Falling Fast

by Neil Broadfoot

  After leaving Tomlin at about 3am, his first impulse had been to just hit the road. It would only have taken about five hours to get there at that time, the roads quiet with only the occasional long-distance lorry or car for company. But five hours there meant five hours or more back, and if his suspicions were confirmed, that was five hours he didn’t want to waste.

  He had tried to phone Susie to tell her what he had found, but her landline was permanently engaged and her mobile was diverting to her answering service. After the third failed attempt he left a cursory message asking her to phone him as soon was possible, then headed for the Tribune and his computer. He logged on, printed off everything he needed, then pulled up the internet and booked a no-frills flight. It wasn’t that cheap as he was flying the same day – the first flight he could get was 7am – but he booked it on his credit card without hesitating. He could worry about expenses later.

  After getting everything arranged and sending an e-mail to Walter explaining where he had gone, there was nothing to do but wait. Rather than head home he drove to the airport, which was only five minutes from the industrial park that the Tribune’s office’s were in, parked up in the long-stay car park and headed for the terminal. He checked in then headed for the lounge, snagging a paper on his way in a vain attempt to keep himself from watching the clock.

  Doug had never liked flying. He hated the roar of the engines on take-off, the sickening lurch in his stomach as the plane suddenly lifted at a ludicrous angle so the people at the front looked like they were on an escalator about two floors up from the people at the back. But still, there was a morbid curiosity that forced him to look out of the window as the plane took off, wondering what would happen if the engines suddenly spluttered into silence and the plane nose-dived for the ground. But today, he was willing the announcer to call his flight. He wanted, needed, to be moving, to get verification for what he now thought he knew. If he was right, it explained a lot, including why he had been beaten up outside his flat and warned off McGinty in the first place.

  Giving up on the paper with a frustrated sigh, Doug’s eyes drifted to the bar. It was only 5am, but he could get a drink, thanks to the 24-hour licensing of airport premises. You could drink when most people were curled up in their beds.

  He headed for the bar, decided against a beer and opted for coffee instead. It was hot, bitter and extravagantly overpriced, but at least the caffeine rush would keep him awake. He could try and sleep on the flight. It was a short up-and-down, but it gave him enough time to grab a nap. Somehow, he didn’t think he would.

  Susie’s number was still engaged when he tried it again, the mobile still switched off.

  At 6.10am his flight was finally called and he switched his phone off as he headed for the plane. The flight took off on time, just as cold, watery light was seeping through the dusky purple of the night sky. Doug took a window seat but for once he didn’t look out at the ground as it dropped away sickeningly. He kept his eyes straight ahead, willing the plane to get up in the air and carry him to his destination.

  • • •

  Burns’ briefing didn’t last long. He handed out copies of the police report from the fire at the Jamieson Arms to the officers, filling in the blanks with what he had managed to glean first hand after talking with the Pcs who were first on the scene.

  The most popular opinion was that, after tipping his hand by confronting Linda Buchan, Derek decided to cut his losses and run. He would have known the police would be after him, seen his description and photograph in the newspapers and on the TV. There was a theory that he was heading north or maybe across to Stranraer for the ferry to Belfast and had stopped in on the way to say a little thank you to his former employers and the town that had turned on him. Forces across the UK had been alerted to the fact McGinty could turn up on their doorsteps; descriptions of him and the vehicle he had been seen in circulated.

  Susie read over the description of the car. There was something about it that was niggling at her. A dark blue saloon, fairly upmarket. Nothing matching the description seemed to fit the missing car database for the Lothian and Borders region, so where had McGinty got it? It was possible he had bought it with the money he blackmailed out of Katherine, but Susie didn’t think he would be stupid enough to blow a large chunk of the only cash he had on a car, especially a flash one, when he had already proved he could steal one.

  Assignments were divvied up, Susie volunteering to recheck McGinty’s known associates to see if they could think of anyone he might head for. After that, she would head for the McGintys to see if they could think of anyone their son might visit. Normally, she would have just phoned them, but after all the trouble he was getting from the press Sam McGinty had taken to ignoring his phone.

  She hoped Doug could help her after his meeting last night, and that he had managed to get away unscathed. She wished she had insisted on going with him, but knew logically that he had been right. If she had tagged along, they would have got nothing. At least this way, they had a chance. All she had to do was trust him to share.

  Back at her desk, she switched her mobile back on and it beeped to tell her she had a message. It was from Doug, asking her to call him. Her answerphone told her the message had been received at 3.20am. What could he have found that he thought was important enough to call her at that time? A brief moment of panic at the thought he had been attacked again. But no, couldn’t be. If it was that, he wouldn’t have sounded so calm.

  She hit the redial button and waiting, tutting when she was diverted to Doug’s own message service. She left a brief message that she was returning his call then got back to her paperwork.

  43

  Hal sat at the kitchen table, gently bouncing Jennifer in his arms as he fed her the first bottle of the morning. His phone sat on the table, switched to speaker, waiting for the meeting to start.

  Jonathan had called him last night, begging him to take the conference call. ‘It’s Mr Buchan,’ he explained, his tone pitch-perfect worried schoolboy. ‘He’s demanded a meeting with the parliamentary party, insisted that you were part of it.’

  Hal massaged his eyes, sighed. ‘But he accepted the statement and agreed the leave of absence, Jonathan, what does he want me involved for? I got the feeling he didn’t really like me when we met.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jonathan replied, voice pleading. ‘He just insisted we get you on a conference call. So will you? Please?’

  In a stupid move for someone in PR, Hal let his conscience get the better of him and agreed. After all, if he and refused and wasn’t there, he could imagine Buchan being enough of a shit to take it out on Jonathan.

  So now he sat at his kitchen table – his daughter staring at him intently as she suckled on her bottle – waiting for the squabbling to begin.

  ‘Mr Damon, thank you for taking part in this meeting this morning,’ Fraser Duncan, the Tory whip, said. ‘We appreciate your time this morning.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Hal replied. ‘Though to be honest, Fraser, I’m not sure what I can add. I was brought on board purely to advise the party. Now that’s done. I don’t see what else I can contribute.’

  ‘Well, ah…’ Fraser began.

  ‘I’ll tell you what you can contribute, Mr Damon,’ Buchan said, the anger in his voice seeming to fill Hal’s kitchen. ‘Now that I’ve agreed to your leave of absence, you can tell us all how you intend to announce my return to work in a month’s time.’

  A month? Hal thought. Nice to see he was giving himself and his wife the time they needed to grieve. Wanker.

  ‘Ah, good morning, Mr Buchan,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to say, that’s not my job, sir. As I said, I was hired purely to advise during this difficult…’

  ‘Not your job?’ Buchan sneered. Hal thought he could hear Jonathan squirm in the background. ‘You put me in this position. I’ve agreed for the good of the party. But I will not allow you to leave me or my career adrift like this. Do I make myself clear?’

  Th
e good of the party? Hal thought. Typical politician, rewrite history to his own advantage, make himself look like the selfless public servant and Hal the big bad PR man who had heartlessly sacrificed him.

  ‘What is clear, Mr Buchan,’ Hal replied, fighting to keep his voice level as the anger spread pins and needles across the back of his head, ‘is you agreed to take a back seat at a time when media interest in you and your family would be an unnecessary intrusion. What you choose to do politically from now on is your concern. However, I think a month is a…’ Hal struggled for a polite way to put it. Failed. Fuck it. ‘…an insensitively brief period of time for you and your wife to mourn the loss of your daughter. If you want to return to work before that time, that’s a matter for you and your colleagues. Not me.’

  ‘Well?’ Buchan snapped. ‘What do you say, Fraser? Will you support me? Or are you going to go with this poo… poor judgement.’

  Hal smiled in spite of himself.

  ‘Well, ah…’ Fraser began. ‘I think it’s the party’s view that Mr Damon’s advice has been hugely helpful, and we’d be guided by him on how best to handle this, for the good of everyone concerned.’

  ‘Are you telling me,’ Buchan snarled, his voice growing cold, ‘that you are siding with this… this… man’s opinion over me? After everything I’ve done for the party?’

  Fraser sounded like an old car trying to start as he cleared his throat. ‘Now, Richard, please, we’re not saying that at all. We’re just saying…’

  ‘You’re just saying I can go fuck myself. I’ve lost my daughter, my wife has been terrorised in her own home, and now you’re telling me my own party will not support me? Well fuck you, Fraser, we’ll see what the party chiefs have to say about this.’

  ‘I can save you the time, Mr Buchan,’ Hal cut in. ‘I spoke to Edward Hobbes at Tory HQ last night, and explained the whole situation to him.’ He paused, allowing the meaning of what he had just said to sink in with Buchan. ‘And he agrees with me that, given the situation and the issues that may be raised, an extended absence would be best. What happens after that is between you, the party and your constituency.’

  ‘You little shit,’ Buchan snarled. ‘You think you’ve got all the answers, don’t you? Well, let me promise you, you haven’t heard the last of this, you…’

  ‘I sincerely hope I have,’ Hal said, voice hardening. Jennifer was getting to the end of her bottle, he didn’t want her to be sucking on air and giving herself wind. ‘Otherwise, I might have to discuss the matter in greater detail with interested parties. I wouldn’t suggest you make this situation into more of a car crash that it already is, Mr Buchan. We wouldn’t want anyone else getting caught in the headlights of bad press and knocked down by it.’

  On the other end of the line, he heard Buchan snatching in his breath, imagined him gearing up for a rant. Decided to deny him the chance.

  ‘Fraser, pass my regards to Jonathan, will you? If you need anything else, just get in touch.’ Before anyone could say anything else, he cut the line.

  He got up and walked around the room with Jenifer on his shoulder, patting her back gently to burp her. Turning the conversation over in his head. Was it grief that was driving Buchan to this? He had lost his daughter, was damned if he was going to lose his career. Hal didn’t think so. It was more likely that he was a career politician; that his work was his life and his family was an afterthought.

  Poor bastard, Hal thought, smiling as Jennifer burped loudly in his ear. He walked back to the table, switched the phone off. Decided he was having a day with Colin and Jennifer. The job could wait.

  44

  Warehouses and shopping centres passed by, eventually giving way to dense terraces of housing laid out in long, almost military lines that stretched back up the hill. The red-brick and slate-tile architecture reminded Doug of the old mining homes he had seen in Newtongrange in Midlothian, where an entire village and style of home had sprung up around a mine. He supposed it wasn’t so different here. Steel or coal, the need for homes was the same.

  The taxi driver pulled up in a narrow cobbled street that stretched like a crooked finger up a winding hill. Cars crammed every available parking space in the street on both sides, some bumped up on pavements to squeeze in to even the tightest of spaces. At the end of the terrace two houses had been knocked together and modified to create a pub called the Auckland Arms. It was trying to be a traditional community pub, but the two-for-one meal banners and sign that screamed ‘All Premiership matches LIVE on our big screen’ gave it away as another chain pub looking for authenticity.

  Doug paid for his taxi then stood for a moment looking at the house. What if it had been a wasted trip? What if there was no one home? It wasn’t as if he could take the chance and call ahead. Only one way to find out. He walked to the door, took a deep breath and rung the bell. Waited anxiously for a response, felt his stomach clench when he heard footsteps shuffle to the door.

  A bolt slid clear, then the soft clatter of a chain being fumbled away from the door. He was reminded of Sam McGinty the day he had thrown him out. The rage, the sorrow. He didn’t blame the man.

  The door opened slowly and then she was there, standing right in front of him. She had put on some weight, changed her hair and was wearing glasses, but Doug recognised her, could see the woman she had been peeking out from behind the years.

  ‘Hello, Bethany,’ he said.

  • • •

  Sam was in the kitchen making a cup of tea for Rita when the doorbell rang. He cursed softly, dropped the teabag into the pot and then made for the door, looking out of the window before he opened it. There weren’t many reporters there now, most of them had cleared out yesterday when the news broke that Derek had attacked that Buchan woman in her home.

  Despite himself, Sam wished Derek would come home, or at least try to get in touch. It was the ferocity of that hug he had given him the other night – the desperation. He knew his son had done terrible things, but he also knew he had paid for them. Now he was alone out there, being hounded like an animal. It was no excuse for terrifying a grieving woman in her home, but, for all Sam knew, all Derek was trying to do was offer his condolences to the mother of a woman he had been in love with. It was a hollow excuse, Sam knew, but it was all he had. And besides, wasn’t that what parents did, always believe in the best of their children?

  The man at the door had a baseball cap pulled tight over his head, hiding most of his face. But from his build and clothing – a tatty pair of jeans and a battered leather jacket – Sam didn’t think he was a reporter. And so what if he was? He would get the same treatment all the rest of them had.

  He swung the door open, leaving the chain on. ‘Morning. Can I help you?’

  ‘Oh, I hope so, Mr McGinty,’ the man said. When he raised his head, Sam gasped. His face was a diseased mess of bruising and cuts. Charlie smiled at Sam’s reaction, revealing the jagged, shattered remains of his teeth. He had to fight back the urge to laugh.

  ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Terrible, isn’t it, Mr McGinty? Your son is such a violent man. Now, do me a favour and let me in will you, I’m catching my death out here.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Sam whispered. ‘You’re not setting a foot in my house.’

  ‘Oh, but I am Mr McGinty, one way or another.’ Sam felt his bowels loosen as Charlie raised the gun from his inside jacket pocket, holding it tight against his body so no one behind him could see. ‘Now open the door or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off and do it myself.’

  Sam fumbled for the chain with numb fingers. His eyes darted around the hall desperately, looking for a weapon. That was a joke, what could he use against a gun? What could he do? Oh sweet Jesus, Rita was upstairs. If she saw this, along with everything else… He tried to hold the door closed, staggered back when Charlie shoved it open.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said as he stepped into the house, closed the door and raised the gun fully.

  ‘I take it your wife’s home? And don’t lie or…’
Charlie trained the gun on Sam’s head.

  Sam staggered back, eyes locked on the black void at the centre of the gun barrel. It felt as if there were an invisible finger poking out from it, stabbing him in the forehead where the bullet would enter his skull. He fought to breathe against the overwhelming weight that seemed to have landed on his chest.

  ‘Yuh…’ he coughed. His tongue felt thick and dead. ‘Yes… she’s…’

  ‘Good,’ Charlie snapped. ‘Let’s go and get her. Then you can tell me where the phone is. After all, it would be a shame if Derek missed the party.’

  45

  The name jumped out of the background reports, snapping Susie from the sleep-deprived stupor she had been lulled into by the heat of the office and boring reading matter.

  Charlie Morris.

  He and Derek had been doormen together back in the early Nineties, working some of the rougher clubs in town where drinks were usually ridiculously cheap and teeth were swept up at the end of the night along with the plastic pint glasses and used condoms. They had, according to the reports, worked together until McGinty had been jailed for attacking Bethany Miller, at which time Charlie had gone solo. The rumour was that he was now hired muscle with a select clientele, collecting bad debts or dealing with awkward problems for the right price.

  Charlie Morris, famed for making off from the scene of the crime in a high-powered car. A dark-blue seven series BMW, just like the one seen screaming away from the Buchans’ home the day Derek had paid a visit. The day Susie had seen a familiar face on the Royal Mile when she had met Buchan. A face she hadn’t placed at first because of the way it was twisted and swollen, a jigsaw of angry-looking bruises and cuts. She flipped through the file quickly, fishing a mugshot of Charlie. No doubt. It was him.