The Last Witness (22 page)

‘Three! Two! Wan!’ All eyes were on the roof. ‘Ur ye up there, Tarzan?’ Dan shouted.

Daley could see movement; Tarzan being strapped belatedly into his harness, he reasoned.

‘We’ll dae the countdoon again. Tarzan’s obviously been busy wi’ Jane,’ Dan quipped, to groans from the audience. ‘Ten! Nine! Eight!’

Daley watched as a figure appeared at the edge of the roof. He squinted, as the crowd bayed for Tarzan to descend the wire. ‘Seven! Six! Five!’ Daley could make out a second person on the top of the building, though less obviously than the first as they were both dressed in black.

‘Four! Three! Two! Wan! Tarzan, come on doon!’ called Dan.

After a short pause, the crowd began to clap, as with a shove from the figure behind, Tarzan began a slow descent. Something was wrong. As the bright spotlight picked out the detail, it was clear that the individual on the wire was limp, and not wearing a costume loincloth, but jeans and a hooded top that was pulled up over his face.

Scott looked at Daley with a bemused expression. It was then, from the section of the crowd underneath the wire, that screams began to issue. Daley tugged at Scott’s sleeve, pulling him past the group of women, who were silent now, staring up at the descending figure. A girl ran towards Daley, screaming, holding her hands out; under the orange glow of the acetylene light her face appeared to be stained with black spots.

‘Help me,’ she shouted. The crowd started to surge away from where the wire terminated. Screams and shouts rent the cold evening air.

Panic erupted as Daley and Scott fought their way towards the spot where the wire was anchored. Daley could see uniformed officers trying to calm the stampeding crowd, to little effect.

Amidst the tumult, the detectives reached the hooded man, now slumped on the pavement, illuminated by a pool of light. Scott bent down and gently removed the hood, then immediately recoiled.

‘Jim, fucking hell. Fucking hell.’

Daley looked down at the dead face of Tommy MacDougall, a neat slash in his throat. Livid black blood oozed from the wound, creating a dark puddle beneath his body.

*

As his phone rang in his pocket, Daley wondered why it sounded so loud. When he answered it, he realised why: the throng of onlookers on Kinloch’s Main Street had fallen silent. He looked at the faces in the crowd; all looked sad and shocked, and a number of people were crying. He looked up and was almost blinded by a fierce light; the corpse was now bathed in a white glow. He gestured to Scott to get whoever was operating the spotlight to switch it off. The detective sergeant hurried off, as more uniformed officers appeared and struggled to usher the townsfolk back home, while others rushed towards the building where Tommy MacDougall had been killed.

Daley could hear the stress in his own voice as he answered the call.

‘Constable Ingram of the Protection Unit, sir.’

‘Can I get back to you? We have a bit of an ongoing situation here,’ Daley replied, as he spotted Superintendent Donald, flanked by two uniformed officers, trying to force his way through the crowds in pursuit of MacDougall’s killer.

‘Not really, sir. It’s urgent. The gaffer asked me to call you personally.’

‘OK, but be quick,’ Daley said.

‘Our subject has been contacted by a third party, sir. He says he’s holding the subject’s daughter captive.’

Daley swore. ‘Fuck. When did this happen?’

‘About five minutes ago, sir.’

If they had questioned whether Machie knew MacDougall’s whereabouts, there could be no doubt now.

As Sergeant Shaw and a constable covered the body of Tommy MacDougall with a tarpaulin from one of the floats,
Daley hurried across the road and tapped Donald on the shoulder.

‘What is it?’ snapped Donald. His expression softened, slightly, when he realised he was addressing his DCI.

‘We need to get to the office right now, sir.’

‘But we’ve got a murderer to catch, fir fuck’s sake.’ Again, Donald sounded like the man Daley had first known more than twenty years before. A mixture of alcohol and murder had rubbed the polished edges from his new accent.

‘Frank MacDougall’s daughter has been abducted, sir.’

The look on Donald’s face was one of mounting despair.

26

It was pitch-black outside. She looked around the dank and dreary room. A small table lamp illuminated the tiny kitchen where she sat; damp streaked the whitewashed brick walls of the room above an old cooking range, which was dirty and rusting. A cracked Belfast sink was piled high with unwashed plates and pots. She watched a spider, its web spread across one corner of the ceiling, as it progressed steadily along a silken thread to where a wretched fly struggled for its life.

‘No’ whit yer used tae, I daresay.’

‘No,’ she answered, ‘but it’s good to see how the other half live.’

‘Ye really are up yer ain arse, aren’t ye?’ he said. ‘Who would’ve thought Frankie-boy could have produced a stuck-up wee lassie like yourself?’ He laughed at the thought.

‘Who would’ve thought someone like you would be reading Wittgenstein?’ She nodded at the well-thumbed paperback on the table.

‘Everything that can be said, can be said clearly,’ he answered, his expression unreadable.

‘How clever,’ she said. ‘You must be
so
proud of yourself.’

He stood up, looming over her, and she noticed an old scar on his neck, red and puckered with marks left by poorly executed stitching.

‘See, where me and yer faither came fae, reading a book wiz only marginally better than bein’ a poofter, know what I mean?’

‘My father prefers Jeremy Kyle and football. He’s not much of a reader. I very much doubt if he knows what mathematical philosophy is, never mind Wittgenstein.’

‘Oh, ye’ve a lot tae learn, darlin’. Never be surprised by anything your faither can dae.’ He ran his hand over the dark stubble on his head. ‘That wiz wan o’ ma big mistakes.’

‘Only one? Are you sure?’ She smiled. She supposed she had never thought of her father in those terms; as someone cold, calculating and callous, like the man who stood before her now.

He leaned in close. ‘I’ve made some. Who’s no’? Ye never know, ye might have made wan yersel.’

‘I read a paper recently,’ she declared.

‘Oh aye. Whit wan –
The Sun
or the
Racing Post
?’

‘The paper was part of my OU Sociology course, actually.’

He laughed mockingly.

‘People like you could’ve done it all, been what they wanted to be: business, politics, anything. You would’ve thrived and been successful.’

‘People like me?’

‘Yes, sociopaths.’

‘Aye, did ye not know I used tae own wan o’ the most successful construction companies in Scotland, darlin’?’ he replied, removing a cigarette from a packet and lighting it with a Zippo.

‘So why didn’t you go straight? You could’ve been rich now – rich and free – never having to look behind your back.’

‘Aye, very good.’ He exhaled a trail of smoke. ‘Have ye any idea how fuckin’ borin’ that wid’ve been – not tae mention poorly rewarded? Can ye see me sitting behind a desk wi’ a computer an’ some wee whore secretary on ma lap?’

‘Actually, I can. Right up your street, I would imagine,’ she said smiling.

‘Ye see wrang, then,’ he said.

‘No one can think a thought for me, in the same way no one can don my hat for me,’ she answered.

‘Aye, smart, right enough. Well done, darlin’. Let’s hope ye manage tae keep that clever wee head intact,’ he said, then left the room.

As she watched him go, her smile faded.

Frank MacDougall paced around the family room at Kinloch Police Office. His tears had dried, leaving his eyes red and puffy. He had raged, screamed and even started punching a wall, which had left raw gashes on the knuckles of his right hand.

Donald, acting on instructions from on high, had moved quickly to have MacDougall and his wife rushed in an armed convoy to the police office, where they were to remain for the time being.

‘Two o’ ma weans deid and another missing,’ he moaned, rubbing his face with both hands. ‘I don’t give a fuck whit anyone says, Scooty, I’m no’ moving oot o’ this toon until ma wee lassie’s found, even if I’ve tae go an’ get her masel’.’

‘Listen, Frankie,’ said Scott, who had chosen to stay with MacDougall, much to Donald’s irritation. ‘Whit good can
ye dae? Think aboot it, man. Think o’ yer wife, fir fuck’s sake . . . An’ stop calling me Scooty.’ Scott, a father himself, found it impossible even to contemplate what his childhood neighbour of so many years ago was going through.

‘A’ these years on the opposite side o’ the fence fae each other, an’ noo here we are, in this fuckin’ awfy place, stalked by that bastard,’ said MacDougall.

‘Aye, it’s been a long time, Frankie. A long time since you used tae kick ma arse up an’ doon that playground tae,’ Scott said with a grin.

‘Seems like a different world, eh?’ MacDougall stopped his pacing and looked at a painting of a seascape that hung on the wall. Waves crashing on an empty beach.

‘A bonnie painting,’ Scott said, struggling for something to say.

‘Looks like the way ma life’s goin’ tae be. Empty, wi’ nae cunt left in it.’

‘I know it’s no’ easy, Frankie. Naebody could’ve imagined anything like this would ever happen. It’s just unbelievable,’ said Scott, rubbing the old gunshot wound on his shoulder.

‘Well, it has. I’m telling you, Scooty, I’ve never been frightened o’ that bastard – no’ even when he wiz alive the first time.’

‘That’s the spirit, buddy. We’ll dae everything tae get Sarah back – the cavalry’s on its way right noo. Ye know fine oor Jim can sort this oot. Daley’s the boy.’

‘I know whit he’s efter, here,’ said MacDougall.

‘Who’s efter?’

‘JayMac,’ answered MacDougall. ‘He’s goin’ tae flush me oot using Sarah. He’s no’ daft. He knows it’s the only way he’ll get tae me.’

Scott looked away; he knew what was coming. There was no way his superiors would allow MacDougall to be used as bait. They would negotiate with Machie if they could, or even threaten him, but the spectacle of two of Scotland’s most feared gangsters – one returned from the dead, the other from obscurity – battling it out on some lonely hillside in Kintyre would not be countenanced.

‘Ye’ll need tae help me, Scooty-boy.’

There it was. Scott turned to MacDougall.

‘How’d ye mean, Frankie?’

‘Ye know as well as I dae that that prick Donald and whitever other big shot they bring doon here will never let me get near Machie. I need ye tae help me. Ye know fine ye’d be deid if it wisnae fir me.’ He stared at Scott, unblinking.

‘It’s no’ as easy as that, Frank. Ye know whit yer asking?’

‘Aye, I dae,’ MacDougall replied. ‘I’m asking ye tae get yer ain back for him almost blowin’ yer heid aff. Aye, dinnae worry, I’ve seen ye rubbing at that shoulder where he shot ye.’

‘So, no’ content wi’ nearly killing me, the bastard’s goin’ tae be responsible for losin’ me ma job an’ goin’ tae the slammer. No way, Francis, it’s no’ happenin’.’

‘So ye’ll let ma wee lassie die? Look at ma poor wife in there in yer medical room, dozed up tae the eyeballs with sedatives, so she’ll no burst her ain heid wi’ grief when she wakes up. I know ye, Brian. Yer the same as me; we’re fae the same street. Ye can pit the boy in the polis, but ye can never take him oot the scheme an’ away fae his ain people, man. Say whit ye like – yer wan o’ us.’

‘I’m tellin’ ye – it’s no’ happenin’,’ Scott replied, looking flustered.

*

Jim Daley was in his glass box; there was going to be little sleep for the police officers in Kinloch tonight. The town had been cleared, everyone ordered inside, and uniformed police were searching for Tommy MacDougall’s killer, who seemed to have vanished into thin air.

He had jotted down on a piece of paper the names of the main players in this claustrophobic drama: MacDougall and his two dead sons, his missing daughter and his wretched wife; James Machie – JayMac; and then his own name, along with that of his DS, Brian Scott. But there was something missing.

He had long since banished the conundrum of Machie’s resurrection from his thoughts. What he had to do now was to try and treat this case in the same way he would any other; by being thorough and methodical and waiting for that moment of inspiration that would click everything into place.

Something was nagging at the back of his mind; something he’d missed, or simply not thought of at all. He wrote Duncan Fearney’s name next to that of Paul Bentham, the latter in brackets – his own method of indicating the deceased in such a document. He recalled the image of Bentham’s aggressive finger-pointing at Fearney as the CID car had bumped its way down the farm track. He remembered being shocked at the identity of the man lying dead in Fearney’s barn; he would have bet any money on its being that of the farmer but instead it had been the thick-set figure of Bentham, with half of his brains splattered across the whitewashed wall of Fearney’s byre.

Was Bentham responsible for trying to blow his car to smithereens, or was it Machie? Certainly, all of the evidence
pointed to Bentham placing the bomb; forensic teams had identified the detonators and explosives used as being identical to those found in Bentham’s cottage. However, if he was acting on Machie’s orders, as some kind of accomplice, why had he been killed? It didn’t make sense. And how did Duncan Fearney fit into the puzzle? Here was a man who defied definition: a mild-mannered farmer who apparently masterminded a considerable tobacco smuggling operation in Kintyre. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. What, if anything, connected these people?

A knock rattled the door of his glass box as, without invitation, a slightly dishevelled John Donald strode in. He was wearing an open-necked shirt, his eyes were bleary, and he was in need of a shave.

‘Sir,’ said Daley.

‘Ah, Jim,’ said Donald, giving an empty smile. ‘Good to see you’re here trying to keep on top of things.’

‘You’ll recall, sir, that in the last couple of days we’ve had two murders here, plus a possible abduction, and my wife and I were nearly been blown to pieces.’