Shores of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  ‘Are you going to be okay?’ It was all Macallan could think to say. She felt helpless witnessing the girl’s struggle against an enemy she could only see lurking at the edges of her imagination.

  ‘I’m tired, just very tired and the dreams won’t let me rest.’

  ‘Your family are here now and they’ll look after you. It’s early days and you’ll get much better, I promise you.’ She knew the words meant nothing but goodwill on her part. They were always so helpless in these cases and she’d seen the effect in McGovern’s eyes earlier on. She would have been as well to apologise for a human race that could give birth and life to people capable of such barbarity.

  Macallan stopped off in the hospital café, bought a strong black coffee and felt her shoulders ache. Aching shoulders – that proved she was back in the game and all the health benefits she’d gained in the last few months would be washed away over the course of the investigation. She said a quiet prayer that it wouldn’t be a long haul, but given what they’d learned so far it could be as short as it liked and it would still be a bastard of a case.

  She sipped the last of the coffee and wondered whether to increase the ache in her shoulders by going to take a quick look at the woman she had been intrigued to hear was called The Bitch. It had to be worth the pain. Apparently the CID had tried to speak to Brenda McMartin and her answer had been to gob blood on a detective sergeant’s brand new suit. The other two Weegies scraped off the road in Leith with her wouldn’t even give their names. There was no chance of McMartin speaking to her, but it would be interesting and would fill in the picture of who they were dealing with.

  She didn’t have to travel far because McMartin was in the same hospital. Macallan spoke to the nurses, who’d lost any sympathy for McMartin about five minutes after she’d been admitted, when she’d tried to whack one of the junior doctors in A&E. The staff nurse on the ward described her as the worst patient she’d ever dealt with in twenty years in the job. Apparently McMartin had been visited by a couple of hard cases earlier in the day; the nurse reckoned it was a serious powwow and they’d had to sedate her after the men, or what passed for men, had gone. Another nurse had told her that she heard an order to kill some poor bastard although it was difficult to make out what McMartin was saying through her shredded lips.

  ‘Christ, I’d hate to get the wrong side of that one,’ the nurse muttered, and everyone on the ward would have agreed with her.

  ‘She’s a piece of work alright, and what you’ve told me matches the descriptions I’ve been given.’ Macallan could do nothing but sympathise with the nurses who had to try to heal the McMartins of this world and wondered how anyone could do their job and remain calm in the face of so much abuse. She decided that it would be enough to see McMartin and that the men who’d been with her could wait for another day.

  Local CID were still handling the rammy in Leith, trying to work out who they were going to charge with what. They’d been unable to work out who’d done the business on McMartin and her team, apart from the fact that it definitely wasn’t Swan, who couldn’t punch his way out of the proverbial paper bag. He was sticking to his story that it had been a passing Good Samaritan who’d downed the three Weegies, but the DOs knew that had to be shite.

  They had a statement from an old woman who’d witnessed the whole thing, although apart from describing Swan’s rescuer as a ‘handy wee bastard’ she hadn’t been a great deal of help, though she’d clearly enjoyed every blow delivered in the street battle. Criminal intelligence reckoned it had to be Cue Ball Ross, who worked for Swan and was definitely capable of the level of carnage the uniforms had found at the locus. But Cue Ball seemed to have disappeared off the radar, and in any event no one was making a complaint, and certainly not Brenda McMartin, who would have poked her good eye out before cooperating with the bizzies. They’d transferred her to a single room to prevent her causing any more disruption on the ward where she’d already threatened two elderly patients for snoring during the night.

  The staff nurse showed Macallan to the room. ‘I’ll leave you here, Superintendent, if you don’t mind. If you’re not out in ten minutes I’ll send in special forces.’ She winked and set off to care for some patients who appreciated what she did.

  Macallan opened the door and saw that McMartin had certainly come off second best to whoever had rescued Ricky Swan. Her face was still swollen; her lips were burst and looked like a collagen injection had gone horribly wrong. McMartin had a pair of earphones on but Macallan could hear that she was blasting heavy metal. She stood a safe distance from the bed, remembering the story about the detective sergeant’s new suit, until McMartin eventually realised there was someone in the room and looked round slowly to face her.

  ‘Who the huck are you?’ She had problems forming words with her swollen mouth and missing teeth, but it wasn’t going to stop her swearing.

  ‘I’m Superintendent Grace Macallan; I just wanted a quick word.’

  ‘Huck och.’ She pushed herself up and clenched her remaining teeth as the movement generated a pain that would have rendered a lesser mortal unconscious. Macallan had met some terrifying women in her time in Northern Ireland but this one took first prize. The eyepatch only added to the image of a truly frightening human being.

  ‘The local guys are dealing with you, McMartin.’ She used the surname as part of the wind-up. ‘I’m dealing with something more serious. Some girls murdered and a missing policeman, but you wouldn’t know anything about that?’

  The Bitch tried uttering some other expletive-ridden abuse, but this time the lack of front teeth made it completely unintelligible. She was losing it – she just hated any pig in plain clothes. To make it worse for her the visitor was a good-looking female specimen, which was like rubbing sandpaper across her already stretched nerves. If she was fighting fit she would have already had Macallan by the throat, but when she tried to get out of the bed her broken ribs reminded her of her limitations. Cue Ball had done a professional job on her.

  ‘It’s alright, McMartin, I’m going. Just wanted to see why they call you The Bitch. And now I know.’ She took two steps towards the bed and decided to risk a spit job.

  ‘I just want you to know that if you have anything to do with the cases I’m looking at I’ll make it my business to see you away for a long time.’ Macallan saw she was grinding the woman’s nerve ends as she looked round then lowered her voice to make sure no one else heard. ‘You make me sick to my stomach, and if they ever find the man who rearranged your face I’ll shake him by the fucking hand. Trust me; I’ll be watching you from now till I come to lift you.’

  The McMartin temper was legendary in Glasgow gangland and Big Brenda rose beautifully to the bait as Macallan stepped back to the door and smiled broadly. No one dared speak to a McMartin like that and she lost it completely. She tried to rise out of bed with the intention of strangling Macallan, but the searing pain lacerating her chest injuries took her breath away and she rolled out of the bed, hitting the floor like a ton of bricks. She lay face down, moaning for help, and Macallan changed her smile to a look of concern as she called the nurses.

  ‘I don’t know what happened but she got upset and landed on the floor. It must be the stress of it all.’

  The staff nurse nodded then winked and whispered ‘nice one’ on the way past.

  Like McGovern’s treatment of Swan’s balls, the visit hadn’t really achieved anything, but it had made Macallan and most of the nursing staff feel a bit better.

  23

  Macallan walked out of the hospital entrance and sucked in the cooling early-evening air. Every corner of the access area held a patient or visitor inhaling the tobacco fumes that had landed half of them there in the first place. She headed across the car park as a twin-prop aeroplane moaned across the sky above her and she wondered where it was heading. It could have been the Belfast connection.

  A wave of tiredness washed over and through her, and she just wanted to get back to the flat, em
pty or not, then sink into a hot bath with something to drink on the side. The months away from the job meant she wasn’t match fit. It was just a question of getting back into the grind, trying to stay alert enough so that she didn’t miss the clues when they were staring back at her.

  The streets were quiet enough and she turned on some forgettable music to distract her mind from the images of those young women and what had been done to them on the Brighter Dawn. She wanted to see the boat and treat it the same as any other crime scene. It was good that McGovern had realised its potential importance at the time and ensured it had been secured and kept under guard since it was seized in Eyemouth. They were getting the usual hassle from the uniformed commanders because men and women were being tied up keeping watch on Richter and the boat round the clock, but that was par for the course and a friendly ‘fuck off and chase some motorists’ usually did the trick.

  Macallan pulled up near Leith Police Station, switched off the ignition and thankfully put an end to a song by Peter Andre. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the rest, just wanting to stay there for a while, and fell asleep almost immediately. She woke again after only about three minutes, the ringtone on her phone pulling her out of a warm darkness. It took her a few seconds to fumble through her pockets for the mobile and felt that ridiculous moment of panic that she might actually miss a call.

  ‘How’s it going? Have you solved it yet and put Big Brenda where she belongs?’ Macallan would probably have been pissed off to hear the wind-up from any other reporter, but Jacquie Bell was a friend and that strange breed of hack she could trust.

  ‘How do you know about Brenda? And you know I can’t comment about ongoing investigations.’ She wasn’t surprised that Bell had picked up some of the story: she’d cultivated sources all through the force and the judiciary and had a few politicians eating out of her hand. What really set her apart was that the bigger the beast the more determined she was to pull them down, especially if they held an office of trust.

  ‘You know I’m all-seeing in these matters, Grace, and a relentless pursuer of the truth. Fancy some French red? Got this really expensive stuff from a very old judge who fancies me something rotten.’

  ‘Actually I’m knackered – heard too much bad stuff today. Anyone else and I’d have said Foxtrot Oscar, but it would be good to catch up. Jack and the wean won’t be coming till later in the week so it’s just me in the big flat with the forces of darkness closing in. Half an hour, but let’s meet in a bar; I could do with some background noise and Edinburgh bar prices to distract me from the job.’

  ‘Right, see you in the Ship on the Shore and we can share a plate of seafood at the same time. It’s only ten minutes’ walk from the station.’

  They met in the old bar next to the dark waters of Leith and hugged like people who’d really missed each other. Bell saw the troubled look in Macallan’s eyes but decided not to ask. There had to be a good reason given what had been leaked to her so far. The pub oozed warm atmosphere from every corner and it was as if it was welcoming them in. At one time The Shore had been a roughhouse inhabited by only the brave or demented, but now it was a row of beautifully restored old dens that fed and watered the tourists or citizens who could afford the prices. They ordered up a plate of seafood that would have been too much for an average family and washed it down with some decent beer.

  ‘This is on me. I’ve hit a few good stories recently and can afford to splash it.’

  ‘No way. You know the deal – Leveson and all that. We split it just to make me happy. Don’t want the rubber heels taking me away in a dawn raid.’

  ‘Jesus, is there no way to corrupt you? I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried.’ She was harking back to the night they’d slept together and smirked at Macallan’s slight moment of discomfort. It had been a troubled time for Macallan. She’d never been able to explain why it had happened and it still puzzled her. It didn’t bother Bell in the least, and she loved to press Macallan’s Presbyterian buttons whenever she had the chance. Jacquie Bell would have been the first to describe herself as a bit on the hard and cynical side of the female population, but for Macallan she made an exception. She just liked her company – the honesty and combination of strength and vulnerability that made her so engaging. The reporter only heard from other people about Grace Macallan the detective, driven and almost impossible to pull away from a case that she believed could be solved. But she liked the Grace sitting across the table from her now, clumsily trying to crack open a crab claw and failing miserably. She pouted like a small child before she moved onto a langoustine carcass that made for easier extraction. That’s when Bell told her what she knew, which was a lot, and Macallan decided it was time to stop battling with the seafood.

  ‘How the hell do you get so much of this?’ For a moment she was annoyed with her friend, but she knew the reporter was just doing what she was paid to, and could Macallan really complain given the information she’d leaked herself in the past?

  ‘Look, a missing UC, a young woman abducted and trafficked from Eastern Europe and mixed up with some of the most horrible bastards in the country. Mix that in with the street battle in Leith and you have a huge story. I’m running out of time, Grace, but I thought I’d speak to you before I put it in front of my editor.’

  Macallan realised that Bell hadn’t mentioned the Brighter Dawn so she didn’t know it all – just enough to set the public’s imagination on fire. It was the old problem of how to handle the press, and in this case her friend, without alerting the men she wanted to put away. It had cost her dearly in the past and she wasn’t going to run off with this one on her own. ‘Look, there’s more to this than you might imagine, so give me a minute.’

  Bell nodded and threw back half a glass of her Belgian lager in one go.

  Macallan stepped out onto the street and called O’Connor. He sounded tired when he answered but his voice lifted when he heard hers. The case had already cost lives and she wanted to play it straight. The wrong decision on this one would end careers, which she didn’t want for herself and in this case O’Connor didn’t deserve it either. After all that had happened he’d supported her and she wasn’t going to betray that investment. She told him exactly what had been said, and his answer surprised her, proving something really had changed within him.

  ‘Christ, if the press get this wrong we could be in all sorts of trouble and the targets will clean up and take a holiday.’ There was a pause and she expected him to tell her to say nothing till he’d taken silk on it. ‘We shouldn’t be surprised; there was no way someone like Jacquie Bell wasn’t going to pick up a bit of this story. She’s your friend, tell her the score and if she plays ball with us we’ll feed her the inside developments as they happen. But this stays between us.’

  She thought for a moment, trying to weigh it up and shrugged to no one but herself. ‘You sure? Okay by me, but I want to know that you’re sure.’

  ‘Go ahead. Come and see me in the morning before you go to Newcastle.’

  Macallan sat down opposite the reporter again, sipped the fresh beer that Bell had got in while she’d been on the phone and proceeded to tell her what had happened on the Brighter Dawn. Even though she knew it was true, it was still hard to hear her own words and believe it could have happened.

  Bell sat back in the chair and put her hands palm down on the table as if she was trying to steady herself. ‘It’s one of those rare occasions where I haven’t a fucking clue what to say. Is there any doubt about any of this?’

  Macallan shook her head.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘The story about Ingrid is going to leak out eventually and we need to control it for the moment till we grab some people down in Newcastle. What you could do is say the police are linking the woman washed up to a trafficking ring, with a report that some Eastern European women are missing and there are concerns for their safety. Lay it on thick that they may have come to harm. We haven’t a clue who the other women a
re and probably won’t, depending on where they came from originally. They made a mistake taking Ingrid though: educated, a family who reported her missing and one tough specimen who wasn’t going to go easy. Put something in that we’re following definite leads on who the other women are and that might spook the bastards into making a mistake.’

  ‘I can maybe squeeze it in tonight if I get my arse in gear.’ Bell looked twitchy, as if she was about to get up and leave immediately, but her expression changed and she leaned forward in her seat. ‘What about the missing UC?’ she asked, still trying to get her head round the thought of the frightened young women being killed then dumped into the cold dark waters so far from home.

  ‘Leave that for the following day – we’ll drip-feed it so the taxpayers don’t go into lynch mode. These bastards know we’re on the case and during the next few days we’re going to be knocking some doors down.’

  Bell always looked like she’d just stepped out of a beauty salon, which for someone with her lifestyle was a remarkable feat, but it was as if she’d just woken up with a hangover. Her face had turned unusually pale and she looked perturbed with whatever was on her mind. Macallan thought it was time to go and get some rest, but Bell put her hand over the table and held Macallan’s lightly. ‘Wait. Quid pro quo. I never reveal sources, but this is about more than the two of us and so-called careers.’

  Macallan smiled for a moment. ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting soft. What’s happening to us? I’m a shadow of my former self and Jacquie Bell is warm and caring.’

  Bell got the piss-take and straightened up. ‘Look, just so you know that fucking creep Ricky Swan feeds me the occasional corpse and a lurid story to go with it. He’s told me about the recordings he’s got, and for a reporter it could be gold dust, but as I say, the man’s a creep and up to his eyes in the hooker business. I’ll play him along for the moment and run anything past you first if he starts to spew the stuff up. I know he must be looking for some favour from you after the incident in Leith, and he’s obviously upset some serious people.’