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

by IAN C. P. IRVINE

  His coughing seemed to be getting out of control now, and his chest was aching from the effort.

  His throat hurt.

  Leaning back on the bed, he closed his eyes to rest.

  He'd opened his eyes again a few hours later, saw that it was dark, then closed them again.

  After another coughing fit and more blood, he had finally managed to lie back on the pillow and rest.

  He needed to sleep.

  That was last night.

  What time was it now?

  Reaching a finger up to his nose, he realised that his glasses were not there.

  Where were they?

  "Ah..." he said to himself, guessing that they had probably fallen off his nose when he fell, and were probably somewhere on the bathroom floor.

  Another wave of dizziness.

  Refusing to lie down he instead tried to stand and take a few steps forward.

  Suddenly his knees went out from underneath him, and he collapsed.

  It was a few minutes before he opened his eyes again.

  He lay on the floor of his bedroom, looking up at the ceiling.

  His thoughts were spasmodic, not completely rationale, darting from one thing to another.

  Sally. Where was she?

  Ah...

  Sadness.

  The car?

  How could the other man lie like that?

  Why?

  David had said the car would be written-off.

  Oh dear.

  Why would the man lie?

  Bastard.

  If he'd been younger, he'd have known what to do.

  He'd have gone around to see him.

  To have a chat and talk to him man-to-man.

  What could be done now?

  He had no legal insurance? He couldn't afford to take him to court to get the truth.

  Even just thinking about the situation made him feel worse.

  Jonathan was feeling very ill now. Was all this because of the stress?

  He couldn't cope with this.

  Sally would have known what to do.

  Sally...

  Forget the car. Forget the insurance. Jonathan needed to walk away from this.

  For the sake of his own health.

  He lay on the floor thinking. Worrying. Getting stressed and angry again.

  No. No. He'd couldn't walk away from this. Not yet.

  Jonathan knew that it wasn't that simple.

  Yes, he could forget the car. The insurance money. Any hope of repairs. He knew he was in no fit state to cope with the paperwork, the phone calls and the lies.

  The lies.

  Yes, the lies.

  He thought of the lies, realising that there it was.

  The crux of the matter.

  Jonathan couldn't just walk away from the lies.

  The other driver had lied through his teeth. Jonathan couldn't accept that.

  Lying was against everything Jonathan and Sally had ever stood for.

  There was never ever any excuse for it.

  Jonathan could not let this lie.

  The other man had to apologise to him. Personally. To admit liability.

  Insurance claim or not, they both knew what had happened and who was really to blame.

  Jonathan was innocent.

  And the other man was at fault.

  Why the other man was behaving like such a bastard, Jonathan did not know. Actually, Jonathan did not need to know.

  Accepting that he didn't have the strength to fight the battle with the insurance company to recover the car or chase the paperwork, Jonathan realised now that all he needed was one thing.

  The other man had to apologise to him personally.

  Admit it was his fault.

  And to say he was sorry.

  Chapter 15

  Radisson Blu Hotel

  The Royal Mile,

  Edinburgh

  Sunday 3.00 p.m.

  Tommy McNunn lay back on the bed, his hands crossed behind his head, supporting his neck slightly as he watched his companion walk naked to the bathroom.

  He admired her bottom, and the curvature of each individual buttock as they joined into each thigh beneath.

  Her body was a work of art.

  Her breasts, which he couldn't see just now as she walked away from him, but which he had just spent the past thirty minutes slowly kissing, were truly sublime.

  Soft, heavy, perfect.

  Her eyes were like sparkling diamonds.

  Blonde hair, soft to the touch, and wonderful to smell.

  As he lay back, admiring her, tired from their activities so far this afternoon, and already looking forward to some more time spent with her, and inside her, he couldn't help but feel like the cat who had got the cream.

  Except in his case, he owned the cream factory.

  It would be wrong to say that he was in love with her, for Tommy McNunn probably didn't really know what love was, but it would be fair to say that he was more in lust with this woman, than with any of the others he 'owned'.

  He called her Caroline. Not because that was her name, but because to him, she had always looked like his idea of how a Caroline should be. The name and the woman went well together.

  Tommy had first seen her in Edinburgh's Commonwealth Pool, one morning while swimming.

  She had only been seventeen then, but he didn't find that out until too late.

  It didn't change things though. She wasn't the first young damsel whose ‘maidenhead’ he had taken. Maidenheads were something that he had always enjoyed to 'collect', and probably would continue to do so for many years to come.

  However, with 'Caroline', it had been slightly different.

  There had been something special about her. They became friends. He had nurtured her, helped her, and slowly without realising it, had fallen under her spell as much as she had fallen under his.

  Caroline wasn't stupid. She had soon learned who Tommy McNunn was, but that didn't change things. If anything, it made their relationship even more special.

  She looked up to him. Soon she was coming to him for guidance, and answers to questions that he was only too willing to help her with.

  He had become her mentor. It was Tommy who had suggested and encouraged her to go to university. It was even Tommy who had paid most of her fees and subsidised her student life.

  They were never boyfriend or girlfriend. Yet, they did have sex together. Often.

  He taught her everything he knew, and in return she helped him discover everything else he didn't. In bed, she was one of the most liberated women Tommy had ever known. Which was obviously part of the attraction.

  They met regularly. Not so often that it became boring, but just enough to keep the spark there, and for him to retain control over her as she grew up and became more self-confident and independent.

  Although 'Caroline' never really noticed it, Tommy moulded her. He helped shape who she became as she transformed into a beautiful young woman.

  She left University with a good grade, an honourable 2.1, and as she picked her degree up, Tommy had watched in the background from the shadows as her mother and father had fussed over her and congratulated her, her mother shedding tears of joy and pride.

  Once she had graduated, Tommy had suggested her 'chosen' career and she had liked the idea. At first she just thought it cheeky, and wildly reckless, given who he was, but then she had decided that if she were to have to work, why not? It would be interesting.

  He had promised to help her, and he had.

  Thanks to him, she had enjoyed promotions, and success, and now her career was accelerating faster than either of them had ever dreamed.

  Tommy was proud of her. For all she had achieved. He drew strength from being with her, although for pleasurable reasons, he always left her more tired than before they met.

  He did not yet know it, but as well as a source of strength, she would also be his Achilles Heel.

  Caroline closed the door to the bathroom and Tommy rel
axed back onto the pillow.

  His phone began to ring.

  Staring at the ceiling, he put the phone to his ear without checking who the call was from.

  "Hello, is that Thomas McNunn?" a voice said, almost nervously, before the caller began to cough.

  "Yes, that's me. Who the fuck are you?"

  There was a moment's hesitation.

  "I'm the 'fucker' whose car you wrote off the other day when you rammed into my back at the lights on Willowbrae Road."

  "I thought I told you not to call me again, FUCKER!"

  "You did. But I wanted to ask you something."

  Tommy sat up in the bed, sitting back against the headboard.

  "What?"

  "I just wanted to know why you told the insurance company it was my fault? Clearly it wasn't."

  "It's your word against mine and I say it was your fault. I think people will listen to me more than they'll listen to you."

  "Why?"

  "People tend to listen to me, and do what I say, that's why. And if they don't, I make them."

  "Listen, Mr McNunn. You don't scare me. I don't know why you're insisting that the crash was my fault, but maybe you have your reasons. The thing is, I just wanted to say something to you." The man coughed a couple of times and Tommy was just about to hang up when the voice carried on. "The thing is, I don't care about what you say to the insurance company anymore. I don't have the energy to cope with them, or to fill in all their forms and spend hours on the phone each time I call them to try and sort out the mess you made. But I did want to give you the chance to admit to me, in person, that it was your fault, and to let you have the chance to do the decent thing and to apologise to me personally on the phone. Man-to-man."

  Tommy couldn't believe what he was hearing. The man was either an idiot or stupid. Or both.

  "You want me to apologise to you? Are you fucking mental, or something? Tommy McNunn never apologises to anyone, mate, and I'm not going to start breaking the habit of a lifetime with a bastard like you."

  "Please, Mr McNunn. Just say it once. Just say you're sorry. Now. Get it over and done with. A simple apology will do."

  "Stop. Listen to me you idiot. I want to make this very clear to you..."

  "Say you're sorry."

  "Fucking listen, pal... Just listen to me. This is going to be the last time...."

  "Say you're sorry."

  "You are a basket case, and you're beginning to make me very, very fucking mad. If you tell me what to do one more time, I'll..."

  "SAY YOU ARE SORRY!" the man shouted at him.

  Jumping out of bed and standing up straight Tommy took the phone away from his face and stared at the screen. Who the hell was this guy? He had balls, that was for sure!

  "I warned you, you TWAT. You stupid twat. I warned you, but now..."

  "Sorry. But. Say you. Are. Sorry."

  "FUCK!!!!!"

  "Say you're sorry!"

  "LISTEN TO ME, YOU TWAT!"

  "Are you sorry? Are you going to say it?"

  "I'll find you. I'll fucking hunt you down and bloody kill you, you..."

  "Say you're sorry. Or do you want me to make you sorry?"

  "ARE YOU THREATENING ME NOW? YOU STUPID FUCK!" McNunn was almost incandescent with rage now, and was storming around the bedroom, shouting at the phone. He wanted to hang up, but he couldn't until he had got the last word in. And the twat at the other end of the connection kept speaking over him, not giving him a chance to finish a sentence.

  "Say you're sorry."

  "YOU will be sorry."

  "I already am. That I met you. Now it's your turn to say you're sorry. Just say it. Then this goes away."

  "WHAT goes away?" Tommy caught the edge on the man's sentence. Was there something more to this?

  "This."

  "What's this?"

  "Say you're sorry!"

  "FUCK YOU!" Tommy shouted at the phone, hung up and threw the phone at the pillow on the bed.

  Caroline opened the door to the bathroom, water dripping from her body onto the floor.

  "What's happening. I could hear you shouting in the shower," she asked.

  "Nothing. NOTHING. Nothing for you to worry about."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure. Now, please, finish your shower, and come back to bed. I need to leave soon."

  "A minute, " she smiled wickedly. "Give me a minute, Tommy. I just want to put something on for you. A little surprise and something which I think you'll like."

  "Good. Great. Can't wait." He said, walking back to the bed, ignoring her and picking up his phone, and checking to see if he had the caller id of the nutter who had just called him.

  "Private number withheld."

  "Shit!" Tommy shouted again, wondering where he had put the scrap of paper with the number of the old man on it, that he’d written down after the accident. Was it on his desk somewhere?

  Just then Caroline emerged into the bedroom in black suspenders and stockings.

  "Oh,....shit!" he said, turning towards her. She looked incredible. He stared at the phone, and then back at Caroline.

  Swallowing hard and taking a long, deep breath, he dropped the phone back onto the bed, and walked slowly towards Caroline.

  She was already turning towards the wall, her legs apart, her hands resting on the wall, her bottom pushed out slightly towards him.

  "Unbelievable," he whispered to himself, shaking his head. "Bloody unbelievable..."

  And that was the last he thought about Jonathan Stuart for the rest of the afternoon.

  -------------------------

  Portobello

  Sunday Afternoon

  3.18 p.m.

  Jonathan hung up the phone.

  The conversation had not gone according to plan, but it hadn't been a disaster either.

  He had intended to call Thomas McNunn and reason with him. He'd hoped that once he had admitted that he would not pursue him via the insurance company, and that all he wanted was a private apology, that McNunn would back down, become more reasonable, and admit the truth.

  Unfortunately, it had become very clear, very soon, that McNunn was not going to reason with anyone.

  He was not going to change his story. Ever.

  Having realised this though, Jonathan had then got the measure of the man. He was the type that needed to be in control. Unless he got the chance to finish a sentence, he would slowly lose it.

  Jonathan had known that McNunn was trying to threaten him, but he had also realised that by preventing him from finishing the threat, it took away all his power.

  So instead of getting an apology, Jonathan had played with the man and it had made him feel good. Sally would be proud of him for standing up for himself.

  There was once a time, when Jonathan was younger, fitter, and stronger, when having found a man's weakness, he would have been able to use it to his advantage.

  At first, when Jonathan had hung up the phone, he had visions of doing something grand, perhaps standing up for himself against McNunn.

  He had a little money in the bank. Maybe he should hire a lawyer himself, and fight for the truth to come out in court?

  Jonathan started to cough again. He was also finding it hard to breathe.

  Why was he feeling so awful?

  Actually, he didn't feel well at all.

  Perhaps he should go back to bed and lie down.

  Yes, that was a good idea. He would lie down and make a plan, and tomorrow he would do something about it.

  Tomorrow he would start to fight back.

  As soon as he got back from the doctor's appointment up at the hospital.

  Once the doctor had helped him get better, Jonathan would make Sally proud. He would stand up for himself again, fight McNunn in court, and force him to apologize publicly.

  And to say that he was sorry.

  Chapter 16

  Portobello

  Edinburgh

  Monday 8.01 a.m.

  The loud shri
ll of the telephone cut through Jonathan's dream like a welder's blowtorch, slicing through the happiness he was experiencing and dragging him from a summer's day spent with Sally in the Highlands, to the cold reality of Monday morning.

  Choking on some blood, Jonathan quickly raised himself to a sitting position, and spat the contents of his mouth out onto his handkerchief.

  There was a lot of blood. Bright and red.

  Looking up and around him, Jonathan fought to clear his mind.

  What was that noise?

  Ah...the phone!

  Jonathan half-turned, lowered his legs over the side of the bed and tested the ground underneath to see if it was stable enough to hold him up. Recently, he could never be sure...

  Launching himself into a standing position, he let his momentum carry him forward into another half-step, paused, then repeated the process. Soon he was stumbling successfully towards the phone in the downstairs hallway.

  It took him a few minutes to reach it, but when he got there it was still ringing insistently.

  "Hello?"

  "Hello, is that Mr Stuart?"

  "Yes. It is..."

  Cough, cough...

  "Mr Stuart, hello, this is David from Swiss Insurance. I hope you don't mind me calling you so early, but I was rather worried about you. May I ask, are you okay?"

  Cough. Cough.

  "David. Thanks for calling me. I appreciate it. I'm okay..." Cough, cough. "Actually, to tell you truth, I'm not feeling great. Do you mind if I get a seat from the kitchen? I think I need to sit down."

  "Shall I call back?"

  "No, please just wait a tick..."

  David hung on at the other end, despite it taking several minutes for Mr Stuart to return to the phone, during which David received several glances from his supervisor.

  His return was heralded by a bout of coughing.

  "Mr Stuart, that cough sounds very bad. Are you going to see anyone about it?"

  "Yes, funny you should ask. I'm going to the hospital today. I'm getting it checked out. I can't remember ever feeling as ill as this, ever!"

  "Oh dear, is there anything I can do to help? Do you need me to call you a taxi to get you to the doctor, or anything?"