No Man's Land Read online

  And if she had to scoop every other reporter covering the Cowane’s Hospital murder to prove herself, then fine. She knew just how she was going to do it.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was only a ten-minute drive from Bannockburn to his flat, along roads he normally enjoyed, but Connor had lost his taste for it.

  It had been the worst kind of visit. She was there and she was not, as though she was in a darkened room with a single swinging light bulb, the harsh glare stripping the shadows from her mind for precious moments, then plunging her back into darkness and confusion. She had ranted, she had cried. She had hugged him, asked how he was, then looked at him with nothing but addled pleading in eyes that were growing dull and too used to tears.

  It had started three years ago. Small things at first. An inability to finish her beloved Times crossword. Forgetting where she had put her reading glasses or the cigarettes she insisted she no longer smoked. But his mother had assured him Ida Fraser’s condition was manageable. His grandmother needed a little more help around the house. That was all. Nothing for Connor to worry about. Certainly no reason for him to come back from Belfast to check up on her.

  Looking back now, Connor wondered how much of his mother’s reluctance for him to come home was based on a desire not to disrupt his life, and how much on her desire for him not to see his gran. Because if he’d seen her, he’d have known. Before it was too late.

  Nothing much happened for the next few months. Connor would make his regular calls home, speaking either to his mother or his gran. They told him everything was fine, and he put the stress he heard in their voices down to the new circumstances they were finding themselves in. After all, Ida Fraser had always been a fiercely independent woman, her determination forged in the sixties, when being a single mother abandoned by her husband was still seen as a failing and a social curse. To have to accept help from her daughter-in-law – whom she regarded as not good enough for her darling son Jack – must have put pressure on them both, especially since darling Jack would no doubt pull his normal disappearing act as soon as things got tough.

  Over time, it faded from being an issue into a fact of life. His gran was getting on a bit: she was bound to forget things. And by then Connor had his own problems to deal with in Belfast, and the issue was forgotten.

  Until that night. And that call.

  He remembered it all too clearly. He was down in the Cathedral Quarter of the town, trying to calm the sting in his knuckles and the panicked clamour of his thoughts with Bushmills and Harp. He’d been ignoring the phone most of the night: Karen was calling and he didn’t know what to say to her. Didn’t have the words.

  But then he’d glanced at the screen and seen a different caller. Gran – mobile. Connor had experienced a moment of vertigo, the room tilting nauseatingly as adrenalin flooded his veins and burnt away the blurring effects of alcohol. His gran never used her mobile. Barely knew how to turn the thing on. He had a sudden image of her lying on the floor in her living room, surrounded by the wreckage of the table she had crashed through, reaching for the mobile in her pocket, calling the one person she knew would always answer.

  He was out of the pub before he knew it, phone clamped to his ear, the cold of the night only partly to blame for the chill he felt deep in his guts.

  ‘Hello, Gran? You okay? Listen, if there’s—’

  ‘Connor, son,’ she said, cutting him off. Her voice was level, rough with tears she had long since exhausted. ‘I’m sorry to call you this late at night, but we have to talk.’

  ‘What? Gran, what’s wrong? Are you—’

  ‘It’s your mother, Connor,’ Ida replied, her voice a blunt, hard thing of extended consonants and flattened vowels. ‘I’m sorry, son. She asked me not to tell you, not to worry you, but it’s getting bad now. And you have to know.’

  ‘Know what?’ Connor asked, his lungs leaden, the air around him hard to inhale. ‘Gran, what’s—’

  ‘Call her,’ Ida said. ‘Get her to tell you, son. But please, just come home.’

  He didn’t bother calling, instead booked the first flight home. Knew it was bad the moment he walked through the front door.

  His mother was in the living room, wrapped in an oversized cardigan that only emphasized how much weight she had lost. She had always been a small, vital woman, her hair flame red, her porcelain skin dappled with freckles, flares of red in her cheeks and across her neck. But the woman in front of Connor that day was dull, anaemic, her hair peppered with grey, her skin waxy and parchment thin. Only her eyes were familiar, the brilliant green of the pupils refusing to give in to the yellowing of the whites.

  She didn’t speak when he knelt in front of her, just leant forward and wrapped skeletal arms around him in a feverish hug.

  Bowel cancer, the doctors said. She had kept it quiet to start with, dismissing it as just an infection, something that would pass. But it hadn’t passed. And now, with the cancer having spread its black, snaking tendrils through her, there was nothing to be done.

  Claire O’Brien Fraser died three weeks later. And while the loss devastated Connor and his father, it had pitched Ida into the abyss.

  The doctors said the stress of Claire’s death had exacerbated Ida’s dementia, increasing its severity. But Connor knew better. His mother had been his gran’s tether to reality. And with her gone, she was adrift in her own mind.

  Connor went home, glad to be away from Belfast and the nightmare it had become. After a stint in Edinburgh, he moved to Stirling, using some of the inheritance his mother had left him to place his gran in the care home at Bannockburn. The rest he used as a deposit on the flat and the car. If his father objected, he said nothing to his son. Not that that was a surprise: Jack Fraser had been clear all his life that Connor was a bitter disappointment.

  Home for Connor was a garden flat on Park Terrace, close to the affluent King’s Park area of the town. The street was wide and lush, with manicured gardens and carefully trimmed trees. The house Connor’s flat was in reminded him of the care home, the cream sandstone now seeming to glow like amber in the evening sun.

  A narrow driveway led off the road to a parking bay at the back. Connor pulled into it, switched off the engine, grabbed his kitbag from the boot, then descended the small stone staircase to his flat. He unlocked the door, disarmed the burglar alarm and stood in the silence for a moment. Satisfied nothing had been disturbed, he made his way down the hall, past the kitchen on his right and a bedroom on his left, to the living room. It was a large space, the far wall dominated by floor-to-ceiling patio windows that looked out onto a small paved area and granite wall that the previous owners had disguised with a miniature Japanese garden.

  He dropped his bag, took a breath. Switched on the TV, more to drown out the silence than from any desire to watch anything. The news channels had moved on to other stories, but still he saw the words ‘Stirling’ and ‘horror murder’ more than once on the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

  He went back to the kitchen and poked his head into the fridge. Nothing. Shit. He’d meant to stop on the way back, get food for the weekend. And beer. After his visit with his gran, and what he had to do next, he needed it.

  He hadn’t had the heart to tell her. She was too confused, too fragile. Or maybe that was cowardice. Either way, it had to be done. This weekend, he was going to clear out her home, get it ready to put on the market. He didn’t want the money for himself, but he did want it to make sure her care was provided for. But, with her dementia stripping her of her memories, how could he tell her he was about to remove any physical reminders of her life by packing up her home of thirty years?

  He stepped back into the living room, stared blankly at the TV as he tried to work the tension out of his shoulders. He had been bracing his neck the entire time he had been with his gran, almost as though he was waiting for her to throw a punch.

  He sighed, then headed for his bedroom and the kitbag that was packed and ready. A workout was what he needed. So
mething to take his mind off his gran, his mother and the past. The report for Lachlan Jameson could wait.

  He changed and headed for the door, hefting his bag over his shoulder. The gym was only a half-mile away, and the walk would serve as his warm-up. He set off down the street, already running through the workout he would subject himself to.

  He didn’t notice the figure across the road, watching him from the shadows. Didn’t hear the whisper that drifted into the night.

  ‘Hello again, Connor.’

  CHAPTER 6

  The splash-back from the toilet bowl peppered cold water across his burning face. It only increased the roiling in his guts and he retched again, vomit made acid by the vodka he had drunk earlier to steady his nerves spattering the bowl. He felt his pulse hammer in his temples, vision pulsing in time with his heart. Drew a shaking hand across his mouth as he took ragged, hitching breaths. Fought for control, screwed his eyes shut, dark sparks dancing across his vision, and focused on his breathing.

  Then, in that darkness, the memory. That call. Cold. Remote. Businesslike.

  His eyes snapped open and he doubled over once more as his empty stomach spasmed. He felt an incredible pressure build in his head, as though it were about to explode. Dimly, he hoped it would. After a moment, he collapsed, chest heaving, his back against the wall of the office en-suite.

  At first, he had thought he would be okay. The call had come just after eleven a.m., directly to an anonymous pre-paid mobile to which only the caller had the number. The message had been, like the voice, cold and efficient, with just a hint of something darker beneath the cultured tones.

  ‘It’s done. Check the news. You should be very happy.’

  The call ended before he could say anything. Not that he could speak at that moment. He stared at the phone, a suddenly alien thing in his hand that radiated a numbing cold. He nodded and cleared his throat, horrified at the tickle of laughter that bubbled inside him, then stole a glance at his office door and his assistant, who sat just beyond.

  He pocketed the phone, smoothed the lines of his suit and walked to the door, his face contorting into a well-rehearsed smile. It wasn’t hard. He’d been living behind a mask for the last twenty-five years. ‘I’ve got a conference call on some casework,’ he said, in the measured tone he had perfected years ago. ‘Can you hold all calls and see I’m not disturbed, please?’

  ‘Of course,’ Margaret said, blinking up at him from behind thick glasses. She had been beautiful when they met – young, vibrant, flawless. Now the years had etched thin lines into her waxy skin, twisted her elegant hands into gnarled twigs and slackened a jaw that had once been firm. He used to lust after her. Now he pitied her.

  He retreated into his office, made sure the blinds were angled for privacy, then went to the cupboard beneath the wall-mounted TV. He took out the bottle of vodka and one of the crystal tumblers stacked neatly beside it. Poured a large measure, took bottle and glass back to his desk, loosened his tie and gazed dumbly around the room. The enormity of what had happened seemed to scream at him in the silence.

  It’s done.

  He felt the numbness recede, like the tide going out on a forgotten beach, as panic rose. He took another mouthful of vodka and held it in his mouth for a moment, willing it to burn away the rising terror. It didn’t.

  He swallowed, spotted the TV remote on his desk and watched his hand drift to it as though it wasn’t connected to him.

  It’s done. Check the news.

  He didn’t want to. To see it splashed across the TV would make this nightmare real. Of course he had had no choice, been forced to act by the greed, short-sightedness and self-serving arrogance of others but still . . .

  It’s done. Check the news.

  He stabbed at the remote. The TV flared into life and he turned the volume down. It defaulted to the internal TV channel: a florid-faced man with bad teeth and worse hair was lecturing a sparse, uninterested audience on a topic only he was interested in. He flicked to the news channel and his breath caught when he saw the caption: ‘Breaking news: murder in Stirling.’

  A striking woman with perfect make-up, her expression grave, spoke into the camera: ‘. . . was made at approximately six o’clock this morning. Police have confirmed this was a sustained and brutal attack.’

  He fumbled for his glass, felt the veneer of control crack as the camera cut to the police tape strung across the entrance to Cowane’s Hospital, the white SOCO tents visible just beyond. The camera pulled back, the reporter taking full frame.

  ‘I understand the post-mortem examination will begin shortly, to ascertain both cause of death and the identity of the victim.’

  With that, the dam broke and the terror surged. He lurched for the en-suite, the vomit exploding out of him almost before he’d had the chance to raise the toilet seat. It was as though his body was trying to expel not just the vodka but a lifetime of guilt and lies.

  Now he slumped in front of the toilet in the office he had given so much for, the office that had ultimately led to the death of the man on the screen. The man who, as the reporter had just said, would shortly be identified. The man who would not be the last to die in Stirling in the days to come.

  CHAPTER 7

  The gym was a twenty-four-hour place just off Craigs Roundabout on the main road into and out of the centre of town. It was Thursday-night busy, the working week burning off the Monday-morning resolve of many, leaving the weights free for the truly dedicated.

  Connor got changed and entered the main hall, nodding to familiar faces. He wedged in his earbuds and hit play on his phone – Bach’s Cello Suites. He’d been in enough gyms to know that high-energy dance or heavy rock was the preferred soundtrack, but neither worked for him. For Connor, the gym was all about the work. About pouring everything into the weights and pushing himself to the limit, where exhaustion and endorphins would conspire with the music to calm his mind. And, besides, he’d seen enough movies to know that torture scenes were always more effective when set to classical music.

  After a warm-up on the rowing machine, he worked his way around the weight machines, alternating pulling and pushing exercises as he pummelled his upper body. And all the while he kept glancing towards the free weights, checking if they were unused, waiting until they were quiet and the real work could begin.

  Fifteen minutes later, Connor was sitting on a weights bench, head between his knees, concentrating on the 50-kilo dumbbells he had just used for twelve reps of an Arnold press as he tried not to throw up. He could feel his muscles swelling with blood, his skin growing tight as his pulse thundered in his ears. He shut his eyes, concentrated on his breathing. Jumped when a cool hand touched his shoulder.

  A petite blonde in the gym’s unflattering purple uniform smiled nervously down at him, unease and concern fighting for supremacy in her eyes. He took a deep breath, popped out the earbuds and smiled up at her. ‘Jennifer, sorry. Just finished a set . . .’ He trailed off, partly because he didn’t know what else to say, partly because nausea was still scalding the back of his mouth.

  Jennifer MacKenzie’s smile became more confident. Great teeth, Connor thought randomly, feeling a sudden burning in his cheeks that was nothing to do with exertion.

  ‘No problem, Connor,’ she said, the hint of a Glasgow accent giving her voice a singsong quality. ‘Just wanted to check how you were doing. You looked like you were going at it pretty hard there.’

  She’d been watching him? Shit. ‘Yeah.’ He shrugged. ‘Been a long week. Needed to unwind a little. Anyway, how you doing?’

  The unease tightened her face again, her eyes shying away from his. ‘Ah, you know, same old,’ she said, aiming for levity and missing. She half turned as if to go, then hesitated.

  ‘You sure you’re okay, Jen?’ Connor asked. They’d known each other for a few months, since Connor had started coming to the gym. Friendly nods at first, then chats between sets that had stretched into lingering conversations. They’d threatened each oth
er with coffee or a drink on several occasions but never got round to it. He wondered if that was what was bothering her, or something else.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, really,’ she said, eyes still not finding his. ‘Look, I’d better let you get back to it.’

  He looked at her: the slumped shoulders, the nervous flicking of a strand of hair behind her ear, the shallow breathing. Nerves. Definitely. ‘I’m almost done,’ he said, not knowing the decision had been made until he started speaking. ‘You got long to go on your shift? I can hang around if you’d like – we can get that drink?’

  Her eyes darted back to him, warm gaze fixing on his. ‘I’m on till ten,’ she said. ‘If you’re sure . . .’

  Connor glanced up at the clock on the wall above the mirrors. Ten to nine. Plenty of time. ‘No problem,’ he said, leaning forward and wrapping his hands around the dumbbells again. ‘See you in Reception.’

  ‘Yeah. Cool. See you then!’ She flashed him another smile and was gone, busying herself checking that the free weights had been racked and everything was tidied away.

  Connor hefted the weights onto his lap then, with a kick of his knees, muscled them up to his shoulders. He stared at his reflection in the mirror and started to press the weights up. When his muscles began to burn in protest, he thought of Jen’s smile – and wondered what else lurked there.