Deadly Code (Rhona MacLeod #3)

by Lin Anderson

  Maley was grinning up at heir, the glassy eyes of the Cheshire Cat, with her as the mouse.

  ‘What do you want, Maley?’

  ‘What do I want?’ Maley repeated with slow relish. ‘Why, Dr MacLeod, I want you.’

  He had one foot on the bottom stair, his arm resting on the banister.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Joe,’ Rhona said. ‘If you touch me, they’ll get you and you’ll be back inside.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Dr MacLeod. By the time they find what’s left of you, I’ll be far, far away.’

  ‘This is an island, Joe. A one-stop island with a ferry when the weather’s good enough. You can’t go anywhere without the whole island knowing about it.’

  Maley was loving this. His ego was working overtime. He would tell her the whole story just so he could watch her squirm.

  ‘I’ve got friends. Friends that helped get me out of jail and friends that will help keep me out. That operation you fucked up? Well it’s right back on track. Our American cousins saw to that.’ His hand was sliding up the banister. Rhona could smell him now. Booze and salt and the acrid smell of male sweat. If she turned to run, he would be right behind her. Before she could open a door he would have her on the floor. But he wasn’t moving on her yet.

  Somewhere behind her on the landing, the trapped mouse scratched frantically at a closed door.

  ‘Sounds like you need a cat around here,’ Maley was grinning. ‘Oh I forgot, you had a cat, didn’t you, Dr MacLeod. A big black cat.’

  Rhona froze. Jesus. He had been in the flat. Joe Maley had been in her flat.

  ‘What…?’

  ‘Now, now, Dr MacLeod. I just went to pick up what was mine. And she wasn’t there. And that made me angry.’

  She? Who the hell was he talking about?

  Maley licked his lips. ‘Didn’t you know? While you were away in California, your bastard of a boyfriend was screwing my wee girl.’

  His wee girl?

  Rhona’s brain had the answer before she sent it to search. Esther. He was talking about Esther. So the police were right. Esther was a plant in the club.

  Christ. Sean was a stupid bastard, following his prick instead of his head.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, keeping her face calm.

  ‘That’s funny, neither did your cat when I asked it,’ he said smugly. ‘Fucking pissed me off that did.’

  Rhona tried to ignore the images that were flooding her mind. If she could just keep him talking, maybe Mrs MacMurdo would come back.

  She wasn’t reacting enough and Maley was getting bored. She was the mouse that didn’t squeal and squirm.

  He started up the stairs.

  Rhona slid one foot nearer the banister, her hand still gripping the lamp. The light from the lamp played across his face, making his teeth and eyes glint. When he was three stairs from her, she swung it at him. It flew past his head and hit the hall floor, and then there was just the two of them and the darkness.

  His hand was gripping her throat, forcing her head up and back; his knees were on her arms, pinning them close to the floor. Rhona let her body go limp and kept her eyes shut, like a subdued animal. Maley was breathing into her face. A drop of his spittle hit her cheek.

  If he was planning to strangle her, there was nothing she could do about it.

  But Maley wasn’t ready to do that, yet.

  Her bathrobe had fallen open in the struggle. Maley was taking in the view, his breath getting faster. He used his knees and free hand to move her arms under her body and slipped his own body lower than her crotch.

  Every nerve in Rhona’s body told her to writhe and jerk and yell and fight, but sense told her the opposite. Maley was bigger than her, Maley was stronger than her, but Maley wasn’t smarter than her. What brain he had was in his cock.

  Rhona waited till he was busy with his zip, then she rolled, pushing away hard from the floor beneath her, unbalancing him.

  His grip loosened on her neck as he tried to right himself and she swung back and rolled again, this time throwing him hard against the wall. One hand free, Rhona grabbed at his open crotch, her nails finding flesh. Maley gave a howl and slapped her hard across the face, but the swipe knocked him sideways. She squeezed tighter, digging in her nails; like a nutcracker on a nut.

  Maley was yelping like a kicked dog, throwing his fist wildly at her face, smacking the floor as she turned her head. All the energy Rhona had stored as he prowled her limp body was in her next move. She screwed her hand round, twisting the nutcracker.

  Now Maley was howling in her ear, a long howl of bitch. But his hands were off her, cradling his crotch.

  Rhona let go and rolled away.

  Her feet found the top stair and she launched herself down two at a time.

  ‘You’ll pay for that, bitch!’

  Rhona dived for the open kitchen door. She slammed it shut and put all her weight against it, knowing without a lock she had no chance.

  Maley flung himself at the door. Her feet slithered forwards and met the table leg. The next time he would be through. She glanced wildly round for something to defend herself with and spotted the knife rack.

  Maley suddenly released his pressure. She heard him step back and knew he was planning a run at it.

  Rhona dived for a knife as headlights hit the window and a vehicle screeched up outside.

  The answer to her prayer.

  Maley didn’t wait to find out who it was.

  Rhona heard the back door bang and knew Maley was gone.

  The whisky bottle stood half empty between them on the table. When Mrs MacMurdo came back from putting the baby to bed, she poured another for Rhona without asking. Andre waved his offer away.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘Go where?’ Rhona forced her hand flat on the table to stop it trembling.

  He hesitated and Rhona knew he didn’t want to say anything in front of anyone else.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Mrs MacMurdo said. ‘Constable Johnstone will be here in the morning and we can clear this all up. Whoever the intruder was, he can’t get off the island until the weather improves.’

  Rhona smiled her thanks as Mrs MacMurdo closed the door behind her. God knows what the poor woman thought was going on. Ever since Rhona had arrived in her house, her life had been turned upside down. Rhona was damned sure she wasn’t going to tell her to add attempted rape and murder to the list.

  Andre reached out and covered Rhona’s trembling hand.

  ‘Hey, are you alright?’

  Rhona nodded.

  ‘Look the best thing you can do is go home,’ Andre was saying. ‘Leave me to sort this out.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Whatever is going on here, Fm part of it now,’ she paused. ‘And if Fm part of it, maybe it’s time you told me the truth.’

  Andre was silent for a moment.

  ‘Maybe it is.’

  He reached for his inside pocket. The light from the lamp caught the black holster tucked under his left arm and he smiled apologetically as he flipped open the leather wallet and showed her an FBI badge.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘So you should be.’ Rhona stood up. ‘All that shite about MacAulay being your father and the sob story about your Scottish roots.’ She began to walk up and down, trying to control her anger. It was obvious now. Too obvious.

  She turned on him. ‘That’s why you spoke to me in the airport. That’s why you took me to the highland games, to dinner.’ She stopped, remembering the embarrassment in the hotel room.

  Andre came towards her but she took a step away from him.

  ‘There were reasons why we did not want to alert the authorities over here,’ he said. ‘I had to find out if the foot belonged to MacAulay. I had to find out what you knew.’

  Rhona glared at him. ‘So where does Maley come into this?’

  ‘Maley was running a drug syndicate using the west coast islands to b
ring the stuff in. We knew there was American money involved and the profit was financing something. We just didn’t know what. Then we received, a letter, posted here, from MacAulay. In it he made threats, threats that involved the work he said he was doing. Threats that we thought he might be able to back up. So I came looking for him. The rest you know.’

  He was watching her, watching to see if she was buying the story. Everything Rhona knew up to now fitted what he said. If he was lying he was making a good job of it

  ‘That’s why you went looking for Spike,’ she said accusingly. ‘Not because he might be your long-lost brother. You thought he would know something.’

  Andre wasn’t denying it.

  ‘You thought the same, Rhona,’ he said quietly.

  He was right. She hadn’t gone to the cottage to help Spike or Esther. She had gone to find out who Spike’s father was.

  Andre was looking at the postcard sitting on the shelf above the range. The postcard supposedly from MacAulay.

  Rhona sat back down, suddenly tired of it all. MacAulay, Spike, Maley. Especially Maley. The way he’d looked up at her from the hall. Pleased … pleased because he knew he would find her there.

  ‘No one knew I was staying here,’ she said puzzled. No one, not Chrissy, not DI Wilson, not Sean. She’d even led Sissons to believe it would take her four hours to get to Eilean Fladday.

  ‘No one knew except you and Spike.’ Rhona suddenly realised the horror of what that meant.

  ‘Maley has Spike,’ she said.

  Chapter 28

  That’s why the two men couldn’t see him, Spike decided, they were part of his dream. A dream he didn’t want to wake up from.

  Water began playing with his feet, rippling up, washing back, bringing them back to life. Now it was his hands, and the sudden cloying cold of wet sand between his fingers. The next wave brought a shiver with it, sliding up his spine, running like an ache through his limbs.

  He was coming back to reality.

  Spike tried to drift back, stay in that other place; a place somewhere between death and life, where he had been floating without thought or pain; warm, comfortable and safe.

  He muffled a cry as the men’s words drifted towards him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but he could hear their American accents.

  Suddenly Spike didn’t want them to know he lay there on the shore; didn’t want them to know he was alive at all.

  The seaweed was thick along the beach, huge swathes that slithered beneath his feet like brown snakes. Clouds of small black flies hovered above the mounds, dancing away as he walked through.

  After the men left he had sat tucked below the rock, shivering in his wet clothes, until his legs stopped shaking long enough to carry him up the bank. Then he’d cut inland, not wanting to follow the road in case the men were somewhere between him and the village.

  Now he was in woods, sheltered at least from the wind that drove in from the sea. As he walked, his shivering became a pattern. A gentle ripple that built up and up until the violent juddering of his teeth and bones brought him to a standstill. His body would descend into a strange calm that made him want to lie down and sleep forever before the cycle began again.

  When the shadows of the chapel rose out of the gloom of the ancient burial ground, Spike’s confused mind told him that he had already died and there was no point in going on; still he kept walking, shouting Fuck at the darkness to keep himself awake.

  The baby was crying. Spike could hear it, a long wail that churned his stomach. The hill dipped steeply to the back garden and suddenly he was slipping and sliding towards the gate. He pulled himself up and stumbled down the path, his mouth alive with the snapping of his teeth against one another. If Maley had hurt Duncan, he would kill him.

  Spike launched himself at the door and it spilled open, then his face was on cold linoleum and the taste of warmth and whisky was on his swollen tongue.

  Chapter 29

  Rhona stood at the door as the car headed off into the darkness. Andre wouldn’t stay, despite Mrs MacMurdo’s protestations when she came down to heat milk for the fractious baby.

  He had something he had to do, he said.

  To Rhona, at the door, he was less cautious. There was a yacht at anchor off Oskaig Point. He wanted to check in case it had something to do with Maley. If he drove further up the hill, he might get a decent enough signal to contact the coastguard. Rhona wanted to go with him and didn’t want him to go at the same time.

  ‘Will you be okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, not really meaning it

  He turned, then stopped and pulled the gun from the holster.

  ‘Can you use this?’

  She was annoyed at him for seeing how scared she was.

  ‘This isn’t America.’

  ‘You don’t have to use it, just have it.’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly.

  He reluctantly slipped the gun back into the holster.

  ‘What about the lab?’

  ‘We’ll find the lab,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep, then we’ll take a look at the boat house again. Maybe the other cave you found leads to it.’

  He touched her arm briefly, then turned and made for the car. As he drove away, his headlamps were the only lights to be seen. The storm had knocked out the power, except for houses with their own generator and, of course, Maley’s yacht.

  Rhona built up the range with thick black peats and pulled the kettle onto the hot plate, knowing she would have to drink something hot or else she would never feel warm again.

  Delayed shock was sending shudders up her spine and through her arms. She managed to pour the boiled water into the teapot, then sat down in front of the open firebox, nursing the hot sweet tea, grateful that at least now she knew the truth about Andre.

  And knowing the truth meant she could trust him.

  The baby gave a wail as if he was having a nightmare, then there were footsteps and whimpers as Mrs MacMurdo went to nurse him back to sleep.

  The peat was well caught now and waves of heat flowed about her, calming her shivering limbs. She thought over what Maley had said about the flat and tried to convince herself that he had been lying in order to frighten her. Lying, at least, about the cat.

  Esther was another matter.

  If Esther was Maley’s girl and he’d found out she was with Sean … a shiver of fear swept through her. Sean had been the one to warn her that Maley was out. But did Sean know what he was doing when he befriended Maley’s girlfriend?

  Rhona was half asleep when she heard the slamming of the back gate and the stumbled footsteps outside. Her first fearful thought was Maley, then she heard the Gaelic voice screaming obscenities and knew it was Spike, even before the back door flew open and the boy fell in.

  Spike mumbled an apology at Mrs MacMurdo for swearing but she pretended not to notice, handing him a mug of something hot and urging him to drink.

  The first swig made him grimace with pain and Mrs MacMurdo held open his mouth to look at the mess inside.

  ‘Who did this to you, Donald?’ She moved his head sideways to look at the bruising where Maley’s boot had landed.

  Spike spoke slowly and carefully. ‘I came to warn you.’

  ‘I know,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Warn her about what?’ Mrs MacMurdo said, catching sight of the look that passed between them. ‘I think it’s time I phoned your father, Donald. This whole thing is getting out of hand.’

  Spike’s eyes filled with fear.

  ‘What do you mean, phone my father?’

  Spike took and read the postcard Rhona handed him.

  ‘I phoned the number two days ago,’ Mrs MacMurdo told him. ‘A woman said she would tell your father that you were here.’

  Spike was silent.

  ‘Your father didn’t write that postcard, did he Spike?’ Rhona said.

  Spike looked up at her, his thin frame lost in the weight of blankets Mrs MacMurdo had draped round him.
/>   ‘It’s alright, Donald, you can tell us the truth.’ Mrs MacMurdo’s soft voice seemed to soothe Spike and he looked sadly at her as if he were about to tell her something that would make her feel bad about him and he didn’t want that. He turned to Rhona.

  ‘My father made me go with him that night. He told me he needed help. I hadn’t seen him for days. Then he came home, all pleased with himself and said he was ready.’

  ‘Ready for what?’ Rhona asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Rhona nodded at him to go on.

  ‘We took the boat out at about midnight. He wouldn’t say where we were going. We headed south, keeping close to the coast,’ Spike hesitated, seeing Mrs MacMurdo’s stern expression. ‘I thought we were going to collect a … a delivery from one of the caves below Druim an Aonaich.’

  ‘Is that where your father hid the drugs?’ Rhona said.

  Spike nodded. ‘Then he stopped the boat.’ His voice was breaking into pieces. ‘He said I was a mistake, an experiment that had gone wrong. An abomination.’

  Behind Rhona, a Gaelic curse crossed Mrs MacMurdo’s lips.

  ‘Then he came at me,’ Spike said, ‘and … I killed him.’

  Chapter 30

  The yacht had gone. Rhona scanned north to Holoman Bay but it too was empty.

  ‘Looks like Maley’s left.’

  Spike disagreed. ‘Maley won’t leave without the drugs.’

  Rhona suspected he was right. She pulled away from the side of the narrow road and headed towards Brochel. They had taken the turning down towards Holoman Island, just to make sure the yacht hadn’t moved along the coast when the storm died down. With no sign of it yet, the chances were it had crossed to Skye.

  After she persuaded Spike to go upstairs and get some sleep, Rhona told Mrs MacMurdo the truth about their American visitor.

  ‘That explains why he was nosing about here last month, asking all those questions. He showed me that symbol.’

  ‘ReAlba?’

  Mrs MacMurdo nodded. ‘Then you turned up and showed me the same thing and… I’m afraid I lied and said I’d never seen it before. I’m sorry.’