Bred in the Bone

by Christopher Brookmyre

  She had texted Drew before setting off from Capletmuir, told him she’d been called out and would be late. Told him she loved him. He texted back saying he loved her too. He was wrong, though: he loved who he thought she was. They’d both find out his feelings on the true Catherine very soon.

  Fallan was right: it was a lonely place to live. And a place where she had to live with protecting Tony McGill from justice was lonelier still. Fallan was good at hiding in the dark. She wasn’t. Her whole purpose was to bring matters out into the daylight, where the things that thrived only in darkness shrivelled up and died.

  Fallan was doing an advance reconnoitre, getting the lay of the land in the hope that he might be able to identify some kind of advantage before he walked in there, alone. He had led her along these secret paths in order to make an unseen approach to the place identified only on the map as Collaton Park.

  As Fallan had explained, ‘the Spooky’ was the collective local name for this imposing, long-uninhabited mansion house and its extensive grounds; known constituently as the Spooky Hoose and the Spooky Woods. It had been empty as long as anybody could remember, built a couple of centuries back when the surrounding area was still countryside and the south-eastern edges of Glasgow several miles distant. It was boarded up but not derelict, almost as though some immortal owner had taken the huff at what had sprung up around it and would one day come back when Gallowhaugh had been demolished again.

  The building itself sat a couple of hundred yards back from the road, unkempt grass meeting broken paving, haphazard hedging and twisted fencing denoting its boundary. It was effectively regarded as parkland by the local youth, a kind of multi-use facility accommodating games of hide-and-seek and soldiers among the younger ones through the day, before transforming by evening into a popular venue for their older peers to partake of cadged fags and sweet cider.

  Nobody would be hanging around here tonight, though. The rain would see to that.

  ‘If you know this place so well, why would they choose it?’ she asked him.

  ‘I don’t know. That part’s bothering me too. It’s symbolic again, but symbols aren’t worth giving ground over. Maybe they figure they’re conceding nothing as long they’re holding all the cards. The only card that matters, anyway.’

  ‘Symbolic how?’

  ‘I witnessed things here. McGill knows this, because we talked about it once upon a time, when he was trying to play the substitute father figure. This is the place I found out what kind of cop my dad was. Him and his crew used to take a van up here and batter fuck out of people. Nobody gave them any shite because everybody knew that was the payback. It’s also where I learned about my dad and McGill. I saw money changing hands as they both sat there in my dad’s car.’

  ‘Brown envelopes?’

  ‘Poly bags actually. Nothing so middle-class as a brown envelope. Plus it was always fucking raining.’

  Fallan froze, holding up a hand to signal Catherine to stop also. Beams of headlights swept briefly across the trees, dispersed and diluted by distance. The arcing motion was caused by a vehicle turning from the main road onto the twisting track that led to the crumbling building. There were two vehicles, in fact, one tucked closely behind the other.

  Rather their axles than mine, Catherine thought, given the cratered conditions beneath their wheels, but as they came into sight between the trees she saw that for these vehicles it wasn’t going to be a problem. The first was a Toyota Hilux, with high-sprung suspension and a flatbed rear.

  The second was a Land Rover Defender.

  ‘I need to get a closer look,’ Fallan said. ‘Stay here.’

  He was gone before she could respond, as if he had teleported. She could see the two four-by-fours continuing their approach, but she spotted no hint of where Fallan might be.

  Catherine felt a vibration close to her chest and almost jumped before realising it was her phone. She took it out to see who was calling, thinking there was nobody she would answer for right now. She was wrong, though. It was Drummond.

  She looked towards the two vehicles, now nearing the house, wondering how much distance sound would carry on a night like this. Their engines sounded muffled by the rain, but she crouched down and turned to face away nonetheless.

  ‘McLeod,’ she said, keeping her voice above a whisper so as to sound as natural as she could.

  ‘Detective Superintendent. I’ve got some good news. I believe a resolution is imminent in the Fullerton case.’

  He still sounded like somebody was working him from the back. There was a hint of relief in his voice though, and Catherine knew she didn’t like that.

  ‘What kind of resolution?’

  ‘Neat and final: the kind we like best. I believe Glen Fallan might be ready to confess. I need you standing by ready to take charge. I expect to know more shortly after ten.’

  The vehicles had stopped, both facing towards the road, headlights trained on the approach that Fallan had been commanded to take. She glanced at her watch: it was nine forty-five.

  She stood there in the darkness, feeling separate from the scene that was playing out in front of her, like she’d felt disconnected at the dinner table.

  I’ve got some good news.

  The way he’d spoken, he knew nothing about this was good. But when he said neat and final, she could tell he believed that part.

  She heard movement near by, and Fallan was at her side again before she could focus on its source.

  ‘There’s two of them,’ he said. ‘Both armed with automatics.’

  ‘Do they have Jasmine?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t think they’d be daft enough to bring her. This was never intended to be an exchange. That Defender’s got my plates.’

  He said this with a grave finality. It took Catherine a moment to catch up.

  This was the vehicle that had been driven in the Fullerton hit. It was turning up here so that it looked like Fallan had employed a double bluff, using the near-duplicate Defender in order to give the impression he’d been framed. The face mask, the second gun: it would all add up.

  ‘I got a call from Drummond while you were away,’ she said. ‘He told me to stand by for an imminent resolution to the Fullerton case.’

  ‘That’s why they’re doing this here,’ Fallan replied. ‘It’s somewhere that carries personal significance, going right back to my childhood. They’re going to suicide me.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Neat and final, right enough. Apart from one thing.

  ‘But what plausible reason would there be for you to kill yourself?’

  Fallan swallowed, suddenly having difficulty finding his voice.

  ‘If something happened to Jasmine,’ he replied.

  And in that broken whisper Catherine saw the true depth of Fallan’s despair and the cruel enormity of McGill’s vengeance.

  He was going to kill her either way, and nothing Fallan could do would make a difference.

  She heard a buzz but felt no vibration. It was Fallan’s phone.

  He glanced at the screen then put it to his ear with a slow dread, the movement automated, soulless.

  He managed a low whispered word then listened to the response.

  Even in the half light Catherine saw something in him die, then his eyes closed.

  Penetration Without Consent

  Ever since she’d been led into this bleak little room Jasmine had known deep down that it would come to this: to this vileness that she would be forced to commit. She climbed to her feet, and forgave herself on the grounds that she had no choice.

  The short walk around the table was a long march to Golgotha, but on that march Jasmine steeled herself, preparing mind and body to overcome a revulsion a thousand generations older than she was.

  McGill had her phone in his hand and his erect penis sticking through the open flies of his trousers.

  Fallan hadn’t told her why she was doing it, just made her repeat the action over and over: coaching her to refine it, to
channel more aggression, to speed it up, to deliver more thrust, to do it again and again and again and again until she could to it without thinking, until it was hardwired to a neural pathway.

  Only then did he tell her what she had been learning.

  She placed her left hand on the back of Tony McGill’s head. With her right she made a fist, stiffening her outstretched thumb. For just a second, his head was a pumpkin. His eye-socket was a pre-cut hole.

  Just a second was all it took.

  ‘The quickest way of killing a man with your bare hands is to punch your thumb through his eye and into his brain,’ Fallan had explained to her. ‘Then rotate it around a hundred and eighty degrees before pulling it out again, taking as much grey matter with it as you can. But as human beings we have such an instinctive disgust of doing such a thing that it would never occur to most of us, even in a life-or-death situation.’

  McGill bucked for a moment then fell from the chair with a thump.

  Jasmine stood back from the body, feeling a rush that threatened to ping her off the walls. She was thrilling with elation, a dizzying euphoria born simply of relief that this dreaded task was over. It lasted only a few seconds, which was why she was grateful that there was a major hit of adrenaline still surging beneath it, because there was more work yet to be done.

  Jasmine turned the table on its side and sat on the uppermost of its legs until the join was weakened enough to break off. It came away with a loud screech of complaint and a resounding snap.

  She wasn’t sure whether it had sounded suspicious enough downstairs, so she started shouting.

  ‘HEY! HEEEEEY! YOU NEED TO GET UP HERE! I THINK HE’S HAVING A HEART ATTACK!’

  She positioned herself against the wall as she heard the heavy, hurried thumps of footsteps charging up the stairs and along the hall.

  Teej barrelled through the door and all but slid on his knees in his eagerness to tend the motionless figure on the bare wooden floor. He turned his head in response to the movement behind him, but wasn’t fast enough to raise an arm. Jasmine was already swinging the table leg with both hands, smashing it into the base of his skull. He sprawled forward on to his father’s corpse, arms flapping for purchase, which left his head wide open for Jasmine to swing at it a second time.

  She hit him until he wasn’t moving any more. Then she made her way across to the wall where her phone had come to rest after McGill dropped it.

  Crime Scene Management

  Fallan dropped to a crouch as he carried on the conversation, his voice quiet, calm, moderated, assuring. A father’s voice.

  Catherine had watched with a hollow dread as all life appeared to drain from his face, but when his eyes closed she recognised that what was really draining was the tension that had rendered him so utterly wired since he showed up at her door. It was hard to get any detail from one whispered side of a phone call, but she could tell the picture had just changed dramatically.

  Fallan disconnected, saying he’d call back in a few minutes. He gestured to Catherine to follow him, and began leading her quietly away from the Spooky, back out towards the hidden pathways they had taken to get here.

  ‘Jasmine’s okay?’ she asked. ‘Did she escape?’

  ‘She escaped. Okay is relative.’

  ‘Where is she? What about McGill?’

  ‘Let’s just say there’s one less person in this world who knows your dark secret.’

  ‘McGill’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. Tony Junior too.’

  ‘How?’ Catherine asked. ‘I mean, who . . .?’

  Fallan turned and gave her a look that said she of all people shouldn’t have to ask.

  ‘She killed them,’ Catherine said.

  ‘What can I say?’ he replied grimly. ‘She’s a chip off the old block.’

  Fallan was striding with speed and determination. With the threat to Jasmine no longer hanging over him, Catherine suspected he had plans for the two men standing back there next to the Hilux and the Defender, and she didn’t fancy her chances of restraining him.

  She was wrong, though. Fallan didn’t care about them. They had dropped off his agenda the second he got that phone call.

  She looked at her watch. It was coming up for ten.

  ‘What happens if you don’t show up like they’re expecting?’

  ‘Those guys won’t be going anywhere until they get word from their boss. That’s not going to happen unless one of those dicks has got a ouija board app for his iPhone. I suggest you get an ARU down here, as well as every other polisman you can spare. They’ll find the vehicle and quite possibly the murder weapon used in the hit on Stevie.’

  ‘I’m all over it,’ she replied, reaching for her phone.

  Fallan placed a hand on her arm, stopping her from making the call.

  ‘Get somebody to deputise for you. We need to get up to Perthshire, right now. Jasmine texted me where she is.’

  Catherine was about to tell him she would despatch emergency services to the location right away and have someone drive him wherever he needed to be, until she realised that he wasn’t just looking for a lift.

  ‘There’s two bodies in a room somewhere between Crieff and Comrie,’ he said. ‘The girl who walked into that room isn’t the same one who walked out. I don’t want some other polis making this any harder for her than it already has to be. I want you in charge.’

  Catherine nodded. She knew what it felt like to be both of those girls.

  To her surprise it belatedly occurred to her that so did Fallan.

  In accordance with Fallan’s request they were first on the scene, though Catherine had ensured that police and an ambulance would be only minutes behind them.

  They found Jasmine sitting in McGill’s Jaguar XKR outside the cottage. She hadn’t wanted to stay inside the house, but nor had she felt ready to drive anywhere. The engine was running though, just in case. Jasmine wasn’t sure whether Tony junior was dead, so she’d have put pedal to metal if she needed to.

  She came sprinting from the Jag the second she saw Fallan emerge from Catherine’s car. She buried herself in him, her face in his chest, eyes closed. Fallan put one of those huge scarred hands on top of her head and an arm around her shoulders. Neither of them spoke. Jasmine looked beaten and bloody, but as Catherine discovered when she went up the stairs, never was the phrase ‘you should see the other guy’ more apposite.

  Tony Junior was still alive, as it turned out, though his future prospects weren’t looking good. And as Fallan later put it, his father’s name wasn’t going to offer much protection inside, especially once it got around that the infamous Tony McGill, the mighty Gallowhaugh Godfather, had been killed by a seven-stone lassie using one finger.

  Laura phoned while the paramedics were strapping Teej and his wobbling bulk on to a stretcher for getting him down the stairs. She was pleased to report that she had each of the two gunmen from the Spooky Hoose safely in custody, and that their astonishment at having half a dozen carbines pointed at them had been a joy to behold. Laura also mentioned that one of them had been carrying a .22 Ruger, precisely the calibre of weapon used at the car wash.

  So it turned out Drummond was right: there had indeed been a neat and final resolution to the Fullerton case. As a result Catherine did not, as he had mooted, feel the need to ‘consider her position’.

  She couldn’t say the same for the Deputy Chief Constable.

  And the Winner is . . .

  Catherine gave Beano a shout when she saw Cal O’Shea coming out of the lift at the end of the corridor, an A4-sized brown envelope in one hand and a clear plastic tub in the other. They converged on her office soon after, along with Adrienne, Cal getting there last because there was a vending machine between his point of entry and his destination.

  Cal looked a little tired. There was a detectable slump to his body language as he took a seat, resting the envelope on his lap and the tub of chopped melon and kiwi fruit on the edge of Catherine’s desk.

  ‘Cal,
how are you?’ she asked. ‘I gather you’ve been carrying on like an actual polis.’

  ‘I have indeed,’ he replied. ‘I’ve spent a good hour this morning bitching about work and I’m putting in for some stress-related sick leave before I go out and get pissed.’

  ‘Don’t forget the overtime,’ Beano suggested.

  ‘No, quite. I’ve earned it,’ Cal said, tapping the envelope.

  ‘So what’s the script?’

  ‘I tracked down Colin Morrison. I always had his mobile number, obviously, but what I mean is I tracked down somebody whose call he would pick up when he saw the number. He’s in Germany: Rostock, to be precise. He’s got some friends there, at the university. He’s prepared to give evidence in exchange for immunity.’

  ‘I can’t guarantee anything until I talk to Dom Wilson.’

  ‘I know. So at this stage everything is off the record. Bottom line is, he was strong-armed by Bob Cairns to finesse the autopsy on Julie Muir.’

  ‘Strong-armed how?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘There was an incident with a rent boy. Cairns had the goods on him. Kid was seventeen, so with the age of consent being twenty-one at the time, he could have made it all very nasty. Career-endingly so.’

  ‘What did this finessing entail?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Amendment and suppression. Principally the estimated time of death. Corroborated witness statements had Julie getting off the train at seven forty. Morrison’s report had her dying at around eight o’clock. He told me it was more likely to have been at least two hours later.’

  ‘Cairns wanted to conceal where she’d been in the intervening time.’

  ‘That’s right. He told Morrison that there was a gangland connection, and that if the truth got out they’d have a bloodbath on their hands. Morrison never bought that, though. Gangland wars were meat and drink to a cop like Cairns. He knew there was something rotten at the heart of it, so he secured himself a little insurance policy.’