‘Anything interesting, Jimmy?’ she asked.
McGovern rubbed the back of his neck. He was exhausted, but that’s what fourteen hours on a surveillance operation did to you. It was hard going, but for most of the team it was like being paid to play cops and robbers – big adrenalin rushes and highs, watching people who didn’t know you were there. So many little secrets leaked out from their unsuspecting targets, and the fear of having their other life exposed was often enough to turn someone into an informant.
He remembered his early days in surveillance and a request from the Met to follow an animal-liberation foot soldier who was on his way to Edinburgh on a scouting mission. The man had been an avowed vegan and friend of the animal kingdom, an enemy of all carnivores who was responsible for attacks on research establishments all over the UK.
McGovern smiled at the memory of watching Dr Doolittle get off the train at Waverley Station and head straight for Scotland’s favourite bakers, where he’d bought two sausage rolls. He still kept one of the surveillance photographs of the sanctimonious bastard munching his way through the remains of one of his porky friends. Sometime later the man had been pulled in and gave them nothing but snash – until his guilty pleasure had been slapped in front of him. At that point he had decided, quite wisely in the circumstances, to become an informant rather than risk the humiliation that would undoubtedly come from a leak to the press.
‘So far so good,’ said McGovern, sipping coffee that gave him an enjoyable caffeine kick, even though it was the usual office muck. That’s what tiredness could do for the palate. ‘He tends to get up late, and he kindly leaves his curtains open so we can get sightings of him from the OP in the flat opposite.’ He laid out some photographs from the previous day. ‘That’s him leaving the house and getting into his car. He looks quite like the surveillance photographs the PSNI gave us, but I’d say he’s maybe a bit thinner now.’
Macallan looked at the shots of Nelson – he was good-looking and everything she’d expected. He’d met up with the rest of his team during the day, and they’d managed to get pictures of them all. Apart from their meeting they’d done nothing unusual, but that was just how it went. Most of the time surveillance targets just lived ordinary lives and did what Joe Public did, aside from the fact that they were better off than Joe Public and didn’t pay tax.
So far the police were only drawing the outlines of the picture. Patience was the key – and moving against them at the right time. It could take weeks or months, and reputations could be destroyed in the time it took to give the wrong order – the targets spooked, hundreds of man hours down the swanny and the racket of sneering from professional enemies.
‘Okay, good work – now go and get some sleep. See you back here tonight before you go out again. Felicity, anything for Jimmy before he departs?’ Macallan nodded towards the senior analyst.
‘It’s fine so far. We’ve a pile of historic information on the various characters involved, so early days. The main thing is that the team need to report everything – even the smallest deviation from the norm might be crucial. They will be surveillance conscious so until we get the electronic devices in place we can’t be sure that they don’t know that we’re there. They must expect it at some stage.’ She pulled her glasses off the end of her nose, a habit that always made her look even more like a teacher talking to her students.
McGovern was putting his own glasses away. ‘The only unusual thing we saw was that he stopped on the Southside in Nicolson Street and went on a walkabout for ten minutes. We didn’t want to get too close, but he was clearly looking for something. He didn’t go in anywhere so maybe he couldn’t find what he was looking for.’
Young pushed her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and said she’d keep it in mind, scribbling the observation into her ever-present notepad.
Macallan stood and put her hand on McGovern’s shoulder. ‘Enough – your family await you.’
He smiled wearily and headed for the exit, wishing that he could just be transported by magic into his bed, preferably with his wife beside him, but there was no chance of that in the middle of the day. No matter – he knew he’d be asleep almost before his head hit the duck feathers.
Halfway out the door he remembered something else and turned back. ‘By the way, I had a call from the Crown Office. Bobo McCartney is going to trial and we’ve been cited as witnesses. All the rest of his intrepid gang of robbers are pleading guilty but unfortunately not our Bobo.’
‘Oh God, you’re joking! We need standing about at the High Court like a hole in the head.’
‘True. But we’re guaranteed a laugh – he’s alleging that he was fitted up and all his friends are informants. The other piece of news that’ll probably bring a tear to your eye is that the Drews are up for their appeal the same day. The word on the street, as they say in the gangster movies, is that they have a fighting chance with the appeal.’
‘Is there any good news?’
McGovern shook his head and failed to stifle a yawn. ‘Afraid not – such is the lot of the poor detective. See you later.’
Macallan let the news sink in. The trial was nonsense, but the appeal by the Drew clan was something else. They were a team of home-invasion gangsters who’d killed an ethnic Chinese couple in Glasgow. When Macallan had been the DCI in Major Crime for Lothian and Borders they’d tracked the Drews down and arrested them. It had been a solid case until the discovery that their lawyer was an informant for Mick Harkins. They’d claimed the case was tainted because Harkins was on the investigation team, and if they were released there would be a shitload of problems to deal with. Not least of which was that Drew would be looking for revenge on a number of people, including his idiot brother, who’d left evidence he was supposed to have destroyed and then cracked when he was being interviewed.
There was also the problem of his lawyer, Jonathon Barclay, who’d been exposed as an informant. If Drew was released, there was no doubt that he’d be on the hunt for Barclay, although the lawyer was keeping his head down and no one was quite sure where he was.
Macallan wondered if someone else had got to him first and he was already enriching the soil somewhere. Worst of all there was the question of whether Drew would see Harkins as culpable in his downfall, Harkins being in no position to defend himself.
Macallan decided she needed to shelve the questions for the time being but that she’d have to speak to Harkins in case Drew did walk from the appeal hearing.
‘All I need,’ she sighed, deciding she was going to have a long drink when she got back to the flat – and make a call to Jack Fraser to arrange a weekend as soon as.
Young gave her a sympathetic smile and followed McGovern out, leaving Macallan to stare out of her window at the rain-filled skies that had been on the edge of drenching Edinburgh all day. So far the clouds had just teased them, but it was coming – the air felt heavy and damp – and it only added to her apprehension.
Too many things had the potential to go wrong this time. The targets were hard men, she had problems trusting her deputy and for some reason the chief super was right on her case. O’Connor was keeping his powder dry, but she was smart enough to know that there was an unofficial communication channel running between him and Thompson.
‘Jesus, you seem to piss off an awful lot of people,’ she said quietly to her reflection in the window.
Christmas was coming, and she wondered what that would bring. Alone and staring at the rubbish on the box with a glass of something? If all went well on her next trip to Belfast maybe she would be with Jack . . . but then again, he might have an arrangement with his family.
By 9 p.m. she was pretty well shattered and had seen McGovern back out on the plot, as surveillance operations were known by the troops.
She opened the back door to head home and the rain beat down on her like some religious punishment. She punched a number into her phone and waited on a fast black to take her home. All Macallan wanted at that moment was to
be dry, warm and in bed.
19
Eddie Fleming sat down beside his mother’s bed, searing emotions churning his gut with a toxic mixture that he fought to control. She looked more peaceful than on his previous visit, and the doctor told him that she’d had a good night, whatever that meant. It didn’t impress him anyway.
‘It couldn’t be fuckin’ worse than the previous one, doc.’ He pushed his face close to the consultant’s as he said it, just to make sure he recognised that Eddie was pissed off – seriously pissed off.
The doctor, who’d come from the Middle East over a decade before to make a better life, shook in the face of an aggression he didn’t understand. He turned and walked away.
‘How’s it goin’, Ma?’ Eddie asked her.
Lena opened her eyes at the sound of his voice and there was a hint of a smile on her face. She put her hand on his forearm and squeezed lightly. Then the fragments of memory started to bombard her awakening mind. ‘Oh no, Eddie, please make it stop, make it stop.’ She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to push her thoughts back into the dark recesses of her memory.
‘It’s okay, Ma; I’m here. Can you remember any more about what happened?’
His mother seemed to overcome her instincts; whatever her faults, Lena possessed a tough streak – she had to as part of the Fleming clan, where gender equality hadn’t quite been taken on board. Billy Nelson had almost broken her spirit, but her fear was being interrupted by a growing sense of anger at how she’d been driven to the edge of madness and barely survived. She’d faced something that no one deserved to confront, and the rotting face of her firstborn was burned into her memory – but so much else from that night was gone. Her mind couldn’t cope with what had happened and to remember it all would have driven her completely mad. So she focused on the image of Danny and let her rage at his killers flood every vein in her body, until strength slowly began to seep back into her bones. Eddie was the one man in the family who cared about his mother and sisters, who saw women as something other than sexual objects, and he would look after her. She just had to tell him what she could.
‘Get me a drink of water, son.’ Lena felt exhausted but realised that at least she was feeling something and her will to survive had taken part control. She was damaged, had wounds that were deep and sore, and they would visit her for the rest of her life, but this wasn’t the end. ‘Where’s Pat? He’s alright, isn’t he?’
Eddie held the back of her head and helped her sip the water. ‘Pat’s fine – just out on a job. He’s trying to get the team back together. They seem to have run for cover since the old man and Danny went missing.’
The words brought it back to her and a single tear rolled across the deep lines under her eyes, but she refused to weep openly. ‘It wasn’t my imagination you know. They’re dead; I saw them in their grave.’
Eddie clenched his hands into fists. He’d hoped that his mother had imagined it all, but instinct told him there was a terrible truth here and it had to be faced.
‘Who picked you up, Ma? Who was it?’ He lost it and stood up, his face stretched into a furious darkening mask. ‘Who the fuck did this? I’ll kill them all!’ He wanted to hurt someone, but it wasn’t the right time, and he saw his mother dissolve again in the face of his rage.
Lena had already lost a son and a husband, so she would do everything in her power to make sure the twins survived. She had to try and keep control or they would run into the same trap that had taken Joe and Danny.
‘Please, Eddie – please let me explain,’ she said. ‘I can only remember parts of it. I’d had a lot to drink. Most of it’s blacked out. Please sit and let me explain.’
Eddie looked through the window into the hallways and noticed the policeman guarding his mother was doing his best to hear what was going on. He sucked in a deep breath and realised he needed to think straight or his own life might just come to a sudden and very premature end.
He sat down, nodded at the uniform outside to signal that everything was hunky-dory and took his mother’s hand again. She told him what she could, but all that was clear was the grave and the sight of the dead faces of her son and husband. She couldn’t remember being taken and had only vague flashes of being in a van. Almost everything else had been wiped from her hard drive – but not the image of dark skeletal trees against a moonlit sky.
What Eddie and Lena Fleming couldn’t know was that Billy Nelson had failed in his plan. He’d wanted to use abject terror to frighten Lena into submission and force her to back off with what was left of her family. If she’d had complete recall, in particular of the inflexible will of the men who’d taken her, she would have been wise enough to run. But Nelson had taken her too far into the darkness and hadn’t factored in this loss of memory. All he’d done was raise the stakes, and instead of subduing his enemies, he’d simply set out a challenge, meaning he was unprepared for a response.
‘Is there anything about the men? Anything at all?’
Her eyes that had seemed almost lifeless sparked, and hatred stretched her lips across her teeth. ‘I remember someone laughing at me. I was so frightened . . . What kind of men are they, Eddie?’ She pulled him close. ‘You can’t take them head-on. Not without help. Promise me.’
He was calm. Calmer than he’d been for a long time. His brother Pat would do exactly what Joe and Danny would have done and he’d end up taken out. Eddie had to think for both of them and keep his brother on a tight lead. If it was the Nelson team again they were in trouble because that lot weren’t stupid. He could back off till another day, but a better idea was slowly taking form. Use that brain that God gave you, he thought.
His mother watched as his face twitched with the swarming impulses he was dealing with.
‘You’ve got it, Ma. Nothing mental, and I’ll keep a hold of Pat.’ The rage had passed; Eddie was in control. He smiled and kissed her forehead. ‘Just get well, Ma. I’ll be in later. By the way, I’ve told the bizzies, so they’ll want to talk to you.’
‘The polis?’ That took her by surprise, and although the Flemings didn’t normally do police cooperation, she could see that they needed all the help they could get. Lena thought briefly of her one-time police lover, Charlie, and wondered if he was still in the job before she drifted off into sleep again, praying for what was left of her family.
Eddie walked away from the hospital, deep in thought. A light fall of snow had already melted on the streets of Edinburgh, but winter was gripping the city ever tighter and the east wind cut through his light clothing as he shivered in the chill. He walked as fast as he could to make his blood flow and forgot about the cold as he struggled with the options he had available. He knew what his first move was, so there wasn’t any point in hanging around.
The call was picked up and transferred straight to Baxter, who was just about to call it a day.
‘It’s Eddie Fleming. Any chance we can talk?’
Baxter was in a foul mood, which wasn’t unusual; this time it was because his wife had invited friends over and he couldn’t stand them. The truth was that he didn’t like anyone connected with his wife, and to boot, there was a European game on the box. So he didn’t feel he had to be nice to anyone.
‘Well I actually have a life and wanted to go home,’ he lied. ‘Is it going to be in my interest?’
‘I can guarantee it, Mr Baxter, but if you don’t want what I’ve got, I’ll call someone else who gives a shit.’
Baxter liked straight talking. ‘Okay, I’ll meet you at Leith cop shop as soon as you can make it.’
‘I’m on my way.’ Eddie smiled to himself; he knew he was on a hard road but what other choice did he have? It ran against the grain for him to cooperate with the police, but he wanted to press Nelson from as many sides as possible. There was no way that the Belfast team would admit anything to CID, but it was all hassle, and when he saw Baxter he’d put the other pieces of his gamble into place. If he survived he would move into his old man’s shoes. Joe had been a kin
gpin in his twenties, and there was no reason Eddie and Pat couldn’t do the same. It just needed balls and brains – and he had both.
20
Eddie sat opposite Baxter again and smiled at the detective on the other side of the desk. Baxter clearly wasn’t happy to see him.
‘If you’re here to see how the investigation’s going, we’re doing all we can but we’re still treating it as a missing-persons enquiry. All we have at the moment is your suspicion that they’ve been toasted. It’ll probably change in time to a full-blown murder investigation, but I’ll let you know. What about your old lady?’
‘I’m not sure she’ll really get over this, and the doctors aren’t sure she’ll make a full recovery. Apparently her mind can’t cope with what happened.’
Baxter looked like he wanted to be somewhere else, so Eddie decided it was time to get his full attention. ‘She can’t remember a lot but what she does remember is Danny and the old man in an uncovered grave.’ He let that sink in and watched Baxter’s face change colour.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
Baxter saw the implications and the headlines if it leaked to the press; it would create a shit storm for the force. He knew he had to get his finger out his arse because if there was a sniff that he’d dragged his heels on the case, his reputation would be lucky to stay above city-banker level.
‘I’ll try and get a statement from your mother, if she’s able, and then speak to someone up the line to see where we go with it. You’ll get action, but first of all have you any fucking ideas? Your family pump dope into the blood of half the junkies in the city so who’s favourite?’
The young man smiled again, knowing that he had just taken control and he liked that. Making the bastard jump appealed to him. He’d read Baxter’s mind and knew what the press would do with what he knew. He decided to give the screw another half turn.
Evidence of Death Page 17