In the Cold Dark Ground

by Stuart MacBride

  Lying at Logan’s feet, Tony sobbed.

  ‘Or, if you like, you could go to the pigs as you are? All thrashing and screaming as they eat you alive. Might be more fun for them. Bit of sport.’

  ‘Plsss…’

  ‘Going to have to hurry you, Tony: gun or hammer?’

  ‘Gnnn… Gnnn.’

  ‘Good boy.’ Reuben pointed with the hammer and Captain ABBA stepped onto the plastic, hauling back the semiautomatic’s slide. Chick-clack. All primed and ready to fire.

  Logan hauled in a breath.

  Do something.

  Now.

  Do it now.

  Because otherwise it’d be too late and…

  He frowned as Captain ABBA held the gun out to him.

  The guy stood there, with the primed semiautomatic held at arm’s length by the barrel. ‘Here you go, chief.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Nope.’ Reuben shook his head. ‘See, I’ve been telling the doubters, McRae isn’t going to screw us over. McRae can be trusted. And right now I’m trusting you to put Tony out of his misery.’ A shrug. ‘And in case you’re wondering, he’s dead either way. Question is: are you on the team or not?’

  OK…

  Logan reached out and took the gun. Heavy. Cold. No idea what make it was, but there were Cyrillic letters above the trigger guard. He pulled the slide back a fraction, far enough to see a sliver of brass in there. Loaded. Thumbed the magazine release and let it fall into his palm. It was nearly full – had to be nine or ten shots in there.

  Captain ABBA smiled. Then backed away until he was on the concrete floor again.

  Really?

  Logan clicked the magazine back into place, then pointed the barrel right between Tony’s eyes. Poor sod probably couldn’t see much – they were a mass of broken blood vessels set in swollen bags of dark purple. They’d broken his nose, probably his jaw too.

  ‘Plsss dnnnt…’

  ‘Come on, McRae, chop-chop. Some of us got a funeral to go to.’

  ‘Plsss…’

  Kill Tony, or be killed. Same bloody dilemma he’d been facing for days, only with the names changed. Murder or be murdered. Round and round and on and on.

  Well, enough. Time to take a stand. Go out with bang.

  He was dead anyway.

  Logan snapped the semiautomatic up, two-handed, and aimed right at the middle of Reuben’s chest.

  ‘Tsk.’ The big man shook his head. ‘Dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘I won’t kill for you.’

  Smiler stayed where he was, hands in his trouser pockets – nowhere near his revolver. Mr Teeth remained by the door, noodling away at his game. Captain ABBA just sighed.

  There was a scenario like this on the firearms training course. Only there the bad guys were printed on bits of paper stuck to chipboard. They didn’t bleed and scream and die.

  Logan slowed his breathing and clicked off the safety catch.

  Samantha had been right all along. This was the only way. Didn’t matter if he liked it or not, he didn’t have any choice.

  ‘See, McRae, that doesn’t look too trusting, does it? You’re not being a team player, there.’

  Do it.

  Right now.

  Pull the damn trigger.

  So he did.

  Click.

  Oh no.

  21

  No, no, no, no, no.

  Bloody gun wasn’t working.

  He racked the slide back – chick-clack – sending the unfired cartridge flipping end-over-end out onto the plastic sheet, and pulled the trigger again.

  Click.

  Reuben grinned. ‘Do you really think I’m that stupid?’

  One last go.

  Chick-clack. Another cartridge went flying.

  Click.

  ‘That’s the funny thing about guns, McRae: don’t work without a firing pin.’

  Logan lowered the semiautomatic.

  Idiot.

  Of course they wouldn’t give him a working gun.

  ‘See, this whole thing’s been a test, hasn’t it, Tony?’

  Lying on the floor, Tony cried.

  ‘A wee test to see how big your balls are, McRae.’ Reuben held out a hand and Captain ABBA handed him a white bath towel. ‘We weren’t going to shoot Tony. Nah.’ He wandered onto the plastic sheet. It scrunched beneath his rig boots. ‘Wouldn’t do that.’

  Tony struggled to his knees. ‘Thhnkkk yyyy…’ His swollen lips trembled, a mixture of drool and blood spilling down his chest.

  Reuben hunkered down beside him. Dabbed the towel against Tony’s face, turning the white tufts pink and red. ‘There we go. That’s better, isn’t it?’ He passed him the towel.

  ‘Thhhnnnk yyyy…’ Tears and snot and trembling. He held the towel over his face; blood soaked into the fabric.

  ‘Shhh, it’s OK.’

  Logan backed away. ‘You weren’t going to kill him?’

  ‘Tony’s learned his lesson, haven’t you, Tony?’

  ‘Pllssss…’ He placed a grimy hand against his own chest, fingers splayed. ‘Immm srrrryyyy…’

  Reuben stood. Stepped behind the snivelling figure and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘So, Tony, what are we going to do with Sergeant McRae? What do you think?’

  The whole thing was one big set-up.

  ‘Shall we give him a second chance?’ Reuben’s voice chilled. ‘Or shall we show him what happens to disloyal wee shites?’ He snatched both ends of the towel and hauled, snapping Tony’s head back so his face pointed to the ceiling, covered in blood-flecked white fabric. Reuben wrapped the ends into one fist. Then battered the hammer down into Tony’s upturned towel-covered face. Once. Twice. Three times. Fast. Putting his weight behind it. The sound of cracking bone gave way to wet sucking noises as the white fabric became saturated with scarlet.

  Logan stepped forward. ‘NO!’ But Smiler’s revolver appeared again, pointing right at his head. He froze.

  Four. Five. Six.

  Tony’s right foot twitched in time with the blows, but the rest of him sagged in place – only held upright by Reuben’s grip on the towel.

  Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

  Reuben let go of the dark-red fabric and Tony’s body slumped sideways onto the plastic sheet. No movement. No breathing. A puddle of blood oozed out onto the surface.

  The whole thing had taken less than eight seconds.

  Logan swallowed.

  Smiler kept his gun levelled at him.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Reuben stood there, grinning, puffing for breath. ‘That’s what we do to them.’ He passed the hammer back to Mr Teeth, who dropped it into a plastic freezer bag and ziplocked it tight.

  A shadow filled the doorway behind him, then John Urquhart stepped into the garage all dressed up in funeral black-and-white. He glanced at the body on the floor, then up at Reuben. ‘Going to have to go or we’ll miss the start.’

  ‘They’ll wait.’ Reuben crossed to the far side of the plastic sheet. Picked what looked like another suit carrier from the shadows and pulled out a packet of baby wipes. Rubbed a couple across his face, clearing away the tiny spatter of red dots. He kicked off his boots. ‘You screwed up, McRae. Was going to let you do the job, prove you’re trustable, but now? Nah.’

  Oh he was so screwed.

  Logan tightened his grip on the semiautomatic. It might be no good as a gun, but it would still work as a cudgel.

  Reuben untied the arms of his boilersuit and the whole thing fell to the floor, exposing a pair of hairy legs and red pants. ‘I’m going to go bury Mr Mowat, and then I’m going to have a chat with a chief inspector friend of mine.’ A pair of black trousers came out of the carrier, and he pulled them on. ‘Tell him how you took a bribe.’

  ‘I didn’t take any bribe!’

  A white shirt was next, buttoned up by thick brutal fingers. ‘Twenty grand over the asking price, wasn’t it? Twenty grand
of Wee Hamish Mowat’s money.’

  John Urquhart stepped closer. ‘Yeah, about that. Kinda not the best idea.’

  Reuben tucked in his shirt. ‘You’re going down, McRae.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was Hamish Mowat’s money.’

  ‘Erm…’ Urquhart held up a finger. ‘See, the only way you can dob McRae in, is if you dob me in at the same time, isn’t it? I bought the flat. And if I bought it with Mr Mowat’s cash, then that makes me dodgy too.’

  A black tie was subjected to a schoolboy knot. ‘And?’

  ‘Look at it: far as Police Scotland’s concerned, I’m a small-time property developer and I’d kinda like to keep it that way. How am I gonna be your right-hand guy if the cops are digging away and following me everywhere?’

  Creases formed between Reuben’s eyebrows. Then he slipped his feet into a pair of shiny black shoes. Grunted.

  ‘Come on, Reubster, you know it makes sense.’

  He pulled on a black jacket to go with the trousers. Scowled at Logan. ‘You got kids, don’t you, McRae? With that bull-dyke lesbian boss of yours. You just mortgaged them against your debt.’

  Logan took a step forwards. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘And you.’ He turned and poked a finger at Urquhart. ‘From now on you’re responsible for him, understand? He does what he’s told, when he’s told, or the pair of you are up to your ears in the piggery.’

  Urquhart’s eyes widened. ‘Let’s … not get all hasty and that. We… Reuben?’

  But the big man had turned on his heel, walking along the edge of the plastic sheeting, and out through the open door. ‘Funeral time.’

  ‘Damn it.’ Urquhart ran a hand across his face. Looked down at what was left of Tony, lying there with his head bashed in. ‘You three, tidy this up. Sergeant McRae and me have to go bury an old friend.’

  It was one of those old-fashioned Scottish churches: a rectangle of granite with a tiny bell-spire and a slate roof, surrounded by ancient tottering headstones and fields. A long line of cars stretched along the road, parked half on the grass, leaving barely enough space for the next vehicle to squeeze past.

  John Urquhart eased the Audi’s passenger-side wheels up onto the verge and killed the engine. Then groaned and curled into himself. ‘Why me?’

  Logan undid the seatbelt. ‘I thought the gun worked.’

  ‘He’s going to feed me to the pigs.’

  ‘If it worked he’d be dead by now.’ And Tony would still be alive… He closed his eyes, but there was the image of Reuben battering the claw hammer down again and again. If the gun had worked, it wouldn’t have been murder. It’d be justifiable homicide. Saving another person’s life.

  Bloody hell.

  Worse: now Jasmine and Naomi were at risk.

  ‘Oh God…’ Urquhart covered his head with his hands. ‘We’re doomed.’

  ‘Welcome to my world.’

  ‘I should have stayed outside, I should have—’ His phone burst into song. He dug it out. Flinched. Then dragged on a smile. ‘Hi, Reuben. How’s it going, big man?… Uh-huh. … Uh-huh. …. OK, we’ll be there soon as. … Yeah. … OK, bye.’ He hung up and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

  Outside, the sunshine streamed through the bare branches of a tree, casting ragged shadows across the road. A swarm of midges glowed in a patch of light. Second week of February and there were midges. Welcome to Scotland.

  Urquhart sagged back in his seat. ‘Guess who’s showed up to “pay their respects”. Malcolm McLennan, Angus MacDonald, Stevie Hussain, and Jessy Campbell.’

  ‘Jessica “Ma” Campbell?’

  ‘Told you we were doomed.’ He stared at the car’s ceiling. ‘Man, the French Revolution’s got nothing on the terror about to fall on Aberdeen. These scumbags respected Mr Mowat, but Reuben? No chance.’

  Logan opened his door and climbed out into the sun. ‘You coming?’

  He locked the car. ‘They’ll turn Aberdeen into a warzone. Mr Mowat would hate this.’

  They walked past the line of parked cars and in through a rusting iron gate. Headstones stretched off into the distance, along with a couple of mort safes and a big granite mausoleum topped with weeping cherubs.

  Urquhart stopped. ‘Mr McRae? You’re going to do what Reuben says, aren’t you? I mean, exactly what he says and when he says it?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘I stuck my neck out for you! And I mean way out…’ His head drooped until his chin rested against his chest. ‘This is what it’s going to be like from now on, isn’t it? Everyone running scared. No stability. War.’

  Logan turned, scanning the ranks of the dead. Just because he couldn’t do it, didn’t mean everyone else had the same problem. There wasn’t a single living soul in sight, but he dropped his voice anyway. ‘Then kill him.’

  ‘Reuben?’ Urquhart backed off a couple of paces, eyebrows up. ‘Me? Kill Reuben?’

  ‘You said it yourself: Hamish didn’t think Reuben is up to running the business. He’s going to make everything worse and get a lot of people hurt.’ Logan stepped closer. ‘So maybe you could do a better job? Maybe you could take Hamish’s place instead of him? Prevent everything falling apart; stop the war before it starts.’

  ‘But…’ Urquhart licked his lips. ‘I mean Reuben…’ He cleared his throat. Looked back towards the car. ‘OK, so he’s totally not suited to being in charge. He’s a great enforcer, but strategy? Planning? Keeping everything low-key and efficient?’

  ‘All the things Hamish Mowat was good at. Keeping Aberdeen stable. You saw what he did in that garage; Reuben’s unhinged. You could step in.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘Who was he?’

  Urquhart pulled his chin in. ‘Who was who?’

  ‘You know who.’

  ‘Oh. Tony?’ A shrug. ‘Tony Evans. Low-level distributor and three-strike loser. You’d think he’d have learned the first two times. Suppose some people can’t take a hint, not even when it’s, like, getting both your arms broken.’

  The church bell pealed out three mournful chimes.

  ‘I mean it: Reuben’s going to get everyone killed. He has to go.’ Logan had another quick look around. Still no witnesses. ‘For the good of the city.’

  Urquhart blinked at him for a moment, then took a deep breath. ‘Anyway.’ He pulled his shoulders back and marched away along the path, head held high.

  Logan gave it a beat, then followed.

  It wasn’t even one o’clock yet, and already he’d killed his girlfriend, witnessed someone getting beaten to death, and embarked on conspiracy to commit murder. Friday the thirteenth just kept on getting better.

  The path led down the side of the church and around to the back. Which turned out to be the front. A set of large wooden doors lay open, with a minister standing before them all dressed up in his long red dress with black scarf/shawl thing over the top. He shifted from foot to foot, clutching a handful of small booklets. Worked a finger into the neck of his white collar, pulling it away from his throat. Jerked upright when he saw them. ‘Hello.’ His voice wasn’t exactly steady as he held out one of the booklets to Logan. ‘Order of Service. We can start as soon as you’re ready.’ Beads of sweat glistened on his top lip.

  Poor sod probably wasn’t used to having his church full, never mind full of gangsters.

  Urquhart took an order of service and patted the minister on the arm. ‘Soon as you’re ready.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Right away.’ He turned and bustled off, red skirts billowing out behind him.

  Inside, Old Ardoe Kirk was packed. Every pew in the place was rammed with men and women – all dressed in black, all talking in low voices. No wonder the minister had been bricking it outside on the doorstep: there were a lot of big blokes with close-cropped hair, scars, and tattoos. Hard-faced women with bleached hair and fists as cruel as the men’s. The kind of people who would have no problem beating so
meone to death with a claw hammer.

  A coffin lay on a set of trestles, at the top of the apse, in front of the altar. A small arrangement of white lilies sat on the lid, their petals turned multicoloured by the light streaming in through a stained-glass window.

  ‘This way.’ Urquhart led the way down the middle of the church to the second row of pews from the front. He bent and picked two laminated A4 sheets with ‘RESERVED’ printed on them from the wooden surface, then sat and tucked them under the bench.

  Logan looked around. Set off a bomb in here and you could probably halve Scotland’s organized crime problem. It was a Who’s Who of Aberdonian thuggery too. The McLeod brothers were there, the Flintoffs, Benny the Snake and his sister, and about a dozen others whose faces weren’t so familiar. All sitting there in their Sunday best, waiting for Hamish Mowat’s final outing.

  Wait a minute, was that…? Of course it was. Because today wasn’t bad enough already.

  A tartan turban bobbed about somewhere near the back row of pews, visible through the heads of the crowd. And if Narveer was here, that meant Detective Superintendent Harper wasn’t far behind.

  Great – that made everything so much better.

  Why the hell were they here? They couldn’t have followed him, not when he made the trip bundled in the back of a Transit van. And if they had, they’d have intervened and stopped Reuben killing Tony.

  Wouldn’t they?

  Reuben’s huge rounded bulk loomed in the front row, next to his bride-to-be – a short round lump of hate and gristle, with a peroxide bob so severe it wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Lego figure. And Reuben sat there. Calm as you like. No indication that he’d beaten someone to death with a claw hammer less than twenty minutes ago. Not so much as a spatter of blood on his ugly scarred head.

  Raining the hammer down, again and again. The towel keeping the bloody spray to a minimum. The sound of thunking and crunching…

  Logan’s hand trembled. He put it in his pocket.

  The murmuring died down as Minister Nervous stepped up into the pulpit. Coughed. Then leaned into the microphone. His amplified voice echoed around the granite walls. ‘Lord Provost, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to start by thanking you all for attending this afternoon. We’re here to give thanks for the life of Hamish Alexander Selkirk Mowat, a pillar of the Aberdeen business community, a philanthropist, and a keen gardener…’