Dark Suits and Sad Songs (36 page)

‘Fuckin’ typical. Aye, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one, right enough,’ he muttered as he opened the door, expecting to see the familiar face of Sergeant Shaw behind the reception desk. But all was quiet, and without anyone there to
buzz the controlled door into the office, Scott walked through the hatch on the counter, which he was surprised to see raised and open.

Daley and the Dragon were almost the same height, though the latter was considerably leaner. In the images Daley had seen of him he had looked older; now, as he held the gun to Dunn’s temple, despite the premature lines and livid scar, Daley could see that he was only in his thirties. His blank eyes spoke of a life that had left him hard and deadly.

‘You can have Pavel,’ said Daley quietly. ‘But I want you to guarantee the safety of my officer.’

‘You don’t tell me what to do. I am the one who makes demands. If he isn’t released now, this woman will die, then you will die. One way or the other, my friend will be free.’ As he finished speaking, the roar of Abdic’s laughter grew louder, as though he had somehow realised that help was at hand.

The door to the CID Suite swung open and through it came Brian Scott, swinging a white plastic bag of filled rolls.

‘Where is every—What the fuck!’

The Dragon swung around, dragging Dunn with him. Daley, seeing the assassin off balance, launched himself across a chair and collided with Dunn and her captor. Dunn felt the Dragon’s grip on her relax, and jabbed her elbow into his solar plexus before stumbling away from the two men, now locked in a struggle on the floor.

‘Get a gun!’ Scott shouted to Dunn, who scrambled out of the room, her face grey with fear. Scott tried to aim a kick at the intruder’s head, but caught Daley on the arm instead; he cried out in pain and lost his grip.

Scott stood back, unable to intervene in case he hampered
Daley’s efforts to disarm the Dragon. Using his weight advantage, Daley managed to swing his body half over the other man’s and aimed a punch at the Dragon’s side, feeling him flinch as he repeated the action. But he fell back, wheezing, as the Dragon landed a side swipe to his throat. Desperately, he tried not to black out.

Scott, his baton drawn, awaited an opportunity. Just as he was about to risk taking a swing at the Dragon, Daley managed to grab his fist and push the pistol away. The pair struggled, the gun now obscured by their writhing bodies as Scott looked helplessly on.

Then, without warning, there was a flash followed by the sharp report of a firearm, deafening in the confined space.

Behind him, Scott heard DC Dunn let out a choked sob as he wiped a splatter of blood from his eyes.

‘There we have it, Elise. You carry out these little tasks for me, and life goes on as normal – well, as normal as it can.’ Wilson held out some documents for her to sign.

‘Do you know I have a speech at the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce tonight?’ she asked, looking up at Wilson, who towered over her as she sat at her desk in the Scottish Parliament.

‘And?’

‘I take it that you’ll tell me what I have to say.’

‘You’re a big girl now, Elise,’ said Wilson, pushing his face into hers. She could see a single thick black hair protruding from his nose that made her feel suddenly sick. ‘Play the game, and in no time at all, you’ll be First Minister. Don’t play along, and you’ll be . . . Well, you’ll be fucked.’

48

‘Where is she, you bastard?’ shouted Daley, his hands around the throat of the man on the floor, whose blood was pumping from the red gore of his stomach. When the man spluttered, he tightened his grip. ‘Tell me before she dies and you go to hell.’

‘What time is it?’ wheezed the Dragon, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

‘Forget the time! Tell me where she is!’ Daley lifted the dying man’s head and smashed it back into the floor.

‘Steady on, Jim!’ yelled Scott. ‘You’ll get fuck all out of him like that.’

The Dragon opened his eyes and smiled, squeezing more blood from between his lips. A siren sounded outside as an ambulance turned into the yard.

‘I know I am going to hell, why should I care? I have lived in it all my life. The time is important.’ The Dragon smiled again, then his eyes glazed over. ‘
Baka
,’ he whispered, then his body went limp. As Daley swore, a blood-curdling scream came from the cells at Kinloch Police Office.

‘Sir!’ shouted Dunn, staring at her computer screen. ‘The time’s changed on the screen – jumped forward somehow.’

Daley rushed to her side. The numbers in the corner of the
screen had indeed changed. Alice had little more than four hours to live.

‘Quick, Brian, we have to get down to the pier. The launch must be there by now. There’s still time.’ Daley rushed from the blood-spattered office, DS Scott at his heels.

The pair jumped into Scott’s car and sped to the pier where, sure enough, a vessel with a blue hull and white super-structure was being refuelled.

‘We need to leave – right now!’

‘Impossible,’ replied a man in a life jacket that bore the insignia of an inspector. ‘We’ve only managed to take on half of our fuel allocation.’

Not without difficulty, Daley clambered down a ladder slick with slime. ‘We have to go now. The time frame has changed. The girl has less than four hours. We have to try.’

The Inspector thought for a moment, then gave the order to stop refuelling and put out to sea to join the search for Alice Taylor.

As Daley was being squeezed into a life jacket, and Scott was making his way down the treacherous ladder, a head appeared over the side of the quay.

‘A wee word, Mr Daley,’ said Hamish, envelope in blue pipe smoke.

‘Not now, Hamish. We’ve no time, we need to find the girl now.’

‘No success at the place I telt you aboot?’

‘No, nothing. We need to go.’

‘Well, I’ve got an idea – aboot where she is, I mean.’

‘What?’

‘Well, since I saw her the other day, I’ve asked a’ the fisherman if they spotted her. Given she’s moved, an’ you canna
find her, despite whoot you’ve got oot there, I can only make one suggestion.’

‘Well, hurry up and tell me.’

‘The north-east side o’ Ailsa Craig. Maist shipping passes to the south o’ the island. No’ the easiest place tae navigate, but if I was trying tae hide in the sound, that’s where I’d go.’

Five minutes later, the police launch
Semper Vigilo
was speeding out into the loch and beyond, as dark clouds gathered over the sea.

ACC Willie Manion slumped in his chair at Kinloch Police Office. He had just spoken to the Minister for Justice, and the phone call had been a difficult one. Yes, two of the most wanted men on the planet had been taken out – one dead, one in custody – but a senior police officer lay dead, and the security of the Kinloch office had been breached in a spectacular way.

The press, held at bay by Alice Taylor’s desperate plight, were straining at the leash. When they broke free, it would be his job to deal with them; the Chief Constable had made that eminently clear.

He sighed and looked at the framed black-and-white picture of the large poodle now sitting on his desk. ‘Ah, Jinky. A right mess, an’ no mistake.’

He had two files on his desk. The faces of Jim Daley and Brian Scott stared out from the official photographs appended to each. Between his fat fingers, Manion held Sarah MacDougall’s letter. He sighed again.

He had a police radio on his desk so that he could follow the progress of
Semper Vigilo
. He picked it up.

‘ACC Manion to
Semper Vigilo
, come in, over.’ He waited only seconds for the crackly reply.

‘Inspector Mason, sir, go ahead.’

‘Sit rep, please, Mason.’

‘We’re just off Paterson’s point, sir. Eh . . .’

‘Whitever you have tae say, spit it out, son.’

‘Nothing really, sir. Just that we seem . . . That is, DCI Daley seems happy to allow an old fisherman to dictate where we’re to go.’

‘Oh aye, an’ where’s that?’

‘Ailsa Craig, sir. For some reason, the old man thinks that the vessel we’re looking for may be there.’

‘Oh aye, well, good luck. Let me know when you’re approaching, I want tae save this lassie, an’ I don’t care if it’s the Pope aboard tellin’ you what tae dae. Out.’

He opened his briefcase and tucked Sarah’s letter into one of its compartments, then removed a mobile phone and keyed in a few numbers.

There had been so much death already today.

49

The sea was heavy. Dark waves pounded the police vessel as it made its way towards Ailsa Craig, which was moving in and out of view as they were tossed up and down on the fury of the waves.

Scott, who had already been sick, was now huddled on a bench at the back of the cabin, his face a light shade of green.

Daley stood at the helm with Inspector Mason, who stared through the rain-lashed window, a look of deep concern on his face.

‘If this gets any worse, we’ll have to turn back,’ he shouted to Daley, struggling to be heard against the roar of the engines, the howl of the wind and the battering of the sea on the side of
Semper Vigilo
.

‘We have to see if Hamish is right,’ shouted Daley. ‘He knows these waters – it must be worth the risk. Carry on.’

‘This may blow out soon, sir. Couldn’t we sit off for a while, and wait until the helicopters can go back up and have a look?’

‘There’s no time. We’re the only vessel in the area. At least if we know where she is, it’s a start.’

Mason drew himself up, then steered the vessel on through the maelstrom.

*

Elise Fordham looked at the pages in front of her. She often wrote her own speeches, her time in the popular press giving her an insight into what caught the attention of the man in the street; an advantage she had over other politicians.

This speech was different though. She had never dreamed she would find herself in such a position. She heard the voice in her head telling her to be pragmatic, but there was simply no going back. The words before her would change her life forever.

She read the speech through again, took a deep breath, then, with her security detail, took a car to her home in the suburbs.

‘Robert,’ she said to the burly protection officer as she was leaving the car. ‘Do me a favour while I’m getting ready. Get a hold of your boss and tell him I want security cameras installed on this street.’

Fordham walked into her home to get ready for the speech of her life.

Daley struggled to keep his balance as the vessel rocked from side to side. He could hear Scott throwing up again. Through the rain-splattered window, against a grey sky, he saw a flash of red.

‘That’s it, that’s the fishing boat!’ shouted Daley to Mason who, having spotted the boat himself, was now steering towards it, four or five hundred yards off the rocky shore of Ailsa Craig.

Mason picked up the radio mic. ‘
Semper Vigilo
to ACC Manion and all stations.
The Girl Maggie
has been spotted, anchored under the eastern lea of Ailsa Craig, over.’

‘How soon will it take you tae get alongside?’ asked Manion, the first to reply.

‘In this, sir, better give me twenty minutes or so. I don’t even know how alongside we’re going to get, over.’

DC Dunn stared grimly at the screen of her computer. Alice Taylor was silent now, crouched on the floor, worn out by her own despair. She had one hour and forty-five minutes to live.

Out there, trying desperately to save the life of this girl, was the man she loved, adored with all of her heart. She had seen two men die today.

‘Save her, Jim,’ she whispered. ‘Dear God, bring him back. She can have him, but just bring him back safely.’ She prayed for the man whom she realised, one way or the other, was already lost to her.

Mason took his time and sailed
Semper Vigilo
as near to the old fishing vessel as he could. Even Scott had managed to drag himself from the bench in order to see the boat on which Alice Taylor was captive.

‘Aye, the auld fella was right all the time, thank fuck!’

‘Mason to ACC Manion and all stations. Alongside now, though how we’re going to get aboard is anyone’s guess.’ The boats were about a hundred feet apart, as near as Mason dared go, given the gigantic swell. One minute
The Girl Maggie
appeared above them, then she would plunge out of sight as both craft were tossed by the huge waves.

‘What do you suggest?’ shouted Daley. Beside him DS Scott, an even deeper shade of green, struggled to hear the reply, terrified at what it might be.

*

Dunn heard the radio traffic and scrutinised the screen. She imagined what the conditions at sea were, able to hear the battering they were taking when Mason’s voice issued from the radio. For a moment she wondered why these wild conditions were not reflected by the images of Alice Taylor, who was still gently bobbing up and down in the boat in the same way she had been since they had first discovered the sickening video feed.

Rapid movement of numbers on the screen caught her eye. The time was scrolling backwards, fast. She reached for the radio on her desk. ‘DC Dunn to
Semper Vigilo
.’ Before she could get the rest of the words out, the screen flashed and went black. ‘DC Dunn to
Semper Vigilo
, come in, please.’

A sudden gust of wind sent a flurry of rain against the windows of Kinloch Police Office, as a rumble of thunder rolled across the hills above the town.

Daley was flung forward, his head colliding with a chair in front of him. Shards of glass from a shattered window stung his face. He could hear someone calling out, but the voice was muffled. It was as though he was underwater, such was the stunned silence that enveloped him. For a second, he started to panic, fearing he was sinking into the sea and his bludgeoned senses hadn’t quite managed to communicate the fact to him. He was reassured when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Jim, are you OK?’ Daley could see Scott’s mouth move, but could barely hear him.

‘I’m fine. What about everyone else?’ The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a huge weight deposited itself on his shoulders. They had failed; Alice Taylor had been
blown to pieces. The pain of this realisation pushed him back to the floor of the cabin, now swilling with seawater.