The Last Witness: A DCI Daley Thriller

by Denzil Meyrick

  ‘I know, I know. Ah, here they are now.’ Daley pointed upwards to the large red-and-white helicopter that was growing steadily bigger as it approached them.

  ‘I’m OK, sir,’ shouted DC Dunn, still shivering under the thermal blanket. ‘I don’t need to go, just get after them.’

  ‘No. You’re going to get treatment,’ Daley said, making it plain that the conversation was at an end. He thought of James Machie: why did he have that feeling in his chest, the horrible knot that normally presaged some disaster?

  MacDougall steered the craft on a bearing of thirty-five degrees until the large helicopter thudded by. He was surprised that the aircraft had not doubled back on itself in order to check them out again but he stuck to his original plan, swinging round the wheel of the cabin cruiser to head for the inlet.

  Sarah was at the back of the cabin, sitting forward with her head in her hands. ‘I suppose I’ve been stupid,’ she said, after a long silence.

  ‘If ye mean by trusting JayMac, then, aye, ye have.’ MacDougall peered into the fading light of the afternoon.

  ‘I promise you, I just wanted to find out the truth. I would never have let him harm you. He listened to me, you know.’

  MacDougall faced the young woman who, up until a few minutes ago, he had thought he knew so well. ‘Sarah, you can never control people like him, no’ if ye live tae be a hunner’ an’ fifty. I’ve known that bastard fir maist o’ my life; trust me, he’d have killed me, an’ then when he got fed up wi’ you, he wid’ve killed you an’ all.’

  Sarah made to speak, but found she had nothing to say. She suddenly felt dirty, foolish and ashamed. In her heart she knew her father was right and that, subconsciously or not, she had known it from the very beginning. The shock of finding out that the pitiless individual she had been in league with was responsible for the murder of Cisco, the brother she loved so much, was only just beginning to sink in. She realised it was something that she would be forced to wrestle with for the rest of her life.

  She looked across at the spare frame of the man piloting the vessel towards the inlet. In that split second, she knew she had made the right decision. In killing James Machie she had avenged her brother’s death.

  ‘Listen,’ said MacDougall. There was no doubt; above the low purr of the cabin cruiser’s engines, the repetitive thud of helicopter blades was unmistakable.

  41

  Daley watched as DC Dunn was hoisted onto the helicopter, which then, with a huge downdraft that sent the RIB spinning in the water, sped away.

  ‘Secure your belts,’ Newell shouted, as the inboard diesel engine burst into life. ‘We’ll head for the coordinates they gave us.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Scott. ‘I hope ma harness is a bit better than poor wee Dunn’s. I thought she wiz a goner there.’

  ‘Me too,’ Daley replied, stretching the webbing restraint over his belly. He still had the knot in his stomach, bred from some subconscious instinct that made him most uneasy. He looked at the officers from the Firearms Unit, all strapped into their seats, straight-backed and professional, then at DS Scott, who was swearing at his safety harness as he tried to find the anchor point.

  A few minutes later, with everyone strapped in and Newell happy that the vessel was still seaworthy after the trauma of Corryvreckan, they set off. Not much later, however, Newell bent down to shout in Daley’s ear: ‘I have an update from the Coastguard helicopter. One vessel, a cabin cruiser, has just been spotted heading up an inlet on the coast near Staffay. I know it pretty well, great place to spot otters.’

  ‘OK. How long will it take us to get there?’

  ‘Not long. Even though they’re in a fast boat, it’s not as fast as this, and they’ll have to slow down now they’re in shallow waters.’

  ‘Might be slower, but I bet you any fuckin’ money it’s warmer and drier,’ Scott shouted to no one in particular.

  Ignoring the irascible DS, Newell continued. ‘Strange thing is, no sign whatsoever of the small vessel – the fishing skiff. It seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘What do you think that means?’ asked Daley.

  ‘Hard to say. If they’ve abandoned one vessel to the mercy of the whirlpool, it could quite easily be at the bottom of the sea by now. My guess is they were spooked by the chopper and are trying to make an escape in the faster boat.’ Newell seemed confident in his deduction.

  ‘But surely once they go up the inlet they’re trapped?’

  ‘No, not really. This inlet is more like a mini channel. It narrows dramatically, but you can proceed along its length in a small craft and out into the open sea. Have to be careful, mind, but it’s a good short cut. Whoever is navigating seems to know what they’re doing.’

  Daley sat back in his seat as the trim of the vessel changed. They bounced across the waves, mercifully in a much more restrained manner than earlier. Despite the cold day, a bead of sweat appeared on Daley’s forehead as he battled the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

  ‘Fuck me, here we go again,’ Scott moaned, just before he retched.

  MacDougall squinted into the distance, along the length of the inlet. He was relieved to see that it was open-ended; he could see the open sea, and the purple shadow that was the island of Islay.

  ‘I think we can get through,’ said Sarah. She was sitting at the map table, studying a huge sea chart she had found rolled into a cardboard tube in the cabin. Though her working knowledge of such a document was patchy, she could figure out which figures referred to the clearance between boat and rocks.

  ‘I’m still worried aboot that fuckin’ helicopter,’ MacDougall said, shaking his head. I’m no’ sure if they didnae see us, even though we were in the lee o’ the island.’

  ‘So, what are they going to do? How do they know it’s us anyway?’

  MacDougall paused, then turned to face her. ‘Listen, you don’t know everything, darlin’.’

  Sarah looked confused.

  ‘At first I had nae idea you were behind the drugs and tobacco shit. Though I had my suspicions.’ He sighed. ‘Oor Tommy wiz helping me oot. You know he couldnae keep his trap shut’ MacDougall’s voice caught at the mention of his dead son.

  ‘Yes, I might have known. Helping you out with what, exactly?’

  ‘Listen, ye don’t get much on witness protection, I can tell you. I had tae dae somethin’.’

  ‘Were you working with the police? Oh no, you’ve been helping them investigate me.’

  ‘It wisnae just any cop, it—’ MacDougall wasn’t given time to explain, as the vessel jolted violently on a reef at the bottom of the inlet, and he was flung to the floor.

  ‘Daddy are you OK?’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ MacDougall replied, picking himself off the floor, ‘but I think that’s the boat fucked!’

  John Donald looked around the table. He was used to dominating such meetings, however, in this case, he was not in the chair; in fact, he was very low in the pecking order indeed.

  ‘Our objective is at hand, gentlemen.’ The thin man standing beside a projector screen smiled as he spoke. ‘We may have had to use, let’s say, unconventional methods, but here we are, success almost within our grasp.’

  ‘Yes, but is it though?’ questioned an older man. ‘If it were to emerge that we used one of the most dangerous men this country has ever seen as a lure to catch a true monster, then we’ve failed.’ He paused for effect. ‘The consequences for us, as an organisation, could be terminal.’

  Donald saw his opportunity. ‘May I say, according to the most recent reports, my men are well on the way to bringing resolution to this mess. Some of my best men, you know,’ he said, smiling smugly, as though he was in possession of information the others weren’t.

  ‘So you say, Donald,’ said the thin man, making Donald bridle. ‘What, though, will we do if things do go awry?’

  ‘That won’t be a problem,’ said Donald. ‘These same men will take the fall – QED.’ He sat back in his chair, savouring the murmur of approv
al around the table.

  ‘Up ahead,’ said Newell. ‘We’re just about to enter the inlet. We’ll have to slow down a bit.’ Sure enough, in thirty seconds, the boat settled its nose into the water.

  ‘Whit the fuck,’ said Scott pointing into the distance.

  A few hundred yards further on, a white cabin cruiser listed to one side, its nose already submerged.

  ‘Hold tight, gentlemen,’ said Newell, as the trim of the RIB changed again.

  Daley stared at the stricken vessel with mixed emotions. Could this be a stroke of luck, or was it a ruse, put in place to lure them into an ambush? He was on the point of telling Newell to stop when something caught his eye. In the fading light, he could see a small dinghy making its way to the beach.

  ‘Over there!’ Daley drew Newell’s attention to the craft. As Newell turned the RIB and made for the shore, Daley watched the team leader of the Firearms Unit release his harness and start removing weapons from the large metal cases that had been lashed to the deck on departure, and had thankfully remained in situ throughout the horrors of Corryvreckan.

  As the powerful vessel sped towards the beach, Daley could make out two figures struggling through the surf and onto the shingle. The dingy had been abandoned and was already drifting back into the inlet.

  ‘I’ll go in as far as I can, but you gentlemen are going to get wet,’ said Newell, eliciting a dirty look from Scott. Daley was handed a sidearm and a bulletproof vest by a firearms officer, then looked on in dismay as Scott eschewed the latter with a shake of the head.

  ‘Get that on, Brian,’ ordered Daley.

  ‘Whit, an’ sink like a fuckin’ stone before I get tae the shore? No’ likely, gaffer.’ Scott replied defiantly, just as the RIB slowed, only a few yards from the beach.

  As Daley unstrapped his harness, he squinted at the fleeing couple: a man and a woman. He presumed the woman was Sarah MacDougall, but who was her companion?

  Taking his lead from the firearms officers, Daley launched himself over the side of the vessel and into the freezing surf. It was so cold he momentarily lost his breath; however, as he staggered towards the beach, a mixture of exertion and adrenaline banished the chill. He had only one objective: to catch the couple who were already heading over the sand and onto the machair beyond.

  MacDougall ploughed through the grass, Sarah following close behind. They had heard the powerful engines of the RIB as it drew into the shore; now they listened to shouts from the officers as they splashed through the waves towards the shore.

  ‘Bastard!’ MacDougall exclaimed as he tripped over a boulder and fell onto the sand, the handgun slipping from the waistband of his trousers. As he struggled quickly to his feet, he saw Sarah grab the pistol and turn to face the pursuing police officers, her arm outstretched as she aimed the weapon at them.

  ‘No!’ MacDougall cried, reaching out to her just as two red spots flashed across her chest.

  A distorted voice roared: ‘Armed police! Stop or we will fire!’

  Daley watched as one of the police officers, still wearing a red life jacket, knelt to the ground and took aim with a short-barrelled weapon.

  ‘Sir, I need your permission to return fire,’ the unit leader shouted to the DCI, just as a shot issued from the machair and whistled over the heads of the diving police officers.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Daley roared.

  The marksman fired two shots.

  For Frank MacDougall everything went into slow motion; even the report of the handgun fired by Sarah failed to register in his hearing. He saw the orange flash from the barrel and a puff of smoke as the gun discharged. Sarah’s shoulder shot back with the recoil of the firearm.

  In the same instant he realised that the police would return fire, he leapt in front of Sarah, just in time to shield her body from two shots, which hit him squarely in the back.

  The chase was over.

  42

  Superintendent Donald zipped up the dark flight suit as he hurried across the tarmac of the remote airfield to the Chinook helicopter.

  As he strapped himself into a bench seat, alongside other similarly clad figures, he tried his best to quell the nausea in the pit of his stomach. Had he done the right thing? Could this mean the end of everything?

  He felt his stomach lurch as the powerful aircraft lifted from the ground then, nose down, began its forward momentum.

  For no reason he could fathom, he remembered the tenement flat where he had grown up; on the wrong side of the tracks in a Glasgow that no longer existed. The black stained walls, the fungus that sprouted from the shared toilet at the end of the landing, serving the needs of four families, the room he shared with his three siblings, the cracked old sink in the ‘kitchenette’ – a curtained-off nook, part of the small lounge – and even the black-and-white television his father had staggered home with from the pub at the end of the street, and around which the family had gathered to watch, for the first time in their own home, an episode of The White Heather Club. In a word: poverty.

  He realised why his subconscious had produced this vision of what he now considered hell: the ends justified the means. No matter the cost, he had left that tenement far behind.

  Donald looked across the light deck of the helicopter, his eyes resting on one of the men who sat, shoulders hunched, looking at the floor. Suddenly, as though he felt Donald’s gaze upon him, he raised his head, to reveal a gnarled face. The superintendent’s stomach lurched as he saw the cowering figure in a Glasgow alleyway all those years ago.

  The ends justify the means.

  The young woman held her father in her arms, his pallor almost luminous in the gloaming. The right side of her face was streaked with his blood.

  ‘Daddy’ It was a heartfelt plea for him to hold onto the life that was seeping into the sandy grass of the machair.

  Scott bent over his old neighbour, tears in his eyes. ‘Frankie, my man, c’mon. We’ll get help o’er here quick smart.’

  ‘Aye, right, Scooty,’ whispered MacDougall, as blood bubbled from the corners of his mouth. ‘Dae ye no’ think I’ve seen enough men die tae know when ma time’s up?’

  ‘No, no,’ Sarah wailed. ‘Please, someone do something.’

  With the last of his strength, Frank MacDougall held up his right hand and looked at Scott. ‘Listen, will ye dae me a favour.’

  ‘Anything, Frankie.’

  ‘Look efter this yin fir me, ye know whit I mean, Brian.’ He gripped Scott’s hand weakly.

  ‘Aye, of course I will,’ said Scott, forcing a smile.

  ‘Whit’s so fuckin’ funny?’ gasped MacDougall.

  ‘That’s the first time you’ve ever called me by my right fuckin’ name.’

  MacDougall tried to laugh, but pain took hold, making him wince. ‘Here. In my left pocket,’ he said, his voice barely audible. ‘Help me get it oot.’

  Scott did as he was asked and, as gently as he could, fished into MacDougall’s pocket and retrieved a slim box, about half the size of a mobile phone, with a flashing red light.

  ‘Whit the fuck? Whit’s this?’

  ‘Jack Daniels, my friend. Jack Daniels.’ MacDougall’s eyelids fluttered. His time was running out. He turned to Sarah. ‘Naebody could’ve wished for a better daughter, I mean it.’ He smiled, then his eyes rolled upwards, leaving only the whites visible, as his hand fell onto the rough grass.

  ‘Daddy.’ Sarah buried her head in the chest of the man who, whatever the rest of the world thought of him, had been her lovely father.

  On the far side of the beach, beyond a huge rock almost thirty feet high, a small boat drew into the shore, engines off, on the power of the tide alone. The passenger, dripping wet, waited until the vessel grounded in the sand, then in the gloom splashed over the side and waded heavily onto the beach, slightly weighed down by the heavy bulletproof vest he was wearing under his waterlogged jacket, which displayed two neat holes in the chest.

  Daley looked with compassion at the young woman being comfort
ed by Scott. He thought how alike Brian and the man lying dead on the beach looked: the same craggy, lived-in faces and spare yet powerful frames. Nagging doubts about his DS would not go away. He hated the feeling.

  ‘I need to ask you something, Sarah,’ said Daley, leaning down so that he could look her in the face. ‘Do you know where James Machie is?’

  She didn’t move, head still buried in Scott’s shoulder. Then slowly she raised her gaze and looked straight at the chief inspector.

  ‘I killed him,’ she said.

  ‘How? Where?’ asked Daley. ‘I’m sorry, I have to know. We’ll take an official statement later, but I need to know what took place.’ Seeing the look of admonishment on Scott’s face, he added, ‘Just briefly.’

  ‘I shot him twice and he fell into the sea. It was as simple as that.’

  ‘OK.’ Daley stood back to his full height. ‘I’m sorry I had to ask, and I’m sorry for the loss of your father.’

  Sarah stared into the distance, as the purple shade of dusk descended.

  ‘Stand down,’ Daley shouted to the armed police officers, who immediately relaxed, no longer cradling their weapons under their arms and scanning the environs for any potential threat.

  ‘Whit dae ye make of this thing?’ said Scott, handing Daley the device he had retrieved from MacDougall’s pocket.

  ‘Looks like some kind of tracking device,’ said Daley. ‘Where the fuck did he get it from?’

  ‘Aye, and who the fuck wiz trackin’ him?’ said Scott, looking at his boss doubtfully.

  ‘What did he say to you before he died?’

  ‘Och, nothin’ really.’ Scott looked down at the body of Frank MacDougall, now covered by a silver thermal blanket. ‘He got me tae take that box oot o’ his pocket, then, well, maybe he wiz delirious.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Daley.

  ‘Och, you know, the thing. I asked him aboot it and a’ he said wiz “Jack Daniels”. Aye, just that, twice, Jack fucking Daniels. Maybe a last request? Ye know fine how much he liked the bevy. I wish I’d had a wee flask o’ somethin’ on me. I’d have gied him a drop,’ Scott said, staring mournfully at the corpse on the ground, regret etched on his face.