Crossfire (The Clifford-Mackenzie Crime Series Book 1)

by R. D. Nixon

‘You’re a fine one to talk about grudges,’ Bradley said, and had the satisfaction of seeing Clifford’s face colour. He knew the sergeant hadn’t for one minute believed that bollocks about the flights to Alicante, and from that moment to this, he’d felt the man’s eyes on him at every move.

  ‘So what have you actually got?’ Mulholland asked, dragging his attention back.

  Bradley shrugged. ‘Enough to hold him for a while, but not much longer. The car was noticed at Aonach Mor in the early afternoon, rather than the morning, but that’s not to say it wasn’t parked there earlier; the snow drifts against it indicate it’s possible. No-one actually saw the woman or the boy, in any case. Tourist season’s over, and the weather’s shit, so witnesses are a bit thin on the ground.’

  ‘And the alibi?’

  ‘Mackenzie could have left the car there and made his way back in plenty of time for the train. His prints are all over it, as well as hers, but then it’s a family car. He was definitely alone when his colleagues showed up at the station; he told them his wife and son had dropped him off and already left – she was busy painting the house or something, and didn’t want to hang around. That’s been checked, and it looks like there was some painting being done. Who knows though? Maybe there’s blood on the walls that he was covering up. When the bodies turn up, forensics’ll have a field day and we’ll nail the bastard one way or the other.’

  ‘You really don’t like him, do you? Why?’

  The tone was conversational enough, but Bradley glanced over his shoulder at where Clifford sat nursing his tea and pretending not to take any notice. ‘Don’t go listening to him, constable,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Whether I like Mackenzie or not has no bearing on this. I’ve got to make sure it’s done right. A woman and child are missing and I’m pretty sure they’re not going to turn up alive. We can’t afford to screw up on any details; I’ve done that once before and the bloke got off.’

  ‘So I heard. Duncan Wallace and the Spence jewels, wasn’t it? So what now?’

  ‘We let Mackenzie stew. Let him think we’ve got plenty of people who’re going to put him up at the foot of Aonach Mor on Saturday morning. The bodies will probably turn up at the bottom of a loch somewhere miles away, but we’ll find them. And when we do, I’m going to see Paul Mackenzie get exactly what he deserves.’

  Throwing open Mackenzie’s cell door that evening, Bradley found the younger man sitting hunched over on the edge of the bunk, and felt a thread of anticipation pulling through him. One phone call, just a few minutes ago, had changed everything, and now he had an excuse to get tough. He fingered the clear plastic bag in his pocket, wondering how Mackenzie would react to it, and making a mental note to watch very, very carefully.

  ‘Shall we?’ He gestured to the door.

  Back in the interview room, Mackenzie looked worse than ever, no doubt panicking by now. Bradley cleared his throat and took the bag from his pocket. He tossed it onto the table in front of Mackenzie, who stared at it blankly for a moment before focusing on its contents. Then the blood drained from his face so quickly Bradley was certain he was about to pass out. He leaned forward.

  ‘Recognise it?’

  No answer. Mackenzie reached out a violently shaking hand and touched the bag. He raised a stricken face to Bradley, whose conviction wavered for the first time; he appeared really ill, and his body seemed to hunch as if he were in physical pain.

  ‘Kath’s locket,’ he whispered finally. ‘Where did you—’

  ‘Wrapped around your dead wife’s fingers.’ Bradley punched the words out, pulling none of their impact, studying Mackenzie’s face closely. ‘She was huddled around your boy’s body, trying to keep him warm, but…’ He shrugged and didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

  Mackenzie groaned in such anguish that Bradley knew he didn’t have to wait for the preliminary report; much as he’d wanted to believe otherwise, this man had not killed his family – he’d have to let him go.

  He glanced at Mulholland and was jolted by the unmistakeable light of enjoyment on the constable’s face as he stared at Mackenzie. He’d felt a certain satisfaction himself, granted, but then he’d hated the man, and everything he stood for, for years. Mulholland had no cause to dislike Mackenzie, and yet he was watching as if he owed him a lifetime of pain, and was relishing the payback. Bradley filed this away in his mind, under Interesting, and Potentially Useful.

  Two hours later, Mackenzie appeared close to collapse. He answered the questions in a bleak monotone, his story never wavering. Bradley had taken back the bag containing the locket on its leather cord, but Mackenzie couldn’t stop looking at it.

  ‘Can I have it?’ he asked suddenly. Bradley shrugged. It couldn’t hurt – after all, it wasn’t exactly evidence; Katherine and Josh Mackenzie had both died of hypothermia, but Bradley was holding on to that bit of information for just a little while longer.

  He took the locket out of the bag and slid it across the desk to Mackenzie. The man fumbled to catch it and his face paled further, his eyes barely more than dark smudges filled with red lines. Finding a grip at last, he ripped the locket from the leather thong, and it bounced and skidded over towards Bradley, who opened it and saw the two almost identical faces, father and son. He felt the same twinge of guilty sympathy he’d felt before; no matter how deep Bradley’s hatred of that ancient family ran, Mackenzie wasn’t guilty of murder. He didn’t deserve this.

  But Mulholland was still studying Mackenzie’s reactions to every single word, and Bradley took his lead from that; there was still the question of how the man could have sent his wife and child off alone; he was culpable even if he hadn’t killed them himself. He was twisting the thong in his fingers – at first Bradley thought he was aimlessly working out his confused grief on the leather, then he saw the two freshly tied knots, one smaller than the other, heard Mackenzie whispering the names of his wife and son as he rubbed his thumbs over them, seemingly heedless of the tears that fell from his bowed head.

  Enough was enough. Bradley gestured to Mulholland to remain where he was and stepped outside the door. While he waited for a convincing time to pass, he pondered what he’d discovered about Mulholland; the man had a mean streak a mile wide, and that was something Bradley could always use.

  He considered the possibilities; Duncan Wallace hadn’t entirely trusted him, he knew that, but he had ensured Bradley’s slow but steady rise through the force nevertheless, knowing Bradley would be forever, and demonstrably, grateful. He could do worse than cultivate that kind of loyalty for himself, and of all the young officers with that kind of potential, this one was showing the most favourable signs. Yes, worth serious consideration certainly, but right now there were other matters to put to rest. He pushed open the interview room door again.

  Mackenzie had tied the shortened thong around his own neck, the knots resting in the hollow of his throat, the locket discarded on the table. His hand covered the knots instinctively as Bradley came in. Protectively, even, as if he were prepared to argue the right to keep them close.

  ‘Right, you can go,’ Bradley said. ‘Cause of death was hypothermia.’

  Mackenzie lowered his head and dragged in a deep, splintered-sounding breath. ‘Hypothermia.’

  ‘Pity no-one found them sooner, eh?’

  Mackenzie looked at him, expressionless, yet his hatred struck Bradley full in the face. Bradley held it, returned it, and from that moment on the two men were in perfect harmony.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Burnside Hotel, August 2018

  Charis watched, tight-lipped, as Maddy came in, now changed into a police uniform. A really convincing one, complete with hi-vis vest and stab-proof padding. Wasn’t it illegal to impersonate a police officer? Would she herself be in trouble if Maddy got caught? She dismissed that thought almost immediately; she didn’t care. Whatever it took to get the message across to Stein that he wasn’t a suspect in Jamie’s disappearance, she’d go along with it. She wanted to shrink under Maddy�
��s cool gaze, but was determined not to admit her sense of inferiority; the woman had been looking down on her, literally and figuratively, from the moment she’d arrived in her office.

  Charis sat in the window seat and tried to settle her rising impatience. They had a while yet before they went downstairs to put on their show of interview witnesses, since Stein wouldn’t be back, and he was the only audience they needed. To avoid thinking about Jamie, she turned her thoughts to Mackenzie instead; much as she disliked admitting it, there was no denying the flicker of envy she felt at the obvious bond between him and his partner. At first she’d put it down to not having anyone in her life with whom she felt that close, but pretty soon she admitted to herself that sharing this frightening and uncertain experience with Mackenzie had turned him from an angry stranger into the closest thing she had to a friend up here. His dry manner and rare, unexpected smiles had begun to ease some of her panic, and she was even starting to say and do things to try and prompt them. He steadied her. And that was all secondary to the way he had seen through Daniel’s façade, and shown her she had allies, and choices, for which she would never be able to adequately convey her gratitude and relief.

  Maddy picked up the phone. ‘I just want to ring my fiancé.’

  ‘So that one I met at the station, is it your brother?’

  Maddy nodded, checking her mobile for the number she needed, and Charis frowned. ‘Why don’t you just use that to make the call?’

  ‘Can’t risk tying it up, in case Paul phones.’ Maddy gave her a tight smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the call.’

  But that only raised another question; was Charis expected to pay for the services she’d had thrust upon her? And how much did investigation agencies cost anyway? She had vague pictures from TV in her head: people shoving brown paper packets at shifty-looking sorts, and the recipients shuffling through wads of unidentifiable notes. Nowadays it’d probably be PayPal or BACs transfer – either way it was going to take a long time to raise it. But she would, if only—

  ‘Gavin, it’s only me.’ Maddy drew her feet up to sit cross-legged on Jamie’s bed. ‘Aye, sorry I will be, yes. I finished the report and sent it off, so Ki…Macnab should make the payment soon.’ A pause. Then, ‘Don’t know, maybe another couple of hours if I’m lucky. Thing is, this might turn into an all-nighter. At the moment? In The Burnside. A woman’s lost her little boy...’

  There was another pause while Maddy listened again, her gaze returning to Charis, who shivered a little at the expression on her face. ‘Yes, he does. Actually he’s the one who brought her to the office. Well, what do you think? Frankly, he’s a mess. No, she’s just a tourist. Aye, I will. Kiss Tas for me. Love you too. Bye.’

  ‘A mess?’ Charis said tightly. ‘He’s a mess? Why is everyone so bloody concerned about how Mackenzie’s feeling? What about Jamie? What about me?’ She could hear her own voice rising, but didn’t attempt to stop it. ‘I didn’t drag anyone into this, least of all you, so why don’t you and your precious Paul let me tell the police the whole story? Maybe they can actually do something instead of just sitting here.’

  ‘Do you want to get both Jamie and Paul killed?’ Maddy’s voice was calm, and the contrast made Charis feel like a screaming fishwife.

  She fell back onto sarcasm. ‘Yeah, that’s obviously exactly what I want. What kind of a stupid question is that? You two have no idea how I’m feeling right now, so—’

  ‘That’s just it. We do. Or at least Paul does.’

  Charis had started to get up but, startled, sank back down and waited for Maddy to continue.

  Maddy took a deep breath. ‘Paul was married before I knew him,’ she began, ‘and he had a son.’

  Had… Charis shrivelled inside. She sat in silence while Maddy told her about Kath and Josh. No wonder he’d looked at the mountains with such a bleak expression, or that he’d lost hope for just a moment back there, and even less wonder he’d been so judgemental about her parenting skills.

  She turned to stare out of the window at the blackness beyond, where the mountains stood guard over the town. Out there, where Jamie was.

  ‘It was winter though,’ Maddy said. ‘The snow came early; they were caught out. It happens, more often than you’d believe. Then again, Kath was an experienced mountain guide; she’d have known how to keep them safe for a while. They’d probably have been okay if the normal rescue procedures had been followed. I gather Bradley was none too gentle when he broke the news either. It was that so-called investigation that finally persuaded my dad to leave the force.’

  Charis shook her head, unable to speak for a moment; she remembered the discussion in the bar, when she’d grimly pointed out how the local police knew Mackenzie. The look on his face had been indecipherable at the time, but now she thought she’d learned enough to understand it.

  ‘What’s the leather about?’ she asked at last, remembering how he’d touched it. Maddy explained about the knots, and as she spoke Charis saw it all unfold behind her closed eyes. How it must have been in that little room, knowing his family desperately needed him and unable to do anything. She had an inkling of how he’d felt, but at least she knew something was being done for Jamie, whereas the opposite had been true thirteen years ago.

  ‘Paul lost it, totally,’ Maddy said. ‘Went looking for the place where they died, but the weather forced him back until he collapsed. It was touch and go with him too, for a while. That’s where we met, in the hospital where I used to work.’

  ‘Oh, Christ...’

  ‘Aye. All he could talk about when they brought him down was how Josh had kissed him goodbye.’ Maddy’s voice was distant as if reliving it rather than recalling it. ‘But in the end he turned it around; used that same feeling as a reason to go on. We became friends, and later partners in the agency.’

  ‘And that’s when you got together?’

  Maddy looked searchingly at her. ‘What makes you think we “got together” at all?’

  ‘It’s obvious you’re closer than friends.’

  Maddy chewed her lip for a second, her expression going distant again. The faint smile of memory made her seem younger. ‘Aye, we were more. For a while...’ She visibly came back to the present, with a long, slow blink. ‘But not any more. I think we were each what the other needed for a little while, but we’re not suited. He wasn’t really ready to let go, even after a few years had passed, and I’m engaged to someone else now.

  ‘With a child?’

  ‘Aye. Tas. He’s four.’ Maddy cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable talking about children to Charis. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘from that day on, Paul and Bradley were set on a road of mutual destruction. Paul was an idiot – he wound Bradley up every chance he got, while Bradley’s jealousy just got worse when our business took off. But,’ she shrugged, ‘that didn’t last, and to cut to the end of a very long story, Paul’s now a partner in a failing business, and Bradley’s a superintendent, somehow, and heading for even greater things.’ Her disgust was apparent in her voice. ‘Luckily he spends most of his time in Inverness now, but he has his fingers in so many pies it’s frightening. And he still has offices here too; some kind of district liaison thing he has going on.’

  ‘So if I’d gone to the police anywhere around here, Bradley would definitely have found out about it?’

  ‘Oh, he’s paranoid about anything to do with Paul, always has been. He’d have heard all right. And that would put Jamie at risk as well. You both did the right thing.’

  ‘But it’s twisted lines right the way through! Bradley doesn’t have the faintest idea about Jamie. Yet.’

  ‘And nor will he. Don’t worry, Paul will stay below their sight-line now he knows they’re aware of him, so they won’t find out about Jamie through him, and Stein won’t want them to know either.’

  ‘This is such a mess.’

  ‘Aye, it is.’ Maddy’s mobile whistled. She checked the new message, fired off a quick response, then swung her legs off the
bed and stood up. ‘Right, Stein’s just come in. Time to put on a show, I think.’

  ‘Break a leg.’ Charis couldn’t resist the dry tone, and Maddy looked at her, one perfect eyebrow raised.

  ‘I believe ballet artistes use the term Merde, she said pointedly, and straightened her uniform.

  They went downstairs.

  Stein watched the action unfold from the lobby, but as he was about to follow it into the lounge bar he saw the tall shape of his private detective pushing open the glass doors, and he bit down on a sigh. Didn’t the man have a home to go to?

  ‘We need to talk,’ Mackenzie said. ‘Outside.’

  Stein shushed him without taking his gaze off the open door into the lounge, but Mackenzie persisted, a note of urgency in his voice. ‘For God’s sake, Stein, that’s the police in there! If Bradley knows I’m sniffing round it’ll mean no deal for you, and no payment for me. I knew I shouldn’t have taken this case—’

  ‘She’s telling them it was her ex,’ Stein threw back over his shoulder, amused.

  ‘Why him?’

  ‘Apparently he was here this evening, and they argued.’

  ‘Well that makes sense.’ Mackenzie shrugged. ‘She’s bound to think it was him who took the kid, then. That’s a good thing, aye?’

  ‘Yeah, quite a bonus. Wish I’d thought of it myself.’

  ‘Plus, now the police are involved, Bradley’ll find out the kid’s off the scene, right?’

  ‘See? Perfect.’

  ‘So now can we get out of here? We really need to talk – you’ve crossed a line tonight, and if you want my help, you’re going to have to tell me everything. Everything. Right?’

  Stein looked at him steadily and came to a decision. ‘Sure. I’ll see you in my room in ten minutes.’ He handed the key to Mackenzie and went into the bar.

  He took a tall stool, watching the striking policewoman; she’d evidently done well to ease the mind of the boy’s mother, who was red-eyed and shaking, but talking calmly enough. When the officer caught sight of Stein she pressed the mother’s arm and left her to join him.