Eddie slurped noisily on whatever it was he was drinking – some reddish-brown tea that smelled of old sweat to Susie. She glanced around the café – the only other customer was a tall, lanky girl ordering takeaway at the counter – then leaned forward slightly, keeping her voice low.
“What did Burns tell you?” she asked.
“Not much. Just that you had a potentially significant line of inquiry on the Montgomery and Greig cases, but it was tenuous and needed bottoming out. Something to do with a kid who was hit by a tram a few days ago?”
She nodded. “That’s about it,” she said. “The kid’s mum, Diane Pearson, works across there.” She gestured through the window to Pearson’s office.
“But how does that tie in to the Greig and Montgomery murders?” Eddie asked, sounding more confused than ever.
She laid it out for him, watched as he took notes, lips moving slightly as he wrote. When she was finished talking, he took a moment and flicked back through what he had written, then laid his pen aside and gave her a surprisingly appraising glance.
“I see the problem,” he said. “A lot of the facts fit, but there’s no obvious link between Pearson, Montgomery and Greig to explain it. Could be him. Could be any other nutter who managed to get their hands on a rifle.”
She nodded. Made a choice. “What do you think?”
“We need to find Pearson,” he said. “Now. His skill-set is too close to the killer’s for this to be just a coincidence. Plus, he’s got form. But how do you find a man who has lived under the radar for years?”
She grimaced at the cliché – probably cribbed from one of those trashy mystery novels that littered his desk. “Good question. Any ideas?”
“No known associates. Take it the ex doesn’t know anything about his whereabouts?”
Susie shook her head. “No, she says she has no idea where he might be. That he was a stranger to their son…”
She paused, thinking. Something Eddie had just said rattled around in her brain, like a pinball waiting to hit a hole and light up the board.
She was startled from her thoughts by the impatient ring of her phone.
Annoyed, she hit Answer. “Drummond.”
“Susie, Susie, it’s Rebecca.” Her voice was breathless, almost panicked.
“Rebecca? Rebecca, you okay?” Unconsciously, she turned away slightly from Eddie.
He sighed. Typical. Everyone knew Summers and Drummond were close, that they spoke in a shorthand that no-one else understood. Made sense. After all, they had shared interests.
He laughed to himself, made a note to remember the joke. Gradually felt the smile fade away as he saw the tension settle into Susie’s shoulders and voice.
“Wait. What? Who? Yes, yes I know the name, of course I do. But why? How?”
A pause, Drummond crushing the phone to her ear, hand coming up to her mouth as she worried at her thumbnail. “No. I haven’t, have you? Well, keep trying him. You want to meet up? Yeah. Okay, twenty minutes?”
Eddie was distracted from the call by the ping of his own phone. He took the call, sat straighter in his chair as Burns’s voice filled his ear.
“You with Drummond?” he asked. His voice was thick and guttural, as though he had a mouthful of something vile. One of the canteen’s bacon rolls maybe.
“Yes, sir, we’re comparing case notes now.”
“Good, good. But I need you to tear yourself away from the chit-chat. Seems like Stevie McInnis had a falling out with one of his customers this morning. Neighbour called it in, said it sounded like all hell was breaking loose in the flat. Uniforms forced entry, found McInnis with the shit beaten out of him and another wee scrote with a syringe where his eyeball should have been.”
Eddie shuddered. “So why are we looking at it, sir? Sounds like a drug deal gone wrong. Nothing else. And Drummond and I…”
“We’re looking at it because I say we’re looking at it, okay constable,” Burns spat, the venom chilling the line. “And because McInnis is known to associate with Dessie Banks. And if there’s a chance of this leading back to him. I want it. Clear?”
Eddie nodded like a cheap car toy. Dessie Banks. Edinburgh’s biggest gangster. You wanted it, Dessie could get it. Drugs, guns, girls, someone’s legs broken.
“We’ll get right on it, sir,” King said.
He clicked off the phone, turned his attention back to Drummond. Felt a brief thrill of shock at her ashen appearance and confused stare.
“You okay?” he asked.
“What? Yeah.” She looked at the phone as if for confirmation. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just… just…”
“Listen,” he said, avoiding the awkwardness he felt by concentrating on the work. “That was Burns. He’s got something else he wants us to look in to. Seems Stevie McInnis got into a bit of a scrape this morning, left him in hospital and the other guy with an eye missing.”
Susie blinked at him, as though seeing him for the first time. “McInnis? You mean Stevie Leith?”
“That’s the one,” Eddie replied. “Come on, I’m parked on Market Street. Should only take ten minutes to get there.” He stood up. Susie stayed seated.
“You go on,” she said. “I’ve got someone I need to see.”
He frowned down at her. “But the boss said.”
“Eddie, please.” She looked up at him, pleading. “Just deal with this one for me, please. I’ve got someone to see, and something I really don’t want to do. So just fucking deal with it, okay?”
He stood there for a moment. The lost look in her eyes, the confusion.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll call you when I’m done. We can meet up then.”
“Thanks,” she said. She watched him go, disappearing onto the street, everything about him screaming police despite the business suit and fashionably untidy hair.
If only everyone was as easy to spot, she thought bitterly as she followed him out of the door.
47
Doug forced himself to slow down after sliding round the turn-off to the Sleat peninsula and almost smashing into a camper van coming the other way. Horns blared as he powered away from the junction, looking in the rear-view mirror just long enough to see the passenger door of the van swing open and a small woman hop out.
Maybe she was taking his number plate. Maybe she was going to call the police. He would worry about it later.
His phone chimed again as he drove, another missed call and text. Susie and Rebecca, both trying to get him. Probably trying to see if he’d had any luck with Pearson or who leaked the information about the Greig and Montgomery murders being linked before the press conference.
None of that mattered now, not after what he’d read in the file. It was obvious that Harvey had definitely heard of Pearson – and knew a lot more about the Greig murder than he’d been letting on.
Doug felt his anger grow, cold, scalding, as he fought the urge to floor the accelerator again. He thought of Esther, of sitting with Harvey only the night before, thinking he had been with an old friend, only now realising that friend had been lying to him. And, worse, using Esther’s illness as an excuse.
But still something didn’t add up. Harvey could have easily lied to him over the phone, or not got in touch at all. Why go to all the trouble of inviting him to Skye in the first place? To see Esther one more time? Before Eilean Donan he would have said yes, but now…
Now…
Harvey’s words in his ears now. I saw the reports. But what actually happened, Doug?
Was that it? Had he brought him all this way to interview him? To see how much he knew, whether he had learned the lessons Harvey had taught him and put it together?
But then, why lie in the first place? What did he have to gain?
Maybe I’m not a reliable source, after all.
Doug thought back. He’d been stupid. He s
hould have seen it sooner. Should have known. He would have too if he wasn’t so caught up in the aftermath of Greig’s death and what he had…
Look at me.
…seen.
But still, there was the why. Why had he lied, pretended he knew nothing about Pearson? What was the connection to Greig? From what Doug had seen in the file, Harvey was only doing his job. And, as usual, he’d done it well. Why lie about that?
It was clear now that the trip to Broadford had been nothing more than a ruse, a cover to give him time to get out of the hotel, into the car and slip the file into the glove compartment. No wonder the seat had been racked back – it made it easier to slide across to the passenger side. Had he stolen the car key at some point or just picked the lock? Being Harvey, Doug could believe either.
He chewed at his lip angrily, hands tensing on the wheel. So many questions, so many things that still didn’t make sense. He let out a roar of frustration, the sound echoing around the car and drowning out yet another phone message. He drove on, the road snaking its way through moorland as he headed for Robertson’s Retreat.
He grunted. Robertson’s Retreat. Maybe. But there was no way Doug was going to let him hide this time.
48
Hal Damon sat in his office – a small room just off the kitchen in the garden flat he, Colin and Jennifer called home. He had tried to keep the room as professional as he could – tidy desk, bookshelves neatly arranged, only one picture of him, Colin and Jennifer on the wall – and yet family life was starting to bleed into his little work bubble. A discarded dummy and muslin cloth sat on the small sofa to the left of his desk, the remnants of this morning’s feed, a growing knot of baby toys strewn across the windowsill like plants. He smiled. He hated to admit it, but it made the room look better.
Goodbye, Mr Aesthetic. Hello, Mr Daddy.
He turned his attention back to the printouts in front of him, didn’t like what he had found. It hadn’t taken long for Tracey at the office to locate the articles Doug had asked for – the Pearson case had generated a lot of headlines at the time.
It seemed like an open-and-shut case. Pearson had been working at a nightclub in town, on a typical student night where the booze was too cheap and the bar was open too late. A fight had broken out, and Pearson had come face to face with Martin Everett, who apparently had a bottle and was determined to introduce Pearson to it.
In the fight that followed, the bottle ended up in Everett’s neck, piercing his jugular and leaving him to bleed to death on the dance floor.
Open and shut. Guilty, yer honour. Except there was something about it that bothered Hal. He skimmed again through the reports, found one from The Herald, which was a page-lead on the day Pearson was found guilty and sentenced. The copy was good – it was back in the days when they had a court reporter and didn’t just rely on agency staff – but it wasn’t the copy Hal was interested in.
It was the pictures.
They had run two images, one of Pearson being led out of the court in cuffs, the other of Martin Everett.
Pearson was a monster. There was no other way to describe him. Hal guessed he was at least 6’4”, with shoulders that seemed to start at his ears and a neck so thick that the tie he was wearing looked like a shoelace. The cuffs that were strung between his massive, shovel-like hands looked like toy jewellery. No wonder the guards that flanked him looked slightly nervous. But despite this, there was a fragility to his face, a cored-out, hollowed look around the eyes, emphasised by the sallow complexion of his skin and the deep lines that were seemingly chiselled across his face.
Fair enough, Hal thought. Getting sent to prison for murder must be a hell of a shock. But it was something more than that.
Opposite the picture of Pearson was a collect shot of Everett. Obviously provided by the family, it was a picture of him involved in some kind of sports event – track and field, Hal guessed. He was wearing a vest that exposed thin, sinewy arms and a frame that Hal would have generously called lanky. He was a relatively tall kid, but not in the same league as Pearson. His smile was open and honest, making his face glow with a mixture of happiness and endorphins from whatever he had been doing. He was good-looking too, the only thing letting him down was a slightly weak jaw and an overbite that gave him a vaguely horsey look.
Hal tried to picture it in his mind. Everett, rangy, lanky, no real muscle, going up against a wall of muscle and aggression like Pearson. Even his picture was intimidating; Hal couldn’t imagine what it would be like running into him in the flesh.
And yet, the record stated that he had decided to take on Pearson for reasons unknown and had paid for it with his life. It was possible – Hal had been in enough clubs and taken enough booze and pills himself to know that you could get caught up in the moment – but something about it didn’t sit right with him.
And then there was the gap in the coverage. The hits had come back quickly, every paper at the time reporting on the story in some shape or form. And while there wasn’t any significant online coverage – the story was before the days of 24/7 online news channels and breaking news apps – there were also records of TV reports and radio reports. A big trial getting the appropriate coverage.
Except in the Tribune. There was no record of the story ever running in the Trib. Not a lead, a wing, a hamper or even an obit for Martin Everett. Which, to Hal, was all wrong. The Trib, at the time, was the biggest newspaper in Edinburgh, if not the whole of central Scotland, and yet it had decided to ignore one of the biggest stories of the day, right on its doorstep?
Mistakes did happen – Hal remembered the infamous story of an editor who thought the fire that gutted Edinburgh’s Old Town years ago was worth nothing more than a picture and three paragraphs of copy – but this? This was something else.
He reached for the coffee Colin had brought in for him a while ago, smiled at the World’s Greatest Daddy slogan. It was cold now, but he drank it anyway.
Something about this was wrong. He knew it. It was like pitching to a new client who was only telling you half the story. They were showing you their best, hoping you could help them deal with the unspoken worst. There was something more there, just under the surface. Something no-one wanted to talk about.
He glanced again at The Herald copy, at the pictures of Pearson and Everett. Considered for a minute, then reached for the phone. He knew one person who might be able to help.
He had met Ronnie Selkirk years ago, when they worked together to launch a new online bank for an insurance company in Edinburgh. Hal handled the PR, Ronnie handled the legal headaches of launching the bank. Despite Ronnie driving Hal insane with his almost paranoid suspicion of the press and anyone who worked with them, they’d struck up an unlikely friendship. And Hal quickly realised two things about Ronnie – he was as generous as he was ruthless, and he knew the location of more rattling closets in Edinburgh’s legal profession that anyone really should.
Hal dialled the number. With any luck, Ronnie could help him shed a little light on this one. After what he’d been through over the last few days, Doug could use a little helping hand.
Hal hoped he could offer it to him.
49
Eddie King hated hospitals. The smell; the squeak of rubber soles on hard, over-polished floors; the hushed, almost breathless conversations punctuated by a moan or a barking cough.
It was, he supposed, an after-effect of what had happened to his granddad. When Eddie was eleven, John “Jock” White had walked down the front path of the house he shared with Elizabeth, Eddie’s mum, and collapsed halfway to the gate with a massive stroke. Eddie could still remember seeing him in the hospital not long afterwards, the strong man he had known replaced by a twisted, empty husk that could do no more than flail and grunt as Eddie walked into the room. The prognosis hadn’t been good – the doctors had said that Jock wouldn’t walk or talk again – but somehow, he defied the odds. He
got confused easily, slurred his words and walked with the aid of a Zimmer frame, but he got there. His recovery, though, was agonisingly slow, and Eddie remembered months of evenings and weekends that were arranged around visits to the hospital and, later, the specialist unit where his granddad was sent for rehab.
Eddie hated those visits. The tension slowly filling the car like an inflating balloon as his dad drove them to the hospital, the crushing boredom of sitting around the bed, the unspoken despair and frustration festering in the car as they drove home.
Jock had lived for another eight years after his stroke, eventually succumbing to a heart attack while sitting watching the football. Eddie wasn’t sure if they were happy years for him. He hoped they were.
Now, walking through the corridors of the ERI at Little France, he remembered those visits, felt the old tension and unease settling into his chest.
He had called ahead, been told that Stevie Leith was still out of it – he had suffered a severe concussion when he cracked his head off a bed frame in the fight. Scans had shown no brain damage, but he was still babbling nonsense and the doctors advised that a visit at this time would be pointless.
Which left Eddie with Paul Welsh. He found him in a private room in the east wing of the hospital, lying small and pale in a bed that seemed three sizes too big for him. The roller shutter had been pulled down, leaving the room gloomy and making the eyepatch that was over one of Paul’s eyes almost glow in the half-light. Eddie had read the report before getting out of the car – paramedics had found him with a syringe sticking out of his eye socket. The syringe had punctured the eyeball and caused it to leak, what the medical report called a “globe rupture”. The doctors didn’t know if they could save the eye yet.
Paul tensed as he heard Eddie come into the room, head twisting on the pillow.
“Who… Who’s there? Can’t see, too dark… Who?”
The Storm Page 19
