Shores of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  ‘They think she’s going to be okay. Thanks,’ he said, then broke down in tears for the second time that night. It was something he’d almost given up since his days as the runt, but the events of recent days were overwhelming him. The act and the self-delusion he’d relied on for years to get him through were gone; his dreams of doing it like Clint had been firmly put away. He sat down again and put his face in his hands.

  Macallan gestured to Thompson to come with her. They found an empty waiting room and sat down.

  ‘Did the docs tell you anything about Christine?’ Macallan asked.

  ‘It seems like it was some form of opiate and the dose could have been fatal. Doesn’t seem like he wanted to kill her though. Let’s face it, he has tried and tested ways to do that. It seems likely he just wanted to knock her out while he was cleaning the place and taking off. He’s done a good job – there doesn’t seem to be a trace of him or his team there. If she’d had any underlying health problems, however, he could have got that one badly wrong. What do we do with Ricky?’

  ‘Keep him here for a few hours to see if she comes round. If not, lock him up. We have the evidence now and he’s ours.’ She waited for a reaction from Thompson. It might seem hard, but that wasn’t what mattered. ‘The fact is, Ricky Swan has a lot to answer for and it’s time it was done,’ Macallan added. ‘Apart from anything else, we can’t risk another attempt on his life. He’s safer inside.’

  ‘I’m sorry for what happened to his daughter, but if you want my professional opinion I’m with you a hundred per cent. Trafficking makes me sick.’ Thompson said it like she meant it.

  They went back through to see Swan and Macallan told him what would happen next. ‘You go with us after this. Time’s up. Do you understand?’

  He nodded meekly – there was no fight left in him.

  Macallan turned to head back to the lodge and meet up with O’Connor.

  ‘What about the dog if I go away?’ He looked old – lost for answers in a world he’d only thought he understood.

  ‘Do you want us to take care of it?’ Macallan asked, already having an idea.

  He nodded and she promised to make sure the dog who’d suffered so much was looked after.

  As she drove back to the lodge she felt the crash starting to kick in. There was still a lot to do, but she was in control and whoever was left in Handyside’s organisation was on the back foot and probably running for cover like their boss. She thought again about Ingrid Richter and the family who might never be able to take their daughter home.

  She arrived back at the lodge to find everything was under control and O’Connor looked tired but relaxed.

  ‘This working at night is a bit unusual for me now,’ he said.

  ‘And we’re not finished yet,’ she replied. ‘Handyside is out there somewhere and we need to get the alerts out to arrest him. Let’s get back to the office and you can make the calls to your counterparts in Northumberland. There are doors to kick in and a detective superintendent to arrest. They’re going to need a rank above me to convince them to lift one of their own, though I must admit, I’d like to be the proverbial fly when our Tony gets the handcuffs on.’

  She smiled and sent a text to Jack before she and O’Connor headed to the car and started their journey back to Edinburgh.

  48

  Macallan was further behind Handyside than she realised. He’d always had his Plan B, and by the time the messages were being read at ports and airports he was already on the early ferry from Cairnryan to Belfast. He was travelling under a carefully manufactured identity and later in the morning paid cash for a train to Dublin. He spent a pleasant night in a good hotel and followed the emerging story of the kidnapping and rescue in Scotland as it progressed.

  Two days later, after a series of interconnecting train journeys, he arrived in Zagreb, and from there he travelled onwards to join his wife on the Istrian coast of Croatia where she was waiting for him in the sun. The trail behind them was already going cold and Handyside had been ultra-careful in planning the rest of his life – and, more importantly, his family’s. No one, not even Turner, could have told the police where he was. Handyside knew that any man – even his friend Max – might be tempted, so it was better not to give them the chance.

  His wife thought his shaved head and beard suited him, though the children seemed unsure of the look. He had some time to relax, and he checked the web every day to see how the hunt for him was going before they made their final move to South America.

  Their old life was gone, almost as if Pete Handyside had never existed.

  When Tony Harrison realised the rubber heels were starting to close in, he made a fatal mistake by panicking and trying to do a runner. Unlike Handyside, trying to leg it without planning in the modern world was a terrible mistake. He was a detective and should have known that better than anyone. He was already under surveillance when he made his move, and when they grabbed him at the airport he blubbed like an infant with a cut finger.

  The rubber heels loved that – nothing gave them a bigger kick than watching a bent cop cry in front of an audience. It was what got them up in the morning.

  Ricky Swan was locked up then bailed after his first appearance at court, but he knew, and his lawyer had confirmed, that it was game over. He sold all his legal businesses and made a decision to plead guilty when the time came; he just wanted to get it all over with. With no previous, he reckoned he could manage the rest of his life with his new way of viewing the world, and the acceptance of what he was and what he’d been.

  Christine refused to talk to her father again and anytime he tried to call she put the phone down without speaking. When he asked the police about his discs he was told that there had been no trace of them when the cottage was searched. The truth was that they’d been locked in an ACC’s safe after three members of the executive examined them and subsequently made some calls to members of the political class and the judiciary.

  Swan basically said fuck it, realising the discs were more bother than they were worth and wouldn’t save him from a stretch inside. After three attempts on his life he just wanted to get below the horizon and hope the bad men out there would forget all about him. Cover-ups were just the way of the world and he wasn’t the least bit surprised. He’d do his time then slip out of Scotland and sit in the sun for the rest of his life.

  Macallan on the other hand had seen what was on those discs and still had her own personal copies. She didn’t miss the fact that a number of cops of all ranks suddenly decided to retire quietly before their time. It was the same for a couple of senior civil servants and a rising political star, who all suddenly wanted to spend more time with their families.

  She watched it happen till she’d had enough.

  One morning when Jacquie Bell was nursing a cruel hangover, she arrived at her desk and ripped opened a jiffy bag that had been delivered in her mail. She tipped out three discs. There was no letter or sender recorded, and before she even looked at them she could smell they were Swan’s bag of other people’s dirty laundry.

  ‘Nice one, Grace.’ She said it quietly. There was no evidence to say it was Macallan, and it was better that way. ‘I’ll give them fucking cover-up,’ she said to the reporter on the desk opposite.

  ‘What?’ The hack facing her was used to Bell talking to herself, but he fancied her rotten so he just grinned whenever he thought she was talking shite.

  A month after Handyside disappeared, John O’Connor arranged his leaving do. They had a presentation for him, where the usual lines were churned out by a couple of reps from the executive. They didn’t really want to be there, but O’Connor knew all the right people and might sort them with a job in the UN when they retired themselves.

  Before they adjourned to The Bailie in Stockbridge and got down to the serious drinking, O’Connor pulled Macallan aside.

  ‘They’re giving Elaine Tenant my job. There’s no sense in it, but she’s the future: grey, robotic and with no person
al life so she can’t make any mistakes.’

  He was concerned, and what surprised Macallan was that he thought she would be as well. She hadn’t considered it, and most importantly, she didn’t want it.

  ‘Look, I want you to believe this – a promotion into your job would finish me,’ she told him. ‘Spending my time formulating policy and playing the touchy-feely politician is not for this detective. It’s fine, and Elaine is perfect for the role. Anyway, Mick would disown me if I took a job like that.’ She took his arm. ‘Now come on, or Mick will have drunk you into serious debt.’

  They found Jack, Bell, Thompson, Harkins, Young, and Jimmy and Sheena McGovern all there and going strong without the host. O’Connor had said the first hour was on him so a whole team of detectives of all ranks were squeezed into the bar. It didn’t take too long for it to turn into a piss-up of epic proportions, and O’Connor let himself go, the legendary restraint finally tossed out the door as he did a medley of Beatles songs with Harkins – the pair of them somehow managing to forget half the words to some of the most enduring songs ever written. It was just the kind of night where everyone could forget the horrors of the past weeks and they’d already come to terms with the fact that Handyside was gone. It happened, and if nothing else he was out of the game.

  Handyside’s disappearance had left a gaping hole in the organised-crime business in the North-east of England, and particularly Newcastle, and just as it always was, the starting gun was fired and gang warfare broke out. It meant that every couple of days a fresh cadaver was found floating in the Tyne or buried on the moors not far from Hunter, Dillon and an undercover officer too far from his home and family in Northern Ireland. It suited the police, who made noises in the press about their concerns over the violence, though in private, detectives all over the force drank a toast to the latest bad bastard who’d bought their one-way ticket to the next life.

  Macallan pulled Jack aside into something resembling a space near the toilets and as far away as possible from Harkins and O’Connor’s singing. ‘Hope you’re not too shocked by the sight of all these officers of the law making complete arses of themselves?’ she said.

  The truth was that Harkins had made Jack drink whisky, even though he didn’t really like the stuff, and after the fifth round the man was going under faster than he’d intended. He dropped an arm round her shoulders, pulling her gently to him, and realised she’d been nursing the same soft drink since she’d arrived. He picked it up and made what he thought was a questioning expression, though the whisky made it look like he was in pain.

  ‘Not drinking? Not the woman I know and love.’

  ‘Do you love me?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I do.’ He gave her a wet kiss, which his dulled brain told him should be proof enough for her.

  Macallan laughed and, as always, thought that Jack was the most useless drunk she’d ever met. He was acting more like a detective than an increasingly successful lawyer and writer. ‘That’s good then because we should get this wedding arranged or I’ll get a name as a scarlet woman.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Another bun in the oven, big boy,’ she said and smiled, taking another sip of her awful soft drink.

  Jack made another strange facial contortion, which eventually evolved into a lopsided grin once his brain caught up with the conversation. ‘We’re going to have a bun?’

  ‘No, not a bun, a baby – the second one. The first one’s called Adam.’

  He kissed her, punched his arm into the air and made a kind of primeval roar. ‘I’m just going to tell the boys.’

  Macallan kissed McGovern on her way out to get some air. He was suffering on the soft drinks as well but looked like a new man after his time off to recover. Macallan nodded towards Jack. ‘Keep an eye on my man, will you? I’m going out for some air. I’ve warned him about drinking with detectives, and especially Mick, but he doesn’t listen. He’ll never learn.’

  McGovern grinned, wishing his wife was making the same complaint. ‘It’s torture watching the team enjoy themselves when I’m on the soda an’ lime. But such is life.’ He put his arm round his wife’s shoulder, pulled her a bit closer and she kissed his cheek.

  ‘He’s doing well. Lost ten pounds and sleeping like a baby.’ There was no doubt she liked the life they were having despite his illness.

  ‘Trouble is, I’m a picture of health but I wish I was in for a hangover like those reprobates over there.’ There was a longing in McGovern’s eyes and good health wouldn’t take care of it.

  ‘You should get a dog.’ Macallan said it hopefully – she was sure McGovern was the solution to the problem she’d volunteered for. ‘Supposed to be good for you, and I know where you can get one who loves you already.’ She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

  ‘Pity about that, but we just bought a spaniel. Anyway, do you really think I could deal with the piss-taking if I was seen with a spoodle? Mick would be unbearable.’

  Macallan tried to suppress a small frown; she’d been sure McGovern would adopt poor old Gnasher. She kissed him again and headed outside, longing for some cold air on her skin. She turned at the door though, watching Harkins, O’Connor, Jack and Bell attempt a bad rendition of the old Frank Sinatra song ‘New York, New York’. The whole pub joined in and it made her choke with emotion.

  She stepped out into the warm night air and strolled along St Stephen Street looking into the basement windows of the bars and bistros where people were just enjoying their lives. She breathed in deeply, clasped her arms round her waist and thought about the future – a future that had some meaning.

  A taxi rattled over the cobbles behind her in Circus Place, and unknown to the passenger in the back, he’d just passed by a pub full of detectives who’d like nothing better than to see him locked up or staring at the heavens from a skip. Mick Harkins, the man he intended to kill, was there as well, pissed as a newt and there for the taking. But Billy Drew was pissed himself. It had been a good night; he’d met up with the Scousers who were going to be his main suppliers and they’d shaken hands on a deal that would make him a fortune. DI Slade had started to leave him alone and moved on to harass some other villains, the hassle after the Flemings had been taken out was dying down and the people of Edinburgh would soon forget about it all – they always did when it was bandits killing each other. The world moved on quickly and the public was swamped with waves of bad news from the Middle East. It was hard to care about what had happened to some unfortunate foreign women when American journalists were being beheaded on camera.

  He stuffed a bundle of notes into the taxi driver’s hand – he could afford it – and said, ‘Take care, son.’ The driver couldn’t believe his luck, though he would end up putting the money straight into the bookies’ pocket in the morning.

  Drew was unsteady on his feet and fumbled for a cigarette. He’d decided that it was time to finish off old business. He’d got one of his boys to check that Jonathon Barclay was still drinking himself to death in Inverness. He’d do him first, then it would be time for the scalp he really wanted to hang on his belt: Mick Harkins. He’d have to take more care to make sure he had an alibi, but he knew where Harkins lived and he wanted to take some time with him. Harkins had never fully recovered from his injuries and physically he’d be easy, but he was a devious bastard and Drew would have to be on his toes when he did him.

  He searched his pockets again for his keys, and like all drunks he had to go through them twice before he fumbled them from the pile of loose change he’d accumulated over the night. ‘Life’s looking up, Billy boy,’ he slurred and grinned.

  Drew turned and tried to navigate the key into the lock. When he eventually managed to push it in he spent the last few seconds of his life trying to work out what had just happened. He heard something like a dog growling and then he felt a blow to the back of his neck. It wasn’t that hard or painful but he saw something at the bottom of his field of vision. The end of a long and very sharp knife was jutting o
ut under his chin. It was there for a moment and then it disappeared, withdrawing from his sight. He tried to say, ‘What the fuck?’ but his lungs were filling up with blood and he was choking to death.

  He was pulled round as he slipped down onto his arse with his back against the door. When he managed to force his eyes upwards, his last view of the world was of Big Brenda McMartin leaning over him with a long dripping blade held in her right hand, which looked like a claw after the damage inflicted by Cue Ball Ross. She pushed her ugly face as close to his as she could so she could watch his lights go out with her good eye.

  ‘Think you could fuck the McMartins and get away with it, Billy?’ she said. ‘That was for Bobby.’

  She walked calmly back to the car and got in. Fanny Adams was the driver and he looked round at her, waiting for an order. She stared out of the window for a minute then turned on him. ‘What the fuck you waiting on? Supposed to be a fuckin’ getaway driver. Getaway driver my fuckin’ arse. Now go.’

  They headed for the M8 and Glasgow. When they were safely out of Edinburgh she dialled the number she’d been given. It was a bad connection, but of course Pete Handyside was a long way away, though Brenda had no idea exactly where.

  ‘It’s done.’

  ‘Thanks, Brenda. Guess the business is all yours up there if you want to take it.’

  Handyside was pleased that Drew was out of the way. He’d decided to make a gift to Brenda of the name of her brother’s killer, though he’d left out the fact that Drew was working for him, as that didn’t suit his purposes. As always, he liked to have several plans in the bag in case circumstances changed, and keeping Brenda onside was worth the risk. She was one of the few people he had complete faith in. Hell would freeze over before she would cooperate with the law so he’d decided he would let her live unless things changed. He could never be sure when he might need The Bitch’s unique penchant for violence again.