by Owen Mullen
Billy Cunningham was in his room sitting in the dark when he heard The Boy come in. Billy was wearing the coat from his sub-post office days – the one with shoplifter pockets – two sizes too big for him now and frayed at the cuffs. It smelled of mothballs. He’d never understood why he’d hung on to it all these years. Before a raid he had a routine – quiet his mind, calm his jangling nerves and eliminate every distraction, including fear.
He was calm now.
Loud curses meant his guest wasn’t in his normal disrespectful good humour. That was good. Dying was a serious business. Better if you were in the mood for it.
Billy waited until he heard the table legs scrape against the linoleum, then shuffled down the hall as quietly as he could and stood outside the kitchen door. When he opened it he saw what he was expecting to see. The Boy was on the floor with his back to him, one arm under the boards, hissing ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ in frustration – unaware he wasn’t alone. Billy leaned against the door frame and let him get on with it. Sooner or later he’d realise he was wasting his time.
Billy saw his fingers stretch deeper and deeper under the boards.
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’
Malkie rolled round. His grandfather held a plastic bag, the same bag he’d been dipping in for months.
‘Not as much in it as there used to be, is there? Wonder what happened.’
Malkie skipped explanations. ‘I have to get away, Granddad. You have to help me.’
Billy took a Liquorice Allsort from the depths of his coat pocket – a white cube with black and yellow inside – and put it in his mouth. ‘No, I don’t. Don’t have to and not going to.’
‘I need that money.’
‘What? This?’ He dropped the bag on the floor. ‘Take it. No use to me, not where I’m going.’
‘I’m hurt.’
Billy put another sweet in his mouth. ‘Then you’ve got a problem, young fella.’
Malkie snarled. ‘Give me your hand, you old fucker!’
‘Ah, now you sound like your father. Did I ever tell you about him?’
‘I’m not interested. Look, the police will be here soon. Now they know I’m in the city, they’ll get their brains in gear and figure out where I’ve been. You can say I forced you into hiding me.’
Malkie got a hold of the table and hauled himself off the floor, his face was covered in sweat, his side ached. ‘Hand over the fucking money and I’ll be out of your life.’
Billy kicked the plastic bag towards him. ‘I told you, it’s yours. As for the police…’ he picked a piece of liquorice from his teeth, ‘…I’m minded to do the simple thing, just tell them the truth: you gave me no choice – that bit’s true – started thieving from me. When I caught you, you went berserk and attacked me.’
Malkie didn’t have time for this. ‘Listen, you stupid old bugger. Any more out of you and I’ll beat your fucking brains in like I should’ve for what you did to my mother. I’ll say staying here was your idea. They’ll put you back inside.’
Billy shook his head. ‘No, no you won’t.’ He nodded towards the gap in the floor. ‘Should’ve searched a bit harder. If you had, you’d’ve found this.’ He pulled the sawn-off shotgun he’d kept oiled and ready under the floorboards from his coat pocket. ‘You didn’t because you’re just like him.’
‘What the fuck! Granddad, don’t be stupid. You’re not going to shoot that thing. They’d put you away for the rest of your life. You’ll die in prison. Have you any idea what that’s like for an old man?’
Billy’s expression didn’t change – the threat meant nothing to him. ‘Thought I was stupid, didn’t you? Thought I didn’t know you’d do me in and take the money.’
Malkie held up a hand. ‘No, no. You’ve got it wrong, Granddad. Listen. We’ll split it. Whatever’s there, I’ll only take half.’
Geddes screamed round the corner into the street and stopped five doors from the address DS Turnbull had given him. On the drive across the city, images of Kirsty McBride’s mutilated body in Renfrew Street filled Andrew’s head. He couldn’t escape them and didn’t want to – stopping Boyle might be the most important thing he’d ever done – the pictures reminded him why.
There were no lights on in the house. Most of the slats were broken on the wooden fence, pieces of paper, empty cigarette packets and beer cans littered the grass, and curtains were drawn on the windows. It looked unoccupied.
Was it possible he was wrong?
In the distance a siren wailed. The detective swore. ‘Fucking idiots. You’re telling him we’re here.’
Geddes hated guns and wasn’t armed – for sure, the backup officers would be. Waiting for them made sense. He was tired of waiting.
The DI crept the length of the hedge, keeping his head down, ran to the building and flattened himself against the wall. He listened for sounds from inside. There were none. At the back of the house he heard raised voices in the kitchen – Boyle and his grandfather, arguing. Geddes returned to the front as a police unit arrived. More would be on the way. Officers in Kevlar vests poured onto the street and started to deploy: soon the house would be surrounded – Boyle wouldn’t escape this time.
Geddes lifted the letterbox. In the kitchen at the end of the hall, a man in a greatcoat stood with his back to him. Boyle leaned against a table, staring at him, obviously in pain from the fall at Lennox Castle.
A bank of white and orange lights twinkled like stars in the blackness on the other side of the Clackmannan Bridge. Gina Calvi hadn’t said a word since the conversation in John Street. Caitlin wasn’t stupid. Hearing the confession from the murderess’s own lips at the scene of the crime would give singular authority to the story she’d eventually write. Real investigative journalism. Editors lapped that shit up. Her reputation would be sky-high. Job offers would come rolling in; she’d maybe even get a gong.
Caitlin kept her eyes on the road, her chest rising and falling evenly with every unhurried breath. She was a cool one, all right. It occurred to the reporter that perhaps she’d been wrong in her boast about preferring to take her on. When this was over, whatever happened, she’d be going to prison. Other women, weaker women, would be begging for a second chance, crying to be forgiven for the sins they’d committed in the cause of the sisterhood.
Not this one.
Gina heard the petulance in her own voice. ‘How much further?’
‘You sound like a child. “Are we nearly there yet?” Need to go to the bathroom, do we?’
‘I asked you how much further.’
‘Not too far.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means not too far.’
She was mocking her. The bloody bitch was mocking her. ‘Go faster.’
It sounded lame. But, so what? Tomorrow, one of them would be crying and it wouldn’t be her.
Billy had stopped listening and levelled the gun. Malkie wasn’t afraid, he grinned. ‘Hear that siren? Looks like you lose again, old man.’
The bullet blew the grin off his face and the heart out of his chest.
‘Not this time, boy.’
Billy Cunningham had threatened people – plenty of people. But he’d never shot anybody.
It felt good.
Geddes was turning the handle when the shot went off. Under his breath he swore, knowing the armed unit would go in first, denying him the chance to get Boyle alone. The response team swarmed past him through the door, weapons at the ready. He tensed and pressed himself against the wall, expecting more gunshots; it didn’t happen, and he stepped inside. Officers crowded the hall – the threat over; when Geddes pushed past, no-one stopped him. The smell of cordite caught in the detective’s throat. Across the kitchen, a grey-haired man in handcuffs unhurriedly chewed a sweet, ignoring the sawn-off shotgun and the plastic bag on the table in front of him.
Geddes said, ‘Billy Cunningham?’
Cunningham kept chewing like a bystander observing the drama rather than a player. Malkie
Boyle’s body was spread at a crazy angle on the linoleum in a pool of blood from the wound in his chest. There was surprise in his sightless eyes; he hadn’t expected to die today. Geddes studied the sudden violent end of a man who’d mercilessly murdered two defenceless people. The detective had been denied the closure he’d wanted. Just as well. He remembered the photograph of Boyle as a baby in his mother’s arms. There was no way to know that even then he’d been coming to this place. From the day he was born, how he’d live and how he’d die was mapped out; inevitable.
The DI sensed the leader of the armed unit at his elbow. ‘Nobody else in the house, sir. Forensics are on their way.’ He ignored the handcuffed man and pointed to the body on the deck.
‘Got what he deserved.’
The detective disagreed. ‘No, not even close.’
Geddes lifted a bundle of notes from the plastic bag and confronted Cunningham with it.
‘The money they never recovered from the last robbery?’
Cunningham didn’t respond.
‘Is this what it was about?’
Billy shook his head. ‘For him, maybe, not for me.’
‘Then why not let him have it?’
‘I did.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘’Course you don’t. How could you?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Naw, it’s a long story.’
The banknotes were crisp and new. Cunningham saw the question in the policeman’s eyes and answered before it was asked. ‘Been cleaning it for twenty years. Putting it in, taking it out. Easy.’
‘Where?’
The irony made the old man smile. ‘At the post office, where else?’
DCI Leitch got out of his car and nodded solemnly towards Geddes. There was no sign of Jamieson, Innes or any of the detectives who had spectacularly failed to do their jobs. Dennis the Menace had crashed and burned. It didn’t take a big brain to figure out which lucky so-and-so would be filling out the paperwork and preparing the report to the procurator fiscal on the double-murder, the death of the most wanted man in Glasgow, and the recovery of money stolen thirty-five years earlier from a sub-post office in the city – a great result, the kind the higher-ups could trumpet to the press and take credit for. Geddes wasn’t bothered; he’d been there before.
Leitch went into the house.
Ten minutes later he was out again. The policemen stood together in silence. When Geddes arrived, the street had been dark and deserted. Now, a crowd had gathered along the fence to watch the action. Billy Cunningham appearing at the door between two officers brought spontaneous applause and shouts of ‘Go on, Billy!’ and ‘Fuck the filth!’
Geddes said, ‘They don’t give a damn what he’s done. It’s them against the police, them against us, and always will be.’ He turned to the DCI. ‘This is finished. You’ll have my request for a transfer on your desk first thing tomorrow morning, sir.’
Leitch studied the ground at his feet. ‘Request denied, Detective Inspector.’
‘But, sir…’
Leitch spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘You’ve made your point. Don’t push it, Geddes.’
Before the DI could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, a uniform saluted the senior man. ‘Sir, the suspect has a request.’
Leitch deferred. ‘I’m not in charge here, Constable.’
Geddes assumed command. ‘What is it?’
‘He wants to know if he can take his Liquorice Allsorts with him. Says there’s a full box in the bottom of his wardrobe.’
48
Geddes waited until the forensics team arrived before calling Mackenzie. The phone was in his hand when Linda Adam gave him a wave and came over to the car.
‘We must stop meeting like this, Andrew.’
Geddes smiled, but it was a half-hearted attempt. ‘You need some new lines, Linda.’
Cunningham was already in custody, charged with the murder of his grandson. Geddes had been denied the closure he’d needed. Just as well. Now, he wondered if Dennis Jamieson would still be on the case, or had DCI Leitch finally seen the light about him. It didn’t matter; he was welcome to it.
Mackenzie sounded tired and immediately Andrew regretted calling. He spoke softly and kept it brief. ‘It’s over. Boyle’s dead.’
She didn’t ask how. ‘And you’re all right?’
‘It’s crazy here but I’m fine. I’ll see you later.’
The mobile slipped from her hand; she buried her face in the pillows. Because Caitlin and Sylvia wanted her to, she’d try one more time to persuade Gina Calvi to let the story go, though she doubted the reporter would change her mind. As far back as that wretched conference, she’d lacked empathy for Mackenzie’s work at the refuge. Walsh’s death was an opportunity to advance herself, nothing more. Andrew had a jaundiced view of the world and the people in it, but he trusted her. If what she’d done in the cottage came out, it would destroy him. So she’d try – beg if she had to – for his sake.
They left the murky waters of the Firth of Forth behind and headed inland, skirting Alloa. Fifty yards from a level crossing, Caitlin let the car drift to the grass verge at the side of the road. She turned off the ignition and faced her passenger.
‘Why’re we stopping? Drawing it out won’t change anything.’
Caitlin saw the pretty face and the clothes so carefully chosen, unable to accept this creature could hurt Mackenzie and what she’d created.
‘Before we get to the cottage I’m going to do something which goes against everything I believe.’
Arrogance and indifference poured off the reporter. ‘Oh yeah. Let’s hear it then.’
‘I’m willing to give you a way out of the trouble you’re in.’
Gina choked down a laugh. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? The trouble I’m in?’
‘That’s right. Unless you give me your word you’ll leave Mackenzie alone, it won’t end well for you.’
Gina was stunned – she was threatening her. Part of her wanted to laugh, another part longed to see this bitch and her pal rot. In the end, anger won. ‘Listen to me, you stupid woman. You and Mackenzie can tell yourselves whatever fantasy suits. The fact remains you killed a man in cold blood.’ She leaned closer to make her point. So close Caitlin could smell the expensive perfume and see her white teeth flashing in the dark.
‘Walsh might’ve been Scotland’s answer to Fred West for all I care. What matters is this: you waited for him to come from the pub, knowing he’d be drunk, and attacked him in his own home. There isn’t a judge in the country who’ll see it any way other than premeditated murder. That cosy little home-from-home Mackenzie runs in the Campsies won’t last much longer.’
Caitlin tried to reason with her. ‘That wasn’t what happened.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Mackenzie’s a good person. Walsh was an animal. He deserved everything he got. Did you see what he did to Judith Thorne?’ She raised her voice, close to shouting. ‘Take your anger out on the likes of him! If you do this you’ll be hurting people who’ve already been hurt more than you could ever know.’
‘Spare me the sob story. She’s a killer and so are you.’
An alarm cut through the night, startling the reporter. Amber lights flashed on either side of the crossing. ‘Fuck this bullshit, we’ve wasted enough time, start the engine.’
Caitlin made one more attempt, knowing it was futile. ‘Please. Mackenzie can’t go to prison. She just can’t. The refuge won’t survive without her. The women won’t survive without her.’
Gina Calvi wasn’t listening. ‘Should’ve considered that before she beat Walsh’s brains to mush, shouldn’t she? Start the fucking engine. I don’t want to wait. Do it!’
Caitlin hesitated. ‘Mackenzie Darroch’s worth ten of you on your best day.’
Gina’s face was bloated with rage. She fumbled for her mobile and hauled it out of her pocket. ‘Forget the cottage. I’m calling the police. See if they think your pal’s above the
law. Start the fucking car!’
Caitlin fired the engine and drove onto the crossing, feeling the tyres bump over the rails. Without warning, she turned the steering wheel hard so the car faced up the line, and stopped.
The reporter’s expression morphed from anger to something else. The line running under them trembled. Caitlin took a deep breath, unburdened by remorse or even regret. She looked at the clock on the dash: a minute to eight.
This was how it was always meant to be. This would square the circle. Gina Calvi’s voice was hoarse with fear. ‘What the hell are you doing? You’re insane.’
‘Repaying a debt.’
‘What?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
The barriers fell on either side, boxing them in. Inside the car, the click was like a gunshot. Gina heard it and frantically pulled at the locked door. ‘Open it. Open it. Open the fucking door!’
Caitlin’s eyes held no pity; the reporter had left her no choice. Driving into the city she’d thought about Sylvia, Irene, Doreen and so many others who’d found shelter and hope in the refuge, thanks to Mackenzie Darroch. Nobody should be allowed to destroy that.
The decision hadn’t been difficult. In fact, it had been easy: merely the end of a story which began when she’d crashed Peter’s car. Better for everyone if Mackenzie had left her to burn. Except, Mackenzie hadn’t. Her friend had saved her; she owed her life to her. But the time won was borrowed time.
Now it had run out.
She slid her window down until the gap was six inches wide. Cool air rushed in with the shrill sound of alarm bells ringing and the red glow of flashing lights. Gina slammed her fists against the window. ‘I want to get out! I want out!’
Moments ago she’d been in control, now she was helpless.
‘You stupid bitch. You’ll kill us both. I don’t want to die!’
