And what shots they were. Whoever the killer was, they were extraordinarily skilled, both reports agreed on that. More than a thousand yards out, in a cross-wind, and he had hit the target not once, but twice, in vital areas of the body. A precision job. Obviously a professional, and Susie was glad to read that “cross-checks with local armed military units were ongoing”. She didn’t think for a minute that a soldier had casually walked off Redford Barracks in Corstorphine with a smile on his face and a sniper rifle over his shoulder, but at least the bases were being covered.
Twice, Susie thought. A professional. Two hits. Three shots. What…?
She flipped back to the SOCO reports, cross-checked them with Doug’s own witness statement. Doug talked about three shots, ballistics confirmed three bullets recovered. The most likely theory was that the first was a calibration shot, to ascertain wind direction and pull, and take out the large window that might have been distorting the sights. Yet there was something about it, something Susie couldn’t quite see, like a 3D image that had yet to jump out of the random pattern on the page.
Three shots…
She shook her head. Dismissed it. Went back to reading the files and, in particular, the forensics on the bullet. Analysis had matched it to the casing that was found in Charlie Montgomery’s mouth. While the damage to the head of the bullet dug out of Greig was too severe to ascertain whether it was the actual casing, ballistics could confirm it was the same calibre and make – a .308-calibre bullet, specifically designed for sniper rifles. There was a stock picture of an unused bullet, along with images of compatible rifles. They were long, deceptively slender items, almost too delicate to be lethal. But all you had to do was flick back to the pictures of Greig to see the truth behind the illusion.
They were instruments of violence and death, perfected and honed for one purpose alone.
Susie took a gulp of tea, forced back the memory of the last gun she had seen, the muzzle jammed into her face, a psychopath with the face of a monster leering at her down the barrel. Charlie Morris. It felt like a lifetime ago.
It felt like yesterday.
She flicked forward, to the background files on Greig, started reading. There was nothing to indicate an obvious motive. Initial searches showed he had been divorced ten years, with the wife now living in Liverpool. Local officers had been sent to talk to her and ascertain her movements at the time of the killing, but Susie found it doubtful that an assistant head teacher at a city comprehensive would have the motive, or skill, to assassinate her ex-husband.
Of course, this left the possibility of a contract hit, someone paid to do the job, but it didn’t feel like that to Susie. This was too violent. Too public, too personal. There was something…
intimate
…visceral about the killing. In his own office, in front of his staff, just at the point of the day when he was most in charge? No, there was something else.
On the couch opposite, Susie’s phone began to ring, startling her from her thoughts. She unfolded herself from the couch, wincing at the pins and needles in her legs, and reached across for the phone, ready to hit the Call end button if it was Doug again.
But the caller ID showed it was a Fife number, she recognised it from looking up the details of the Rosyth station. She hit Answer.
“Hello, DS Drummond.”
“DS Drummond?” a woman’s voice, hesitant. “This is PC Carrie Mathers, Rosyth? You, ah, you asked me to dig out the Pearson file for you?”
“Ah, yes, Carrie. Thanks for getting back to me. You find anything?”
“Yes, ah, yes I did, ma’am. I’m sending it over to you now.”
“Much appreciated. Anything interesting?”
“Seems fairly run-of-the-mill, ma’am,” Carrie replied. “Gavin Franklin Pearson, born 1968. Sentenced to twenty years in 1993 for the murder of a student in a club in Edinburgh. Seems he was working on the door, an altercation kicked off and this student…” – a rifling of papers down the line – “ah, Martin Everett, came at Pearson with a broken bottle, ended up with it in his neck, bled to death on the dance floor.”
Susie paused for a moment. Odd. “And it was a straight murder conviction? No culpable homicide plea?”
“No, ma’am,” Mathers replied. “If there was, I expect it was thrown out before the trial anyway.”
“Oh, why would that be?”
“Well,” Mathers said, voice dropping as though sharing a secret. “You know how it is when ex-soldiers are tried for murder. They put in the culpable homicide plea and the prosecution throws it out. After all, they’re trained to fight, trained to kill, aren’t they? Prosecutors go for the throat, say they should know better.”
Susie felt her legs buckle, as though someone had cut the tendons. The words screamed into her mind as though they were aflame.
Trained killer.
Ex-soldier type.
Should know better.
“Ma’am? DS Drummond, you still there?”
“Oh yes,” Susie whispered.
“You okay, ma’am? Went a bit quiet there for a minute.”
Susie closed her eyes, forced herself to breathe deeply, focus. “I’m fine, thank you, Carrie. Good work on digging the file up.”
Susie hung up and tried to slow down her racing mind. Gavin Pearson suddenly seemed to be much more than just a loose end. It was clear to Susie she’d have to speak with Diane again – she was definitely going to want a word with her about her ex.
29
Night fell gradually on Skye, the fading light matching the mood of the evening as guests returned from day excursions, shopping or sightseeing for dinner and an evening of relaxation.
Doug sat in the dining room of the hotel, peering into the blackness. He had never seen anything like it. In the city, the nights were always stained orange from the streetlamps or stabbed white by headlights from passing cars and buses. Here, there was nothing. Even the sound seemed smothered, drowned out by the enshrouding dark. When he had stepped outside earlier as Harvey flitted between tables, greeting guests and checking they were happy, the silence had made his ears buzz, threatening to give him a headache as he strained to hear anything other than the polite undercurrent of noise that drifted from the hotel behind him.
He got back to the table just as Harvey was completing his touring circuit. Esther had joined them for dinner earlier, hardly eating anything, arranging the meal into tasteful patterns on her plate and distracting Harvey with a well-timed laugh or an anecdote about their time in Edinburgh. She excused herself after the main course, saying it was “time to give you boys some time to catch up”, walking to the door just a little too quickly to be casual. Doug watched her go. She only reached out for the wall as support when she thought she was out of sight.
They sat across from each other now, table cleared and coffee served in a flurry of waiting staff so well drilled they could have been military. Doug was keen to get back to his “interview” with Harvey – their earlier conversation had been interrupted when Harvey made for the kitchens to prep for the dinner rush. Not that there was much to tell, from what he had said. He’d run into Montgomery a few times on the court beat. Covered stories where he’d got the defendant a reduced sentence or pleaded out to something minor on a technicality. Had written up the story when Montgomery tried and failed to get selected for a seat at the Scottish Parliament. And that was that. Scant information.
“Sorry, Doug,” Harvey had said before excusing himself. “I can go through my cuts if you want, see if there’s anything else, but he honestly didn’t make that much of an impression. He was just another lawyer to cover.”
Doug mulled over Harvey’s words, took a sip of coffee. Strong, hot and very, very black. Like everything else in this place, it was tasteful, discreet and expensive. He remembered an old line Harvey had told him – There are no new stories, Douglas, only new angles �
� and smiled. Decided to take a new angle.
“So, what about Greig? What was it like to work with him at the Trib?”
Harvey leaned back in his chair, toying with his pipe. Doug could tell he was itching to light it up. The reek from his jacket and the yellowing stain on his thumb and index finger from tamping the tobacco down told him he did so every time he was out of the main house.
“Not much to tell, Douglas,” Harvey said. “As you know, we were reporters together at the Tribune back in the day. He started in, oh, ’81, I think, I started in ’82 after working freelance. I’d been happy enough, but Esther wanted the stability of a steady income and a staff job. Suppose she was right. Eight years of putting up with me working when I liked, wondering how much I’d make in a month – it was long enough for her to have to worry.” He paused for a moment, a wistful look flitting over his face. “Anyway, we were both general reporters back then. I moved into crime, he moved onto the council beat, then tried his hand at the foreign desk and features.”
Doug nodded. That much he knew. He’d first encountered Greig when he was doing his work experience. He had been on the desk then, doing the job Doug had been doing only a day ago. Rounding up stories, assigning them to reporters, checking the facts and figures. Going into conference, telling the editor what the stories of the day were…
Look at me.
He swallowed down a mouthful of coffee. Grimaced. “So how come he ended up in the editor’s chair and you ended up here? I remember Greig being on the desk when I first started, I was shit-scared of him. Those fucking suits and that patronising manner always made you felt as if you were a half step behind him. You would have been a better editor. What happened?”
Harvey leaned forward, poured himself some of the coffee from the cafetière. Shrugged. “He wanted it, simple as that. I only ever wanted to be a reporter, get the stories. But Jonathan, well, Jonathan was a career journalist, always wanted to get to the editor’s office, no matter what.”
“You think that…?”
Harvey laughed a little too loudly, the sound a shrill note of discord in the hushed, civilised quiet of the dining room. “What, that someone blew him away because of something he did climbing the greasy pole to the editor’s chair? Douglas, I thought I taught you better than that. This was the Capital Tribune, not Watergate, for God’s sake.”
Doug nodded an apology. “Sorry, Harvey. It’s just… just…” He paused, flailing for the words. “There has to be a reason for this. You don’t shoot someone…
His eyes wide and glittering with fear, blood and internal organs dripping from the conference table in gelatinous globs.
“…without a reason. Greig must have done something to someone to explain this. Was there a story he worked on that you remember, a court case, something that might have…?”
Harvey downed his coffee, nodded to a waiter. Went back to staring at his pipe as if it was a crystal ball.
“Douglas, I’m sorry, I just don’t know. I worked with the man, he moved up, I stayed reporting. When it was time for me to go, he signed off on the redundancy deal that helped Esther and I get this place. If there’s more I could tell you, about Greig or Charlie, I would. But I can’t. I’m sorry, Douglas, I truly am. I know seeing him killed like that would have been a hell of a thing, but I don’t have the answers you need.”
Harvey smiled, and, for the first time, he looked old to Doug. When he spoke, his voice was small. “Maybe I’m not a reliable source, after all.”
Doug leaned back as the waiter produced two glasses of something amber and pungent. “Look, I’m sorry, Harvey, really. You’ve got enough on your plate, what with this place and Esther. The last thing you need is me here, going off the rails. Maybe I should head back tonight, after all…”
Harvey looked up at him, that old, unfathomable gaze in his eyes. His voice was casual. His eyes were stone. “Don’t you dare, Douglas. I invited you here, remember? And Esther will want to see you in the morning, spoil you with breakfast. You know what she’s like. And it’s not as if…” He trailed off, voice cracking, sorrow bleeding in like oil into a clear spring pond. The sound made Doug’s stomach lurch.
“Harv? Harvey. Esther. How bad is she? Really?”
Harvey looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. He glanced around the dining room quickly. Drew himself up, bolted a smile that didn’t hit his eyes onto his face. “She’s fine, Douglas, really. Ignore an old man. It’s just the news about Greig, seeing you again. It’s all been a bit much.”
He pushed away from the table, arranged his cane and stood up. Raised his voice just enough so the room would hear. “Now, excuse me, I need to check on my guests, make sure everyone’s having a little too much to drink and ordering desserts they can’t justify. Enjoy the drink, Douglas, and sleep well. We’ve got you in suite four, you should like it.”
“Harvey, I…”
Harvey took a half step, put his hand on Doug’s shoulder. The weight surprised him. He dropped his voice. “Don’t worry about it, Douglas, just remember what I told you about the drink, okay?” With that, he reached over, picked up his glass and clinked it off Doug’s. Crystal, definitely.
“To Esther,” he whispered in Doug’s ear before tossing the drink back in one. “I’ll see you later, Douglas.”
He moved off, the cane a forgotten affectation in his hand, before Doug could reply. Doug watched him closely. Harvey Robertson. The best journalist he had ever seen. The man who had shown him it was important work, that it wasn’t just a headline or an exclusive but a responsibility. To find the story. Hold those in power to account. To report in the public interest. And now, here he was, entertaining millionaires and affluent tourists, the very people he used to love putting the awkward questions to, in a hotel that wouldn’t look out of place in the newspaper luxury living sections he once sneered at. Harvey Robertson, playing a part to the world as his wife lay upstairs, counting the hours until her death sentence or her release.
Doug reached for his glass. Stared at it. Thought about Susie and Rebecca. About Greig and Charlie Montgomery. Was what Rebecca had hinted true? Could there be a link between the deaths? If so, what the hell was it? And why the hell was he sitting here when the story was five hours away?
He flicked the glass, listened to the musical tinkle it made. Thought of the blunt, harsh crack as the window of Greig’s office shattered, the bullet hammering into the wall beside him. Felt his heart race as the moment flooded back to him, the terror, the confusion, the horror.
Three bullets. Two hits. One death.
One death…
The incomprehension in Greig’s eyes. The violent, spasmodic jerk as the bullet drove through his chest.
Doug tossed the shot back before he knew what he was doing, the burning clawing up his throat. He headed for the bar, telling himself the stinging in his eyes was only from the fumes. It wasn’t tears for Esther. Or Greig. Or himself.
Not at all.
• • •
I’m already in position by the time he steals out of the side door that leads from the kitchen to the bin store at the back of the hotel, toying with that shitty old pipe of his and trying not to spill the whisky he carries like a trophy.
I watch him light up, the dot of flame flaring like a bright green jewel in my night-sight, then move forward slowly, silently, the stabbing pain as I breathe and the grinding agony in my legs forgotten as I close in on my prey.
I crouch behind one of the industrial bins just in front of him, close enough to smell the pipe and the whisky, close enough to hear his greedy, suckling breath as he gums at the pipe, coaxing it into life. The knife is in my hand, cold, heavy, lethal, as I lunge forward, hand snaking around his throat and pinning him to my chest. His glass falls to the ground and the sound of it shattering in the silence is thrilling, intoxicating.
He mewls and thrashes against me. I punch
him once in the ribs, hard, the brass handle of the knife giving me extra force, feel the hot breath rush out of him against the hand I’ve clamped over his mouth to silence any screams.
“Shhh,” I whisper into his ear, “you don’t want to disturb your guests. Especially Mr McGregor. Imagine what he would think.”
He thrashes against me, weakly. It’s only a gesture, he knows he’s mine now. Completely. I close my eyes, fight back the sudden glorious image of the knife plunging into his chest, ribs splintering as I twist it inside him and hot blood spouts into the night, trailing steam in its wake.
But no, no. Control. Control.
“I didn’t realise you had such interesting friends, Harvey,” I hiss. “Mr McGregor’s going to be a very, very interesting man to get to know. And I will get to know him. After all, I’ve got a hell of a story to tell him, haven’t I?”
A moan escapes him and he claws at my hand, trying to prise it away from his mouth. I smile in the darkness, shake my head.
“That’s all right, Harvey, you don’t have to say anything. I understand. And we’ll have the time to talk soon enough. But in the meantime, you know I’m out here. And if you say anything to Mr McGregor, I’ll kill everyone here, starting with Esther. Clear?”
He freezes in my arms. The sudden sting of ammonia on the breeze tells me he’s pissed himself.
Excellent. Message received.
The Storm Page 11
