Falling Fast

by Neil Broadfoot

  Shortlisted for the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2014.

  Finalist, Dundee International Book Prize.

  “The chapters are a series of stabs, swift, to the point… The knots in the plot unravel with timely stealth.” Tom Adair, Scotsman

  “Broadfoot is the real deal. A superb debut.” Michael J. Malone, Crimesquad.com

  “Crisp dialogue, characters you believe and a prose style that brings you back for more. It’s a fine addition to growing roster of noir titles with a tartan tinge.” Douglas Skelton

  “A deliciously twisty thriller that never lets up the pace. Thrills, spills, chills and kills.” Donna Moore

  “It’s hard to believe [this] is a debut. There’s a certainty of purpose, a clarity of voice and a real sense of danger leaking from the pages of this politically charged crime drama… Broadfoot is here, and he’s ready to sit at the table with some of the finest crime writers Scottish fiction has to offer.” Russel D. McLean

  “A great meaty crime read with a true grit core.” Laura Piper, STV

  “Gritty with a strong identity. Broadfoot is destined for crime success.” Dundee International Book Prize judges

  “Falling Fast is a book that grabs you by the throat from the start and doesn’t let go” Crime Fiction Lover, 5 stars

  Almost twenty-five years ago, I made a promise to a very special woman. So this one has to be for my Gran, Edna Wright, who probably would have needed a whisky and lemonade (‘Though just a wee one, John’) after reading about all the daft buggers I’ve dreamed up, but would have been proud of me anyway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  For an instant she believed she had become the angel he always told her she was. Suspended there – time congealing as the city unfolded towards the horizon, the cold air searing her lungs – she felt as though she could reach into the flawless blue of the November sky and touch Heaven itself.

  Up here, away from the arguments, the fear, the hatred, she had finally found the peace that had escaped her for so long. She smiled, realising he had been right all along. At the time, she had thought him naive, but now she realised what he had said was true; all you needed was the strength to believe.

  Faith.

  But instead of Heaven, it was Hell that claimed her. Her stomach lurched as gravity yanked her brutally to earth, the ground hurtling towards her. The howling wind tore at her eyes and pinned them open as it roared in her ears, drowning out all other sounds, including her own rising scream.

  • • •

  Brian Edwards slipped into East Princes Street Gardens at the entrance next to the Scott Monument, dodging people without really being aware of it, eyes already scouting out a good spot where he could take a seat, eat his lunch and admire the view as he tried not to think about the job he was quickly coming to despise; the computer screen and customer service calls he would have to return to in just an hour. He had spotted a few suits on the way here, all with the same anaesthetised look he noticed every time he looked in the mirror at work. Was this really it? Was this what he had become at twenty-four, just another wage slave staggering around Edinburgh’s financial services sector? Clinging to whatever shitty job was available like it was a chunk of wreckage from the Titanic after the recession iceberg hit, too scared to let go, spending the days punching in numbers and giving customers your best ‘here to help’ voice, while filling your notepads with doodles of chairs hooked up to car batteries and computer screens exploding in a spray of glass and smoke?

  Spotting a potential seat on the grass beside the Monument, Brian made his way forward. He got about two steps when the first scream rang out, freezing him. His head darted around, heart hammering from the fright as he tried to see who had screamed and wh…

  A dull whump rang out to his left, shock juddering through his body as though God had clapped His hands next to his ear. Something warm splashed onto his side and his left cheek. Brian instinctively flinched away, losing his footing and falling heavily to the ground. More screams now, drowning out the steady drone of buses and cars on Princes Street. Gasps of panic and fear; choked, thick gargling as someone was violently sick; hysterical sobbing: all crowding in on Brian’s shock-addled senses.

  ‘Aw Christ, no, no.’

  A baby mewling, quickly rising to a high, keening wail like a dentist’s drill.

  ‘…call an ambulance…’

  ‘…no help…’

  ‘…be sick…’

  He reached up, trying to wipe at whatever had splashed onto his face. His hand came away bloody. Brian felt all heat drain from his body.

  SHOT! his mind screamed. A few days ago, he had read in the Capital Tribune about groups of neds running around the city, taking pot-shots with BB guns at anyone that took their fancy. He’d walked with hunched shoulders ever since.

  You’ve been shot. Some stupid little fuck with an airgun’s got off a lucky shot and…

  ‘Help!’ Brian cried in a high, wavering voice that was almost a scream. ‘Help me please, someo…’

  His voice died in his throat as he looked at where the thumping sound had come from. To his left…

  Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, please no. Don’tlookdon’tlook.

  But he had to look. And when he did, he saw the entire scene with such horrific clarity he thought it would drive him insane.

  A body lay in the grass about a foot from him, twisted and broken. Bone peeked out from several places like a hedgehog’s spines – driven through flesh and clothing by the force of the impact and glinting a hellishly brilliant white in the heatless early afternoon sun. With the terror and adrenalin, it was like looking at the scene with a microscope. He could see tiny flecks of fabric, blood and ruptured skin hanging like bloody streamers from some of the bones.

  All he wanted was to look away, but he couldn’t. He could feel the images branding themselves into his mind, knew he would be revisiting them for the rest of his life. But then his eyes moved towards the head, and Brian felt his mind give a sickening wrench that made him want to die.

  Don’tlookdon’tlookohsweetjesusbriandon’tLOOKatthe…

  …head that had crumpled open on impact. Brian tried to suppress the growing scream clamouring in his mind and looked at the mangled mess of dark, almost black blood and oozing grey brain matter…

  Porridge and blackcurrant jam, he thought, and cackled.

  …which, in the sunlight, winked and sparkled from between clotted masses of what looked like blonde hair. He wiped his hand across his face again…

  Bloodandbrainbloodandbrainbloodandbrain.

  …knowing what he would find. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance; Brian could jus
t hear it over the roaring in his ears. He began to wipe and claw frantically at himself, trying to get the blood…

  AndbrainsbloodandBRAINS.

  …off.

  Tears slid down Brian’s cheeks as he finally began to scream, his own blood – from the welts he had dug into his face and hands – mingling with that of whoever it was that had just jumped off the Scott Monument and landed just a few inches away from him.

  2

  Doug McGregor was just settling down to his first pint when the phone rang. He glanced over to the bar, where the Halfway House’s owner, Mike Granger, gave him a scowl sour enough to curdle the head on his Guinness. As the cracked burgundy leather booth seats, sanded floors and sepia-toned pictures that dotted the bar’s walls showed, Mike was a traditionalist who believed everything that came after the Sixties was either a waste of time or a complete fuck-up. It wasn’t hard to guess which category mobile phones fell in.

  Doug shrugged his shoulders and gave Mike what he hoped was an apologetic smile as he dug the phone out of his pocket and read the screen. ‘WALTER – Office’, it flashed. Doug’s finger hovered over the answer key as the thought of just switching the damn thing off flitted across his mind.

  He could sell it, too. After all, he was in the sticks, all the way out in Prestonview on the outer edge of East Lothian to be exact, and everyone knew that mobile phone reception could get patchy this far out of town.

  Sighing, he pressed answer and clamped the phone to his ear.

  ‘Walter, lovely to hear from you,’ he hissed into the phone, painfully aware that he, Mike and a flea-bitten mutt called Denver were the only living things in Prestonview’s most popular social venue at that moment. ‘How’s my favourite news editor today?’

  ‘All the better for hearing your sweet voice,’ came the gruff, Glasgow-tinged response. ‘Where ur ye?’

  Doug glanced up at Mike, who was busying himself restocking juice bottles behind the bar and trying his hardest not to make it so obvious he was listening intently to every word Doug said.

  ‘You know, the usual,’ Doug said. ‘Just checking out a few things.’

  ‘A few things that come in pint glasses, I’ll fuckin’ bet,’ Walter grunted down the phone. ‘You getting anywhere with that yet? Any lines on McGinty?’

  ‘No,’ Doug replied slowly, dropping his voice and clamping the phone closer to his ear. ‘And to be honest, this isn’t the best time to talk about it, Walter.’

  ‘Awww,’ Walter replied, ‘did I call at a bad time?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Tough shit. You may be able to persuade the boss that sitting in a pub is cutting-edge investigative journalism, but no’ me. I need you to check something out for me.’

  Doug sighed and pushed his pint across the table and out of reach. It wasn’t as if he really wanted it anyway. Too early in the day. But sitting in a small-town pub, asking delicate questions and ordering an orange juice was just asking for trouble. He knew answering the phone had been a bad idea. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Had a jumper about an hour and a bit ago,’ Walter said, trying – and failing – to keep the edge of relish out of his voice. ‘Someone took a dive off the Scott Monument. Made a hell of a mess, by all accounts.’

  Doug sat forward, suddenly interested. He glanced at his watch. Just after 1.30pm. ‘I take it you managed to get something for second edition?’ he asked cautiously. The last thing he needed to hear right now was Walter telling him that the paper was waiting to run a third edition and he was up to write the story. Hitting the newsstands at 5pm, the copy deadline would be 2.30pm to get the new pages to the printers in time. Tight turnaround. Ah, the happy life of the crime reporter.

  ‘Yeah,’ Walter grunted, clearly unhappy with what the paper had managed to get on the story so far. ‘It was sketchy though. Unidentified suicide victim, witnesses said this, body declared dead at scene, all the usual boring shit.’

  ‘So what do you need from me?’

  ‘Details,’ Walter replied in a you-know-better-than-that tone. ‘The cops are playing this one very close to their chests, and I thought that with your contacts, you could get us the inside track on what happened and who this person was.’

  ‘Aw, come on, Walter,’ Doug said, reaching for his pint again, raising it slightly as Mike glanced over. ‘Someone else can do that, surely? You know what I’m trying to do here.’

  ‘Skive as much as possible?’ He paused for a moment, his voice becoming softer and more serious. Doug could almost see Walter back at the Capital Tribune’s offices, slouched in his chair, a meaty paw engulfing the phone’s receiver, clamping it conspiratorially close to his mouth.

  ‘Yeah, Doug, I know. And I know you’ll get something. But this won’t take long. And it’s a splash on a day when fuck-all else is looking like a contender. So get on it, okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Doug sighed, glancing at his watch again. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as.’

  ‘I can hardly wait,’ Walter replied, then cut the line.

  3

  Sam McGinty stood in the middle of his living room, listening to the phone’s shrill ring as it cut through the silence. He glanced up nervously at the front window, checking again that the heavy curtains Rita had pleaded for him to put up that morning were drawn tight against the afternoon sun and the army of reporters that had laid siege to their home.

  Fucking vultures.

  It has started again last week, just as he and Rita were starting to fool themselves into believing it wouldn’t start again. It began as it always did: a polite phone call first, asking for a quote on the latest development. When this was greeted with the usual response – which, depending on how stubborn the reporter was and how many calls Sam had already taken that day, ranged from polite to ‘fuck off’ – they started knocking on the door.

  Always in pairs these days though, and always with a photographer at the end of the garden path, camera eagerly trained on Sam, ready to capture him if he lost his temper again. He had only done that once, after a particularly bad spell that had reduced Rita to a whimpering wreck of a woman, scared of her own shadow; a crude parody of the woman Sam had met and fallen in love with all those years ago at the Newtongrange Pit dance. After a fortnight of constant calls and door knocks, Sam had finally answered his door.

  The journalist who had been knocking was some zit-faced little shit, apparently from one of the bigger Glasgow-based tabloids if his nasal drone was anything to go by. He had forgotten all his questions as soon as the door opened and he caught sight of the axe Sam was holding.

  The memory of the look on the little bastard’s face still brought a smile to Sam’s face.

  ‘Sam? Sam, you down there?’ Rita’s voice, calling down from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Yeah, love. I’m here. You okay?’

  ‘What do you think?’ she replied, trying for levity and failing. He could hear the tension in her voice, the anxiety. She tried to hide it from him, tried to be strong, but they both knew how much this took out of them. The passing of the years didn’t make it any easier.

  And all because of their one and only son; the apple of their eye, their precious gift from God.

  The little cunt who had made their lives a misery.

  ‘You want a cup of tea, love?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Rita called back. ‘But pull the phone out of the wall first, will you? The ringing’s bringing my headache back.’

  ‘No problem.’ Sam made for the phone. He meant to simply pull it out of the wall, but as he reached out, anger scalded through him. This was no way to live, held a virtual prisoner in your own home by a bunch of slimy hacks who thought nothing of hounding an old man and woman out of their minds in search of a juicy quote to feed a scandal-hungry public. He thought of the pack of journalists camped across the road right now, camera lenses hanging out of saloon car windows as they tried to blend in and not look suspicious. He had counted four cars this morning, knew there would be more by the end of the
day. There were no TV camera crews yet, but it was early and they would turn up sooner or later. After all, Derek McGinty was the biggest story of the day.

  Sam snatched up the phone, the arthritis in his knuckles moaning as he clenched the handset as hard as he could and tried to ignore the stinging heat behind his eyes.

  ‘Listen,’ he hissed, ‘I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care who you work for. We haven’t heard anything from Derek, and we won’t. You think he’d come within fifty miles of this place with you parasites hanging around?’

  Silence on the other end of the line. No, not quite silence; Sam could faintly hear breathing through the static and distortion. Whoever was calling, they were on a crap line.

  ‘Fine,’ Sam snarled, his vision jumping with his heartbeat as his blood roared through his ears. ‘Whoever you are, fuck you. You’re nothing more than a fucking coward, a fuc…’

  ‘Dad.’

  Sam jumped as though the phone had been electrified. The rage and frustration drained out of him, replaced by a numbing cold that twisted around his stomach and up his spine. He heard himself gasp as though he had just been punched in the guts. When he spoke, his voice was a rasping whisper. No surprise. It was hard to talk properly when it felt as though your lungs had been filled with concrete.

  ‘D… Derek? Derek, that you?’

  ‘Yeah, Dad, it’s me.’ The voice was flat, hard, full of the old Derek defiance. Sam had first heard that tone when Derek was about sixteen, just at the point things started to get really bad. Derek had stolen his old air rifle, taken it into the woods that sprawled across the hills behind Prestonview for a bit of hunting. It was an asthmatic old .77, not powerful enough to kill anything he shot. But Sam knew Derek didn’t care about that. He was more interested in watching things suffer.

  After finding the gun missing from the shed, Sam had headed into the woods, which was Derek’s favourite place to play. He found his son crouched over a rabbit he had shot, watching its chest rising and falling rapidly, mouth snapping for air, blood oozing slowly from the pellet holes peppering its body.