All the Devils

by Neil Broadfoot

  And if there was one thing he could never be guilty of, it was neglecting an opportunity.

  He considered. Redmonds was gone. Mark had assured him there had been no breaches or withdrawals. All that remained was to retrieve Redmonds’ key and they would be secure. Again. Of course, Mark would have to be watched closely to ensure he didn’t have an adverse reaction when he put Redmonds’ death together with the late-night task he had been set. But that wouldn’t be a problem, it was just another detail, another variable to consider.

  And that, after all, was what he was paid for. To consider the details. Account for the variables. Ensure they remained invisible, discreet, restrained. Until, of course, the time for restraint was over.

  9

  Fettes police station sits in the north-west of the city, close to the Botanic Garden. It has the anonymous, industrial look typical of office blocks built in the 1970s, all high windows, blunt facades and flat roofs; a stark contrast to the gothic hulk of Fettes College at the end of Fettes Avenue, an exclusive private school that has produced at least one prime minister. Before Scotland’s police forces had been combined, Fettes had been the headquarters for Lothian and Borders police. These days, it houses road policing, a licensing unit and lost property for the city, as well as the corporate communications unit for the East Division, which has a suite of rooms set up for press conferences and media events.

  Doug sat in his car outside, trying to warm himself up as the hangover, exhaustion and shock from the previous night and morning fought a battle inside to see which would be the one to try and kill him first. He watched a slow stream of journalists drift into the building, the sight not lifting his mood. A few years ago, a news story like this would have brought reporters from every newspaper in the Central Belt scurrying to Fettes’ door. These days, it was just a smattering of TV news crews, an agency reporter and snapper, and a couple of local radio stations.

  “Your industry’s dying,” his friend Hal Damon had told him on one of his increasingly frequent visits to Edinburgh from London. “It’s all bloggers and job cuts and freesheets now. But you know you can come work with me any time you want.”

  Hal was a PR consultant and a damn good one, but Doug always declined his half-joked job offers, saying he was a reporter and someone had to keep Hal honest. And yet, wasn’t that what he was doing right now? His own personal PR job, spinning himself as the upstanding reporter and trying to keep his involvement in the Redmonds murder quiet?

  He had seriously considered not coming to the press conference, avoiding the inevitable confrontation with officers who would want to talk to him for as long as possible. After all, it was only a matter of time before they checked Redmonds’ phone and found the record of his late-night chat with Doug, and he couldn’t afford to be slowed down by awkward questions and demands to “account for his movements the previous evening”. But he didn’t want to rouse Becky’s suspicions any further or give her any reason to track him down, so he had decided to come along, act normally for as long as possible and see what, if anything, he could find.

  Redmonds’ laptop, which was now sitting in the boot of Doug’s car, was an empty shell holding nothing more than a standard email account and a couple of Internet bookmarks to banking apps and soft-core porn sites. It had, ultimately, given him nothing, which was both a blessing and a curse, while the flash drive held nothing more than what Redmonds had shown him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, cheeks burning at the image that played across his mind. He was going to have to confront that, soon. But how?

  He got out of the car quickly – as if he could leave the thought there and lock it in – and walked up to the station. Halfway up the path, he paused, fumbled his phone out of his pocket and sent two texts. Pocketed the phone again then headed inside.

  • • •

  Doug took a seat at the back of the room, behind where the TV cameras were set up, not wanting to be in the shot. On a small stage at the front of the room sat a table with three chairs, the Police Scotland logo draped over the front of the table. To the right was a small lectern, and it was this that Becky headed for when she emerged from the wings, followed by DCI Jason Burns and Bob Rankin, the Assistant Chief Constable for the East of Scotland Division. Doug watched Burns closely. He had always been a big man, projecting an air of solidity and blunt mass rather than just fat. But now he seemed smaller, harder, almost as if he had been picked up and everything non-essential squeezed from him. And his flame-red hair – that along with his explosive temper and bulldog interview style had earned him the nickname Third Degree Burns – was starting to go grey at the temples.

  Doug had heard things were hard in Police Scotland, with cutbacks piling ever-increasing workloads and pressure on staff, and if Burns’ appearance was the result of that, he didn’t want to think about what it was doing to Susie.

  “Good morning,” Becky said, her voice echoing slightly thanks to the pick-up mics in front of the lectern. “As you know, officers from Police Scotland were called to an address in the Trinity area shortly before 4am today. Upon entering the premises, they discovered the body of a forty-nine-year-old male. I can now confirm that the deceased was former Lothian and Borders Police Assistant Chief Superintendent Paul William Redmonds and a murder inquiry has been launched. The family has been informed and we will be sending out a statement on their behalf after this press conference. DCI Burns, who is leading the investigation, and ACC Rankin will now take your questions.”

  Doug met Becky’s gaze as she swept the room, looking for a reporter to go first. He lowered his head; he had questions alright, but this wasn’t the place to ask them, or get the answers he needed.

  He listened as the other reporters covered the ground he already had, skimming over the updated copy he had already written after speaking to Becky. He had spoken to Walter earlier and told him he would send the update as soon as the press conference was over. They wouldn’t beat the live feed from the TV crews, but at least the website copy would be ahead of their rivals.

  As he was reading, he got a response to one of the texts he had sent. Susie. He had asked if she was okay and whether she wanted to meet up after the presser.

  I’m fine, her text read. Usual whispers. Ignoring it. Sorry for last night. How’s the PC going?

  He tapped in a brief reply, hit Send then typed another message: You getting anywhere near this? Saw the bubble that showed Susie was replying pop up almost immediately on his screen.

  Not officially. But Eddie owes me a favour – I’ll get him to keep me up to date.

  Doug swallowed, glanced up at Becky, felt sweat prickle on his back as he typed. Any progress? Anything to indicate motive or a suspect? His breath quickened as he stared at the screen, willing the reply to come through. If they had checked Redmonds’ phone, they’d know he had phoned him. In which case, his conversation with Susie was going to take on a whole new tone. And he was going to lie to her. He knew that now. He had to.

  Finally, Susie’s reply popped up on the screen. Doug stared at it, rereading it, the impossible boiled down into text shorthand.

  Nothing yet. Usual checks. No late-night calls made or received, landline or mobile. Best guess is he arranged a meet and it went wrong from there. Not a random robbery – valuables still on body.

  Doug tore his gaze from the phone, looked up dumbly at the stage. Burns was droning on now, asking for anyone who had seen Redmonds over the last day to come forward, reassuring the public that attacks like this were rare. Doug watched him, trying to slow his pulse, trying to make sense of what Susie had just told him.

  If Redmonds hadn’t called him from his own phone, then whose phone had he used? And why had he bothered to cover his tracks? To make sure there was no evidence he had ever contacted Doug? Made no sense; after all, he was rightly confident that the contents of the flash drive would be enough to keep Doug quiet. Why go to the extra trouble
of concealing the fact he had contacted him?

  Doug tried to put it all together in his head, but found he couldn’t, the questions piling up in his mind like a slow-motion car crash. Slowly, he let the world back in, realised the press conference was winding up. He flicked to email and sent his copy to the Tribune newsdesk, then thumbed in a reply to Susie, asking her to meet later on, suggesting a pub just off Princes Street.

  He saw Becky subtly look at him, indicating towards the door with her eyes. He nodded back his understanding and headed for the door, wishing he was heading for a pub right now.

  10

  He had learned the value of discipline almost thirty years ago, a little more than a mile from where he now stood. A typical student, he had been walking home after a night of thwarted pick-up lines and too many cheap shots in an overloud, overpacked nightclub. It was late June, the night mild and clear, the streets busy with other students and the advance parties of tourists who would multiply to an army in the coming weeks as the Fringe and Festival roared into life. It was a walk he had made many times before, past the old Royal Infirmary and the open swathe of playing fields behind it.

  It was here that he learned his lesson.

  Four kids – all poor complexions, overpriced trainers, bad shell suits and worse attitudes – emerged from the shadows that pooled in the perimeter wall of the hospital.

  He smiled slightly as he remembered the leader of the group – he was about six inches taller than the rest of them, dark, glinting eyes and a cheap stud earring that glinted like a chip of copper in the soft sepia glow of the streetlights. The eldest, clearly. And not a day over sixteen.

  “Gies yer fuckin’ jaicket, man,” he snarled, words thick with alcohol or worse. He had made his first mistake then. Rather than seizing control, definitively, he had allowed the drinks from the night to prise a dismissive laugh from him as he told the boy to “fuck off back to his mammy”. He knew he shouldn’t but it was funny, wasn’t it? After all, the poor little prick had no idea of who – or what – he had just threatened.

  Laughter erupted from behind the boy, his pals finding the challenge to their leader’s authority and his obvious embarrassment and impotence entertaining.

  “Fuckin’ shut it, cunts!” the boy had shouted, head whipping back to his friends.

  He should have ended it there. He was sobering up now, some dim, less evolved part of him starting to sound the alarm. But not quickly enough. Mistake two.

  The boy turned back to him, eyes narrowed, mouth contorted into a sneer of hatred. “Fuckin’ cheeky BASTARD!” he spat, cords starting to bulge in his too-thin neck. “I’m gonnae fuckin’ kill you for that!”

  The boy lunged forward, something glinting in his hand, his movements jerky and sharp with rage and the inexperience of youth.

  And then he had made his third, most serious mistake. It took only a split-second, but he remembered it seemed like a lifetime. The boy coming at him. The calculations on all the ways he could stop and disarm him flitting across his mind like snapshots. The decision being made.

  He got his forearm inside the boy’s flailing arm, deflecting the blow and the blade with the back of his elbow. The boy staggered forward, suddenly off balance, chest exposed, and he stabbed at his throat with his fist. He felt the boy’s windpipe crumple beneath his knuckles like corrugated cardboard, heard cartilage and tendon rupture with a dull, meaty popping sound.

  He stepped aside and the boy staggered another half step before swaying to a halt. He fell to his knees, hands scrabbling to his throat, his friends frozen behind him. He gasped and hacked for breath, a thick, liquid gurgling sound echoing in the sudden silence. The boy opened his mouth as he clawed at his neck; blood exploding from it instead of the scream his eyes said he wanted to give. He toppled forward onto the ground and scrabbled manically around, bucking and thrashing like a fish hauled onto the deck of a ship. And in a way, that was what he was. He had been caught. Hooked. And now he was dying.

  He looked from the boy to his two friends, who were caught between helping or fleeing. As he glanced around, he realised they had attracted attention. He turned and walked away quickly, not running, cursing himself for his carelessness.

  In the weeks that followed, he read the papers closely, watched the TV news. The incident was reported but, amazingly, the boy had lived as his friends had dragged him to A&E. They had given the scantest description of their attacker, and it was so laughably far from the truth that he finally began to relax and not jump every time the phone rang or someone knocked at the door. When he saw the police statement that “enquiries were ongoing” and the plea for witnesses, he knew he was in the clear.

  But a lack of control had left him exposed, vulnerable, on the edge of losing everything. It was a lesson he learned well, and he prided himself on applying it throughout his life.

  And yet, as he put the phone down on his secretary after telling her to clear his diary for the afternoon, he felt a sudden, almost overpowering urge to let his discipline waiver, to give in to the churning rage that poisoned his thoughts and breath like acid. To lash out, upend his table, throw his coffee mug through the window, revel in the chaos and the terror and the mayhem.

  But no. No. He took a deep breath, held it. Turned away from the window and eased himself into his chair and picked up his phone, rereading the message.

  Redmonds’ key not at his property, in car or on his person. McGregor?

  He sneered, letting the phone spill from his fingers and clatter to the desk. Of course it was McGregor. Who else would it have been? The question was, how much did he know – and what to do next?

  He closed his eyes, forced himself to look at the problem rationally. Consider the details and account for the variables.

  Despite his assurances to the contrary, Mark had obviously not been as thorough as he had demanded: letting him find out from a third party that the key was missing. So he would talk to Mark, impress upon him his severe disappointment and make sure he knew it could never happen again. He smiled, the thought of action calming him. He tapped the keyboard in front of him, his monitor stirring to life as he did, revealing two windows on the screen: the Capital Tribune’s homepage and a list of stories by Doug McGregor. Glancing through them, it was clear Mr McGregor was going to have to be addressed at some point. The current situation merely moved him up the priority list. He nodded, feeling the last of the tension slip from his shoulders, the cool shroud of discipline draping itself over him again.

  He picked up the phone, tapped in a quick message: Full sweep for R. Complete inventory. No omissions.

  The situation was salvageable. Redmonds’ stupidity, while dangerous, had given him the opportunity to address Mark’s inefficiency, another nagging problem and the McGregor issue head on. He found himself smiling at the prospect.

  11

  Doug drove the five-minute trip to the Royal Botanic Garden, too exhausted from the previous night to consider making the walk. He found a space near to the main gate and headed for the café just inside, making his usual order of a large Americano for him and a large mocha – no cream – for Becky.

  It had become a ritual for them not long after they had started seeing each other. After a press conference or briefing at Fettes, they would meet here and walk around the Garden, away from prying eyes. He would invariably arrive first, meeting her when she could get clear. They weren’t exactly hiding their relationship, she had told him, just not advertising to the world. And by “the world” he knew she meant her bosses at Police Scotland. He smiled, imagining their response to the news that one of their senior communications officers was sleeping with the crime reporter for the city’s leading newspaper. It would almost be worth going public just to see Burns’ reaction.

  He found a bench just past the main gate, nestled underneath a huge tree and looking out over a perfectly manicured lawn. The Garden always struck him as a calming
place, an oasis of tranquillity amidst the chaos of the city. He would sometimes come here to think after visiting Fettes, to wait for the newsdesk to tell him the copy he had filed was okay or that they needed more. It was, he thought as he gulped at his coffee, better than going to the office.

  As if on cue, his phone buzzed – a message from Walter that his story was running and they were looking for more, so if you could ask your contacts really nicely, that would be appreciated. He smiled at that. As editor, Walter had better things to do than pat his reporters on the head, but after what happened in the last year, overly sarcastic requests for follow-ups were the only way he knew how to look after him.

  The return to work had been a slow process, the Tribune’s owners handling the situation with a PR savvy that, Doug thought, would have made Hal jealous. Jonathan Greig, Walter’s predecessor, had been gunned down in front of Doug; revenge for burying a story that could have helped a Gulf War veteran get a reduced sentence for an altercation gone wrong at an Edinburgh nightclub. With the help of Harvey Robertson – the father figure who had trained Doug – Greig had culled all evidence of the story from the Tribune’s library, basically rewriting history as he saw fit. When Doug had uncovered all this and been attacked by Diane Pearson – the veteran’s wife who had a child with Greig – Benedict Media, the owners of the Tribune, had put their righteous indignation into overdrive. They were profuse in their thanks to Doug for “uncovering this disgraceful conspiracy, which was an insult to the high standards of journalism that the Tribune was renowned for”.

  On leaving hospital, Doug was welcomed back like a conquering hero, offered private physiotherapy and whatever counselling he needed, all on the Benedict tab. He declined, not wanting to give the bastards another excuse to kick off yet another round of redundancies and cost savings to cover his medical bills. But while the Benedict concern was all gloss and PR, Walter’s was real. It was, after all, his fault that Doug had been in Greig’s office – the one Walter now used – when the former editor had been shot, as Doug was doing him a favour and covering the desk for him.