When the Devil Drives

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘Actually, he wasn’t, but it’s a common enough misperception of anybody who only had cursory dealings with him. He was a poisonous and curmudgeonly wee bigot who disapproved of just about everything, so I can understand where the confusion arose. He could actually have outdone the Wee Frees in the fire-and-brimstone stakes as well. He’s long dead; and if there is a heaven he’ll be outside the gates protesting. He always took a dim view of joy, you see.’

  ‘And what about his son?’

  ‘Oh, you can read his dim views on joy in the paper these days. He followed his father into the ministry, but he writes a column for the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail. I’ve only seen it the odd time, but it’s clear the apple didn’t fall far. Of course, you can’t get away with ranting about Catholics these days, so homosexuality and secularism appear to be proving able surrogates.’

  ‘Sounds like a Mail columnist right enough,’ Jasmine agreed.

  ‘The big difference is, the others write about asylum seekers as if they were Satan. He writes about Satan as if he was an asylum seeker: a nefarious incomer who threatens our way of life, but I mean like a real person, not some woolly concept. Between that and the Young Earth Creationism, I think there’s enough for him to be sectioned, but then I always thought he was a weirdo.’

  ‘So what did he have to do with Hamish Queen being brought in for questioning?’

  ‘He told Dougal he thought there had been a murder up at Kildrachan House the previous night.’

  ‘And how would he know this?’

  ‘Well, this is why he would only talk to Sergeant Strang, and why Dougal was cagey about the details of what he was told. Young Tormod knew he could rely on the sergeant’s discretion. Dougal was as easygoing as he was experienced, and he knew that in a place like Balnavon, such discretion could save everyone a lot of bother.’

  Ross snapped the rifle back together and replaced it on the rack, taking another to begin work on.

  ‘From what I can gather, Tormod had been up at the house not just the night before, but several nights: him and his younger sister, Mhairi. Old Tormod had been kicking up a stink about Hamish and his troupe using the church hall; he was just shouting at the rain, to be honest, an angry wee dog barking to look aggressive but succeeding only in reminding everybody how powerless he was. And what he also succeeded in was cultivating his children’s fascination with this forbidden fruit. Tormod and Mhairi were all over those rehearsals like a rash. Tormod would have been eighteen, Mhairi sixteen, maybe seventeen, so they were at an age when their father could neither rule them nor keep track of them.’

  ‘So everybody in the village was aware of what was going on at the church hall and Kildrachan House?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘Aware? Most of us had already bought tickets. Not a lot of nightlife options around there, especially in those days, and we were aware that Hamish, for all he was the spoiled laddie, had gone off and become a proper actor, and had brought other proper actors to put on this play. There was a barmaid from the Balnavon Hotel who latched on to them.’

  ‘Saffron.’

  ‘Aye, that was her name. She’d only been in town a couple of months so nobody really knew her, apart from Charlie Aitken at the hotel. Flower-power type, as far as I gather. I didn’t know her myself: I drank in the Stag. I heard she was quite arty, so it was unsurprising she got herself involved with the actors, but the minister’s two were in there all the time as well. I think they started off just hanging about and watching, but as time went on they got more and more involved. Mhairi was handy with a sewing machine so I think she was appointed their unofficial wardrobe mistress, and I heard Tormod started off helping with set painting but ended up getting a non-speaking part: Banquo’s son.’

  ‘Fleance,’ said Jasmine. ‘So he was a little more flamboyant in his youth.’

  ‘Aye. Always a little strange, but who wouldn’t be, growing up with that oddity for a father.’

  Without discussing it, Ross and Fallan had developed a little production line, Ross rodding and cleaning the guns before passing them to Fallan for oiling.

  ‘He certainly didn’t want his father knowing that he wasn’t merely hanging around rehearsals: him and Mhairi were going up to Kildrachan of an evening, and I don’t think everybody was just sitting around reading stanzas and sonnets to each other.’

  ‘No, I was given a rather different impression by other witnesses.’

  ‘That was why young Tormod would only speak to Dougal. He had been up there late on that night and seen something, but there was drink involved, and possibly more. The epitome of unreliable testimony, I’d have said, but he was very scared; scared enough for Dougal to look into it.’

  ‘But look into what?’

  ‘He thought he’d seen a woman being stabbed, then someone dragging her body through the woods. And if that sounds vague, then welcome to my world circa 1981. I’m sure Tormod told Dougal more than that, but Tormod was the minister’s son and so was extended special privileges of discretion not entirely consistent with standard police practice.

  ‘We went up to Kildrachan to investigate. Tormod had given Dougal a list of everyone who had been there the previous night. From that, the only person who couldn’t be accounted for was Tessa Garrion, whom we subsequently learned had been in a sexual relationship with Hamish Queen, one that had ended acrimoniously that very night.’

  ‘And is it true you found traces of blood?’

  ‘No,’ Ross replied. ‘We found what could have been bloodstains, but they were never properly analysed.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t a murder inquiry. We were just following up a vague and possibly hysterical report from one witness. Believe me, it would have taken more than we had before Dougal ordered any course of action that involved digging chunks out of Fergus McQueen’s walls and floorboards.’

  ‘But he was okay with arresting Fergus McQueen’s son?’

  ‘Hamish wasn’t under arrest, though he knew he wasn’t going anywhere either. Not until Dougal got to the bottom of whatever had happened.’

  ‘Were you aware that Hamish Queen was married at that time?’

  ‘Yes. To the daughter of some duke or life peer or whatever from Englandshire. Which was another reason Dougal was keeping a tight cordon around his inquiries. Scandal meant headaches and messy complications.’

  Jasmine waited until Ross glanced up from his work and looked him in the eye.

  ‘Are you saying Sergeant Strang would have preferred if the whole thing just went away?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ he replied. ‘But not in the way you’re implying. I had my reservations about how Dougal ran his show, but I never worried about his integrity. In fact, he could have released Hamish sooner than he did. Tormod came in again and tried to recant his testimony, such as it was, admitting his imagination might have got the better of him. And the barmaid, Saffron, I went to question her and she told me she saw Tessa Garrion getting on the last bus to Inverness at ten past eleven. That didn’t satisfy Dougal, though. He thought she was a bit flaky.’

  ‘So why did Hamish finally walk?’

  Ross ceased rodding the barrel of the gun he was holding and let the weapon rest in his lap.

  ‘To this day I don’t know. Dougal got a phone call. He picked it up in the main body of the kirk and then transferred it to his office, where he took it with the door closed. Shortly after that he went out. He was gone for a few hours, and when he came back he said Hamish could go. He wouldn’t say where he’d been. He said the whole issue was closed and hadn’t to be brought up again.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Like it never happened. Dougal made it clear he didn’t want anybody even talking about what may or may not have been going on at Kildrachan. We weren’t to tell anyone that Tormod and Mhairi had been up there, far less that Tormod had sparked this investigation.’

  ‘And what about Tormod himself? What was his take on this?’

  ‘As I said
, he recanted his testimony, except there was no official testimony, just a private conversation he’d had with Dougal.’

  Ross resumed rodding the barrel and sighed.

  ‘Aye, the vicissitudes of life at Balnavon nick. I had been thinking about a change for a while, but that whole business was what lit a fire under me. The spoiled son of the laird and the weirdo son of the minister: special rules for special people. Dougal’s policies of judicious discretion. He took the secret of that phone call to his grave, and I’m nearly as bad. In thirty years, you’re the first people I’ve told about it.’

  ‘You mean since Finlay Weir.’

  Ross gave her a confused look.

  ‘I told nobody.’

  ‘Then how does he know about it?’

  Ross was halfway into a ‘search me’ shrug when he realised he knew the answer.

  ‘It was a very small station. He must have overheard.’

  ‘Why, what was he doing there?’

  ‘We were questioning him too. The way we heard it, Garrion had snubbed this other guy’s advances in favour of Hamish.’

  ‘Funny he didn’t mention this. He didn’t mention Tormod and Mhairi becoming involved in the production either. Why is everybody I talk to about this so reluctant to name all the people involved?’

  ‘Well,’ said Fallan, ‘considering the first guy you asked about it just got shot in the head, I don’t imagine anyone is about to start getting more garrulous on the subject.’

  Jasmine frowned.

  ‘Do you know where I would find Tormod McDonald?’ she asked Ross.

  ‘Depends. If you’re lucky, at Balnavon Parish Church, carrying on his late father’s fine work.’

  ‘And if I’m unlucky?’

  Ross winced.

  ‘Iraq. I heard he serves some of the time as a chaplain in the armed forces.’

  Ross handed the last gun to Fallan for oiling, then lifted one of the cleaned rifles from the rack. He broke it, placed a pellet in the breach, primed the spring and snapped the barrel home again. Then he turned to Jasmine.

  ‘So, seeing as you’re here, do you fancy a wee go?’

  ‘I’ve never done this before. I’m not sure I—’

  ‘Just give it a whirl.’

  Jasmine accepted the weapon principally out of politeness, though she would have felt less awkward and reluctant had he been handing her a large salmon.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ he told her. ‘This thing wouldn’t stop anything bigger than a rabbit. I’ll just set you up a target.’

  As soon as Ross exited the enclosure Fallan stepped in behind her, gently supporting her arms and guiding her into a stance. His hands were on her arms, her shoulders, her back. The hands that killed her dad. She didn’t recoil, didn’t flinch. Something inside her regretted this: wished she could feel instinctive revulsion at his touch because to feel hate, she’d know what it was to feel something for her father.

  His hands were gentle, a stillness flowing from him into her like a current.

  Ross approached a metal frame about ten yards away, removing a shot-peppered paper target from a pellet-catcher and replacing it with a new one.

  Jasmine put her eye to the scope, seeing only a green blur. Fallan’s hand touched her cheek.

  ‘Keep your head back from the scope. It’ll kick when you fire.’

  He nudged the stock up a little in her left hand and suddenly the target appeared, crosshairs bobbing and swaying around the red and blue concentric circles. The view through the scope showed how every little movement at her end would be magnified at the point of impact. She had thought she was standing fairly still, but she might as well have been on a boat.

  ‘Breathe slow and steady,’ Fallan said, his voice itself a soft breath. ‘Watch the crosshairs rise and fall. Don’t try and freeze, don’t hold your breath, just get used to the rhythm.’

  She felt the outside world melt away, only the crosshairs and the circles in her view, only the sound of her own breathing in her head.

  ‘Fire on the outward breath, but don’t pull the trigger: squeeze it, smooth and fluid.’

  She watched the hairs bob a couple more times, the amplitude of their movement always reducing, then squeezed firmly and steadily against the trigger’s resistance. She felt a sudden kick against her shoulder and heard the plink of the pellet hitting the back of the catcher. There was a small hole about a centimetre above the red circle at the centre of the target.

  Fallan showed her how to break the gun and ready another pellet.

  ‘A little too high,’ she said. ‘I’ll aim lower next time.’

  ‘No,’ said Ross. ‘Don’t compensate. Keep aiming for the centre. The important thing first time is to get a good grouping.’

  She fired four more shots, all of them about a centimetre high of the bullseye. They were all roughly in the same place, at least.

  Ross returned to the frame and replaced the target, examining the used one as he walked clear.

  ‘Aye, very good,’ he said rather drily. ‘Never done it before, my arse.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ she insisted. ‘I missed every time.’

  ‘Look at that grouping,’ Ross indicated to Fallan, pro to pro, like she wasn’t there.

  Fallan took the paper card and examined it. Something bright crept into his expression, but whatever it was, he promptly hid it again.

  ‘Tight,’ Fallan observed. ‘Scope’s zeroed for a longer distance.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ross said. ‘Last shooter must have been set up for the far targets, back of the range. I generally don’t re-zero these because you never know what level the next guest is going to be.’

  ‘And what does any of this mean in English?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘That you’re a natural, hen,’ Ross replied.

  He made an adjustment to the scope and handed Jasmine the rifle again.

  ‘Try now.’

  She began another grouping, still aiming dead centre. This time the pellets found their mark.

  It was strangely calming. She could lose herself in the view through the scope, putting everything else from her head.

  She had no idea how long she’d been there, but she was snapped back to the here and now when Ross mentioned the death of Hamish Queen. Suddenly the view through a rifle scope meant something else entirely.

  ‘Heard some scuttlebutt from a shooter I know who’s still on the job. They haven’t found the slug yet, but from the damage it did they reckon Hamish was killed by a very high-powered rifle, something with serious distance capability.’

  ‘So it could have been a hunting accident after all?’ Jasmine wondered.

  ‘I sincerely doubt it. The theory that the bullet might have been aimed at one of the bankers is bollocks as well. A long-range shot, cover of darkness: this was someone who knew what they were doing.’

  She caught just a hint of professional admiration in Ross’s tone, like he knew it was inappropriate but he couldn’t help but give the shooter his due. And with that, she realised what that brief flash of brightness on Fallan’s face had been.

  It was pride.

  Version History

  Catherine hated these mobile incident rooms. They made her feel like she was about to give blood in some supermarket car park. Truth was, she was merely going to sweat it. They also reminded her uncomfortably of temporary toilets, like you’d find at fairgrounds and festivals. The one time she and Drew had gone to T in the Park, back before Duncan came along, she had decided just to hold it in rather than bare her nethers to the abominations of the cubicle she’d found herself in. They were only there for the day and her bladder was already well trained by the job. She had thought she could hang on until she got home, but didn’t make it past the first motorway services area on the M8. The relief bordered on a euphoria that eclipsed everything she’d felt all day, except perhaps when she heard Steven Lindsay play ‘Swimmer’ live for the first time since her teens.

  Given the manpower she’d been allowed
to commandeer, it was a squeeze fitting so many detectives into the cramped and flimsy little space, and she was glad to be doing it early in the day, given the paucity of the ventilation. Right then, shampoo, deo and body spray were still winning. Nonetheless, cramped, crowded or sweaty, she knew this part was the cornerstone upon which any investigation was built. Sometimes it was repetitive to the point of seeming redundant, but it was an indispensable practice, the importance of which had been instilled in her by her old mentor, the redoubtable Moira Clark: ‘Make sure everybody else knows what everybody else knows.’

  She checked her watch. It was just coming up for ten. She’d give it a minute, then clear her throat and bring the room to order.

  The drive had taken more than two hours. The first time she’d come up, with Zoe at the wheel, she had thought it quite a picturesque trip, a nice change from motorway tailbacks and grey housing schemes, but she could see it getting old fast if she had to keep coming here. The road was rapidly becoming over-familiar, and she was already fed up with blue-lighting it to get past caravans.

  She wouldn’t be seeing a lot of Drew and the boys this week either. She had crossed paths briefly with Duncan this morning, as he was an early riser, but all she’d managed with Fraser was a groggy kiss, waking him up for school as she was heading out the door.

  Duncan didn’t ask about Trail of the Sniper, which meant Drew must have had a word. He had, however, been staring at an advert for it in a magazine when she walked into the kitchen, his expression baleful despite it being the day before school broke up for the holidays. She deduced that he’d assembled the pose for her benefit; it was no coincidence she just happened to walk into the room and find him there with that page open. Dad had said no; was he trying to melt Mummy’s heart, thinking she might be good cop on this occasion? Or had he read something in Drew’s explanation that pointed the finger back at her? Maybe it was a consolation to be out of it. By the end of the week he’d have moved on to obsessing about something else anyway.

  What was all the more galling about coming up to Alnabruich was that her role here was nothing she couldn’t do over the phone from Glasgow. This was political: this was about the TV and press cameras shooting her outside Cragruthes Castle instead of outside Govan police station when she made a statement later today. That said, she’d feel a lot more justified in whining about it if she could argue that the travelling was getting in the way of all her rapid progress.