by Owen Mullen
‘But they might, and if they do we’ll go to prison. The refuge won’t survive. Wasn’t that why we left Judith locked up rather than setting her free?’
Mackenzie brushed her concerns away. ‘You’re assuming the worst. Worrying over nothing. None of that’s going to happen. She came here especially to thank me. I pretended not to understand what she was talking about. That’s the end of it.’
‘Is it? What if she confides in somebody and they confide in somebody else? The only safe secret is the secret you never tell. Any association – even the smallest – with us and that damned cottage is bad news. Are you certain sometime in the future Emily Thorne won’t be tempted to give her daughter the whole story? If she does, will Judith be able to keep it to herself? Because I’m not.’
Mackenzie’s confidence faltered. Caitlin was right. The slightest suspicion they were involved raised a threat against the refuge. ‘I’ll say you weren’t there.’
‘Then you’ll go to prison.’
‘But you’ll carry on. What we do is too important.’
‘It wouldn’t work.’
‘Why not? You’ll have this place. I’d transfer money to keep it running.’
Caitlin held Mackenzie’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. ‘You really don’t get it, do you? The refuge is yours. The rest of us, even me and Sylvia and Irene… follow your lead. Without you it won’t be the same.’
Caitlin stopped speaking, knowing how what she was about to say would be received. ‘I’ll tell the police I killed Walsh, that it was me. Acting on my own.’
‘They’ll never believe you.’
‘Yes, they will if I admit to it.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘No, I’m not. You’ve saved me twice already. Once in the car crash and once with Peter. Without you I’d be dead or in prison. And that’s before we get to helping me rebuild my life. If that means telling the police I murdered a creature like Jack Walsh, so be it.’
Mackenzie was too stunned to respond.
Caitlin said, ‘I’d do anything for you – thought you knew that.’
There had been times – not many, but some – when Malkie felt the walls of Billy’s back bedroom closing in. Lying in the darkness before dawn, chain-smoking; alone and lonely, studying the illuminated contact list on his phone while his fingers hovered over the familiar numbers, daring himself to make a call. He never had. This was the first time since he’d copied what he needed from the old one and ditched it. Isolation was the price of freedom. Zero contact – the reason they hadn’t caught up with him. For that to continue required cutting himself off from everything and everyone. Not easy, though he’d managed it. People, the police included, had no idea Scotland’s most wanted man hadn’t left the city, that he was in Glasgow, planning his revenge on the ones who’d put him here.
And now he knew their names.
The new phone was silver; slimmer and lighter, with a bigger face. Malkie couldn’t have cared less. He’d told O’Rourke to get it because it was an untraceable bridge to the past, to his mates if he needed them, and, more importantly, to information they were better placed than he was to find out. He’d read the number from one mobile and tapped it in on the other. After a few seconds, a wary voice answered. ‘…Hello.’
He didn’t identify himself, he just spoke. Liam wasn’t daft, he’d recognise who it was.
‘Need some info about a copper called Geddes. Is he still working out of Stewart Street? And some do-gooder called Darroch who runs a women’s refuge in Lennoxtown. I’ll call back tomorrow.’
He hung up. It was done. The wheels were in motion. In twenty-four hours he’d have what he needed – Liam wouldn’t let him down. Malkie’s mind wandered to Kirsty’s pal: Paula hadn’t made a sound and let him get on with it. A bit like doing a dead body. Yeah, but after so long, better than nothing. She was scared for her kids and wouldn’t be telling anybody. He’d go back and see her now and again for old times’ sake.
A shame Kirsty hadn’t had some better-looking mates.
Mackenzie listened to Andrew sighing in his sleep beside her. Deceiving him wasn’t how she wanted it to be. She prayed he’d never find out what she’d done to Jack Walsh. And Peter Sanderson – she’d forgotten about him. Forgotten about a man she’d coldly finished off and helped bury in the back garden? Really? What did that say about her? The first murder was supposed to be the hardest to get over. After that it was easy. So they said. Well, easier. Maybe it was true because she’d acted like a savage in the cottage, not just killing Walsh – there were other words for what she’d done: slain, clubbed, bludgeoned. The most worrying part of it was that she didn’t feel an ounce of regret. Fear they’d get caught, yes, remorse for taking another human being’s life, no. In her opinion, Walsh had deserved to die. Caitlin had accused her of being judge, jury and executioner. Difficult to argue against.
Mackenzie gently rolled the covers back and slipped out of the bed to the chair where her clothes lay folded. Andrew must never know the truth. He trusted her. It would destroy him.
Geddes was a light sleeper. Decades of the phone ringing in the middle of the night had conditioned him. He sensed he was alone. The fingers searched the sheets for her, his voice deep, the whisper heavy with need.
‘Don’t go. Don’t go. Stay.’
34
The house was large, sitting on its own surrounded by fields and stands of trees, breaking up the otherwise uninteresting landscape. Uninteresting until you looked beyond to the Campsie Hills, even more beautiful white with snow. Malkie was blind to the beauty; that wasn’t why he was there. He hunkered down behind the Citroen’s wheel with only one objective in mind: seeing her.
Finding the refuge hadn’t been easy. When he finally did, he’d driven past slowly, watching for signs of life, seeing none. This Darroch woman was in there, Liam’s information confirmed it. Sooner or later they’d come face to face and he’d introduce her to the consequences of messing with Malkie Boyle.
He checked the time on his new mobile: ten to five – he’d been there for over an hour without seeing a soul. Why hadn’t Kirsty come there. If she had, he would’ve had to settle for the cripple. No way would he have attempted to get close to her in this place. They probably had female guards on duty at night – big bastards with arms like legs of lamb, ready to deal with men stupid enough to get too close. Where he was – a hundred yards further on – was plenty close, thanks very much.
A car appeared and eased into the drive. Malkie followed its progress until it stopped at the side of the house. A man, tall and well built, went to the passenger side and opened the door to let the woman out. Smooth fucker. Malkie wouldn’t do that for any female – not in a million years.
The woman took it in her stride like she expected it, straightened her skirt and walked to the front door. They spoke for a moment, heads close together, holding hands, then he kissed her on the lips, a long lingering kiss. Malkie captured their intimacy on his phone before the man drove off, smiling, pleased with himself. The woman waved until he was out of sight, obviously sorry he was going. Her expression gave the game away and Malkie thumped the steering wheel with his fist. Now he understood – it was the bastard detective who’d got him on the assault charge and couldn’t let it go at that.
In his head, Malkie built a case against the people who’d come between him and Kirsty. It was simple – he was shagging it, wasn’t he? They’d taken time off from fucking each other to confuse her into rejecting him.
Jackpot! Just hours after he’d got the info, he struck gold: two for the price of one.
At the Kirkintilloch Bypass he headed for the motorway and the city, skirting Provanmill – one of old Billy’s hangouts in the 1980s – exiting at Junction 16 for George Square. He knew where the detective was going. Liam was spot on.
They pulled up together at the traffic lights past the Passport Office in Milton Street, Geddes in the middle lane, indicating to go right. Malkie took the inside,
cautiously glancing through the light snow that had been falling all day, at the bastard who’d persuaded Kirsty to betray him. The DI was in his forties, greying at the temples of a lived-in face. Whatever the woman saw in him, it wasn’t his good looks.
Malkie let him draw ahead, then made the same turn himself, stopping opposite Stewart Street Police Office. This fucker was keen; he wasn’t coming on shift – not at this time. A conscientious copper, married to the job. Poring over case files on his day off. Was Kirsty’s one of them? Or was that somebody else’s problem? Whoever it was, he hadn’t a scooby.
At twenty past nine at night – four hours after he’d arrived in the arse-end of Cowcaddens – the detective reappeared, got into his car and drove away. Malkie did as he’d done earlier and followed him to the West End. Geddes parked at the pavement outside a block of flats and went inside. Boyle watched the light reveal which one was his. In the Citroen’s darkness, smoke curled from the cigarette between his fingers.
‘Too bad for you, Mr Policeman. Now I know where you live.’
Part III
35
Gina Calvi was thirty-one, single and smart and tenacious, an essential quality in a reporter. She had her Scottish mother’s blue eyes and her Milanese father’s dark hair and skin. All fine, apart from the nose which she detested; her worst feature. Led by her grandfather, the Italian connection had arrived in Scotland between the wars, settling in Greenock on the west coast, moving to Glasgow in the early fifties. Gina, the youngest of her parents’ five children, excelled at school and went on to study journalism at Strathclyde University. A great career should’ve been hers. Not how it had gone. After two years at the Motherwell Times honing her craft reporting on local issues, spells with The Scotsman and The Herald on Sunday hadn’t worked out. Her brutal end-justifies-the-means approach and sensationalist spin on everything she worked on didn’t fit the more reserved broadsheets.
They demanded substance. Gina didn’t do substance.
Rejection hadn’t diminished her fire. If anything, it made her stronger, more determined than ever to prove them wrong. The story to do it was out there, all she had to do was find it.
She sat at her desk in her flat above Merchant City, bought with money her father had left her in his will, watching weak sunlight play on the sliver of Renaissance classicism which was the City Chambers in George Square and toying with her fifth cup of coffee of the morning. Caffeine strung some people out. With her it energised an already over-active imagination.
The mystery of the woman in the cottage in Clackmannanshire was intriguing – she could use it. Calvi spoke to the blank PC screen, rolling the title off her tongue. ‘Survivors.’ But the idea excited her: a series of articles about Scots who’d come close to deadly harm and lived to tell the tale.
Except, they wouldn’t tell it, she would.
The police hadn’t revealed the victim’s identity – not a big problem for a resourceful lady who knew how to use her sex to advantage. Over the years the contacts network she’d built had come through for her. More than a few times, a well-placed phone call produced gold. Gina scrolled through her mobile until she found the name of a DS she’d had a “thing” with and still saw occasionally – not for the sex, which was average, though she hadn’t told him that – to keep a useful connection open.
Before Frank Armstrong’s phone rang out she knew how the conversation would go. He’d be delighted to hear from her after all this time and begin planning how to get her into bed. It was a game and Gina Calvi knew how to play it. They’d exchange inconsequential chit-chat, then she’d announce she had to go – someone was waiting. Frank would see the chance of screwing her slip away and do almost anything to keep her on the line, including conveniently forgetting she’d dumped him. Asking him to get information for her wasn’t the way to go – better if the offer came from him. Horny bastard.
‘Frank? It’s Gina.’
‘Gina! Great to hear from you. Where are you?’
‘Still in Glasgow.’
‘You haven’t made the move to the Big Smoke?’
She laughed a girlish laugh honed to perfection for occasions like this. ‘London isn’t ready for me.’
‘Now that I can believe. What can I do for you?’
‘Can’t a girl call an old friend without having an ulterior motive?’
Frank chose not to access his prefrontal lobe which processed long-term memory, otherwise he’d recall dancing this dance before. When the music stopped the last time, he’d been the one without a chair. ‘Absolutely, she can and she should.’
Gina took a breath and lowered her voice to a purr. ‘I’ve missed you, Frank.’
Just about now his erection would be stirring into life.
‘I’ve missed you too. When can we get together?’
The regret in her tone was pure ham. ‘Not for a while, I’m afraid.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m running just to keep up. Every year it gets harder. Unless you have something special to sell, the nationals don’t want to know.’
Frank turned his face away so his colleagues wouldn’t hear him sympathising like a spinster aunt. ‘Poor you. Anything I can help with?’
Gina smiled. Men thought with their dicks, thank God.
‘Name it.’
She played her ace, shutting him out. ‘No, no, that’s not why I phoned. I’m sitting here, by myself, and you came into my head. You’d think I was using you.’ Gina pictured him leering into the phone.
‘You can use me anytime, Gina, you know that. Let me help.’
‘All right. The case near Alloa is strange: a dead man in one room and a woman locked in a wardrobe in another, you know the one I mean?’
‘What about it?’
‘His name was Walsh. Jack Walsh. Her identity wasn’t made public.’
‘In situations like that it often isn’t. With good reason.’
‘Not one of yours, is it?’
‘No. It’s on Central’s doorstep. A mate of mine’s part of the team working the case. Apparently, she was in a helluva state, thin as a pole and gibbering like an idiot. Think she’s still in hospital. Why the interest?’
Gina acted vague. ‘Just a thought I had about doing a piece called “Survivors”. People who’ve gone through terrible ordeals and come out the other side. Needs a sensitive approach but the insight would be invaluable. No telling who might be helped by reading it.’
He piled the compliments on. ‘Sounds interesting. You’re the girl to write it, no doubt about that.’
Gina dismissed his faith in her. ‘Probably wouldn’t get picked up.’
Frank worked at convincing both of them. ‘Oh, I don’t know, what would you need to be able to write this Survivors thing?’
Bingo!
Mackenzie drove across the river and parked near the bridge. She opened the car door. Juliette jumped out and ran ahead, sniffing the trees and the earth covered in leaves, marking her territory. Mackenzie followed, enjoying the fresh air. This had become her favourite part of the day – a chance to clear her head. And it was only fair to give Sylvia a break now her dog wasn’t allowed in the garden.
In the cold afternoon light, the ruined Lennox Castle stood derelict and abandoned, giving no indication of its wretched history as a former psychiatric hospital once considered ahead of its time, before it fell from grace to become a dumping ground for those society deemed misfits – wayward teenagers, unmarried mothers, people with Down’s syndrome or diagnosed with mental illness.
She’d heard the stories of abuse, neglect and chilling cruelty. Echoes of Victorian London rather than twentieth century Scotland. Behind the impressive façade, failing to address a member of staff as sir had been punished by a beating; drugging inmates insensible and making them sleep on filthy mattresses was common, while patients who couldn’t take any more and ran away were chased by dogs through the very woods she walked in.
People did terrible things to each other. Who knew th
at better than her?
Mackenzie remembered her battle with alcoholism and her family’s disbelief of her repeated claims a man in a black coat was stalking her. It could’ve been her running through the woods with snarling jaws behind her.
There but for fortune.
Juliette raced after a rabbit through a hole in the fence barring entry to the castle and on to a second gap where vandals had prised the metal staves apart. Her barking broke the spell of the dark past.
Mackenzie studied the crumbling building. Red blocks of stone were scattered on the ground. Inside, graffiti was daubed on walls – gang slogans and obscenities; a staircase to nowhere on the verge of collapse was visible and the skeleton of a rusted iron fire escape clung to the outside. How many had it saved the night greedy tongues of fire had reduced it to this?
Usually, she enjoyed coming here. Today the atmosphere was getting to her. She called to Juliette and headed back to the car.
Behind a tree, Malkie Boyle grinned. The woman was a creature of habit, too engrossed with the dog to notice him following her from the refuge again. Where she liked to come was quiet, perfect, in fact, for what he had in mind. Malkie wasn’t known for his patience – far from it – often he’d lashed out with his fists before he’d considered the alternative, though he was learning. Now he knew where he could get at both of them. The interfering bitch and her policeman lover would get what they deserved. Malkie would make his move when he was ready. And when he did, it would be sweet.
Gina agreed to one drink in the Granary in Kilmarnock Road on the South Side, near Shawlands where Frank lived. Dutch courage. Not that she’d need it – she’d done worse for less. Some people would judge her. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. At the end of the day, they both had something the other wanted and were prepared to trade. Consenting adults hashing out a deal. Where was the harm?
