Fatal Transaction: A DCI MacBain Scottish Crime Thriller

by Oliver Davies

  “We escaped through the window,” I continued. “My contact was hit, but they told me we needed to split up, so I left them and swam for shore. As soon as I hit land, someone started shooting at me. I managed to get to my car and get away, but I never saw who it was. And that’s about it.” I shrugged, the ending of the story feeling a little awkward in my mouth, and I wondered if I needed to continue and tell him about the underground lab and the threat against one of the women in my life. But I kept my mouth shut. If he asked, maybe I would tell him the rest, but I wasn’t going to offer it up.

  “Uh-huh,” Dunnel said slowly, and I tried to feign calm as I waited for his judgement. “Why didn’t you come forward with this when it happened?”

  “Paranoia,” I answered honestly. “I got into my own head about who I could trust, and I guess it was just easier to keep it to myself.”

  “I see. And is there anything else I should know? Anything that might affect the safety of this station and the people under my care?”

  That was about as direct a question as it could be, and I held my glass out for a refill. Dunnel obligingly tipped more whiskey into it, and I took a small sip, savouring the way it burned on the way down my throat and washed away some of the ash, replacing one kind of smoke flavour with another.

  “Probably,” I said. “Fletcher and I discovered some kind of warren of tunnels underneath Loch Ness, and one of them led down to this strange, seemingly abandoned laboratory. I believe my father discovered some kind of shadow organisation working within Inverness, and probably the rest of the country as well, and that’s why he disappeared. I’ve no idea who they are or what they want, but they’ve already warned me to back off once by threatening a woman who’s important to me, though they didn’t say which one.”

  “And let me guess. You didn’t back off,” Dunnel said dryly.

  “Not exactly,” I replied sheepishly. “But my investigation has kind of dried up. I’ve been exploring the loch, looking for other entrances, but nothing’s come up. I think I need to go back into the tunnels if I’m going to find anything. I just know that will trigger some kind of response from these people.”

  I fell silent and sipped my drink. I’d been talking a lot, and it felt like Dunnel had hardly said a word. What if this was a trick? A way for him to learn everything I knew so he could report back to this shadow organisation because he was working for them, and I’d just told him all, and--

  No.

  No.

  I was not going to go down that road. I wasn’t going to mistrust every single person in my life because of the slim possibility they were working with some weird and creepy group of… whatever people. That was simply ridiculous, and I’d ruin relationships that way. I wasn’t going to do that, no matter what the paranoid part of my brain said. That would be letting the shadows win.

  “How did you know I was involved?” I asked him. I needed to know. I needed the answer to assuage some of my worries. “Who told you?”

  “No one, really,” Dunnel answered. “I’ve just overheard a few people talking about how you’ve been acting a bit strange lately.”

  “Like who?” I demanded, unable to stop the suspicious squint of my eyes.

  “Well, like Reilly for one,” Dunnel replied. “And Martin.”

  “Reilly?” I repeated. “He only just got here.”

  “And he immediately knew something was up with you,” Dunnel countered.

  “Did he tell you why he was here?” I asked. “About his missing friend and everything?”

  “Of course,” Dunnel said, but he hesitated just a second of a fraction too long.

  I nodded a couple of times, the pieces sliding into place for the final time. My suspicions were right. Charles wasn’t in any danger. Reilly was just using him as an excuse to pump me for information for whatever reason. It seemed the two of us needed to have a serious chat, and soon.

  “Sure he did,” I said, and my expression obviously made Dunnel realise that the gig was up because he shrugged somewhat apologetically. “Are you going to tell me to drop this, sir?”

  Dunnel leaned even further back in his chair until I thought he was going to go horizontal. “I want to. You have no idea how badly I want to tell you to bury this, but I know you aren’t going to, even if I give you a direct order, so I’ve decided it will be safer for all of us if I give you my support. But,” Dunnel held up a finger to make sure I wouldn’t say anything to interrupt him, “you’re not to involve anyone else in this. I won’t have you putting anyone in danger. You can use any other police resources, just not the bodies.”

  “Fletcher already knows, sir,” I said, and Dunnel gave me a look that said, ‘of course, she does.’ “And Martin was involved at the start before things got serious. Do I have permission to bring him in on this? We might need his expertise.”

  Dunnel thought about it for a long moment. “Fine. But limit it to the three of you, got it?”

  “Got it,” I agreed. “Thank you.”

  “If there is something dark going on in this town, then we need to figure out what it is and stop it,” Dunnel told me. “Especially if it’s been going on under our noses for so long.”

  “I agree,” I said, steel suffusing my spine. “And I’ll do everything I can to root it out.”

  “See that you do. But don’t get yourself killed in the process.”

  “That’s the goal,” I said and snorted out a short little laugh. Then I leaned forward to place my now empty glass back on Dunnel’s desk. “I am sorry that I didn’t fill you in right away. I hope you can understand why I kept it to myself.”

  “I suppose I may have done the same,” Dunnel admitted. He set his own glass down and rose to see me to the door, and I groaned as I stood as well, my muscles aching from that short bout of inactivity. Dunnel held the door open, and I nodded to him as I passed through, stepping back out into the hustle and bustle of the station’s main floor.

  It looked like most of the day shift had left by that point, and I couldn’t help but stare at the faces around me as I moved toward the door. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake in bringing Dunnel into the fold, not because I thought he might be the mole, but because it was perfectly possible that there was someone else here working as this organisation’s eyes, even if they were unaware of this fact themselves.

  A couple of the night shift workers glanced up at me as I passed by, and I immediately looked away before I met their eyes, my paranoia making it hard to act normal and friendly at that moment. I hoped they would see the blood and dirt on my face and assume I was acting weird because I had a bad day and not just because I was rude.

  I took my phone out as I walked outside, breathing in the cool evening air. Unfortunately, there was one last thing I needed to do before I called it a night, even if exhaustion dragged at my limbs and demanded attention.

  I dialled Reilly. He and I needed to have a chat about the real reason why he was in town. He picked up quickly, at least, answering just as I unlocked my car.

  “Callum?” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  It would be better to talk about this in person so I could read his micro-expressions and body language, but if I asked him to meet me, he might have time to prepare, and I needed him a little off-balance if I was going to get a straight answer off him.

  “I need you to tell me why you’re actually in town,” I said as I climbed into my car and started the engine. I asked him point-blank so he would have a chance to come clean and stop lying to me.

  “I told you,” Dunnel said with just a little too much pressure in his voice. “I’m worried about Charles--”

  “Stop,” I interrupted, sighing as I backed out of my parking spot. “I just spoke with Dunnel. He said you never mentioned Charles to him. So I know that’s just a story you cooked up to what? Interrogate me? Pump me for information? What’s going on, Reilly? Really.”

  Reilly let out a deep sigh, the sound rasping through the speaker of my phone. “Your mother c
alled me. She felt like something was going on with you, but she also knew you wouldn’t talk to her about it since she’s your mother. She thought you might be more receptive to a chat if it came from me. I’ll admit, I didn’t think my cover story would last all that long, but I also know how you feel about confiding in people. I was just trying to help.”

  “My mother?” I repeated incredulously, though I had to admit it did sound like something she would do.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I was trying to be subtle about it,” Reilly said. He at least had the decency to sound a little sheepish. “I asked Martin about it, too. He told me a little bit about the photo your sister had found and all the stuff with your dad’s old message boards. I asked him not to tell you that I’d mentioned it.”

  “You could have just asked me,” I said. It was late enough in the evening that traffic had died down, so I was zipping along the streets as I spoke with Reilly, driving perhaps just a little too fast than was maybe smart.

  “And would you have answered me honestly?” Reilly asked.

  I hesitated. “Maybe not. But I still don’t appreciate being lied to, Reilly. Especially by you.”

  I probably didn’t really have any right to say that to him since I’d also been lying to most of the people in my life, but at least I wasn’t also fishing for information with my lies.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” Reilly said. “But your mum’s worried. You should talk to her.”

  “Fine. I’ll talk with her. I need you to stay out of it from now on.” I glanced in my rearview mirror as I rolled to a halt before a stop sign. The gesture was more a habit now than any sort of paranoia.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s been going on with you?” Reilly asked. “I can help if you need me.”

  “Maybe later,” I told him as I crossed the junction. I’d just gone through the whole story with Dunnel. I didn’t quite have the mental fortitude to go over it all again so soon.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Reilly promised. “I am sorry for lying. I won’t do it again if that makes you feel any better.”

  “Not really,” I said. “We’ll talk later. I have to go. I’m absolutely exhausted.”

  “Okay. I’ll be here if you need me, Callum,” Reilly said.

  “I know, Reilly. I know,” I murmured, and then the two of us hung up.

  Ten minutes later, I found myself parked outside Rayla’s building, unable to bear the thought of going home to my own flat and puttering around all by myself. She buzzed me in when I hit the call button by the front door, and then I was standing on the welcome mat outside her flat, still smelling of smoke and dirt with skin about as red as a boiled lobster and daubs of dried blood on my hands.

  Rayla’s eyes widened the moment she opened the door and took in my weary visage. “Oh my God, what happened?” she demanded, gingerly seizing my hands so she could lead me into the flat.

  I toed off my boots so I wouldn’t get mud and ash across her floor, and after I’d collapsed onto her sofa, I ran her through everything that had happened, from the start of the new case all the way down to the crazy fire at the fence’s house. Rayla listened with wide-eyed, rapt attention the entire time, her hands still clasped around one of mine.

  “Okay, wow. That’s a lot,” she said once I was finished. She squeezed my fingers and offered up a smile when I met her eyes. “First things first, let’s get you in the shower. Then we’ll order ourselves some food and chill out, yeah?”

  “That sounds like exactly what I need right now,” I agreed, relief flooding through me as she took over, calling the shots for just a little bit.

  Rayla nodded, then stood and pulled me to my feet so she could lead me to the cramped bathroom. We showered together, and Rayla helped me get all the dirt and ash scrubbed out of my skin, the water running brown around our feet. My face ached as Rayla gently worked the dried blood away from each cut, and once we were done in the shower, she cleaned and dried the little wounds and plopped plasters over the worst of them. She wasn’t the kind to have plain, skin coloured plasters, so I wound up with flowers on one cheek and Star Wars characters on the other.

  Rayla kissed me softly as we finished getting dressed, and I closed my eyes as I leaned against her, the steam from our long shower filling the enclosed space, smelling of her mint and rosemary shampoo.

  “Thanks,” I murmured against her lips, and I felt her smile in response.

  “How about we get some food in you?” she suggested. “What do you have a taste for?”

  “Literally anything,” I said as I pulled away. “I could probably eat a horse right now.”

  Rayla laughed, leading the way out of the bathroom, the steam escaping into the rest of the flat the moment she opened the door. “Pizza sound good?”

  “Pizza sounds great,” I agreed.

  Rayla went to find her phone to pull up the menu, and it wasn’t long until she called our favourite pizza place to order a delivery. There was no chance in hell either of us was going out again that night.

  While we waited for our food, we curled up together on the sofa, and Rayla turned on a cooking show so we could have some background noise without having to invest in the actual plot.

  “How are you feeling, really?” Rayla asked me. “You’ve had a crazy day. Probably a crazy couple of days. It’s okay if you’re not alright, you know.”

  “It was a pretty standard day for me, actually,” I said, and when Rayla gave me a look, I shrugged. “I’m not trying to be flippant, I swear. A lot of my big cases are this intense. I won’t say I’m used to it, but I can at least mostly take it in my stride, so long as I have something calm to go home to at the end of the day.”

  Rayla grinned as I nudged her to indicate that she was my calm thing.

  “The booby trap explosion was a new one,” I joked. “But no one got hurt, and that’s what really matters, never mind that we lost all that evidence.”

  The explosion was a blow to the case, to be sure, but I really just cared that we’d all gotten out unscathed.

  “We’ll have to get back to it tomorrow,” I continued. “We need to come up with a new plan, but for the moment, that’s a problem for future me. Right now, I just need rest.”

  “Of course. I’ll stop asking about it,” Rayla said, and I smiled at her appreciatively.

  “How’s your work going?” I asked.

  “Alana wants to work on setting up an LGBT counselling centre in town,” Rayla said. “We’re working on setting up fundraising right now, as well as contacting a few healthcare providers to see if they’re interested in throwing their lot in with us.”

  “That’s impressive,” I said.

  Rayla nodded excitedly. “It’s early days yet, but we’ve got high hopes for it.”

  We chatted about the logistics of the project a while longer until Rayla’s phone buzzed with a text telling us our food had arrived. She disentangled herself from me with the promise that she’d be back soon, and then she disappeared out the door. I settled further into the cushions and tried to focus on the TV while I waited for her return, working hard to keep my thoughts in the calm bubble that I’d managed to create for myself.

  Rayla returned a couple of minutes later, two pizza boxes balanced in one hand as she shut the door behind her. She dropped them off on the coffee table in front of me then went into the kitchen to grab two beers and a bottle opener.

  I devoured all but two slices of my pizza since my adrenaline rush earlier had left a huge, gaping pit in my stomach when it had finally drained away. We didn’t stay up too late as we’d both had tiring days. It wasn’t long after we’d finished the food that we found our way to bed, tucking ourselves amongst all the blankets and pillows to let sleep take us away just as quickly as it could.

  Twelve

  Frantic knocking at the door awoke me in the morning. It took me some time to rouse myself from sleep because, for a while, it seemed like the pounding was just another part of my dream, but as it rose in volume, I lurched a
way, my heart jackhammering through my chest.

  Rayla stirred beside me as I sat up in bed, cracking her eyes open to look at me in confusion, the knocking still pulsing through the flat.

  “Who the hell is that?” she muttered.

  “I’ll go check it out. You stay here,” I said. There was something uneasy sitting in my stomach as the knocking refused to stop or even slow. Most people would knock three times then stop to wait for a response, only repeating themselves when they didn’t get an answer, but this?

  This was constant and more than a little desperate.

  I slid out of bed and went to search my pockets for my PAVA canister. I’d used it yesterday, but it would still have enough in it for another blast if I needed it today. Then I padded out of the bedroom on bare feet, slipping through the flat as quietly as I could. We were on the second floor, so there was no way someone could be at the window, but I still darted past its view as quickly as I could, on the far off chance that there might be a sniper waiting for me to show myself. It was a ludicrous worry, but not an unfounded one, given what had happened at the Kraken’s houseboat.

  The knocking continued. No doubt the neighbours would soon become very annoyed with us.

  I reached the door and put my eye to the peephole. My heart stopped for about three seconds when I recognised the face standing on the other side of the wood.

  It was the Kraken.

  She looked about the same as the last time I’d seen her, old and wrinkled and tanned, her grey hair short and coarse as it formed a halo around her thin face. She was thin as a cord and banded with muscle even at her advanced age, but she was also absolutely covered in blood.

  The vest she wore beneath a leather jacket was stained red with the stuff, its original colour unknowable, and she clutched her side with the hand not pounding away at the door. Her face was pale beneath its tan, and she had deep bags under her eyes, her whole body hunched to one side as if trying to curl around her unseen wound. There was a sort of desperation in her eyes that I’d never expected to see on her, though I’d only met her once. In our short time together, she’d been utterly in control, in her own strange way. Here was a woman who usually had a hold on all the variables, but it looked like one of them had gotten away from her, and now she was utterly rattled.