Sabbathman

by Hurley, Graham

  The Range Rover had stopped now, another hundred yards down the track. The doors were opening and the men inside were getting out. There were five of them, and when he tucked the wooden stock of the Enforcer into his shoulder and lowered his eye to the sniperscope, he recognised at once the face of the man he’d come to kill. He stood in the middle of the group, a slight figure, dressed for his weekend in the country. He had a shotgun tucked under his arm and the flat tweed cap was pulled low over his eyes but the sun was out again and there was no mistaking the milky paleness of his skin, nor the rash of freckles, nor the diffident smile he offered to the man at his side.

  A cocker spaniel had appeared from the back of the Range Rover, barking with excitement, and the shooting party began to walk along the track, deep in conversation. After a couple of yards, someone pointed out a path up the hill and they turned onto it, single file, winding upwards through the heather.

  He leaned into the rifle, the stock cold against his cheek. He’d already estimated the range at 550 yards but the men were walking away now and every step they took widened the gap. The target was number four in the line, the cleanest of kills, but he had no taste for shooting a man in the back and he waited patiently for the party to turn round to enjoy the view. A head shot would be best, full frontal, anywhere between the hairline and the base of the throat. Just like Jersey, just like Blanche. He smiled.

  Across the valley, the five men toiled upwards. Only when they were close to the top of the hill did they pause and look back. Through the sniperscope, their breaths clouded on the cold air. Unfit, he thought, as his finger curled around the trigger.

  The target had something in his eye. When he’d sorted it out, he took off the tweed cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. As his face tilted up again, the cross-hairs in the scope came to rest. The other men were already on the move again. The target was still enjoying the view.

  His finger tightened on the trigger and he waited another second or two, taking the lightest of breaths. The sun went in as he fired, the cloud patterning the valley floor. The noise of the single shot rolled across the empty moor and seconds later the dog began to bark, sniffing at the fallen body, calling back the men above.

  SEVENTEEN

  Allder had taken a room in a hotel in Kyle of Lochalsh. It was Monday morning and he’d been in residence just five minutes, scuttling in from the car, trying to avoid the torrential rain.

  Kingdom had already been in the hotel almost twelve hours. Now, he joined the four other men who’d been summoned to the room Allder had hired, picking his way past the pile of soaking waterproofs heaped by the door. Allder appeared from the bathroom, mopping his face with a towel. The drive across from Inverness had done nothing for his temper.

  He retrieved his briefcase from the floor beside the bed. Inside was a copy of The Citizen. Monday’s edition had yet to find its way to north-west Scotland but Allder had bought a copy at Heathrow and he gave it to Kingdom now. Kingdom looked at it. He’d heard the news on the radio, first thing, and he’d wondered then quite how The Citizen would cope.

  The other men in the room joined him on the bed. Three of them had been out on the coast for four days now, part of the Special Branch surveillance team seconded to the Sabbathman inquiry from Clydebank Police HQ in Glasgow. They’d been watching the Skye ferries in six-hour shifts, one team down in Mallaig, the other here at Kyle. It was on the basis of their reports that Allder had felt relaxed about delaying Kingdom’s visit until now.

  Kingdom was still reading the paper. The front page had been devoted to a head and shoulders photo of Willoughby Grant. The portrait was edged in black. Beneath it, the single headline, ‘SLAIN!’ The Citizen’s chickens had come home to roost. Mr Angry had shot the editor.

  Kingdom turned over. Amongst the testimonials and the hand-wringing he could find no trace of the usual communiqué.

  He glanced up. ‘No word from the man himself?’ he queried. ‘Nothing in writing?’ Allder produced an envelope from the briefcase and tossed it across. ‘It’s a photocopy,’ he said curtly, ‘you can keep it.’

  Kingdom nodded, sliding a single sheet of paper from the envelope. The message, as ever, was brief. He opened the paper on his knee, letting everyone read it. ‘Papers like yours,’ it ran, ‘use other people’s grief to make a profit. Your Mr Angry was a bit fed up about all that but profits obviously matter to people like you so I decided to make a little contribution of my own. The boss died smiling, by the way. Nice day. Clean air. Wonderful views. Over and out. Sabbathman.’

  Kingdom read the message again, hearing the men beside him beginning to chuckle. No wonder they hadn’t printed it, he thought. He peered hard at the lines of type. It had come from a manual machine, like the other communiqués, but there was something subtly different about the typeface. He looked up.

  Allder was watching him carefully. He nodded. ‘Different machine,’ he said.

  ‘Meaning?’

  Allder shrugged. He was looking now at the oldest of the surveillance team, a tough, balding inner-city Glaswegian called George who’d been in charge of the operation since Thursday. Kingdom had been talking to him most of the morning. He’d been tramping the Highlands since adolescence and he knew the area backwards. Now he answered Allder’s unvoiced question about the Giffords.

  ‘Dunno, boss,’ he said, ‘just dunno.’

  ‘You watched every ferry? And you didn’t spot him?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Absolutely certain?’

  ‘Aye.’ He paused. ‘He could have crossed in the boot of someone’s car, of course. Or maybe in disguise.’

  Allder eyed him for a moment. ‘Balaclava?’ he inquired drily. ‘Ski mask?’

  George didn’t answer. He looked exhausted.

  ‘What about using a fishing boat? Or a dinghy? Inflatable of some kind?’ Allder was saying. ‘There must be a thousand places they could have nipped across.’

  George shook his head. ‘Not in this weather,’ he said, ‘not if you wanted to survive.’

  ‘So it had to be one of the ferries?’

  ‘Aye, and even they were finding it tough going.’ He shook his head again. ‘He must have come across on Friday or first thing Saturday. Thursday he was definitely over there, like I said on the phone.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  George was looking at the youngest of the four detectives. He was sitting on the carpet beside the television with his back against the wall. The rain had plastered his hair to his scalp and the ends were still dripping.

  He mustered a tired nod. ‘I was over on Thursday,’ he said. ‘There’s a wee hill this side of the centre. You can look down on the place, see everything. It’s a tidy view.’

  Allder raised an eyebrow. ‘And you’re saying you saw him? The young one? Andy?’

  ‘Aye. I was there in the morning and he was in and out of the house, loading stuff into a van, mainly cardboard boxes.’ He patted the binoculars at his side. ‘It was definitely him. We’ve all got the mug shots. He was wearing one of those waxed jackets.’

  ‘And has the van been over on the ferry? Since?’

  The young detective shrugged, looking at George. George shook his head. ‘It’s still there, sir. Still at An Carraig.’

  ‘So he couldn’t have come across in the van?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And he definitely hasn’t been back?’

  ‘No.’ George nodded at the rain still streaming down the window. ‘There were no boats yesterday. Nor this morning, so far.’

  Allder leaned back, warming himself on the radiator, and Kingdom could see him doing the calculations. Grant had been killed on the Yorkshire Moors, around midday Sunday. Unless he’d used a helicopter or a light aircraft, the journey up to Skye would have taken at least six hours.

  Allder rubbed his face. ‘So it’s just the old man over there, Dave Gifford,’ he said. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  George shrugged. ‘That’s the way it look
s, boss.’

  ‘But are you even sure of that? Has anyone been over?’

  ‘How? When there aren’t any ferries?’

  There was a long silence.

  Kingdom stirred. ‘I phoned this morning,’ he said, ‘just to check the booking.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Dave Gifford’s definitely there.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kingdom nodded. ‘I talked to him about gear, making sure I’ve got the right boots.’ He paused. ‘It’s the same guy who talked on the phone to Ethne Feasey. Same voice. Definitely.’

  Allder looked thoughtful and Kingdom began to wonder what his last twelve hours must have been like. Arthur Sperring, for one, would have been asking some of the harder questions. Like why the Anti-Terrorist Squad were amassing piles of evidence and then doing nothing about it. And why they’d allowed a suspected serial killer to add another body to his list. Questions like this would be yet more bullets for Downing Street’s gun. Assuming it was still cocked.

  ‘Well?’ Allder was saying. ‘What’s next? Any bright ideas?’

  Kingdom eased some of the stiffness from his long frame. The mattress on the bed in his own room had been far too soft and he’d spent most of the night on the floor.

  ‘I’ll still go across,’ he said. ‘The boy’s bound to come back sooner or later.’

  ‘Like when?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Kingdom paused. ‘But Dave Gifford’s there. He’ll do for starters.’

  Allder looked at him, saying nothing, then he turned his back on the room and gazed out of the window. The Isle of Skye, half a mile away across the water, was invisible. Kingdom waited for a decision. This was the moment, he thought, when Allder would have to reveal himself. Was the trust between them real? Had the odd grudging compliment been sincere? Or would it turn out like most of the other operations he’d been on? A wild zig-zag through the evidence? Everyone covering their own backs? He thought of the Commissioner again, and Allder’s career in the balance. Allder was still at the window, staring out at the gloom.

  ‘Let’s talk about the comms,’ he said at last. ‘How are we going to work this?’

  Mid-afternoon, the rain stopped. Livid shafts of sunlight lanced through the holes in the cloud and the glistening black shoulders of the island appeared across the water. The wind had veered to the north-west, bringing with it the smell of winter, but in the sudden bursts of sunshine the place looked utterly different. Gulls wheeled and dived over a gardener at the back of a nearby croft. Fishing boats danced at their moorings in the Sound. And away to the right, beyond the uncompleted sweep of the new bridge, was the dramatic backdrop of the Cuillin Hills, the kind of mountains a child might draw, shadowed by the racing clouds.

  Kingdom watched from the top deck of the ferry, the wind tearing at his anorak. He’d once listened to Annie talking about the west coast of Ireland, how special it was and how remote, and he thought of her now as the ferry nosed against the ramp on the island side of the crossing. Kerry and Galway must have been like this, he thought. He should have listened harder. They should have gone there. He should have taken up her suggestion, called her bluff. They should have settled down. Had dozens of kids. Never come back.

  Kingdom clattered down the steel ladder to the lower deck, shouldering his rucksack as he went. Allder was back at the hotel. He’d been up at the bedroom window now, watching the ferry through his new Zeiss binoculars. His mood had changed with the weather. His indecision, his gloom, had gone. He’d left the detailed back-up planning to George, stipulating only that Kingdom’s safety was paramount. At least two members of the surveillance team were to be on standby on the island night and day. The men, like Kingdom himself, were armed. Everyone had a radio and there were a series of emergency code-words for denoting various degrees of what George drily termed ‘fuck-up’.

  Watching Allder as he’d drawn the briefing to a close, Kingdom had sensed the little man’s need for a result. He had an almost animal hunger for victory, an absolute determination that decent policework, what he called ‘honest coppering’, should bring this extraordinary episode to an end. Leaving the hotel, he’d touched Kingdom lightly on the arm, wishing him luck. Kingdom had looked down at him, faintly uncomfortable, and Allder had patted him again, an almost fatherly gesture, asking him whether there was anything he needed, anything he hadn’t covered in the briefing.

  Kingdom had nodded. ‘That photo I gave you. The one from Dublin.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What are we doing about it? Where’s it gone?’

  Allder had smiled, stepping out of the hotel lobby, accompanying him down the hill towards the ferry. The photo had gone to the RUC boys, he’d explained. If the face was on file, if it belonged to a known player, he’d have a reply within days. Kingdom had looked sceptical at this, knowing all too well that life was seldom that simple in Belfast. People had their own agendas. The guy might be a tout, an informer, someone highly placed, a prime Provisional source. That would mean protection, a shield from prying eyes, the return of the photo with an apologetic little note. ‘NK,’ someone would have scribbled. ‘Not Known.’ They’d stopped by now, Allder curious, wanting to know more.

  ‘That bother you?’ he’d said. ‘The photo?’

  Kingdom had nodded, turning away towards the loading ramp. ‘Yes,’ he’d said.

  Now, he trudged off the ferry. Up ahead, he could see the minibus from the Adventure Centre, parked by the first shop as Dave Gifford had promised on the phone. So far, Kingdom hadn’t told Allder anything about his visit to Cousins’ flat, the cassette he’d found there, the voices in his head that refused to go away. Not because he didn’t trust the man but because it had become so overwhelmingly personal. Allder had been right all along. He’d involved himself in a war.

  The minibus was empty except for the driver. Kingdom could see his silhouette, watching the passengers from the ferry in the rear-view mirror. Kingdom went to the rear door and knocked on the window. The driver leaned back, reaching full length, releasing the lock. He was wearing jeans and a thick white roll-neck sweater. He had delicate, almost feminine hands and a pleasant, open face. He looked about thirty.

  ‘Mr Travis?’

  Kingdom nodded, throwing his rucksack across the long bench seat and getting in behind it. The driver had a London accent, flat and slightly nasal.

  ‘Amazing weather,’ Kingdom said, pulling the door shut.

  The minibus bumped away towards the mountains, following the metalled road that skirted the coast. Kingdom made himself comfortable, his back against the rucksack, using the full width of the seat. There was a portable cassette-radio in the front and the driver was singing along to an old Paul Simon album. He had a soft, tuneless voice and he gave up on the high bits to point out passing items of local interest.

  The island, he said, had once supported a population of more than twenty thousand but now the numbers were down by two thirds. In the last century, the place had taken a battering from the old clan chiefs who’d driven the people off the land and replaced them with sheep. Many of the islanders, impoverished and starving, had been forced onto the lumber ships, exchanging everything they had for a passage to Newfoundland or Canada. Many of the ships were falling apart and had gone down en route but those, who’d stayed behind had faced a constant battle to even put food in their mouths. The driver laughed, a high mirthless giggle. It was the old imperial story, he said. The landlords screwing the natives for everything they could help produce – kelp, wool, fish – while the big guys who controlled the markets down south got richer and richer.

  They were approaching a village now, a light dusting of cheerless roadside bungalows, and the driver indicated an area off to the right wedged between the road and the sea. Here, he said, one of the island’s lairds had established a crofting township. One hundred and fifty years later, the locals were still trying to coax a living from the soil but it was tough going. The land was too soft for cattle and too we
t for hay and the peats never dried properly. The driver caught Kingdom’s eye in the mirror.

  ‘Buggered then and buggered now,’ he said. ‘Know what I mean?’

  He hauled the minibus round a corner and changed down a couple of gears as the road began to climb the flank of a mountain. The mountain towered above them, the summit shrouded in cloud, and Kingdom peered up at it, wondering what he’d let himself in for.

  ‘You busy this week?’ he said. ‘Only I expected other people on the ferry.’

  The driver was back with Paul Simon and the warm African melodies of Graceland. ‘Not really,’ he said.

  ‘So how many have you got room for?’

  ‘Max? If we really need it? Around twenty-four, twenty-five, but that’s a pain, believe me. You end up spending all day in the kitchen. Not my idea of heaven.’

  Kingdom offered a dutiful laugh, still looking for the top of the mountain. ‘So how many this week? All up?’

  The driver laughed. He was rolling a cigarette now, steering with his knees. To the right, across a sheet of black water, was a stand of fir trees.

  ‘Three,’ he said at last.

  ‘Three?’ Kingdom looked at him for a moment. ‘Plenty of individual attention, then?’

  ‘Sure,’ the driver laughed again, ‘so if you’re expecting a skive, think again.’

  A little later, they emerged on the edge of a sea loch, pausing to let a couple of sheep cross the road in front of them. The landscape was wild and empty, even more forbidding than Jo Hubbard’s photos had suggested, and the wind howled down from the mountains, squalling across the waters of the loch, making the minibus rock on its springs. At the head of the loch, high above a stony beach, a burn was in spate and the torrent of falling water shredded in the wind, blowing like smoke across the bare brown mountainside.