The Storm

by Neil Broadfoot

  Doug nodded, returning his gaze to her face. “And,” he said slowly, “he wanted to tell you that you couldn’t be part of the investigating team because of…” He swept a finger back and forth in the space between them.

  Susie nodded, remembering Burns’s words. Look, Drummond, there’s no way in hell you can be anywhere near this one, okay? Bad enough that you know that little shit McGregor, but I’m definitely not having that relationship exposed in court, no way I’m having it used to taint the investigation. Understood?

  “Shit,” Doug whispered. “Sorry, Susie.”

  She shrugged, forced herself to stay casual. It was a big case, national big, and it wouldn’t have done her slightly dented career any harm to be associated with it – or the coverage.

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got more than enough on my plate trying not to let Charlie Montgomery trip me up. Besides, you’d be a shit witness.”

  He grunted a laugh, glanced at his phone for a moment then put it aside. It looked as though it were a struggle. “Look, Susie, I should get out of here once the docs say I’m good to go. Do you… maybe… want to get a movie or something tonight?”

  It was an unwritten ritual with them, which started just after the end of the Katherine Buchan affair. When one or both had a bad day, they would watch old movies, perhaps drink and talk. About the film, politics, football, the weather – anything but what had led them there in the first place. She had tried to distract him with other, healthier diversions, including her own passion, running, but inevitably, they had reverted to the couch and the chat. Counselling without the bullshit, Doug had labelled it.

  “What about Rebecca?” Susie replied. “Shouldn’t you…?”

  “I’m not asking Rebecca, am I?” Doug snapped, his voice as sharp as the lingering antiseptic smell that hung in the triage room. He sighed, raised a hand. It was shaking slightly. “Sorry. I’ve spoken to Rebecca, it’s fine. And besides, she knows the score. After all…”

  Susie nodded. After all.

  “Okay,” she said, suddenly restless and more aware than ever that she was wearing a business suit and heels. “Give me a call when you’re out of here, I’ll meet you then.”

  “Thanks,” Doug said, a kaleidoscope of emotions playing across his face before eventually settling on weary relief. “And Susie, would you mind if we went to your place? Last thing I need is my folks turning up at the door when they hear about this.”

  “You haven’t told them yet?” she asked, disbelieving.

  He pulled a face at her. “Course I have. Made sure I told them I was okay as soon as I could, or there would be hell to pay. But you know what my folks are like. And, besides, why would I want to spoil the full inside story” – he waggled the phone in front of her – “for them?”

  Susie shook her head as she turned away. Always the reporter. “See you tonight, Doug,” she said. “And for being such a shit of a son, the first bottle’s on you.”

  If she didn’t know him better, she would have almost said it was genuine laughter she heard as she walked out the room.

  6

  The stone skimmed across the water, dabbing delicate silvery ripples across its grey, mirrored surface as it bounced along – one, two, three – before plopping below a small wave.

  He bent down and rummaged for another stone to throw, hating the way he grunted as he stooped. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for – the shoreline was only fit to be called a beach in marketing brochures and travel articles. In truth, it was a bowed strip of stony ground that joined the two points of the bay together in a shallow arc.

  “Subs, please check,” he said to the emptiness with a smile as he stood up. He paused for a moment, taking in the view. On the horizon, a yacht from one of the hotels further up the coast bobbed along like a special effect, seeming to drag a curtain of rain across the hills that jutted into the blue-grey sky beyond.

  He had come here the moment he saw the story. He had been scanning the morning news – old habits die hard, after all – and saw it on the BBC site. Fatal shooting at newspaper offices, the headline read, a bland statement that did nothing to convey the enormity of what had happened. Clicking on the link, it told him nothing more than the bare facts: Jonathan Greig, editor of the Capital Tribune, had been fatally shot at the paper’s offices in central Edinburgh. Four other members of staff had been hospitalised, but none were thought to be seriously injured. Police were investigating.

  He had closed the computer, grabbed his walking cane and headed out.

  And now, here he was, admiring the view that never failed to deliver something new, soaking in the silence he had worked for all his life.

  And it was over.

  The shadows grew deeper, as if the sun was little more than a guttering candle in the breeze, and he watched as the curtain of rain began to pepper the surface of the water.

  He dug into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone and a small, battered black notebook held together with an elastic band and a pen clipped over the front cover. Esther had told him he could store all his contacts in his phone; that he didn’t have to write them all down in the notebook any more. He smiled and told her he would look into it. What he didn’t tell her was that he didn’t need the notebook or the phone to remember things – he memorised the important numbers, always had. The book was merely a reminder of another time, another life. And a useful distraction if needed.

  He dialled the number, silently mouthing the digits as he did, and rehearsed his first line as he listened to the phone ring.

  After all these years, the storm was coming. Now he needed to know how close to shore it was.

  7

  After another barrage of tests, most of which involved his reflexes, trying to blind him with a pencil light, taking blood and measuring his blood pressure with a machine that seemed to be designed to deliver a Chinese burn while making the sound of a cheap garage tyre inflator, Doug was signed out of the hospital.

  Despite everything, he almost laughed when the nurse told him they would schedule a follow-up appointment to discuss the results of the tests to see if he’d been infected by exposure to Greig’s blood. The thought of Greig doing anything so distasteful or strenuous that it would involve anything more extreme than loosening his tie, let alone his trousers, was, to Doug, like saying the royal family was value for money.

  But he had done something distasteful to someone, hadn’t he? Something someone had found extremely distasteful indeed. But what?

  Doug closed his eyes in the back of the cab he had called to take him home, seeing again that frozen look of horror in Greig’s eyes. The incomprehension. The terror. The fear.

  What? What’s happening? Why? Why?

  His eyes snapped open as he fought against the sudden lurch in his stomach and forced his lungs to fill and empty. As he tried to convince them he wasn’t drowning, he fumbled for his phone as a distraction. Flipped open the email and saw a new message from Walter, a reply to the story he’d sent over.

  Doug, good copy. We’ll run in the late edition – should be around 6pm now that we’ve managed to set up in the advertising department. They’ve sealed off Greig’s office and the editorial floor, but we’ll get a paper out. I’ll call later, see how you’re doing. But consider yourself on leave as of now. Take some time, Doug, sort this out. I’ve told Mike, Alice and Don to do the same, but I know you’ll take more convincing. I don’t want you near this, or any other story, Doug. Go see your folks, take a holiday, but don’t even think of going near this one. Let the police look into it. Speak later, Walter.

  Doug grunted in disgust, fought the urge to throw the phone on the floor. Fidgeted for a moment, trying not to think of the blood or the screams or the sounds…

  …the sounds…

  The shrill crack of the window shattering. The dull thwump of a bullet burrowing into the wall next to
him. Greig’s hacking bark. The…

  Doug swallowed back bile.

  …The heavy, liquid slap as Greig’s guts and entrails exploded from his torso and hit the table in front of him.

  Four sounds. Three shots. Two hits.

  He mashed his knuckles into his eyes, crushing back the heat as he felt the prickle of tears. His phone cried for attention. One text message from Rebecca. He stopped, torn. Bit his lip. Fuck it. Opened the message.

  Stuck on shift, taking a hell of a lot of calls from journos, big story. Heard you were discharged. Understand you need time, but I’m here, ok? Hope tonight is what you need. Rx

  She was already at the hospital when his ambulance arrived, fighting to keep a professional, detached face as he was wheeled in. They had stolen a moment between doctors and assessments, long enough to solidify the lie that he was fine.

  He hadn’t told Susie about her visit, though. Why? She had asked him about her, he could have said then. But he hadn’t. No reason not to, after all…

  After all.

  He lunged forward, as if he could leave the thoughts in the seat. Rapped on the plastic screen dividing him from the taxi driver with a hand that wasn’t steady.

  “Hey, mate. There’s an offie at the bottom of my street, drop me there, will you?”

  “Nae bother, pal,” the taxi driver said, not bothering to turn around. “No offence, you look like you’ve earned a drink.”

  Doug nodded and sunk back into the seat. He wasn’t going to argue.

  8

  Denise Fry knew the young man in room four was dead the moment she clicked the door shut behind her. She paused, felt the heavy stillness seep into her bones and prickle down the back of her neck as it had every time she’d walked into a room with a dead body.

  She remembered the first time she felt it, twenty years ago when she was just a student nurse starting out on her career and getting her first taste of the A&E department. It had been a mid-July day, a particularly warm one, and a man had been brought in to the emergency room after suffering a brain haemorrhage at work. She had been overwhelmed by the explosion of febrile activity – the frantic calls for blood and tests and readouts when he was wheeled in from the ambulance; but the frenzy soon petered away, until the inevitable moment that the lead doctor declared nothing more could be done and pronounced the time of death. And, in that moment of vacuum, she felt it for the first time – soaking up the dissipated energy, adrenalin and frustration. Something beyond silence and emptiness: a complete absence of life.

  Death.

  She shook off the memory, gathered herself and stepped further into the room, suddenly desperate to draw back the curtain and open the windows, let some light in and clear the oppressive, sour smell that hung in the air. She moved to the bed to make a final check, straightening the boy’s head, which was propped at a strange angle on crumpled pillows, and gently pressed her fingers against skin already taking on a bluish tinge and growing cold, feeling for the pulse she knew she wouldn’t find. It was a shame, she thought, looking down, he would have been a good-looking man – she could see the echoes of a strong jawline and a handsome face peeking out from behind the sunken sockets, drawn-in cheeks and roughly shaven head, across which a puckered, purpling scar was scrawled like an angry act of vandalism. His death wasn’t a surprise – she hated to admit that she had been expecting this moment since they brought him in here a week ago.

  As expected, nothing. No pulse. She reached for the chart at the end of the bed, about to make the necessary entry before informing the ward nurse. Clicked her pen, loud and harsh in the silence, then stopped suddenly.

  The silence. No gentle sound of breathing, no squeaking of rubber heels on the harshly polished floor of the ward.

  No heart monitor squealing a warning.

  She lunged forward, grunting as she collided with the corner of the bed in her haste, a crawl of revulsion twisting in her stomach as she saw the body judder lifelessly. It didn’t take her long to confirm what she didn’t want to know, what terrified her more than sharing a room with a cooling corpse.

  The heart monitor had been switched off. Which meant there had been no warning of cardiac arrest, no alarm tripped at the nurses’ station. Nothing to bring anyone to the room and disturb the boy and…

  …and who?

  Her eyes darted to the pillows, her imagination filling in gaps she didn’t want filled.

  Denise backed towards the door, fighting back a scream that tickled the back of her throat and the urge to sprint as fast as she could.

  You’re jumping to conclusions, she told herself. Too much coffee, too many night shifts and too many episodes of CSI.

  But she wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t.

  The heart monitor was off. The pillows were rumpled.

  The boy in room four was dead.

  And the cause was not natural.

  9

  After leaving Doug, Susie’s afternoon descended into the type of bureaucratic nightmare that made her question why she wanted to be a police officer in the first place. After all, why investigate crime and stop the bad guys when there was filing to be done, overtime claims to submit and personnel details to update?

  It was partly the hangover from the amalgamation of the eight police forces around Scotland into one force, Police Scotland. Although it had taken place a couple of years ago now, there were still the inevitable problems as different forces, each with their own procedures, adapted to being part of one big, standardised family. And, thanks to being on court duty and categorically not allowed to look into the Jonathan Greig murder, DI Burns saw it as the perfect opportunity to give Susie the chance to catch up on the reports she had to write.

  She initially thought that it was punishment for pissing him off about something, but when she glanced out of the window and saw the TV camera vans parking up outside, satellite dishes swivelling like oversized bowls into position – Please sir, can we have some more story? – she understood. This was a national story now, and Burns was doing everything to keep her away from it. And, more importantly, he was being seen by the brass upstairs to be keeping her away from it.

  After the Buchan case last year, and the fall-out when the former Chief Super got dragged in to allegations of collusion and cover-up, Susie knew she was being watched very closely by her superiors. Burns himself had told her as much one night not long after the case had wrapped up. He had called her into his office, settled into his chair and smoothed his tie over the rapidly expanding beer gut that spilled over his trousers. From the wall behind him, a family portrait stared at Susie as if in judgement. Burns, his wife and their three children – a baby held tight against the woman’s ample chest and two small boys, carbon copies of Burns with their heavy brows, thick-set bodies and flame-red hair – grinning down at her as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  “Look, Drummond,” Burns said, the reassuring tone he was aiming for butchered by his blunt delivery and the cold, impassive glare that had earned him the nickname “Third Degree” in the first place. “You did good work on the Buchan case, bloody good work, and it’s got you noticed. But them upstairs…” He paused, nose wrinkling at some unpleasant smell only he could detect. “…don’t like it. With the shitstorm this has brought down on the Super thanks to your pal McGregor and that smarmy PR shit the Tories used, they’re watching you. So tread careful, okay? Especially around that wee reporter shite.”

  She had assured Burns she would, and quietly vowed to ignore him. But had she? Certainly she spoke less to Doug about stories than before, partly because he was working on the newsdesk more regularly and focusing less on digging up exclusives, and then there was the Rebecca situation. Had she been acting as a friend, or had she engineered it as a diversionary tactic?

  And, if so, a diversion from what?

  She shook her head and hit the keyboard harder than she needed to st
art the log-off sequence. Got up and grabbed the gym bag under her desk, suddenly desperate to get to the gym for a workout. A simple run wasn’t going to do it tonight. After a day in court, and being sidelined from the Greig case, she needed to work against something. She needed the burn of weights, the focus that came from the moment when her muscles screamed at her to stop and she forced herself to do another rep. She needed the focus. The discipline. The control.

  The gym was at the top of Leith Walk, a Virgin Active in the Omni Centre, which was a collection of restaurants and pubs clustered around a multi-screen cinema. It was post-work busy, with the usual blend of guys who looked like they’d walked out of fitness magazines and office workers sweating their way through workouts they thought would help them look like the would-be models. More often than not using the weights and machines totally the wrong way, promising themselves a takeaway as a reward and wondering why they never got any slimmer.

  She got changed and headed to the main floor of the gym, checking her phone to see if Doug had called yet, angry at herself when he hadn’t.

  She worked her way around the weights, alternating between upper and lower body moves, pouring the tension and stress of the day into the workout until her muscles burned and her lungs were a furnace. Checked her phone again after she had finished, still nothing, and headed for the running machines to cool down.

  Susie was just heading for the showers, gasping for breath after the cool-down turned into a sprint finish, when her phone buzzed. A text from Doug. All done, officially on holiday – so at least Greig was good for something ;-) See you at your place, 8ish? I’ve got the wine and I’ll spring for takeaway. D

  She glanced at her watch, just after 7pm. Just enough time to have a shower, get home and make sure she hadn’t left anything lying around that she didn’t want him to see. She pinged him an answer and headed for the changing room, turning up the music on her iPod as she walked to drown out Burns’s words: Tread careful, especially around that wee reporter shite.