wasn’t assaulting punters for the McMartins. He was barred from most of the grounds in Scotland but still managed to find a pub where even the dullest game would set him off and cause some poor citizen to end up in casualty. McMartin knew they couldn’t trust him with anything complicated because basically he had shit for brains, but the kind of job they had with the sauna owner was tailor-made for him. He had tremendous physical strength, and if there were any unforeseen interventions by concerned citizens or pigs then he would take them on without a second thought.

  The Bitch lit up another cigarette. The inside of the car stank to high heaven. They’d been there for hours and the combination of tobacco fumes and McMartin’s hygiene problem made Adams feel like gagging up the pepperoni pizza he’d consumed at tea time. It was a cool, damp evening and she’d warned him about opening the windows and the risk of getting a chill.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, can we not get some air in here? I’m dyin’.’ He wouldn’t normally risk pushing her buttons so far but he was revolted to the point where he just didn’t care any more.

  ‘You been takin’ brave pills again? Shut the fuck up or we’ll put you in the same hole as Ricky Short-arse.’

  She sniggered at her very own brand of humour and turned to Baker, who hadn’t even twitched in the previous hour. ‘What says you?’

  After a five-second pause, Baker turned towards her and grunted without actually forming a word. McMartin shook her head slowly and wondered where they found their staff.

  ‘Fuckin’ Dumb and Dumber. The long winter nights must fly past in your front rooms.’ She lit another cigarette off the last one and gave Adams a look that said ‘open that window and I break the offendin’ fuckin’ arm’.

  She looked at her watch and saw it was pushing towards eleven. When she raised her head again she saw the door of the sauna open and a couple of the girls come out. They’d counted four girls in earlier, and two had left at nine, so these had to be the last of the workers. She was sure that only left Swan and whoever the other midget was inside.

  About ten minutes later the door opened again and Swan came out with Cue Ball. After he’d locked up they went their separate ways, with Cue Ball heading for Leith Walk (or, more accurately, the chippie) as Swan wandered down towards where his car was parked on an old piece of waste ground that was near perfect and dark enough for what McMartin had planned. He had to pass their car on the way and she felt the rush of excitement she always had just before she frightened the crap out of some poor soul.

  Swan wandered past the car and never gave them a second look.

  ‘Let’s do this, boys, and give the grassin’ wee fuck some good old Glasgow medicine.’

  Even the command for action didn’t overexcite Baker. In fact, apart from football there wasn’t much that bothered him, and it was as if he had the ability to let his mind hibernate when there was nothing else to do. He shook his head a couple of times to break out of the near trance he’d been resting in and cracked his knuckles, as he did before every action.

  Swan speeded up in the direction of his car; the cold drizzle was chilling him through his thin cotton jacket and between his lifestyle and his consumption of spirits and cigars, he fought a constant battle to keep warm in the ever-changing Scottish climate. With his right hand in his trouser pocket, he clicked the remote button on his car key and watched the headlights flare up when the car lock clunked open. The big Merc stood out in the line of parked cars like a Tory peer at a TUC conference. Swan liked to change his car every year just to make sure he always had the current plate to say ‘fuck you’ to anyone who cared. Since the day he’d bought his first new car his belief had been that the wheels were a statement that this particular owner had class, style and money. When Swan drove the Merc through the Edinburgh streets in daylight hours, he liked to plant a couple of the best-looking girls in beside him so he could watch for the odd citizen’s envious stare. He reminded himself every day of his life that they were the same kind of people who had made his days at school a reclusive misery.

  Swan’s bladder was swollen to explosion point and he re-enacted the strange ritual he performed every night. Instead of pissing in the sauna toilet, as any sensible person would have done, he always waited till he got to the car. It made him feel like he was a ‘don’t give a shit’ kind of a guy, which was nothing more than self-delusion, and the three cups of black coffee and two large vodkas he’d had made him ache for release as he unbuttoned his flies.

  As far as Swan was concerned, Cue Ball was heading for the lights on Leith Walk to graze on his favourite supper of deep fried haggis with chips awash in brown sauce. He was wrong; Cue Ball had walked no more than fifty yards from the door of the sauna when he’d hooked up with one of Swan’s best earners, who was waiting for him in the dimly lit entrance of a payday loan shop. Unbeknown to Swan, Cue Ball met the girl called Li most nights in the same place. She was Chinese by birth, had only been in Scotland for three years and, although her command of English was passable, she still had problems with the Scottish version of the language.

  The problem was that Swan liked her as well, at least as far as he was capable of liking any woman for something other than sex. She depended on the work in the sauna and didn’t want to end up freezing her arse off on the street trying to wave down punters in cars, not least because the thought of ending up as a corpse butchered by some predatory weirdo haunted her imagination. The previous murders in Edinburgh were the stuff of dark legend among the working girls and, like many others, she had tried to find somewhere slightly safer to trade. Cue Ball didn’t give a fuck about what his employer thought about their relationship and wanted to get it in the open, but Li wanted to be sure that he meant it first. In her world it was hard to trust the word of any man, even him, and while she wanted it to work, there were obvious doubts. Cue Ball didn’t steal for a living but his two professional skills were drug dealing and violence. Every morning when she woke up beside him she tried to see a joint future and couldn’t come up with the answer to the question of who would pay the bills.

  On the other hand, since he’d started to take his freebies from the girls they’d quickly become attracted, the difference between them being that Cue Ball just enjoyed the new emotions without question and let them run. A man like him never looked too far into the future – no matter how good you were, when you led a violent life there was always someone waiting out there who was that bit better or would just carry luck on the day.

  Li’s flat was the other side of Swan’s Merc and they were waiting for him to drive off so they could go an
d settle in for the night. They watched his dark silhouette briefly illuminate as he unlocked the car door. Li covered her mouth and giggled as a cloud of urine-based vapour seemed to envelop her employer, who whistled a formless tune in his moment of relief. Cue Ball shook his head slowly in disbelief that this event took place every night at the exact same time and place.

  ‘He’s just left the sauna where there’s a perfectly good cludgie an’ pisses in the street like some daft jakey.’ Cue Ball was helping Li with her English and she’d already learned what a cludgie was but couldn’t remember jakey.

  ‘Jakey?’ She frowned and looked to Cue Ball for guidance.

  ‘Like those drunk men you see on Leith Walk every night. Pish heids.’

  ‘Pish heids?’ Li repeated it as best she could and Cue Ball smiled broadly; he loved her serious attempts to learn the street lingo.

  Cue Ball was still smiling when he noticed movement in the street opposite Swan, who still seemed distracted by his call from nature. He saw the door of a darkened Beamer open and close noiselessly, which sparked his senses onto full beam. Why would a law-abiding citizen worry about the noise of a door? Cue Ball instinctively knew it was trouble before he could see who’d stepped out of the car. Whoever it was had picked the right spot so they were streetwise, no doubt about it.

  He screwed his eyes up as Li was about to ask him what was wrong, raised his hand towards her palm outwards and put two stiff forefingers from his other hand to his lips. There were two of them out of the Beamer, and it was too dark to see if anyone else was still inside, but they came from the passenger side front and back, which meant there was probably a driver. If they had a driver they must be pros.