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

by IAN C. P. IRVINE

  "Can you read that last line again?" Anand asked.

  "The first part sounds really positive. It means he wanted to apologise to you. He doesn't sound at all angry with you. But to be quite honest, the second line is underlined several times and it's written quite heavily. It looks like there was some real emotion behind it. If I was a betting man, I'd say Mr Stuart was upset with the other man, not with yourself, so I wouldn't feel bad at all. It reads, 'Even if it's the last thing I do, make the other driver say he was sorry. Make him say he was sorry!' Does that make any sense to you?"

  "Yes, actually it does. He's referring to the driver who drove into his car and wrote it off. It was his pride and joy." Anand swallowed hard, fighting back his emotion. "It was a shame he never got to see it all repaired and polished. It's sitting outside his front door now."

  "Yes, I've seen it. The garage did a good job."

  A few more words were said, niceties, but nothing of any significance. Then on behalf of Mr Stuart, the solicitor thanked Anand for his help, and hung up.

  The journey home from work was just a blur. Anand couldn't really remember how he got home.

  Despite Jonathan seemingly not being upset with him, Anand knew that the way Swiss Insurance had treated him was a major contributing factor to the heart attack. Hearing that Jonathan would have died anyway did help a little, but that then also meant that Swiss Insurance was partially to blame for ruining the precious few days that Jonathan had had left.

  It was the second line of Jonathan's note that really made him feel sick though.

  "Make him say he was sorry."

  The words went around and around in his head.

  "Make him say he was sorry. Make him say he was sorry. Make him say he was sorry ..."

  As he lay on the floor of his apartment, the squalid little shit-hole in which he and his family were now forced to try to exist, the sorrow and anger and shame he felt for his part in Jonathan's demise and ultimate death twisted and turned within him, morphing and finally crystallising into a hatred of two things:

  Firstly, Swiss Insurance, and secondly, the bastard who smashed up Jonathan's car and lied about it, blaming it all on that nice old man.

  He, Anand Mhasalkar was not squeaky clean. He was also guilty. But the more he thought about it, - the more it all sickened him, and the more he got angry, the clearer it became to him that there was a way for him to find absolution. To earn the right to forgive himself for what he had done.

  It was almost as if he could hear Jonathan telling him what he had to do; it was so clear. So very clear.

  And so very simple.

  Anand had to get the other driver, Mr Tommy McNunn, to see the error of his ways.

  To force him to apologise for the accident and the lies he had told, and....

  "Make him say he was sorry!"

  Chapter 23

  St Leonards Police Station,

  Edinburgh

  Saturday

  8.30 a.m. G.M.T.

  Operations Room, Basement

  DCI McKenzie stood up at the front of the room and immediately apologised to all those gathered so early that Saturday morning.

  "Hi, thanks for all coming in again on your weekend. I appreciate that this is the third or fourth weekend in a row that most of you have worked. I was hoping that we'd all be back to normal working hours now we've made an arrest, but late last night, there was an important development. One that couldn't wait until Monday. Hence why I got Helen to round you all up for this morning." Campbell said, nodding at DC Helen Rogers in the corner.

  "Okay," Campbell continued. "Let's kick this off. Since this is your news, Detective Burns, you can start."

  "Thank you, sir," Burns said, standing up from his desk, and coughing nervously before starting. He was not the best of public speakers. "I have a lead that could throw a little spanner in the works. I was talking to one of my informants down in Leith yesterday afternoon, and he told me that the word on the street is that Petrovsky has nothing to do with the death of Urqhart. He reports, rightly or wrongly, that one of Tommy McNunn's right hand men was heard telling others in a bar last week that McNunn had done it. He was completely off his head at the time, but he said that they'd taken Urqhart to the top of the Crags. Although the story was a bit more interesting than that. Apparently, Urqhart stepped off the cliff of his own free will. No one pushed him. One minute he was there, and the next he wasn't. The guy killed himself. And Petrovsky had nothing to do with it."

  "Did your informant know which one of McNunn's crew had said this?"

  "Yes. It was Rab McDermott, the ugly one with the broken nose."

  "They've both got broken noses. And they're both ugly bastards!" someone on the other side of the room said, and everyone else laughed.

  "Yeah, well, the really ugly one." Burns replied.

  "Okay, well, this is an important lead that we must immediately follow up. If there's any truth to be found in this, we have to nail it soon. Having Petrovsky off the streets is great, but we can't ignore any evidence that might point in another direction. Especially one that takes us straight to McNunn. Plus, don't forget, we've now linked Petrovsky to the body in the morgue in Glasgow, so hopefully we can get McNunn implicated on the Urqhart murder and keep Petrovsky in jail for the other one."

  "Although," DI Wessex pointed out, "that from what McDermott was apparently saying, there may not have been a murder at all? In which case, McNunn could walk free anyway."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. First things first, we have to get hold of McDermott as soon as we can, so that we can question him and get to the bottom of this...Yes, what is it Detective Lesley? You're waving your hand around rather excitedly back there. What you have got?"

  "Bad news, sir. Some pretty bad news. It seems that three bodies turned up in the borders last night. One of them belongs to another of Petrovsky's top men. He was found floating upside down in the Tweed, with a heavy rock tied around his neck and his hands bound behind his back, his feet just visible on the surface in the middle of the current. Then a couple of hours later, two more bodies were found in a burning car in a car park in Glentress Forest. Both shot through the head. One of them was your man Rab McDermott, the other was Grant Davidson, McNunn's other sidekick. It would seem they died several hours after Petrovsky's man was fished from the river."

  "Shit, are you sure?" Campbell asked.

  "Absolutely. They've already been ID'd. My guess is that we now have a war going on. Someone has killed two of Petrovsky's men, and then Petrovsky's men caught and killed two of McNunn's men, probably the two that just killed the latest of Petrovsky's men."

  "Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant!" McKenzie swore, smashing his hand down hard on the desk in front of him.

  "Okay, so this has obviously changed everything. DI Wessex and I will take a trip down to the Borders today and see what we can learn, and the rest of you can either go home, or since you're here now, carry on with anything else you think may be relevant to the case. Before I wrap up, has anyone else got anything to add?"

  "If Detective Lesley is right, we could be seeing the start of a gang war playing out on the streets of Edinburgh. Which means that we might be seeing more deaths. Unless we put a stop to this, it could get seriously out of hand!" One of the more senior CID officers, DS Wilson, spoke aloud, voicing the opinion of several others.

  "You're right. Which is why I intend to meet up with Tommy McNunn very soon and warn him to desist from any such behaviour. From now on, we'll be watching his every move. If needs be, I may even consider drafting in some extra help. Let's see how it goes first, though. Okay, has anyone else got anything? No? Good. Well, have a good weekend folks and I'll see you on Monday. Bright and early. Detective Lesley? A word please if I may...?"

  The meeting came to an end, and thirty minutes later, DI Wessex and DCI McKenzie were en route to Galashiels, following DC Lesley and his partner's car south on the road in front of them.

  DI Wessex drove
.

  And DCI McKenzie did his best not to look at her legs.

  There was something about her this morning.

  As they made their way down the A7, he did his best to force himself to think of Mrs McKenzie. To remember Wessex was a colleague. And to try not to dwell on the fact that she was the most attractive policewoman he had ever seen.

  Sadly, and very, very frustratingly for McKenzie, he failed on all three accounts.

  -------------------------

  Andheri

  Near Mumbai, Maharashtra

  India

  Saturday

  3 p.m. India Standard Time (IST)

  Anand was tired. His eyes hurt.

  Saturday was his day off, but he had spent the whole day glued to his computer. Thankfully the rest of his family had gone out for the day on a visit to relatives, and then on to a religious festival. Anand had managed to excuse himself and had stayed at home.

  His family were worried about him - he'd seemed so down recently, but Anand had shooed them away and told them not to worry.

  Truth be told, although it was hard work, he was enjoying himself.

  He felt like a man with a mission.

  He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and roughly how to do it. Figuring out exactly how to do it was all part of the fun.

  Most of the fun however, came from hacking into the networks of the companies and organisations which he had identified as being central to his plan.

  Previously, in his past, when Anand had hacked a network, it was mostly just a game. A challenge which he had set himself, but which had no real purpose apart from its own success.

  This was different.

  Everything he was doing now, and would continue to do over the coming weeks, possibly months, would have a distinct purpose.

  When Anand had fallen asleep last night, he'd known that his focus for the coming months would be to do everything he could to get Mr Tommy McNunn to say he was sorry. To apologise to Jonathan, an apology which Anand was planning to make public on as grand a scale as he could make possible.

  However, when Anand had woken up this morning, his subconscious had delivered to his conscious mind an idea which was so brilliant and wonderful in its simplicity that Anand had almost been astounded that he had thought of it himself.

  Actually, it was less of an idea, and more of a plan.

  A simple plan.

  And it went like this... Tommy McNunn, the bastard, the coward, had taken Jonathan Stuart's life from him. In spite of what the solicitor or the doctors may have said, Anand had come to realise that Tommy McNunn was as much to blame for Jonathan's death as was the cancer.

  So, in retribution for his evil acts, and so that Anand could obtain absolution for his part in his death, Anand was going to use his skills to slowly, step-by-step, take away Tommy McNunn's life; to remove everything he valued and everything that enabled him to exist in his world, until one day, he would not be able to take it anymore, and he would say sorry for what he had done. Publicly - on a website that Anand would create and promote to the whole world on Social Media.

  Personally, Anand hoped that McNunn would apologise later rather than sooner.

  Thus giving him the perfect motive to kill McNunn - digitally- and remove, no... expunge him - from the modern world.

  The prospect excited Anand.

  It gave him fresh direction and a reason to exist.

  A goal which he vowed to himself to see through to its completion: until McNunn was ruined.

  Rubbing his eyes, and taking another sip from his second can of coke so that the caffeine would keep him awake and alert, he focussed back on the computer screen.

  Today's work was almost done.

  The first step in his plan was almost complete.

  And if all went to plan, on Monday Tommy McNunn was going to feel the first impact from Anand's digital fist as it smashed McNunn's world and exacted a most suitable revenge for the lies he had told Swiss Insurance and to Mr Jonathan Stuart.

  Five minutes later, Anand hit return, sat back on his heels on the ground of his apartment and smiled.

  Job done.

  Now it was only a matter of time.

  Thanks to what he had just done, Tommy McNunn was going to be very sorry indeed.

  -------------------------

  Galashiels

  Scotland

  Saturday

  6. p.m. India GMT

  DCI McKenzie put down the pint of beer in front of DI Wessex and smiled as he sat on the seat beside her.

  He relaxed back into the chair, closing his eyes for a second, taking a moment to unwind, and feel the heat from the nearby log fire warm up his face.

  When he opened his eyes, Wessex was watching him. There was a smile upon her face, and her eyes twinkled in the fire-light.

  McKenzie smiled back, involuntarily. Bloody hell, she was beautiful.

  Exactly why McKenzie was so smitten with his colleague today, Campbell was not sure. Truth be told, he had long since admitted to himself that he fancied Wessex, and that he was really attracted to her. And what's more, the kiss they had shared had proved that the attraction was not purely one sided. There was a spark. Campbell was sure of it.

  Thankfully though he mostly managed to control his thoughts and always maintain a purely professional relationship between them. He was after all, one of the most senior policemen at St Leonards. He had built up a successful career, and he still had strong ambitions to go further. Playing away from home and messing around with work colleagues was strongly frowned upon by his superiors, who were all old-school, and decent people with solid values. McKenzie was also happily married. Mrs McKenzie was his rock and his best friend. Most of the time. Sometimes however in melancholy moments when alcohol was perhaps his unwitting friend, or enemy, he found his mind wandering and wondering about DI Wessex. And what it would be like.

  Although he already knew the answer to that.

  It would be bloody wonderful.

  "A penny for them?" Wessex asked, her gentle voice catching him in mid-fantasy.

  "Sorry. What did you say?" he asked.

  "What were you thinking about?" she asked.

  Campbell hesitated, tempted simply to reply, "You."

  "About the bodies in the car," he lied. "Two bullets. One in the centre of the back of the head, and the other slightly from the side. Bullets exiting through the front window. The gun was obviously fired by someone in close proximity, probably from the back seat."

  Their trip to the Borders had been a busy, and gruesome one. They had met up with the local police who had showed them around and been most cooperative. First off had been a visit to the river where a scuba team was busy diving in the water and searching upstream and downstream of the body to see if they could find any clues.

  A team had been searching the river banks on both sides of the Tweed upstream from the body but had found nothing of significance: footprints were everywhere, from pedestrians walking dogs and fishermen standing near the edge. A good question was how did they get the body in the water without being seen?

  The answer was possibly that it had been dropped in the middle of the night. Perhaps from a boat, in a more secluded, wooded stretch further up the river.

  Early indications were also that the man was alive when he was put into the water.

  They had driven to the local morgue and viewed the body. Campbell had recognised him immediately, and upon seeing him laid out on the slab, his initial thought was automatically that it was probably the best place for him.

  The last time he had seen him was by Petrovsky's side, emerging from a meeting in a bar on the north side of Edinburgh that they were known to frequent. McKenzie had been in a car, watching.

  After the trip to the morgue, they had driven to the forest just outside of Peebles, where floodlights were already illuminating the scene and a forensic squad were hard at work.

  McKenzie had long since got used to the sight of a dead body. However, those
that had been burned always horrified him. He never showed it, but the sight of them made him want to vomit. It wasn't that he was scared of them, but rather that they were horrific, in the purest sense of the word.

  And the smell.

  It was indescribable.

  Especially one that was so fresh, and had only just been set on fire within the past twelve hours.

  The bodies were of two men, and although they were now charred and shrunken, they were obviously from two very large men. Well built. Strong and previously very powerful.

  Putting on the white disposable body suits which the forensics team gave them, McKenzie and Wessex had spent quite a while wandering around the car, talking to the experts and trying to build a picture in their minds of what could have happened.

  There were two possible scenarios that were obvious.

  First, that someone had sat in the back seat and forced them to drive to the car park in the forest, hidden from view from the main road, and very isolated. But not isolated enough that they hadn't been discovered very quickly. Once in the car park, they had been executed at short range, from two single bullets, one to each head, and fired from the back seat of the car. In the first scenario, the person who had carried out the execution had not been known to the two deceased. How the executioner had got into the car to coerce them into driving to the remote spot was one of the main questions.

  In the second scenario, the man in the back seat had been well known to the deceased. They had not suspected that two bullets were just about to blow their brains out. Death had come quickly and by surprise.

  The car was well burnt out and it would be difficult to see if there had been any form of struggle prior to the gun being fired.