by William Paul
‘Right on both counts,’ Fyfe said to himself.
36
Angela Simpson had Esperanza the maid drive her to the airport at Gibraltar. Esperanza was nineteen years old and not very keen on getting behind the wheel of the powerful BMW at first. She was amazed that she should be asked but, once over the shock, soon allowed herself to be persuaded. She quickly began to enjoy herself, fondling the gearstick with eager youthful fingers.
‘You don’t have to take the car straight back,’ Angela told her when her luggage was piled high on an airport trolley. ‘Go for a spin, why don’t you?’
‘Señora Simpson,’ Esperanza gasped gratefully.
‘Yes. Keep the car for the day. In fact, have the day off. Take your boyfriend out in it. Go on. Impress him. You’ll have him eating out of your hand. Men can’t resist beauties and this car is a beauty.’
‘Señora Simpson. Thank you very much.’
Angela watched the big car move smoothly away. Esperanza was a beauty too, young and slim and dark-haired with big round eyes and the kind of eyelashes that many women would kill for. She had a fine figure and a fondness for loose-fitting dresses with low neck-lines and thin shoulder straps. God, how Angela hated her. She had never seen her boyfriend but imagined him to be a well-muscled, hairy-chested, strong-tongued Latin lover. The lucky bitch. Plenty of room for them on the back seat of the BMW to test its suspension.
Terry, Angela’s husband, was playing golf. When he got back it was likely he would be drunk and would try to report a missing wife and a missing car to the police. The car, almost certainly, would cause him more concern when he found it gone. She had told him she was going to an aged aunt’s funeral in Edinburgh. Auntie Mabel. An old woman. Sudden death. Totally unexpected. She had been as strong as an ox. He hadn’t really been listening but that was her cover story anyway. She left a note, too, so he would remember.
Normally Angela never used the BMW. She got around in a little Renault that was all she needed. But once Terry was safely on his way to the golf course with his friends Angela loaded up the BMW with a selection of travelling cases and began her journey back to home ground. She had packed secretly the previous evening before the birthday party began, agonising over what to leave behind, leaving the half-dozen cases stacked inside her changing room. All her worldly goods. If Terry had noticed he might have wanted to know why she needed so much stuff for a weekend away. But he didn’t notice so he didn’t ask. After the party he had wanted sex but didn’t get it. She hoped he had had all he was going to get from her.
In the morning he had been thoughtful enough to try not to disturb her when he got up early. She pretended to be asleep while he dressed, willing him to hurry up and get out of her life.
The drive along the coast road had been exhilarating on a lovely morning. Sea and sun-splashed countryside all around her and the villa getting further and further behind. No turning back now, she imagined, knowing she had set things up so she could turn back at any time. Even so, there was a little knot of tightness in her stomach that reminded her of her first day at school, and then the same feeling again when she married Mike Barrie. There were other emotions too that she kept suppressed, other memories chasing her. ‘Faster,’ she said to Esperanza. ‘Faster.’
Angela pushed her heavily laden trolley into the terminal and found the check-in desk for the London flight. She noticed that a few men turned their heads to look at her as she passed, high heels clicking sharply on the floor tiles. The desk clerk was a young man with a large mouth and perfect teeth. His smile seemed genuine enough and she could tell he wasn’t just looking at her face, but at the rest of her as well. As always, it made her feel superior.
‘Can you smell it?’ she asked.
‘Señora?’
‘My boats burning.’
‘Señora?’
‘Never mind. I’ve got a return ticket anyway. Just in case.’
37
The hood was ripped from Adamson’s head and an intensely bright light shone in his eyes, forcing him to screw them tightly shut. He did not want to look, did not want to know who had kidnapped him. But he knew already and the knowledge caused huge tears of helplessness and despair to course down his cheeks.
‘How are you, Jad?’ Gus Barrie said.
Something sharp jabbed into Adamson’s ribs, making him cry out and try to jerk his body away. The bright light had retreated enough for him to be able to see Barrie crouching directly in front. He was closing a flick-knife. The handle and the blade formed a pyramid between the palms of his hands. The knife had been used to free Adamson’s arms, allowing him to sit up and scramble backwards until a corner stopped him going any further.
‘Don’t worry, Jad,’ Barrie said. ‘You were my brother’s friend, I have no intention of hurting you.’
Adamson didn’t believe him for a second. He pressed back into the corner, finding a curious comfort in the hardness of the walls. Dried blood was thick in his nostrils and heavy on his upper lip. Mike Barrie had been a mad bastard and his big brother was probably the same. Adamson had heard the name spoken while he lay trussed up and helpless on the floor. After hours of fearful ignorance it all began to make a horrible kind of sense when he heard Barrie’s name spoken. Barrie, like the priest, thought he had kept the money. The secret that had sustained him for so long now wanted him dead.
‘I don’t have the money, Mr Barrie,’ Adamson said. ‘I just bragged about it a lot. It was good to play the big man inside. I let people think I had a secret. It made others look up to me. Sometimes I even believed it myself. But the money was destroyed, Mr Barrie. Honest, it was, the night Mike died. He made sure of that. We were both going to kill ourselves if we didn’t succeed, only I didn’t have the guts to go through with it. That’s the honest truth, Mr Barrie. Honestly.’
Barrie held the closed knife in a fist against his cheek. The dimly lit room was full of floating dust. It was cold. The breath of the men vaporised in stringy grey clouds that floated around them like fish in an aquarium. Behind Barrie were the two muscle-men who had killed Lillian and attacked him in the bedroom, slipping the pillow case over his head, hurrying him down the stairs into the back of a van, and then into this room. He was thrown in, face down so that he cracked his nose on the hard floor and it started to bleed. A red sunrise flowered on the whiteness.
One of the heavies was holding a torch, and the other was making shadow figures of rabbits’ ears in the circle the beam formed against the far wall. Adamson had been left for hours, his whole body trembling like a tuning fork because of the cold and the fear of what might happen. When he first heard Barrie’s name an edited version of nine-year-old events leaped out of his memory. He could remember so much, so vividly; a scratch on the paint of the security van, the weight of the plastic bags full of money like sacks of potatoes, the desperate argument over what had gone wrong, wild-eyed Barrie booby-trapping the money, the smell of the petrol, the tiny flame and the coldness of the room, the headlong run through the streets, the curiously hollow echo of the shotgun blasts, the flower pattern of the wallpaper in the fatal flat, Mike Barrie’s resigned shrug, and then his crumpled skull and the new pattern on the walls and ceiling, and the surge of policemen around him, and the dry stuffiness of the blanket over his head as they led him out, and the bright sterility of the interview room, and the challenging glare of the detective called Fyfe trying to look inside his head and discover the secret that was all he had left by then.
‘I know all that, Jad,’ Barrie said reasonably. ‘I know what happened to the real money. I’m not accusing you of anything. I just want you to do a little job for me. That’s all. Nothing too difficult. I want you to act a little part.’
‘What part?’
Barrie opened his hand and rubbed a thumb along the edge of the closed knife. ‘Mike’s widow is coming here soon. I want you to give her the money back.’
Adamson swallowed a throatful of viscous, evil-tasting saliva. His heart started to b
eat very fast. The whistle of falling bombs began to impinge on the background. He touched his nose and fresh, liquid blood ran into his mouth. Barrie stood up and towered over him.
‘There is no money, Mr Barrie. I’ve told you. It was burned. The booby trap went off and it was incinerated. It wasn’t a trick. It happened. There is no money.’
‘It didn’t happen, Jad. Trust me.’
Panic was descending on Adamson again. The same panic he had experienced on running away from Father Byrne’s body. The same that had overwhelmed him in Lillian’s bedroom. He pressed back into the unyielding corner. Above them the pigeons cooed and scratched in the attic. He clasped his hands together over the top of his head. There was nothing else he could do to protect himself. The secret was killing him. He was at Barrie’s mercy.
‘The money exists, Jad,’ Barrie said. ‘Look, I’ll show you.’
There was no apparent signal but the two skinheads immediately stopped their shadow game and went over to a steel chest. An open padlock was dropped to the floor with a thud. They each took one side of the lid and raised it up.
‘Go on, Jad. Take a look.’
They made no attempt to hurry him. He sat in the corner for several minutes, shaking his head, refusing to move. Barrie just stared at him coldly. The two skinheads smiled inanely like game-show hostesses displaying the star prize. Eventually curiosity overcame Adamson’s fear. He crawled over and peered inside the chest. There were three bulging black sacks. One was open at the top. Crisp ten-pound notes spilled from it like foam over the rim of a beer glass.
‘One million, three hundred and seventy-five thousand, two hundred and forty-eight pounds,’ Barrie said from behind him. ‘The bank’s officially recorded loss.’
‘We counted more,’ Adamson said.
‘How many times did you count it?’
‘Just the once.’
‘You must have made a mistake.’
‘But I was convinced the money was destroyed. The place burned down. Nobody knew it was there until I told them afterwards. They found charred notes. Ashes.’
‘Keep believing that, Jad,’ Barrie said. ‘Mike’s romantic gesture was very sincere. This is my money. I’ve been collecting it here for some time now. It’s all used notes. Just like it should be.’
Sitting on the floor, Adamson looked from Barrie’s face to the sacks of banknotes and waited for the punchline. ‘Why?’ he asked finally when none came.
‘I told you I wanted you to act a part, Jad. I want you to take this money up to Angela, Mike’s widow, and say that it is the money from the robbery. You will say you are very sorry you’ve kept it all this time but you didn’t trust anybody enough to tell them your secret while you were in prison. That’s all. Nothing more. Then you can go.’
Adamson hesitated. ‘Why would I do that? Why would I give it back if I’ve kept it all this time?’
‘Because I asked you to, Jad.’ Barrie’s smile grew even colder. ‘Because I waited until you got out of prison. Then I had you followed to the hiding place, and then I asked you nicely to return it. If you’re lucky Angela might even consider giving you a reward. In fact, I’m almost sure she will.’
Adamson backed into the corner again, pressing his fingers against the solid walls. ‘But why?’ he said. ‘Why this charade? Why are you doing this?’
‘I have my reasons. It’s family business. I want Angela to believe this is Mike’s money. You are the only person who can make her believe that. You’re not going to disappoint me now, are you, Jad?’
‘How much is the reward?’
‘A very practical question. You act your part well and it will be extremely generous, I assure you. All you have to do is convince her. Can you do that?’
Adamson didn’t believe him, but he needed time to think. He was beginning to have hope that he would be able to get out alive. Barrie was waiting for an answer. He had the flick-knife open. The blade was the brightest object in the room. One of the heavies was wiping his nose delicately with a handkerchief.
‘I can do it,’ Adamson confirmed.
‘Good,’ Barrie said, snapping the knife shut. ‘You have made me a very happy man indeed.’
38
Fyfe headed for his office the way a ship heads for port in a storm. Grey daylight revealed a low cloud canopy and was the trigger for a renewed drizzle. His mind was operating on two levels simultaneously as he tried to rationalise his love life and suss out Father Quinn. The basement level of his subconscious was also trying to identify some pattern in the three murders that he knew would be thrust under his nose before the breakfast he still hadn’t had. He had an unsettling idea there might be a connection. With Quinn, not his love life. Quinn had mentioned Gus Barrie calling in his debts. Barrie was into drugs. Three drug dealers were dead, one of them Barrie’s main competition.
Fyfe drove back to Fettes, almost running into the rear ends of a couple of cars at red lights, so difficult was it for him to concentrate on real life. It had not been a good idea to rekindle the affair with Sylvia, he had decided. Not a good idea at all. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, as she had said. Which reminded him that he would have to collect his dogs sometime that day. He should have reasoned with her and talked her out of it. They could still be friends, he should have said. He could be a supportive shoulder to cry on while she indulged herself in her crazy plan to save the reputation of a gay judge. Not a lover, just a good friend. He should have told her that, he thought, shaking his head ruefully as he did so. Fat chance. He could no more resist Sylvia when the hormones were high than he could fly in the air.
He avoided the main incident room and went for a shower as soon as he got to the office. He used a discarded towel and shampoo that had been left lying around. The water was only lukewarm but it cleaned him up and made him feel better. He didn’t have a change of clothes so he just had to get dressed in the same ones again. He used a finger and tap water to clean his teeth. He dried his hair and then polished his shoes with the towel. He was surprised to be buoyed up by a perverse sense of well-being and an inappropriate good humour. He checked at a mirror to see that he was inside the right body.
The incident room was sparsely populated when he finally got there just after seven. The place gave the impression of inactivity and emptiness. Bill Matthewson came hurrying over to him as he pushed money into the coffee machine. He seemed very agitated and eager to speak.
‘There’s been another one.’
‘Another what?’
‘Another murder.’
Fyfe raised his eyebrows. The coffee machine started whirring. Another murder. That was what he had told Sylvia. Another murder. The whole city’s gone mad. Maybe he was psychic?
‘Is it connected?’ he asked.
‘We don’t know yet. The body was found at the bottom of Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park.’
‘Very scenic. It’s not a suicide, then?’
Matthewson shook his head. ‘Skull bashed in. Bloodstained boulder left lying at the side.’
‘No ritualistic throat cutting. Could be a coincidence.’
‘Could be. Probably is. Different modus. Wait till you hear who it is.’
‘Who?’
Fyfe picked out his cup of coffee and grimaced at the bitter taste. Matthewson stood with his arms folded, making the most of his superior knowledge. Waiting to be coaxed.
‘Are you giving me three guesses?’ Fyfe said. ‘Who the fuck is it?’
‘It’s your priest.’ Matthewson’s mouth twitched but he managed to stop himself smiling.
‘My priest?’
‘That’s right. Father Donald Byrne. He was found just a couple of hours ago. Still warm but definitely dead.’
Fyfe took a few seconds to absorb the news. He experienced an inner calm that allowed him to take another sip of his coffee and not notice the taste. There had to be a connection to Quinn. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Ninety per cent. Identification comes from a credit card in his
bum bag and he also had labels with his name on sewn into his track suit.’
‘The lengths people will go to just to avoid me. I was supposed to have an appointment with him this morning. I was going to postpone it. No need to now. What’s happening?’
‘Detective Superintendent Munro is in operational charge of the first three murders. He’s taken this one on as well until we know more. He’s out at the guy’s church right now.’
‘I was there yesterday. Should have hung around.’ Fyfe drained the coffee cup. ‘I’ll catch up with him there.’
‘The Chief is talking about you fronting a press conference with Munro this afternoon to keep the hacks happy.’
‘Why me?’
‘You’re photogenic, apparently.’
‘That’s nice to know.’
Fyfe drove across the city. It was just waking up. Cars multiplied, pedestrians increased exponentially. He wondered if he was just waking up too, emerging from a strange dream that had only begun with the procession of Brother Patrick lookalikes in their white Reeboks.
He turned a corner and the sight of the ugly concrete church made him wince, as if a camera flash had gone off in his face. Father Byrne’s likeness floated in front of him as he walked to the church house door and showed his identity card to the constable there. The priest had been bad-tempered, impatient, and anxious to get away the day before. Things were already happening then. Different elements were combining to produce a result. Byrne was heading irresistibly towards his death. The person waiting in the car might be implicated. Had he deliberately kept his head down to avoid being recognised? Byrne had driven him away and now Byrne was dead.
Mark Munro met Fyfe outside the study door, drawing it closed behind him. Fyfe caught a glimpse of Mrs McMorrow seated at the table with her permed Harpo Marx hair. It was easy for Fyfe to imagine her hunched over late at night sewing name tags into the good Father’s underwear by lamplight.