City of Strangers

by Louise Millar

  Through the window there was a movement.

  Was that them – coming for him?

  He tried to focus.

  A green blur spread across the fence.

  He blinked, trying to clear his vision.

  The green splodge grew bigger, moving towards him.

  The police wore black and yellow.

  The green turned to white. Confused, he tried to make sense.

  Like . . .

  A groan came from his mouth like a grille being moved from a hole.

  A bang landed on the back door.

  Not a knock. A kick.

  Four more kicks landed on the locked door.

  The man in the white mask was breaking in.

  Trembling, Robbie fumbled into the centre of the room. There were only two ways out, and the door into Mr Singh’s shop would be locked. With nowhere else to turn, he staggered to the door between that and the toilet.

  A furious kick rattled the back door. Something metallic fell on the ground.

  The man’s full weight was on it now.

  The fourth door. His last option.

  Robbie touched the Yale key in the lock. It burned into his skin, but he turned it and pulled.

  A beige blur of carpet and white walls lay in front of him as the door opened.

  Behind him, there was a final smash as the back door broke off its hinges. Falling forward into the space beyond, Robbie shut the door behind him, panting.

  A new kick landed on this door now. Then another.

  He reached out and felt stairs. Inside, his heart was exploding.

  ‘Help me!’ he shouted, trying to climb them, but no words came out.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Sula sped to Gallon Street shouting at Ewan to point out Grace’s flat. They double-parked outside a closed newsagent’s, and ran to the door of number 6.

  ‘Which one?’ she shouted.

  ‘Flat A, I think.’ Ewan rang the intercom. No answer. They tried the other flats next.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Sula said. If they couldn’t find this lassie, she’d have to ring the police – story blown.

  An answer came from Flat C. ‘He-llo?’ a woman said in a posh Edinburgh drawl.

  ‘Can you let us in? It’s an emergency,’ Ewan said.

  A pause. ‘Sorry. Who are you?’

  ‘Friends of Grace Scott in Flat A.’

  A longer pause now. ‘Is Grace not there? Because I really can’t—’

  ‘I’ve got no time for this,’ Sula said, pushing past Ewan. ‘We need to get in there now, doll – can you let us in? Life and death.’

  A faintly irritated sigh. ‘Sorry. When you say life and death, do you mea—’

  ‘God’s sake, will you let us in?’

  A tut. Then a click.

  It seemed to take ten minutes. A middle-aged bohemian woman, her hair piled on her head, in a long skirt and blouson shirt, answered the door.

  ‘Thank you – out the way, please,’ Sula said, pushing past.

  ‘Sorry, who are you again?’

  ‘The bloody cavalry. Which one?’ Sula yelled to Ewan.

  ‘A – top of the stairs.’

  Sula ran up and went to bang on the door.

  But she didn’t have the chance.

  Right that minute, the door next to Flat A flew open, banging into her.

  The bohemian woman gasped.

  In the doorway was a thickset bald man with old burn marks across part of his head, and on his hands. Behind him were stairs down to a shut door.

  ‘Jesus. Where d’you come from?’ Sula said, rubbing her arm.

  ‘That’s a cupboard!’ the bohemian woman said, astonished.

  Behind the old man came a banging.

  The old fella was mouthing through dry lips. Sula leaned forward.

  ‘Help me,’ he was saying.

  ‘Help you with what?’

  The old man’s eyes were unseeing and lost.

  ‘Someone’s kicking that door in,’ Ewan said, leaning past.

  Sula grabbed the old man’s limp hand. ‘Who’s that after you? Down the stairs?’

  He groaned again, his eyes fixed beyond her in terror.

  ‘Come on out of there,’ Sula said. But he wouldn’t move.

  The bohemian woman knelt down. ‘Can you just come over the step, dear?’

  The man shook his head, and began to cry.

  ‘Poor bastard.’ Sula turned. ‘Ewan, call the police. Someone’s after this guy.’

  She yelled down the cupboard stairs. ‘The police are on their way, pal, so if I was you, I’d give it a rest. And there’s four of us here.’

  The kicking stopped. She left the old man with the bohemian woman, and sat on the steps, pulling out her laptop and phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ewan said, ringing 999.

  ‘Getting a story online before the police get here.’

  ‘What are you like?’

  ‘Show must go on, son,’ she muttered. Sula rang the mobile number for Andrew’s Equity. This time, she got voicemail.

  ‘Message for John Brock,’ Sula said. ‘Sula McGregor here, Scots Today. Doing a piece about your company Andrew’s Equity and its connection to the families of Colin McFarlay and David Pearce. I’m after a quote. Ring me back, please. Thank you . . .’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Shaken, Grace checked John wasn’t in the corridor and returned to the bar, where Mac lay, head on his hands.

  ‘Mac.’ She tapped his cheek, to make him look up. ‘John asked me if I wanted Danish vodka – how did he know I’d been to Copenhagen? I didn’t speak to you or John after Paris.’

  Mac doubled up like he was ill.

  ‘Mac.’ She shook his arm. ‘You’re scaring me.’

  ‘They’re going to kill me.’

  ‘Who?’ she said, alarmed.

  Up close, she realized how dirty his clothes were. There was a brown stain on his collar. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just kept happening.’

  ‘What has?’

  ‘John,’ he said, bloodshot eyes searching the corridor behind her.

  ‘John what? What’s he done? Mac? You’ve got to tell me. I won’t be angry.’

  He took her hands. ‘He’s got himself into stuff. Bad stuff. He got himself into a mess with a property thing, scamming old folk. Now he’s got this guy sorting it out for him and it’s all gone tits up . . .’ His voice faded.

  She fought the fear rising in her. ‘Does this guy wear a green hoodie – drive a silver four-by-four?’

  Mac nodded. ‘Karl.’

  ‘For God’s sake. Mac.’ She scanned the corridor herself. ‘That guy’s been following me. He attacked the journalist I was with in Paris, put him in hospital. He burned his boat in Amsterdam, and threatened me.’

  ‘I know.’

  She stared at him, disbelieving. ‘You know?’

  ‘That’s why I was trying to get you home. John told me to get you back. To stop looking into that guy.’

  ‘How did John know I was doing the story?’

  ‘You texted me asking if I knew Lucian Grabole when I was in Blairgowrie – John was up for the day, playing golf with me and my dad. I told him. He went nuts. He sent Karl round to the flat when you were out to see what was going on.’

  Grace remembered the faint footprint on the kitchen floor and a chill went through her.

  ‘Then you went to London. He told me to get you home. Find out what you knew.’

  ‘So you knew I was away the whole time?’ she said, astonished.

  ‘Aye, but I couldn’t let on or you’d guess. John sent Karl after you, and he found out from this guy in London that you were doing a story.’

  ‘Ali? In a cafe?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘John told Karl to scare you off it. I had to keep ringing and telling you to come back. When none of that worked, John rang and told you I was flying to Paris.’ He rubbed his face, anguished. ‘But you didn’t listen.’

  He
r mind whirred backwards, incredulous. ‘John Brock told Karl to burn Nicu’s boat? And what – attack him in Paris? Jesus, Mac!’

  Mac’s eyes squeezed shut.

  ‘How did Karl even know we were there? Nobody followed us from Amsterdam – we checked.’

  ‘You lost him at the airport. He didn’t know where you’d gone. He went nuts.’ Grace remembered the flash of lights as Nicu swerved off the exit road at the last second, when she refused to get out of the Jeep.

  She held her face, suddenly seeing it. ‘Oh God. You asked me for the address of our hotel in Paris – is that how he found us? Mac? How could you?’

  A hand came out and touched her arm. ‘John wouldn’t let it go. He told me he was trying to help you. Get you safe. Get you away from that guy.’ Mac’s eyes brimmed with a new pain.

  ‘Did Karl follow me and Nicu back to Amsterdam?’ she whispered, remembering them wrapped in the blankets on the deck that night.

  He nodded, and then she knew John had told him everything.

  Bastard.

  Mac began to rock. ‘Oh, man, I’m fucked.’

  She touched his head. ‘Mac. Wake up! Talk to me! Why didn’t John want me looking into Lucian?’

  He staggered up and poured some water, then drank it thirstily. ‘He told us one night, in here, what had gone on in Romania.’

  ‘Lucian did? So you knew that was his name?’

  Mac nodded. ‘He told us he was called Youssi, but then we found him in here one night, crying. He’d got into the booze. He was off his head, sitting on the floor. Told us he had a kid he was never going to see. John gave him more whisky. It all came out about Romania, about his psycho dad, what he’d made him do. He started puking everywhere, and fell over. John found this ID card on the floor with his real name, Lucian Grabole.’

  Grace stared. ‘John knew about Lucian’s father and what he used to do in Romania, with the wells?’

  Mac nodded. ‘It was Karl’s idea. When John needed Karl to shut up those two guys who were threatening to call the police over the old folk and the houses . . .’

  ‘McFarlay and David Pearce?’

  ‘Aye. John was freaking out. He’d been careful, but he thought he was going to get done for it. Go to prison for fraud. Lose all this. It was Karl’s idea to copy it. Said if they killed them the same way Lucian and his dad did it, the Scottish police would link it back to him when they identified his body with the Romanian police. They knew it would take time, and Karl said that was good – there’d be no evidence left up by the cave after the winter.’

  Grace let out a horrified laugh. ‘The Romanian police would never have identified Lucian, Mac! He was fifteen when he left. They never arrested him or got fingerprints. Lucian Grabole isn’t even his real name.’

  His eyes grew wider, bloodshot, fearful.

  She began to feel nauseous. ‘I can’t believe this. John and Karl killed Lucian on purpose, in our flat – to cover up what they did to those men?’

  ‘Karl did it. John didn’t touch them.’

  ‘But why were they trying to stop me?’

  ‘They didn’t want you digging things up, finding people who maybe knew Lucian had been working here at the flats. It would link him back to John, and me, and Karl, and blow everything.’

  Blinking as if the light were too bright, she took Mac’s hand. ‘Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with it.’

  He dropped his head. ‘I just had to leave the back door open. Karl smashed it later to look like a robbery.’

  She let go of his hand and he grabbed it back, sorrowful.

  ‘I didn’t know what they’d done to those guys till later. I didn’t want to know. They set Lucian up. John let him live in one of the new apartments upstairs for a while. I think they locked him in for two days without food during our wedding. Then Karl comes in, all apologetic, acting like it was an accident. Got him bladdered again on vodka to say sorry. Told him the apartment was getting sold now, but as a favour, he could use our flat for two weeks, while I was away. That the back door was open. To help himself to food in there. I think Karl dropped him off, then followed him into the flat and killed him. It was a set-up.’

  She stepped back. ‘Lucian knew, Mac. He wasn’t stupid. He knew something was wrong. He left a note.’

  He shrugged helplessly. ‘I didn’t know. Any of it. I swear. Not at the time. John asks stuff, you just do it.’ He pointed around the studio. ‘He’s given me this.’

  She pushed his shoulders, wanting to shake sense into him. ‘Mac! How could you be so stupid? You’re an accessory to murder now. We have to tell the police. Now.’ She checked on the bar. ‘Where’s my phone?’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked on the ground, and checked her pockets, but it had disappeared. ‘It was on the bar, Mac. Where the hell is it? I have to tell someone right now. Otherwise we’re both going to get sucked into this.’

  Through the bar window, a car drew up. A silver four-by-four.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said, alarmed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We need to get out of here. That guy Karl’s here.’

  She grabbed Mac’s hand and led him out the studio to the warehouse entrance door, and pulled the handle.

  It was locked.

  ‘Where’s the key?’ she said, panicked.

  Mac covered his face. ‘That’s it. We’re dead.’

  Her heart began to bang in her chest. ‘Why?’

  ‘John’s not gonna let us out. There was an old guy downstairs from the flat at Gallon Street. I was supposed to find out what he knew, but I didn’t. I fucked up. Karl’s gone to get him now. They know you know something now, too.’

  She realized he was not only unbelievably drunk but in shock, unable to function. ‘Restaurant. Quick.’ She dragged Mac to the fire escape and pushed the metal bar. It was locked, too. A key turned in the front door. Voices.

  ‘Upstairs, come on,’ Grace whispered. They ran to the stairs and tiptoed up two flights. On the second floor, she pulled Mac to the furthest flat at the end, heart racing. ‘Up here.’ They climbed up to a mezzanine bedroom.

  ‘Where’s your phone?’

  ‘John took it off me,’ he said, rocking again. She guessed he’d taken hers, too, when he was making the drink for her in the bar. She crouched watching through the balustrade. ‘Mac, when did this start happening? With John.’

  ‘Three, four years ago. Started with the coke. He was taking it; then he was dealing it. Then this property business he got into. Now he’s got in with Karl. Thinks he’s big time. Like some kind of boss. My dad’s noticed. Told me in Blairgowrie to give up the job and steer clear of John.’ He held his face. ‘He’s going to kill us.’ He groaned. ‘Sorry.’ Tears came into his eyes. ‘Sorry, darlin’.’ He touched her face. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘Mac . . .’ she whispered.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, kissing her hand. ‘I’m gonna tell him you got out.’

  ‘No, Mac.’ She grabbed his hand.

  ‘Stay there.’

  His yanked away from her, and she reached after him, but he staggered down the stairs and to the front window of the apartment over the street. He turned and blew her a kiss.

  ‘Grace!’ he shouted, banging on the window.

  There were heavy footsteps, and voices from below. Through the railing she saw Karl and John appear inside the flat.

  ‘Where is she?’ Karl grabbed Mac’s shoulder.

  Mac pointed outside at the street.

  ‘I just saw her down there – she must have found the key in the office.’

  ‘What?’ John yelled.

  Karl grabbed Mac and pulled him from the room, and their furious footsteps pounded the corridor.

  Grace lay on the mezzanine, trembling. She needed a phone. John’s office or the restaurant seemed like the best bet. Creeping down the spiral staircase, she reached the front door of the apartment, and checked the communal corridor.

  Silence.

&nbs
p; She tiptoed out. A door banged below, and she ran to the next flat along and hid behind its open front door.

  All of it had been John. He’d wanted it this way – the anonymous dead body with criminal links to Romania killed in private in their flat, to the victims on the cliff. He’d never have known Lucian Grabole was a pseudonym. All this time, he’d been waiting for the police to get an ID hit on Lucian Grabole in Romania, thinking there’d be a clean link back to the well murders and he’d be in the clear. The last thing they’d wanted was her stumbling upon a link back to them.

  There was a yell downstairs, followed by a crash. ‘Mac,’ she whispered. She leaned out into the corridor.

  Scuffling noise and low voices. A cry of pain.

  Another, louder, crash.

  Then running feet.

  ‘Mac,’ she mouthed again.

  ‘Keys are in the drawer. Did you see her go out?’ John’s yell from below.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Try upstairs. Grace?’ John shouted.

  Shaking, she hid behind the door. Heavy footsteps came up the stairs. Through the crack, she saw Karl enter the first flat. Holding her breath, she crept past it to the stairs, and leaned down. John was heading into the first-floor corridor.

  Hatred rose inside her. She’d always disliked him, the way he’d pulled Mac into his business so early, doing the fake-uncle thing while going out with girls younger than Mac. Keeping his cool young mate around for nights out in clubs.

  Holding her breath, she eased down the stairs to the first floor, checked John was searching a flat, then continued to the ground floor and headed to his office.

  She tried the front doors again. Still locked. His office door, too.

  Trapped now, she ran to the restaurant, praying she could force the fire escape open.

  Footsteps thundered along the corridor above her head. Yelling came from the stairwell.

  ‘She there?’

  ‘No!’

  She reached the restaurant door, and turned.

  A figure caught her eye.

  At the far end, through the open door of the studio.

  A body on the floor.

  A scream came from her mouth. ‘Mac! Mac!’