Digital Circumstances

by BRM Stewart

  I’d come round again in the hospital, and the nurse had smiled and reassured me. A man brought me a coffee, and another young man talked to me and asked if I was ready to go home with my wife. I gazed at him, baffled. That woman’s face was there again: smiling through tears and concern, holding my good hand. Who was she?

  And somehow I was back here in my own bed. Who had been with me? Who was that woman?

  I got up on my elbows again. ‘Hello? Hello?’ And the ache from my head spread downwards, through all of my body, and the waves of tiredness washed through me again

  Steve appeared in the doorway, pulling buds out of his ears. ‘You OK?’

  Oh god, not Steve. Where was Grosvenor? ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not OK. Are there any paracetamol?’ My voice was weak, and my chest was painful when I breathed in. My whole face felt numb.

  He ducked away and came back with a plastic prescription bottle, shook out two big white pills and gave them to me. Then he checked the label and frowned, and gave a shrug.

  ‘Water?’

  He nodded, and vanished for a minute, coming back with a mug of water. I managed to get the pills down, and he helped me sit up, rearranging the pillows. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me.

  ‘What happened?’

  He swallowed. ‘You were attacked just outside as you got back to your apartment building. Two men. They took you north of the city to a farm and beat you up. We’re not sure if they were actually trying to kill you or just hurt you – it was pretty close. I was arriving here just as they drove you off, tried to follow you in the taxi but we lost you. I called Mark and we picked him up from the hotel. We got you from the tracking app on your phone. When we arrived at the farm, they drove off – their car hit our taxi, and almost ran you over, but they got away.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  He grimaced. ‘Not sure.’

  ‘What’s your best guess? They sounded foreign – Romanian?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Could you get my mobile?’

  He nodded again and stood up, scratching his head, looking round. Then he held up a hand and nodded, disappeared for a minute, and came back with it.

  I unlocked it. ‘Could you get my charger?’

  There were a few missed calls, including one from Amanda Pitt and another from Nicola, and some emails and texts. I heard the flat’s toilet flush and the door being unlocked. I called Nicola. As it started ringing, I heard a phone ringing from elsewhere in the flat. As she answered, I heard a voice from close by, saying the same words.

  And she appeared in the doorway, looking worried but trying to smile, and we both hung up. I laughed and she did too, coming over to sit by me, reaching to hold my good hand. She was wearing a blue top and jeans; I looked at her face and her hair, and I felt better suddenly.

  ‘Hello sleepy. How are you? Are you hungry?’

  I thought about that. ‘Yes, but I think I might be sick. How did you get here?’

  ‘Your friend – Mark? – he phoned me, told me you’d been mugged. I came through straight away. Hope you don’t mind.’

  I gave another shallow, painful laugh. ‘Of course not. Thank you.’ It had been her at the hospital; she’d come through to Glasgow in the middle of the night to me.

  The pain killers were starting to work, but they were giving me a strange floating feeling. ‘How did they get your number?’ I must have had a general anaesthetic: I could feel it coming back over me.

  ‘Steve got it from your phone.’

  Which would have been locked… I shook that little problem away. ‘I should eat something,’ I said. ‘Before the paracetamol burn a hole in my stomach.’

  An hour later I was in the lounge, after awkwardly washing my face and getting dressed, Nicola helping. I toyed with a couple of slices of toast and a cup of tea, vaguely hungry but not feeling like eating. I felt more human but still spaced out. Steve had gone.

  ‘What’s been happening?’ I asked her.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I stayed with you in the hospital till you were fully awake and they were sure you weren’t concussed. They reckon you just need bed rest and being looked after, but someone has to be with you all the time just in case.’ She gave a smile and reached to hold my hands again. ‘I’ll stay here as long as you need me.’

  ‘How about Grosvenor – Mark?’

  ‘Didn’t see anyone else at all. It was only Steve at the hospital when I arrived.’

  She helped me back to the bedroom and I lay down and drifted off to sleep.

  Some time later I was more awake, though still needing more paracetamol – Nicola frowned: ‘These are strong, Martin.’ ‘It’s OK, it’ll just be for a day or so.’

  I lay thinking, and then phoned Amanda Pitt.

  ‘How are you feeling, Martin?’ But there was no warmth in her voice.

  ‘On the mend. What’s been happening?’

  ‘Everything. We’re all deep into the Talbot murder and dealing with the after effects of a weekend of violence and mayhem across the city’s housing schemes. Everybody’s on duty, all over the city and around. It’s going to be bad for some time.’

  ‘How about the attack on me?’

  Her tone was almost sarcastic: ‘How about it? When the PC interviewed you, you couldn’t give any description, or the type of car, or where you were taken. Not much we can do.’

  ‘It was dark. It was sudden.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ve nothing to go on there, so just count yourself lucky. You’ve still got your money, and the FBI is on your side.’ She gave a snort. ‘You’ve come out of this OK, Martin.’

  ‘You don’t think Charlene had anything to do with the attack on me?’

  ‘I have to go, Martin. Bye.’ She hung up.

  I tried to phone Grosvenor, but it went straight to voicemail. I asked him to call me.

  I left my phone to charge, and went through to sit by Nicola on the couch, holding her hand as we sipped cups of tea and I felt my eyes slipping shut again.

  She moved closer and put her hand on my knee. ‘Martin, can I talk to you?’

  I nodded sleepily. ‘Thanks for coming through,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it.’ The thought of being alone with Steve as my main nurse did not appeal to me. I turned to half-face her, my hand on hers, enjoying the physical contact, the warmth of her skin.

  ‘I told you about my partner. He contacted me when I was in Kirkwall, begged me to give him another chance, said he would stay off the drink. I said OK.’ She shrugged. ‘I liked you, but we didn’t know each other. And I owed him another chance: I loved him.’ She forced a smile. ‘So I left Orkney and went back to him.’ A deep breath and a rush of words: ‘And it was great, really good. Like when we first met. We did things together…’

  I shook away the thoughts that sprang into my mind, and gripped her hand as tightly as I could.

  ‘It was really really good for about two weeks, and then he turned up late when we were going round to friends. He was absolutely hammered, staggering and slurring. Swearing and a stupid grin on his face. That was it as far as I was concerned. No more chances. I could never trust him again. I felt betrayed.’ She turned to face me, the beginnings of tears in her eyes. ‘I thought about calling you there and then, but I waited till I was back in Orkney. I wanted to tell you about this. I wondered if we could find out more about each other. See if it went anywhere.’

  ‘And I was in Edinburgh being interrogated by an FBI agent.’

  She laughed, and then it faded. I wanted to keep that smile on her face, and wondered if I would ever be able to. As I was about to speak, she pressed one finger to my lips. ‘I have a feeling you’ve done some odd things in the past, and it’s obvious you’re in trouble with the police, and you haven’t told me the whole story, and your friend Steve is odd. You’ve joked about it, but there’s something serious been going on with you, Martin. Look at you. I don’t want to know all about your past, Martin, but I do want an honest future. From now on.
If you can’t give me that, then we certainly don’t have a future. I’ll help you get back on your feet, but then I’ll go home and pick up my life on my own, and you can get on with yours.’ She took another of her deep breaths. ‘And I need an instant decision.’

  Wow, I thought. Just like Helen: ‘Never lie to me, Martin.’ Instant decision? Well, I had nothing to lose here. She had cared for me, and that counted for a hell of lot. She had been honest with me, and now it was my turn.

  So I started talking. I told her everything, from the beginning, all about Fiona and Elizabeth, and the truth about what had happened with Helen. I even told her about Sam. I watched her face show sympathy and amazement, pity and censure – the screwed up eyes: ‘Oh, Martin.’ And I told her where I was now, exactly what the situation was with the FBI and the police, and the gangsters still out there.

  At the end of it she nodded. ‘Thank you for being honest. Wow, what a situation you’ve got yourself into.’ She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek, and we sat like that for some time, just being together. It felt so good, and I felt honest, at last, in a way that I never had been with Helen. Inside, I was strangely calm. I took another two of the painkillers, and drifted off to sleep on the couch again, conscious of Nicola’s hand in mine.

  *

  That evening Nicola fetched a carry-out curry. Steve reappeared, grabbed a plate and helped himself to some of each of ours. We all sat at the table in my kitchen.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked him.

  He glanced at Nicola, but I indicated that she was part of this.

  ‘Attack’s stopped,’ he said, shovelling rice into his face.

  ‘Just like that? What happened?’

  He grimaced and took another forkful of curry.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So what now?’

  ‘You can get back to what you did before, exactly as before. We’ll watch, sniff, follow. We’ll seed some data and track it around the carders’ networks. See what happens. You just do your job. The Scottish police are going to back right off for the time being, though they reserve the right to do some financial forensics on the company at any time in the future.’

  ‘Where’s Grosvenor now?’

  ‘Home,’ he mumbled. ‘Storms in New York – he wanted to get back. Not needed here.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m going home in the morning, early flight. I’ll send you details of how we communicate, how I’ll monitor your system remotely.’

  ‘Oh.’ I wondered what it would be like to be alone in the office, with Claire, doing what I did. And what would happen if this didn’t work, didn’t give them any intelligence? Would they then just discard me?

  I shook the thought away. Nicola reached to hold my hand under the table, as if sensing my doubts, and I squeezed her hand and gave her a smile. The future wasn’t certain, but there was hope.

  ‘Nicola says you got her number from my phone – how did you unlock it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Four digit code – I watched you unlock it loads of times: easy to work out what the code was likely to be. Took me two attempts’

  After our meal, I was feeling knackered. We watched some TV – Steve in the corner on his laptop, headphones plugged in – and made small talk, filling in the story of her life and the gaps in mine.

  I phoned Grosvenor and this time he answered. ‘What’s it like over there?’

  ‘My house is mostly OK, but the city’s a mess. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. You feeling OK now?’

  ‘Not too bad – the painkillers are helping.’

  ‘Yeah, well – be careful of them, son. Take the pain – it’s part of the healing.’

  ‘Listen, thanks for chasing off those guys – I think they might have carried on beating me up.’

  ‘My pleasure. We need you, Martin.’

  That was reassuring, even if I suspected it wasn’t entirely honest. ‘What are you going to do about Charlene?’

  ‘Charlene?’ he asked, as if he’d forgotten all about her. ‘Nothing, I guess. Steve will have filled you in on where we are. You just get on with what you were doing, and he’ll monitor. The way I see it, Charlene will be tied up trying to get whatever she can out of her grandfather’s estate.’

  ‘You don’t want her to work with us any more?’

  He paused for a second. ‘I see no need to involve her in what you’re going to be doing.’

  I tried to unravel that statement, but wasn’t sure I fully understood it. ‘How about Sandy Lomond?’

  ‘Still no trace. But he’s not mission critical. The Scottish police are still interested of course, so good luck to them.’

  Hesitantly, I asked: ‘Have you found Colin Strachan?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said.

  When he didn’t elaborate, I went on: ‘Who do you think attacked me? Was it the Romanians? Did Charlene - ?’

  He interrupted: ‘You’re safe, Martin. You’re working for the good guys: we’ll look after you.’

  I felt the hollow feeling in my stomach as the painkillers fought with the curry, and my bowels started to protest.

  ‘Anyhow, Steve will give you contact details when he finishes up: he’s your case officer – I’m done with it. Good working with you, son.’ And with that he hung up.

  I put my mobile down, feeling flat.

  ‘You OK, Martin?’ Nicola asked.

  I held my hand up to her and then made a dash for the bathroom to be violently sick, the heaving causing agony in my chest. Afterwards I washed myself and brushed my teeth and came back through to the lounge. I told her about the conversation with Grosvenor, Steve in the corner apparently unaware. God, this was so like those days with Fiona and Davey in the flat in Finnieston.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Are you still in any danger?’

  ‘Grosvenor says no.’

  All that night, through sleep broken by a headache and pain, I dreamed of the future I wanted, the future I thought I deserved, the future I should have had with Fiona.

  Chapter 33

  Spain

  Sandy Lomond lit a cigarette and listened to the waters lap on the sand twenty feet in front of him, the noise of the bar behind him. He smiled to himself: smoking was allowed in this bar, but he and the other ex-pats still had that habit of going outside.

  It was late - dark, but warm. He closed his eyes briefly and savoured the mood, as he did every evening, and then sat at a small metal table looking out at the calm night.

  Another man came out of the crowded bar and lit a cigarette as he sat at the next table. Both men looked towards the sea, the full moon hanging in the black sky. ‘Fuckin’ brilliant here, isn’t it?’ The accent was Scottish, Lanarkshire.

  Sandy turned his head, then turned back. The man had been somewhere at the back of the bar, chatting to two young girls on holiday; Sandy had noticed them all right, with their bleached hair, their false fingernails and their filmy dresses, but not too much of the man who was chancing his luck. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘Where you from yourself, big man?’

  ‘Around.’

  ‘Here on holiday?’

  ‘Retired.’

  ‘Must be fuckin’ brilliant, here all the time. Nae work. I’m just here for the week. I’m a taxi driver. What did you do?’

  Sandy turned again for a brief look. He was sure the man was just being friendly, a fellow Scot in a strange land, that there was nothing sinister. ‘Computers,’ he said. ‘I was in computers.’

  ‘Fuckin’ brilliant, man. Computers! Who did you work for?’

  Sandy dropped his cigarette and trod on it as he stood up and turned to walk back towards the bar. ‘Enjoy the rest of your holiday, son,’ he said.

  The stranger got the message.

  *

  Colin Strachan opened his eyes as the black shadow fell across him, blotting out the early afternoon sun. He could only see the fuzzy outline of hair and beard, but was aware that the man was looking down at him. He held a hand up to shield his eyes, but
still couldn’t make out the features, and nothing triggered any recognition. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘You sure can, Mr Strachan,’ the deep New York voice growled. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  Colin shrugged. ‘Be my guest. Can I get you a drink?’ A warning voice sounded in his head, but there was nothing he could do.

  ‘Only if you’re having one yourself. Scotch and water, thank you.’

  The waiter had caught that, and nodded when Colin indicated his own almost-empty glass. The American sat by Colin. ‘Sure is a mighty fine spot here, Colin.’

  ‘You have the advantage...’

  ‘Sorry, remiss of me.’ He pulled out his wallet and showed his ID. ‘Mark Grosvenor, FBI.’ He put it away and continued to gaze across the tiled promenade to the young men playing volleyball on the beach, and the sea washing the edge of the sand.

  Colin said nothing till the drinks came, but inside he was suddenly taut; there was only one reason that the FBI would be here speaking to him, but how... When he spoke, he tried to keep his voice steady. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Oh, just circumstances,’ Grosvenor said. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard about all the stuff that’s been going down back in Glasgow.’ Grosvenor paused, but there was no reply. ‘You must have read about the murder of a guy called Ken Talbot.’

  ‘Ken Talbot?’

  ‘He ran what they call a criminal empire across much of Scotland: drugs and cigarettes and booze and extortion. And he had a whole scrunched up bundle of companies, real and fake, to launder his money. Including a couple of computer firms in Glasgow.’

  Colin was shaking his head, pursing his lips. ‘Nope,’ he said.