‘Your trial -she stole the search warrant from the court?’
‘I had evidence that her father was on the take. If I went down, he was coming with me.’
‘It wasn’t enough of a favour for you, though was it Mr McPhee?’ Lockhart said.
Frankie continued. ‘Little did I know Gordon Devine had made his own, less effective, arrangements to abort the trial. He wanted me to get back some blackmail material. Time was running out and he was going mental, promising me fortunes. Trouble was, I’m no housebreaker. Chic would have been in and out in no time, but he was completely off radar. It was Devine’s ideas to have another dash at Lockhart. I’d been acquitted at the trial and couldn’t be done for the same thing twice. I was bomb-proof whereas Lockhart’s old man was still a prosecution waiting to happen and you know how the polis feel about prison – they don’t like it.’
I prodded the shotgun at Lockhart. ‘You sent her?’
Lockhart confirmed. ‘McPhee said it was the last time he’d ask me to do anything. I didn’t know whether to believe him but, again, what choice did I have? It seemed simple enough. I’d pretend to be visiting the judge on official business, have him give me the folder to assist my enquiries and then make it disappear. There would be some explaining to do later, but it wouldn’t have been the first item to go missing from a police production room.’
She lifted the bag containing the gloves from the small table. I realised then that they were police issue black leather gloves just as the shirt had been a police officer’s white shirt.
‘I had my story off pat,’ Lockhart said. ‘Then when I arrived at Lord Hewitt’s place, I couldn’t find any sign of him. I didn’t know what to do until in the drawing room, lying on a coffee table right in front of me, I saw the folder McPhee had described. It was too good to be true. I was leaving with it when Lord Hewitt came in. He’d been shooting. I tried to blag my way out. Said I’d see that the attempted blackmail was thoroughly investigated, but he was having none of it. Looking back I don’t think he ever meant to report the matter because there was no way he was going to let me leave with that folder.’ She sighed.’ If only he’d let me go. Silly old fool pointed the shotgun at me. There was a struggle. I knocked the gun from his hand. It fell, discharged...’ Lockhart stared through the plastic at the gloves. ‘I should have made it look like a suicide.’ She struck a fist against the side of her head. ‘All I had to do was leave the shotgun and blackmail photos behind. Instead I panicked. I stuffed the folder into the judge’s game-bag and ran out taking the shotgun with me. I was in such a state, I don’t remember much of what happened afterwards.’
‘I do,’ said Frankie. ‘It was chaos. I had Gordon Devine on the phone, screaming at me,’ he pointed accusingly at Lockhart, ‘her turfing up at my place in a state of shock and covered in blood. Next thing, Chic’s at the door as well. I’d rung round every boozer and bookie in West Lothian trying to find him earlier and he shows up after the damage has been done. I was so angry I never even let him in the house. Just got Lockhart to strip off her blood-stained clothes, shoved everything into the bag and gave it and the gun to Chic with orders to get rid of everything fast.’
Lockhart lifted the bag with the gloves in it and strolled over to the fireplace again.
‘Don’t move,’ I told her. ‘Put the bag down.’
‘Why? You heard McPhee. Chic was supposed to destroy the folder and my clothes; I’m just doing what he should have done all those years ago.’
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘I mean it.’
‘No you don’t. You’re not going to shoot.’
She was right. I’d never shot anyone before, never fired a weapon before, far less the sawn-off shotgun I held in my shaking hands. Was it even loaded?
‘Do what he tells you, Petra,’ Salavejus said. Gently, he took the plastic bag from Lockhart’s hand. At his request she sat down again. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now perhaps we can talk this through calmly.’ He raised the plastic bag high. ‘You want it?’ He lobbed the bag through the air. It fell at my feet.
‘I want the gun as well,’ I told him. He turned to the mantelpiece. ‘Put it in the bag, carefully, no funny moves.’ Completely out of my depth I was resorting to lines from the movies.
He raised his hands, palms outwards. ‘Whatever you say.’ He reached out to where the pistol was lying with exaggerated slowness and then suddenly his hand was a blur. Ducking and spinning around, he brought the gun to bear. I hesitated and all was lost. Frankie barged into me, knocking me sideways. I felt the shotgun leap in my hands, the butt thump into my ribs. Thunder roared through the small room. I landed heavily on the hard limestone floor and found myself looking up at bare timber joists through a recently created hole in the lowered ceiling.
The shotgun still in my hand. I rose unsteadily to my feet, my heel bumping against something solid. It was Frankie. He was sprawled on the ground, jacket open, a red stain on the front of his white shirt growing larger by the second.
I knelt by his side and ripped the shirt wide to reveal a small blue hole in the centre of his chest. A steady flow of bright-red arterial blood seeped from under him and spread over the white flagstones. His Bible fell out of his inside jacket pocket. It was totally unscathed. Frankie peered up at me. He tried to speak and instead, coughed up blood. Salavejus walked over. The pistol pointed down at my head. Without a word, he pulled the trigger. Click. He checked the pistol. No clip.
I raised the shotgun, levelled it at him and stood up. ‘Drop it.’ Behind him I could see Lockhart rummaging in the canvas bag for the bullets. ‘Drop the gun,’ I repeated in a voice I hadn’t heard before. Salavejus was paying attention now, reading my face. He must have seen something there because, smiling grimly, he set the pistol on the floor. ‘Now, both of you sit down.’
Salavejus took a step back, hands raised, a look of pained amusement etched across his chiselled features.
‘Do it!’ I yelled. Salavejus looked at Lockhart. She nodded. He went over to her and they both sat down.
I sidled to the telephone. The weight of the shotgun, even in its shortened form would make it difficult for me to keep it trained on the two of them while I phoned.
‘Calling it in? ‘Lockhart said. ‘Good idea. Saves me the bother.’
From her seated position on the sofa, she stooped, collected two or three of the photographs that were scattered about and fed them one by one to the flames. Each burned brightly for a moment and then was gone forever. Like the lives of Max Abercrombie and Jacqui Dillon. Frankie twitched and lay still.
‘Tell you what,’ Lockhart said. ‘You put down the gun and when the police get here we’ll say that McPhee came to kill us and Oskaras shot him in self-defence. The big man looked a tad uncertain until Lockhart placed a reassuring hand on his thigh and squeezed. There’s nothing to worry about, Oskar. It’s a perfectly credible story and we’re reliable people. Credibility and reliability - that’s what the court looks for in a witness. You know that, don’t you Robbie?’ She was so confident, so self-assured. I began to feel like I was the one with the ten-gauge pointing at me.
The fire in the grate glowed softly. The shirt and the photographs were nothing but a heap of ash.
I pressed the 9 button.
‘People have died. I know and I regret it,’ Lockhart said. ‘But it was all McPhee’s fault, right from the beginning. Surely you can see that? Why should we all suffer because of him? We’re not scum like Frankie McPhee. Oskar is a war hero. I’ll make Chief Super by the time I’m forty. I can go all the way to the top, make a difference, make sure that those who didn’t deserve to die, didn’t die in vain.’
I pressed 9 again.
Salavejus stood up. I let the phone hang by the cord and put both hands on the shotgun.
‘Stay where you are.’
He froze. My hand moved to the phone again.
‘I’ve fifty thousand in cash,’ Lockhart said, still seated, still so relaxed. ‘Devine’s money. You can have it.�
�
I’d almost forgotten about Gordon Devine. I’d been as sceptical as Dougie Fleming about Lockhart’s suicide theory. Gorgeous Gordon shoot himself in the face? Not likely. Someone had assumed, correctly as it happened, that I’d go to see him with the blackmail package. Fortunately for me I’d been late; late for my own death. Gordon hadn’t been so lucky. The fifty grand was from his safe no doubt. Why? Like Jacqui’s disappearance: to muddy the water? Leave the cops with a puzzle - suicide or robbery? The money would be untraceable; the contents of brown envelopes. With it I’d be right back on my feet. Max and Frankie were dead. Nothing I could do would bring them back and if I called the police I had a fairly good idea who it was who’d end up in the back of a meat-wagon.
I replaced the receiver. ‘I want a signed confession from each of you to the murders of Max Abercrombie, Jacqui Dillon, Gordon Devine and Frankie McPhee.’
There was a notepad and pen on the telephone table. I threw them over. Salavejus caught the notepad, but fumbled, dropping the pen.
‘We’ll write whatever you like,’ Lockhart said. ‘Of course, we’ll deny it later as having been coerced. I think you’ll agree that pointing a shotgun at someone is coercion. Not even Dougie Fleming would go that far to extract an admission.’
‘Just write it down,’ I said. ‘Everything.’
Lockhart sighed. ‘Do as he says, Oskar.’
Salavejus bent over to pick up the pen from the hearth. Suddenly, the iron poker was in his hand. He spun, arm whipping around, hurling the poker at me. Instinctively, I twisted my body, squeezing the trigger. The clang of the poker striking the wall behind me was drowned by the roar of the shotgun. The blast tore into the ex-soldier like a swarm of angry lead hornets, hurling him backwards. His shredded torso crashed against the mantelpiece and he collapsed in the hearth, injured arm landing in the grate where the hot coals barbecued the sleeve of his shirt and the crepe bandage. Soon the smell of scorched flesh filled the room.
In a daze, I stood and watched him die. It didn’t take long; not surprising given the amount of blood and body tissue that was splattered up the wall and across the picture in the heavy gilt frame.
‘We’ve got to get our stories right,’ I thought I heard Lockhart say above the ringing in my ears. She picked up the remaining photographs from the floor and chucked them onto the fire. Then she strode over to me through the smoke and plaster-dust that clouded the room and slapped me across the face. ‘Come on. We can make this look like a shoot-out between those two.’
I threw down the shotgun. She tried to slap me again. I caught her wrist and pushed her away. ‘He killed Max and Frankie.’
‘And now he’s dead!’ she screamed in my face. ‘Don’t you think that makes things even?’
‘I’m calling the police. You can explain it to them.’
She ripped the cord from the wall. ‘We don’t get the cops involved until we’ve agreed what we’re going to say. Look, I’m sorry about Max. I’m not particularly sorry about Frankie McPhee. You’ve got to try and see the big picture here. Sometimes things go badly. You just have to pick yourself up and keep going.’ The woman was an ice-berg. She picked up the shotgun and wiped it with a handkerchief. ‘To get out of this mess we need each other. Keep it simple. We say you came here to tell me Frankie McPhee had confessed to killing Max Abercrombie – got that? McPhee turned up with this sawn-off and would have killed us all if brave Oskar hadn’t stepped in.’ She placed the shotgun across Frankie’s body. ‘With me backing you up it will be easy. No need to remember any details. You know what witnesses are like – everything always happens so terribly fast.’ Lifting Frankie’s arm using the cuff of his shirt sleeve, she dabbed his dead hand all over the shotgun before resting it on the shortened wooden stock. ‘So what you spend another couple of hours being grilled by Dougie Fleming? Afterwards everything will be back to normal.’
I showed her my back and walked towards the front door.
The icy exterior vaporised. ‘Stay where you are!’ she shrieked.
I heard a click as I reached for the door handle. I was no firearms expert but could tell the sound of an ammunition clip being locked into place.
I wanted to get as far from the little cottage by the Forth & Clyde canal as I could, but not feet first and in a box. I turned to face her. ‘Why don’t you tell the truth?’
‘I’m not throwing my career away when there’s no need.’
‘No need? Max Abercrombie’s dead. I don’t care about you or your precious career. ‘
‘Oskar killed Abercrombie and you killed Oskar. Can’t you see? What’s done is done. We get our story right we can both walk away from this.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Lockhart's grip on the pistol tightened, her aim unwavering. There was something about her expression, the grim look of determination. Samuel Johnson said that the prospects of hanging helped concentrate the mind: well, so did having the muzzle of a nine millimetre semi-automatic pointed straight in the face. What if Lockhart's boyfriend hadn’t shot Max. What if he'd found out that Lockhart had taken his gun. Was that why he'd been shouting gibberish at Dougie Fleming? Drunk, he’d gone looking for Lockhart, couldn’t find her and as he’d staggered by the Bombay Balti on his way to the police station, had caught sight of Fleming's uniform through the window.
‘Was it you?’ I asked. ‘Did you shoot Max?’
‘‘Life or death,’ Lockhart said. ‘It’s a simple choice. I like you Robbie. I’m offering you a way out. One that lets us both continue as though nothing has happened.’
But something had happened. Max was dead. A lot of people were dead. I wondered how good a shot she was and what chance I had of escaping without being hit. There was only one way to find out. I hadn’t opened the door more than a crack when there was a loud bang and the frame above my head splintered.
‘Last chance,’ she said.
‘How many more people have to die to save your career?’
She extended the pistol, straight arms, one hand supporting the other. ‘Just one.’
She’d have to shoot me in the back. I turned, wrenched open the door and had scarcely moved when the gun exploded again. I froze; every muscle in my body seized rigid. Behind me the soft clump of a body falling, metal clattering on stone. I opened the door, walked outside and breathed deeply of the cold night air.
CHAPTER 57
Jo-Jo Johnstone was waiting patiently in the driver’s seat of his battered motor car, parked neatly behind a row of hawthorn bushes at the road end. I gave him the news and the big man broke down and cried. There wouldn’t be many tears shed over Frankie McPhee. When my dad heard, he’d be straight up the attic, looking out the bunting. I told Jo-Jo to go away and that, with his record, scaring up an alibi wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Considering my close encounter with death I felt strangely calm as I set off on foot for Linlithgow. Maybe I was numb with shock, but I did feel that a weight had been lifted. Max was avenged and as for Sean Kelly, I no longer feared for his liberty. The case against him was sufficiently weak that it had no chance of withstanding the aftermath of the night’s events. The eventual discovery of the three bodies and the pistol that shot Max covered in Chief Inspector Lockhart’s prints: even Lorna Wylie could conjure up a reasonable doubt from that little lot.
I made the three-mile walk in just under an hour, arriving at the east end of town shortly after midnight. Linlithgow police station was closed but there was a phone outside for emergency calls. My dad’s house was not far. I could call the cops from there and in any case I wanted to break the news to him before I informed the authorities of my involvement.
I walked on. A growing part of me rebelling at the idea of going to the police. If I was one of my clients my advice would be simple: do nothing and say even less and yet I had this desperate need to talk to someone, to share the horror of what had happened. I’d killed a man. Yes, he’d attacked me, yes, I’d acted instinctively, but I had killed him. If I
went to the police what would happen? I’d be tried. I could just imagine my cross-examination by some stuck-up Advocate-depute. Mr Munro - about your defence of self-defence. As I understand it, your evidence is that Mr Salavejus was armed with a poker. You’re a lawyer, wouldn’t you agree that shooting him at close range with a sawn-off shotgun might be considered a tad disproportionate?’
I was at the corner of the street, not far from my dad’s house when I saw the old man ahead of me making his way home from watching football at Vince’s place. I caught up with him as he let himself in the front door.
He turned and looked at me, taking my chin in his hand and inspecting my bruises in the dim glow of the porch light.
‘You look like how I’ll feel in the morning,’ he said when he’d let go of my face. ‘What have you been tripping over now?’ I didn’t reply, just followed him down the small hallway and into the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea?’ he asked, hanging his coat on the back of the door.
I put the kettle on while he found some mugs and took the milk out of the fridge. ‘Dad, I need to tell you something.’
I sat down at the table where over the years we’d talked about many things and argued about even more. ‘Something happened tonight. Something serious.’
My dad looked down at me. ‘I knew it.’ His moustache curled downward at the edges. ‘McPhee?’
I nodded.
‘I warned you about him. If you’ve got yourself into some kind of bother then hell mend you.’ The old man narrowed his eyes and thumped the table with a fist. The carton of milk jumped and would have toppled over if I hadn’t caught it. ‘When I get my hands on that b—’
‘Frankie’s dead,’ I said. With my foot I pushed a chair out from the opposite side of the table. ‘I think it might be best if you sat down.’
He did and I told him everything. The kettle boiled and the water in it had cooled by the time I’d finished my story.
‘What are you going to do?’ my dad wanted to know.
Duty Man (Best Defence series Book 2) Page 23
