“You’d better come in. I’m George Hudson. I’m a member of the Arran Police force. It’s good fortune you’ve come my way.”
Dean was welcomed into the house. He had a quick image of a dinner table, two children and a woman before he was bustled up the stairs, stripped and stood under the hot water of an electric shower over a bath. Given ten minutes under the hot pressured water stream he first felt pain in his muscles then warmth and relief spread through him. Being dressed in some thick dry pyjamas and a dressing gown helped Dean felt better. Better still sat in front of a fire and sipping whisky laced coffee he finally felt safer. George Hudson sent his two young children upstairs, in spite of their protests, and gave the man time to warm and recover. Whilst he waited he called the station; they were surprised to hear from him on his night off. A car was being sent down the A841 from Lamlash.
Hudson came and sat in his lounge opposite Dean.
“There’s a car on the way. What happened?”
Dean told his story and began shivering again, but not with cold. Tears ran down his face. Hudson looked at his wife in a meaningful way. She left the room and bustled in the kitchen.
“I need to contact my wife.”
“They’ll let you call from the station. This man on the boat he said he was one of the men from Perth?” Hudson probed.
“That’s right.” Dean took a sip from the coffee.
There was a knock at the door. Hudson left the room and returned with two men equally as large as him, made bulkier by their uniforms, knife vests and loaded belts. All three men filled the room.
“This is Kevan Dean. Says he escaped a boat hijacked by the escaped Perth killer. Apparently the hijacker killed a man who was keen on buying his boat.” Hudson explained.
The shorter and stockier of the two policemen squatted down by Dean.
“You’re shivering. Are you alright?”
Dean shook his head and spoke falteringly. “He shot him from behind, straight in the head. There was blood. He made me wrap the body and throw it over the side.” Dean began to cry “I thought I was going to die. I told him I had a family, it meant nothing to him. He said he was an assassin, I offered him a million, but he wasn’t interested. Cold blooded bastard!” Dean spat the words through gritted shaking teeth.
“We’ll take it from here George.” The larger of the two policemen spoke. “Get him a coat and some boots. Give us a bag with his clothes and we’ll wash and dry them.”
Dean was led out to the car, oversized wellingtons on his feet and an oversized coat hiding the pyjamas and dressing gown.
Hudson stood at the door and felt his wife’s arm curl around his waist. Dean turned at the door.
“Thank you Mr Hudson. Thank you Mrs Hudson.”
Hudson closed the door and put all the bolts on, turned to his wife and gave her a strong look.
“Check all the windows. Lock all the doors. I’ll get a rifle from the gun cabinet.”
“Surely there’s no danger now.” She said.
“Hmm. Can’t be too careful, it’s a bad time when assassins roam the country killing witnesses. Maybe he’ll be back.”
Jean Hudson went to the kitchen back door to bolt it, as she bent down to the lower bolt her husband’s big strong body filled the little doorway of the country kitchen and the shadow turned her head towards him.
“Jean you’d better call Ivy McLane. I’ve a mind that this is some business she’d be interested in.”
Jean nodded seriously. She and Ivy McLane were old friends and some years before, during the Northern Irish ‘troubles, Ivy had been seriously ill. Jean had stayed with her and nursed her through a fever. Jean had seen a diplomatic pass and hearing electronic sounds in the loft had investigated, Ivy had left her equipment running. Jean had told her husband what she had seen. He in turn had gone to see Ivy and had been appraised in full and certain terms of her rights and his need to back off, which he had respectfully done. George Hudson assumed with the Irish coast so near and Arran being remote that spies were needed. It surprised him little that a middle aged woman painter, as that was her career, turned out to be a spy. Spies were in his view those that we would least expect.
Whilst Jean phoned Ivy he went upstairs to their room and unlocked the gun cupboard removing a BAR hunting rifle. He sat down on the edge of their double bed with a cleaning kit, tools and gun oil. The box of ammunition lay unopened on the counter pane next to box clip.
The BAR lightweight Stalker made from aircraft-grade alloy with a matte blued finish had a detachable box magazine, which after stripping, cleaning and oiling the rifle Hudson filled and locked into place. He put the rifle on safety and went down stairs with it.
Jean was coming off the phone. She didn’t like guns of any kind, but remote places allowed certain members of the population to be armed and she trusted George to be careful. That man, Dean, well she’d heard bits of his story. She felt safer locked in with George and even safer knowing how well he handled a rifle.
In the loft of a house on Benlister Road, round the corner from the Arran police station at Lamlash, Ivy McLane unlocked her small gun cabinet and took out the Sig 220 ‘rail’ pistol. She didn’t need to clean it. Since the alert two days ago she’d followed the memo on armaments to the letter. Satisfied that she was safe, doors locked and windows barred she sat in the loft and sent out her message.
'Stanton heading down West Coast in a boat and has killed. The surviving witness is at Lamlash Police. Please call to advise my right to interview or send duty team to do same.'
The reply was swift.
Duty team members in Edinburgh mopping up post Perth to attend. Please welcome and assist.
At Lamlash police station after making a statement Kevan Dean had cried on the phone to his wife. He told her he’d be back the next day. A police launch was to take him to the mainland and he’d be driven home. In their warm, plush and well decorated detached house his wife sat hugging her children and thanking god for her husband’s deliverance.
At a nearby house Dean’s clothes were already washed and being tumble dried. An on call doctor had given him a mild sedative after his interview. Dean had refused food, but welcomed the cell bed with its thick warm woollen covers. He was left to sleep with his cell door left wide open. Arran police checked Mr Griffith’s details and made a call to the mainland and a car was despatched.
In Edinburgh Mrs Griffiths sat alone in her lounge. Her children were grown and had left home, one at university the other working in London. She sat singly on the sofa with her arms wrapped around her own shoulders, body language showing her closed, shocked grief.
“I’m afraid we are sure Mrs Griffiths.” The police man said and looked at the family photos arranged on the nearby grand piano in the large and comfortable reception room. “The owner of the boat saw it happen and was to have been killed too. A lucky chance allowed him to escape, even then he had to swim through a couple of miles of open sea.”
Mary Griffiths shook her head looking from the face of the police man to the face of the police woman colleague brought along to comfort the widow.
“Why?”
“A random chance that this assassin would go for that Marina and that your husband was on a boat he could use.” The police woman said quietly.
There was silence.
“Do you have anyone who can stay with you?” She asked Mrs Griffiths.
“My sister is coming over. The children will be coming home tomorrow.”
The policeman and police woman rose to go.
“Please stay until my sister arrives.”
They both sat down.
“I’m sorry. It makes me so afraid. Why do people like that do that? Why kill people so easily… as if they were… insects… swatting people like insects…” She broke down crying.
The police woman moved over and hugged Mary Griffiths, who feeling the strong warm arms wailed out loud, clung on and sank into sobbing.
The police man’s eyes hardened
and he exchanged a look of shared understanding with the police woman.
That was the way it was. A political or diplomatic viewpoint, a hired gun, forces pitched against each other and there you were at a point where one woman drank brandy with relief whilst another sobbed in loss and grief. Some were killed and some lived when men in power made their chess board moves playing games with armed men.
By the time a doctor had sedated Mary Griffiths, whilst she was comforted by her sister, and Kevan Dean was deep in sleep in a police station, that was now at armed and ready status, the DIC helicopter from Edinburgh airport was landing in a field to the west of Lamlash. There were torches planted in the ground to mark the landing spot and nearby Ivy McLane waited by her car, switching the headlights on when the chopper had landed.
They were in for a long night, but that was DIC work, occasionally rushed and busy, most times simply watching and waiting.
Chapter 77
Dover
9 p.m.
April 18th
David sat slumped in his arm chair, full of steak, kidney, suet and gravy, not to mention potatoes and greens. In spite of this he was not sleepy. Mary had noticed that he had been staring at the television, but seemingly seeing nothing.
“You alright Davy?”
David roused himself from his introspection.
“No. I’m worried about Beaumont.”
“Why don’t you go up and log on. It’ll put your mind at rest before your sleep. I’ve unpacked your bag, except the rucksack. That’s on our bed.”
“Good idea.” David smiled, rose and made for the door. As an afterthought he came back, leant over Mary, lying back on the sofa, knitting, and kissed first her forehead then her bump. She smiled and a little glow rose on her face. She watched his broad back disappear.
In the loft he unloaded the rucksack. Camera, gun mike, weapon and laptop were laid out on the desk in the middle of the loft. The technicians who put it there followed a pattern laid down since the war. Boards were laid down, a hook down ladder added and a desk set up. Added to this in modern times were ‘Velux’ windows in the roof, electric power cables and wire link to the dish. David opened the Velux windows on both sides of the roof, reached up to a high roof beam and retrieved a key, locked the gun away in the cabinet, hung the key back up, plugged and powered the laptop. Whilst he waited he put on the head phones and plugged these in to the gun microphone. He held his arm up, pointed the gun microphone out the ‘Velux’ at the front of the house and flicked the on switch with his thumb.
Programmes on television came into range and went away, as did faint conversations, as he swept it left to right, but it was the clearly recognisable energetic sounds of love making at his one o clock position that made his thumb flick the switch off. His mind’s eye pictured the houses and he smiled when he knew it to be the house across the road four doors down. It was the home of a big angry man, bald and muscular, but ironically for his macho looks and demeanour a ladies hairdresser, whom David had argued with in the local pub once. His wife was the over made up kind of ‘dolly’, obsessed with tanning and clothes.
David laughed out loud at the image of their lovemaking, his first laugh for some time which in some way brought him closer to ‘home’. He recalled laughing last when he had been joking with Beaumont.
David logged on and read through the night’s traffic. The murders along the routes of the assassins had more details, such as names. The attached and related files showed pictures of families and homes. Karl Bushby, the Scottish truck driver, found in the Inverness car park; Grahame Dodd the taxi driver; Stewart Mitchell and Moira Brown, two Hertfordshire traffic cops; Bill Carter and ‘Jackie’, police dog and handler; Tom Welby long distance lorry driver; with Wally Tyson, DIC operative, Julian Young the Marina watchman; John Furze, Tim Wilson and Dave Jarvis armed police at Gatwick and now Tom Griffiths a Scottish banker, for whom details, new as the case was, were sketchy. The DIC files showed passport pictures, which said nothing to him about the people, but family pictures, children, in Julian Young’s case his parents, carried him into the lives of the slain with rapidity and detail. Small children in too big, gaudy coloured coats grinning, holding hands with dads, a baby held in Moira Brown’s arms, husband, hand on her shoulder, smiling down; summer snaps of men in trunks children on shoulders. Bill Carter squatting by his dog, muscle bound arms and a big grin. Family portraits in lounges and restaurants, the background to life, lives lived and now cut short. The ‘album’ of pictures was a plethora of pleasure past and David felt deeply for those touched by this massacre, empathetically sensing the years of pain ahead. David shook his head at the thought of the twelve dead people and the dead dog. He clicked through the files and images, stomach churning, jaw clenched in silent fury. The injured weren’t so numerous, two hospital workers, Beaumont and now Shadz, not to mention Ben Dowling, Gatwick armed policeman, shot through the groin, stable, but in intensive care. McKie’s eyes narrowed as his hand relaxed on the mouse touch pad. Stolen vehicles and money, damaged property and general mayhem and what for? What were they doing? What did all this death, grief and crime add up to? What could be worth all of this?
With no answers coming to his tired mind he e-mailed Jack Fulton for an update on Beaumont. A reply came back, from Diane Peters, Jack’s deputy, telling him Beaumont was stable and conscious. His family were there and he was making good progress. Beaumont had asked after David, it seemed, and for the last time that day tears wet McKie’s cheeks.
Diane didn’t mention the growing chase on Mason and Stanton, but she noted from the ‘Tekkies’ log report on David’s online activities that the files McKie had looked at tended in that direction. It was always the same with shootings. The man, or woman, always questioned things, raw and a little sensitive with trauma, answers were sought by those who’d been there and walked away in one piece.
Both David and Diane checked the update on Arran. Both learnt at nine thirty that night that the DIC duty team had interviewed Kevan Dean. Writing from Ivy’s house, where they and the pilot of the helicopter were spending the night, the report that came in made shocking and yet vitally important reading. Dean’s witness account was gruesome. The picture of Stanton was coloured in more clearly; cold stone colours like the tones of grave monuments.
Dean told of the murder, described the boat and direction, added the nugget about the million pounds turned down and gave DIC a razor edged etching of the kind of men they were after. Just one witness left behind and by the looks of it psychologically scarred for good by the encounter.
Diane sent out alerts, the west coast DIC were to watch, coast guard had been alerted and Stanton, Mason and Cobb were to be stopped and questioned, but if it came to an armed showdown, as the lat two incidents indicated it probably would, DIC were to shoot first and shoot to kill. The three men were to be stopped at all costs. Diane’s report ended with the remark that the hit had to be worth a million which meant it was a high rank target and hard to achieve.
David logged off and heading for the loft hatch was struck by the thought that Stanton was heading along the coast. He wondered where he would land. He gave the gun cabinet a friendly tap as he passed, remembering that the weapon in there had saved his life and ended the existence of a poisonous reptile of a man.
Mary was in bed when he came down. He looked in on Connor and finally folded himself into bed next to Mary. Her body was hot, lying on her back, the heavy womb rising and falling with her breathing. David inched beside her and felt her warmth. He fell asleep with his hand on the bump, not woken by the tiny night kicks of his unborn child.
Chapter 78
London Henry’s Bar
8 – 30 p.m.
April 18th
Mason had pulled a neat trick with the taxi. He’d had go down the Edgware Road, onto Park Lane and into Piccadilly, where he got out and walked towards the nearest tube stop. He picked out Henry’s Cafe Bar, right by Green Park Tube Station. He took a place at the long wooden bar b
etween the two large cream coloured pillars and waited for the bar man. He ordered a ‘Screwdriver’, took his time over it and watched the door. When the first drink was down he popped to the toilet. In the cubicle he looked at the Sig 220 he had tucked in the back of his trousers. It wasn’t the weapon issued to secret service that much he knew. It was a neat enough hand gun. He wondered whether to dump it or keep it. Instinct told him to hang on to the weapon, someone was on his trail and he knew he’d better be ready for them.
The DIC machine had tracked down the taxi. It took them half an hour to get the taxi firm to confirm by radio. Jaz was at the hospital with Shadz, but the rest of the teams were pulled out of the Baker Street area and pushed on to Piccadilly. They took the street from both ends and swept down, bar and cafe, open building at a time. The CCTV for the street was being keenly watched and the previous hour’s footage being visually combed as the teams on the ground swept on.
Mason ordered a second ‘Screwdriver’ and thought about the tube and the CCTV cameras. A man sat down at the bar next to him, taking off a trilby hat, ruby silk scarf and green trench coat first. He had mid length floppy grey hair, a pinstripe suit and waistcoat. He looked through half moon glasses at Mason and ordered a bottle of champagne, loudly proclaiming the imminent arrival of his crowd of friends and his need for the lavatory. The man walked away, the barman had his back turned and Mason saw his chance. He took the hat, scarf and coat, resting on the stool, got up and walked out. He placed the hat on his head, swung the coat on and slipped the scarf dashingly around his neck. He passed a crowd at the door, young lawyers by the look of them, two or three glanced at him, recognising first the hat and coat, then looking away when his face didn’t fit.
It was a short distance to Green Park tube station. He pulled the hat brim down and descended. He took the Victoria line to Euston then switched to the Northern Line to Camden Town.
To Kill Or Be Killed Page 21
