“Sergeant Murray!” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice like that, but it got her attention as I surged upwards. She stepped back, a limping lurch, eyes wide as she saw my mask slip. Rage, pure icy rage, boiling up and spilling over and I was so close to losing my shit right then that I couldn’t even speak. If she’d trained herself better, been of more use here today…
No, I had to derail that train of thought immediately; that was unfair. She was better than most of the cops Con had worked with, and even the best of them were nothing like us. I took a few deep breaths, another five seconds wasted, slamming the lid back onto that mess.
“Inspector Keane is conscious but injured, and I’m the only one here who can climb down to see to him, so please stop wasting my time.” I think the way I’d switched off again so suddenly might have been more of a giveaway than I liked but, to be honest, I couldn’t scrape up the energy to care. “Get yourself back to the others. Sit tight and do what you can for those cuts. Use Ferguson’s phone to call McKinnon. Can you manage to do all that?”
A mute, nod and she was crying now, helplessly, silently. I couldn’t let that touch me, not now, she’d have to pull herself together as best she could. I raced back to the clifftop, glanced down to map my starting holds, and lowered myself over the edge.
Conall had made his descent faster than I made mine, but not by much. He eyed me disapprovingly as I dropped the last few feet and went to check him over. “Fuck’s sake Shay! Do you always have to go mental when I take a bit of a tumble? Look what you’ve done to your hands racing down like a nutjob!” I gave him the silent treatment until I’d finished checking him over.
“The light’s going fast now,” I said reasonably, once I was satisfied that he wasn’t going to die on me and I’d stopped shaking and could trust my voice again. “I didn’t fancy doing it in the dark. You have three broken fingers and maybe a cracked rib or two. That gash is going to need quite a lot of stitches as well. Oh, and your left boot is totally shredded.” Still, it could have been far worse. He’d be good as new in a few weeks. “Want to wait, or shall I pop that arm back in for you now before the muscles tighten up?” He pulled an entirely understandable face, weighing his options. Unlike many medical ‘professionals,’ I never messed this little procedure up with a bungled first attempt. Besides, Conall didn’t like sedatives any more than I did.
“Just do it.” He decided, sensibly. I shoved my wallet at him, and he opened his mouth to clamp his teeth around it. I’d have preferred to sit him up, but I could manage well enough like this. I pulled the arm down forcefully and used my free hand to massage the spasming muscles until they were nicely relaxed again. Good enough. The right amount of pressure, at the right angle, and the ball popped back into its cup as easily as you please. Conall made a noise and spat my wallet out. I pocketed it wordlessly. He lifted the arm a couple of inches, testing it, and let out a relieved breath. “Better, thanks.”
“Just rest it properly this time, Con.” Yeah, that would make a nice change. I whipped my jacket off and dropped it over him, pressing it into his left side with both hands. It was a nasty long gash, not that deep but still bleeding steadily. “Boots off?”
“Leave them, my ankles are fine, they’re not going to start swelling up or anything.”
“And the toes?” Thought so, his face gave him away. He knew he’d broken at least one of them. Well, our airlift shouldn’t be long now. He didn’t bother asking if the ‘good guys’ were all okay up there; I’d have already told him if something else had gone wrong. Now that his arm had stopped screaming at him, the other injuries were starting to hit him hard by the looks of things. “You did pretty well with that ‘controlled’ descent, considering your initial error.” I allowed, moving my hands along to the next section and pressing down again. He snorted.
“Piss off, Shay! When you can rationalise a thought fast enough to go against instinct at a fraction of a second’s notice, I’ll take the criticism. Even you’re not that quick.” But he knew I hadn’t been referring to his shoulder. We both knew what I’d get like if he’d died here today; Uncle Danny wouldn’t lift a finger to stop me either. He’d be cheering me on, Old Testament style, which led to the next thought.
“Wait ‘til you’re all patched up before we call your da?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Better to have all the facts ready to hand.” Uncle Danny would expect a full and accurate inventory of the damage. Anything less would just piss him off, and then he’d rag us mercilessly for days. The twilight was deepening rapidly around us. “Can I borrow your phone?” Conall asked. “I should let McKinnon know we have Gary and Jessica secured.”
“Your Caitlin’s doing that,” I told him. “She’ll need a few stitches herself, but neither cut looked deep.” She’d handled herself pretty well, I could admit that now. Nobody’s at their best when they’ve just got loose after such a lengthy period in restraints, especially if they had no experience of compensating for that kind of problem.
“How’s Jimmy Crawford?” my cousin wanted to know, looking and sounding insultingly worried.
“No serious injuries,” I told him huffily, lifting the edge of my jacket for a quick look. The bleeding was slowing nicely, Conall had always clotted well. I put it back and pressed down again. “He’s in much better shape than any of your three.” Two dead and the third probably wishing he was, if Daryl had even come round yet. Messy, even by my cousin’s standards.
“That’s good.” Looking a little relieved, like I was the one with control issues? He ignored my outraged glare too.
The helicopters made their appearance soon after that and ours, the first to arrive and load up, whisked us both off to Raigmore Hospital before disappearing into the night again so that the next one could land. I snarled warningly as my allotted handlers tried to detach me from Conall’s stretcher, and they let me be. Just as well really, I wouldn’t have minded an excuse to lash out at someone, anyone, right then. I knew it wasn’t sensible, but sometimes, especially when I’ve had a really bad scare, I don’t particularly feel like being sensible.
If anyone made the mistake of trying to stick a calming little needle in me, they were really going to fucking regret it.
Twenty-Five
Caitlin
By the time the helipad at Raigmore was clear for my airbus to land, Conall had already been taken inside, and I still didn’t know how badly he’d been injured. I was wheeled off in my turn, happy to leave the still sleeping Gary Allen and shaken, shocked Jessica Kerr to the trained hands of the hospital staff. McKinnon had people standing by, waiting for the third chopper to bring in our two surviving suspects.
I sat quietly through the administration of local anaesthetics and the wound cleaning process, but by the time my A&E doctor had started stitching, I couldn’t trust myself to sit still any longer.
“Can I get an update on Inspector Keane’s condition? Please?” I’d been told that he was in a stable condition, so all I knew was that they expected him to live. Not at all reassuring. He could have broken his neck, or his spine, for all I knew. She paused for long enough to give the assisting nurse a nod, and he ducked out.
“Good, clean cuts these, Sergeant,” my doc commented as she worked on my thigh. “Lucky you moved quickly enough to avoid anything deeper. You might have been left with some permanent damage if your assailant had reached much further into the muscle tissue.”
I made a noncommittal noise. Daryl shouldn’t have been able to slash me at all, and wouldn’t have, if I’d been at the top of my game. Conall had lent hours and hours of his free time to assist me with my training. Fat lot of good I’d been to him when it really mattered though. Christ! Where and when had he learned to fight like that, move like that, as if it came as naturally as breathing? Was that what a few years in the dodgy parts of Glasgow did to you? Or had he spent a lot more time collaborating with his Mr Keane than I’d suspected? I had no idea what to make of that one. That whole automaton to total psycho then b
ack to automaton switch had been quite the eye-opener. The genuine article at last? Were all his lot hanging by such a fine thread, mentally speaking?
“There,” my doctor said, sounding pleased as she snipped off her last thread. “That shouldn’t leave more than a thin white line of a scar. Very neat.” I looked down at the colourful, swollen mess. I’d have to take her word for it. Her stitches looked like a line of little blood-sucking bugs, feasting on the cut. “The arm’s a smaller job. I don’t think we’ll need even a dozen for that.” She applied an antiseptic dressing, bandaged my thigh up neatly and started on the arm. Her nurse came back in when she was on her third stitch and gave me a reassuring, happy smile.
“Inspector Keane managed to break a few fingers and toes, as well as cracking a couple of ribs,” he told me. “His colleague did an excellent job on the dislocated shoulder at the scene of the accident, very professional. The left foot needed a few stitches, and he’s getting a lot more of those up his side where the rock ripped him up a bit. Apart from that, he’s as right as rain Sergeant.” He beamed at me as if that little litany was the best news he’d ever delivered.
“I thought he fell off a cliff?” My doctor paused again, puzzled.
“No, I gather it was more of a semi-controlled slide down. Eighty feet, most of it with only one working arm too. Pretty amazing really. Tough cookies, our police up here.” Christ! I could almost see it happening, in my head. That must have been one hell of a ride down. How Conall had managed it was beyond me. I wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“There’s a DC Walker outside, Sergeant,” the nurse told me. “With some fresh clothes for you. We’ll send her in when we’re done.”
“Great, thanks.” That was unambiguously welcome news. The ones I’d come in with were in no fit state to put back on, and I’d be damned if I was walking out of here in a hospital gown. “Has anyone let them all know we’re okay?”
My doctor made an amused little noise as she continued to work. Right, maybe ‘okay’ wasn’t the best choice of word to use. I knew what I meant.
“Chief Inspector McKinnon’s spread the word,” my nice young nurse assured me. This time, the doc let him apply the dressing, whilst she put her instruments in the autoclave and stripped off and binned her gloves. He handed me a couple of sealed packs before doing the same. “Waterproof covers, for the shower.”
“Pop back in ten days to have those outer stitches checked, Sergeant,” the doc instructed. “We’ll remove the ones in your arm then and see how the leg’s looking. Maybe a few more days for those. And if there’s any sign of infection before then, come in immediately. When was your last tetanus booster?” It took me a minute to remember.
“Just under four years ago.” A nail, as I went over a garden fence after an idiotic little runner.
“Excellent. No need to bother with another one yet then.” She came back over. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, very well done, Sergeant. If that had been my little boy out there… well, I’m sure you can imagine.”
I nodded and let them both shake my hand before they left. That left me feeling so crappy that I could barely meet Mary Walker’s eyes when she came in. She noticed, of course.
“You’d better stop that kicking yourself shit, Sarge,” she warned me. “McKinnon’s given us a second-hand account of what happened. You think any of us would have managed so well? Besides, the boss will only get upset if he catches a whiff of that from you. It’s just not on.”
An inarguable fact. The root of my problem was that furious stare, I realised, the one that ‘psycho mode’ Keane had raked me with. As if he’d wanted to flatten me then and there. Why should I let that get to me? He wasn’t the one who mattered. Conall would know I’d done my best. I straightened up a bit, and Walker dumped a bag next to me on the gurney. My emergency ‘spares’ bag from the station. We all had those. When enough people have vomited on you or made you chase them, ripping your clothes up or getting plastered in mud and filth in the process, you soon caught on.
“Thanks, Mary.” She helped me to dress, too. I could have managed, but it was a lot easier with a bit of help. Those local anaesthetics wouldn’t wear off for a while yet, and it was making some of my movements a bit awkward. I felt a lot more comfortable once I had a set of baggy old sweats and a t-shirt on. Mary bundled up my filthy, slashed clothes and my boots while I slipped into a pair of old trainers.
“Where have they put Conall?” I asked as she bent to fasten the Velcro straps for me.
“Nowhere yet, they’re still working on him. And when they’ve finished stitching, they still have all those fiddly little bones to set. McKinnon won’t let anyone in there, but he stuck his head out for long enough to tell me to take you home and sit on you all night if it looks like I need to. He doesn’t want to see your face around here before morning.” Not an order I felt inclined to argue with, all things told. I’d had a hell of a day of it.
“How are Gary Allen and Jessica Kerr doing?” I asked as she helped me up.
“The docs say Gary will be fine. They’ve put him to bed for the night to sleep it off. The Allens have been informed. Jessica’s been given a mild sedative to calm her down, and they’re keeping her in overnight. Her uncle’s on his way in too.”
I couldn’t muster the energy to ask any more questions after that. I’d get all the updates tomorrow. Walker drove me home and got me in. When I insisted I couldn’t face any food, she saw me into bed, left a glass of water on the bedside table and left me to sleep. I was out before she drove off again.
I woke up before seven, ravenously hungry and feeling disgustingly sweaty and dirty. A shower soon fixed that last. Once I was dressed, I went downstairs and remembered to dig my back up phone out and put it charging. Then I made myself a huge fry up for breakfast, bacon, eggs, haggis, sausage, the works. Walker had even locked up and posted my keys back through the letterbox for me. Apart from feeling a little sore and a little stiff, I felt in fairly good shape after I’d wolfed that lot down with a couple of rolls. Not surprising after such a long, restful sleep.
It was Saturday morning, and it was still early. Rather than bother any of the DCs, I called a taxi and took myself back to the hospital to check on Conall. No fuss about ‘visiting hours’ at the desk when I showed them my warrant card and asked where Conall was. I knew McKinnon would have made sure he got a private room. I took the lift up and found the right door without any trouble. Then I stopped to peep in through the little glass window before knocking. I didn’t want to disturb him if he was sleeping. Conall’s bed was over to the right, its head against the far wall, and he was wide awake.
I wasn’t surprised to see that Conall’s dad had already got there, Daniel would have driven straight up after getting the call. I hadn’t been expecting to see Shay Keane with them though, and certainly not looking so comfortably relaxed and happy. A second bed had been wheeled in for Daniel, and they’d shoved them together to make a large double. Conall’s dad was sitting in the middle, a younger head comfortably nestled into each of his shoulders as they all laughed at something on the laptop they’d set up on a rolling table tray in front of them. It looked like quite the cosy little family gathering.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I tapped on the glass, and three pairs of Keane eyes shifted instantly. Shay moved like a scalded cat, rolling to his feet and extending a hand to freeze whatever they’d all been watching. Daniel sent me a little wave and a ‘give us a minute’ gesture, and I caught the merest flash, on Conall’s face, of a look he sometimes got when he’d managed to trick someone into giving themselves away. I paced up and down the corridor while they all discussed, presumably, how much they should now tell me. Daniel slipped out after a few minutes.
“Conall’s just fine, Caitlin,” he assured me quickly. “A bit banged up, but he’ll bounce back soon enough. Those two always do.” He glanced over at me and registered my expression. “Let’s go and get ourselves a nice hot drink down in the cafeteria sha
ll we.”
He led me back to the lifts, filling in the awkward silence by asking me how I was feeling, and seemed pleased to hear that I was doing great, thanks. Once we were settled in a quiet corner with our steaming mugs of tea, he stared at me thoughtfully, and I found myself thinking, not for the first time, that Daniel Keane was the handsomest and most youthful-looking man over fifty I’d ever met. They had great genes, the Keanes; lucky buggers. He was a bit taller than Conall, just over six feet, and anyone seeing them together could easily guess that they were closely related, although Conall didn’t have his dad’s slightly hooked nose, or his hazel eyes. They did share the same chiselled bones, and the same hair too. Both sported remarkably similar unruly dark mops.
“Our Shay’s my brother’s boy,” he finally told me. “Conall’s only cousin.” The admission didn’t exactly surprise me, not after seeing them all together like that. “I think he’s a bit embarrassed about how he spoke to you yesterday, Caitlin.” He eyed me consideringly. “Those two are extraordinarily attached to each other, you need to know that. Cut either of them, and it would be fair to say that the other one bleeds, metaphysically speaking. They go a bit mental, really, in their different ways. It’s been like that since they were knee-high, long before…” He thought better of whatever he’d been about to say. “Well, they’ve always been uncannily close.”
He was carefully reading the expressions chasing across my face. “I imagine Shay was struggling to keep himself together, not knowing how badly Conall was hurt. Every second he wasn’t flinging himself down that cliff must have been driving him crazy.” A little shrug there, just like one of Conall’s. “He tries to bottle all his emotions up when he’s that stressed out. It mostly works, as a coping strategy.”
I sipped cautiously at my hot tea, going over it again in my mind, as I watched Daniel drink half of his down. It made sense of things.
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