I yanked the door open, and the Kraken almost hit me in the face as she tried to keep knocking, her fist jumping forward when there was suddenly nothing to resist it. Relief flooded her eyes that I’d answered, but some of that relief fluttered away into concern when I scowled at her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, crossing my arms as I stared out at her.
The Kraken tried to push past me into the flat, but I blocked the way with my body, unwilling to let her into a space that didn’t belong to me.
“Really?” the Kraken demanded in her creaky, smoker’s voice. “You want to have this conversation out in the hall where anyone could listen in?”
She had a point. I leant forward slightly to poke my head out the door, glancing up and down the corridor to see if there was anyone observing us. There wasn’t, but that didn’t mean they weren’t listening in some other way.
I glanced over my shoulder to where Rayla had come out of the bedroom with a dressing gown wrapped around her. Confusion and a small amount of fear scrawled across her face, especially when she was able to spot the blood all over the Kraken.
“Callum, who is this? What’s going on?” she asked.
I sighed, torn between my desire to keep her out of all of this and the fact that there was an injured person before me who was clearly in need of an awful lot of help.
“Alright, fine. You can come in,” I said grudgingly as I stepped to the side to allow the Kraken entry into Rayla’s flat.
She practically fell inside, her balance wavering as a rush of pain hit her face. Rayla was there in a second, her instinct to help people overriding her fear, and she led the Kraken gently to her sofa, lowering the older woman carefully to the cushions.
“I’ll find my first aid kit,” Rayla said to me as she let go of the Kraken’s hands. She glanced back at me, a thousand questions clearly burning on her tongue, but she bit them back for the moment and hurried into the bathroom to find whatever meagre medical supplies she had.
I sat down on the coffee table across from the Kraken and watched her as she pulled up the hem of her vest to get a look at the wound on her side. She barely flinched as she peeled away the makeshift bandage she’d slapped over it and prodded at the edges of the injury, though it looked nasty and painful. It seemed she’d been stabbed, but it hadn’t been a clean entry or exit, the edges frayed and torn. It was still bleeding, slowly weeping dark blood even as she pressed the bandage back over the top of it.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Got stabbed,” the Kraken grunted.
“Yes, I can see that,” I said, giving her a short glare, though she wasn’t looking at me at that moment. “Who stabbed you? How long ago did this happen?”
“Didn’t see his face,” the Kraken replied as she eased herself back against the sofa cushions.
Rayla came out of the bathroom with a small kit in hand, and I held out a hand to take it from her. She passed it to me, looking like she was glad she wouldn’t have to be the one to administer first aid, and I opened it up to look through the contents as the Kraken continued to explain.
“After… that thing that happened,” the Kraken said, glancing at Rayla for a second before she decided to leave out the specifics of the fire, “I went underground. I’ve got a few safe houses scattered around both the city and the surrounding areas. I went and stayed in one of them for a while, trying to figure out who… came after us.”
“Did you find anything?” I asked. Rayla’s first aid kit was pretty basic, but I doused a cloth in sterile water from a bottle and gently lifted the Kraken’s shirt so I could try to clean the wound.
She finally flinched, her whole face contorting for a second before she managed to calm it back down. “Maybe. And I may have found something on your father. I’ll tell you everything I know if you agree to give me asylum.”
My hands paused in the process of dabbing the stab wound, and I drew back, giving the Kraken an incredulous look. “Seriously?” I demanded, gesturing to her midsection. “Do you really think you’re in any position to be bargaining right now?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re going to turn an old, wounded woman away at the door, is it?” the Kraken asked with a sly wink. “So you get me somewhere safe, and once I’ve recovered a bit, I’ll tell you.”
“You’ll tell me now,” I snapped, unable to believe that she was trying to play games even while she was bleeding on my girlfriend’s sofa. Rayla was still hovering a few feet to my right, wringing her hands together as she watched the two of us, and after a few more seconds of uncertainty, she went into the kitchen and put on the kettle.
“I don’t know if I can,” the Kraken replied with something of a dramatic sigh. “I’m just so rattled from the attack, and I’m in so much pain… I don’t know if I can conjure the information up right now.”
“You’re the absolute worst, you know that?” I said, but I went back to cleaning the wound, anyway.
The Kraken grinned, though it was a tight expression. “I’m aware.”
“Can you at least tell me how you got stabbed?” I asked.
“I came back into town to find you,” the Kraken explained. “I figured your emails and phone were probably being monitored, so I didn’t want to just send the information to you. I thought it would be better to talk in person, where I could try to control a few more of the variables. I’m not entirely sure this is a safe place to talk.” She moved her head in a small circle to encompass Rayla’s flat.
I sighed. She could have just said that rather than giving me a glib answer for why she couldn’t tell me about my father right away. But I supposed nothing was ever easy with the Kraken.
“And?” I prompted. At that point, I’d gotten most of the blood cleaned away from the wound, though it was still oozing fresh stuff each time I wiped it away. It didn’t look like there was anything stuck in it, and I wasn’t an expert, but I thought it would be obvious if the knife had reached any of her internal organs. She seemed to have gotten lucky, the knife sticking her almost right at the edge of her side. The injury probably needed stitches, but I didn’t know how to do that, so I just stuck a fresh bandage on it and taped it down as tightly as I could. My mother had more first aid skills than I did, and I was thinking about leaving the Kraken with her, mostly because it would be a little funny to watch the two stubborn women lock horns.
“And I thought I’d covered my tracks well enough, but someone jumped me in an alley a couple of streets from your flat and, well…” She pointed to the white bandage on her bloody side before she lowered her shirt over it again.
Rayla came out of the kitchen with three mugs of steaming tea carefully clutched in her hands. I rose to take two of them from her, then passed one of them to the Kraken, who gratefully wrapped her hands around the warm cup, pulling it close to her chest as she breathed in the steam.
“Did they follow you here?” I asked harshly. I put my own mug on the coffee table, then moved swiftly to the window and pushed one of the blinds down so I could poke my nose out, studying the street below with keen eyes.
“Don’t worry. They won’t be following anyone else again,” the Kraken said from behind me.
I spun around and gaped at her. “What did you do?”
The Kraken looked up at me and blinked. “I thought that was obvious. He attacked me. I killed him. Don’t worry. No one will find the body. You won’t be drawn into it.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about!” I cried, throwing my hands into the air. “I’m a police officer, and you just told me that you killed someone!”
“In self-defence,” the Kraken pointed out, sounding completely unconcerned by the whole thing. “I mean, I did get stabbed.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. Yes, she did it in self-defence, but then she apparently disposed of the body and ran away rather than calling the incident in, so the whole situation felt like just another thing I needed to cover up, one more way for me t
o get into trouble at work.
But the Kraken had information on my father, and hopefully, by extension, information on the shadow organisation that had been plaguing my every step. She had information that I’d been searching for on my own for months without any luck, and unfortunately, that meant I couldn’t turn her away and wash my hands of the whole thing.
“Fine,” I ground out as I let out a harsh sigh. “I will take you somewhere safe. But,” I held up a finger to shut the Kraken up as she opened her mouth. “I’m not happy that you came to find me here. Rayla has nothing to do with this, and your presence here puts her in danger.”
“It’s fine, Callum. Really,” Rayla said quietly.
“It’s not fine,” I contradicted. “We have no idea if she really got away scot-free, and it’s still possible that she led these people here.”
“I’ll just go stay with Alana for a few days,” Rayla said. She stepped closer and took hold of my arm, forcing me to look at her so she could show me her wide, comforting eyes. “This sounds… scary, it’s true, but it also sounds important. I’ll take precautions, and I’ll be fine. And I mean, come on, Callum. Look at her. It’s not like she had anywhere else to go. She couldn’t just wait around to get you alone with that wound.”
The Kraken looked very pleased that Rayla agreed with her, and I scowled at both of them for a second because I couldn’t believe that I was the only one taking this seriously.
“If you’re that worried about it, then get her out of here,” Rayla continued, talking over me as I opened my mouth to protest again. “Take her somewhere safe, and I’ll pack for Alana’s, then we’ll reconnect in a week or two when this dies down, alright?”
I didn’t think any of this would die down in just a couple of weeks, but I didn’t tell her that. Better to let her believe that things were less serious than they actually were. So I nodded and gave her a smile, forcing my own fearful anger down into a box where it would stop plucking at the taut strings of my brain.
“Okay,” I agreed as I took a deep breath. “Give me five minutes to get dressed.”
I hurried into Rayla’s bedroom, and she followed me after glancing at the Kraken one last time. I immediately began hunting around for my clothes since I was just dressed in a t-shirt and my boxers. I was just surprised the Kraken hadn’t made a crack about it when I opened the door. That probably just showed how serious her injury actually was.
Rayla caught my arm and pulled me to a stop while I was in the middle of throwing my clothes onto the bed. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I breathed out a slow sigh. “Just rattled,” I promised her. “I honestly kind of thought she was dead, and then she just showed up on your doorstep like that…”
Rayla quietly shut the bedroom door. “Who is she?”
“She wouldn’t want me to tell you,” I said, rolling my eyes. “She knew my father. Well, maybe not knew him, exactly, but they were in contact, and they were supposed to meet up right before he disappeared.”
I’d only told Rayla bits and pieces about my father’s disappearance. That he’d walked out one day, that my sister thought it had something to do with his Loch Ness Monster obsession, while my mother thought it had to do with his work as a security analyst. As it turned out, they were both sort of right.
“How much danger am I actually in?” Rayla asked as she chewed on her lower lip.
“I don’t know,” I admitted honestly, though I wanted to tell her that everything was perfectly fine. She didn’t know about the threatening message I’d found in the old lab, nor did I know if she was even the woman it had referenced. It was perfectly possible that the Kraken had taken care of her only tail. It was also possible that she’d missed something. I might have even led these people to Rayla myself, what with all the time I spent at her flat. There were too many unknowns, too many questions, and since I didn’t have answers to any of them, I decided not to even try.
“But I can promise that I’ll sort this out and keep you safe,” I continued, gripping both of her hands in mine. “And I’d also understand if this is too much for you, and you want to cut ties.”
“Maybe,” Rayla admitted, but she looked horribly guilty to be saying that. “A bleeding woman did just show up on my doorstep and admit to killing someone. Can we give it two weeks to see where everything’s at, then go from there?”
“Of course,” I said, giving her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “But call me if you feel even a little unsafe, yeah?”
“You will probably be getting a lot of those calls,” Rayla joked weakly.
I took her in my arms to give her a tight hug, her dreadlocks brushing my cheek as she clutched at me. I could feel her body shaking slightly, but in the end, she was the one who broke the hug first, drawing back with a slightly wobbly but still determined expression on her face.
“I believe you’ve got work to do,” she said as she rubbed at her nose. “I’ll be fine. Just make sure you take care of yourself, yeah?”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised, and Rayla nodded, seeming to accept my answer even as she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort.
Wisely, as I’d spent a few nights here in the past, I had left a few sets of clean clothes with Rayla. Not that it would help the cut in my overcoat. I’d just have to find time to get that repaired later. I got dressed quickly and made sure I had all my things before I left the bedroom to find my shoes by the front door. I stuffed my feet into my boots then crossed back to the sofa. The Kraken was still seated there with her eyes closed and her head tipped back against one of the pillows.
“Can you walk?” I asked her as I stood over her.
“I walked here, didn’t I?” she replied, cracking one eye open, though she did hold out an arm to me to help her up, and I looped it around my shoulders after I pulled her to her feet.
Rayla got the door for us, her eyes worried as she watched us leave. I paused in the hallway to smile at her one last time and give her a nod that I hoped was comforting, and then I led the Kraken toward the stairs, the two of us moving like some kind of heavy and awkward three-legged creature as Rayla shut the door behind us with a nearly imperceptible click.
Thirteen
Getting the Kraken downstairs to my car was… a bit of a trial since the woman refused to support any of her own weight, and I couldn’t tell if she was doing it on purpose or if she was honestly that tired and hurt. I managed to get her down the stairs unnoticed since it was early enough in the morning that there weren’t any other tenants moving around. I was really glad we didn’t run into anyone else. I wasn’t about to try to explain why I was helping a very, very bloody woman through the building.
We pushed out the front door and stumbled across the street, and I opened the passenger’s side door of my car and helped Kraken inside, keeping hold of her until she was fully settled into the seat. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get blood on the upholstery that I would have to explain to Fletcher later.
I was probably going to have to explain this to Fletcher anyway since I’d agreed to keep her in the loop, and she’d definitely punch me if she found out I was keeping anything from her.
“Where are we going?” the Kraken asked as I climbed into the driver’s seat. Her voice sounded strained, and she’d gone a little pale with the effort of walking down all those stairs, her hand pressed against her wounded side.
“My mother’s,” I answered, twisting the key in the ignition and swiftly pulling away from the kerb.
“So you didn’t want me bringing danger to your girlfriend’s doorstep, but you’re okay taking it to your mother’s?”
I let out a short laugh. “You haven’t met my mum. She basically eats danger for breakfast.”
“Oh, believe me. I’ve heard the stories about Eleanor MacBain,” the Kraken said, and I thought she almost sounded a little pleased that she was on her way to meet the legend herself.
My mother lived on the edge of the city, away from all the hustle and bustle of the main
streets, in the same house that I’d grown up in. She had a decent amount of land around the building itself, and she’d gotten very into gardening after her retirement, so the whole place was exploding with greenery when we pulled into the driveway. She had a proper garden around the back of the house, but she’d taken great care in the landscaping as well, the bushes lining the drive and the front of the house all cultivated to grow to the best of their abilities. Several bird feeders hung from the trees, all filled with top-notch feed and nectar.
I parked beside Eleanor’s car and turned the engine off, quickly getting out and crossing to the Kraken’s door, so I could help her. I slung her arm around my shoulder once again, and we made our way carefully up the three steps to the front door. I knocked a couple of times then called, “Mum?”
“Come in!” she yelled from within.
I had a key and could have let myself in without knocking, but my mother tended to react badly to unexpected visitors, a habit trained into her from all her years as chief inspector. I’d figured out that it was generally safer to announce myself first.
I swung the door open and manoeuvred the Kraken carefully over the threshold as she clutched at my shoulders, panting with effort. Eleanor met us in the front hall, wiping her hands on a tea towel, looking curious but unconcerned because, at the moment, the Kraken and I were positioned such that she couldn’t make out all the blood down the Kraken’s front.
My mother was a fairly tall, willowy woman, and she wore her age well, the small wrinkles around her eyes and mouth making her look regal when combined with her short, perfectly coiffed hair, which was now more silver than black. She was dressed in a neat pair of grey trousers and a navy blouse, like she was on her way out, though her feet were bare, and she hadn’t done her makeup yet.
Fatal Transaction: A DCI MacBain Scottish Crime Thriller Page 17