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

by IAN C. P. IRVINE

  It was only then that he noticed that her clothes were strewn on the floor beside him. From what he could see, it looked like there had been some sexual activity before she had been killed, possibly in the heat of passion.

  “Fuck!” he shouted to himself, covering his head with his arms, closing his eyes, resting his head on his knees and trying to block out the world. Just for a moment. Just so he could think.

  “Don’t move!” a voice suddenly shouted at him. “Stay still!”

  Campbell opened his eyes and looked up.

  Two police officers were standing in the room. One had a gun, and it was pointing straight at him.

  It was then, in a moment of sudden clarity, that Campbell knew what had just happened.

  He had been set up.

  -------------------------

  Leith

  Edinburgh

  Thursday

  7.43 p.m. G.M.T.

  Tommy was heading back to his Casino in Leith. He was famished. He needed something to eat, and he was rather turned on. All the activity of the past few hours had been rather stimulating. He quite fancied the idea of spending some time with one of the new girls he had brought in from Vietnam. Small. Pretty. Obedient. Did whatever he told them to, and still smiled.

  He would be seeing them in a few minutes probably, but he felt the need to talk now, so he called his boys.

  “It’s done. I killed the bitch and put McKenzie’s frozen sperm inside her. The irony of it is that I just put it back where it came from. The slut. And then I called McKenzie and the police. The boys in blue got there just after McKenzie did. They would've caught him with the body, full of his sperm. It’s the perfect set up!”

  “What’s happening with your accountant Boss?”

  “He’s next. We’ll have some fun with him first in the bunker. Why don’t you boys have some dinner with me just now? I’ll be there in five, and then we can have some wine, and chat, and maybe plan the next step of taking over Petrovsky’s empire. Things are looking up boys. The future’s bright! Now McKenzie and Petrovsky are out the way, there’s nothing stopping us from taking over the whole of Scotland. Which will bode well for you guys. You know how I respect loyalty and look after my men!”

  He could almost hear the men smiling at the other end of the phone.

  -------------------------

  India

  Friday

  00.45 A.M.

  Anand was thinking. He couldn’t get hold of McKenzie. He had tried calling the police station twice, but apparently, he had just left, and they wouldn’t connect Anand to his mobile, even though he had requested it.

  Where was Tommy now? What was he doing? Was he too late to save the accountant?

  Nervously, while he tried to figure out what to do next, he connected back to the server where all the conversations conducted on Tommy's mobile had been recorded, and hoping to find out what Tommy was up to now, he listened to all the calls that had been made in the past few hours.

  Thankfully, although McNunn had been switching SIM cards, he was still using the same phone. Once infected, Anand’s malware controlled the phone itself, so it didn’t matter what SIM card he used. The malware would record the conversations made through the microphones and loudspeakers and download them via the internet to Anand’s server.

  Anand listened with shock to everything that had been recorded since he last checked.

  For a moment, he simply sat on the ground and stared into space, his brain trying to assimilate the information he had just learned.

  He knew now that he was acting too slowly. People were dying because he hadn’t alerted the police in time.

  McKenzie would now be blamed for the murder of the woman, and McNunn would walk away Scot free.

  Anand put his headset back on and typed the number of St Leonards Police Station back in to the VoIP system keypad on his laptop.

  “Hello?” he asked, as soon as the VoIP software connected him anonymously to the reception desk at the police station.

  The woman receptionist asked politely how she could help him.

  “I'm one of DCI McKenzie’s informants. I urgently need to speak to someone who's involved in the investigation into Tommy McNunn. DI Wessex has just been murdered, and someone else is going to be murdered in the next few hours. Please, this is urgent…I need to speak to someone immediately, to warn you so that you can save the other person’s life!”

  Anand could sense the change in emotion at the other end of the phone.

  “DI Wessex is dead? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I need to talk to someone about this NOW. Who else is involved in the case?”

  “Hold on, don’t hang up, I’ll find out,” the woman replied.

  There was a pause, and Anand could hear that the line had been muted at the other end of the call.

  “I’m back. You need to speak to Detective Sergeant Wilson. I’ll put you through.”

  There was a pause.

  “Hello, this is Detective Sergeant Wilson. With whom am I speaking please?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m an informant of DCI McKenzie. I have information you need to hear NOW. I need to save a man’s life, and to save the career of DCI McKenzie.”

  “The officer you spoke to just now said that you told her that DI Wessex is dead? What did you mean?”

  “She’s dead. Tommy McNunn just killed her. He then pretended to be a witness who overheard the killing and called the police. They just responded to the call and are at this moment in time at a hotel in Joppa – the Seafront Inn – Room 28. When the police arrived at the scene, they'll have found that DCI McKenzie was already there. McNunn has set McKenzie up. McNunn murdered Wessex and before he called the police he pretended to be Wessex and sent a text message to McKenzie telling him to get to the hotel immediately. McKenzie then rushed to the hotel and found Wessex’s body. The police will most likely have then burst into the hotel room and found McKenzie with the body. Tommy McNunn has set it up to look like McKenzie has murdered Wessex. McKenzie and Wessex had started an affair, and McNunn had managed to get hold of a condom full of sperm from the night they slept with each other - which was just last night - and after killing DI Wessex he somehow put the sperm from McKenzie into Wessex so that it looks like DCI McKenzie had sex with Wessex now, just before he killed her!”

  “Whoa! Slow down…” DS Wilson exclaimed, recoiling from the tsunami of information that was being thrown at him.

  “No, I can’t. But I can prove all of this. I can. I have voice recordings of everything, but you have to do exactly what I say now to help prove McKenzie’s innocence in the killing. The sperm that was put inside Wessex’s body was frozen. If you get someone to examine the body NOW - NOT LATER – you must do it now, in the next few minutes… you might find that some of the sperm is still frozen… and that will prove that what I'm telling you is true. But if you leave it too late, the sperm will melt. You need to act on this information NOW. Please. Can you do it NOW?”

  The Sergeant took a few seconds to respond. His mind was whirring. This was all most unusual.

  “Detective Sergeant Wilson? Are you still there?”

  “Yes…”

  “Good…, because in the next few hours Tommy McNunn is going to murder his accountant, - Mr Andrew Burns - he’s already kidnapped him and is holding him against his will at his farm in the Pentland Hills…"

  Anand then quickly told him how to get there, and then made a suggestion.

  “If you get there quickly, and wait, maybe you can catch McNunn red-handed when he goes back to kill him. But if you leave it too late, the accountant will be dead. And the accountant knows EVERYTHING there's to know about McNunn. You need to save him and then get him to turn informant and tell you everything!”

  DS Wilson was busy scribbling details.

  “One more thing, Sergeant, then I’ll get off the line, and you have to get someone to examine Wessex’s body…”

  “Yes. What is it?”

 
“Tell me your email address. I need to send you something. A file that contains everything you'll ever need to know to destroy McNunn and make him sorry for the day he was born.”

  Anand listened to the reply, wrote it down, then hung up.

  In Scotland, DS Wilson started issuing instructions and making phone calls.

  Chapter 43

  Leith

  Edinburgh

  Thursday

  8.35 p.m. G.M.T.

  Tommy McNunn stepped out of the shower, wiping himself down with his towel.

  As he left the en-suite bathroom and entered his bedroom in the flat on the top floor of his Casino, he smiled at the two women who were lying naked on his bed.

  They had been good.

  Perhaps he had mistreated one of them. He had slapped her a few times at the height of his arousal when a memory of Caroline had clouded his mind. Momentarily.

  Caroline was gone now. And good riddance to her. The bitch had got what was coming to her. As would anybody else who disrespected the new soon-to-be crime lord of Scotland.

  Approaching the woman on the bed nearest him, he noticed the swelling on her cheek where he had slapped her, and gently stroked it with his hand.

  “You were wonderful, my dear. I look forward to the next time! And I’m sorry about getting so carried away. Tell Gary to give you an extra hundred from me when you go downstairs.”

  The Vietnamese girl looked up at him. Tommy could see the fear in her eyes, but she smiled nevertheless.

  Clicking his fingers they both jumped up and hurried towards the door, grabbing their clothes as they left.

  Wrapping the towel around his waist, Tommy left his bedroom and crossed the lounge to the drinks cabinet.

  He was just pouring himself a brandy when he heard his mobile beep and rattle on the glass table in his bedroom.

  Taking a sip from the glass, he walked through to the bedroom, picked up his mobile and sat down on the side of his bed.

  There was a single, new message flashing on the front screen of his phone, taking up the whole screen.

  ‘This is your last chance.

  Say you're sorry.

  Or lose everything you have and be damned to hell.’

  Tommy stared at the message.

  “What the fuck?” he swore quickly.

  Sipping his brandy, he clicked on the option on the right below the message and was once again taken to a website where he was invited to admit to causing the crash with the old man and to apologise for it.

  The majority of the website was the same, but when he came to what was previously the last two lines, -

  “I admit that you were right. The accident was my fault.

  I want to say to you 'I'm sorry!' Please, please forgive me."

  -, he noticed that there were now several other new lines which had been published beneath it.

  “I accept that this is my last chance to choose to apologise. I also accept that if I choose not to accept this last opportunity to apologise, I'm thereby choosing to lose everything I have.”

  Underneath the picture and the text of the website there were still the two orange option boxes.

  The one on the right said,

  "I'm sorry. Publish this website."

  The one on the left said,

  "I'm not sorry.

  This was my last chance and I accept everything that will happen to me now."

  McNunn’s jaw dropped open.

  Who was doing this?

  It had to be the accountant.

  Shit! And he had left him with a laptop and an internet connection! What an idiot he had been. Who knows what else the bastard was getting up to! Tommy had to get back to the farm fast and finish the bastard off once-and-for-all! And soon, before he had a chance to do whatever else he was threatening to do.

  McNunn stood up from the bed, looked at his glass, still half-full of brandy, and then swallowed the rest of it in one mouthful.

  Savouring the burning sensation as the alcohol slid down his throat he took a deep breath.

  But what if it wasn't the accountant? What if someone else was behind it all?

  He couldn't take much more of this. His life was being destroyed. Bit by bit.

  Whoever was responsible was clever. Very clever. Perhaps even cleverer than Tommy.

  And if this really was the last chance he was going to get to apologise, could he afford not to take it?

  A wave of fear coursed its way down Tommy's spine and he shivered.

  "Fuck!"

  Tommy McNunn never apologised to anyone.

  Ever.

  But should he now?

  Okay, so, if it was the accountant behind it all, Tommy could make it all stop tonight. He would get back to the farm and kill him as soon as he got there.

  If accountant was behind it all, it would all end there.

  The accountant would die, and Tommy would get his life back.

  But... what if it wasn't the accountant?

  Shit!

  Tommy took another long, deep breath, swallowed hard, and clicked the button.

  The one on the right.

  -------------------------

  India

  Anand blinked.

  Then blinked again.

  Leaning forward towards his laptop he checked the screen.

  There was no mistake. Tommy McNunn had just apologised. The website had just been published. The whole world could now see the confession Tommy McNunn had just made.

  Rocking back on his heels, a wave of mixed emotions swept over him in quick succession.

  First, there was elation. He'd done it! If only Jonathan could see this. Incredibly, Anand had managed to fulfil Jonathan's dying wish. Anand closed his eyes and momentarily thought of his Scottish friend. As he did so, Anand felt a most curious sensation, one which for the rest of his life he would think of many times and wonder on: was it his imagination or was it real? It was almost as if someone had placed a hand on his shoulder. A gentle hand. Firm but reassuring. And in the moment that he felt it, a sense of peace descended upon Anand, and in his heart Anand knew that the absolution that he had so desperately sought, had willingly been given.

  Then the hand was gone.

  Jonathan opened his eyes and looked around over his shoulder.

  There was no one there.

  Smiling, Anand spoke aloud, "Thank you, Jonathan Stuart. Now we both can find peace."

  Turning his attention back to the laptop, Anand leant forward and placed his fingers once more upon the keyboard.

  Adrenaline flowed through his arteries, a curious mixture of anger and excitement sharpening his focus and giving him the clarity and the resolve for what he would do next.

  Not because he had to.

  Not because he must.

  But simply because he wanted to.

  And because he could.

  -------------------------

  Scotland

  Holding his breath, Tommy stared at the screen, shaking.

  What would happen next?

  The screen went blank. For a few moments, there was nothing.

  Then suddenly two words appeared.

  "Apology accepted."

  Tommy breathed out.

  But before he could relax, some more words began to appear. Several sentences slowly appearing on the screen, word by word.

  "But you're too late Tommy. I warned you. You had your chance to apologise earlier, and you never took it. You should have. You really should have. Thank you for the apology, Mr Tommy McNunn, but FUCK YOU and now GO TO HELL!"

  Five seconds later all the lights in the Casino went out.

  One moment Tommy McNunn’s future was so bright he needed sunglasses, and then the next all the electricity was switched off and his world was pitched into unrelenting blackness.

  -------------------------

  Six seconds later

  In India, Anand took one last look at the email he had already prepared and compiled to Detective Sergeant Wilson, and
hit the 'Send' button.

  The email that DS Wilson would open in less than two minutes time contained everything that Anand had learned about Tommy McNunn.

  Everything.

  And in that moment when ‘David’ Anand Mhasalkar hit 'Send', he let loose an electronic pebble that would fly across the world and topple a Philistine that had ruled his land through fear and violence for far too long.

  Once more, in the battle between David versus Goliath, brains had won over brawn, and right would conquer wrong.

  -------------------------

  Hillside Farm

  Threipmuir Reservoir

  The Pentland Hills

  Edinburgh

  Thursday

  10.05 p.m. G.M.T.

  Tommy McNunn climbed from the back seat of his car, still shaking with anger and frustration, and trying to ignore the fear which was growing within him, despite all his attempts to bury it.

  What was going to happen next?

  And as for who was behind it all, Tommy was still none the wiser.

  If it was his accountant, how was he doing it?

  What sort of bloody wizard was he?

  Somehow the accountant had managed to take over almost every aspect of Tommy’s life.

  A month ago, - was it just a month? - Tommy’s life had been on the up. Everything he touched had turned to gold.

  Then bit by bit, piece by piece, his life had started to unravel.

  First, he had lost his car. Then his bank accounts, his money, his electricity, his social life, his water, his friends… even his house! The list just went on.