Country of the Blind

by Brookmyre, Christopher

  Dalgleish picked at the sheets, staring disbelievingly at them, mouth working wordlessly for a few seconds.

  “But these . . . these prove nothing,” he eventually stumbled. “Well, not nothing, but they don’t prove I’ve anything to do with what you’re accusing me of.”

  “Well, the picture changes when one takes into account where these documents came from, which was a CD-ROM locked in Voss’s safe at Craigurquhart House and removed by the gentlemen before you. Add to that the fact that Voss stood to make billions if the FILM Accord was ratified by your chum Swan – who has subsequently rendered himself literally brainless rather than just metaphorically – and it starts to look pretty vivid, doesn’t it? Except that we both know Swan didn’t render himself brainless, don’t we? Which leads us back to the current situation, viz, that you are well and truly humped. Knight doesn’t know that, though. He still thinks he can walk away if he silences you. So as a future ex-Scottish Sec, your last major decision is a straight choice between violent death or a lengthy residence in one of those prisons you’re always telling us are too cushy. Except that the latter option is going to cost you.”

  “You can save me from Knight? How?”

  Parlabane shook his head.

  “Afraid this is a seller’s market, and you’re going to have to cough up before I even tell you.”

  “What? You can’t do that. It’s absurd.”

  “Fair enough. We walk. After we’ve secured you in a very uncomfortable position and left the door on the latch for your big pal.”

  Dalgleish sighed furiously. “All right. Tell me what you want.”

  “Well, way I figure it, you couldn’t write cheques out of your own account to Knight or any of his, er, subcontractors, and I don’t imagine they’d want the conspicuousness of depositing huge amounts in cash at their banks, any more than you would the conspicuousness of withdrawing it. So I figure you’ve got a well-hidden account somewhere – front company, difficult to trace back to your good self – from which you were going to pay them. An account which is, I would guess, still full, as one tends not to pay upfront for this kind of thing, and I don’t imagine you’ll be receiving a bill after the way it worked out. Now, an operation like this wasn’t going to come cheap. Taking out one of the most rich and influential businessmen in the world, then organising a fake manhunt, plus unforeseen extras like murdering lawyers, journalists, yakka yakka yakka . . . Lot of bread. Make with the front company chequebook, Ally.”

  Dalgleish clenched his jaws together, bit his top lip and generally steamed.

  “I’d make my mind up quickly, I was you. You’re expecting a visitor, remember. And he could be here at any minute.”

  “Christ,” Dalgleish cursed, and reached into his jacket pocket. He produced a set of keys and opened a drawer in the bureau, pulling out a chequebook. Parlabane took it from him and examined it.

  “Very good,” he said. “Now, we’ll start with a cheque for one hundred thousand pounds made payable to Mr Thomas McInnes.”

  “A hundre . . .”

  “Then a cheque for the same amount made out to Mr Paul McInnes, and a third hundred K to Mr Cameron Scott.”

  “And a fourth,” said Tam flatly. “Payable to Mrs Veronica Graham, Bob Hannah’s daughter.”

  Dalgleish looked up, face colourless, lost and hopeless.

  “Oh look, just fuckin’ get on with it,” snapped Parlabane, sitting on the edge of the desk. “It’s not as though you’ll be needing it where you’re going. Besides, according to what’s in these documents, it’s effectively Voss’s money. Jesus, there’s Tory gratitude for you. Somebody subs you and you use his cash to take out a contract on him.”

  Parlabane collected the cheques and handed them out.

  “Right,” croaked Dalgleish in a soul-broken whisper. “What are you going to do for me?”

  Parlabane smiled. “We’re going to help you,” he said cheerily, “to help yourself. We can put you in the protective custody of some police officers we can guarantee are not under Knight’s influence, and you can confess everything to them.”

  “Confess?”

  “Yup. You see,” Parlabane lied, “we don’t have any evidence of Knight’s misdeeds. We know what he did, sure, but we can’t prove it. As I explained, we’ve got enough to nail you anyway, without a confession. However, if you do confess, and you name Knight, he’ll be arrested as soon as he shows his face, and you’ll be safe, but you can’t name him and his crimes without confessing your own. And obviously your cooperation will be noted – judge might even knock your sentence down to a hundred years. Of course, if you don’t name Knight now, well, he stays loose, and I can’t see him gambling that you’ll always stay silent. Can you?”

  Dalgleish put his elbows on the desk and sank his head into his hands.

  “All right,” he moaned. “All right.”

  “Cool,” said Parlabane. Tam tossed him his portable phone, which he used to call Jenny, who was waiting outside with Callaghan and Nicole. Paul opened the black case again and removed from it a cassette recorder, a video camera and some lengths of aluminium tubing. He placed the tape deck on the desk and plugged in a microphone as Spammy assembled the tubes into a tripod to support the camcorder. Spammy then took hold of the Anglepoise on the bureau and re-posed it to shine on Dalgleish, hopping back and forth from the camera to make further minor lighting adjustments.

  Jenny, Nicole and Callaghan appeared in the doorway of the now very busy room, Tam and Paul moving into the hall to make space for them.

  “These are officers Dalziel and Callaghan,” Parlabane explained, “and this is Nicole Carrow, who is here so that there is a solicitor present. Storytime, Alastair. Secretary of State for Scotland’s video diary, take one. Roll it, Spammy.”

  Dalgleish remained slumped over the desk, head resting on his forearms, as Callaghan completed his transcription of the statement and Spammy dismantled the video camera. Parlabane was replaying the tape, Nicole having retreated to the hall where she shared a can of Coke with Paul as Tam helped himself to large measures of the Secretary of State’s Craigellachie.

  The playback of Dalgleish’s weary, shattered, monotonal voice provided a steady bass below the mutterings and conversations in and around the room, as Callaghan passed the papers across and Dalgleish signed them like a glazed-eyed automaton.

  “. . . to Craigurquhart House for a few days,” burbled the tape. “That was to put him at ease, so that he’d think we were rolling out the red carpet because we were going to give him what he wanted with good grace. That’s what he was used to. Conspicuous security, MI5, just to assure him we’d pulled out all the stops . . .”

  “. . . about Lafferty?” Parlabane’s voice interjecting. “Did he say anything about his death?”

  “Yes. He told me he killed him himself. He said it was ‘a field decision’, his words . . .”

  Dalgleish got up from his chair compliantly as Jenny gestured to him with her handcuffs, which she proceeded to place on his wrists.

  “So have you any idea where Knight might be?” he asked her anxiously. “I mean, where are you taking me? What if . . .?”

  “He’s in a cell over at HQ,” she said. “He was arrested about two hours ago. We received a tape of one of his own men admitting Knight and – what was the name again? – Harcourt, I think, had killed Voss.”

  She smiled as Dalgleish’s eyes filled with new fury and humiliation.

  “What? Didn’t Mr Parlabane inform you of this? Naughty boy. See, that’s the problem, Mr Dalgleish. Bloody journalists. Like politicians. Can’t believe a word they tell you.”

  Parlabane pulled the heavy grey steel panel aside on the cell door. Knight looked up, got to his feet as he saw the face peering in.

  “Who the fuck are you, then?” he barked.

  “Mr Knight? My name is Jack Parlabane. Donald Lafferty was a friend of mine, so I just wanted you to know that it was me who took you down. In fact I want you to remember both our na
mes every day when you’re slopping out.”

  “I’ll remember your name all right, you little prick,” he spat, walking up to the door and shoving his face in the slot. “I’ll be coming for you, sonny. Mark my words.”

  Parlabane shook his head, as if pitying a fool.

  “Mr Knight? Tell me, what gives you the idea that your parole officer’s father has even been born yet?”

  “Oh very smart. But you wait. I’ll get you. I can have you killed with a phone call. You think I can’t kill you just because I’m inside? Good luck sleeping, mate.”

  “Ehm, look, I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the pattern here, Georgie. I know you’re probably telling yourself that you’re in here because you were unlucky, and that’s fine, because we all need consolation in times of defeat. But that thought might turn into something more bitter when you’ve got years in prison to think about nothing else. So just to put your mind at rest and save you torturing yourself, you weren’t unlucky. You were simply up against superior opposition.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing whether you say that while you’re watching your girlfriend’s throat being cut.”

  “You really don’t get it at all, do you? Myself, Tam McInnes, Paul, Spammy Scott, Nicole Carrow – we really gubbed you. Stuck you inside, thwarted all the wee diddies you sent after us. What could possibly make you think it would be any different if we had a rematch? I mean, for instance . . .”

  Parlabane raised his hand a few inches to let Knight see the dictaphone he had been holding just under the hole in the cell door. He pressed Rewind then Play.

  “I can have you killed with a phone call. You think I can’t kill you just because I’m inside?” it said.

  “See? Another few years on to your sentence, just like that. Gubbed you again without even trying. And don’t bother threatening me with your connections, arsehole, because I’m afraid you don’t have them any more. All your one-time mates will already be off looking for the main chance elsewhere. You’re finished. So, Georgie boy, understand this: if we were up against shite like you, again and again from now until the end of time, you’d still never even scrape a draw. Never mind the law of averages. Nicole, Tam, Paul, Spammy, Sarah, me? We’re late Fifties Real Madrid. You? You’re Cowdenbeath – any year you like.”

  . . . AND FINALLY

  The judge cleared Thomas McInnes, Paul McInnes and Cameron Scott of all blame, even with regard to their conspiracy to and execution of a robbery at Craigurquhart House. He was remarkably understanding about why they took the law into their own hands by not going to the police when the blackmail began, appreciating himself how difficult it can be to act independently when a great threat is hanging over your head. The fact that Parlabane had recently sent him a package of photographs depicting the judge and an unnamed woman with an eye for discipline is probably only of tangential relevance.

  The judge was less understanding of the dilemmas of Alastair Dalgleish. He sent him to prison for a sod of a long time, and unfortunately he’ll have to serve pretty much all of it because certain of his cabinet colleagues had recently been making an awful lot of noise about “honest sentencing” and life meaning life. “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” was the phrase, Michael Howard ingeniously utilising a soundbite that didn’t contain the letter “L”. Obviously the court case was not exactly a PR coup for the government, and their fortunes took a bit of a dip after that.

  Parlabane and Sarah got married. Parlabane suggested Bogota for the honeymoon on the grounds that it would be comparatively quiet in terms of hired killers, but Sarah decided to put a slight dent in his generous remuneration for the story of the aeon with a deluxe tour of South-East Asia. She kept her own name.

  Tam and Sadie bought a nice wee place in Strathpeffer, and moved up there after the court case. Given Dalgleish’s reluctant contribution and the money The Saltire paid for their stories, they considered themselves retired, although Tam occasionally helps out at a garage in Beauly. Mostly they go for long walks, and Tam sometimes drives them over to Strathgair, where they follow parts of a familiar trail. It was painful the first few times, but he wouldn’t allow himself to hate the place or spurn its beauty, and it helps him remember Bob.

  Nicole got a bit more settled in her work, the job now apparently having struck a balance between excruciating tedium and life-threatening danger. She started seeing Paul, which was inevitable really, as they were about the only two people in the world who could understand each other. She had reservations about getting involved with a guy who was about to become a student, but it turns out he’s a man of independent means.

  Spammy arsed about the flat all day, smoked a lot of gear, did some acid, fixed a few tellies for folk, and occasionally helped out down the studio. Well, what the fuck did you think he was going to do?

  All right, he was talking – talking – about setting up his own twenty-four track, but don’t hold your breath.