Fire in the Blood (Scott Cullen Mysteries)

by Ed James

  He wove in and out of the workbenches, heading for the door. The worktops were empty - he was looking for a weapon but couldn't see anything that would do the job. He made it to the door. He tried the handle. Locked. Fraser must have locked it. He kicked at it. It was a solid old door, made of oak - it wasn't going to budge.

  He turned around and put his back to the door. His shoulder was burning - blood was now dripping from his fingertips. He was feeling cold. His hands were shaking.

  Fraser Crombie approached him. His face had transformed from the dour expression he usually wore into an evil rictus.

  "What happened to your brother?" asked Cullen, his pulse racing.

  Fraser laughed. "You'll find out soon enough," he said. He held up the hammer. "It's amazing how much damage that trained hands can do with one of these."

  Fraser moved forward towards him. Cullen didn't think that he would be able to dissuade him from smashing his skull into a million pieces.

  Fraser started swinging the hammer around, inching closer to Cullen. His shoulder was burning.

  "Please, stop," said Cullen, pleading with him. "I'll let you go."

  Fraser was still swinging the hammer in front of him. "No, you won't."

  Cullen leaned back against the door. He knew that he had to act quickly. He made a snap decision. He waited for the swing of Fraser's hammer, then pushed off from the door at the top of the swing, catching Fraser on the backswing. Cullen ploughed into him, good shoulder first, knocking them both over and sending the hammer flying.

  Cullen wriggled on top of him, raised his good hand up to punch him. Fraser moved quickly, prodding his thumb into the gash in Cullen's shoulder. A jolt of pain seared through Cullen's body. Fraser managed to kick him, sending him backwards. He rolled on top of Cullen.

  Fraser's hand reached for the hammer. Cullen tried to grab at his arm, but just didn't have the strength. Fraser kicked him.

  Cullen blacked out momentarily. He came to with Fraser Crombie standing over him, the hammer raised, ready to strike.

  A wooden chair smashed over Fraser. There was a loud thunk as the seat connected with his skull. He collapsed in a heap.

  Cullen looked up at his saviour. Caldwell stood there, rubbing her head.

  "Can't let you get a reputation for getting Acting DCs killed," she said.

  sixty-six

  Cullen laughed through the pain. "Now I see why Bain calls you Robin," he said, slowly trying to stand up.

  "Eh?" she asked.

  "Batman always tells Robin to stay behind," said Cullen, "but he always ignores him and saves the day."

  "Does he get battered on the head with a hammer?" asked Caldwell, clutching at the side of her head, her hair matted with blood.

  Cullen tried to laugh again, but the searing pain from his shoulder made him draw breath.

  She frowned at him. "Are you all right?"

  "Not really," he said. He unbuttoned his shirt to get a better look at his shoulder. "What about you?"

  "I was out cold," she said, her eyes locked on his fingers, hand feeling at the side of her head. "I don't think he caught me cleanly." She looked at his eyes again. "I hope I don't have to look at your peely wally chest."

  "I might not be as rugged as Bill Lamb," he said, "but I'm not exactly peely wally."

  "Watch it," she said. "Any more of that and I'll use his hammer."

  Cullen had pulled the shirt open and could see the dark ridges of flesh that Crombie had ripped open with the hammer, the subcutaneous fat layer sliced open. Blood was already starting to coagulate.

  "You need to go to hospital," said Caldwell.

  "We're stuck until Bain gets here," said Cullen. "The door's locked, and unless we can find the keys, we're stuck. I hope they're in his bloody pocket."

  "Great," she said.

  Cullen looked at Fraser Crombie. He had started moving again. "Have you got your cuffs?" he asked. He couldn't reach his own without taking his jacket off, and his useless arm made that difficult.

  She reached into her jacket and produced a pair with a click. "I never leave home without them," she said.

  "Did you smash that chair?"

  She shook her head. "It's still intact."

  "Help me put him on it."

  She looked at his chest. "Scott, you're in no state to do anything," she said. "Call back-up in while I get him up."

  "Give him a blast with your pepper spray," said Cullen.

  "Are you serious?" she asked.

  Cullen grimaced. "No," he said.

  The adrenaline spike was starting to fade, and he was feeling woozy with the pain. He got his iPhone out - fortunately in the other pocket - and called Bain, supporting himself against a workbench. He had to hold the phone in his right hand for once, which felt strange. He told Bain about what had just happened, feeling a sort of distance from the scene in front of him and the conversation, as he watched Caldwell haul Crombie onto the chair, tie his hands together under the seat, securing him in place. He figured that it was the shock kicking in. Fraser was starting to blink as he ended the call.

  "Bain's on his way," said Cullen. "Along with an ambulance."

  Caldwell prodded Fraser with her finger. "He's awake," she said.

  Cullen staggered over to him. "Fraser!" he shouted.

  Fraser had a large bump that ran along the side of his head, growing by the second. Caldwell was lucky that she hadn't taken his head clean off.

  The machinery was still whirring in the background.

  "Can you go and turn that off?" asked Cullen.

  "I'll try," said Caldwell. She headed off to the far end of the room.

  Cullen turned back to Fraser Crombie. He grabbed hold of his shirt collar. "Fraser," he repeated.

  Fraser laughed.

  Cullen had to stop himself from head-butting him. "You are in a lot of trouble, you know that?" he said.

  "You've got nothing on me," said Fraser.

  "You've just assaulted two police officers," said Cullen. "That counts as something."

  Fraser closed his eyes. "Fair enough," he said.

  "Fraser, what happened in 1994?" asked Cullen. "You and your brother."

  "Nothing happened," said Fraser. "I don't know what you mean."

  "We know that Paddy Kavanagh appeared a year later," said Cullen. "We know that Iain Parrott went to see you. We've had a trace done, and we know that he's here."

  Fraser slumped back on the chair. "That's nothing," he said. "You attacked me first, I was just defending myself. We'll see where that gets us."

  The machinery stopped and they sat in silence for a few seconds.

  "Fraser," said Cullen, "what was your nephew wanting to speak to you about?"

  "You'll have to ask him," said Fraser.

  "Was it about Paddy Kavanagh?" asked Cullen.

  "No idea," said Fraser.

  Just then, Caldwell reappeared. She tapped Cullen on the shoulder.

  "Ow!"

  "Sorry," she said. "You need to come and see something."

  She led him to the other end of the room, to where Fraser had been mending a barrel. Off to the side, in the corner, sat a pair of large freshly made barrels, and both with their lids off, away from the long row of barrels on a conveyor belt. She pointed at the one nearest the corner. "Have a look inside."

  Cullen peered over the edge of the barrel. There was somebody inside, unconscious. A man.

  "Who is it?" asked Cullen.

  "I can take a guess," she said. "I didn't want to move him."

  "Give me a hand," said Cullen, reaching into the barrel. He put his hands under the man's armpits and pulled him. His shoulder burned anew. "Give me a hand!" he shouted.

  Caldwell tipped the barrel over and pulled him out of the barrel. It was Iain Parrott. They sat him down on a chair. She clicked her fingers by Parrott's ears. She checked for a pulse. "Well, he's alive, but he is totally out of it."

  "What about the other one?" asked Cullen.

  "Empty."
/>
  Cullen slumped down on a chair across from him.

  "You don't look very well, Scott," she said.

  "I'm not very well," he said. His shoulder throbbed and he felt a wave of nausea. "What the fuck is going on here?"

  "I have no idea," said Caldwell.

  Cullen staggered to his feet and set off back to where Fraser sat.

  "Scott, you need to sit down!" shouted Caldwell.

  "I need to get to the bottom of this," said Cullen. He had to rest halfway back, leaning against a workbench.

  "You need to sit down!" called Caldwell.

  Cullen soldiered on. He grabbed Fraser by the lapels on his polo shirt and pulled him close. "What are you planning on doing with Iain?"

  "I was going to make him disappear in a whisky barrel," said Fraser.

  "Just like his father?" asked Cullen.

  Fraser nodded. "Just like his father," he said.

  "What happened that night?" asked Cullen.

  There was silence in the room for almost twenty seconds. "After the meal," said Fraser, "me and Iain went to the pub up in Garleton with Dad, then we drove down here to get some whisky for the trip to Glastonbury. We were both drunk and we got into a fight. We were arguing about the takeover. We were in this room and I knocked him out."

  "You had planned it?" asked Cullen.

  "It was an accident," said Fraser. "We were pushing each other and he tripped over and caught his head on the corner of a workbench." Fraser gave a deep sigh. "I panicked. The whisky was ready to pour the next day, so I poured two barrels. I put him in one, still alive."

  "And you smashed his head in with a hammer?"

  "I wanted to make him pay," said Fraser. "He'd made my life a misery. It was all his fault, all him and Dad. I wanted to sell to Scottish Distillers. Dad and Iain didn't. Dad just sidelined me. He said I'd never amount to anything. He took me off the board, made me the bloody Cooper. I was left with nothing. Dad would much rather have a legacy than a son."

  "Why didn't you come clean?" asked Cullen. His shoulder gave another spasm of pain.

  "I needed to get away with it," said Fraser, his voice calm and slow.

  "It was an accident," said Caldwell.

  Fraser looked over at her. "Yeah, well, it was," he said, "but I thought fuck it. Some luck at last." He scowled at Cullen. "There were two reasons why I stuck with it. The first was to get that bastard brother of mine out of the way. The second was to see my Dad suffer for siding with Iain and sidelining me. That's eighteen years of agony he's been through. I could see his face every day, wondering where Iain was. Every time the door opened he wondered if it was him. And then he'd finally find his precious son rotting in a barrel of that bloody whisky of his and he'd finally know that Iain wasn't coming back."

  "It's quite an extreme thing to do," said Cullen.

  Fraser shrugged. "I needed to do it," he said. "I don't regret it."

  "How does Paddy Kavanagh fit into this?" asked Cullen.

  Fraser closed his eyes. "He was working that night," he said. "I didn't know. He heard the machinery going and he caught me at it."

  "What happened?" asked Cullen.

  "He blackmailed me," said Fraser. "I paid him ten grand to leave."

  "And he just left?"

  Fraser nodded.

  "Where did you get the money from?" asked Cullen.

  "Iain and I had trust funds till we were eighteen," said Fraser. "I still had mine but Iain had spent his on that bird of his. Paddy took it away from me. The fucking bastard."

  "The photograph of him in 1995," said Cullen. "Did he come and see you?"

  "He did," said Fraser. "He wanted more money. Thought that I'd seen the last of him, but no, he turned up at my flat."

  "What happened?"

  Fraser took a while to answer. "He's in one of the barrels next door."

  sixty-seven

  Cullen lay on a gurney in the back of the ambulance, buckled in. He could hear the rain thundering down on the roof of the vehicle, sounding like it was going to leave a trail of dents. He'd tried calling Sharon, but her phone was off - he left ten voicemails and sent thirty texts, painfully typed with one hand.

  "I'm fine," he said to the paramedic, a middle-aged man.

  "You are not fine, pal," said the paramedic, smiling. "You've lost a lot of blood and you've been charging around in there - we can tell from the trail of blood. You're lucky you've not seriously damaged yourself. That big hole in your shoulder is going to take some fixing."

  Cullen heard a voice from outside the ambulance. "Where the fuckin' hell is he?"

  Bain.

  The paramedic turned and went to the back. "He is not in a fit state to speak to anyone," he said.

  Cullen saw Bain climb up. "I'll be the fuckin' judge of that."

  "I really must insist."

  "Just give me two minutes," said Bain.

  The paramedic shook his head. "Two minutes," he said. "Not a second more. The ambulance leaves in two minutes. I don't want you on it."

  "Magic," said Bain. He pushed past and came up to Cullen. Caldwell followed in Bain's wake - she had some bandages on her head.

  "You are a fuckin' idiot, Sundance," said Bain, leaning over Cullen's bed.

  "Thanks for that, sir," said Cullen.

  "I'm serious," said Bain. "That's the last time you go in two-footed. I'm on a sticky enough wicket as it fuckin' is. I don't need to lose two officers in a year."

  "Angela is okay," said Cullen, nodding at Caldwell. "Minor injury."

  "It's not her I'm fuckin' talkin' about, you fuckin' tube!" shouted Bain. He rubbed at his moustache. "You've got to stop all this shite."

  "I had a few questions to ask him," said Cullen. "He attacked us, not the other way round."

  "Aye, well, I still would have appreciated being on the inside track on this one."

  Cullen looked away. "I told you," he said. "You weren't interested."

  "I was going by due process," said Bain, "eliminatin' Doug Strachan from the investigation." He shook his head. "As ever, you knew best, didn't you, Sundance? You just had to ignore me and go in and speak to him."

  "Where is he?"

  "He's in a meat wagon," said Bain. "We're taking him to Leith Walk."

  "Have you spoken to him?" asked Cullen.

  "I've just got a confession out of him," he said. "Of course, I'll have to get it properly on tape, but there were eight people there. Still, it'll be a bugger to get all those stories straight."

  "What did he say?" asked Cullen.

  "He put his brother in the barrel the night before they went down to England," said Bain. "He waited till Marion left, took his brother's keys, packed a bag and made it look like he'd left. He even got the stub torn off at the festival by a security guard so that it would be finger-printed."

  "Meticulous."

  "That's one word for it," said Bain. "He also pretended to be his brother on the phone calls to Marion."

  "You're kidding," said Cullen, feeling woozy.

  "No," said Bain. "Still, turns out this Paddy boy was in another barrel. Would have found him a week ago if I'd got my way. Can you believe that it was Fraser that made the fuckin' call about Paddy being at that service station?" He checked his watch. "Still, good result."

  "Is that you thanking me?" asked Cullen.

  "It's as close as I get," said Bain.

  SCOTT CULLEN WILL RETURN IN

  "DYED IN THE WOOL"

  OUT NOW

  Detective Constable Scott Cullen finds his professional and private lives at opposite ends of the spectrum. While his career is stagnating - impacted by the jockeying for position ahead of the formation of the Scottish Police Service, as much as by his own inability to push his case for promotion - his relationship with DS Sharon McNeill goes from strength-to-strength, until dinner with both sets of parents is interrupted by a call to action.

  A body has been found in a Range Rover at the foot of a shale bing in West Lothian.

  Cull
en is forced to go back to his old stomping ground, haunted by figures from his past. DS Colin Methven, the latest officer occupying the position that Cullen has long coveted, is intent on straightening out Cullen’s cowboy nature, which has fractured his friendship with DC Angela Caldwell. Lurking in the background is DI Paul Wilkinson, trying to push Cullen back to a recent major case. As the mysteries are compounded, Cullen starts to feel lost among the dyed in the wool.

  Amazon UKhttp://bit.ly/EJdyed

  Amazon UShttp://bit.ly/EJdyeU

  Other territories and formats are available.

  OTHER BOOKS BY ED JAMES

  THE SCOTT CULLEN SERIES

  1GHOST IN THE MACHINE

  2DEVIL IN THE DETAIL

  3FIRE IN THE BLOOD

  4DYED IN THE WOOL

  5BOTTLENECK (coming 2014)

  SUPERNATURE SERIES -

  1SHOT THROUGH THE HEART

  2CRASH INTO MY ARMS (coming 2014)

  eBOOKS AVAILABLE NOW FROM AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, KOBO, iBOOKS, SONY eREADER AND OTHERS.

  PAPERBACKS AVAILABLE NOW FROM AMAZON.

  sixty-eight

  "DYED IN THE WOOL"

  Excerpt -

  He stood back and watched his work, suddenly aware that the breeze was much stronger up here than at the foot of the hill.

  The car started moving, slow and unsteady, and then accelerating until it tipped over the edge of the plateau. It raced down the small hill and quickly became an orange blur. Halfway down, it lost its grip on the side of the hill and started listing to one side, before quickly tumbling over. It rolled all the way down to the bottom of the hill but, instead of stopping, continued to tumble across the scrub land beyond.

  He couldn't make out the detail from up there but he knew that the car - even though it was a high-end Range Rover - would be as battered as the person inside it.