Falling Fast

by Neil Broadfoot

  Had McGinty got in touch with Morris, asking for his help? Were they working together again, trying to blackmail Buchan for a share of the cash? But if that was the case, why would Charlie have been following Buchan while Derek had visited the family home to demand money? A back-up, or was it something else?

  Those bruises, the way he had looked… Doug’s words: It’s not the first time a politician has tried to sweep a problem under the carpet.

  The thought jolted the last of the exhaustion from her. She brushed the reports aside, lunging for the computer and her contacts file. Found the number she wanted and stabbed it into the phone, willing the person at the other end to pick up.

  ‘Hello, Prestonview police station.’

  ‘Sergeant Allan? Hi. DS Susie Drummond, Gayfield police station. Look, sorry to bother you, but I heard you had a bit of trouble out that way a couple of days ago, something about a car being vandalised and a knife being found?’

  Allan mumbled a yes down the phone. From his tone, Susie could tell it wasn’t his favourite subject.

  ‘I was just wondering what you could tell me about that?’

  ‘Not much,’ he said. ‘We found a lot of blood and a member of the public handed in a large knife they said was found at the scene.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Susie said, referring to the reports in front of her, ‘Lock knife, heavy brass butt, about ten inches long, immaculate condition?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ Allan asked quickly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Have you been talking to that damn reporter?’

  Doug. Again. Clever wee git.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But it matches the description of one of our familiar faces’ preferred weapon. Look, I know you found McGinty’s prints on the knife, but did you find anything else?’

  Papers rustled at the other end of the line as Allan flicked through the report. ‘We did find other prints on the knife, residuals, smudged. Couldn’t get a proper look. But we did get lucky with one thing.’

  ‘Oh, what’s that?’

  ‘The tyres of the car that was vandalised were slashed. We checked the hubcaps for prints, came up with a couple of good ones.’

  Bingo. ‘Let me guess, Charlie Morris?’

  ‘Why, yes.’ Suspicion shimmered in Allan’s voice. ‘But how did you…?’

  Susie cut the line. Not entirely professional, but she needed to think and Allan’s paranoid chattering wasn’t helping.

  So Derek and Charlie had clashed in Prestonview and, from what Susie had seen, Charlie had come off worse. Old score to settle, or had someone hired Charlie to make sure Derek didn’t cause any more trouble or, worse, ask for any money?

  Buchan’s words now. I thought it was for the best.

  Jesus, would he be that ruthless? And how the hell did a QC know a lowlife like Morris, anyway? A career was a career, but…

  But…

  The photographs in his office; only one family picture, a trophy shot, the rest of the walls dominated by images of Richard Buchan, the successful politician. And then there was the way he ‘helped’ Katherine fight her drug addiction – bundling her off to a community drug programme in one of the rougher areas of town under an assumed name, where no one would blink or ask questions when another young girl came in off the street with a heroin problem. All to make sure the media didn’t find out, that nothing touched his spotless reputation.

  Had it been Charlie who had visited Doug that night? Had to be. It would be enough to scare Doug off, keep his secret safe. What Buchan hadn’t counted on was someone sending Doug the photograph, and Doug being able to track down the people in it.

  Susie logged off her computer and headed for her car. She wanted to get to Prestonview, find out if Derek had met with his parents the night he had run into Charlie Morris. And then she was going to have a long chat with Richard Buchan. And she wasn’t going to leave until he gave her the answers she wanted.

  • • •

  At first, Derek couldn’t tell where the ringing was coming from. With a dashboard that looked like the control panel for a space shuttle, the BMW didn’t offer any obvious clues. But then he noticed a small red LED on the centre console by the sat-nav, and a flashing phone icon in the corner of the screen.

  His finger hovered over the screen, unsure what to do. Answer it or ignore it? Ah, fuck it, what harm could it do? He pressed the answer key.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Hello, Derek.’

  ‘Charlie, how nice to hear from you,’ Derek said, grip tightening on the wheel of the car. So the bastard had survived. Typical. He always was stubborn. ‘Listen, thanks for the loan of the car. It’s a beauty.’

  ‘Yeah, well, fuck you, Derek,’ Charlie said. His voice had a slight lisp to it. Not surprising really, Derek thought, remembering the feeling of bone splintering against his knuckles.

  ‘Well, Charlie, if there’s nothing else…’

  ‘Fine,’ Charlie said, his voice filling with a cloying smugness. ‘But before you go, someone wants to say hello.’

  Derek felt the heat drain from his body as his dad’s voice filled his ears. ‘Son? Son, stay away from here, he’s got a gun and…’

  A sickening crack, followed by his mother shrieking. ‘Sam, Sam. Oh Jesus, SAM!’

  ‘CHARLIE!’ Derek bellowed, the car lurching as he clamped down on the wheel tighter.

  ‘Yes, Derek?’

  ‘You fucking bastard. If you hurt them…’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, you cunt, you don’t know anything about hurt. But unless you get here soon, you will, understood?’

  Silence.

  ‘Understood, Derek? Do not fuck with me on this.’

  ‘Understood,’ Derek hissed. ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘Good,’ Charlie drawled. ‘Oh, and Derek? Drive carefully, I’d hate you to damage that car of mine.’

  Screaming, Derek smashed his fist into the sat-nav screen.

  46

  Toys were strewn across the floor of Bethany Miller’s living room like rubble. A teddy bear sat propped up at a small table under the window, an Action Man and a doll in a flowery pink dress keeping it company. Beside the table was a bucket of Lego bricks and what looked like the parts from a child’s model railway. Cartoon characters smiled down at Doug from the shelves: Bugs Bunny and Wile E Coyote rubbing shoulders with Spider-Man and some oversized blue stuffed toy clutching a red blanket. At the small steps that led off the living room and down to the kitchen, Doug saw a child’s safety rail.

  So she had a family now. It should have comforted Doug. Instead, it made him feel worse. ‘Now, Mr McGregor, was it? You say you’ve come all the way from Edinburgh to see me.’ She glanced at the large clock on the wall. ‘I’ve got things to do today, so I think you’d better get to it.’

  Doug nodded, clearing his throat, stalling for time. Now that he was actually here, he realised he had no idea how to talk to this woman.

  ‘It’s about your time in Edinburgh,’ he said slowly, ‘about your work at the Shore Thing Sauna.’

  Bethany’s face darkened. Doug had half-expected her to cry out, scream at him to get out of her home, but she didn’t. She took off her glasses, wiped the lenses on her blouse, then set them back on her face and glared at Doug. He couldn’t read her expression.

  ‘How did you find out?’ she asked. Her voice was as cold as a headstone.

  ‘I asked around,’ Doug said, lying. He didn’t want her to know the whole truth, wasn’t sure she could handle it.

  ‘So what do you want to know? Why I was working there? Simple answer, Mr McGregor: money. I needed the money. It wasn’t easy being a student in Edinburgh, you know. There are a lot of toffs at Edinburgh uni, kids whose parents have more than enough money to make sure they can have the best of everything. My parents were well off, but they couldn’t run to that, so I had to find a way to make my own cash.’

  With her looks, it wasn’t a surprise that Bethany went to work in a sauna. Clients would pay big
money for her services. Especially one client.

  He thought back to Tomlin’s words. We tracked him down to his local. At first Doug had thought that was a pub. It didn’t take long to realise what Tomlin really meant.

  ‘You had a special client, didn’t you, Bethany? Someone who would ask exclusively for you and paid a lot of money for the privilege.’

  Anger flashed in Bethany’s eyes. ‘So what if I did?’ she whispered. ‘Look, Mr McGregor, I think you should be…’

  Doug held up his hand. ‘Please, just give me a minute. It’s important. Your special customer, did he ever give you his name?’

  Bethany stared at Doug for a minute, hand playing restlessly with a loose strand of hair that had fallen down at the side of her ear. ‘He only ever called himself Roger,’ she said slowly. ‘Look, what is this all about?’ She glanced across at the mantelpiece, a picture of her and a man – older-looking, tall, the first hints of a double chin being pulled tight by an open smile that narrowed his eyes to slits. ‘My husband’s only gone out to drop the kids at nursery, he’ll be home soon. And I don’t want him knowing about this, okay?’

  Doug looked around the room. Nothing in here chimed with the impression of Bethany he had built up in his mind. There was no graduation picture on the wall, and draped over the ironing board was a cleaner’s tunic in the washed-out blue you only ever see in hospitals. So she had never returned to study. So much for his idea that she had completed her degree, taken a job as a teacher.

  The beige sofa was tired and old, sagging in the middle, decorated with felt-tip pen marks on the arms and various stains, no doubt from children spilling drinks. But the room itself was clean, the toys neatly packed away and there wasn’t a spot of dust anywhere. Bethany obviously took great pride in taking care of her home and family, despite a lack of spare cash.

  Next to the tunic on the large pile of ironing was a pair of overalls, their original colour masked by splotches and smears of paint. Doug glanced back at the photograph, noticed the man’s hand that hung loosely over Bethany’s shoulder looked rough and accustomed to hard work.

  And the house, despite its careworn feel, was meticulously painted and wallpapered in a way he didn’t think this family could have afforded. A painter, then. Or a tradesman, at least.

  There was a family portrait on the wall above the electric fireplace – the kind taken in a professional studio. One of the children was just a babe-in-arms so it must have been taken at least a couple of years back. Bethany was still an attractive woman, but not the way she had once been. She looked genuinely happy in the photo. Holding a baby – in blue, so a boy, he assumed – and an angelic girl of around two or three maybe, with a mischievous grin and tight blonde curls.

  Her husband with cropped hair, broad shoulders, confident grin, tattoo just peeking out from under the sleeve of his striped polo shirt. A military insignia?

  Next to the fireplace was a widescreen TV and an eclectic DVD collection. Peppa Pig and Fireman Sam were scattered over the floor, but on the shelves was a disparate collection, from Ross Kemp in Afghanistan and Top Gear to box sets of the kind of costume drama his mother loved. Doug never understood the appeal.

  He shrugged off his thoughts. Knew he was stalling for time. ‘Is this the man who visited you?’ he asked, handing over one of the photo print-outs he had brought with him.

  Bethany took the print, stared at it. Her face went slack as the colour drained out of it. She gave one, hitching sob then dropped her head, her shoulders shaking as she tried to hold in the tears. She didn’t give Doug an answer, but he didn’t need one. He had known since Tomlin had told him about the man who McGinty had been searching for all those years ago. A bit under six-foot tall with the stocky body of a rugby player, jet black hair, wore glasses.

  Richard Buchan.

  McGinty would never say why he wanted that guy, Tomlin had told him. Just that he needed to find him, had a score to settle.

  ‘Bethany, I’m sorry,’ Doug said as gently as he could. He felt like shit for upsetting her like this. What right had he to drag all this up, anyway? It wasn’t as if he was a police officer, wasn’t as if anything she told him was going to put away the bad guy. No, it was all to satisfy his own bloated sense of curiosity, the hunger, the desire to get to the scoop first. It was, he knew, an addiction. For others it was alcohol, drugs, sex. For Doug, it was the story.

  ‘Is there anything you can tell me about him?’ he asked. ‘Anything that he told you about himself, about what he did?’

  Bethany looked up at him, eyes red rimmed with tears. ‘Please, Mr McGregor, this is in my past. I’m happy now.’ He believed her. She would have needed to move on, to rebuild her life. And the only way to do that, would be to forget completely. To blot out the horror she endured.

  ‘Rory doesn’t know anything about this.’ She wiped a tear away. Closed her eyes, took a deep breath. ‘I haven’t thought about any of this for years,’ she said, fixing him with a cold glare. ‘I’ve tried not to remember it. Why should I now? For you?’

  ‘Because I think he’s still hurting people,’ Doug said quietly, still holding her gaze.

  ‘And you’re going to stop him?’ she asked, just enough emphasis on the ‘you’ to make him uncomfortable. ‘And who exactly are you?’

  ‘I’m a reporter with the…’

  ‘Yes,’ she cut him off, ‘I know who you are, Mr McGregor. But who are you?’ He’d barely started to say ‘Bethany, please, I…’ when she interrupted him again.

  ‘Let’s be clear, Mr McGregor. This is a very powerful, well-connected man. Why do you think I moved so far away? He might as well be the police for all the good they did me. This isn’t the kind of man to which shit sticks.’

  It was the first time she had sworn and it threw him slightly. ‘He has people to take the shit for him. Do his dirty work. And he doesn’t take kindly to people like me getting too uppity. I learned that to my cost, Mr McGregor, and I’m not prepared to pay any more. Just why are you here and what do you want from me?’

  She sat very still, not flinching, her steady eyes still fixed on his. He felt they were drilling into him. Accusing. And then, slowly, realisation spread across her face.

  ‘You’re not really interested in him,’ she said, brandishing the photo. ‘This is about… about him, isn’t it?’

  Doug nodded slowly.

  ‘Yes, I think it’s linked to who attacked you,’ he said. He couldn’t bring himself to speak Derek’s name in front of her. ‘I think you might have been targeted because of the man in that photograph.’

  ‘But why?’ Bethany cried, tears streaming down her cheeks, her self-control lost again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Doug said, hating how hollow the words sounded. ‘Is there anything you can tell me about Buc… about Roger? Anything that might help me understand?’

  ‘Nuh… no, I don’t think so,’ Bethany said, wiping at her eyes angrily. ‘He was always a perfect gentleman. Came in, asked for me, tipped generously when he left.’

  Doug felt heat rise in his cheeks. ‘And there was nothing… odd… about what he asked for when he visited?’

  Bethany’s head snapped up, defiance behind the tears.

  ‘There was an incident.’ She paused again, looking over his shoulder, into the past.

  Doug waited. Any good interviewer knew you gave people space and time if you wanted to hear what they had to say.

  She sucked in her breath and diverted her gaze to a spot on the floor to his right. She was ready to tell him, but shame wouldn’t allow her to look him in the eye.

  ‘Like many powerful men, when he liked to relax, he liked to let go of responsibility. Of power, of control. To pass it on to someone else. There were other girls who specialised in that. But not me. That wasn’t my thing. But that’s what he wanted and he didn’t want them. He wanted me. And he was prepared to pay. A lot. So I gave it a go. It began with a playful spank, a bit of ordering around. But it got out of hand.’

&n
bsp; Again she paused, her eyes firmly fixed on the past now. Barely aware that Doug was still in the room with her.

  ‘He asked for more, wanted to be tied up, humiliated. I borrowed some gear from the other girls, a gag, whip, manacles. I started to improvise and that’s where… it started to go wrong.

  ‘I… well, let’s just say I couldn’t hear the safety word… the gag, you see… so I didn’t know. I thought… Well, anyway. I thought wrong, didn’t I?’

  She finally looked Doug in the eye and there was a wild-eyed fear about her as she recalled Buchan’s reaction.

  ‘He was furious. Said I’d made a grave mistake. That I’d regret it. How was I to know?’ she implored Doug. But he had no answer for her.

  ‘He said I’d pay for it. But I never saw him again. But that was it for me. I quit the sauna the next night, and then… then…’

  She trailed off, eyes dropping again. She didn’t say anything else. Didn’t need to. Doug know what came next. All too well.

  But what did it all mean? So Buchan liked the saunas, got a bit more than he bargained for one night when he asked to be tied up. Was McGinty blackmailing Buchan, not Katherine, because he knew about his dirty little secret. From what Susie had said, Katherine didn’t seem close enough to her father to pay off a blackmailer for him, but it was possible.

  It was…

  He stood up. He was still missing something. He could feel it. But he wouldn’t find it here. Not in a room with a woman who he had forced to revisit her worst nightmare.

  ‘Bethany…’ He paused, not sure what to say next. ‘Thank you. I…’

  Bethany stared up at him, tears glistening behind her glasses. ‘Thank you?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want your thanks, Mr McGregor. I want this done. If you think that bastard is doing something he shouldn’t be, I want you to get him for me. I want you to make him pay. You owe me that much, at least. Don’t you?’

  Doug nodded. Headed for the door. He wanted, needed, to get out of here. Now.

  He waited as she undid the door latch, swung the door open onto a day that seemed too bright. He stepped out, turned to say goodbye. Saw a frown he knew from countless other interviews.