by Jay Stringer
He can pull himself along the cushions. He can pull himself up, using the back of the sofa for support.
Kara’s sitting on the end. She’s facing away, talking into the phone, barking orders.
The gun.
Where did that gun come from, again?
Oh yeah, the cop.
They killed a cop.
None of this was supposed to—
Stop. Wait. Alex is getting drowsy. He can’t let this— He has to—
He lurches forward and grabs the gun.
Kara turns, her face pissed off. She panics, then, in the second before Alex squeezes the trigger, she wears her Oh, seriously? expression.
The gunshot takes Alex off balance. He falls forward off the sofa. The floor rushes up.
Alex blinks.
Had he been asleep?
He wasn’t sure.
No, he couldn’t have been. He’s standing at the altar. Kara’s walking down the aisle. She smiles as she draws level with him. A shy smile, despite being the most perfect looking thing in the room.
Alex has hit the jackpot.
Alex blinks.
EIGHTY-ONE
FERGUS
07:45
I’m not messing about now.
I want to blame Alex.
I want to blame Kara.
Truth is, this is my mess, and I know it.
I shouldn’t have taken the job. The minute Alex Pennan tried that dick move of threatening my family, I should have dropped him off the nearest bridge without a return ticket.
Now my parents are in danger. My sister.
I don’t care what state they’re in when I get there, I’m shutting both of these fuckers up. My hand shakes on the steering wheel at the thought of it. I wanted to be out. I wanted to walk away. But first, I need to pay my taxes.
I slip my gun out of the glove box and fit the muffler. I strap a holster to my belt, so the weapon can sit at three o’clock, covered by my coat. Usually I like it to be more hidden. I have coats and jackets that have been specially tailored, with extra pockets and straps on the side to conceal weapons, but I want the Pennans to see this coming.
I press the buzzer at Alex’s place, but there’s no answer.
I don’t have time for niceties. I cheat the lock again. I should start teaching classes. I go up in the lift, then knock on the door to Alex’s place. I don’t hear anything straight away, but then, is that a whimper that comes through the door?
There’s definitely someone in there, and they don’t sound happy.
I pick that lock, too, a simple Yale, and step inside.
I’m hit by a host of smells all at once, and none of them good. Urine, shite, blood, gunfire, sweat. This place smells like a torture scene I walked in on in Afghanistan. Yeah, that’s something that stays with you.
They’re both in the living room area. Alex is on the floor between a red leather sofa and a glass coffee table. There’s a laptop awake on the table. Someone’s been to town on him. His left leg is wrapped tight in brown parcel tape. His head is the wrong shape, and his jaw is off-centre. One of his eyes is swollen shut; the other is already drooped in the half-mast death mask. His skin is almost white.
It’s hard to tell which of the injuries did for him, but there looks to be almost no blood in his body, so that’s the most likely cause.
‘You know, Al, marriage counselling would probably have been easier than this.’
Kara is on the floor at the far end of the sofa.
There’s a trail of blood leading back closer to Alex’s body, and it looks like she dragged herself across the floor until she couldn’t move anymore. Her glassy eyes stare up at me, unblinking. Alex must have tagged her on his way out. The bullet hit her in the gut, but it doesn’t seem to have come out the other side. All bets are off when you get shot. Sometimes the bullet goes straight through; sometimes it goes on an adventure inside you. Her skin is cooling, but there’s warmth there. Maybe it was her last breath that I heard from the other side of the door.
The laptop has my contact details on the screen. There’s another file open, showing the dates and numbers of large financial payments. Alex has been a good boy and laid everything out in one document, in a clear timeline. It shows clearly how MHW set up the deal with the gangs due to go through at 1 p.m. today, and a separate list of deals done by Joe that are meant to win people over to his side in a private takeover.
This is the proof of Joe’s big plan.
I open the cupboard door and look down at the bags.
Millions of pounds. Without an owner.
It would be rude not to take it.
Sam can use some of it to blow town, get out of the firing line. I can set my family up for life, and I can even pay off some of my own guilt over the families of Scott Christopher and Dominic Porter.
I just need to get to Sam in time.
EIGHTY-TWO
SAM
08:03
Phil and I watched from across the street as the mortician wheeled two body bags out of the building, past the ambulances and into the back of a waiting van. Phil had driven us into town, and we’d followed the GPS signal to the car. He located our tracker and removed it while I called Hanya’s boss and gave him the edited highlights. We had Kara’s car, but we didn’t know where she’d gone from there.
He gave me the rest of it.
Someone in the building had called 999. The neighbour had heard whimpering and shouting, but said, and Hanya’s boss quoted, ‘Who am I to judge what couples get up to.’ It was when he heard something like a firework or a gunshot that he called the cops.
They found Kara and what was left of Alex.
‘Do you have any idea what all this was?’ Phil said, as we watched the body bags get lifted into the van. ‘I mean, just, what the hell?’
‘I’m getting that feeling a lot lately,’ I said.
‘But I’m not making this up, am I? Alex Pennan has died two days in a row?’
‘Weird.’
‘Are they sure this time?’
As we watched, a car pulled up at the edge of the police cordon. Alan Dasho climbed out. Todd Robinson wasn’t with him. He walked over to the other cops at the scene. He hadn’t seen me, and I was feeling grateful for that.
It had been one thing to know about the big conspiracy when Hanya had my back. She’d saved me once before when I’d got in over my head. But now I felt alone. Isolated. I hadn’t talked to Fergus, and there was no way I was going to let Phil in on the details.
The less he knew, the safer he was.
‘Keep an eye on them,’ I said. ‘Let me know if the blond guy there turns around.’
‘How?’
‘Improvise.’
I squatted down and made my way along the line of cars. At the bottom, I peeked out to make sure I was still fine, then crawled up behind Dasho’s car. I stuck the GPS tracker to the underside.
I wanted to start being ahead of the game.
Wherever these guys went, I needed to know. I didn’t have a plan. I had no idea where I would get one from. But I wasn’t going to let go. I duck-walked to Phil, and we headed back to his car.
We drove straight for the office. The morning shift had been covered by one of our fastest riders, a recovering student named Dan. He’d never made a pass at me, and I was routinely rude to him, and despite all of that he’d agreed to cover my workload without hesitation.
I had some pretty cool people in my life.
Maybe it was time to start letting them back in.
Phil had been right about all of it.
I wasn’t going to say any of that to him, though.
He’s my brother.
The office door was unlocked when we got there. That should have set alarm bells ringing in my mind. Dan would still be away on the morning run. If I was the kind of detective I wanted to be, I would have noticed the signs. But my brain was still fogged up with everything that had happened.
Phil walked in first. I followed in
behind.
By the time I realised what was going on, it was too late.
EIGHTY-THREE
FERGUS
08:30
I head straight round to Sam’s office. It’s a professional set-up in a good unit. The rent can’t be cheap. Maybe I could make sure they find some money in a bag once all this is over.
I’ve still got the gun strapped to my waist. If someone comes for Sam, or is thinking about coming for Sam, I want them to see it. Force them to make a decision on how badly they want to try me.
And I hope they buy into the bluff, because my hand trembles every time I touch the gun.
I’m not going to be the greatest bodyguard in history.
I stand outside the office door for a couple of minutes, sucking in the warm morning air. My heart is a marimba. I fight for control.
This is it.
Once I step in, with a gun on my hip like a fucking cowboy, it’s all over.
Whatever we’ve been building, it—
Fuck it—
Shut up and get in there.
I walk in to find the shit is already hitting the fan. The room inside is large: a big open space with bikes, tools and some sofas. Sam is stood in the centre, next to a chubby guy I assume to be Phil. They both have their hands in the air.
On the other side of them, facing me as I walk in, is the big cop from the bridge.
He has a gun pointed at Sam.
His eyes flit to me, and his expression changes for a just a second, trying to figure out how this affects his plan. Sam reads it and turns to see me. Her eyes go wide, and she’s just starting to say, ‘Fergus, run,’ when she notices the gun on my hip as I brush my jacket out of the way, and her mouth forms into a What?
‘This doesn’t concern you, hit man,’ the cop says.
Motherfucker. He just had to call me that, didn’t he? I was hoping to break it to her. Now I won’t even get the chance to soften the blow.
That’s it.
I’m throwing hot lead at his face at the very first opportunity.
And, I’m hoping, if I keep telling myself that, my hand won’t shake when I go for the gun.
I risk taking my eyes from the cop and his gun to look at Sam. And my heart drops. She’s fighting not to let something out. Her features are having a private conversation.
‘You kill people?’ she says. ‘For money?’
The room drops away. The threat vanishes. In this second, right here, it’s just me and Sam in a big black cave. Her eyes go cold on me. She let me in, trusted me, and now it’s been thrown back at her.
‘I used to,’ I say. ‘But I’ve given it up.’
Phil breaks through the darkness of the cave to bring me back into the room. ‘You picked a bad time for it,’ he says, the panic coming through in his voice. ‘Could you not quit in five or ten minutes, instead?’
I look past both of them to the cop. I can feel Sam’s eyes burning into my cheek, but she won’t get to be angry for long if I don’t deal with the first problem.
I nod my chin at the cop. ‘Put that down.’
He doesn’t move.
I flex my fingers over the gun. ‘I’m going to make this easy, aye? If that gun does anything other than be put to rest on the floor, I’ll shoot you.’
He smiles. He already has his weapon trained on a target. Mine is still holstered. He has the drop on me, and everyone in the room knows it. I can see his hand twitch, leading his brain in moving the gun from Sam to me. I shake my head. Don’t try it.
‘You wouldnae make it,’ he says.
‘You’re polis, right?’ He nods. ‘Since school?’ He nods again. I give him the coldest, calmest smile I can. I ignore the nervous twitching of my fingers. ‘I joined the military at seventeen. Then SIS. I’ve stared down people in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve been shot at by people you wouldn’t believe, and I outdrew seven mob guys in broad daylight in Manhattan. I can take this gun apart and reassemble it in less than a minute. You really fancy your chances of getting to the trigger before me?’
That thing about the seven mob guys is a lie.
But he doesn’t know that.
He also doesn’t know my hand is going to shake like jelly the second I go for the gun, and that I don’t think I can actually do this.
He doesn’t know any of that.
And yet, he squeezes the trigger.
EIGHTY-FOUR
SAM
08:33
I couldn’t believe it.
I just—
No. Couldn’t believe it. I trusted this guy. I let him in. For the first time in ages, I met someone I liked, someone I wanted to spend time getting to know, and he turns out to be a hit man?
Well, Sam, you certainly have a type.
Fergus and Todd stared at each other, either side of Phil and me. These showdowns always looked good in movies. It’s a whole different thing when you’re in the middle of one. There was nothing fun or exciting about standing between two armed killers.
Especially when one of them was a guy you thought you could . . .
Not now, Sam.
Todd tightened his grip on the gun, which had lowered a few inches while he talked to Fergus. I stared at the barrel. Mostly, I stared at the big black hole in the middle. Would I see the bullet as it came at me?
Todd breathed out, an animal grunt, and squeezed on the trigger.
I heard three shots. The first was the loudest, a metallic sound, slamming a door. The second and third were muffled by my own shock. But I was okay, nothing hit me.
Todd staggered back with each of the first two shots, then the third stopped him in his tracks and he toppled forward, down onto his knees. I looked to where his gun had been, trying to look for the bullets that were making the noise, but all I saw was red meat. His chest was covered in the same sticky mess, and one of his knees was pumping blood onto the floor.
All three shots had come from Fergus.
I turned to him. Phil was already staring. Fergus’s gun hand was raised, and his eyes were still locked on Todd. I noticed the gun start to shake, and Fergus shifted his attention to it. He watched for a second, then holstered the weapon. He clutched his chest, then his mouth, but he couldn’t stop what was happening, and threw up on our concrete floor.
‘Just great,’ I said.
Todd groaned. The smell of urine filled the air. Soon it would mingle with the puke, and then we’d have a party. He stared up at us. The gun was a few feet away, on the floor, but I didn’t want to pick it up. Fergus bent down and took it. I noticed his hand shaking again as he slipped Todd’s weapon into the waistband of his jeans.
Fergus turned to Todd and said, ‘I’m trying very hard not to kill people. You’re lucky. But that might not last. Did Joe send you?’
Todd glared. Fergus pulled his gun out and pointed it to Todd’s head. The cop saw the shake in Fergus’s hand and laughed.
‘Shot by a guy with the shakes,’ he said. ‘You getting the blackouts yet?’
Fergus ignored the question. ‘I don’t think shakes will matter this close. They didn’t matter from across the room.’
Todd spat blood on the floor then sighed. ‘Joe put out the flag. I told him Sam and the bitch were still sniffing around.’ He grinned and looked at me. ‘One of those problems is already solved.’
I felt anger surge. I took a step forward to kick him, but Fergus put a hand up. ‘And your partner, does he know you’re here, cashing the flag in?’
Todd shook his head.
‘What’s a red flag?’ I looked at Fergus, who started to explain. He was only a few words in when I decided, you know what? I didn’t need to know. There was a whole side to Fergus that I wanted nothing to do with, and the less he talked, the less I needed to think about it.
I wanted him out of the office. I wanted him out of my life.
But, more than anything, I wanted to know what to do about the dirty cop bleeding out onto my floor.
EIGHTY-FIVE
FERGUS
>
08:40
Sam keeps switching her attention between me and the cop, and her expression is the same on both of us. She’s a lost cause to me now.
‘Why would there be a red flag in your name?’ I say.
As far as changes of subject go, it’s not the biggest misdirect in history, but it’s a start.
Sam looks nervous. Off guard. For the first time, I look past my own anger and guilt and see that maybe there’s something she was holding back, too.
‘I’m a private detective,’ she says, not meeting my eyes. ‘I’ve been looking into something big.’
‘Is it Joe Pepper, by any chance?’ She looks at me and nods. I carry on. ‘The takeover?’
‘Tell me what you know,’ she says. All calm and professional now. She’s good at this.
I give enough of the details. The laptop and the trail of proof. Asma Khan and the cartel taking control of the city in a buyout of all the local gangs, including the police. Joe hijacking the deal for himself, and using the corrupt cops as backup. A double cross that would make Joe the most powerful man in the west of Scotland.
Sam nods as I speak. She doesn’t seem surprised by any of it. Once I’m done, she fills in the mortar from her own investigation. Cal and Paula, the woman I let go at the start of all this. Mike Gibson. Joe and the CCTV. Everything ties up nicely.
‘Joe killed Paula’s boss,’ I say. ‘Or had one of his monkeys do it.’
‘Why would she have given me a package to deliver to him, if he was dead?’
I see this as a chance to say something nice. Show some faith in her, maybe earn back some goodwill. ‘Maybe that was the point. Maybe she was handing it to you, not him. Butler’s name was to get you started.’
She nods. For a moment, I think of how well we would work as a team. I’ve got a knack for this investigations lark, and she has the experience. It could be like an old-school TV show, the two of us, three if we let Phil do the tech stuff, running a detective agency and having adventures.
Then the real world comes back in. Or rather, my brain does, followed by my words, and more tension.
‘Well, we can solve one problem,’ I say. ‘Mike Gibson? He’ll want a crack at the guy who killed his son, and we have him.’ I gesture to the cop. ‘So we have an out there.’