Unleashed: this summer's must-read crime thriller

by Karl Hill

  “He’s just arrived. He’s been shown to the conservatory.”

  “Fine. Give him what he wants. He likes cigars. Give him our best. And whisky. He likes that too.”

  Nathan Grant spoke into the handsfree on the dashboard, another voice responded, acknowledging the instruction. Nothing more was said, as they drove back to Grant’s mansion set in the leafy suburb of Whitecraigs, seven miles from Glasgow City centre.

  12

  The front gates were electric and opened as the car approached. Peter Grant’s house was set back a hundred yards, behind manicured lawns shimmering with frost, and circular flower beds, devoid of flowers in the sub-zero temperature. The house was a listed building, formerly a Victorian nursing home, built of soft red sandstone with high arched windows and a high-peaked slate-grey roof. The frontage was the only vestige of the original building, a requirement under the planning laws. Peter Grant had flattened everything behind it, creating a brand-new structure, with ten bedrooms, squash court, gym, indoor pool, sauna, seven public rooms.

  The car stopped at the entrance, and the three got out. They were met by a man dressed immaculately in dark suit and black tie. Other cars were following behind – mourners arriving for food and drink, and to say a final farewell to Damian Grant.

  “He’s in the conservatory, Mr Grant,” said the man.

  Grant glanced at Thor and Nathan beside him. “You two come with me.”

  They made their way through a wide, high hallway of sheer white marble walls, doors leading off on either side, to the rear quarters of the mansion, to the conservatory. This was Grant’s sanctuary, where he sat, often alone, to reflect and plot. The outlook relaxed him, offered him a modicum of tranquillity, eased his mind – lawns pale green and flat as the baize of a pool table, stretched to a line of distant massive oak trees. In the centre he had created a pond with a little tinkling fountain, and arching across it was a Japanese moon bridge, with red and yellow wooden panels. At night, it was lit up with silken candle shades, and could have been a picture out of a fairy story. A million miles from the real world of Peter Grant, where there were no fairy tales, but drugs, prostitution, money laundering, extortion, death.

  Sitting on a couch admiring this view, with a glass of whisky in one hand and a cigar in the other, was a bald, fat man in an open-collared shirt, V-neck sweater, cream flannels, suede hush puppies. He could have come straight from the golf course. He was markedly not dressed for a funeral. His head rested on a layer of chins, as he contemplated Peter Grant’s back garden. He did not get up when the three men entered.

  “Hello Mathew.” Grant sat on a bamboo chaise lounge opposite. Between them was a low kidney-shaped mahogany table, and on it an ashtray and a manila folder.

  Nathan stood behind him.

  Thor remained at the door. “Hello Peter. A sad day. Sorry for not coming to the funeral. My presence there would have been a little… inappropriate?”

  “Inappropriate,” repeated Grant. “Now there’s an understatement. I think for the chief constable to attend young Damian’s funeral would be downright fucking scandalous. It wouldn’t do that fat pension of yours any good. The tabloids would have a field day.”

  “True words,” replied Chief Constable Mathew Smith. “But still a sad day.” He shook his head dolefully, the droopy jowls of his face reverberating like a slobbery dog. “Such a tragedy. Cut off in his prime. A father should never have to bury his son.”

  Grant’s face did not display an iota of emotion when he replied. “My son was a fucking halfwit scum-junkie, so we can cut the bullshit. Some would say he had it coming. Christ, I would probably have ended up killing him myself.” Grant leaned forward. “But at the end of the day, he was my son. And I loved him. He was blood. My blood. And blood, being thicker than water and all that, must have its reckoning. Don’t you think so, Mathew? You wouldn’t like to see one of your own fall without a reckoning.”

  Smith took a sip of his whisky, and shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

  “You have two sons, don’t you, Mathew?” continued Grant. “You wouldn’t like one of them to die in the street like a fucking dog.”

  “Bad business,” said Smith.

  “Fucking shit business!” shouted Grant suddenly, thumping his fist on the table. Smith darted his eyes, from Grant to his nephew standing behind him, to the looming presence of Thor. Mathew Smith was the highest-ranking policeman in the force, but that didn’t stop him being nervous in the company of a man like Grant, who had a notoriously vicious temper which, when unleashed and unchecked, could end up bad for people.

  Grant took a deep breath, straightening his back. Nathan, who knew his uncle better than most, produced a handkerchief from his top pocket and handed it to him. Grant took it, wiped his brow, and the flecks of saliva at the corners of his mouth.

  “But you’re right,” said Grant eventually, his voice level. “Bad business. Because this is what it is, you understand. Business. Everything’s business. There’s nothing else. And in any business, things have to run smoothly. The wheels of industry have to keep turning. I can’t allow any glitches in the profit-making process. When someone attacks my family, then they attack me – or more specifically, they attack my good name. And if it happens once, it can happen again, and again, until my name, and therefore my business, is flushed down the shitter. I can’t allow this to happen. Life, like business, needs redress. The balance sheet has to… well, balance. So, old friend, tell me all about the cunt who killed my son.”

  Smith put his whisky glass on the table, and the cigar in the ashtray, and picked up the manila folder.

  “It’s all here. And it was not easy to get. Strings had to be pulled. Favours called in.” Smith licked his lips. “Those wheels of industry need oil to turn. And the price of oil goes up, in certain situations.”

  “I can’t disagree with that,” said Grant. “You can’t pay enough for good information.” He turned his head to the side, and without looking at Nathan, said, “There’s an envelope in the bureau. Get it.”

  Nathan left. Grant turned his attention back to Smith.

  “Give me the gist.”

  Smith opened the file, which contained a sheaf of papers treasury-tagged together.

  “This man is no Joe Ordinary. He is, how can I put it… unique.”

  13

  Grant sat, still as a lizard in the sun, and listened.

  “His name is Adam Black. He’s forty-five. He was born in Hamilton. Both parents are dead. He had an older brother, who died during active service for the Royal Marines. If you go back five years, you’ll not find anything exceptional. He’s a partner with a law firm in town. Wilson, Fletcher and Co. Big in corporate stuff, apparently. A low-key high-fee firm with some nice clients. Discreet and dependable. For big hitters, they’re a small outfit. Only three partners. Your average commercial firm in Glasgow has twenty. Black has been with the firm five years, was assumed a partner two years ago. His special fields are commercial conveyancing, contracts, company mergers. All in all, unspectacular. The only surprising thing is that he was made partner after a relatively short period of time. Which tells us something – either he’s competent at his job, or he has friends in the firm.”

  “Or maybe both,” suggested Grant.

  “Maybe.”

  Smith turned some pages over. “But it’s what he got up to before then which creates a stir.” He darted a glance at Grant, who remained immoveable, his face carved from granite.

  “Adam Black graduated with honours from the University of Edinburgh, and then, at the age of twenty-one, decided on an unexpected career. Maybe something to do with his brother. He joined the army. He went to officer training at Sandhurst. Graduated top of his class, and at twenty-three, earned his maroon beret with the Parachute Regiment. He was Lieutenant in Second Battalion, where he spent two years, and thereafter volunteered for First Battalion which acts as a special forces support group. He was at this stage, twenty-six and was promoted to Captai
n.

  “In 1995, Captain Adam Black was part of a peacekeeping corp seconded to a Special Services Group with the Pakistani Army. It was during this period when he had his first real taste of counterterrorist operations. Afghan hijackers had taken over a school bus, containing thirty primary school children and three teachers, and had driven to the Afghanistan Embassy in Islamabad, threatening to execute their captives unless demands were met. Captain Black, along with a contingent of three men from First Battalion, and the Pakistani Special Forces, stormed the embassy. The hijackers were killed, the hostages freed. The mission was a success. Black was regarded as something of a hero.”

  Nathan entered the room and handed Grant an A4-sized envelope. “More people are arriving,” he said. “They’ve been taken to the dining room.”

  Grant nodded. “I’ll be along shortly. Stay here. This makes for interesting listening.”

  Smith cast a hungry glance at the envelope on Grant’s lap and continued.

  “Captain Black was accepted into the 22nd SAS Regiment in 1997.” He looked up again at his listening audience. “You can see why obtaining this information was so difficult. In 1998 he became part of a unit known as The Special Projects Team, a small internal group of the SAS concentrating on anti-hijacking and counterterrorism. Here, his dossier becomes understandably a little vague. What is certain is that he was second in command in Operation Barras, in 2000. A large gang of bandits known as the West Side Boys had kidnapped a group of British citizens in Sierra Leone, in difficult country known as the Occra Hills. The operation was nicknamed Operation Certain Death. He and his unit aided by fifty SAS Regulars parachuted in and rescued the hostages. A bloody little battle. Of the two hundred West Side Boys, an estimated one hundred and eighty were killed, buried in secret in the jungle. Information the government didn’t want to share with the media. The SAS took no casualties. Again, further success for Adam Black. By this time, he had garnered quite a reputation.”

  Smith turned another page. Not a sound in the room, the silence heavy with portent.

  “After that, oblique references are made to covert operations in Mogadishu and Bosnia, probably aiding in the hunt for war criminals. Also, two tours in Afghanistan.’

  “And then we have Iraq, 2003. Black was part of Task Force Kill, involving deep covert excursions into the heartland of enemy territory. According to my sources, he carried out thirty combat missions. The last one, he was betrayed by an informant in an operation to assassinate General al–Maliki, Saddam Hussein’s chemical expert. It was believed he was formulating anthrax. Black was captured with two of his men, and held in Saddam’s infamous basement for forty days, until he escaped.”

  Smith looked up from the notes. He gave Grant a steady stare as he spoke.

  “Black was awarded the Military Cross in 2004, and resigned his commission in 2005. Upon his return to civilian life, he joined the law firm of Wilson, Fletcher and Co.”

  Smith closed the file.

  “He married five years ago to Jennifer Walker. She’s a doctor with Glasgow Royal. A paediatric consultant. She was head of her department, until four years ago, when she went part-time. They have a four-year-old daughter called Merryn. Details are all here.” He tapped the file with his index finger. “You wouldn’t believe the strings pulled to get all this.”

  Grant took a deep breath, absorbing the information, thoughts churning.

  “Thank you, Mathew. Extremely thorough, as ever. There’s an extra twenty thousand there, to repair all those pulled strings.” He handed him the envelope, which Smith placed in a leather attaché case at his feet.

  He stood, as did Grant, and they shook hands.

  “This man is dangerous,” said Smith. “Be careful what you start here.”

  Grant allowed the merest ghost of a smile to bend his lips. “He started it. My world is full of dangerous men. A world I’ve chosen. But he has his Achilles’ heel. Blood is demanded, and blood will be given. Make no mistake.”

  Smith shrugged. “I don’t care what you do to him. Just keep me out of it.”

  “But that’s exactly what I expect. For you and that big gang of yours to stay out of it.”

  Smith hesitated. “And your cousin? Tommy? I understand he was pretty bad when they got him to hospital.”

  “Broken nose, dislocated shoulder, punctured lung, broken ribs, fractured skull. Plus, he’s in a coma. Compliments of Captain Adam fucking Black.”

  14

  The funeral made news the next day. Two columns in the broadsheets, a full double page in the tabloids, with accompanying pictures of both Damian and his father, and other pictures of known associates of the Grant family. Phrases such as ‘gangland killing’ and ‘suspected hit’ were splashed throughout.

  “Sensationalist shit,” judged Simon Fletcher, throwing two newspapers in the waste bin by the door. “Fucking morons. That’s all there is to it.”

  Black was sitting at his desk. Since the incident, except for the Christmas and New Year holidays, he had not missed a day. Keep Moving. Two unforgettable words branded into his mind. And so much truth in them. After any intense conflict, whether mental or physical, the mind could rebel, seeking sanctuary from the real world. The symptoms were legion: depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, to name a few. Then followed the alcohol abuse, drug abuse, self-harm, suicide. Post-traumatic stress disorder was real. Black had witnessed its manifestations in friends and brothers in arms. Special Forces trained its soldiers to minimise the impact of PTSD – keep moving. Keep occupied. Focus on things around you. Externalise. Black himself had never experienced such a condition. It wasn’t something he was smug about. Special Forces hand-picked their men. And the SAS preferred men who had the ability to deal with bad situations. And Black simply had that ability, in abundance. In any event, Black had been through a whole lot worse.

  He rubbed his eyes. Jennifer, through worry, had been unable to sleep. And when she couldn’t sleep, neither could he.

  It was 7am. Both he and his partner Simon Fletcher started early, and often finished late. The third and founding partner, John Wilson, was almost part-time, and about to retire at sixty-five. He strolled in, and strolled out, and had given up handling any real work weeks ago. His hobby was golf, and red wine. And young ladies, since his divorce. Both Black and Fletcher had agreed a replacement was unnecessary when he finally went. They’d take on the extra caseload and see their profit stake rise.

  “Maybe,” said Black. “We can’t escape the inescapable – which is the fact that I killed the man’s son.”

  “When he tried to kill you.”

  “It is what it is. What worries me is what will be. God, I’m tired.”

  “You look it. The three of you need to get the hell away from this shit. For a few days. Please, humour me. You need to chill. I can handle your stuff while you’re gone. Fuck, I’ll even wheel old Wilson in to lend a hand, if I can get him off the golf course. Or the club bar.”

  “Get away? Maybe. But to do what. Talk it through? There’s nothing to talk about. Jennifer’s worried about repercussions, and who can blame her. By sheer bad luck, we’re on the radar of the mob. Getting away isn’t going to cure that particular problem.”

  “Perhaps not. But it might relax the mind. Gain a sense of perspective.”

  Black gave a wintry grin. “From where I sit, the perspective is perfectly clear. Peter Grant has buried his son, who now lies cold in a coffin. And he’s blaming me for it. I can go away and ponder the vagaries of life, or deal with the here and now, which is plough through a pile of work.” He gestured to a column of files on his desk two feet high. “I have transactions coming out my ears. I would rather lose myself in these than lose my fucking mind.”

  “And Jennifer? What about her mind? She’s sick with worry. You’ve just said she can’t sleep.”

  Black gazed at the photo of his wife and daughter on his desk. Laughing on a warm day on a beach. Except for that, a notepad, the files, a phone and a computer screen
with keypad, there was little else. Nothing unnecessary. Clear desk mentality, perhaps a legacy from army discipline. Simon Fletcher’s desk on the other hand was so cluttered, you could stir it.

  “You’re right, of course. But at this moment, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about that. I can’t even say how different it would be if I could turn the clock back. Because it would be the same. Two guys dead and me still standing. The third guy was lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Lucky to be alive.”

  “Fair enough.” Fletcher raised his hands in defeat. “Adam Black knows best. I guess I’m concerned about my old buddy. And his family.”

  “Don’t be. Honestly. We’ll get through this.”

  Fletcher stood. “They never taught us about any of this kind of shit at university.”

  “It’s life. You learn by living it.”

  “Some fucking life.”

  Suddenly the phone rang, the call coming through directly after two minutes if the receptionists weren’t picking up. Someone forgot to put the answering machine on. Their receptionists didn’t arrive until 9am. Normally, by way of instinct, Black would have picked up, and answered himself. A distraught client; an important message; a lawyer needing to close a deal urgently. But since that night in Eaglesham, the phones had been incessant. For all the wrong reasons.

  Black cast a quick look at Fletcher.

  “Ignore it,” said Fletcher.

  “Fuck it. It might be important.” Black picked up.

  “Is that Adam Black?” spoke a male voice, sounding way too animated for that time in the morning.