by Owen Mullen
She screamed and threw herself at Caitlin, grabbing handfuls of her hair, pulling it out by the roots, raking her cheek with her nails, desperately trying to reach the ignition. Caitlin’s punch caught her on the nose, rocking her head back, drawing blood. She fell against the door, tasting copper in her mouth, dazed – already beaten. Fingers as thin as the beggar’s outside the old post office building in George Square pawed the empty space between them.
Caitlin’s mobile rang in the well of the car. ‘That’ll be Mackenzie wondering where I am. She’ll be looking for the card you left with your number on it.’
Gina Calvi saw an opportunity and reached for it. She pleaded, ‘Let me talk to her… please… let me talk. I’ll kill the story… yes, that’s it… I’ll kill it… Nobody knows about it, you’ll be safe… Mackenzie will be safe.’
Caitlin’s derisive laugh mocked her. ‘I don’t believe you. You’d go straight to the police five minutes after I let you out.’
‘I wouldn’t. I promise I wouldn’t.’
‘Yeah, you would.’
Calvi held up her laptop. ‘Here, you have it. Everything’s on it.’
Caitlin was unmoved. ‘Don’t you remember, you had your chance. It’s too late.’
The reporter’s voice was barely audible, ragged with tears and disbelief. ‘For her? You’d do this for her? She wouldn’t do it for you.’
‘She already has.’
Two points of yellow light appeared like tiger eyes growing nearer in the darkness. The quiver in the rails became a whine of metal in contact with an awesome force as the express charged towards them. Caitlin had never felt more calm. ‘Might want to close your eyes for this bit.’
Calvi moaned. ‘No. No. Nooooo!’
‘On your best day. On your best day, Gina.’
Caitlin tossed the car keys through the gap onto the gravel. ‘In case I change my mind.’
Acknowledgments
For readers who may not be familiar with Scotland, let me recommend the main location in this book. The tranquil beauty of the Campsie Fells – known locally as the Campsies – belies their violent birth 300 million years ago, when a series of earthquakes unleashed lava flows which formed the range we see today. Although just ten miles from Glasgow, it is a wonderfully peaceful place, a perfect counterpoint to the murderous events in Deadly Harm. Often on my visits, I’d leave the car by the side of the road to walk beside streams flowing over rocks reckoned to be 50 million years older than the hills, while clouds scudding across the blue sky darkened the hills before moving on. Surrounded by the changing moods of this near-timeless landscape, it was impossible to remain unmoved and I returned to the city, spiritually and emotionally refreshed, eager to start writing. And that is where my indebtedness begins.
As is always the case, a number of people deserve special mention: everyone at Boldwood Books whose continued efforts on behalf of my work is so appreciated. My early editors, John Hodgman and Morgen Bailey; your knowledge of the language is a constant reminder of my shortcomings. Lucky for me, you were out there. Thanks, to both of you.
Alasdair Mcmorrin of Police Scotland CID has generously given the benefit of his knowledge and experience and helped bring Glasgow detective Andrew Geddes – an old friend from the Charlie Cameron series – to life on the page. To Alasdair’s generous spirit, I have to add his patience in answering my many questions and keeping me on the right track. That said, any errors are entirely my own.
Lastly, my wife Christine who has yet to meet a plotline problem she can’t resolve. Her contribution is beyond measure, but her imagination and inventiveness throughout the developmental process, lifts every story to higher level and prompts me to offer a word of advice to younger men – marry a clever woman.
In the interests of the tale, I’ve taken the odd liberty and ask two things of anyone who may know better: forgive me, please, and keep the truth to yourself.
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Owen Mullen
Crete
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Prologue
The Metropolitan Police corruption scandal has deepened after The Independent uncovered the existence of a previously secret investigation into criminal officers that went much further than the files destroyed by Scotland Yard.
Operation Zloty, a wide-ranging inquiry spanning at least nine years, found dozens of rogue detectives in the employ of organised crime and operating with ‘virtual immunity’.
The long-term intelligence development operation included information on police corruption originally gathered by 17 other investigations – including Operation Othona, the contents of which were inexplicably shredded sometime around 2003.
Crucially, Zloty included bombshell evidence from Othona about a ‘persistent network’ of corrupt officers that could have been beneficial to a landmark review commissioned by the Home Secretary into how the Stephen Lawrence murder was handled by the Metropolitan Police.
Mark Ellison QC was forced to inform Theresa May earlier this month that he could not finalise conclusions on whether police corruption tainted the Lawrence case because a ‘lorry-load’ of Othona material was mysteriously shredded by the Met more than 10 years ago.
The Independent, 26 March 2014
The car was back in the drive, parked behind the Merc. Twenty minutes earlier, Cheryl Glass had waved it away with her daughter seated in the rear. A big guy, thickset, in shades and shirt sleeves, sat behind the wheel. Marcus was a monosyllabic troll her husband had put in charge of the school run. She’d objected to a stranger being given responsibility for her daughter.
Their daughter, Danny had reminded her.
They’d had a right royal row about it but of course he hadn’t listened. ‘With the way things are,’ he’d said, ‘Rebecca needs to be protected.’
Hard to argue against, except if they were in danger it was him who’d put them there. Albert Anderson was a man better left alone. Instead, Danny had been edging him out of South London, street by street, until it became an affront that couldn’t be allowed to go on. Wiser to agree the boundaries and live in peace, but Danny Glass didn’t see it that way; as with everything, it was all or nothing.
So, the war began. And Marcus did the school run.
Cheryl leaned in the window, no pretence at friendliness. ‘What’re you doing here? Where’s Rebecca?’
The minder returned the hostility; he’d seen how her husband treated her, clocked the disrespect and aped it. ‘Inside. Forgot Sam.’
Once upon a time Danny would have wiped the floor with anybody who even looked the wrong way at her.
Ancient history.
‘She’s going to be late.’
He shrugged. ‘She wanted the bear, what was I supposed to do? I’m just the taxi driver.’
‘How about get her there before the bell stops ringing?’
Rebecca came running out of the house, bright with excitement, and threw herself against her mother.
Cheryl scolded her. ‘You’re supposed to be on your way to school.’
The six-year-old replied with logic that defied anyone to be annoyed with her.
‘Sam wouldn’t have anybody to talk to. He would’ve been sad.’
Cheryl smiled. Rebecca was absolutely the best thing – the only good thing – to come from the marriage; a small miracle she still struggled to believe she was responsible for bringing into the world.
‘Well, we can’t have that. But you must hurry.’
; Rebecca clung to her. ‘You take me.’
‘I can’t, darling. Mummy’s late.’
The child was too young to hide her disappointment. Her mother tried to sound upbeat. ‘For the hairdresser.’
The lie came so easily it shocked her.
‘You want a beautiful mummy, don’t you?’ She knelt to coax her daughter. ‘I’ll see you later. You can tell me what you did today. Go with Marcus.’
‘Want to go with you.’
Marcus listened to the mini-drama – family business, not his. He was paid to do what he was told. If the kid went with him, fine, if not, that was fine too. Babysitting wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he signed on to work for Danny Glass. Rebecca stared with her father’s dark eyes, so cute, and so like him. No wasn’t a concept either recognised.
‘You take me.’ She pleaded as if her mother hadn’t spoken.
‘Honey, I don’t have time and I don’t have my car.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s in the garage.’
‘We can go in another car.’
Cheryl glanced at her watch and sighed. ‘All right. Come on.’
She snapped at Marcus. ‘You’re not needed.’
He started to object but she cut him off and walked to the house and a man standing at the door with his hands folded behind his back. Cheryl didn’t know his name. So many people worked for Danny these days it was impossible to keep up.
‘You’re driving and we have to go now, school’s started.’
Rebecca ran to the Mercedes, scrambled across the back seat and sat Sam in the middle.
Marcus made a last attempt to reason with her. ‘Your husband isn’t gonna like this. It isn’t safe. You know the score.’
She brushed past him – he’d had his chance. ‘I couldn’t care less what my husband won’t like. Move!’
The new guy got behind the wheel, took Cheryl’s instructions and pulled out of the shadow of the house into the London sunshine.
Rebecca said, ‘Where’s Daddy?’
Her mother was tempted to reply that she had no idea where Daddy was because he hadn’t come home again last night. Instead she lied. ‘He’s busy, baby. He said to give you a kiss from him.’
Albert Anderson was causing trouble, that much Cheryl knew, yet the previous day she’d called her husband’s mobile and whined like a stereotypical suburban housewife unable to function without her man.
‘It won’t start, it just won’t.’
Danny’s response had been curt. ‘Use the Merc.’
That was the last time they’d spoken.
The child pointed her finger at the driver, then at her mother, herself and the teddy. She counted. ‘One, two, three, four.’
Cheryl checked her watch, her manicured fingers strumming the leather upholstery. She hated being late for anything, especially where she was going. Rebecca held the teddy bear to the window and began a game without rules. She turned to her mother. ‘I like when you take me to school.’
‘I’m going to take you every day from now on.’
‘I love you, Mummy.’
The child drifted into a story, telling Sam about her friend, Amanda. Cheryl stroked her daughter’s hair, blonde like her own. ‘I love you too, darling.’
There was no warning. The car left the road, lifted by the force of the blast. Pieces of metal and glass ripped through a bus queue waiting for the 185 to Victoria. In that moment lives were irrevocably changed: people fell to the ground, blood pouring from wounds they hadn’t had a second ago; the windscreen of a Vectra coming in the opposite direction shattered, blinding the driver, who lost control and ploughed into a West Indian fruit and veg shop, crushing a teenage assistant at the beginning of only her second day in the job; on the pavement, a man in his thirties hurrying to the beat from his iPod suddenly collapsed, his leg severed at the knee.
In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, silence hung in the smoke, then the full horror hit, people with blood on their faces screamed and ran and burst into tears. Sam lay in the gutter, undamaged apart from a patch of singed fur. The device had been hidden under the driver’s seat so the new guy didn’t exist any more.
Cheryl and Rebecca Glass died without knowing it.
His voice might have been coming from outer space – cracked and tinny and far away.
they’re dead, Luke
that bastard Anderson
It was the first contact I’d had from my brother in days. Lately, I felt less and less like I was his good right hand as he waged the war against his enemy without consulting me.
The name was almost the only detail I was able to process; everything else was noise in my head. Realising I’d never see them again was unbearable. I smashed the mobile off the floor and overturned a coffee table, roaring against what Anderson had done. When something closer to sanity returned, I grabbed my jacket and ran to my car, determined to put him in the ground where he belonged.
Albert Anderson was a creature of habit. Every morning he had breakfast at the Marlborough Cafe, a greasy spoon in Bishopsgate that reminded him of the London he’d known as a boy. In his time, he’d done all right. Better than all right. He didn’t need the rough and tumble any more, he’d made his money. Which begged the question: why fight Danny when he could’ve retired, quietly, no fuss no bother? Maybe Albert had been king of the castle for so long he couldn’t give it up.
Driving across the city, I set aside every thought except the thought of killing him.
He was sitting with two of his heavies under a blue and white awning, out of the sun, all eighteen stone of him, reading a copy of the Daily Mail and forking scrambled eggs into the ugly hole in his face – a white-haired pensioner with a favourite-uncle smile, kindly and obese. Except, he wasn’t kind. Anderson was ruthless, a thug who didn’t let murdering innocent civilians affect his appetite.
When my car mounted the kerb and squealed to a stop a yard from his table, he dropped his fork and ran.
The bodyguards jumped to their feet. Hard geezers. But with a madman charging towards them they responded like the amateur tough guys they were. I crashed a chair over the first one’s head and kicked his gorilla mate in the groin. Big and slow, he went down in instalments.
If you pay peanuts…
Running had never been Albert’s game. He lumbered, half staggered, across the street fifty yards ahead, dragging his fat arse. For a big man, his pace was deceptive; he was slower than he looked.
I smiled. I could afford to. I had him.
Until he disappeared from sight.
I raced to where he’d been, certain he must have ducked into a shop and was posing as a customer. No sign. Panic started in me. I’d been enjoying myself, savouring what I had intended to do instead of nailing the bastard. Out of the corner of my eye, a cage registered, rising against the side of a building under construction, a taller-than-tall mother no doubt destined to be the new home of some Far East banking corporation, the sort of eyesore that dominated the city skyline. Anderson was inside, staring at me through the mesh grill. Our eyes locked and we both understood how it would end. Going up against Danny had been a mistake. Climbing into the sky was another one.
Dumb, Albert! Dumb!
The tension in me melted. He was trapped.
I came around a corner into grey space, cool air, plaster walls and a black water tank sitting like a Buddha in the middle of the floor. Far below, London whispered. In the morning light the Thames was a silver ribbon carelessly cast on the ground, and south of the river firemen would have finished hosing water on the car’s charred shell.
they’re dead, Luke
Anderson was standing on the other side of the room, sweat glistening on his bulldog jowls, the corner of his mouth twitching. Behind him, through the opening where a window would go, a plane streaked towards Heathrow. Over his shoulder I read the logo on the tail, and brought my eyes back to the bastard, expecting him to produce a weapon, come at me, do something. It didn’t hap
pen. He’d assumed his men would be enough.
Another mistake.
Albert was having a bad day.
Fear rolled off him in waves. He stepped away, protesting his innocence. ‘It wasn’t me. Nothing to do with it.’
He was remarkably well informed considering the bomb had gone off less than thirty minutes ago. I hadn’t told him, so how did he know?
I shook my head. For all his success he was thick.
‘Don’t believe you, Albert.’
He seemed disappointed, as if he’d expected me to take him at his word, then remembered I was Danny Glass’s brother and, of course, couldn’t be trusted to see it his way.
He’d got that right.
His fingers left sweat marks on the pale concrete. Underneath his coat he was trembling. I moved closer, close enough to smell him. A baby step backwards took his heel over the lip; the wind ruffled what was left of his hair while gravity tugged at his shoes. Workmen in another futuristic high-rise stopped what they were doing and pointed at us.
Anderson swayed; the layers of his bloated jaw quivered. ‘What would I have to gain?’
Forty-three stories up, on the edge of nowhere, it was a good question. I assumed it was rhetorical and let it pass.
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Yeah, it was you all right.’
Somewhere behind me I heard the lift start the descent to the ground. Albert heard it too and knew his men were coming. Hope washed through him, his massive shoulders relaxed, the familiar cunning returned to his eyes, and he sighed, imagining he was about to be saved. Spoiling it for him was a pleasure.
‘Forget it. They won’t make it in time.’
He realised I was telling the truth, dragged a sleeve over his brow and played his last card. ‘Four hundred thousand. In cash. And a truce.’
