by Owen Mullen
‘He’s gone inside. Said something to the woman behind the counter, she’s laughing. Must be a funny guy. Won’t be so funny when I’m finished with him.’
‘You’re sure it’s him? You only saw him for a couple of seconds in Buchanan Street. How can you be so certain?’
‘Still wearing the fucking black coat. Wait a minute, he’s out again and he’s bought two coffees. Now he’s sitting in the car drinking one of them. So the other one must be for Mackenzie. We’re going to find her, Gavin.’
The accelerator took the brunt of Gavin’s impatience. ‘I’m coming. Stay back. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Abington Services sat at the edge of the village round a long curve in the road. Gavin arrived just as a gang of long-haired bikers revved their engines and pulled away. Two vehicles were at the pumps filling up, another sat on the forecourt.
Derek’s car wasn’t one of them.
He got out. The air was clear and still, the scenery lush and verdant, like a landscape painted by one of the Masters. Even with the backdrop of traffic noise it was impressive.
Inside the shop, the fair-haired woman behind the counter couldn’t help. ‘Can’t remember serving anybody in a black coat. Leather jackets, yes. Just had a bunch of them in. Maybe I was too busy keeping an eye on the bikers.’
‘But he was here.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, I didn’t see him.’
It was understandable. She was on her own. Harassed out of her head. Not easy having a bunch of Hell’s Angels land on you.
The chase from Glasgow had been frantic. He’d done well to make up the distance. But if he lost them now it would all have been for nothing. The mobile rang in his hand. Derek sounded far away although he couldn’t be more than a couple of miles.
‘He’s heading towards Leadhills. Hurry up.’
Gavin followed a sign and crossed to the other side of the motorway. Immediately the road rose in front of him and climbed as Abington disappeared in the rearview mirror. He drove between steep rounded earth-coloured mounds while shallow crystal streams broke and bubbled over grey rock.
Ten minutes further on he hadn’t seen another living thing. Not a sheep, not even a bird. It was beautiful but he couldn’t picture a city girl like his sister living out here. Too many creepy crawlies for a start.
It was mamba country – miles and miles of bugger all.
The village of Leadhills broke the monotony: rows of miners’ cottages crowded together, some whitewashed and well-cared-for with welcoming smoke trailing from the chimneys, others ramshackle, rusted corrugated roofs and clumps of weeds growing in the guttering, leaning into their neighbour like teenage girls at the end of a wild night. Inside they’d be cramped and damp. It took a certain kind of person to want to stay here.
Derek’s car still wasn’t in sight. Gavin kept to the main track and drove on to Wanlockhead, the highest village in Scotland. He hadn’t heard from his brother-in-law since the service station. Maybe he couldn’t get a signal. If that was the case, the race from Glasgow had been in vain.
When the mobile rang it startled him. Derek had gone back to the eerie detachment of earlier, disturbing to hear. ‘He’s stopped.’
‘Where? Where is he?’
‘Old house on the other side of Wanlockhead.’
Gavin heard himself shouting. ‘Wait for me, I’m right behind you! We don’t know anything about this guy, he could be dangerous!’
Crawford ignored the warning. ‘I’m going in.’
Gavin changed down gears and gunned the engine. ‘No! Hold on!’
He was talking to himself again. Derek wasn’t there. Minutes later he came across his Audi parked at a crazy angle, the engine running, the front wheels in a ditch, the back-end high. Its flowing metal beauty incongruent in the rustic setting. He got out, and started running.
The grey stone building was hidden by a hill at the front and another at the back. Crawford’s directions hadn’t given much but his car had shown the way. Without it, he would never have found him.
The house was derelict. Boards had been nailed over the windows, the roof had sagged scattering broken black slate tiles and the rusted nails that had held them in place. Nobody could live here and nobody had in a very long time.
Gavin spoke to himself. ‘Christ, what is this?’
He touched the bonnet of a mud-spattered Toyota sitting outside the open door. It was warm, or maybe he was cold.
‘This is where she is? Not possible.’
He edged down a narrow corridor, every movement a gunshot in the silence as tired timbers cracked and sighed beneath the old linoleum. The staircase to what had been the floor above had collapsed, and not recently. On top of the rubble, a brown rat – the biggest he’d ever seen – sniffed the air and watched him, unafraid.
‘Fuck.’
Across the hall, a wooden door swung on its hinges. Angry voices echoed from below; Derek’s was one of them. Steps descended into the bowels of the house, the dank smell of sour earth growing stronger with each rung. A spider’s web caressed his face. He dragged it away. Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t this.
A battery-powered light illuminated the crazy scene. Derek Crawford had his hands round the other man’s throat, their shadows dancing like crazy marionettes on the rough walls as they staggered, locked together. Mackenzie lay unconscious on a single bed, chained by her wrist, her face swollen and her body bruised where she’d been beaten, a line of dried blood, like a scar, running from the corner of her mouth to her chin.
She was naked.
And in that moment Gavin understood. Everything his sister said had been true.
The bastard was real.
He ran to her side, gently draping his jacket over her body which was covered in livid purple and yellow marks. But thank God she had a pulse. Behind him, the two men punched and kicked at each other, cursing and growling. The stalker slammed Derek against the wall, pounding him with his free hand. Gavin jumped to his feet as Derek got hold of the stranger’s lapels and threw him to the floor, then fell on him. Suddenly, the man who’d abducted Mackenzie cried out and the struggle ended.
Gavin dragged his brother-in-law to his feet. His eyes were wide and wild and scared, like a lost child who didn’t know where he was or how he’d got here. The life went out of him. He slumped and burst into tears. ‘Is he dead? Have I killed him?’
Gavin saw the knife buried in the unknown man’s abdomen and didn’t answer. Derek got to his feet and rushed at the stalker. ‘Let me finish it. Let me finish the bastard!’
Gavin hauled him away. ‘Leave it alone. It’s over.’
He bent over the fallen man, uncertain if he was alive or dead, tearing at his clothes, his one thought to find the key to free his sister. Crawford dropped to his knees beside his wife, crying uncontrollably, crushed with remorse. He turned towards his brother-in-law, on the edge of losing it again. ‘I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her.’
The reply was harsh. ‘For God’s sake get a grip. That doesn’t matter now. We need to help Mackenzie. I’m calling Andrew Geddes.’
* * *
DS Geddes was at his desk in Cathcart and lifted the phone after one shrill ring. Gavin quickly filled him in. Geddes said, ‘Listen to me. Stay calm. Otherwise you’re no use to Mackenzie. Keep her warm and don’t move her. Don’t move either of them.’
When Gavin came back into the cellar Derek was holding Mackenzie’s hand in his, whispering. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. Please forgive me, I didn’t know.’
The body on the floor hadn’t moved. Gavin looked across at him, beating down the desire to finish what Derek Crawford had started. Instead, he went outside and called Monica. As soon as he heard her voice, he broke down.
‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Gavin? Tell me.’
Through tears he managed to say ‘Mackenzie. It’s Mackenzie.’
‘Oh God! What’s happened to her?’
From somewhere he found t
he strength to answer. ‘She wasn’t making it up. It was all true.’
Monica felt sick, afraid to ask the question. ‘Is she..? Is she…alright?’
‘No, she’s in a really bad way. We’re waiting for the ambulance.’
‘Where are you, I’ll come?’
‘No, you can’t. I’ll call you as soon as we know which hospital they’re taking her to. Get a hold of Adele. She’ll be out of her mind with worry.’
‘Okay. Gavin…Gavin…’
‘I know. We didn’t listen to her. Blair was the only one who believed her.’
‘Wasn’t she with Blair?’
This wasn’t the time to tell her. ‘No, she wasn’t.’
He sat on the grass, eventually able to bring himself to go back down into the basement.
Thirty minutes later, two police cars pulled up outside the house and six men got out – four uniformed officers and a couple of plainclothes detectives. This remote part of the country was covered by Lanarkshire division. Geddes had contacted Control at Motherwell who had sent men from Wishaw, the nearest hub.
A fresh-faced detective inspector called Taylor listened to what Gavin had to tell him without commenting, while the uniforms secured the crime scene. Then the other detective took a preliminary statement. As he finished, the forensic examiners arrived, followed by two ambulances with their lights flashing. The place had been deserted an hour ago. Now it was overrun.
Andrew Geddes arrived next, his car crunching to a halt. He got out and walked over to Gavin Darroch. ‘How is she?’
‘Alive.’
The DS let his relief show. ‘Thank God for that.’
He left and went into a huddle with DI Taylor, now and again glancing in Gavin’s direction. The detectives disappeared inside for what seemed like a long time. When Geddes emerged from the house his face was stone. Battle-hardened policeman though he was, what he’d seen in the basement had affected him. He wiped the corners of his mouth with his fingers. ‘No woman should have to go through an ordeal like that, it’s a wonder she’s still breathing.’
Uniforms put handcuffs on Derek Crawford and guided him into the backseat of a police car. His sleeve was rolled up showing his bandaged arm and there were bloodstains on his shirt. He moved like a man in a trance, his empty eyes staring at something only he could see. From their first meeting Gavin had been convinced he wasn’t right for his sister – that hadn’t changed – but he felt for him, in the circumstances it was impossible not to.
He went to the car. ‘Hang in, Derek. Just hang in there.’
Derek didn’t look at his brother-in-law and Gavin wasn’t certain he’d heard. The assured persona he found so irritating was gone. A broken man was in its place. Like the rest of the family, he’d been wrong: there had been a stalker. He would have to live with that.
He already was.
The sun had dipped behind the hill when the paramedics carefully carried an unconscious Mackenzie Crawford and her unnamed abductor out of the house in the Lowther Hills, their faces covered by oxygen masks. In the gathering dusk, blue light from the ambulances made the tragedy surreal and after the adrenaline rush, Gavin wanted to lie on the ground and sleep. ‘She told us somebody was following her. We didn’t believe her.’
Geddes put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Can’t blame yourself, it doesn’t work that way. Your sister’s problems made it hard for anybody to believe her.’
He scratched the side of his nose, on the point of saying something, then changed his mind. Whatever it was passed. ‘Best thing you can do is go to the hospital. We’ll be here a while yet. I’ll catch up with you.’
‘Which hospital is it? Where’ve they taken her?’
‘Wishaw.’
‘I’ll need to let Adele know. What about Derek, what’s going to happen to him?’
Rain, the thin kind that goes all the way to the bone, chose that moment to come on. Andrew looked up at the sky. ‘He’ll be charged, but a half-smart lawyer will make a case of self-defence. Up to the PF. No matter what the decision, it’s going to be a long road back for him.’
‘For all of us.’
Gavin called Adele and gave her an update, leaving out the details; she’d hear them soon enough. Alone in the car on the journey back up the M74 to the hospital, he went over everything. The call from Derek felt like weeks ago. He’d followed the guy he’d seen in Buchanan Street with no idea where he was heading, taking the chance he might lead him to Mackenzie – the poor bastard must’ve intended to beg her to come back to him. But the unnatural composure in his voice on the phone had been a clue he was on the margins, straddling the invisible line between sanity and madness psychiatrists had argued over for a hundred years.
In mamba country, he’d crossed it.
* * *
Adele and Blair Gardiner were at Wishaw Hospital when the ambulance carrying Mackenzie pulled into A & E. The back doors flew open and she was taken inside. Nobody told them what was going on. Nobody knew. Gavin was in time to see the second ambulance arrive. The irony of his sister and the person who’d abducted her being treated in the same emergency room didn’t escape him.
He found them sitting in the hall, Adele resting against Blair’s shoulder. She’d been crying. The last time the men met they’d been on opposite sides. Mackenzie had brought them together. Blair looked up at him and shook his head. ‘No news. Somebody will speak to us as soon as they can.’
Adele threw her arms around her brother. ‘Why does it take this before we realise what’s important?’ She searched his face for the answer she needed to hear. ‘Will she be okay? Tell me she’ll be okay.’
Gavin was tempted to lie and changed his mind. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’
‘What happened?’
‘She’s been through hell. If you’d seen where he was keeping her. If you’d…’ His voice faltered, unable to describe the pictures in his head. ‘Derek… went crazy.’
‘Where is Derek? Is he ok?’
‘The police have taken him in for questioning.’
‘What’ll happen to him?’
‘We’ll have to wait and see. It was awful, Adele. Really awful. I’ll never forget it.’
Blair stepped between them. ‘You don’t have to go into it. This isn’t the time. It’s too raw.’
Gavin said, ‘Has Monica been told?’
‘Already done. Called her myself. She’s dropping Alice off with her sister.’
‘Thanks for that, Blair.’
Adele’s way of coping was to talk about it. Blair held her close and let her get it out. Soon after, Monica arrived, rushed to her husband and hugged him. ‘Are you all right?’ He nodded. ‘Thank God. What about Mackenzie?’
‘They’re examining her now.’
‘Have they said anything?’
‘Not yet. All we can do is wait.’
She kept her voice low. ‘What about Derek? Did he intend to kill the guy?’
‘Maybe, I don’t know. But I saw what he did to her. I wouldn’t blame him, Monica, I really wouldn’t.’
Adele asked, ‘So where is he?’ Gavin knew who she was taking about and wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘My God. Don’t tell me they brought him here. How could they do that?’
‘They have to try and save his life too.’
His sister voiced what all of them thought. ‘Why? Why do they have to? After what he did to Mackenzie – they should’ve left him to rot.’
The anger went out of her and they sat quietly, each with their own thoughts.
Inside A & E, high on the wall, a television with the sound turned down fascinated the dozen people waiting for a doctor to take a look at them. A guy in his late teens with a tattoo on his forehead pressed a blood-soaked cloth to the sleeve of his denim jacket. Next to him, his grinning mate whispered out of the corner of his mouth. Gavin guessed gang violence had brought them here. Tomorrow this would be a war story for the troops. Further along, a woman and a girl huddled together. The girl’s left
foot was in a plaster cast which had cracked open. Their dull expressions said they’d been waiting a while. A nurse appeared and called a name. The denim youth made faces behind her back to amuse his pal and followed her.
Monica said, ‘Anybody want coffee? I’ll get it.’
Blair had a different suggestion. ‘Why don’t we go to the tearoom? Better than staying here. Don’t need to be gone long.’
They made their way to the cafeteria. Blair bought four coffees and carried them on a tray to the table. Nobody spoke until Adele said, ‘Can you talk about it?’
Her brother nodded. ‘I got a call from Derek. He’d seen the guy from Buchanan Street and was going after him.’
‘Hoping he’d lead him to Mackenzie?’
Gavin glanced at his wife. ‘That’s what I imagined, but he was different.’
‘Different how?’
‘Hard to explain. Not the Derek Crawford any of us know. Like he wasn’t quite there.’ He shrugged the inadequate description aside. ‘We were on the M74, heading for the Lowther Hills, although we didn’t know that at the time. He had about twenty-odd minutes on me. Fortunately the stalker stopped at Abington services otherwise I’d never have caught up.’ Gavin looked at his family. ‘I’ll tell you what I won’t be telling the police – I was scared.’
Blair leaned forward. ‘Scared of what?’
‘About what he might do when he caught up to him.’
‘You thought he’d kill him?’
‘I don’t know but it didn’t feel good. For a while I thought I’d lost him. But I kept on going. Then I saw Derek’s car outside a derelict house. The engine was still running, and there was another car, a Toyota.’ Gavin was visibly affected by the memory. ‘The house was literally falling down. The windows were boarded, doors were hanging off their hinges, and the roof was caved in. I knew this couldn’t be where Mackenzie was staying, it didn’t make sense. There were raised voices coming from the basement, so I went down.’