Craig Hunter Books 1-3

by Ed James

  Hunter pressed the iron against Tulloch’s bare arm. Hair singed, skin burned. Bacon stink filled the room.

  Fight it!

  Come on, fight through it!

  ‘You bastard!’

  Paisley dropped back down to the seat and tumbled off the side.

  Tulloch was staring at the dark red burn on his arm.

  Hunter snatched up the cord and swung the iron around. He let go and it thudded into Tulloch’s temple, digging into his skull. He staggered backward, fighting against his failing footing, and hit the wall.

  Hunter grabbed him under the chin and pushed him back. He seized a fistful of Tulloch’s hair and smacked his head against the wall, denting the plasterboard. Again, the dent widening. Another go and he broke a hole in it.

  Arms grabbed Hunter from behind. ‘Woah, woah, he’s had enough.’

  Cullen, pulling him back from the abyss.

  Hunter let go and Tulloch flopped into a heap on the floor.

  Hunter slumped forward in the passenger seat of Cullen’s Golf.

  The interior swam around in front of his eyes, the rear-view looking like it was attached to the gearstick. Sick, like flu. Ribs were even worse than before. Kneecap felt like it stuck on the outside of his knee. Wrist like it’d bent so far the wrong way it became the right way again.

  Blue lights from the ambulance and other police cars bounced off the buildings. Most windows had rubbernecking faces pressed up to the glass.

  Paisley’s house’s side door opened, and the paramedics pulled a gurney out between them. The figure on the bed’s face was swaddled in bandages, difficult to make out if they were male or female, dead or alive.

  Hunter wobbled backwards, blinking hard as a giant paper cut seared up his shoulder blades.

  Cullen walked back from the house, mobile to his ear. ‘Might want to rest for a bit, He-Man.’ He stabbed a finger on his phone and pocketed it. ‘Sharon’s got Matty, by the sounds of things.’ He clapped Hunter’s shoulder in the only part that didn’t ache. ‘And Paisley’s heading back to hospital.’

  ‘How is she?’ Talking felt like it could knock teeth out.

  ‘She’ll live.’ Cullen let out a sigh. Deep, like he used to do back in the day. ‘Tulloch went to town on her, though.’

  Hunter eased himself up. Felt like a rib was poking through his heart.

  Cullen clapped him on the shoulder, right where it hurt. ‘Just like old times, mate.’ He got out his car keys then seemed to think twice about something. He grabbed Hunter’s arm. ‘Craig, when you were hitting Tulloch… Are you all right?’

  Hunter shrugged off his grip and started off towards the car. ‘I just wanted him to stop. He deserved it.’

  ‘Not saying he didn’t.’ Cullen shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that. You brutalised him.’

  ‘You can thank me, you know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was going to press the iron on your face.’

  ‘Shite.’ Cullen swallowed. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Hunter brushed away some dried blood from his forehead. ‘I got lucky when I twonked him with that iron.’

  Cullen put his hands in his pockets. ‘Well, the paramedics are in there. They reckon they can patch Tulloch up enough to get the okay from the duty doctor at Leith Walk.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘As long as he can speak…’ Cullen shrugged. ‘Either way, his lawyer’s on the way there.’

  ‘Think he’ll sue?’

  ‘All depends on the lawyer, Craig.’

  Cullen’s car was the last in a long motorcade through the streets of sleeping Edinburgh, the flashing blue lights of the squad cars ahead of them.

  They hit Portobello Road, filled with taxis and Ubers ferrying tanked-up clubbers into town and wasted boozers back home.

  Hunter stretched out his knuckles. Going to have to lay off the kettlebells for a week or so at this rate. Could still feel the iron’s cord between his fingers, slipping away as he sconed it off Tulloch’s head.

  They ploughed along London Road and Hunter’s phone lit up. A text from Chantal:

  HEARD WHAT HAPPENED. WELL DONE. X

  He stabbed out a reply:

  FEEL PRETTY BROKEN. HOW YOU?

  A young couple staggered underneath a speed camera, both as pissed as each other. His phone flashed up again:

  EVEN BROKER. I’LL KISS YR BRUISES BETTER LATER. X

  WHAT’S HAPPENED? WHY ARE YOU BROKEN? X

  He stared at the string of messages, going back months. Xs on most lines. Work stuff in amongst their chat. Christ, some of it was rancid. And God knows what McNeill would think if she saw any of it.

  Cullen was more interested in Hunter’s phone than the road. ‘What’s that?’

  Hunter pocketed the mobile. ‘Just checking in with the boss.’

  ‘Boss, my arse.’ Cullen set off across the London Road traffic lights, guided through by uniformed officers, then turned right onto Leith Walk. ‘You’re seeing her, aren’t you?’

  ‘No comment, Sergeant.’

  Cullen grinned at him. ‘Wanker.’

  Hunter couldn’t help but share the grin. ‘Twat.’

  Cullen barked out a laugh as he followed the ambulance down into the bowels of the police station. ‘Chantal worked for me, remember?’ He pulled up in one of the free spaces, next to a purple Jag. ‘Moving her on was for the best.’

  ‘I’ll pass that on.’ Hunter tried to get out, but his legs were locked. Bruises and lactic acid burned up the back of his thighs.

  Cullen got out of the car and helped Hunter out his side. ‘You old bastard.’

  Felt like he was three hundred years old. ‘So, are we getting to dance with Tulloch tonight, then?’

  A car door thunked open behind them, echoing round the car park.

  Cullen shrugged. ‘Depends on which scum-sucking lawyer Tulloch’s got.’

  ‘The scum-sucking lawyer representing Mr Tulloch is here.’ Dead eyes hid behind rimless specs. Brylcreemed white hair swept back to hide a good chunk of baldness. The sort of Morningside accent you only heard in jokes. Hamish Williams of McLintock, Williams & Partners.

  ‘My commiserations.’ Cullen did up his suit jacket and helped Hunter to his feet. ‘Bit odd for a big-shot like you to represent a raping scumbag like Tulloch.’ Then he frowned. ‘Oh hang on, it’s what you do every day.’

  Hunter started off across the garage, limping like an old man, every step feeling like a mile.

  Williams got between them, blocking their path to the ambulance as Tulloch’s lumbering shape was helped out. ‘My client has been violently assaulted and requires urgent medical assistance. I would greatly appreciate it if you could see your way to releasing him from custody forthwith.’

  Hunter got in his face and grinned as wide as his aching face would let him. ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘Then I must insist that any interview is postponed until tomorrow morning.’

  Cullen shrugged at Hunter. ‘I’ll process him, you go home and get yourself some shut-eye.’

  95

  CHANTAL

  * * *

  Chantal leaned against the wall in the corridor, her fingers numb around the mobile. ‘An iron?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Hunter’s voice sounded like it was thousands of miles away, not just over a hundred. ‘He…’

  Chantal felt sick. Acid burned in her gut. ‘But you got him?’

  ‘Right. We got him.’ Hunter let out a deep sigh. ‘He’s not in a good way. He’s a bit too… injured to interview.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Arrested him. Ish.’ Hunter sucked in air. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ve invented a swearword strong enough for how bad this is.’

  Hunter laughed. ‘I need to use that swearword when you’ve invented it.’

  ‘That bad?’

  ‘It’s shite. Anyway. You okay?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m just… Glad y
ou caught him.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Chantal swapped the phone to her other hand. ‘Look, Craig, I’ll be here another few hours interviewing and…’ She yawned into her free hand. Felt like her jaw was going to slice open.

  ‘Right, well, I’m back at my flat. The cats haven’t killed each other, so it’s looking positive.’

  She cry-laughed, a lump catching in her throat.

  Hunter’s yawn rattled the speaker.

  Chantal swallowed down bile. ‘Look, Sharon told me they’re charging Gordon Brownlee with Finlay’s death.’

  ‘Two days of hell in the Algarve and God knows how many PTSD flashbacks just so Matty Ibbetson and Keith Brannigan can walk free?’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Footsteps rang off the metal from below as some cops climbed the stairs. Chantal moved over to look down. DI Colin “Crystal” Methven and a local uniform. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll let myself in.’

  Bruce was waiting outside the interview room. ‘That’s some good work back there.’

  ‘It’s not over yet.’ Chantal sucked in a deep breath. ‘We need to put them away for what they’ve done.’

  ‘Oh, we will.’ Bruce glanced round at Chantal. ‘Can’t believe Petra’s been lying to us for this long.’ He huffed out a sigh. ‘Under our bloody noses, Chantal. My mother lives down the road from that house.’

  ‘We’ve got them now, Jon. That’s what matters.’

  ‘What matters is putting that pig fucker away.’ Bruce stabbed a finger at the door, clattering against the wood. He straightened up and did up the buttons on his suit jacket. ‘Your boss and I had a conference call with our friend Quaresma.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He wants extradition.’

  ‘You going to give him it?’

  ‘Maybe. Not my decision. But he was gambling, started showing us his cards too soon.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Bruce thumbed at the interview room door. ‘Petra in there? Her sister is none other than Luisa Oliveira.’

  ‘What?’ Chantal tried to process it, her brain struggling under lack of sleep and too much booze. ‘So that’s why Matty was speaking to her?’

  ‘Correct.’ Bruce entered the room and kicked off the interview recording.

  Chantal checked her watch. Half two. Two hour drive back to Edinburgh, as well. She blinked away her tiredness and pushed into the interview room.

  Matty Ibbetson slouched on the other side of the table, rocking from side to side, eyes shut. His face was puffed up, thick and purple. His right eye was bandaged, the left focused on the table top. He kept clenching his jaw then letting go. Didn’t look up as Chantal sat opposite him.

  His lawyer gave her a glance. An old Indian man, by the looks of things. Skin much darker than hers, so not from Pakistan, anyway. Tamil or Sri Lanka, maybe. He didn’t say anything, just jotted something on his notepad.

  Chantal sat back. The seat was warm, but the legs were cold against her bare skin. She stared at Matty, trying to look through his one open eye, dead as it was, trying to look deep into his soul. Nothing there, just emptiness, not even evil.

  Murdering bastard.

  Raping bastard.

  Bruce jostled her elbow. ‘DS Jain?’

  ‘Right.’ Chantal cleared her throat. Still no reaction from Matty. ‘Mr Ibbetson, we need you to outline your movements yesterday evening.’

  Matty’s good eye peered around the room, homing in on Chantal. ‘You can go to hell.’

  ‘We’re going nowhere.’

  ‘You smashed my fucking balls!’ Matty reached under the table and grabbed something. ‘It hurts like you wouldn’t believe.’ A tear slid down from the side of his eye, like a weeping wound rather than any emotion. He jabbed a finger towards his bandaged eye. ‘You fucking stabbed me in the fucking eye with a fucking cigar!’

  ‘I was defending myself from you raping me.’

  ‘Fuck off I was.’

  ‘You almost penetrated me.’ Chantal drummed her thumbs on the table. ‘It’d be a very different story if you had a normal-sized cock.’

  Matty rubbed at the bandage, wincing. Eyes shut, rocking. Like he had headphones in.

  ‘We’ve got a tough decision to make, matey boy.’ Bruce got to his feet and walked around the room, tugging on his suit jacket like a Victorian schoolmaster. ‘We’re going to extradite you to Portugal where you’ll face a murder charge. Portuguese prisons are worse than British ones. You won’t get Sky or an Xbox over there.’ He flashed a grin. ‘The decision comes down to whether we extradite you after you’ve faced justice for attempting to rape DS Jain. And, of course, the other thing.’ Bruce kept his silence until Matty opened his good eye. ‘I mean. Harry. We found him. Him and Petra in your spare room. Fancy that.’

  Matty folded his arms. ‘You’re wasting your time here.’

  ‘Who would’ve thought Harry is safe and well in sunny Alnwick. Not in the Algarve.’ Bruce shrugged his shoulders and sat down again. ‘Was it Luisa who called in the sightings?’

  Matty’s eye bulged. He glanced over at his lawyer. ‘No comment.’

  ‘We know that she’s your soon-to-be sister-in-law.’

  ‘He wasn’t raping her!’

  ‘So, what’s it to be — the rape and murder charge in Portugal first, or the rape and child abduction here?’ Bruce was nodding his head slowly, trying to match Matty’s tempo. ‘You get to choose, son. Any time you’re ready to—’

  Matty held up his fingers, covered in blood. ‘I’m bleeding again!’

  The lawyer helped Matty to his feet. ‘We need to get him urgent medical attention!’

  Bruce hit the recorder and reached over to grab Matty by the wrists. ‘You’re not getting out of this.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘You’re going to prison for a very long time, sonny.’

  ‘When I get out, mate, I’m going to hunt you down and fuck you up.’

  96

  CHANTAL

  * * *

  ‘You lied to me, Petra.’ Bruce was opposite Petra Jack. He glanced over, his face twisted into rage. ‘You lied to the whole world.’

  Chantal stood. Hurt too much to sit.

  Petra stared at the table.

  ‘All that time, he was in Alnwick. Petra, you sat in this very room, telling us how you hadn’t seen your boy for days. You lied your face off to us. “No, officer, I don’t know where my son is. When you find the people who did this, I will kill them myself.” Yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, we’ve found the people who took your boy, so are you going to kill yourself and Matthew Ibbetson?’

  Nothing from her.

  ‘Didn’t think so.’ Bruce reached into his pocket for his cigarette packet and rested it on the table. Petra’s gaze swarmed all over it. ‘Here’s what happened. Someone abducted Harry on his walk home from school. That was Matty Ibbetson, your lover, wasn’t it? Then he took him to his house and hid him there. Meanwhile you pretended to be the distraught mother.’

  Petra rubbed her hands together.

  ‘And, of course, you needed some misdirection, so you got your sister to call in a couple of sightings in Portugal, didn’t you?’

  Petra looked over at her lawyer.

  ‘My client doesn’t have to say anything.’ Fresh out of law school, not yet tarnished with years of representing scumbags. Short with mousy hair, her over-tight blouse seemed to squish her torso. ‘I suggest you allow her to leave and we can maybe reconvene when you have something concrete to put to her.’

  ‘I don’t think you realise how serious this case is.’ Bruce drilled his nastiest glare into the lawyer. Didn’t seem to have any impact. ‘Ms Oliveira, Mrs Jack, whatever your name is this week, you kidnapped your son. You were party to it.’

  ‘That remains to be proven.’

  ‘What? We found them together.’

  ‘Coincidence.’

  Chantal stared around the dirty walls of the room. This wasn’t working. She eased herself into the spare seat
and smiled at Petra. ‘You love Matty, don’t you?’

  Petra’s eyes closed to narrow slits.

  ‘You know that Matty is a murderer, don’t you?’

  Petra’s eyes bulged. ‘He is my man.’

  Chantal got out a photo and slid it across the table. ‘This is Finlay Sinclair. He was a police officer in Edinburgh.’ She waited until Petra focused on the gurning face, sunshine glinting off his bald head. ‘Matty murdered him today. Pushed him off a rock. He broke a rib and died from his injuries.’

  Petra nudged the photo away.

  ‘Matty pushed Finlay. Deliberately.’

  ‘That happened in Portugal, not here.’ The lawyer waved her hands around. ‘I don’t see anyone from the Portuguese police here, do you?’

  Chantal narrowed her eyes at Petra. ‘He pushed him off a cliff. Then he ran to the airport. Finlay died just as the plane took off. That’s very cowardly for a big man like him.’

  Petra huffed back in her seat, arms tight around her torso.

  Another dead end. What other cards do we have left?

  Chantal gritted her teeth. ‘Do you know what I was doing in Portugal? How I came in contact with Mr Ibbetson?’

  A shrug.

  ‘I work for Police Scotland’s Sexual Offences Unit. We’re investigating one of Matty’s best friends. Private Sean Tulloch of the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. We’ve got five cases of domestic abuse against him over the last five years, all involving serious sexual assaults.’

  Another shrug.

  ‘Sean Tulloch meets damaged women, charms them, moves in with them, then he exploits them. Beats them up. Rapes them. Treats them like a slave.’ She let it hang in the air. The lawyer’s eyes bulged. ‘Five women. So far.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’ Petra blinked hard. ‘Sean is a nice man.’

  ‘So you know him?’