The Last Witness: A DCI Daley Thriller

by Denzil Meyrick

  Over the last few years he had been studying to improve his mind. It had been hard at first, until he had become addicted to the acquisition of knowledge. He had always loved books; the ability to absorb things quickly had helped him many times in years gone by. His mother had called it his special gift, though he had many other attributes.

  In his new incarnation he had produced essays and even a thesis for distant tutors and lecturers, impressing them so much that they all wanted to meet their star pupil. But distance was what had attracted him to them in the first place; he claimed to be afflicted by everything from agoraphobia to acute depression in order to keep them at bay.

  The whisky bottle on the table beckoned. He switched on the TV to keep thoughts of cosy inebriation at bay. A bearded man was attempting to answer a question against a timed, metronomic melody. The man looked at the heavens for the answer. ‘It was Adam Smith, ye fuckin’ plank,’ he shouted at the screen, shaking his head and reaching for the bottle.

  The man on the screen answered incorrectly as the golden spirit glugged into the glass. He watched for a few more minutes, getting every question immediately right, unlike the hapless contestant. He wondered why anyone so stupid would consider putting himself up for public ridicule on such a programme.

  ‘Fuckin’ arsehole,’ he muttered, switching to the BBC news channel. The newsreader was young and pretty, she smiled coquettishly as she delivered so-called news on the public humiliation of yet another D-list celebrity.

  ‘More news now on a murder committed in Glasgow last night,’ she announced. He leaned forward and turned up the volume. ‘I’m joined by our Scotland correspondent, Gillian Lamont. Gillian, can you give us any more details on what happened earlier?’

  They had his full attention.

  ‘Yes, I can, Carol.’ The woman was standing in a Glasgow street; a rundown pub provided the backdrop. It was a familiar scene, though it looked different in daylight.

  ‘We have discovered that the man stabbed to death in the street behind me in the early hours of this morning was Peter MacDougall, brother of Glasgow gangster Francis MacDougall, now thought to be in hiding after his evidence brought down the infamous Machie crime family.’

  He raised his eyebrows, as the picture flicked back to the girl in the studio.

  ‘Do we have any further details on the incident?’ asked the newsreader.

  Now, this was interesting.

  ‘Very little; in fact, police here seem reluctant to say much at all about it. All we have is an eyewitness report from some customers from the pub behind me who saw a green vehicle, possibly an Astra car, parked outside in the minutes before the incident took place.’

  He picked up the remote and flicked the television off. ‘Fuckin’ arseholes,’ he chuckled to himself. ‘Cannae even get the fuckin’ car right.’ He walked into the small bedroom that was located off the main room and picked up a book by Wittgenstein from the rickety bedside table. Leaving the well-oiled gun beside it behind, he returned to the lounge and started to read.

  12

  It was late afternoon, and Daley was getting ready to go home. He was tired in the sense of being fatigued mentally – the worst kind of exhaustion, with all of the weariness and none of the buzz that physical effort produced.

  When they had arrived back at the office, ten members of the Support Unit were already waiting in the small canteen, armed with semi-automatic weapons, handguns strapped to their belts, and a variety of other paraphernalia, ready to be deployed to guard Frank MacDougall and his family. They were led by Sergeant Tully, who Scott knew from his days as a cop in the Gorbals; the two men had greeted each other warmly before sitting down with Donald to go over the complexities of the situation.

  After the meeting, in a gesture somewhat out of character, Donald had instructed this group of officers to go to the County for a meal, to be paid for from divisional funds. The Support Unit personnel were to be billeted there, so Scott decided that he would book in too – partly to show solidarity, and partly to have easy access to the licensed premises.

  Donald had then been given a lift to the local airport by a nervous DC Dunn, who had now returned, looking most relieved, and told Daley that she thought him ‘quite charming’. As Daley struggled to digest this remark, acting DS Maxwell popped his head around the door.

  ‘Just to let you know, sir,’ he said, still ebullient after arresting the farmer selling illegal tobacco on his first operational command, ‘we’ve searched everywhere thoroughly: house, barns, other outbuildings, vehicles, even his tractor. There’s a reasonable amount of stuff, mostly eastern European in origin.’

  ‘Eastern European?’ Daley’s ears perked up. ‘The counterfeit tobacco we picked up was mainly from Spain.’

  ‘Aye, sir, that’s what was strange. There was very little of the Spanish tobacco left, while this other stuff was lying in boxes: only one opened, with a couple of packets missing. He said he smoked those himself.’ The young detective had a puzzled expression.

  ‘OK, where is he now?’

  ‘In cell five, sir,’ Maxwell said, with furrowed brows.

  ‘The observation cell?’ Daley was curious.

  ‘Aye, sir. On the way here, he burst out crying, wouldn’t stop. I thought it appropriate to call the force MD. I was afraid he was having some kind of breakdown. Apparently he’s been drinking heavily for quite a while. The doc gave him a sedative and told me to keep an eye on him,’ Maxwell said, displaying the qualities of common sense and compassion that Daley had first noted in him.

  ‘OK, Alex,’ replied Daley. ‘Make sure he’s under constant obs overnight. How’s he pleading?’

  ‘Guilty, sir, straight away, before I’d even charged him. Guilty,’ the younger man repeated. ‘I’ve written a report, if you want it just now, sir?’

  ‘Eh, can you just email it to me, Alex?’ said Daley. ‘I’ll take a look at it tonight. With a bit of luck we’ll get him before the Sheriff tomorrow afternoon. Do we have any reason to oppose bail?’ he continued, happy to leave the decision to the young detective.

  ‘Not really, sir,’ replied Maxwell. ‘Unless the FMD thinks otherwise.’

  ‘OK. Thanks. Sounds like he’s in the best place for now. I’ll see him tomorrow morning, before he goes for pleading.’

  Maxwell exited with a nod, leaving Daley to ponder the latest example of a damaged mind he had encountered in his career; he was sure the man in the observation cell wouldn’t be the last. He sighed as he got his things together in readiness for going home.

  Daley felt drained as he drove out of the car park and down Main Street. The town looked festive, decked out with decorations, the shops’ windows brightly lit with various Yuletide displays. People darted to and fro, wrapped up in scarves and warm jackets, clouds of breath freezing in front of them as they chatted.

  It was just after four in the afternoon, and not quite dark; the moon and even some stars were just visible through the orange glow of the street lighting. The sky was a deep blue, still illuminated by the last embers of the setting sun, which he could see looking west as he drove around the head of the loch, itself smoothly reflecting the many lights of the town.

  He remembered how much his mother had loved Christmas, and felt that peculiar twinge; a tiny pain, a reminder of the eternal absence of family, friends and colleagues who it was sometimes easy to forget he would never see again. It was so strange that people who had occupied your life so utterly, for so long, could just disappear, no longer present to chide, praise, advise, love, cheer, admonish. All that was left behind were fading photographs and memories – both good and bad – and this dull pain that afflicted the bereaved without warning, in the same way dreams of those long gone could spring unbidden into sleep, then linger and fade in the mind over hours or days. Some dreams one could never forget, either because they were so vivid, or they recurred over the course of a lifetime. Daley wondered why the populace of these dreams were so often the dead. Was it purely biology, or w
ere they shadows of the people themselves, echoes of voices from a far distant void? Ghosts, he thought. I’m seeing too many ghosts today.

  As Daley approached the turn away from the loch and up the hill towards his home, his eye was drawn to a motionless figure with its hand raised in the air in a static wave. Hamish.

  Daley pulled over and got out of the car, walking over to his friend with his hand outstretched. ‘How are you, Hamish? Cold night.’ He shook the hand of the older man, whose tanned face was crinkled in a smile.

  ‘She’s a cauld one, right enough, Mr Daley,’ he said, producing his pipe from a pocket in his overalls and filling it from a pouch of tobacco in his other calloused hand.

  ‘I haven’t seen you for a while. You should come up to the house for a bite to eat.’ Daley issued the impromptu invitation with a smile.

  ‘They tell me ye’ve arrested Duncan Fearney, fae High Ballochmeaddie farm. Am I right?’ Hamish’s face had taken on a more serious expression.

  ‘You know I can’t speak about that, Hamish, no matter how accurate the gossip is around here,’ said Daley, knowing that such an event would have registered in the town within hours, perhaps minutes, of it actually taking place.

  ‘You should know he’s a good man,’ Hamish observed, as though this was a fact that wouldn’t have necessarily occurred to the policeman. ‘Aye, an’ forbye, that he’s had wan hell o’ a sad life.’

  ‘You know my game, Hamish. I know good men sometimes do stupid things; but good or not, if they break the law, then it’s my job to put them before the courts.’

  ‘Aye, well that’s as may be. The fermers have a wile struggle tae make ends meet, these days, especially the wans wi’ the wee mixed ferms. Every bugger an’ his freens are efter their wee bit money. I’m no’ tryin’ tae influence ye, mind – jeest letting you know.’ He took a long draw of his pipe and puffed the pungent blue smoke back out in clouds.

  ‘Are you busy yourself?’ Daley enquired, anxious to change the subject.

  ‘Och, ye know me fine, Mr Daley.’ Hamish’s smile returned. ‘I’m aye busy wi’ somethin’. I wiz speakin’ tae that bonnie wife o’ yours the other day,’ he said, winking at Daley.

  ‘Yes, she told me,’ Daley replied, tapping Hamish on the arm. ‘Listen, we better get out of this cold. Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  ‘No, yer fine. Besides,’ Hamish said with a smile, ‘I widnae be sure if I’d end up on remand. Yous polis are arrestin’ decent folk left, right and centre, the noo.’ He winked again at the detective.

  ‘I’m sure you’d be fine,’ Daley said, walking back to his car. ‘I mean it about coming up for a meal. I’ll ask the boss when it’s most suitable.’

  ‘Aye, that’ll be great.’ Hamish smiled. ‘Though she’s probably got mair on her mind, what wi’ her condition an’ a’.’

  ‘Right enough,’ replied Daley vaguely, employing the same tactic he did with Liz when he hadn’t heard or understood something properly.

  He got into the car, secured his belt and started the engine. When he looked across the road to wave, Hamish was gone, with sign of him in the rear-view mirror. How does he do that? Daley wondered, not for the first time.

  He pulled away from the kerb and headed home, though something new, something he couldn’t quite define or grasp, was nagging at his subconscious. He dismissed the fleeting thought, consigning it to the drawer that contained the rest of his worries, and drove on.

  Daley parked his car in the driveway and looked across the darkening sea towards the mound at the head of the loch. The ancient causeway that afforded access to the island at low tide snaked across the surface of the water like a sea monster. A nearly full moon shone down on the perfect scene. Nothing moved: no cars on the distant road, birds in flight, vessels at sea. For a brief moment, it was like being alone with the ocean and the heavens, at one with the fabric of time and existence, where dark thoughts are wont to roam.

  And roam they did. Daley, staring into the black sky, somehow knew that a human monster resurrected to prey on his worst fears was taking in the same celestial view. It was as if suddenly, and for only an instant, they were two sides of an old, well-handled coin – part of a currency that stretched back and forth across the past, present and future. He and JayMac were merely recent manifestations of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

  As quickly as the feeling came, it vanished. He had learned during his time as a detective to trust the subliminal mind: instinct coalesced with procedure, determination and hard work to bring evil to book. As inexplicable as such intuition was, it was to be ignored at one’s peril.

  He was jolted from this unexpected philosophical reverie by the clunk and squeak of the treble-glazed front door being opened. Liz stood on the decking, a few strands of hair loose across her face, and smiled down at him.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Jim?’ she asked, brushing the wayward hair from her eyes.

  ‘Och, nothing, Liz. Just daydreaming, I suppose. What’s for dinner? Not bloody pasta again?’ He clambered up the steps onto the decking and hugged his wife, drawing the scent of her deeply into his senses. She was warm and soft; he slid his hand up under her loose top onto the smooth skin on the small of her back, making her draw her breath at the touch of his cold hand. Gently, he kissed her.

  ‘Dinner can wait, darling,’ she whispered, nibbling at his neck. ‘Time for you to work off some more calories.’ She took him by the hand into the warmth of their home on the hill. The bright moon spilled its light onto the water and the good people of Kinloch – and beyond.

  13

  The moon was reflected on the sea far below as he opened the back of the Transit van that had been left for him at the cottage. It was one of four vehicles he’d had the use of. On the surface these were all taxed and insured, completely above board, apart from the fact that their registered keepers were either dead, or in some other way indisposed. On a piece of waste ground in the East End of Glasgow, the burnt-out wreck of an old Honda Civic was being pored over by police forensic teams.

  He preferred to travel at night, which was handy, since at this time of the year night seemed all encompassing in Scotland. He’d always liked the dark, even as a child. While his friends shied away from the blackness at the end of the day, the lowering gloom that enveloped the tenements and high-rise flats where they lived, he revelled in its silky anonymity. Even though Glasgow was a city, there were still nooks and crannies the streetlights couldn’t penetrate.

  One of his favourite haunts had been an old church cemetery, not far from his home. The ancient graves were moss-covered and crumbling, in most parts overgrown, and the lettering that granted the dead their earthly immortality was worn thin by rain, wind and the passage of time. He would trace his fingers along the loops and lines of the words. Soon he taught himself to decipher the names of the dead by touch alone. He remembered each tomb and its eternal occupant; he spoke to them one by one as he made his nightly round of the cemetery.

  One gravestone fascinated him more than any other. As he traced his fingers over the gothic lettering, he had discovered a symbol: a skull and crossbones. Underneath, he deciphered the name of a boy. John. He even managed to make out that the first letter of the surname began with an ‘M’. The thick briar that curled around the stone tore at his fingers, but he was determined to discover its secret. He knew the name belonged to a child, as he’d been able to uncover the part that confirmed the boy had been three years and four months old at the time of his death. He reckoned that the skull-and-crossbones motif must represent some dire illness or tragedy that had overcome the infant, though as he passed amongst the tombs he realised that dead children were by no means in the minority.

  What fascinated him most about this grave though, was what was written further down the stone: another name. This time the script was clearer, less weathered, as the vegetation that had overgrown the base of the monument had protected the inscription. One cold night, when he had been bored, a
nd most of the mysteries of the small graveyard were no longer secrets, he decided to pull away the grass and briars to read what lay underneath, expecting the usual platitudes of sympathy and regret.

  It turned out that another child’s body lay in the grave. This boy had lived longer, surviving to the ripe old age of seven years and eight months. His name was James. With a shaking hand, which he couldn’t explain, he was able to trace the family surname from this undamaged portion of the stone.

  As his dirty child’s forefinger traced out the letters, a chill penetrated his heart. The ‘M’ was clear – it was the first letter of the name Machie. His own name. For a long time he had sat on the damp grass over the grave, as though chained to the ground by spirits beneath.

  Eventually, he had managed to pull himself free from the invisible bonds cast by the dead boys and return home. For many nights after, his dreams were only those of the dead brothers with his name.

  It had taken his young brain some time to work out what the final sentence on the gravestone meant. Together at birth, united once more in death.

  One night, sometime after, when the screams of the children who had died so long ago awoke him from his sleep in a Glasgow multi-storey, he realised: they were twins.

  He never visited the graveyard again, though the ghosts of the Machie twins of so long ago stayed with him always.

  14

  Donald sipped at a glass of expensive red wine as he stood by the kitchen window in the dark. His wife was at another night class – this time ancient Greek. She had bought into his struggle for self-improvement completely, having already attempted conversational Italian, art history, classical studies and watercolour painting. But Donald wasn’t too sure of her heartfelt commitment to this personal renaissance. He knew she was much happier with the glass or two of wine that she and her friends enjoyed in the pub after class than with the journey of cerebral improvement on which they had jointly embarked. So what? They had made new friends, moved in a more elevated circle, and could now both talk with great assurance on a number of diverse topics over dinner – the crucible of his success. Well, that and the old, less refined requisites, necessary for the long climb up the greasy pole.