Fatal Transaction: A DCI MacBain Scottish Crime Thriller

by Oliver Davies

  “Callum? What are you doing here so early?” she asked, her eyes locked on the Kraken’s face, though she could only see the other woman’s side profile. “Who’s this?”

  I turned us, so we were facing her completely. There was no beating around the bush on this one. My mother’s eyes widened the moment she took in all the blood.

  “Okay. How to explain this,” I said. “This is the Kraken. She says she has information about my father’s disappearance. She just needs somewhere to lie low for a little while.”

  “Alasdair…?” Eleanor began, shock flashing across her expression as she trailed off. She took a deep breath and snapped into business mode as she motioned for us to move deeper into the house. “Come with me. Let’s take a look at your injury and get some water into you.”

  She turned sharply on her heel without waiting to see if we would follow her, and I took a tighter hold on the Kraken before I started down the hall. Eleanor led us into the brightly lit kitchen, then gestured at a chair she’d pulled away from the table. As I sat the Kraken down, she disappeared down another hall, probably off to find her first aid kit, which would no doubt be far more extensive than Rayla’s.

  “Wait here,” I said to the Kraken.

  “Where else am I going to go?” the woman asked sardonically, but I was barely listening as I chased after my mother.

  I found her rooting through the cabinet just outside the bathroom, her expression intent as she moved all the towels to the side.

  “We need to talk,” I said as I leaned up against the wall beside her.

  “We certainly do,” Eleanor agreed, shooting me a look. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Not about that,” I said with a shake of my head. “We need to talk about why you sent Reilly to spy on me.”

  Eleanor’s hands paused in their work, and she let out a long sigh before she pulled away from the cabinet and turned to face me fully. “Found out about that, did you?”

  “It wasn’t that hard to figure out,” I told her. “What the hell, Mum?”

  “Well, would you have told me the truth if I’d asked you?” she wondered. “Or would you have just brushed me off?”

  “You never tried to ask,” I pointed out. “You went straight to having my old partner spy on me.”

  She shrugged, totally unashamed of her actions. “I was worried about you. I’m your mother. I’m allowed to do questionable things when it comes to your well-being.”

  “I'm pretty sure that’s not how it works,” I said, but Eleanor just raised an eyebrow.

  “So are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked. “I mean, it looks like you did just bring it to my doorstep.”

  “Yes, I’m going to tell you,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about being spied on.”

  “Okay, son,” Eleanor said, and I noticed she never apologised as she went back to searching for the first aid kit. She tugged it free of all the towels it was buried under and walked back to where the Kraken waited for us without another word, leaving me no choice but to hurry after her.

  The Kraken was still seated in the kitchen chair, and she had her eyes closed again, her breathing carefully measured. She opened her eyes again and looked over at us as the floorboards squeaked, and my mother immediately began to unpack the first aid kit across the kitchen table.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she ordered as she raised the Kraken’s shirt and took stock of the injury.

  So I did. I told her everything, leaving absolutely nothing out. She knew parts of it already, but I went over them again, from the picture Sam had found, to the reflection Martin had discovered within it, and then on to the first time I’d made contact with the Kraken. I told her about the fire and our escape and the strange man named Kane that Sam and I had met during one of our visits to the loch. I even told her about falling into those tunnels and killing Kingston, as well as the lab and the threat warning me away from the investigation.

  “Dunnel told me you had to kill someone on your last case,” Eleanor said once I’d finished. For some reason, that was what she chose to bring up first. “I’d been hoping you’d come to me about it, but I didn’t want to push you. That was honestly the main reason I sent Reilly to talk to you. I had no idea how deep this search for your father had gone.”

  “I still have no idea who these people are threatening,” I said. “It could be you or Fletcher, or Rayla or…” I trailed off before I actually mentioned Lena. My mother knew about her, of course, and knew what had gone down between us, but I still didn’t really like talking about her, as if saying her name would somehow make her less real, less likely to show up again.

  Eleanor waved my concern away. “If they’re threatening you, that just means you're onto something. It’s certainly no reason to back off. If anything, it’s a reason to push harder.”

  I nodded. “I haven’t had much luck with that. At least, not until she showed up.” I nodded to the Kraken. I’d been speaking long enough that my mother had managed to stitch up her knife wound and slap a fresh bandage over it. “Can she stay here for a while? I’ve got another case on my plate right now, which I should probably be getting back to…” I pulled my phone out. I already had a text from Fletcher, asking if I was ready to get back to it.

  “Sure. We can have a chat, just us girls,” Eleanor said, and the glint in her eye made the Kraken swallow nervously.

  “Great. Thanks, Mum.” I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then speared the Kraken with my gaze, pointing a finger in her face. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and then you’ll tell me everything, understand?”

  “Understood,” the Kraken agreed.

  “This is the part where you thank me,” I said, making a small hand gesture to compel her to continue.

  The Kraken smirked. “I don’t believe in thanking people.”

  “No wonder you don’t have any friends,” I muttered, but that just made the Kraken smile wider.

  My mother walked me to the door, leaving the Kraken at the kitchen table. She held the door open for me, and I stopped for a quick hug before I stepped outside.

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she asked me, her motherly concern showing through the hard exterior she usually showed the world.

  “As careful as I can be,” I promised her. “But you know how this job goes.”

  But Eleanor shook her head. “I’m not talking about the job. I’m talking about whatever Alasdair got himself wrapped up in. I don’t want it taking you away, too.”

  “It won’t,” I said with a lot more confidence than I actually felt. “My father tried to go it alone. I’ve got help. Things will be different this time.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Eleanor muttered. She let a bit of darkness wash across her face before she bolstered herself up again, squaring her shoulders as she smiled and nodded at me. “I would certainly love to see these people pay.”

  “Me too, Mum,” I agreed. “I’ll make sure that they do.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Take care of yourself, Callum.”

  “You too,” I agreed, and with one last smile, my mother shut the door on me.

  I hesitated on the front step for a couple of seconds before I shook myself and headed back to my car, a cool breeze wafting through my thick hair. My phone rang just as I was unlocking the doors, and I paused to figure out which pocket I’d stuffed the device into. Fletcher’s name was on the caller ID, so I answered quickly, holding the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I got into the car.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Hey, just wondering where you’re at,” she replied. “I’m already at the station. Dunnel’s been asking what our plan is for the day.”

  “I had some… personal business to take care of,” I said. “I’ll fill you in later. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Are we bringing you-know-who in today?” Fletcher asked, dropping her voice low.

  “I don’t think he’d take too kindly to being bro
ught into the station,” I answered. “We’ll call him once we have a plan in place, and go from there.”

  “Got it. See you soon.”

  Fletcher and I hung up, and I peeled down my mother’s driveway, hitting the main road so quickly that my tyres squealed for a moment before they caught. I didn’t want to waste any more time, not while there were so many balls in the air, rapidly hurtling toward the ground.

  I made it to the station in record time, pulling into the parking spot beside Fletcher’s black car, then hurried inside, the ends of my overcoat flapping around my legs. Fletcher was seated behind her desk, tossing a ball up and down while she waited for me, and she caught it one-handed when she spotted me coming toward her, tucking it away in a drawer so she could focus.

  “Hey, sorry I’m late,” I said as I peeled my coat off and dropped it over the back of my chair, sinking into the seat a second later.

  “What’s going on?” Fletcher asked, her eyes practically burning with curiosity.

  “Later. When we’re outside,” I promised. “For now, is there anything new I should know about?”

  Fletcher shook her head. “We’ve been monitoring the warehouse Smyth parked his van outside, but there hasn’t been any movement coming or going. Martin is working on hunting down information on Carmichael, but the dude seems pretty ghost-like so far. He’s been looking for Barron as well, but the address of his house is registered under the name of a dead man, so we aren’t having much luck there, either. I also gave him the number plate on Carmichael’s getaway car, so we’ve got an alert out for that one as well.”

  “Good to know,” I said as I leaned back in my seat and thought overall the puzzle pieces, trying to find the one that would help us link all the others together. “I think it’s time we pay Smyth’s van a visit. We can’t run around the city, chasing our tails as we search for some kind of hint of Carmichael. The van’s our most tangible lead, even if Smyth’s no longer there.”

  “Works for me,” Fletcher agreed. “Do you want to bring our contact along?”

  I appreciated that she didn’t say Alec’s name while we were in the station.

  “Not on this one,” I decided. “But if this goes nowhere, we’ll bring him back in and see if he’s got any other information for us.”

  “Let’s bounce then,” Fletcher said. “Do you want to take one car?”

  “I’ll drive.” I stood up and pulled my coat back on. “I just need to run down to the equipment locker room and sign out a fresh PAVA canister. I used most of mine the other day.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Fletcher said.

  I nodded and hurried out of the room, headed down one of the long halls that led to the equipment room. The desk sergeant perked up as I entered, setting aside the magazine she’d been reading.

  “DCI MacBain, what can I do for you?” she asked, adjusting her glasses.

  I pulled the half-empty PAVA canister from my pocket and set it on the desk between us. “I need to swap this out for a full one,” I said.

  “No problem. Just fill these forms out for me.” The sergeant traded me for a clipboard and pen, and I quickly scribbled down all the necessary information as she took my old canister and went to get a fresh one from the back. When she returned, I gave her the clipboard, and she glanced over the forms before she signed off then passed the new PAVA canister to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, and the sergeant nodded farewell as I turned around and hurried back out to the station’s main room where Fletcher was still waiting for me, leaning against a desk and messing around with something on her phone. She caught sight of me as I was crossing the floor to reach her and put the phone away so she could come to meet me, and together, we headed out the front doors.

  I unlocked my car and climbed in before Fletcher so I could check the passenger seat for spots of blood. There were three, but they were small and hopefully relatively unnoticeable. Fletcher didn’t say anything about them as she sat down, stretching her legs out as far they would go with a sigh.

  “Are you going to tell me what you were up to this morning?” she asked me as I pulled out of the station’s parking lot, the address to the warehouse plugged into my phone.

  “First of all, I wasn’t that late this morning,” I said because I felt like I needed to get that out there. “So it’s not really that weird.”

  “Maybe, but we’re also in the middle of a case, and I know how intense you get about those,” Fletcher pointed out, and I took my eyes off the road just long enough to scowl at her.

  “That hacker I met with before someone tried to set me on fire that one time showed up on Rayla’s door, absolutely covered in blood,” I said.

  Fletcher’s mouth gaped open as she turned toward me as far as her seatbelt would allow her. “I’m sorry, what?” she spluttered.

  “Yeah,” I said, signalling so I could make the next turn as the GPS instructed. “She’d apparently been stabbed when she got back to town, and she came to me to ask for asylum in exchange for information on my father.”

  “And?” Fletcher asked curiously. “What did she say?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me right away,” I grumbled and slouched in my seat as the light up ahead turned red, forcing me to ease to a stop before the junction. “She said she needed to recover or whatever. I left her with my mum. Let them try to out-scowl each other.”

  “But you’re sure she actually has information for you?” Fletcher wondered. “And she’s not just saying that so you’ll protect her?”

  I sighed. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.” The light turned green, and I zipped forward, swapping lanes so I could take the right exit off the roundabout. “But she seems to have some skin in the game as well, so I believe that she’s been looking into it wherever she’s been since the fire. I suppose the question will be how helpful her information actually is.”

  Fletcher nodded slowly, considering my line of reasoning as she peered out the window. “And she just showed up at Rayla’s flat? How did Rayla feel about that?”

  “Not great,” I admitted, a slice of guilt sliding through me that I’d brought all this danger so close to her. “She’s going to stay at Alana’s, and we’re going to hold off on seeing each other for a couple of weeks until this dies down.”

  “And how do you feel about that?” Fletcher asked. She looked away from the window to stare into my face again, though I used the excuse of watching the road so I wouldn’t have to meet her gaze.

  “It’s the smart move, and we’re not serious, anyway,” I said. “I just worry it won’t be cleared up in a couple of weeks or that I’ll put her in even more danger.”

  Fletcher hummed softly and crooked one ankle up over the opposite knee. “We’ll figure it out somehow,” she promised me. “Even if we have to knock all the heads in the city together.”

  I laughed and grinned, shaking my head slightly. “Now, that would be a sight to see.”

  We passed through the city until we came to the warehouse district on the eastern edge, and I slowed our pace down as our time to destination ticked down to two minutes. I glanced at Fletcher, and she gave me a quick nod, her face serious as she turned to watch the streets for anything strange.

  I didn’t go directly to the warehouse’s address, bypassing the final turn that the GPS told me to take so I could make a quick circuit around the area first. After the number of surprises the fence had thrown at us, I didn’t want to take any chances. Most of the warehouses in this district were still being used for storage, and plenty of them had vans parked outside, their doors open so that the workers could offload their contents. With that many people out and about, it was hard to know for certain if any of them were plants, ready and willing to get in our way so Broderick Smyth could escape.

  As I completed my drive around the block, we determined that there wasn’t anything obviously untoward going on, so I decided to drive right up to our target and park by the van. Sure, Smyth might hear us coming, but I wanted th
e car close in case we needed to engage in another chase, one that would hopefully go much better the second time around.

  The road leading to the warehouse was narrow, and a little dirty, bits of rubbish collected along the kerb, water stains splashed on the surrounding walls, and my tyres rumbled along the tarmac. Fletcher and I both held our breath as the warehouse came into sight, the white delivery van still parked out front. I scanned the windows and the closed doors, looking for any sign of movement, but the glass panes were all dirty and dark, and the building seemed still as a grave.

  I stopped beside the van and immediately killed the engine. Its whine hadn’t been all that loud, but as it died out, an overbearing silence seemed to settle across the scene, as if even the wind had fallen still. Eventually, though, the sounds of workmen one street over-filtered back over the area, and the momentary spell was broken.

  Fletcher and I stepped out of the car and shut our doors as quietly as we could. We didn’t move forward right away, choosing instead to study the warehouse for another few seconds as I patted my pockets to remind myself where everything was. I felt the bulge of the PAVA canister and the small dent that was my pocket knife in one pocket, my police-issue handcuffs in the other, along with a small penlight.

  “Check the van first,” I told Fletcher. “I want to make sure there aren’t any surprises inside.”

  “On it,” Fletcher said. She was closest to the van, so she quickly moved around it, trying all of its doors. “Locked,” she announced as she finished up, cupping her hands around her eyes so she could peer through one of the tinted windows.

  “Let’s head inside then,” I said, taking the PAVA canister from my pocket so I could hold it out at the ready.

  Fletcher fell in line beside me, her steps rolling silently across the cracked pavement. When we reached the doors, we each gripped a handle and locked eyes as we prepared to open it. I nodded, and we tugged sharply. The mounted rollers squealed loudly from all the rust caked across them, but the doors came open in a series of jerks and fits, letting the dim sunlight pour into the building. It only made it five feet across the floor before the shadows reclaimed it, and I drew forth my small torch as I slipped through the gap.