Shores of Death

by Peter Ritchie

  ‘I looked at all the phones we’d known about from criminal intelligence and though that was valuable it didn’t take us anywhere near the incident on the Brighter Dawn. There were calls between the Flemings, Handyside and the McMartins but all on their regular phones, and as we know they would normally use clean phones for a significant job that didn’t give us anything. They did made one mistake though – or rather Eddie Fleming made a mistake. He called Ricky Swan on what I now believe was his clean phone and Ricky passed the number to his handler as a routine piece of info.’

  It was that moment; Macallan felt her pulse pick up another twenty beats a minute at the word ‘mistake’. As an investigation it had been nothing but endless bad news and there was the one simple word that could change the whole game.

  ‘We followed the trail from that number and I’m certain we’ve identified the chain of clean phones used for the Brighter Dawn job. Of course it’s clear that they were all disposed of at some point after the UC went missing. However from that traffic I’m able to say that there was an exchange of calls between Edinburgh, Tyneside and Eyemouth on the night we’re interested in.’

  ‘What about Glasgow?’ Macallan asked.

  ‘Not that night, but the days before and after so they’re all there. It looks like they used these phones to call the meeting they had the night the UC went missing. He’d reported that he was driving the Flemings down there that night, so we can be certain of that particular fact. That’s the last point that we know the UC was in contact, or alive for that matter.’

  Macallan felt there might be a bit of an anticlimax because it gave them a picture that confirmed what they’d suspected already, but the phones were gone and so it was nothing on its own. In a chain of evidence it could help, but they needed more than that. She was about to take over when Young said there was more – much more.

  ‘There is something else. I’ve checked it several times because I really thought it was wrong.’ Macallan felt her heartbeat thumping even faster. ‘I’ve put the phone that appears at the centre of the web up on the whiteboard so you can see the pattern of calls. We can be pretty sure it’s Pete Handyside, or at the very least someone he trusts completely, and from what we’ve been told that can only be one other person – Maxi Turner. However my view is it has to be Handyside.’

  Macallan loved Young but she could be frustrating in the time it took her to get to the point. She did it every time, always forgetting that the detectives were like drowning people who just needed a lifeline.

  ‘Whoever was using that phone made one call to a number that only appears once and that was on the night of the events in Eyemouth.’ The analyst seemed reluctant to carry on and Macallan was sure she saw Young’s hand tremble as she clutched her notes too tightly.

  ‘Who was it?’ Macallan asked, intuitively knowing the analyst was unsure how to report what she’d proved.

  ‘My team have been working half the night on this, tested it and we’re as sure as we can be . . . It’s Tony Harrison.’ She looked round the faces in the room and said the name again. She paused for a moment, watching their reactions. ‘You could say they made a mistake, but they’d no reason to think that call would ever mean anything. The phone was and would have stayed clean if Fleming hadn’t called a source who passed us his number. That was the mistake on their part that led me to the Newcastle connection.’

  ‘A big thanks to them then.’ Macallan did her best not to show too much emotion, but it was difficult and the room was quiet till she broke the spell. ‘Jesus, are you absolutely sure?’ Despite Macallan knowing the answer, she wanted to buy a bit more time to gather her thoughts. Young nodded and waited for some response.

  ‘Anything else?’ Macallan asked. ‘There could be an explanation for one call. Harrison said they’ve crossed swords before. Anything to back it up?’

  ‘There is. While my team were looking at the phone calls I decided to get one of my researchers to look back at his career and see if anything looked out of place. We found it. When he was in the Met he was seconded to the Regional Crime Squad and there were a lot of integrity questions round them at the time. Mostly around corrupt payments, tipping off criminals and stealing drugs. I found a report about Handyside being arrested when he went down to meet an East End team for a cocaine deal. There were several arrests at the time and for some reason Handyside was released without charge. When I dug into it, I found that Tony Harrison was the arresting officer. There were subsequent internal investigations and it looks like Harrison left the Regional Crime Squad under a cloud but nothing could be proved against him. He did another spell in the Met and then transferred to Newcastle. On paper, an impressive career – until you look deep under the surface. He’s had quite a number of headline arrests, all competitors of Handyside when he was on the rise, but of course nothing against the man himself. One last point is that Harrison has quite a lifestyle: second home in the country and a place in Tuscany. Maybe a coincidence . . .’ Young let her words hang, put her papers down on the table and waited for Macallan.

  ‘I’ll see that bastard locked up; trust me. Okay, we need to think about this, but I can tell you now that the call from that phone would have to have come from Handyside. If you look at the forensic report we’ve been given, the cigarette ends found where the watchers’ car was spotted by Jimmy’s boys in Eyemouth have been DNA’d and we have names. One of them is Maxi Turner, who we know about, and the other is a young tearaway called Geordie Simms, who’s fairly new to Handyside’s team.’

  Macallan sat back feeling relieved and seriously angry at the same time. They’d just found an opening and what she did next would be crucial to the outcome of the investigation. She needed to think before deciding what they would do and knew she needed to let her anger subside before taking any action.

  ‘We’ll meet again after I’ve seen Swan and we’ll decide who we move against and how. There’s other crime intel in the report, and the main thing is that several sources on the periphery of the Flemings’ team report that Billy Drew was working closely with them. No one’s exactly sure what his role was, but he was there, and without jumping to conclusions he would have been capable of what happened at The Corral. But why?’

  No one had an answer so she brought the meeting to a close. She noticed a text and when she opened it up she found it was from O’Connor, saying that he’d bribed Tenant with a plum training course being run at Bramshill. It was the International Women’s Leadership Programme and would keep her out of harm’s way for five weeks. O’Connor finished the text with ‘everyone’s a winner’. Macallan nodded, though the spat with Tenant had slipped well down her list of problems given what she’d just been told.

  McGovern headed straight for the bog and threw up, retching in an attempt to relieve his discomfort. Macallan had been planning to take him with her to see Swan, but one look at him told her that wasn’t happening. ‘You have to go home,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not taking you like this. Don’t make me order you.’

  It was a rare occasion where McGovern gave in, but he had to because his legs felt like they were about to give way under him. Macallan got one of the team to run him home, guessing it had to be the curry, though she’d eaten the same and was okay . . .

  Thompson did her best not to show it but she almost grabbed Macallan when the detective asked her to come with her to see Swan, and together they drove along roads snarled with traffic, the streets awash after the storm, hoping this might be the break they needed.

  38

  The handlers were with Swan when Macallan and Thompson arrived at the small flat in Causewayside rented by one of his escorts. The girl was pure Glasgow and wanted hee-haw to do with the police, so after Swan had swallowed all the booze she had in the house she’d packed her few belongings into a bag and took off to catch the first train back to Glasgow. She’d already made up her mind that Edinburgh was going off its fucking head and life was safer back in the west.

  When Macallan walked into
the flat, Swan groaned; he’d decided at their previous meeting that she wasn’t his favourite detective. He looked a mess on his good days but the added toxins of fear and the escort’s cheap booze made him look even worse, if that were possible. Gnasher lay quietly under an old chair, looking pissed off. Macallan stroked the dog’s head and watched the poor beast’s eyes lift in a ‘get me out of here’ expression.

  ‘What the fuck are you going to do about all this shit? This is completely out of order, and remember what I still have stashed away if you don’t get the finger out.’ He was just under half-pissed and Macallan knew there was little chance of getting sense out of him, but he was their star witness so he needed to give a statement before they could do anything more with him.

  ‘How much do you know about what happened at your house last night?’ Macallan said as calmly as she could. He looked bewildered and the handler known as Arthur stepped in.

  ‘Ricky told us that Crazy Horse got him at the door of the house, forced him inside and was about to gut him, when, according to Ricky, he fought him off and escaped. Now call me an old cynic, but we’re taking that one with a bucketful of salt. He legged it and we’ve told him nothing about events after his daring escape. Right so far, Ricky?’

  They all looked at the dishevelled man in the corner for an acknowledgement.

  ‘I don’t give a rubber duck if you believe it or not but that’s what happened. Now will someone tell me what the fuck is goin’ on?’ Even through his scrambled brain Swan realised that something very serious was taking place. Two handlers plus madam God All-Fucking Mighty arriving on the scene meant things were taking a definite turn for the worse.

  ‘Tell him, Lesley. Ricky doesn’t like me so you can have the pleasure.’ Macallan sat down in a chair and waited for Swan’s reaction to the news that his home was now an infamous landmark.

  ‘I’m DCI Lesley Thompson, Ricky. We’re here to tell you that, after you got away from your home last night, someone killed Bobby McMartin on your front lawn.’ Thompson thought it was best to give the deceased his proper name in the circumstances. Swan made a small whimpering noise like a cat and Macallan enjoyed watching him suffer.

  ‘About the same time, Eddie and Pat Fleming were killed in a car parked not far from your home. It looks like they were all shot. As it stands, we don’t have anyone in custody.’ She stopped for a moment as Swan went to pieces. He tried to light up a fag but couldn’t get his hand to stop shaking, and the involuntary whimpering noises he’d been making went up a few decibels.

  ‘Someone will need to take a statement from you, but what we need to know is – did you see any of this or do you know who could have killed them?’

  Swan bolted for the kitchen but failed to reach the sink before spewing up what little was in his stomach. He collapsed to his knees and started saying ‘Oh God’ over and over again. Gnasher stayed where he was, watching the proceedings from his comfortable spot under the chair.

  Macallan stood up, went to the sink and filled what passed for a clean glass with cold water.

  ‘Here, Ricky, drink this and you’ll feel a whole lot better.’ She helped him up and back into his chair where he wiped his mouth with the dish towel from the kitchen. The spew seemed to have calmed him down, and as he sipped the water and finally managed to get a cigarette into his mouth, he looked back towards Macallan.

  ‘I’m dead if I stay here. You know that?’ It was directed at her as a question with an obvious answer.

  ‘There have been two attempts so far by the McMartins; one of them is now dead but the other is well on the way to recovery in hospital. You do the maths: you say you have nothing to give us as evidence, don’t want to be a witness – and that means if you tell us nothing the taxpayer can’t finance a protection team for you. Why would they?’

  Swan knew he was in the worst of places. Of course he had information on trafficking, because he was the fucking man who made the moves when the girls were brought into the country. He did good business with the Flemings, they dealt with Newcastle and Glasgow, so he could put a shitload of evidence on the table – but not without exposing himself. He’d been the middleman for years in Scotland, but what really worried him was that some girls had been handed over to wealthy businessmen or criminals and never seen again. If the detectives worked it all out then the only deal he would get was a couple of years off a big one inside. Inside. The word terrified him – the thought of being locked up with men of violence was his idea of hell on earth.

  ‘I don’t know anything, Superintendent; I’m just a businessman.’ He’d calmed down, understanding that his only chance of survival was to get out of the city and hope the police could take out the main men. Crazy Horse and the Flemings were dead, that was a good start, but there was that fucking nightmare down in Newcastle . . . and he didn’t want to even think about The Bitch making a recovery. The other question was: who killed the Flemings and why the fuck were they hanging around his place? Someone else was out there in the city and maybe the plan had been to kill him as well.

  ‘I’ll give a statement about Crazy Horse, that’s all. Then I’m out of it. You can’t stop me unless you intend to charge me with something.’ He wanted to see if Macallan had anything.

  ‘Not at the moment, we’re too busy picking up all the bodies. But don’t worry, we’ll get round to you eventually.’

  She had an idea and decided to play it there and then. There was no time to wait. ‘We won’t stop you going, but let us know where, so if anything happens we can get someone to you quickly. Other than that we’ll keep in touch and let you know how things are progressing.’ She’d taken a more conciliatory tone; everyone noticed it and wondered why.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got an old cottage up near Loch Melfort, south of Oban. Just use it a few times a year if I want to take a couple of girls away for a party.’ He managed one of his leers and Thompson swallowed hard, trying to erase the image from her mind. ‘I’ll go there for as long as it takes to sell up. I’m not short and maybe it’s time to live the dream in the sun, get myself out of this shithole.’

  Macallan ignored him and phoned the office, telling them to leave a message for Slade and his DS that Swan was available for interview when they were.

  She turned back to Swan. ‘That’s agreed then, Ricky. When you’re finished with the investigation team we’ll sort out a plan to get you home, pack up what you need and get you out of the city. After that we’ll rig up a system where we can keep in touch whenever we need you or vice versa. How does that sound?’

  Swan decided he was prepared to work with Macallan now she seemed to have changed her attitude. He supposed she must have been at a bad time of the month on their first meeting.

  Macallan and Thompson had another meeting to attend before they went back to the office. The post-mortem on Crazy Horse and the two Flemings was scheduled and Macallan had arranged to attend with Slade. When they parked the car she turned to her DCI.

  ‘I’m fine if you’d rather give this a miss. As long as Ronnie’s there with the SOCOs, it’s enough. I just always feel I have to go whether I like it or not.’ Knowing that Thompson had suffered a lot with her injuries, Macallan wanted to be careful with her and tried her best to sound reassuring. Some of the toughest detectives struggled at PMs and there was no shame in not wanting to be there.

  ‘No, don’t even suggest that. We know what these men did and I want to see it all so I can do my job. People have been treating me with kid gloves since the explosion; please don’t you do it as well.’ There was anger as well as frustration in her voice and expression. Macallan realised that Thompson was right to be angry and that what had happened was something the DCI would deal with herself.

  ‘I’m sorry, I do understand, and I won’t do that again. Let’s stick some Vicks up our hooters and get in there.’ She put her hand on Thompson’s arm and gave it a squeeze.

  The post-mortem was messy but unremarkable apart from the revelation that Crazy Horse had some pr
ior damage to his brain which the pathologist guessed must have come from his exploits as a battler. No one was surprised. Because of the nature of the injuries to the three men, it was a slow process and the mess that had been Pat Fleming’s head took some time to satisfy the pathologist. The end result was another non-surprise: the three of them had died from gunshot wounds at close range. Macallan looked round at Thompson a couple of times but saw nothing but resolve; if she wasn’t mistaken a real detective was taking shape in her DCI.

  As Thompson drove them back to the office, Macallan said very little, preoccupied with trying to work out the next play. They had a chance – it wasn’t going to be easy and they would need a slice of luck, but it was there if she had the nerve to play it.

  Immediately on their return to Fettes, Macallan went to O’Connor and ran the meeting with Swan and Harrison past him. She presented him with the kind of news no senior officer wants to hear, far less make a decision on. No one knew Macallan’s track record better than him and she wouldn’t settle for prevarication – she was about to make him back her or take control himself, and he knew what she was going to say before she spoke again.

  ‘I trust you to keep this to yourself at the moment – we don’t want the rubber heels sticking their oar in yet. If this is going to work you need to back me here and now. If you can’t do that then please say so. It could go wrong, but at the moment we’re losing anyway – so what the fuck?’

  O’Connor was floored by the revelation about the Newcastle detective. Corruption happened, but this was a senior detective conspiring with one of the worst criminals in the country. On top of all that, Harrison was making it look as if he was leading the hunt for the leak in his force. It was the sort of headline the police didn’t need when they were being slaughtered almost daily in the media. He stood up and paced backwards and forwards in front of the window a couple of times.