The Storm Page 2
Jamie shrugged and went back to his life, unaware that he had just lit the fuse on Niddrie’s nastiest ned. His run-in with Kevin got him in the papers twice: firstly, as the local hero who stopped a “dramatic daylight smash-and-grab raid in Edinburgh’s busiest shopping centre”; and then a few weeks later as the local hero who had been viciously beaten and hospitalised.
About a week after he’d floored Kevin, Jamie was grabbed as he came out of the Pitz – a five-a-side football centre just on the outskirts of Musselburgh. Dragged down a side street and beaten senseless by someone with a taste for cheap sovereign rings and the sound of breaking bones. His hands had been stamped on, his ribs broken and his knees shattered. The doctor Susie spoke to couldn’t say for sure, but it was her guess that whoever had done this to Jamie had beaten him unconscious then jumped on his knees until they had snapped.
“I hope he didn’t like getting anywhere fast,” she had muttered to Susie, eyes hidden by the reflection from the X-rays of the ruined bones shining from the wall.
It didn’t take much to connect the dots back to Kevin. He opened the door to his flat in Niddrie – in a block of new-build housing association homes that somehow managed to look dilapidated and smell of cat piss despite being only six months old –and glared sullenly at Susie, one eye glinting in the cushion of a badly bruised socket. At least Jamie had managed to get one hit in.
He admitted nothing, but hardly needed to – they found blood-spattered clothes in his bedroom and a copy of the Tribune open on the coffee table, Jamie’s face smiling nervously out of the centre spread, the paragraphs about his love of football and the local league games at the Pitz carefully underlined. It was an open-and-shut case – until Charming Charlie Montgomery had got involved.
Susie could hear him now: the cultured, Stirlingshire lilt with a confidence just this side of arrogance. How could it be attempted murder when no weapon had been used? Were the police there at the time? Did they know the psychological trauma Mr Malcolm had been through – driven to a stupid theft by crippling debts and a young child to feed, then ridiculed while on bail by his friends who saw the story in the newspaper? Was it any surprise that Mr Malcolm, fuelled by his addiction to alcohol, had sought revenge on Mr Miller? Surely the members of the jury could see his client was not in his right mind at the time, but had merely lashed out? Surely he was deserving of some leniency and recognition of his diminished responsibility? Surely…
Susie’s phone beeped in her pocket again – a reminder of the missed call and message from Doug.
Listen or ignore?
She clamped it to her ear, turned toward the wall to hide the fact she was using it right under a sign that read, No mobile phones in the court buildings, and listened to the message. Smiled as he fumbled his way through “had fun last night”, felt a flush of awkward guilt.
They hadn’t started out on the best of terms. About three years ago, Doug got in touch out of the blue, to matter-of-factly tell Susie he had found out about her drunken one-night stand with a married Chief Super who had then gone for a press gagging order about the whole affair (excuse the pun, she thought), before the phrase “super-injunction” had even been whispered by the tabloids.
He really had been a little prick all round, Susie thought sourly. Emphasis on the little.
But then Doug surprised her. Instead of pressuring her for access or information, he told her he was killing the story because he wasn’t “a gutter-mining shit”. All he wanted to do was introduce himself as a face she could trust. He shared contacts where he could, got her information that people wouldn’t always give to the police, and all he asked in return was a heads-up when a story was about to break, or perhaps an advance quote to get him half a step ahead of his rivals. He could be a pushy little shit, and she’d been bollocked by her DI, Jason “Third Degree” Burns, and her other bosses more than once for “being too close to certain sections of the press”, but the arrangement worked for both of them. He got stories, she got information she needed and the chance to paint the police in a positive light now and again.
But lately, something had changed. They were spending more time together, focusing less on work. It seemed to start after the Buchan incident last year, but was that it? Was the trauma of almost being killed together bringing them closer to each other, or was it something else?
He was a contact, but he was also a friend: the guy who would listen to her rant about a shit day at work without judging – or running the stories she told him; the guy who fixed her car, went for pizza and a pint after a hard day.
But then there was what happened a couple of weeks ago, the “fun” last night and now…
…now…
“Detective Sergeant Susan Drummond?”
Susie looked up, startled. A court usher was leaning out of the doors to courtroom two, calling her to give evidence.
Susie switched her phone to silent and pocketed it, heading for the courtroom. As she walked through the door, the phone started its insistent buzz in her pocket. She cursed quietly under her breath, hoped the judge and jury wouldn’t hear it as she entered the witness stand. Work knew she was in court all morning so it was unlikely to be them. And Doug? Well, Doug could wait. It couldn’t be that urgent, could it?
4
I sit quietly in the corner of the room, listening to the soft, relentless beep of the heart monitor, stifling the urge to scream. My body has delivered on the promise it made earlier – my joints are filled with sand, my bones petrified, jutting twigs that grind against each other every time I move. Cold agony crawls up my spine and across my shoulders with every breath, making it impossible for me to fill my lungs. Not that it would take much to do that. Not these days.
I rock forward, using the momentum to propel myself out of the seat and get moving. I’m rewarded by hot pokers of pain shooting up my legs. My hand scrabbles instinctively to my pocket, searching for the comforting cool wrap of tinfoil that’s tucked neatly in the corner. It would be so easy just to take some now, one little hit. Just enough to take the edge off the pain, blunt its fangs, and turn the stabbing, tearing bites into a dull gnawing.
But no. No. He deserves better than that. I’ve let him down enough in his life. This needs precision. Discipline.
Control.
I walk over to the bed, picking up a superhero comic from the bedside table as I move. He loves these comics, the bright colours and the larger-than-life characters. When we first started reading the comics together, I thought they’d be good for him – help him associate words with actions and, crucially, help him associate me with fun and security, perhaps even help build a bridge between us after all the lost years.
Too late for that now.
I sit down in the chair beside the bed, grunting slightly as I do. Again, my mind flashes to the wrap in my pocket and the promise of peace and relief.
But not yet. Not yet.
I flick through the well-thumbed pages, finding where we left off after my last visit. I start reading to him, quietly, softly, as if I’m in a church. When he was a baby, the few precious times I saw him, he loved it when I made the voices of the characters – and I made sure he never saw how much changing my voice, or crying out in mock surprise or triumph, hurt me. Making my voice high and squeaky was like gargling glass; lowering it for the booming baritone of Batman or Superman was like swallowing the glass a shard at a time.
But he never saw it. Not once.
They tell me he can’t hear me now, but I know they’re wrong. I know that, even now, he’s in there somewhere.
I just wish to God he wasn’t.
I finish the story – Spider-Man swinging off into a sunset so warm and inviting it could only exist in the pages of a fantasy – then set the comic gently aside. I clear my throat, mash my hands angrily against my eyes, then start to tell him another story. A very special story I’ve been preparing for a long, long tim
e.
I tell him about a monster who lied, who hid in plain sight with other monsters and pretended he was something he wasn’t. I tell him about the noble hero and the life destroyed by this monster’s cowardice and lies. About the hero travelling to a land far, far from home, where the unforgiving, glaring sun blistered his back as the sand tore at his flesh, borne on a hot, biting wind that burned the hero every time he took a breath.
I tell him about the hero’s quest to come home to his family and the trials he endured. The sneering and disbelief, the names he was called. And I tell him that, as all this happened, the monster looked on, laughing. Smug and secure and comfortable in the life of lies he had created.
I blink back the tears in my eyes – scalding with sorrow and shame and loss. For a moment, a horribly tempting moment, I think about taking the whole wrap and just ending it now, the beep of the heart monitor a metronome counting down to the end of my life.
But no. No. I must be strong. Disciplined.
Controlled.
I heave in a breath – ragged, hitching, agonising – and go on. I tell him about justice, about how the hero destroyed the monster, tracking him down and taking his voice, leaving him clawing for breath before making his heart explode from his chest, making sure he suffered as badly as the hero had.
I promise him that it’s not over; that the quest is far from finished and the hero will not rest until all the monsters are dead and everyone who did this – every one – is dead. I take his hand and squeeze as hard as I can. I close my eyes and swear that the hero will get them all.
Then I lurch forward and kiss his forehead gently, caressing the stubble on top of his head, all that’s left of the unruly mop of blonde hair that used to sit there.
“Mummy’s hair,” I used to tell him. “You’ve got Mummy’s hair.”
I take a moment to look at him. A young man with his future stolen from him by one grotesque moment that took what he loved the most in his simple world and twisted it into his killer. I make sure he’s comfortable, take his head gently in my hand and prop him forward, sliding a pillow out. I fluff it up, make sure it’s soft and full.
Ignore the stabbing pains in my arms as I press the pillow down on his face, clamp my mouth shut against the scream that’s only partly due to the pain. Shake my head angrily against the tears I can’t fight, can’t destroy, can’t ignore. Beneath me, he bucks once, weak, almost imperceptible and, despite myself, I smile.
I knew it. I knew he was still there. My boy. My son. The fighter to the end.
I make sounds as soothing as I can and the movement subsides, the heart monitor starting to beep urgent warnings. I reach over and click it to “Silent” – I’ve seen enough nurses, been in enough hospitals, to know how. I give it another minute then slowly ease the pillow from his face. He looks peaceful. As though he’s finally in a restful sleep instead of a drug-induced coma.
I feel for a pulse, just to be sure. Fight back a cough that’s halfway between a cry and a scream when I find none. Gently lift his head and replace the pillow. I spend one more second on a goodbye, then I turn and shuffle for the door, trying to convince myself I’m not a worse monster than those I’ve promised to destroy.
5
Sitting on the southern border of Edinburgh heading into Midlothian, the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary is a sprawling network of buildings sitting at the foot of a hill, the ruins of Edinburgh’s other castle, Craigmillar, looming over it. It was built to replace the old Royal, a Victorian building that loomed over the Meadows in Edinburgh like a gothic nightmare. It was shops and flats now, the dark, glowering wards replaced with walls of glass and penthouse apartments with price tags so high they would give most people nosebleeds. Ah, progress.
Susie drove in the entrance closest to A&E, took one look at the over-rammed car park and bumped up on the pavement of what she hoped was a side-road that led round the back of the hospital. The last thing she wanted was to block an ambulance from getting in or out, especially today. She propped a Police on call card on the dashboard then headed for the casualty department, wishing she was wearing her trainers instead of heels and a business suit.
Early afternoon and the reception area was quiet. Gone were the scenes she was used to from night and weekend shifts – the stunned faces of those forced to sober up too quickly after a night out went suddenly wrong, or those ripped from their beds by a loved one clutching at their chest and gasping for air. Instead, she found a couple of harassed parents on either side of a young boy with a towel wrapped around his arm and a bruise the size of an orange on his head.
“But Muuuum,” he whined, “it doesnae even hurt now. I dinnae need tae see the doctor.”
Susie watched as the mother, a thin woman with greasy black-grey hair and eyes filled with disappointed resignation, shot a quick glance over the boy’s head to what looked liked a man-shaped mountain of lard packed into a ragged Snoopy T-shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms that had obviously mastered the trick of defying gravity.
“Now listen, Zac,” the man said, his voice surprisingly soft for such a massive frame, “that was a hell of a spill you took, son, better to get it checked out. It won’t hurt, promise.” He leaned forward to reassure his son, the cheap plastic chair beneath him squealing softy.
Susie walked on, leaving the sound of the boy’s mewling pleas behind her. A quick flash of her warrant card at the reception desk and she was pointed towards the triage centre for assessing patients who had just arrived. She found Doug in a curtained bay, perched on the edge of the bed and hunched over his phone, fingers darting across the screen. He was wearing a set of pale blue hospital scrubs, which looked less wrinkled than the suits he usually wore, and it struck her that his clothes would be sitting in a police lab somewhere, packed into neat evidence bags, waiting to be studied. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. His brown hair, which Susie once described as “fashionably tousled”, stood up in crazy whorls and spikes – raked into an expression of his mood by his hands.
He glanced up, the movement almost a spasm, and Susie saw shock and exhaustion etched across his face, making his normally high cheekbones, thin lips and slightly crooked nose look brittle, one good shake away from cracking. The impression wasn’t helped by the faint glistening of sweat on his forehead, and the hectic smudges of colour on his usually pale cheeks.
He studied her for a moment, his green-brown irises framed in bloodshot eyes as they darted across her, like he was looking for something – which, Susie realised, he usually was.
Finally, his eyes locked with hers. She felt a momentary flash of discomfort, forced herself not to look away or move forward. She felt as though she was under a microscope as he stood there, breathing calmly, as though that cold, even gaze could tell her everything he couldn’t find the words for.
He nodded once, almost to himself, then dropped his head to his chest. Looked back up with a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes and spoke, his voice a cheap imitation of his usual calm, soft tones.
“I didn’t do it, detective. I know I had motive, God knows the nasty bastard had it coming, but it wasn’t me. I’ve got witnesses. And a reporter’s salary doesn’t exactly stretch to a hitman.”
Susie snorted back a laugh despite herself, glad the tension was broken. She stepped forward, fought back the sudden, stupid urge to reach out to him by crossing her hands behind her back.
“Well, if you’re looking for a character witness, don’t think about asking me, I’ve tasted your cooking. Now that was murder.”
Doug flashed another smile, nothing more than a brief twitch of the muscles, then went back to concentrating on his phone.
“What you working on?” Susie asked.
“First-person piece on Greig’s, ah… you know, the shooting. Spoke to Walter earlier, says he can’t let me do the story as I’m involved, prick, but I talked him into at least running this.”
“Doug, you weren’t…?”
He looked up at her, then back down at where she was looking. “What, this? No. Just took a hell of a lot of scrubbing to get Greig’s blood off my hands, is all.”
She nodded, thoughts of showers and baths after crime scenes – of scrubbing and scrubbing to try and slough off the smell of death and blood – flashed through her mind. Shook off the thoughts then blurted out the question she wanted to ask since she heard the news.
“Doug. You okay?”
He stopped typing, scanned the screen in front of him as if it held the answer. Somewhere far off, she heard the beep of a heart monitor, as steady as the ticks of a clock, marking time.
“I… I don’t know, Susie,” he said. “I mean, I’ve seen this stuff before, written about it – hell, remember the Buchan story last year? But this… this is different, this is… real, you know?”
She nodded. She knew all too well. All the crime scenes she had visited, the bodies she had seen, there was one constant. Hiding behind the blood and the chaos and the other signs of violence masked by the business of a crime scene – the cacophony of lab technicians taking photographs and officers talking to witnesses, the squawk of radios and calls being made – there was always another presence. Pushing down like an invisible weight, crushing, insistent.
The finality of death – and the realisation that it was waiting for us all in the end.
“So, what you doing here? Burns send you to check they didn’t miss anything in my statement?”
Susie bit back a sarcastic response, ignored the sudden, sour tickle of anger she felt. “No, just wanted to check on you. Got the call from Burns when I came out of the court – he wanted me to hear it from him rather than over the radio.”