Country of the Blind

by Brookmyre, Christopher

  With that thought he looked again at the other one, McInnes Junior, holding his phone.

  “Put that doon. On the floor. Gently,” he ordered. He didn’t want it to smash when he shot him, and he certainly didn’t want to put a slug in the phone by accident.

  As Junior bent down, he noticed Faither had his hand in his pocket. Wary of the danger of attack from different sides, especially with Bowman in some fucking psychedelic trance, he shouted “EVERY CUNT FREEZE” and pointed the gun at the oldest of the fugitives.

  “Whit you daein’? Take your haun oot your pocket. Slowly.”

  The old cunt’s hand withdrew from his trousers, his fist balled tight around something.

  Paterson was getting nervous. He should have dropped them a minute ago. He should drop them now, but he had to check what Faither had in case it meant trouble.

  “Drap it. Open your haun,” he commanded.

  He glanced cautiously at Skinnymalink to make sure he wasn’t planning anything, cast a brief eye over Junior, still crouched on the floor by the phone, and looked at the fist. Faither’s hand rotated gently so that his forearm faced upwards, and his fingers opened out.

  Paterson saw a glint of something gold, reflecting the flames of the small fire, then saw a brief cascade of metal objects falling from the old man’s palm to the ground.

  Bullets.

  Fuck.

  He pulled frantically at the trigger, again and again and again, only to hear the hollow, impotent click of the hammer against an empty barrel.

  “What, have you never seen Die Hard, ya stupit prick?” said Junior with a withering look.

  The old cunt smiled. “Well,” he said. “Looks like it’s gaunny be a square go after all. Get him, Spammy,”

  *

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Spammy,” said Tam. “I had ma doubts, but we got mair information daein’ it your way.”

  Spammy was crouched behind the Wee Shite, who was on his knees, tears leaking from his eyes after a second assault on his testicles. Spammy was tying him up – properly this time – fastening his wrists together behind his back and then looping the rope around his ankles.

  “Aye,” he said, “but I’ve got to admit, your way was fun too.”

  Tam stared. Fun? Spammy still wasn’t getting this.

  “Yous’ve got fuck-all,” grunted the Wee Shite.

  “I’m no so sure aboot that,” countered Paul. “Polis lookin’ in the wrang places, was that it? And eh . . . Knight and Harker, Harcourt, somethin’ like that. They killed Voss, I believe the man said.”

  The Wee Shite snorted, a mixture of indignation, tears and snotters.

  “Dream on. As if any cunt’s gaunny believe yous.”

  Paul allowed himself a smile. “True enough,” he said. “But they might believe you.”

  “Whit?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Paul glanced down with satisfaction at the portable phone, with which he had dialled his flat, where Spammy’s answering machine had recorded every word the Wee Shite and Mushroom Man said.

  Spammy stood away from the Wee Shite, who was secured in a kneeling position, eyeing his captors with contempt and spitting occasionally. He moved across to check the bonds restraining the Mushroom Man, who had vomited and then passed out a few moments previously.

  Tam stood a few feet away from the Wee Shite, staring him intently in the face.

  “What’s your name, son?” he asked.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Is that Russian?” Tam continued, but there was no humour in his voice.

  “I’ll be back for you cunts,” the Wee Shite snarled.

  “Aye, very good, look forward tae it,” said Tam, almost absently. He walked forward until he was standing over their prisoner. “Listen, ya wee wank,” he said quietly. “You killed ma friend today. Friend I’ve known since before those two there were born. Friend I worked with, drank with, did time with. Friend that stood by me all the way, even when I got sucked into this shite. An’ you just kill’t him, shot him in cold blood like he was nothin’.”

  “I’m really fuckin’ sorry,” said the Wee Shite. “In fact I’m cryin’ ma fuckin’ eyes oot here.”

  “Let me tell you a wee bit aboot this man you killed,” Tam continued, ignoring him. “This man that was worth a million o’ you. Just so you know who you murdered. His name was Bob. Bob Hannah.”

  “I know aw your names, McInnes,” he sneered.

  “You see, I was workin’ alangside Bob before I knew it. We only fun’ oot we baith worked thegether when we got talkin’ after a match. We played in the same fitba team, you see. Baith played for Renfrew Juniors back in the Seventies.”

  The Wee Shite made great play of yawning.

  “Bob was a winger. Wee and fast; nippy, cheeky player. The boys nicknamed him Jinky, after Jinky Johnstone that played wi’ the Celtic. Me? I played up front. I was less subtle, but I knew where the goals were. And I’d a nickname as well.”

  The Wee Shite looked up, realising that the next revelation might have a significance for himself.

  “They called me Lorimer,” Tam stated, purposefully pacing backwards away from the kneeling figure.

  The rapid drain of all colour from the Wee Shite’s face assured Tam that he was familiar with the reputation of the former Leeds and Scotland striker, renowned for being the hardest kicker of a football in the world.

  Sergeant Shearer had another gulp of his tea and turned back to the typewriter. Paperwork like this could sometimes have him climbing the walls and swinging his size tens at the station cat – criminal damage to a rabbit hutch, for heaven’s sake; right up there with that joker last year who kept attaching rubber handlebar grips to the ends of the horns on all Dougal McGunnigle’s highland cows – but this evening it was actually helping him stay calm. If he concentrated on the report, sipped away at his brew and turned up the radio, he could ward his thoughts away from the murderous intentions he was harbouring towards just about everyone connected with this bloody manhunt.

  They had rolled into Strathgair en masse last night, like the bloody Trenchcoat Roadshow, lots of jumped-up nobodies from Edinburgh and London who had seen a few too many FBI movies. Waving all sorts of supposedly impressive IDs and orders from the Scottish Office, and letting him know, basically, that it was in the hands of the professionals now, so he could get back to minding the cornershop like a good little sheep-shagger.

  Then there had been that arrogant heid-the-baw from MI5 or whatever, Knight. Flew in in a helicopter, barked a load of orders, pointed his finger a lot and then buggered off again, no doubt satisfied with his brief but invaluable contribution. And after that came the Portakabins, turning the south end of Dingwall Street into what looked like a site-office.

  Run along now, they had told him. We’re sure you’ve got lots of important teuchter things to be getting on with. “Someone’s still got to maintain law and order down in the village while there’s all this excitement in the hills,” one of them said. Patronising wee jobbie.

  They didn’t want to make any use of his local knowledge, his familiarity with every blade of grass for umpteen square miles, in the hills he had known since boyhood. Didn’t want to hear where he thought the fugitives might end up if they needed water, or where the best vantage points were. Oh no, they obviously didn’t need any assistance from some mutton-molesting village bobby.

  Well sod them, he had thought. Neither, presumably, would they need to know where the most treacherous bogs lay, or that where they had parked their Portakabins was about ten yards downwind of Duncan Sutherland’s slurry pit.

  They hadn’t even wanted to use the station once their wee mobile HQ was set up, and the nearest he had got to any involvement had been around lunchtime, when the bastards towed in the wrecked bus and dumped it on the shinty pitch behind his office window.

  “Keep an eye on it, Sergeant. We’ll be moving it down to Edinburgh later.”

  Aye. Like somebody’s going to ste
al it.

  He sighed, still simmering, and tapped again at the keyboard. Then Morag put her head around the door, knocking on the frame to get his attention.

  “Sarge, can you take this call? It’s some bloke asking to talk to the desk sergeant on duty. Says it’s ‘a local matter’.”

  A local matter. He growled to himself, lifted the receiver and pressed the blinking pink light.

  “Hello, Sergeant John Shearer speaking,” he said tiredly. “Fit can I do for you?”

  “Are you the desk sergeant on duty?” asked a male voice. Sounded like a Glasgow accent. Definitely not local.

  “I’m the only sergeant in a radius of aboot forty miles . . . well, usually.” He thought of the trenchcoated legions. Grrr.

  “Right,” said the man. “So are you anythin’ to do with this, eh, manhunt cairry-on?”

  “Don’t talk aboot that,” he couldn’t help but mutter. “Dinnae get me started. Just tell me what I can help you with. Fit’s your name?”

  “You’re definitely not involved, then?”

  “No, I think it would be pretty bloody safe to say I’m not bloody involved,” he replied, starting to lose it.

  “Good,” said the man.

  “Weeeyyyaaaiiiaaaaw,” said the cat, propelled through the doorway by Shearer’s boot.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Stress-relieving office toy. Look, fit is it that you want, sir? I believe you said it was a local matter.”

  “Aye, sort of,” said the man. “Would you be interested in knowin’ where you could find two of the gang that killed Roland Voss?”

  “Are you trying to take the piss?”

  “Not at all. I know where they are, and I also know that they’re not in much shape to resist arrest. They’d a wee accident, I think.”

  “Who is this? You’ll have to give me your name.”

  “I cannae give you ma name. This is kinna an anonymous tip, you know. But it’s legit. I swear it.”

  “That’s okay,” said Shearer, reaching for a pen. “So where are they?”

  “I need your word that you’ll come alone.”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly come alone. For procedural reasons I’d need to bring at least two of my men.”

  “Aye, fair enough,” agreed the man. “But can you give me your word you won’t tell the other cops, the folk on the manhunt, until you’ve made the arrests?”

  Shearer grinned, beaming until the corners of his mouth felt the strain.

  “Oh, I can certainly promise you that. How many members of my extended family would you like me to swear on the lives of?”

  It took almost two hours to reach the spot. Shearer had listened to the description of the place and been sure of where the man was talking about right away. His “two men” had been Morag (WPC McLeod) and her brother, Andrew, who wasn’t actually on the force, but needs must and all that. Andrew was a solicitor, so that almost counted, even if he was usually in the station to represent the toerags Shearer arrested. The only other candidate who lived locally was PC Ross, but he was still suffering from the flu that had kept him off for a couple of days, so he was only fit to mind the station while the rest of them were out in the hills.

  “Keep a close eye on that bus,” Shearer said to him before leaving, to Ross’s obvious and entertaining puzzlement.

  Shearer wasn’t able to drive the Land Rover as near as he would have liked, which was why it took so long to get there. The moon was bright enough, and there were few clouds, but he still couldn’t risk leaving the roads and tracks in such poor light. Buggered axles and squashed sheep were but two of the potential hazards.

  “Over’ ere!” Shearer heard, as the beams of their torches thrust ahead of them through the trees and bushes, swinging to and fro as if slicing through the vegetation.

  “Oi! Over ’ere!” came the shout again. Shearer picked out the waving shape first, and led his company into the wee clearing, a quarter of a mile down from the ridge. He indicated to Morag and Andrew to stay behind him as he surveyed the situation. Shearer swept the torchlight around the scene, taking in its constituent parts and quickly building up a very interesting picture. He beckoned his assistants forward.

  “Thank fuck for that. Get us out of this, mate. Thought we was gonna be here all night,” said one of the men. They were both lying against trees, thoroughly trussed, like you could put a pole through the ropes and carry the pair of them home swinging. Even in the darkness, Shearer could tell that the man who was speaking didn’t look at all well, while the other one was inert, doing little more than breathing and moaning. He shone his torch over the moaning man’s face and noticed with a start that it didn’t quite fit together the way faces normally do. It looked like it had been jaw versus train, and the clash had run to form. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put this numpty together again.

  Morag made to move towards the man who was doing the talking. Shearer put out a hand to her arm, stopping her. He gestured with his head and swung his torchbeam towards a pile of shapes on the ground, past the ashes and embers of a recent-looking fire. Morag’s eyes bulged. Then he pointed it above the moaning man, six feet up the tree trunk. Morag craned her neck, directing her own beam at it and staring. Golly gosh.

  “I was told I could find two of the men who killed Roland Voss up here,” Shearer announced loudly. “An anonymous tip.”

  The man shook his head. “That’s who got us, mate. That’s who did this to us. They’re still on the run. They’re armed and dangerous. We’re on the search team. I don’t even know why they let us live.”

  “No,” said Shearer, “that does seem inconsistent with their recent record. But I wonder if you could tell me why these armed and dangerous men would leave a big pile of guns just lying on the ground here?”

  The man gawped for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s a set-up. These bastards have set us up, and they’re settin’ you up as well. They took our portable phone. Probably them that gave you the tip.”

  “Probably,” said Shearer, reflectively.

  “Look, mate, this isn’t exactly comfortable. My fuckin’ arm’s broken. And me mate’s in a right mess. Are you gonna untie us then, or what.”

  “No. I think I’m going to place you under arrest, actually.”

  “What? What for?”

  Shearer walked over to the tree where the moaning man lay, then reached up and removed the large sheet of paper that was fixed above, out of both the restrained men’s sights. Training his torch on it, he turned the sheet around so that the man could read what it said, the Ordnance Survey map it was scrawled on the reverse of facing towards himself.

  WE ARE INNOCENT.

  THE GUNS ON THE GROUND ARE THE ONES TAKEN FROM THE BUS.

  THESE MEN KILLED THE POLICEMAN AND THE DRIVER.

  THIS WEE SHITE WAS ON THE BUS DISGUISED AS A PRISONER.

  YOU’LL FIND HIS FINGERPRINTS ALL OVER THE HANDRAILS ON THE LEFT-HAND BACK SEAT.

  WE KNOW WHO REALLY KILLED VOSS.

  “Sorry,” said Shearer, mock-absently. “Fit was that you were saying a wee minute ago, aboot a set-up?”

  Tam looked back once more, and this time ordered them to stop. Turning around, they could all see the headlights in the glen, a motile glow at first, occasionally splitting into distinct shafts as the vehicle negotiated twists in its course. Tam felt himself hold his breath, as if the sound could carry so far. He breathed out again, finding comfort in their distance from the lights, impressed that they had made such progress. It was dark and they were dog-tired and sore, but hope had granted them purpose, and purpose had granted them one more extension on their energy overdrafts. It was another mercifully clear night – well for fuck’s sake, they were due one break – which not only assisted their journey, but now allowed them to measure it.

  He couldn’t be sure yet if this was the vehicle, and not some farmer perhaps. But what it wasn’t was a parade of vehicles, of dozens of polismen and soldie
rs hurriedly pursuing their quarry. So for that moment it was still in the balance. The vehicle stopped, and the headlamps went out. Then they could see separate beams, bobbing individually, progressing slowly away from where the headlights had disappeared and moving towards the trees. Soon afterwards, the beams became intermittent, broken up as the torchbearers moved into the forest.

  Tam exhaled slowly with relief, and Paul couldn’t help but laugh as his own tension eased.

  They’d had to give it a go. Obviously, if the information had fallen into the wrong hands, not only would what they had revealed be covered up, but the MM would have a good idea of where to send his next seek-and-destroy party. But that was why Tam had rung directories and got the number of the local station in Strathgair, not just dialled 999 and asked for the police – especially as someone with a lot to hide might recognise the number the caller was ringing from. The man had given his word, for what that might be worth, but Tam’s real trust had been placed in the accent, and in the attitude. He was local – Christ, with a name like Shearer – which meant he wasn’t up from Edinburgh or Perth or London, and he sounded genuinely hacked off with those who were. If he acted on the information, went to the clearing, he’d pursue the matter properly, not just report it to someone further up the chain then keep his mouth shut as they wiped the Wee Shite’s prints from the bus.

  Because this wasn’t just about survival and freedom any more. This was about evening the score.

  This was about vengeance.

  Someone had killed Voss and gone to a lot of bother to frame them for it. There could be no greater revenge, then, than seeing the bastard’s efforts thwarted, watching his face as the judge sent him down. Back at the clearing they had left proof that they didn’t murder the driver and the polisman. And on a wee cassette in Paul and Spammy’s flat, they had proof that they didn’t kill Roland Voss either – plus the names of who did.