Raw Bone

by Scott Thornley

  “You served with him, colonel, throughout his time with the SAS?” MacNeice asked.

  “I did. And I tried to persuade Robert to stay in, but as you know, there’s no shortage of conflicts in the world.” Her Majesty’s forces were facing redeployment back to the UK after Afghanistan. Buchanan, he said, “was extremely well trained and not the least bit interested in sitting at home. He wasn’t alone. It’s not unusual for NATO forces to lose some of their finest to private defence contractors. They usually say they’re leaving for the larger income—we cannot compete on that level—but they’re really pursuing the action. I’ve come to think of them as similar to elite athletes,” he said reflectively. “The men know they have a period of time to use their physical and intellectual talents, and be well compensated. In the forces, that would mean patiently climbing the ranks until you have enough pay and pension to buy a decent home when you retire. But that’s a pittance to what a man of his calibre could earn in the same period with a mercenary outfit. Assuming you exit alive, you would indeed live well.”

  MacNeice glanced deliberately at his watch and noted that twenty minutes had passed. “My experience of Bishop—or Buchanan—is not as inspiring as yours.”

  Lyttelton had caught the gesture. “Right. Let’s turn to your homicides. After reading the materials provided and seeing the CCTV images, I am not disputing that Bishop was Buchanan. It’s not unusual for these men to have several identities and to wander the world between assignments. Nor is it unusual, sadly, that they find it difficult, while wandering, to avoid getting into hot water.”

  “Hot water?” MacNeice’s jaw tightened, fury rising in his face.

  “By that, detective, I mean that mostly we hear of them wreaking havoc in a bar in Thailand, crashing a motorbike in Spain, or throttling a prostitute in Calcutta. What you have here, however, is so rare I might refer to it as unique.”

  “Neither DI Aziz nor I are unaware of Buchanan’s expertise. I’ve personally experienced it first-hand. We’re also aware that the killing of two innocent women and a young man—civilians—was not what he was trained to do. The psychotic transformation of this man is not our concern. Apprehending him for these murders is.”

  Lyttelton stiffened. He studied MacNeice’s face, then glanced over at Aziz. “I am not an apologist for murder, detective superintendent. I am offering you another, perhaps parallel, reality. There are, at last count in my regiment alone, and in the towns and villages in which we served together, at least twenty friendly combatants and another two hundred civilians that owe their lives to Robert Buchanan.”

  “Yes, but you see, colonel, I’m only concerned with the three homicides Buchanan committed in Dundurn. We’re here to seek his extradition and arrest, and your assistance will be deeply appreciated.”

  Lyttelton looked down to the folder under his hands before returning his gaze to MacNeice. “Sadly, I can’t help you. Major Buchanan was killed in Nigeria on Thursday last week.”

  MacNeice sat back in the chair and exhaled.

  Aziz leaned forward. “Can you prove it?”

  “I can. Buchanan’s broker had been contracted by a French-Nigerian mining complex, Or-Afrique S.A., to provide security for the evacuation of French nationals due to political unrest in the country’s northern provinces. The team Buchanan led was experienced but underequipped and without support. Worse, explosives supplied by the Nigerian army, intended to secure the perimeter of the compound, for the most part failed to explode. Many were killed.”

  Glancing over at MacNeice, who was still silent, Aziz pressed: “But do you actually have proof that Buchanan died there?”

  “Yes, we do.” Lyttelton opened the remaining file folder. It contained two affidavits and a packet of black and white photographs. Before he passed them across the table, he looked solemnly at MacNeice. “Buchanan was known to his seven subordinates as Angus Robertson. One of these transcripts”—he laid his palm on the paper—“is by the sole survivor of his team, a wounded former US Marine named Mostacci, currently recovering from a stomach wound in a Marseilles hospital. The other affidavit is from Madame Monique Fillion, wife of Or-Afrique’s last man in Nigeria. The photographs were taken from a camera mounted in the evacuation helicopter.”

  Lyttelton eased the documents across the table.

  Once they were in their hands, the colonel stood and picked up his jacket. From his pants pocket, he produced a flat silver case from which he removed two cards. “If any more questions arise, don’t hesitate to contact me.” Lyttelton laid the cards on the table. “Unless you have further need of me, detectives, I’ll be off.” Putting on his jacket, he picked up the empty military file, tucked it smartly under his arm and walked around the table to Aziz. He shook her hand and then MacNeice’s. A moment later he’d disappeared through the side door of the drawing room.

  Aziz picked up the first of the transcripts as MacNeice peered somewhat numbly at the photographs. Whatever he was about to discover paled against the satisfaction he’d been robbed of—he’d never see the man he knew as Jacko Mars Bishop in court.

  The first photograph, taken from the door of a helicopter, revealed two buildings under attack, with fires alight in an infield and dark figures either running and firing, or lying flat and twisted on the ground, likely dead. The photograph had a narrow bar at the bottom right with “03. 24. 13. / 21:34P / EV-2.” He glanced at the bottom of the next photograph, each was dated and timed sequentially.

  The helicopter must have been taking fire, because in the second print the point of view had swung about, presumably to the advantage of an on-board machine gun. In the corner of the photo, he could see a white X painted on the roof of one of the buildings. There were three figures near the small stairwell and someone was lying at the edge of the roof, firing out toward dark figures caught in pools of light at the perimeter.

  He picked up another photo. Two minutes had elapsed, and the helicopter was about to touch down, blowing dust and bits of debris everywhere. To one side of the image, smoke was rising from the twisted wreckage of a tower. More dark figures were running and firing at the building. In the next photo, the helicopter was on the roof. There were two figures—women—huddled against the stairwell shack wall, cowering from the powerful wash of the rotor blades. Beside them was a body wrapped in white fabric.

  The following print sent a chill down MacNeice’s spine. A large man stood in the stairwell doorway. Like a giant, he filled the void. The women were getting up: the big man was firing off to his left and the women covered their ears. Realizing Lyttelton had provided him with a storyboard, MacNeice fanned the rest of the photographs out on the table.

  In the next, the big man had picked up the wrapped body. As he carried it over his shoulder, he shielded the women and kept firing; they were running toward the helicopter camera. In the next photo, the big man was close to the camera, dropping the wrapped body inside the chopper. He was yelling something, presumably to the crew chief inside. MacNeice’s heart was racing as he studied the face of Major Robert Buchanan, Jacko Mars Bishop and Angus Robertson.

  In the following images, Buchanan, with his back to the camera, was running to the stairwell door, where another man had fallen. All about him, the roofing gravel was spitting with the incoming fire. In the next, Buchanan was back at the helicopter, the wounded man on his shoulder. Buchanan again appeared to be yelling something, this time to his left, possibly to the pilot.

  In the next, Buchanan appeared to have been running back to the stairwell door when he was hit and launched sideways, struck in the hip or abdomen. MacNeice picked up the next. The helicopter was lifting off, twenty feet or so above the roof. There were dark figures pouring out of the stairwell door, firing toward the chopper. Buchanan lay off to the right side, firing back at them.

  MacNeice’s heart sank when he picked up the last photograph. No longer interested in the helicopter, the dark figures had fanned out in a semicircle and were concentrating fire on Buchanan. His assaul
t rifle had been cast aside and clouds of dust and blood rose from his body and the gravel all about him. Anniken Kallevik, Duguald Langan and Sherry Berryman’s killer was literally being ripped to pieces.

  MacNeice got up and walked over to the windows. Pulling the curtains apart, he looked out to the garden, aware that his heart rate had shot up dramatically. Behind him, Aziz was reading the second transcript—she hadn’t spoken. He didn’t have the stomach to read, at least not now. The pictures had done enough. Buchanan had saved the lives of hundreds, and in those grainy black and white prints, it was clear he had died saving several more. The man had been capable of giving life, but terribly proficient at taking it.

  So, there was nothing fundamentally sinister about Bishop. Had they met prior to his running amok in Dundurn, MacNeice might have enjoyed his company.

  Bishop was a bullet in a chamber, but it was the hand on the trigger that had made him lethal.

  MacNeice swung around and said, “Pack it up, Fiza. Let’s go talk to Paul Zetter.”

  Chapter 36

  Chet Baker’s sad and tender ballads filled the Chevy all the way from Toronto to the turnoff for Dundurn. Aziz knew MacNeice loved music, but she knew he also used it to discourage conversation and to find some silence in himself.

  Crossing the bridge above Cootes Paradise, she noticed him looking for the little bay. It was impossible to see from that height. He coughed, cleared his throat and said, “I’m not sure how to measure two hundred lives or more saved against the three taken here in Dundurn.” He did a U-turn and headed for the botanical gardens, driving down to the inlet where they’d carried Anniken Kallevik’s frozen body to the shore only weeks before.

  Stopping where he had parked that day, he said, “I’ll just be a minute.”

  As Aziz waited in the car, he walked to the shore and stopped to stare in the direction of the marina Anniken and Duguald had left on their final boat ride. Looking down at the water lapping softly onto the stony shore, he thought even the bay seemed exhausted, unable to summon the energy to break a wave, let alone disturb the pebbles from their sleepy algae beds. MacNeice knelt down and picked up the flattest stone he could find. Standing, he turned it so his thumb and forefinger held the edge. Intent on skipping it to the end of Cootes and into Dundurn Bay, he wound up and sent it flying low across the water.

  It skipped twice, three times, then curved up on an angle and swung off course before careening downward and slicing through the surface. MacNeice’s head hurt from the effort and he was having difficulty breathing. Behind him, he heard the passenger door of the Chevy open and clunk shut. Bishop had slaughtered three people, MacNeice thought, but in Britain and elsewhere, he’d be remembered for saving hundreds. He was a hero.

  “You looked like you were trying to throw that all the way to the marina.”

  “I was. But I put too much on it.” He coughed. “Sorry, Fiza.” Though what he was sorry about remained unsaid.

  “Have you heard from Samantha?”

  “Not a word.”

  She didn’t respond, and he looked up at the hills on either side of the tiny bay. Anniken’s body was on the way home for a proper burial, where once again she’d be surrounded by loved ones. Duguald would likely be interred locally with only his uncle to see him off.

  But out here, very soon, the world would green, and kids would look for jack-in-the-pulpits and trilliums, chase frogs and turtles, or fish for sunfish and be terrified when they hooked carp in the shallows. Kayakers would swing in for a respite from Dundurn Bay’s chilly winds, and again lovers would come for kisses and more.

  MacNeice and Aziz entered the offices of Canada Coil and Wire at 2:51p.m. No one was in the reception area, though they noticed a woman in a floral dress glancing back at them as she entered the washroom down the hall. Since the door to Zetter’s office was open, they walked in, startling the man behind the desk.

  “Who the hell are you?” he said, standing up.

  “Sit down,” MacNeice said. “I assume you’re Paul Zetter.”

  “Yeah, so you know me. Who are you?”

  “Detective Superintendent MacNeice. This is Detective Inspector Aziz.”

  Zetter sat down, gathered the papers on his desk into a pile and turned them upside down as the two detectives sat across from him. He was a pale, thin man with pockmarked skin, whose eyes narrowed as he studied them.

  “Do you know why we’re here, Mr. Zetter?”

  Zetter shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Why don’t you enlighten me after you show some identification.”

  When that formality was over with, Aziz put the photos of Anniken Kallevik and Duguald Langan face up on the desk. Zetter didn’t move, nor did he look at them right away. When he finally glanced at them, his eyes skittered away after a moment. Aziz laid a photograph of Sherry Berryman next to the others. That one, he didn’t bother to look at.

  “These are the bittersweet moments in an investigation, Mr. Zetter. They are precious—but brief,” MacNeice said.

  “I have no idea what you just said, pal. Nada. Zip. Next?”

  Aziz put the SAS dress uniform portrait of Buchanan down beside the others. Zetter leaned forward. “He’s big, but I don’t know him.”

  “I think you did. You knew him as Jacko Mars Bishop.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes,” Aziz said.

  MacNeice was looking at the overturned stack of papers. “Tell us about your business.”

  Zetter sat back in his chair and smiled at MacNeice. “The import and export of coil and wire. These days, more import than export.”

  “Due to the closing of the steel mills?” Aziz said.

  “That, yeah. The Chinese and Indians—among others—can deliver faster and cheaper than we ever could.”

  “By the looks of it, you run a lean operation here.” MacNeice looked around.

  “We’ve got the reception and my office, and with the warehouse and the yard, maybe fifteen thousand square feet … Yeah, it’s lean.”

  “Pays well though, does it?”

  “Why, you want in?” Zetter put his elbows on the desk. “What’s your point, detective? You want to see my books? I promise you they’ve been looked at by smarter guys than you.”

  “I’m sure they have. What I’m interested in, however, are your off-book expenditures and income.”

  “You two got some nerve—do you even know who I am?”

  MacNeice said, “You’re a businessman who hires muscle. One of the men you hired is Bishop. Bishop is responsible for three murders and two attempted murders.”

  “What the—”

  “I’m not finished. The only question we still need to answer is whether Bishop did two of these murders on your orders.”

  “You’re seriously whacked. You should seek help.”

  “Perhaps I should.”

  Zetter stood up. “This is fucked. I want you two outta here now, and”—he shoved the photos across the desk toward Aziz—“take this shit with you. You think I don’t have contacts? I know people. I’ll call the mayor. I don’t need this shit.” He reached for the phone.

  MacNeice stood up. “We’ll go, but before we do, could you tell me why an importer of coil and wire requires personal security?”

  Aziz reached over and collected the photos, putting them back in the folder.

  “Charge me with something or get out.” Zetter’s hand was still on the phone, but he made no move to dial.

  “Consider yourself under suspicion in the deaths of three people, Mr. Zetter. Do not attempt to leave Dundurn.”

  As they left the office, the woman in the floral dress was sitting behind the reception desk. By the look on her face it was clear that she’d heard most, if not all, of the exchange.

  MacNeice stopped in front of her. “Your name, please?”

  “Gloria …” Her voice quavered. “Gloria Zetter. I’m Paul’s wife.”

  “You’re also his receptionist?” Aziz asked.

  “I run the o
ffice.”

  “For chrissakes, Gloria,” Zetter screamed.

  It was as much of an assault as a smack across the face. Gloria went red with humiliation and turned back to her computer—which hadn’t been switched on.

  In the car, Aziz asked MacNeice why he hadn’t pressed Zetter further.

  “No need. We have a confession from the killer, who’s now dead. Gloria Zetter is listed as partner and chief financial officer, though I wonder if she’s aware of his gambling on horses or exactly why he needs heavies around him. We’ll come back to him, but for now we’ll track his movements.”

  “You think he’ll bolt?”

  “Absolutely, and as quickly as possible.”

  “You think he’s up to more than gambling, don’t you?”

  “I do. He takes people for boat rides—perhaps across the lake. I could imagine there are women on that boat to amuse his clients.”

  “Drugs.”

  “Possibly, or just prostitution. Enterprises for which you occasionally need heavies.”

  “I’ll get a surveillance team on him.”

  Chapter 37

  MacNeice was exhausted. He had just finished briefing Wallace on rattling Paul Zetter’s cage and the meeting with Colonel Lyttelton. He gave him copies of the images and the written transcripts from the survivors in Nigeria for his press briefing. Before he left, MacNeice told Aziz to call him if anything broke.

  It was only five-thirty when he walked through the door to the cottage. He put the keys down on the table under the Bill Brandt photograph of a nude on a stone beach. He patted her bum and kicked off his shoes. Propping himself up on a pillow on the sofa, he lay down to watch for birds, and fell asleep.

  The call from Aziz came at 10:56 p.m.

  Paul Zetter and his wife had been detained while trying to board a plane to the Bahamas. A pair of shorts, one change of underwear, a Hawaiian shirt and a shaving kit were all he’d packed, perhaps because he had $456,920 nestled at the bottom of his suitcase. Zetter had argued that it was a family ritual to take a March break—though he and Gloria had no children. The couple were now waiting for MacNeice in separate interview rooms.