The Last Witness (12 page)

‘I cannae hear you . . . Whit did you say, big man? This line’s . . . breaking up,’ Scott lied before ending the call.

Liz was lying in bed, propped up on one elbow, watching her husband. The livid scrapes down his back were testament to their lovemaking, which had been disturbed by the call her husband had insisted on taking.

‘Tell me you’re not rushing off, darling,’ she said, knowing what the reply would be.

‘I’ve got to, Liz,’ Daley panted, struggling into a pair of trousers. ‘They’ve got someone prowling around . . .’ He stopped himself. He hadn’t told Liz the full extent of the problem they were facing – certainly not anything about the resurrection of JayMac. ‘This guy, Robertson, could be in a lot of danger – not to mention Brian.’ He pulled in his stomach, wrestling with his waistband.

‘I sometimes wonder if I’d get more attention if I changed my name to Brian.’

‘Absolutely,’ replied Daley, who had clearly not been listening. He had succeeded in fastening his trousers, and was now attempting to tuck his shirt into them, not without difficulty.

‘Just as well you’re not a fireman, love. By the time you got your kit on, everything would be cinders.’

Dressed, he leaned over the bed and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you when I see you,’ he smiled. ‘You know how it is.’ He left their bedroom and waved goodbye without turning around.

‘Be careful,’ she shouted. Then, much more quietly, ‘We really need to talk, Jim.’ She lay back, looked at the ceiling and sighed. We really, really do, she thought, running her hand down her stomach.

Scott felt isolated on top of the hill. The gibbous moon had been restored to its full splendour, the cloud that had briefly plunged the scene into utter darkness having moved on.

He had one of the new-fangled retractable metal batons in his pocket, which didn’t add to his feeling of wellbeing. What use would this fuckin’ thing be against JayMac? he thought. The feeling of being watched made the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention; it was as though his whole body was braced for an attack, the nature of which he was desperately trying to discern. His muscles were tense in anticipation of searing pain, his body remembering the gunshot wound to his shoulder inflicted by his quarry long ago.

He jerked as his mobile phone vibrated silently against his leg. Again, he shielded the screen with his cupped hand. He was cheered to discover that it was Daley’s name that appeared across the screen in bold letters.

‘How’s it goin’, Jim?’ he whispered into the mouthpiece.

‘I’m on my way to the hotel to pick up the rest of the unit, Brian. We should be there in twenty minutes or so. Where are you? Who are you with?’

‘I’m on my ain, on this fuckin’ hill, shittin’ mysel’, if ye must know,’ came Scott’s honest reply.

‘What do you mean, “on your own”?’

‘I’m waiting fir one o’ the boys tae get back here. They’re securing the perimeter of the hoose.’ The stress was apparent, even in Scott’s whisper.

‘Get yourself back inside, Brian.’ Daley’s whisper had modulated. ‘You’re not armed. I’m going to draw weapons, for you too. Fuck Donald.’

‘No, thanks,’ replied his DS. ‘Just get yoursel’ up here. Wait!’ He stopped whispering and held his breath. Something – somebody – was moving on the low ground in front of the river, only thirty or forty yards from where the detective was crouched. ‘Jim, I’ll need tae go. Just get here, buddy.’ His whisper was barely perceptible, even to himself. He ended the call, placed the phone back into his trouser pocket and removed his baton.

Somehow, the figure he had spotted in the trees had made its way across the burn; it was now crouched but still discernible in the pale moonlight.

Thankfully, the Support Unit members resting in the County Hotel proved much more adept at getting dressed in a hurry than Daley, who pulled up alongside the dark phalanx of policemen waiting in front of the hotel. After a minimal briefing, three of the Support Unit got into Daley’s car and the other two, including the sergeant in charge, hurried the short distance to the office to collect another car and the arsenal of weapons that Daley had requested over the phone.

As he was about to pull away from the kerb, he saw the unmarked estate car coming down Main Street from the police office. No big personnel carriers were used in sensitive operations such as this, where discretion was key. Also, as they had arrived in Kinloch in three separate cars, specially equipped with weaponry housing and sophisticated communication equipment, they made three complete and functional units, each operational either as part of a greater whole or
individually. The lights of the estate flashed as it passed Daley’s 4x4. The cavalry was on its way.

Scott hardly dared breathe; it was at times like this he cursed the fact that he was a heavy smoker. Whenever he was required to remain silent, whether it was in church at a funeral, during one of Donald’s endless briefings, or even at the kids’ Christmas pantomime at the school, he could feel the tickle in his throat. The desire to cough was fighting with his fear of being discovered. At the moment, fear was winning – just.

Suddenly, just when he thought he could no longer stop himself, he felt someone touch his back. After experiencing the odd sensation of jumping clean off the ground without the use of his arms or legs, he turned to see two darkly clad policemen crouching behind him, moonlight reflected in the automatic weapons they both carried.

Scott shook his fist at them in mock anger and quickly indicated that they should remain silent, then pointed down the hill to where the figure was still huddled, silhouetted against the silvery glimmer of the burn.

Scott, still lying flat against the cold ground, nodded to the two armed officers, one of whom scrambled closer to him. He craned his head toward the DS.

‘The rest of the lads are on their way. My orders are to maintain a watching brief until they arrive,’ he hissed in Scott’s ear.

Scott grabbed him by the lapel, pulling him closer. ‘Aye, that’s all very well, but the way things are going, he’ll be standin’ on ma heid in two minutes. We’re going tae have tae try and contain him. He’ll be at the farmhouse long before they get here.’

The officer pulled his head back from Scott and stared straight at him. He then shuffled back to his colleague, and after another brief head to head, turned to Scott and nodded.

At that second, there was a rustling noise followed by a dull thud and what sounded like a whispered oath.

If this is a ghost, he’s no’ very sure-footed, thought Scott. He was trying to work out exactly from which direction the noise had come when, without warning, a flash of silver in his peripheral vision made him turn his head to the right. A shadow was now passing the police officers about fifty yards distant.

Daley sped round a corner, sending his mobile phone flying off the dashboard and onto the lap of the policeman in the passenger seat. They were only a mile from the turn-off to the single-track road that led to the farmhouse.

The radio belonging to the officer sitting beside him burst into life. Daley expected that it would be Tully, the unit commander from the other car, but he was wrong: it was one of the armed officers at the farmhouse. They were now in radio range.

‘Units engaging suspect, over.’ The voice was terse and to the point, no elaboration.

Daley turned to the man next to him. ‘Get me Tully. Now!’

Scott jumped again as the two officers beside him leapt into action. Both were wearing powerful head torches, which they now illuminated, spotlighting the intruder, stopping him in his tracks. Two dots played across the man’s chest and face like crimson fireflies as he brought up his arm to protect his
eyes from the unexpected glare. Scott squinted at the man as his fellow officers shouted instructions to one another. The intruder stretched out his arms and sank to his knees, head bowed.

Scott tried to get a clearer picture of him; he needed to see his face. Slowly, blinking against the harsh light, the figure raised its head and looked straight at Scott.

Whoever it was, it was no ghost. This man was not James Machie. The DS breathed a sigh of relief.

16

He walked quickly along the overgrown path. Three high-rise blocks – the last monuments to the folly of brutalist sixties architecture – reared out of a desolate, unkempt landscape. This brave new world of multi-storey living was about to go the same way as its predecessor, the once ubiquitous Glasgow tenement. He wondered if he was the only person left with any affection for this once thriving neighbourhood.

He entered the building through large red security doors panelled with tough polycarbonate, now rutted by graffiti and burned brown by the cigarettes that had been repeatedly stubbed out on it. The doors had long since been stripped of their electronic locks and transoms; the echo of them banging shut reverberated around the bleak vestibule, which stank strongly of urine. Two of the three lifts were out of order so he stood before the functional one and pressed the button, which would have illuminated green had it not been for the fact that it was shattered, the broken bulb visible through the cracked plastic.

The lift seemed to take an age, but eventually a distant pulse and thud heralded its arrival. It clunked into place and the doors creaked open, hesitantly, as if fretful of revealing was what inside, which in this case was a drunk man, sprawled unconscious in a pool of his own piss on the floor.

He stared down at the unconscious man. The stench of urine, vomit and stale alcohol was overpowering in the enclosed space. The man groaned, and a dribble of saliva migrated down his stubbly chin. He reached into his pocket.

Why she enjoyed documentaries about the war, she couldn’t fathom. It had been the most terrifying time of her life. Having grown up in Clydebank, she had witnessed the Blitz virtually wiping out the whole town; thousands had died, including her grandfather who had gone to work on a cold November morning, never to return. He died along with the other occupants of the bus that was carrying him home after his shift at the shipyard was over. The only survivor had been a three-month-old baby, protected from the blast by the body of its dead mother.

However, regardless of the aching loss of friends and family members during the war, she looked back on it now with a kind of nostalgia, a feeling of warmth and familiarity as she remembered everything now absent from her life. Most of her friends were dead, and her family – or what was left of it – had been ravaged by booze, drugs and poverty. She had lost two sons to heroin, and her husband had died nearly forty years ago, the whites of his eyes yellowed as his liver gave up the battle against alcohol.

She got up from her chair stiffly, clicks and pops coming from her knees and ankles. It was time for another cup of tea, then bed, the only opportunity she had now of escaping her loneliness and her aches and pains.

He removed his hand from his pocket and leaned over the man. He put his fingers to his neck and felt for a pulse, pulling the man’s collar aside to reveal a red, dirt-encrusted throat.

‘There you go, Tony-boy,’ he said, sliding a bundle of notes under the collar of the sleeping figure. ‘Two hundred quid should see ye aff, ye poor bastard.’ He snorted a laugh and looked down at the man. Aye, fir auld times’ sake.

The lift juddered to a stop and the doors slid open to reveal the hallway of the sixteenth floor. He pulled the right leg of the unconscious drunk across the piss-soaked floor to the lift entrance; the man was so out of it he barely moved, grunting incomprehensibly as he expelled more dirty brown saliva down his chin. He watched as the doors were stopped by the obstruction.

Worth two hundred quid of anybody’s money, Tony-boy, he thought. That’s probably the most money ye’ve made yourself in the last thirty years, and yer no’ even awake.

He caught sight of himself in the polished aluminium of the lift door and took the opportunity to straighten the black-and-white checked hat on his head. ‘Fuck me, PC Plod,’ he chuckled throatily to himself, as he walked along the hallway past welcome mats and little ornaments the occupants of this raised hell had placed outside their front doors in an attempt to make their surroundings more bearable.

He read the nameplate on the door: 16/5. MACDOUGALL.

He knocked loudly. Presently, a light went on in the hall and a small figure came into sight through the frosted glass of the door, moving slowly along the hallway inside.

‘Who’s there?’ The woman sounded frail and elderly.

‘Police, Mrs MacDougall. Can I have a word with you?’ He saw her reach forward, and heard the rattle of chains and locks as she opened the door.

*

The inside of Kinloch’s police office was bright and warm. Scott stood beside a radiator, holding his hands as close to it as he could stand as he tried to warm up after his exposure on the hillside at Frank MacDougall’s farm.

‘Brass monkeys oot there cryin’ their eyes oot, Jim,’ he said to Daley, who was busy unbuttoning the waistband of his trousers as he sank into his swivel chair, in the glass box that was his new home from home.

‘I’ll let that daft kid cool his heels overnight in the cells before we go and interview him,’ said Daley, who visibly relaxed as his stomach was released from his loosened trousers, though the buttonholes on his shirt were still stretched to their maximum tolerance.

‘Aye, slimmer o’ the year, eh? Fuck me, when are ye due?’ Scott yawned halfway through this statement, making it only slightly less palatable to his boss, who frowned and pulled his belly in.

‘You’ll never know how lucky you are, Brian. You can eat and drink anything you want and not put on a pound. I, on the other hand,’ he said, rubbing his stomach, ‘have to struggle with this, or starve to death.’

‘Och, it’s a’ pent up energy wi’ me – my mind’s a’ways workin”. Scott grinned and sat down on the guest’s chair, leant back and put his feet up.

‘Aye,’ said Daley, ‘working out when and where you can get your next drink.’

‘That’s a low blow, right enough, especially since ye’re hardly whit I wid call the soul of sobriety,’ Scott replied, eyes closed. ‘I’ll tell ye somethin’, I thought that wiz yer man up there on the hill the night. If I’d had a hip flask on me, I wid have drunk the lot.’ He smacked his lips together at the thought of the dram he was anticipating.