Conviction

by Denise Mina

  He was miles out.

  ‘For money for heroin?’ he said, drifting further still from the truth.

  ‘Yes,’ I said too quickly for it to be a credible lie. I should have hesitated. ‘Yes, we did.’

  He didn’t believe me but kept driving, bent tight over the steering wheel, alert to the rear view, watching the road, keeping the kerbs in his eyeline. We reached a stretch of the A9 that was long and straight. If they were following they couldn’t fail to find us.

  ‘We can hide in here for a bit,’ I said. ‘Pull in left.’

  The Glenmorangie distillery did a good tour. I’d been there several times even though I don’t like whisky much. But I knew a spot around the back we could hide in. We pulled down the steep turn with the lights off and parked. I said I thought we should wait, let them pass.

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘So,’ said Fin, eyebrows high, ‘I don’t believe that about Adam.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re not an addict.’

  ‘You don’t know that–’

  ‘I don’t like you enough for you to be heroin addict. You’re not the type. But I take it you left that job under something of a cloud?’

  ‘You’re a good driver,’ I said, weakly trying to change the subject. ‘Have you got any tobacco left?’

  He fumbled the tobacco pouch out of his pocket, handing it to me, tugging it back as a bargaining chip. ‘So. Who is Sophie Buchanan?’

  He’d misheard the name. He wouldn’t be able to google me.

  ‘Just a name I used at one point.’

  He stared incredulously, as if he was seeing me for the first time. ‘Are you a thief?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘An industrial spy or something like that?’

  That sounded like a good lie to go with but I was in shock and wouldn’t be able to spin it convincingly. ‘It’s about…’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘Things that happened a long time ago.’

  ‘Anna, he had a bloody big knife. And, as you are no doubt aware, I am knife-to-the-face phobic.’

  He was being very formal, I think because he was so scared.

  ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen.’

  ‘We should call the police.’ He reached for his phone and I grabbed his hand.

  ‘We really shouldn’t call the police.’

  His eyes raced across my face. ‘I haven’t the faintest fucking idea what you’re getting at. Was Knife-man the police?’

  ‘No. The cops are good guys but–’ I saw my leather coat lying in the back seat. Fin must have found the car keys in the pocket back at Albert’s cottage and run to the guest car park. He have pulled out on to the drive. He could have left and kept himself safe but he didn’t. He doubled back and came for me. ‘Why didn’t you just drive away?’

  ‘Haven’t got any money for petrol.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I considered it. I knew I’d feel really guilty.’ He was honest. I admired that. ‘We’re not really here because you think Leon is innocent, are we?’

  I sighed. ‘It’s a bit more complicated, yes.’

  ‘Tell me a short version.’

  I struggled to find a starting point. ‘Well, I’m not really from Aberdeen.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m from London.’

  ‘Mm-hm. D’you know that guy with the knife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s not your ex?’

  ‘Never met him before. Someone’s sent him to get me. To kill me.’

  ‘There’s a “contract” out on you?’ He smirked. ‘What the fuck? You’re a housewife!’ I hesitated too long and he said, ‘OK. If you decide to stop lying and tell me what the fuck is really going on, I’d really appreciate it, but will they call the police?’

  I smiled. ‘No.’

  ‘McLean, Buchanan, McDonald. I will find out who you are, you know.’

  I laughed. ‘No way. You’ll starve first.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath. Estelle’s been waiting for that for years.’ He looked at the dark drive out to the road. ‘Let’s chance it.’ He put the lights on and restarted the engine.

  He took my goading in good part but I instantly regretted it. I tried to go back and temper it. ‘You don’t have to starve.’

  His smile was strained. ‘It’s not a lifestyle choice.’

  ‘People overcome addictions, you know.’

  ‘Oh, do they?’ He said flatly. ‘Interesting. Well done, them.’ I think he’d had that conversation quite often. Possibly with many different people. He pulled up the steep drive to the road and nudged cautiously forwards, looking left and right for the telltale glare of lights on the horizon. He pulled out carefully and gathered speed on the road. Fin resisted talking about himself. With a sudden pang I realised I was missing Hamish, who talked about himself all the time.

  ‘You will proper hurt yourself if you don’t eat more.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Fin, frowning and watching the rear-view, ‘Fucking thanks for that. That’s really helpful.’

  The road was empty.

  ‘But you will.’

  ‘Who is Sophie Buchanan?’

  ‘You will damage yourself permanently.’

  ‘What’s your real name?’

  We had reached a companionable deadlock and drove in silence. For a brief moment the North Sea opened up on the left. Lights from a row of oil platforms glinted in the dark like misplaced Christmas trees.

  Albert told me to get rid of Fin and keep hiding. It would suit him and Teigler if I did. I thought about the other girl, my shadow-self, the me-shaped vacuum at my side. She hid and she died. It wasn’t safe to keep hiding but the habit was so dear to me. I wasn’t ready to give it up.

  I thought of Leon marrying Gretchen Teigler. Was that so bad? Maybe he didn’t know about her. But I listened to my thought process and noticed that I was desperate for Leon to be a good man and he clearly wasn’t. Everyone knew what Gretchen was like. When I thought back, at the way he told his tales, looking away, stealing cigarettes from someone working a chambermaid’s job, he wasn’t sharing stories with me. He was practising for another audience. God, I was awful at choosing friends.

  We drove quietly down the dark road as I considered all of this.

  ‘So, Anna-Sophie, how far from those men is far enough?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you brought your passport with you?’

  ‘I did, actually.’

  ‘OK.’

  It took a while for me to realise we were heading to Inverness airport. I couldn’t fly. My passport was a dead person’s and would set off alarms at every Border Agency desk in the country.

  But that crisis was an hour away so I sat back and enjoyed the drive.

  29

  THE AIRPORT WAS SMALL. The calm sea was on our left, an empty car park in front of us, the bright airport building on our right. A runway ran between the back of the terminal and the fast road to Nairn. Through the glass walls of the building we could see a steward sitting at a desk, puffy-faced and caked in make-up, getting through her early shift.

  We went in.

  She said there were no international flights until the next day but we could get to London and connect from there?

  We stepped aside for a chat and Fin said we could hide out at his friend’s castle in France, near Clermont-Ferrand. Maybe we could go there via the Île de Ré? We could retrace the Parkers’ movement in the town, go and see the Airbnb man and ask him about seeing Violetta about the person he saw on deck that night? I said yeah, that’d be great, I’d love to do that. I was agreeing to everything because I wasn’t going. I was going to run.

  I bought us two cheap tickets on the first flight out. I didn’t need to use my passport because the flight was domestic, leaving for Gatwick at 6.20 a.m. It was four in the morning. We had over two hours to wait.

  We sat on seats and I nodded along as Fin messaged Trina Keany to ask if we could quiz her
about Leon’s financial situation. Maybe we could buy her a coffee? He signed it ‘Fin Cohen’. The currency of celebrity. Most of us would just ask the question. But I agreed to all of this and more because I had no intention of getting on the plane.

  Fin was tired. He wanted to go through security and hang about by the departures gate, drinking machine coffee and dozing on the chairs. The airport was very small. Once I was through security I’d be trapped. I said I needed a bit of time alone and I’d go and move Hamish’s car to the long stay car park. He was suspicious of that and insisted on giving me his phone number and made me call him so that he had mine.

  ‘So, was it a Van Gogh?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you steal a Van Gogh from them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hm. Worth it then.’ He sighed and stood up slowly. ‘I need to lie down or I’ll fall down.’

  I stood up with him. ‘I’ll move the car to somewhere less obvious.’

  He said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve flown with this company before but you have to get here thirty minutes before the flight time or they won’t let you on.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Seriously. I’ve been refused at security while the plane was sitting at the gate.’

  ‘OK.’

  I watched him go through to departures. A lone security guard waited patiently, shifting from foot to foot. I could see past the conveyor belt, through the frame of the metal detector, to rows of seats and glass windows overlooking the small runway. Fin walked over, handed his ID to the security guard, emptied his pockets, took off his shoes and shed his jacket into a basin. He gave me a tiny wave and went through.

  He was a nice man really.

  I went back to the car.

  A gale was whistling far off in the North Sea, lifting white horses near the shore. I pulled my coat closed and stood to look, opening my face to the wind.

  Out there, hundreds of miles away, my girls were safely tucked up in little beds, lashes resting on fondant skin, soft hair sliding off pillow cliffs. When the sun came up they would choose a cereal and drink milk and go swimming. My children were safe. It was all that mattered to me.

  I would run, draw whoever came next away from them. Maybe the other girl had kids. Maybe she thought of them when the men came for her. Maybe her last thought was about her kids and maybe she felt grateful that they were safe.

  The bonnet of Hamish’s car was buckled where it had smashed the door off the other car. I ran my fingers along the gash at the side and got back in.

  I started the engine, leaving the lights off and reversed through the empty car park until I reached a drop-off point. Fin might come out to look for me. If I left now and he found me gone he might call the cops. I wanted him safe. I decided to wait until his plane took off. If he came out I’d find some other method of getting away from him.

  I put the radio on to a soul station and listened for a while, trying to revive my comforting thoughts about the girls. I couldn’t quite get it back. I knew other men would come for me because I had reappeared and they’d keep coming for me until they made me go away forever. It was about money, unless Albert had been lying about the stadium sell-off, but I didn’t think he was. He didn’t think it mattered what he told me, expected me to be dead by now. It felt too boring and specific to be a lie but I googled the football club. They were indeed renovating their stadium. A statement from the board of directors said they were looking forward to reopening in three years’ time.

  I first noticed the headlights in the corner of my eye: a car coming off the main road, taking the airport turn too fast. Judging from the wide axle and high roof, it was a Jeep.

  I got out of Hamish’s car and shut the door, crouched down and backed off between two nearby parked cars. I watched.

  The Jeep cut across the empty car park and stopped near the main entrance. A figure in black got out and jogged into the terminal. As he walked along the bright inside concourse I saw it was the man with the knife. His left jaw was red and swollen. He looked very angry.

  The security guard at departures took his phone and scanned an e-ticket, checked a credit card for ID and ordered him to take his shoes off and put them in a basin on the conveyor belt. It took him an age to get them off. Lace-up combat boots.

  I rang Fin and whispered, ‘Hide. Knife-man’s coming in.’

  He hung up.

  I waited, watching the Jeep from the side of the cars. It moved to the nearest disabled parking space and waited, engine running. In the light from the terminal I could see Albert was driving. He looked my way and sat up suddenly. He peered. He had spotted Hamish’s car.

  Suddenly a light went on inside the Jeep and Albert reached down to pick up a phone. He was taking a call.

  Now very bright headlights were approaching and a bus glided in from the main road. It did a full circuit of the airport car-park one-way system before coming to rest right in front of the entrance. Albert was still on his call but watched the bus carefully.

  A few passengers tumbled off and disappeared into the side door of the terminal. Workers. There was no one waiting to get on but the bus idled, engine rumbling.

  Albert hung up. He looked at Hamish’s car again. He looked at the bus.

  A slow-moving luggage cart trundled around the pavement side of the building, parking parallel to the bus. The cart driver climbed out, walked up to the bus door and waved hello to the driver. The bus driver waved back, pressed a button and the side of the bus opened to a cavernous boot. The cart driver walked back and started loading the big boxes into it.

  Albert watched, bending forward in his seat, frustrated that he couldn’t see. Then he got out, leaving the Jeep door open, and hurried around the bus to see. But the cart driver had finished loading and slapped the chassis of the bus twice, signalling to the driver who pressed a button to shut the boot. The panel closed over just as Albert arrived round the side. He hurried back to the Jeep.

  Our plane was taking off in thirty-three minutes. I wanted to call Fin again, check he was safe, but he might be hiding and his phone might not be on silent and I might give him away.

  The bus drew out, coming straight towards me, lights brushing the top of my head. I lay on my stomach and rolled underneath one of the cars. When the bus passed I raised my head and saw a second set of lights: the Jeep was following the bus away from the airport terminal. They thought we were in that boot.

  As they passed I saw that Albert wasn’t alone. Knife-man was in the passenger seat.

  I waited until the lights were past me, until they hit the roundabout, and then I rang Fin again.

  ‘I’m hiding in the ladies’ toilet,’ he whispered. ‘Where are you?’

  I ran to the terminal.

  The security man glanced at my ID and waved me through. I arrived with dramatic speed into a small grey departures hall of sleepy passengers. I found Fin was standing between two drinks machines, looking flustered. ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘Think we’re in the boot of the bus. Chasing it back to Inverness.’

  Just then a hi-vis-vested man at the desk called the flight through the tannoy. The room wasn’t big enough to warrant a tannoy, he could just have said it.

  We queued, showed our tickets and were directed out to a propeller plane on the tarmac. It was small, a puddle hopper, just three seats across inside.

  We sat next to each other. I was shaking, felt sick, so wired I could have ripped all the chairs out of their brackets without breaking sweat. It was incredibly hard to sit still.

  Fin took out his phone, checking his Twitter account. Pretcha’s photo was up to seventy thousand likes but no one was talking about me any more.

  I took out my own phone, carefully keeping the face pointed away from Fin, and searched #JusticeForBukaran. I was surprised and incredibly touched. There were threats and insults but other people were challenging them, saying nice things about me, that I had courage, that I was young, that I had been lied about. Really, some of them
were too nice and talked about me as if I were a sainted martyr. People were overtly mentioning Gretchen Teigler, saying disparaging things, linking over and over to articles about a cop called Patricia Hummingsworth. Patricia had been jailed six years ago for taking bribes from Gretchen’s PA Dauphine Loire. Loire fought the case and was found not guilty. I shut the article and turned off my phone.

  I glanced at Fin’s. He wasn’t just looking at comments below Pretcha’s picture, there was a fresh post from Fin, uploaded fifteen minutes ago. It was an audio file. The likes and retweets on it were rolling up in the thousands as we watched. He smiled at it, terribly pleased. ‘I recorded it in departures, before that man turned up.’

  ‘Is it a song?’

  ‘No.’ He put his phone on airplane mode. ‘It’s a rough podcast about Leon Parker. Eight minutes? Not much more than that. Easy, just a voice recording about Skibo and some screenshot images but it’s already doing really well.’ He showed me the tweet. It had seven thousand likes already and the count was rolling up all the time.

  The stewardess was standing over us, smiling and looking at Fin’s phone. ‘Have you put that off, sir?’

  He pressed the button and the phone went blank. ‘Off,’ he said, smiling back.

  ‘Thank you.’ She walked back up to the front of the plane, sat in a flip-down chair facing us and did up her seat belt.

  ‘Fin? What have you done?’

  He shrugged innocently. ‘I just said that Leon didn’t kill himself. That someone else was on board and took the photo…’ His voice trailed away as he read my expression.

  ‘Fin, if there was someone else on that boat then they’ve murdered three people. You just broadcast the fact that we know.’

  The propellers started as the plane taxied to the runway. It was deafening.

  ‘I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE FUN.’

  ‘DID YOU?’

  ‘A BIT FUN…’

  The nose of the plane tipped sharply up, the tone of the propellers rose to a shriek and I shouted as loud as I could:

  ‘YOU’RE A VACUOUS IDIOT!’

  30

  MY HEART WAS STILL racing as we landed, a heady mix of indignation and exhaustion.