Say You're Sorry: A Gripping Crime Thriller (A DCI Campbell McKenzie Detective Conspiracy Thriller No 1)

by IAN C. P. IRVINE

  As McKenzie parked the car outside the house, and stepped out, Petrovsky himself came down the flight of stairs from the large double doors to meet them, clapping his hands together loudly and smiling broadly.

  "Da, so, eet ees nice to see you again, Inspector McKenzie." He bellowed, opening his arms out in a gesture of welcome. "Eet has been a while, has eet not? Almost two months?"

  Campbell shrugged his shoulders and was about to speak when Petrovsky turned his attention to Inspector Wessex.

  "Ah, D.C.I. Wessex. So pleasant to see you again. I think perhaps, you are most beautiful policewoman in whole of Scotland, ...not?"

  Ignoring his remarks, and refraining from acknowledging the flattery but noting the deliberate attempt to annoy them my mixing their ranks, Wessex inquired if they may be allowed into the house.

  "Certainly. Please, follow me."

  Petrovsky gestured towards the house, trying to act the perfect gentleman and as if they were truly welcome guests to his mansion.

  As they entered his humble abode, they came into a large hallway, tiled in checked black-and-white marble squares, from w

  hich a white marble staircase swept up to the second floor in a slow, graceful curve to the left.

  "Please, follow me," Petrovsky urged them, as he walked through a large double door and into one of the largest lounges that Campbell had ever seen.

  "Sit, please, and I will fetch us drinks. Vot vould you like? Vodka, tea, coffee?"

  "Nothing thank you. We're here on business, not pleasure." McKenzie replied.

  "Vot sort of business? My assistant says that you vonted to have a chat, no? Normally, a chat is friendly, but I think you are not vonting to be so friendly."

  Campbell nodded at Wessex, signifying that it was okay to sit.

  Just then, a large Alsatian bounded into the room, barking loudly and drooling saliva from the sides of his mouth.

  Petrovsky shouted at the dog coarsely, waving his arms in the air and stepping towards it abruptly, all pretence of acting like the laird of a stately home momentarily vanishing.

  When he shouted at the animal, a string of Russian came out of his mouth.

  Briefly, the dog's two large ears dropped down the side of its head, which turned slightly to the side with its large eyes looking forlornly up at its master. Then it turned on the spot and bounded out of the room as fast as it could go.

  "Apologies. A vonderful guard dog, but not the friendliest of hosts. Please do not be scared. He vill not harm you while I am here."

  "And when you are not here?"

  "He will rip your throat out. Probably. It only happened once before, and I shouldn't really tell you about that, should I?" Petrovsky said quite matter-of-factly, his blue eyes twinkling in the light of the chandelier as he took a seat opposite them. "Or, maybe, perhaps I am joking. But vot is guard dog for, if not for causing alarm and scaring away of bad people?"

  McKenzie listened and took note. Petrovsky may be joking, or perhaps he was being overconfident. Either 'vay', it would still be 'vorth' checking the files for any unsolved deaths involving suspected dog attacks.

  Petrovsky was already considered the main suspect in over twenty unsolved murders in Scotland over the past five years. None of them could be pinned on him. There was no proof to connect him conclusively to any of them. Yet, they all carried his hallmark.

  Sheer brutality. Sadism. And a lot of blood.

  If his dog had ripped the throat out of someone, McKenzie would hazard a guess that Petrovsky had watched it happening, smiling.

  "So, enough pleasantries. Now you are both comfortable, please, tell me, how can I help you?"

  McKenzie pulled out two photographs from the envelope he was carrying.

  "We wanted to ask you if you knew this man?"

  As the Russian picked up the photos, he took out a pair of round, golden spectacles from his shirt pocket and put them on.

  Squinting down his broken nose at the images, he made a funny face, the corners of his mouth turning down, and he shook his head from side to side.

  "Know? As in, is he friend of mine?" Petrovsky asked, removing the spectacles with a quick movement of his right hand and dropping them safely back into his breast pocket.

  "Have you seen him before?"

  "My memory is bad. Perhaps I have. Perhaps I have not. What is right answer I should give you?" Petrovsky sat back in his leather armchair, resting a hand on each of the armrests.

  "Can you tell us where you were last Monday night, early Tuesday morning?"

  Petrovsky smiled, and turning towards the door they had come through, he shouted, catching them both a little by surprise.

  "Anya? Come!"

  Turning back towards them, still smiling confidently, he waited in silence. Very soon there was the sound of footsteps approaching, coming down the stairs in the hallway outside the room.

  A tall, beautiful woman entered the room, most likely naked under a thin silk dressing gown which fell gently down around ample curves, the nipples of her large breasts pressing firmly against the material and protruding outwards.

  She walked very sexily over to Petrovsky, and approaching his armchair from behind, she bent towards his bald head and kissed it, before leaning forwards so her face was beside his.

  "I am sorry, my sweet. I was in the shower. I did not hear that you had guests."

  "Where was I last Monday night, darling? The Police Inspector would like to know."

  "Why, I don't know if I should say, but since you insist... You were with me, my darling. In bed. Fucking me. As you do every night."

  Petrovsky turned slightly, kissed her cheek, then raised his left hand, dismissing her.

  The woman stood up, smiled and looked seductively at Campbell, then turned slowly and exited the room, her movements smooth and fluid, reminding Campbell of a lioness.

  It had been a good show.

  Petrovsky has asserted a cast-iron alibi, and Campbell knew it would be hard to disprove. No matter what they asked him, Petrovsky would not tell them anything. He was a professional thug, confident, business-like, and deadly.

  Campbell, however, already had all the information he needed.

  Although he had tried his best to hide it, the look in Petrovsky's eyes the instant he had seen the man in the photograph, had told him what he wanted to know.

  Petrovsky knew Keith Urqhart.

  How he knew him, and if he was involved in his death, Campbell still needed to find out.

  As they drove out of the driveway and the gates closed behind him, Campbell said very little, except for one sentence.

  "I can't help but think they knew we were coming."

  Or was he just being paranoid?

  Chapter 14

  Andheri

  Near Mumbai, Maharashtra

  India

  Saturday

  6 p.m. IST

  Anand was worried. After waiting for around thirty minutes for Mr Stuart to come back to the phone, the duty manager had come across to him, and tapped him on the shoulder. A brief conversation had ensued, in which his manager had clearly instructed him to move onto the next customer.

  "If the customer doesn't call us back, that is what we want. Well done. Now move on."

  "He hasn't hung up the phone though. Perhaps the man has fallen. Or hurt himself."

  "Hang up, call him back, then if he doesn't answer, move on."

  His manager was insistent, not realising the stupidity of what he was instructing Anand to do.

  Nevertheless, he was not in a situation to argue, so he did as he was told.

  As feared and expected, when he called back, the phone in Scotland was engaged.

  Over the next few hours Anand had spoken with many people and not helped any of them.

  After every call he had tried to contact Mr Stuart back, but each time the phone was engaged.

  He had just finished his last call of the day and was due to go home to his family and cook them a meal.

  Ment
ally praying that the man in Scotland would answer the call, he dialled the number.

  The phone rang.

  Anand bit his lip, hoping for the phone to be picked up any moment.

  In the last few hours, Anand had made his mind up.

  He liked the old man. For some reason, he had really taken to him. His story was similar to that of so many others and was not anything special, but almost inexplicably there was a connection there.

  Was it just because he wanted to be able to accept the offer of the trip to see 'the Hibs' play in Edinburgh, or was it because, in order to save his own humanity, he needed to make a stand, and for once, do the right thing?

  Anand didn't know.

  All he knew was that from now on Anand was going to do everything in his power to help him.

  Henceforth, for Mr Jonathan Stuart, it was going to be nothing less than perfect service with a smile.

  A good decision.

  Unfortunately, however, no one picked up the phone.

  He tried hanging up three times, calling back and letting it ring again, but after ten minutes he knew he couldn't wait any longer.

  His family were expecting him, and he had to go home.

  Switching off his computer, he hurried out of the building, leaving behind Scotland, Hibernian Football Club, and everyone in the rest of the United Kingdom.

  Outside, he was immediately surrounded by the comparative misery and poverty of the suburbs of Maharashtra, and a dark cloud descended upon Anand.

  As he made his way home, one thought pervaded his brain: was Mr Stuart okay?

  -------------------------

  St Leonards Police Station,

  Edinburgh

  5.15 p.m. G.M.T.

  Operations Room, Basement

  It was twenty minutes into the afternoon meeting in the basement before one of the police officers announced the first major step forward in the case.

  Until then each police officer involved in Operation Queens had stood up and given a quick summary of their activity in the past twenty-four hours, none of which had resulted in anything significant.

  Further enquiries undertaken in the Queen's Park talking to regulars who walked their dogs in and around the area had drawn a blank, and there had been no reports from any students at the university halls of residence of anyone having seen anything suspicious in the Park around the time of the murder.

  It was when Detective Constable Quinn announced the results from the DNA testing of the hair found on the body, that the case got its first, well-needed shot of adrenaline.

  "The lab results just came back an hour ago. Unfortunately, the news probably isn't what we hoped for. The report says that the hair belongs to a dog, not a human."

  DI Wessex perked up.

  "I don't suppose they were able to identify what type of dog it was?" she asked loudly.

  "Actually, they have. It belongs to an Alsatian."

  Wessex looked across at Campbell McKenzie who was already thinking the same thing.

  While one of the police officers recorded this contribution in the meeting notes, McKenzie smiled and told the rest of the room, the significance of the report.

  "This morning, DI Wessex and I paid a visit to Ivor Petrovsky, to see if he had an alibi for Monday evening. Which he claims to have. However, what was significant about the visit was that at one point when we were interviewing Mr Petrovsky, his guard dog burst into the room and almost attacked us. It was a large Alsatian."

  A murmur went around the room.

  "It could be a coincidence. But it's worth checking out. Wessex, come to my office after we're finished here. Okay, who's next? Salmond?"

  A tall, very thin officer at the back of the room stood up.

  "I was enquiring into the money that was found in Urqhart's bank accounts. The bank was able to tell me where the money went, but as yet, they've not provided any details of where it came from. As for the money, it was all transferred into a pension account, one which is known to his wife. I'm hoping to find out in the next few days where the money came from in the first place."

  "Can you also get details on the pension account, and see how often Urqhart had been making payments into it? Was this a regular thing?"

  "I've done that already. Apart from another single payment into the account last year of £50,000 which his wife didn't know anything about, the rest of the payments appear to be normal, monthly payments in. Private contributions from his salary."

  "And the £50,000?"

  "No details yet. I'm on that too."

  "Good work, thanks."

  McKenzie checked his watch.

  "Okay, that's it for today then. Thank you all for the overtime and enjoy your day tomorrow. I appreciate the effort, everyone. Good work."

  McKenzie and Wessex watched the others file out, then made their way silently up the stairs into McKenzie's office.

  Campbell closed the door, turning to Wessex.

  "Don't sit down, yet... It was good thinking about the hair. Now all we need is to find out if the hair belongs to the same Alsatian. I'm guessing that you haven't changed any of your clothes since this morning?"

  "Nope. I've been here since we got back. Chance would be a fine thing."

  "Good." McKenzie smiled. "Okay, I'm going to turn around really slowly and I want you to look at my trousers and my back and see if you can see any dog hairs on me. Hopefully we can find at least one. The seats we sat on must have been covered in them. We'll need to find a few just to make sure."

  As he lifted up his arms and turned slowly around, Wessex bent down slightly and followed instructions.

  "Go around again...?" she requested after finding nothing the first time round. "Nope, sorry, I can't see anything. My turn?"

  McKenzie nodded, glancing over at the door again to make sure the blind was drawn and no one could see in. He could only imagine how odd this must look to anyone outside.

  After seeing nothing obvious on the first pass, McKenzie squatted down and moved a little closer. Studying a female's bottom from such close quarters certainly wasn't the worst job he had ever done before, but he would have a lot of explaining to do if someone burst into the room without knocking first.

  "STOP!" he almost shouted, anticipating success.

  "I think we might have something..." he said, looking up at Wessex and smiling. "Shall I?... May I?"

  Walking quickly round to his desk, he opened a drawer and pulled out one of the many small plastic bags that they often used for objects recovered at crime scenes. Then, pulling on a pair of disposable gloves, he returned to Wessex's side and used a small pair of tweezers to capture the hair on her trousers and drop it into the bag.

  "What about the car? Maybe we dropped some hairs on the car seats?" Wessex suggested, resulting in them both walking down to the car they had driven to Petrovsky's house and successfully recovering three other hairs into three separate plastic bags.

  "Hopefully," McKenzie said, as he put the bags carefully into another bag and returned to his office with Wessex, "one of these will be a match. If they are, then we need to pay Petrovsky another visit, take a sample from the dog directly, and have the dog impounded for safe-keeping. With any luck, we may have our man. Then all we need is a motive."

  DI Wessex smiled. The idea about the dog hair had been hers. With any luck, soon they would be able to make an arrest.

  -------------------------

  Portobello

  Sunday Morning

  10. a.m. G.M.T.

  Jonathan stirred, slowly opening his eyes.

  He felt so weak.

  The room above him was spinning, and as he closed his eyes again, a wave of nausea passed through him.

  He started to cough, turning over onto his side and fumbling for the handkerchief he hoped was still under his pillow, waiting to cover his mouth before he coughed more blood onto his bed or the floor.

  Cough. Cough. Cough.

  Pulling the handkerchief back, his heart sank when he s
aw the rich red blood covering the handkerchief.

  More this morning than there was last night.

  And more last night than there was yesterday afternoon.

  What was causing the sudden changes he was seeing in his body? What was happening to him? He closed his eyes and tried to relax. After lying for a while longer he started to feel a little better and tried to open his eyes again.

  Thankfully, everything had stopped moving, and the world around him seemed more stable.

  Taking an age to sit up, he sat on the side of his bed and remembered yesterday afternoon and last night.

  He recalled speaking to David in the insurance company, and getting so upset that he had to walk away to calm down, although instead of feeling better, he had just begun to feel worse. What David had said to him seemed beyond comprehension...too much to cope with. The whole business with the car was spiralling out of control. It was like a nightmare which got worse and worse every time he talked to the insurance company.

  The other driver had lied through his teeth about what had happened, and the insurance company now seemed to be taking his side!

  Why would someone lie like that?

  What sort of person would do that?

  Then, when David had waited on the phone for Jonathan to return, Jonathan started to cough again. More blood. More pains in his chest.

  Finally, the coughing had stopped.

  He then remembered feeling dizzy and light headed, then waking up on the floor in the bathroom.

  Coughing.

  Blood on the tiles under his face.

  Taking an age to first kneel up, then stand, he'd started on his way to his bedroom -he'd needed to lie down- and passing the phone he had found it still off the hook.

  He'd picked it up.

  Then he remembered..

  "David?" he'd said into the receiver, but there was no one there.

  Placing the phone back on the cradle, he walked slowly to the bedroom, leaning against the wall for support.

  When he got to his bed, he couldn't believe how tired he was.