Say You're Sorry: A Gripping Crime Thriller (A DCI Campbell McKenzie Detective Conspiracy Thriller No 1)

by IAN C. P. IRVINE

  The cars were literally only two minutes from the bunker when McNunn's phone went. It was Tommy's wife.

  "Where the hell have you been?" her anxious voice screamed down the phone to him. "I've been trying to call you for thirty minutes."

  "No reception. Sorry honey. What's up? Are you upset?"

  "I'm sitting here in the dark. They've cut the electricity off again."

  "Are you joking? What the hell...."

  "And the water! Tommy, we have no water. The taps are dry."

  "SHIT!" Tommy replied, then said nothing more for a second or two, trying to control his anger and his breathing. "Shit!" he swore again, hitting the seat in front of him. "Fuck!"

  The men beside him said nothing, waiting for him to fill them in or issue instructions, and until then assuming that this was something personal they were best not to have anything to do with.

  Tommy took several deep breaths. This wasn't any random accident or mistake by the utility company or bank. Someone was dismantling his life step by step, and until he could find out who was doing it, there was probably nothing he could do to stop it.

  "Darling, listen to me. Pack a bag, call a taxi and go to a hotel..." he started, but quickly corrected himself remembering that they had no bank accounts or credit cards. "...No, go to the Casino in Costorphine, not the one in Leith. There was some trouble there earlier tonight. Use the Phoenix Suite. Lock the door and get some sleep. I'm working just now so don't wait up. I'll see you tomorrow when I'm finished? Okay?"

  "Okay, fine. Good idea." she replied. "Are you okay, Tommy?"

  "Not yet, but I will be. Soon. I'm going to take care of a few things tonight to make sure all this shit stops happening. Don't worry. I'll sort it out, darling. You just get some sleep, okay?"

  Tommy hung up the phone, and for a good twenty seconds sat in silence.

  When he spoke there was a coldness in his voice that even his men did not recognise.

  "Smithie, when we get there, I want you to hurry Petrovsky's man down into the bunker, strip him naked and turn him upside down and tie his arms and legs to the big cartwheel in Room 3. Get the generator and the jump leads ready but don't do anything yet. I'm going to the larder in the farmhouse to get some oranges."

  When McNunn walked into his torture chamber ten minutes later, Smithie had already got Petrovsky's man prepared.

  McNunn walked in front of him, and without speaking took hold of the jump leads, attached them to the orange and placed it on the ground close to his upside-down head so the man had a clear view.

  He then switched the generator on, and the orange began to smoke, the room beginning to fill with the most disgusting burning smell.

  Tommy nodded at the man, and then turned up the dial on the generator, passing three times as much electricity through the orange.

  The orange began to vibrate, pulse, and then spontaneously disappeared, its flesh exploding outwards into every corner of the room.

  The face on Petrovsky's man was now turning purple with the blood rushing to his head, and his body was beginning to shake with fear.

  Still silent, and not yet having said a word, McNunn switched the generator off, picked up the jump leads and attached them to the skin on either side of one of the man's testicles.

  The man screamed in terror, and a sudden waterfall of urine burst forth and cascaded straight down across the man's face and open mouth.

  McNunn stepped back just in time and waited for the man to stop gagging on his own urine.

  Then he bent down carefully so that he avoided the mess on the floor and put his mouth close to the man's ear, speaking softly.

  "I want you to listen to me carefully. You know who I am, and I know who you are, Loudon Blair. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Each time you hesitate to answer my questions, I'll switch on the generator. At first it will be for five seconds, the next time ten seconds, the next time fifteen, etcetera, etcetera. The first time you lie to me I'll leave it on for thirty seconds. The second time you lie, I switch it on, and we all walk out the door and leave you alone. The choice is yours, entirely. You don't have to say a word unless you want to. But, remember what happened to the orange. Okay, then, shall we start? By the way, anytime you take longer than five seconds to answer a question, I shall consider that as being an intolerable hesitation, and the electricity gets switched on. Do you understand?"

  The man's eyes were wide open, the terror in his upside-down eyes appearing particularly horrific. After two seconds, he had still not spoken.

  "Three, four...." Tommy started to count aloud.

  "YES, YES, I understand!" the man shouted urgently, realising what Tommy was doing.

  "Good. Let's begin..."

  Chapter 37

  Room 86

  The Holiday Inn

  Picardy Place

  Edinburgh

  0:55 a.m. G.M.T.

  When Danielle had walked into the bar just after 11.30 p.m., she was relieved to see McKenzie sitting at the back in the corner against the wall, his head bowed forward and his eyes closed, tapping his feet to the sound of the Scottish fiddlers, a guitar and a bodhran.

  She had bought two pints of Eighty Shillings beer, and simply walked across to him, sat down beside him and started to listen too.

  McKenzie had smiled in return for the proffered beer, but neither had said anything until one of the musicians had stopped playing and their little group had got up to walk outside to have a smoke.

  When the beers were finished, McKenzie had asked her if she had wanted another, and she had said yes.

  As he stood up and reached out to take the glass from her, his fingers once again rested on hers. This time it was obvious, even more obvious than before in Galashiels, that she was in no hurry to withdraw her hand away from his.

  She looked up at him, and he looked straight back into her eyes.

  There was a momentary deep, intense and unspoken connection between them that was only broken when someone beside them knocked against them and asked if they could pass by en route to the toilet at the back of the pub.

  McKenzie collected the beers from the bar and returned.

  He sat down beside Wessex. They both took a drink from their beers.

  "What happens next?" Wessex asked gently.

  McKenzie looked at her for a while before answering. She had the most intense, beautiful blue eyes.

  "That," he replied, "depends entirely upon what you're talking about..."

  Wessex lifted her hand and gently cupped Campbell's cheek and chin in her palm.

  "I mean, what happens next?"

  "Please don't ask me Danielle. Don't give me the choice."

  She looked back at him.

  His eyes were a light green. A beautiful green.

  They were honest eyes. And he was an honest man. A kind, good man.

  Even now he was fighting what they both knew was going to happen next.

  Although they hadn't noticed, the musicians had already returned, and the sexual tension between them was momentarily broken by the unexpected twirl of Northumbrian pipes, and a fiddle playing a fast jig.

  Wessex turned to the musicians, moved closer to Campbell and rested her head upon his shoulder. She placed her hand upon his knee, resting it palm upwards and open.

  Campbell looked at it, then slowly placed his own hand on hers. Her fingers closed around his, and together they sat, without further speech, while the music and the moment washed over them.

  When the set came to an end, Danielle stood up in front of Campbell, smiling and gently pulling on his hand.

  Campbell stood up, picked up his coat from the chair, and followed Danielle as she turned and walked out of the bar, gently but firmly pulling him after her.

  Campbell said nothing during the taxi-ride to the hotel, said nothing while Danielle booked them a room for the night, and said nothing as she guided him slowly up the stairs to their room.

  When they got to the door and unlocked it, she turned and
looked up at him before going in.

  "Are you sure you want to do this, Danielle?" he asked her.

  "Do you?" she replied.

  Campbell didn't answer. If he tried, the words would not come out right, and he knew there was no proper answer which he could honestly give.

  Instead, he leant forward and kissed her on the lips, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to his chest.

  There was an urgency then. A hunger which engulfed them both. A moment when both Danielle and Campbell felt the need to lose themselves in the other, to explore and devour the other as fast as physically possible.

  Pushing the door open behind her with her foot, Danielle pulled Campbell backwards into the room.

  Once inside, Campbell scooped Danielle up in his arms, and still kissing her, carried her through the small hallway to the bed.

  Neither spoke.

  Gone was the time for words.

  Now was the time for explicit touch, sensual sensations, and ending the months of longing.

  -------------------------

  Hillside Farm

  Threipmuir Reservoir

  The Pentland Hills

  Edinburgh

  Wednesday

  3.30 a.m. G.M.T.

  Tommy was standing in the doorway of the bunker above ground, breathing in the fresh air of the Pentland Hills and trying to clear his mind.

  "What a bloody waste of time!" he swore to himself, as he watched the moon reflect off the reservoir beneath them. It was a still, clear night, and the peacefulness now was in stark contrast to the screaming they had endured from their special guest for the past couple of hours.

  It had been an illuminating experience. Tommy would never have guessed that a human being could cling onto life for so long. It was hard to believe that a man could endure so much and live so long.

  The man was dead now though.

  It had only taken Tommy five minutes to get the information he was looking for. Which had turned out not to be good, by any stretch of the imagination. It appeared that the only IT expert of any calibre in the core of the Petrovsky empire was the bastard that they had drowned in the river near Peebles the weekend before.

  Everything else was outsourced. Crime was a business nowadays, and wherever possible, IT operations were outsourced to save money just like any other business would do.

  "So, who the hell is behind all the shit that is happening to me now?"

  "What shit?" the upside-down man on the wheel with the electrodes attached to his scrotum had asked in a desperate attempt to be helpful.

  "Who the hell is cancelling all my online accounts, emptying my bank accounts and closing down my life?"

  "It isn't us. The most we did was plan to carry out the instruction from Petrovsky to get revenge tonight."

  Which was when Tommy had first switched the electricity on. For a full five seconds, in revenge for the deaths of his men earlier that evening.

  After that initial burst the smell of burning flesh in the room had become difficult to tolerate, but being true professionals they had managed to grin and bear it while they continued the interrogation further.

  It was another ten minutes, and two more sessions with the electricity, before Tommy knew that Blair was telling the truth. No one would willingly hold back the truth after so much pain, and minus one testicle which had exploded without warning.

  After that they had stopped using the electricity and had wheeled the now unconscious body through to another room where they could escape the smell, which had become ten times worse.

  Tommy had let Smithie take over the questioning and had watched from the back of the room. Waking Blair up by dunking his head in a bucket of cold water from the reservoir above, Tommy had guided Smithie through a series of questions, covering all aspects of Petrovsky's business operations. He had learned a lot.

  While Tommy didn't necessarily enjoy watching what Smithie was doing to Blair, he had to admit that he was a true professional and at no point did Smithie show that he was enjoying himself. At the same time, Tommy was shocked by the man's ability to wield a knife, to remove fingers, skin, and limbs without even flinching.

  The man was an animal. Depraved. Sick.

  In most societies, he would best be put down. By contrast, in Tommy's organisation he was an essential member of the team.

  That said, after several hours of questioning there came a time when enough was enough and Tommy couldn't take it any longer. At which point Tommy had pulled the gun from his underarm holster, walked briskly past Smithie, put the barrel against Blair's skull and blown his brains out.

  "Get the other boys to clean it up," Tommy had said. "There's a bottle of whisky in the kitchen in the farm house. You deserve it. You did well."

  Standing in the doorway and looking up at the moon, Tommy realised his problem was now much worse than he realised before.

  From what Blair had told them, it would seem that Tommy was winning the war. No one was taking any independent action unless it was directed by Petrovsky himself, and everyone was scared. Morale in the Petrovsky camp was rock bottom. People were leaving. His organisation was falling apart.

  If that was the case though, who was it that was attacking him? Stealing his money? His identity?

  It wouldn't be the accountant... Not now. Not after Tommy's visit to his house the other night...

  So who then?

  It could only be one person.

  McKenzie.

  Just then, his phone rang.

  "Boss? Can you hear me? The reception is really bad..."

  "Fraser? Yes, I'm up at the bunker. What's up? Where's Caroline?"

  "Boss, you're not going to like this, so please don't shoot the messenger, literally, okay?"

  "What? What's happened?"

  "I followed Caroline, just like you told me to, and she went to a bar. The Fiddler's Arms. I followed her in and found her sitting at the back with DCI McKenzie, all cosied up together, listening to the live folk music."

  "McKenzie? You're joking, right?"

  "No way, Boss. Then they left after an hour, holding hands. McKenzie following her. Then they went to a hotel together. The Thistle in York Place."

  "Are you serious?" Tommy shouted at him.

  "Yes, sir, the same hotel that you and Caroline go to sometimes. I followed them upstairs, discreetly of course, and they went into Room 108."

  "That's the one we use..."

  "I know, on account of the fact that there aren't any working CCTV cameras in the hotel, and no one can see you come and go into that room."

  Fraser paused.

  "They've just left, Boss."

  "Together?"

  "Yep. Holding hands. All loved up. And they were kissing in the corridor before they went into the room."

  Tommy's mind was buzzing. Shit. This was either really good or really bad.

  He was surprised by how bad he felt as soon as he heard that she was with McKenzie. At first it didn't make any sense, but on further thought, maybe it did. After all, he had told her to sleep with him. Maybe she had changed her mind and was trying to please Tommy. Maybe she was just following out his instructions. On the other hand, maybe she had meant it when she said it really was over between them and perhaps she had just fucked McKenzie to spite Tommy.

  Either way, though, the thought of them being together made him feel worse than he had expected it to.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  "What do you want me to do Boss? I'm outside the hotel in the street. I can see Caroline now. It looks like they're just saying good night to each other and she's going to jump in a taxi by herself. Do I follow her?"

  Tommy was thinking fast, trying to separate his emotions from the logic.

  "Fraser, can you hear me? Listen, stay where you are. I want you to go back into the hotel, and up to the room they just left. Break in to the room. Look around for anything that might contain any DNA from either of them... you know, like you did before, the last time I got you to trai
l someone. Find anything you can, and then call me, okay? But wear gloves, and don't get caught. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Boss. I understand."

  Fraser knew exactly what to look for.

  -------------------------

  Andheri

  Near Mumbai, Maharashtra

  India

  Wednesday

  08.50 a.m. India Standard Time (IST)

  Anand opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep on the floor beside his laptop. His family were sitting around him, watching him.

  His mother spoke to him sternly.

  "This has got to stop, Anand."

  She was right. It couldn't continue. It was killing him. On top of that, Anand had not gone to work for days. He had called in sick several times, but in India the employers were not as loyal to the employees as they were in England. His mother was concerned not only for Anand, but for herself too. Without Anand's earnings, they would starve.

  Anand knew that he to step it up. He had to bring this thing with Tommy McNunn to a close as soon as possible.

  There was still so much he could do, but he knew now that he couldn't do it all. He would have to choose a few, decisive courses of action and enact them soon. Today. At the latest tomorrow.

  Anand was in a very powerful position now. He had access to almost all the areas of McNunn's life. As long as McNunn was close to his mobile phone which Anand could now control remotely just like any other networked device that McNunn owned, Anand could hear everything McNunn was doing, sometimes even see what he was seeing, and thanks to the TOR programme he used which made all his actions on the internet anonymous, he could manipulate the man's existence from afar without McNunn ever even suspecting who was behind it.

  Anand had also spent some more time studying the accounts he had found on the accountant's server. It contained details of all the business accounts McNunn owned and ran, and from those Anand knew that the man in Scotland was a monster. He deserved everything that was coming to him.