Rennie puffed his way around the side of Foxtrot Tango Two, holding a pair of heavy black vests covered in pockets. ‘Only got stab-proof, that OK?’
‘It’ll have to be…’
‘DI McRae!’
Logan pulled one of the vests on over his suit jacket. ‘If he goes in on his own he’ll get killed. If we’re lucky. If we’re not, he’ll take Alison and Jenny with him.’
‘We’re not in the business of throwing good idiots after bad! You can’t-’
‘You! Give Rennie your MP5.’
The firearms officer pouted. ‘But then I won’t have any-’
‘Now!’
He held out his submachine gun and Rennie snatched it from his hands. ‘You’ve cleaned this, right? Better not jam.’
‘Inspector McRae, do you actually think this-’
‘What choice have we got? We go in, we grab him, and we drag him back out here before he sods everything up. We don’t engage the targets, we don’t pull any heroics — we stop Green.’ Logan looked around the side of the Transit. Green was flattening himself against the wall beside the industrial unit’s front door. ‘Oh, Christ: the moron really does think he’s on telly…’
Rennie hauled back the slide on his Heckler amp; Koch MP5. ‘Ready when you are, Guv.’
The head of CID shook his head, then turned and marched back towards his car. ‘Sergeant McIver: I want a tactical briefing, and I want it now!’
Logan ran for the abandoned industrial unit, Rennie clattering along behind him.
Chapter 51
Rennie stopped beside the open front door to the abandoned Cambertools industrial unit. ‘I still say we should shoot him in the balls, you know, by accident?’
Logan glanced back towards Foxtrot Tango Two, where the firearms team were all thumping out into the drizzle. ‘We go in on three.’
‘How did someone like Green get promoted to superintendent?’
‘Maybe they had a raffle. Two, one…’ Logan gave the nod and Rennie ducked through the open door, MP5 held at half-mast.
‘Clear.’
Logan followed him into a boxy corridor covered with graffiti. Four doors off it, all closed.
‘What do you think?’
Logan nodded towards the nearest door, raised his borrowed gun, and took up a firing stance.
Rennie tried the handle. ‘Locked.’ So was the next one, and the one after that.
Last door.
Rennie hauled open the door and charged in, bent double, Logan behind him, swinging his Glock above the constable’s back. It was the room from the video; the room in Davina Pearce’s self portrait — a graffiti-scrawled office with a single, wrought-iron bed against one wall, a low table in the middle of the room. One door on the opposite wall.
Blood made a scuffed track across the wooden floorboards.
Superintendent Green was slumped against the bed, both hands clutching his right thigh — a dark red stain spread out across his trouser leg. His Glock lay on the floor by his knee. The silly sod hadn’t even got off a single shot. ‘Oh God, oh Christ, oh fuck…’
Alison McGregor was standing, very still and silent, in front of the boarded-up window, arms by her sides. Trembling. There was someone behind her, dressed in full SOC gear and a plastic mask. He had a six-inch knife pressed to Alison’s throat, the shiny blade speckled with crimson. The other hand was wrapped in Jenny McGregor’s blonde curly hair, holding her close.
Logan inched to the side. ‘Armed police officers: drop the knife.’
The man in the SOC suit shrugged, his speech distorted by some sort of filter in the mask into an electronic pseudo-robot: ‘Now why would I do something like that?’
‘Oh God,’ Green’s voice had jumped an octave, ‘he cut me!’
Logan kept his eyes on the knife. ‘Well what the hell did you expect, charging in here like an idiot?’
‘You have to get me to a hospital!’
‘Drop — the — knife.’
‘No.’ The man in the SOC suit tilted his head to one side. ‘Here’s how it’s going to work: you’re going to take your moron and fuck off. You’re going to clear the road north. You’re going to get me a car and you’re not going to follow it. If you do that Alison and Jenny will live. If you don’t they will die.’
‘I’m bleeding…’
‘It’s over.’ Logan shifted his grip on the gun. ‘The building’s surrounded by armed police. You’re not going anywhere.’
‘Then they’re both going to die.’
‘No they’re not.’
‘Oh God, I need an ambulance…’
‘WILL YOU SHUT UP?’ Logan nodded and Rennie shuffled the other way, MP5 up to his shoulder like a sniper. ‘Now put the knife down and no one else needs to get hurt.’
‘You’re familiar with the concept of IEDs, aren’t you, Sergeant? Well, I’m wearing an improvised explosive device right now, and all it takes is one little twitch and we all end up spread across the fucking walls, ceiling, floor… You get the picture. Now be good little officers and do what you’re told.’
Sergeant: the man in the SOC suit recognized him. He’d been right, it was Peterson.
‘Can’t do that, Craig. Put the knife down.’
‘Ah…’ He stared at the floor for a moment. ‘I’m not “Craig”, my name’s Roger. And if you don’t do what I tell you, every-one’s going to die.’ He rocked the bloody knife back and forth, leaving a red line across Alison’s throat. ‘Starting with Goldilocks here.’
She bared her teeth. ‘He’s lying.’
‘Shut up.’
‘He doesn’t have a bomb.’
Craig/ROGER laughed. ‘Believe me, you can’t trust a single word she says.’
‘Shoot him. He wasn’t going to let us go, he was always going to kill us both!’
‘I really, really need an ambulance…’
‘Guv?’ Rennie shifted right another pace. ‘Got a firing solution.’
‘Come on Craig, give it up. No one has to die.’
The white SOC suit rustled. ‘You spoke to Vicious Vikki, right? She tell you the squirrel story? When she was ten, Alison here made some squirrel traps, caught about six of them in the woods behind her house. Know what she did with them?’
‘Just put the knife down and we can all walk out of here.’
‘She drowned them in a bucket. One by one. Lined the traps up so they could watch their mates dying. That’s the kind of person she is — a complete fucking psycho.’
‘He’s lying.’
‘Think that’s bad? Ask her what happened to Doddy’s parents. They hated her: who wants a gold-digging sociopath marrying their son?’
‘It was an accident!’
‘Sure it was. Come on, Sergeant, who do you think told David to torch your flat.’
Logan stared at him. ‘What?’
‘You heard.’ ROGER tilted his head to one side. ‘Now back — the fuck — up, both of you, and get me that car, or I slit her throat and we go through the whole thing again with the brat.’
He jiggled the knife again and blood seeped down Alison’s neck.
‘Aaagh…’
‘Don’t hurt my mummy!’ Jenny grabbed the hand wrapped in her hair and yanked. Then sank her teeth into ROGER’s leg.
‘Fucking bitch!’
He must have loosened his grip, because Alison twisted to the side, driving her elbow into his stomach. A grunt.
Roger slashed the knife at her, but she was out of reach. Rennie lunged forward, going for Jenny, but ROGER hauled her back — off her feet, the two of them thumping back into the boarded-up window. Now the SOC suited figure was cornered, the knife glinting in a slice of golden sunlight.
Logan pushed Alison behind him, keeping the gun pointing straight at ROGER’s face. ‘On your knees, now.’
Roger cleared his throat, then lowered the blade. ‘It was her idea. All of it. She-’
A loud boom reverberated around the room. Logan flinched. Jenny screamed. Ren
nie swore.
Red blossomed in the middle of Roger’s chest.
Chapter 52
Logan eased the gun out of Alison’s hands. ‘He was going to hurt my little girl…’
Jenny was sitting on the floor by the window, knees drawn up to her chest, bandaged feet scrabbling on the blood-slicked floorboards. Screaming.
Rennie scooped her up, backing off into the middle of the room. ROGER lay crumpled on the floor. The semi-transparent plastic of his mask darkened, speckles of red spraying out around the voice modifier with every breath. His purple-gloved fingers twitched above the hole in his chest. Blood seeped through his SOC suit. ‘Gachhhh…’
‘Rennie, get her out of here.’ Logan glanced down at Green. ‘And take that with you.’ He pulled out his phone as the constable hauled Green to his feet.
‘Mummy!’ Jenny reached out, but Rennie held on tight and carried her out through the door, Green limping and snivelling and moaning along behind him.
‘I need an ambulance here ASAP — kidnapper has gunshot wound to the chest.’
Alison McGregor raised her chin. ‘I did what any mother would’ve done to protect her baby.’
‘Fit aboot Alison and Jenny, they OK?’
‘Just get the bloody ambulance sorted!’ Logan gave him the address then hung up.
Roger twitched and spasmed. ‘Oh fuck…’ The words came out in a gurgle of red. ‘We were … going to stick the money in … in a charity fund… siphon… siphon it off…’
Logan stared at Alison. ‘You told someone to set fire to my flat?’
‘He’s lying.’ She wrapped her arms around her chest. ‘He’d say anything to save himself.’
ROGER’s left foot banged against the wooden floor, beating out a tattoo. ‘Gaaaach…’
Logan knelt beside the trembling man and eased off the plastic mask.
It wasn’t Craig Peterson.
‘Any news?’ Dr Goulding closed the door.
Logan looked over his shoulder, then back out of the window of his makeshift incident room. ‘Still in surgery.’
‘Well, look on the bright side — if he does survive, how long do you think he’ll last in prison?’
Logan just shrugged, watching the crowds outside the front of FHQ. There had to be at least five hundred people out there, all clutching their ‘WE LOVE YOU JENNY!’
‘WE NEVER GAVE UP!’ banners, or just waving their mobile phones about, as if it was some kind of rock concert. The TV people must be loving this.
‘So,’ Goulding patted him on the shoulder, ‘why aren’t you down there, enjoying all the glory and adulation? This is your moment in the sun.’
‘They found Craig Peterson.’
‘Did they now?’
‘Sitting in his Renault; hose from the exhaust in through the driver’s window. Bob said the whole car reeked of whisky. There was a text message in his phone for his mum, telling her he was sorry for letting her down. Never sent it.’
‘Hmm… Did you notice how the deaths are all about being unable to breathe? Bruce Sangster with a plastic bag over his head, Davina Pearce with a belt around her neck, Craig Peterson with the exhaust fumes? I really hope Gordon Maguire survives, it’s going to be fascinating finding out what it means to him.’ A frown. ‘I wonder if it’s a common fantasy for television producers…’
‘He was losing his business, investors waiting for him to go bankrupt so they could buy up the assets.’ Logan rested his head against the window. ‘Maguire said it was all Alison’s idea. That she came up with the whole thing.’
How could anyone be that manipulative? So completely callous and amoral that they’d mutilate their own daughter just to become a little bit more famous?
The psychologist ran the tips of his fingers across the glass. ‘I always thought there was something funny about the toes. Why amputate two little toes, when one big toe would’ve been much easier?’ He smiled. ‘Did you know some women in the US have their pinkie toes removed so they can wear expensive high heels? Looked at a certain way, what happened to Jenny isn’t so much a disfigurement as a cosmetic enhancement.’
‘How am I supposed to prove it? It’s his word against hers, if he lives. Everyone else in the gang’s dead: no witnesses, no forensics. There’s sod all to tie her to…’ He picked up the dusty blue folder he’d got Guthrie to dig out of the archives. A house fire in Kincorth six and a half years ago. Two fatalities — Doddy McGregor’s parents. ‘Maybe that’s why her house was so tidy — she knew she was going to be abducted. Didn’t want us to take crime scene photos of the place looking like a pigsty.’
The crowd on the Front Podium roared and cheered. Must be Alison McGregor making her triumphant exit from the station. Logan scowled. ‘And nine point four million’s peanuts compared to what she’s going to rake in from sponsorship, movie, and publishing deals.’
From his commandeered office, Logan watched her wave and glad-hand her way into the throng. She could’ve sneaked out the back in an unmarked car if she’d wanted to, but no: she wanted to bask in the love of her fans.
Oh — my — God! She’s here, she’s finally here. God she looks great, she’s so brave.
Beatrice Eastbrook gives herself a quick once-over. Hair: going a little frizzy with all the FUCKING drizzle, but other than that, OK. Make-up: good. Outfit: perfect. It’s the one Alison helped her pick out on what was, swear to God, the greatest day of her whole life.
Alison stands in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by microphones and cameras. ‘I just want to thank you all for never stopping believing!’
A cheer.
‘And, if it’s OK with you guys, we’re going to put the Freedom Fund to good use — setting up a charity to support the families of our brave troops. To show them that we’ll never stop believing either!’
Another cheer.
Alison’s got a couple of minders with her, big ugly blokes in black suits. They clear a path in front of her, moving really slowly so she can talk to all her fans. All the people who love her.
But not the way Beatrice loves her. No one loves Alison McGregor like she does.
She’s getting closer. It’s just like in her dreams. Beatrice has prayed every night for two whole weeks that the bastards who took Alison away from her would die horrible deaths. That’s the kind of friend she is. The kind that doesn’t give up on someone.
Here she is — so close, so close…
Beatrice elbows her way to the front. Don’t these bastards know who she is? She’s Alison’s best friend!
Alison looks right at her and smiles.
Beatrice’s heart almost stops. Right then and there. Bang. Dead. Killed with a smile.
She steps forward and wraps her arms around Alison. ‘God, I’m so glad you’re safe!’
Beatrice holds her tight. Never let go. Best friends forever. And then Alison leans forward and whispers something in her ear.
Beatrice blinks. ‘I’ve got a present for you…’
Thump, thump, thump, THUMP, THUMP — the blade’s a living thing, flashing and biting and there’s blood everywhere and people are screaming and the two big thugs in their black suits just stand there with their mouths hanging open and Beatrice keeps on going, stabbing and stabbing.
Then someone grabs her by the throat, someone else by the arm, hauling the blade from her hand. They drag her to the ground, kicking and punching as she laughs and laughs and laughs.
Chapter 53
Eleven o’clock and the hospital sounds were muted. Just that constant humming throb, as if the place was one huge machine designed to chew people up and leave nothing but pale shells behind.
Logan stood beside Helen Brown’s bed, hands behind his back, watching a woman barely older than he was crying quietly because her grandson was going into care and her daughter was going to lose both legs.
‘The doctors say she’s comfortable, and-’
‘Get out. Just…’ Helen Brown ground her fists into her eye sockets. ‘Just leave me al
one…’
‘Daren McInnes will die in prison, I promise he’ll-’
‘YOU SHOULD’VE FOUND HER SOONER! YOU SHOULD’VE FUCKING CARED!’ Her voice echoed around the small ward.
‘All right, Helen, calm down. He’s leaving.’ The big nurse squeaked to a halt on the terrazzo floor, face large and pink. She scowled at Logan. ‘Aren’t you?’
The unformed constable shook Logan’s hand. With the pointy nose and go-faster cheekbones, he looked like a shaved whippet. ‘I know it’s all fucked up and that, sir, but I wanted to tell you: you did a great job.’
Then why did he feel like shit? ‘Mr Webster in?’
‘Shuggie? Aye, he’s not going nowhere till they sort out his hand. Hate to think how much these skin grafts are costing, like he ever paid taxes in his life.’ Constable Whippet shifted his feet. ‘Here, sir, if you’re stopping for a bit, any chance I can nip off for a piss?’
‘Sure.’ Logan stepped into the room and closed the door.
Shuggie was sitting in the chair beside his bed. The bruising hadn’t gone down much, if anything it looked worse — the blues and purples evolving into sickening greens and yellows. His right hand was encased in some sort of cage, probably keeping pressure off the raw meat and bare bones inside.
Logan cleared his throat. ‘How are you feeling?’
Shuggie looked up, then squealed, shrinking back into his chair. ‘I didn’t say anything! I didn’t, I swear to God…’ He held the cage against his chest.
So that was the kind of person Logan was now: the kind people were terrified of.
‘I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. For everything.’ Shuggie kept his eyes on the cage around his hand. ‘I promise I won’t say anything…’
‘Yes, well…’ The nurse curled her top lip, exposing off-white teeth. ‘Don’t worry — she’ll pull through. Bastards like her always do. It’s the good ones who die young.’
On the other side of the glass, Beatrice Eastbrook lay in a private room, hooked up to a bank of monitors. Her head was wrapped in bandages, the few patches of visible skin bruised and scabbed.
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