Crossfire (The Clifford-Mackenzie Crime Series Book 1)

by R. D. Nixon

  ‘Jamie!’ A harsh whisper, and a hand reached for him. He pulled away, but the hand caught at his oversized jacket again, and this time managed to seize a handful. He lashed out, panic-stricken, and felt his fist connect with flesh.

  ‘Stop! It’s all right!’ He belatedly realised it was a woman’s voice, and Scottish, but that woman was dead. Was this Maddy? He subsided, still fighting for breath, and the woman drew him close.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you now,’ she murmured. ‘We’ll go and get your mum, and then you’ll be all right.’

  She must have thought she was soothing him as she held him, but she was only making it worse. With the last of his strength, Jamie pulled back, fumbled for her hand in the darkness, and laid it on his chest. She uttered a savage curse and swept him up into her arms, sliding down the last bit of the path with him clutched tight against her once more.

  ‘My car’s up on the road near here somewhere,’ she panted. ‘Hold on… Breathe slow…’

  He must have blacked out, because when he came to she was running on flatter ground. The valley floor? Mackenzie was down here… But he couldn’t speak, to tell her to look for him, and soon enough they were climbing again, but a gradual slope this time, not the horrible steep place where he’d climbed before. The air was barely getting through now, and the muscles in his chest hurt… His thoughts were becoming jumbled, and for a while he drifted in and out of a strange, disjointed world.

  The road. They were on the road now. His head was heavy, and there was a clamp around his chest that was growing tighter with each laboured breath. The woman held him close; he could hear her own gasps as her shoes slapped down on hard tarmac instead of grass. She kept muttering hold on to him, as if he weren’t trying. But then she said something else, and at last there was a flicker of hope.

  ‘My car’s just down this hill. We’ll get you to hospital. You’re going to be all right.’

  He tried to reply but could only wheeze, and then she stopped, so suddenly that he felt himself sliding from her grasp, and he almost crashed to the ground. In a dizzy haze he heard her moan softly, ‘What? No. No, no…’ Then she screamed the word, and Jamie went away again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bradley knew he should have stopped to help the boy. Knew it from the toes of his boots to the last hair on his head, but thirty years of desire was about to be satiated; and the kid would be all right – there was plenty of air out here, it wasn’t like he was still locked up. They’d see he was taken to safety, but first…

  He’d pushed past the wheezing child and started down the slope towards the flat rock a few feet away. ‘Come on!’ Behind him he saw the flickering light, as Mulholland obeyed for once. His heart was thudding faster the closer he came to his goal; his feet lost their purchase time and time again on the loose stones, and he kept scraping the skin from his fingers as he pushed himself on.

  When he reached the rock, he hunted for the cairn the boy had said he’d built. Just a small one, apparently, but there was nothing. Not even a few stones pushed together.

  ‘It must be here somewhere.’ Bradley played the torchlight over the area around the rock. Through the roaring sound of the waterfall he heard sobbing and hesitated again – was he doing the right thing? The boy was distraught, terrified, innocent—

  ‘Half a mil. At least.’ Mulholland broke into his thoughts, stooping to check a dark-coloured rock he’d found near his feet. ‘Damn.’ He tossed the rock into the path of the rushing water and bent again.

  Bradley didn’t reply; Mulholland still didn’t get that it wasn’t all about the money. He kicked dull, grey stones aside in growing frustration. ‘Where the hell is it? Do you think he got the wrong place?’

  ‘Get down here, boy!’ Mulholland yelled. ‘Show us!’

  Bradley flashed his torch back up the path. He frowned and swept the beam from side to side, expecting to see the child on his knees, or even lying flat out, but… ‘Shit!’

  ‘What?’ Mulholland’s own beam found the same empty hillside. ‘I’ll be damned. The little sod!’

  Bradley turned away. ‘I’ll get him later. He’ll have gone back to his mother. He can’t be moving very fast, not with that—’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot all your life,’ Mulholland growled. ‘He was obviously faking it.’

  Bradley felt an unexpected flash of admiration for the kid, despite the situation he’d left them in. ‘He’ll still not get far. Come on.’

  ‘Look! What’s that?’ Mulholland directed his torch towards the edge of the path. ‘A wee cairn, look!’

  All thoughts of the missing boy vanished as Bradley peered with growing excitement along the beam of light. He couldn’t yet see what Mulholland had found, but followed the younger man as he scrambled across to stand next to the waterfall.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There!’ Mulholland pointed again. ‘Ah, give me the decent torch, y’fool!’

  Heart thumping with anticipation, Bradley did, and a moment later he realised Mulholland was right. He was a fool. There was a flare of light behind his eyes as something hard connected with the side of his head, and the ground disappeared from under one of his feet. He landed on one knee and grabbed at the wet grass to stop himself from slipping, but it tore loose, and to his terror he felt himself going over. With one last surge of strength he lunged back and seized hold of something: Mulholland’s ankle. He felt Mulholland’s leg bend reflexively, but it did not give way, thank God, and the sergeant stood firm, stopping them both from plunging into the waterfall.

  ‘Help me!’ Bradley heard this echo of the little boy’s plea, bursting from his own numbed mouth, and hated himself. He spat out the mouthful of water he’d taken as he cried out, and repeated his plea, but Mulholland didn’t move. ‘Jesus, Alistair!’

  Mulholland’s voice lifted easily over the sound of the waterfall. ‘I always knew your greed would get the better of you.’

  Bradley’s clothes were soaked through, and the weight was pulling him backwards, away from solid ground and towards the churning white water. ‘Please...’

  ‘All this, for a stone?’

  ‘We’ll talk! I’ll explain… Alistair, the rocks… Please, just pull me up.’

  ‘You made me risk everything, for your obsession.’ Mulholland bent down, and as he stretched out his hand Bradley felt a surge of blinding relief. But Mulholland was not offering his hand in help after all. He was holding something. His gun. Bradley flinched, expecting another blow and bracing himself for it. But before he could form the question in his mind – why doesn’t he just shoot if he really wants me dead? – Mulholland surprised him by shoving the gun down inside Bradley’s wet coat. Then he began to prise Bradley’s white fingers off his ankle. Bradley’s terror flared once more; his free hand was grasping at more grass, but it was a token clutch, just the screaming instinct of a man in his final moments.

  ‘Just tell me what you want!’

  ‘I don’t care if you survive this or no,’ Mulholland said. ‘I’ve got no feelings about you one way or the other. But I’ll not be your puppet any longer.’ He released Bradley’s grip, and in the split second before he fell, Bradley’s anger towards the escaped boy turned to envy for his freedom.

  Just don’t let him catch up with you…

  Then the water was over his head and he was crashing over rocks both rough and smooth. There was burning pain in shattered limbs that was soon echoed in his lungs as he swallowed and swallowed, trying to get past the water to find air. His last coherent thought was of a black stone with a fiery heart, but as his dying fingers closed on it, it blew apart in a shower of dust.

  Maddy stared in mute horror at the place where her car had been. Her throat hurt from the anguished and disbelieving scream, and she was only partially aware of the weight of the boy in her arms. He moved a little, and she lowered him gently to the ground and slapped at her trouser pocket before she remembered she’d given her phone to Charis. How had he done it? You were
n’t supposed to be able to hot-wire these cars any more, so had she dropped her keys in her hurry to be away? If so why hadn’t she heard them land on the road, and—

  ‘Shit!’ She remembered sitting in silence after she’d stopped and turned off the engine, then telling Charis why she was leaving the car and walking. Getting out in a temper, and slamming the door... Leaving the keys dangling from the ignition. She’d been crying, she recalled that, but how could she have been so stupid?

  Jamie was breathing, but it was thin and desperate sounding. They were closer to the town now than to the cottage, and certainly closer to passing traffic; there was no question of going back for Charis – Maddy would stick to her plan to get Jamie to hospital. She turned to explain to the boy, and saw his hunched little shadow move. A moment later he had pressed something into her hand, and she recognised the feel of a mobile phone. She pressed a random button and the screen lit up; when she saw the lock screen photo of a long-dead woman and child she didn’t know whether to sob with relief or despair – Paul’s phone.

  ‘Where did…no matter.’ She touched his face in mute gratitude and used the emergency call function to call for an ambulance, telling them only that she was on the Glenlowrie road, and had a child who needed urgent medical help.

  ‘We’ll get them to come for your mum too,’ she told Jamie as she hung up. ‘As soon as they arrive. But it would have only complicated things if I’d tried to explain now. We need to save your strength, so we’re going to wait here, okay? Hold my hand and sit here with me. Don’t try to talk.’ She thought back to her nursing days. ‘Sit up very straight,’ she urged. ‘Breathe slow, and as deep as you can.’

  Jamie’s small hand slipped into hers, and she clutched Paul’s phone tightly, trying not to give in to the fresh waves of grief that wanted to drown her. She had to stay calm for the boy. He was breathing in tiny, shallow little hiccups that seemed to be getting shorter and higher as the night crept past them, but finally she heard the blessed sound of an approaching car, and she stood up, lifting Jamie into her arms once more. As the headlights of the rapid response vehicle swept over them she saw that the boy’s lips were grey-looking in his white face, and just as worrying was his lack of expression; he looked as if he simply no longer cared what happened.

  While one paramedic administered carefully regulated puffs from an inhaler, the other was speaking to the police, relaying Maddy’s information about Paul and Charis. ‘Body in the valley just off the Glenlowrie Estate road…’

  Body. Maddy closed her eyes and tried to shut out the image, but Jamie tugged at her hand and she opened them again. He was still breathing shallowly, but some colour had come back into his face, and she tried on an encouraging smile. ‘Good lad.’

  ‘Not dead,’ the boy managed. He patted the over-sized jacket, and accepted another puff from the paramedic’s inhaler.

  Maddy’s skin tingled. ‘What did you say?’

  The driver twisted in her seat. ‘Who isn’t dead?’

  ‘He means Paul, I think,’ Maddy said, mystified. ‘God, did you?’ Her heart began to race, but she couldn’t hope. Not yet.

  The boy nodded wearily. ‘He broke some bones, but he could talk.’

  ‘Christ! I’ll hurry things up,’ the driver said, and picked up the radio again.’

  ‘Get the police, too,’ Maddy said. ‘The crofter’s cottage on the estate. You’ll see it from the air – there are cars there. This boy’s mother’s…’ she hesitated and glanced at Jamie. The last thing she wanted to do was frighten him. ‘She’s waiting there,’ she finished. She tried to catch the eye of the paramedic over Jamie’s head and convey her fear. The medic gave a barely perceptible nod, and Maddy could only hope the police arrived before Bradley and Mulholland returned. Or that Charis’s courage would not fail her.

  ‘They’re despatching the ’copter,’ the driver said. ‘Don’t worry, lad, they’ll find him. And your mum.’

  Jamie slumped in his seat, and nothing Maddy said could coax any more from him. She too fell silent, but her fingers clenched and unclenched on her thigh as she began scouring the sky for searchlights although she knew it was too soon yet.

  They drove through Abergarry on the way to Fort William, and as they passed the Clifford-Mackenzie offices, Maddy glanced idly out of the window and froze; her car sat outside, parked haphazardly, half on the pavement. And the office light was on.

  ‘Stop!’ she said. ‘Let me out here.’ The car pulled in, and Maddy took Jamie’s unresponsive hand in hers. It lay there like a stunned mouse. ‘Jamie, I’ve just seen my car, so I’ll drive it to the hospital to meet you, okay? That way I’ll be able to drive you back again when you’re all fixed up. In the meantime these people will carry on taking good care of you.’

  She waited until the car had rounded the bend at the top of town, and then pulled out Paul’s phone and made another emergency call, this time to the police. Then she leaned on her car and waited. Only one person could have left it here, but how had he known who she was, or where she worked? What if she’d just gone up into the office? After what she’d done to him she’d have been lucky to get away with her skull in one piece; as reluctant as she was to involve the police, she was more reluctant to leave that animal on the loose in her home town.

  A glance into the back seat made her blood run cooler, and she just stopped herself from yanking on the driver’s door and destroying Thorne’s fingerprints. Instead she ran around to the passenger side, praying he hadn’t bothered to lock up, and to her relief she was able to open that one instead. She seized the discarded police uniform and cast frantically about for somewhere to hide it before the real police arrived, settling on a large, lidded recycling bin in the alley below the offices. She finished stuffing the uniform inside it with moments to spare.

  Checking through the car window for anything incriminating she might have missed, she saw the answer to her initial question, now lying on the passenger seat. The road atlas, and the envelope Charis had shoved in it to mark the page. Clifford-Mackenzie’s address, as clear as you like.

  ‘Fucking hell, woman,’ Maddy breathed. ‘You’re a liability even when you’re not here.’

  The door to the cottage creaked open on its rusted hinges, and when she heard footsteps in the passageway Charis felt the gun slipping in her sweaty hand. This was it. She would finally have to take a life for real. That it was to save other lives didn’t matter; she was going to become a killer, and nothing could ever be the same again.

  A flare of light at the doorway drew a low cry from her, and she raised the gun until she hoped it was pointed at his chest. But once again it wasn’t Bradley. This time it was Mulholland. Taken by surprise, she wavered; this man might be a weasel, and a criminal, but he hadn’t actually hurt anyone that she knew of, and he was alone. He seemed puzzled, but not dismayed, to see her free and armed.

  ‘Put the gun down, lass,’ he said mildly. ‘I’ve got no weapon, see?’ He raised his hands.

  ‘Where’s Jamie?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said reasonably. ‘He’s not returned from the waterfall yet, then?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘And Bradley?’ He looked past her to the locked door. ‘How do I know you’ve not put a bullet in him and shoved him in that room?’

  ‘You don’t.’ Charis renewed her grip on the gun. ‘But you can get in there anyway.’

  Mulholland blinked. ‘What? I’ve come to help you!’

  ‘Have you bollocks,’ Mackenzie whispered. ‘Don’t trust him, Charis.’ His breathing was laboured now; the last of the strength that had driven him out of the valley was fading.

  Charis jerked the gun, indicating that Mulholland should cross to the bolted door. He obeyed, crossing the room past the window, but he had seen something in the path of his torchlight, and he bent swiftly and snatched it up.

  His face alight with triumph, he now mirrored Charis’s stance, and the barrel of the gun he held was aimed directly at her. ‘N
ice of Sarah to leave me a wee gift,’ he said. ‘Now, as I asked nicely before, put the gun down.’

  ‘Get knotted,’ Charis said, hearing the words as if they were coming from someone else. Mackenzie made a faint sound; a mingled murmur of surprise, admiration and despair, and it gave her a strange feeling of pride and, with it, renewed confidence. ‘Why should I?’ she demanded. ‘You put yours down.’

  Mulholland considered her for a moment. Then he moved, slowly, across the room towards them. Charis tightened her grip, every nerve alive and tingling. Everything depended on her ability to squeeze this trigger, and stop this man in his tracks; even if he fired first, she’d still get a round off, and the odds were pretty good that it would hit him.

  But all bets were off a second later, as the muzzle of the sergeant’s gun swung from her to Mackenzie. ‘Put the gun down, Ms Boulton-with-a-u.’ He looked down, and his bored expression changed to one of interest. ‘Oh my! What’s this?’

  He leaned down again and pushed the muzzle of the gun against Mackenzie’s shoulder. Mackenzie’s cry of pain tore through Charis like a blunt-bladed saw.

  ‘Stop it, you bastard!’

  Only then did she realise what Mulholland had seen: the Fury, resting loosely in Mackenzie’s weakening grip; Mulholland had not seemed consumed by the same obsession as Bradley and Sarah, but he clearly had a healthy appetite for a valuable stone. Instinct kicked in, and Charis moved like a snake, wresting the opal herself from Mackenzie’s hand.

  ‘Give it to me,’ Mulholland said tightly, and to Charis’s relief, he lifted the gun away from Mackenzie and pointed it back at her.

  ‘No.’

  Mulholland whipped his gun around, and it cracked against Charis’s cheek in a burst of pain. She stumbled and fell, and as she hit the floor another pain, unexpected and dull throbbed in the top of her thigh. She remembered what was causing it, and, her heart pounding, she seized on the only thing she could think of that might work.