Gone Cold (15 page)

“You want my jacket?”

“Aye. I’m naw gonna be much use as a diversion without it. It’s dark outside and I can make it darker by canning the outdoor lights. But we ain’t exactly twins, you and me.”

I shook my head vehemently. “I can’t ask you to do that. I can’t ask you to put yourself in that kind of danger.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered. And if you were to refuse my offer, I’d be mighty insulted. And you ken from our sign out there, you don’t come to Edinburgh and insult yer host.” He went to his closet and added, “Especially one who’s good with a shotgun.”

“Why?” I said. “Why are you willing to put your life on the line for guests who brought violence to your door?”

He looked me in the eye, said, “’Twas a Maxwell who corrupted our boy Johnny.”

Chapter 27

I sat in the passenger seat of Alan Tucker’s Ford Fiesta with the HK in my lap. Cold to the point of shivering because I had given Tucker my jacket. Ashdown was seated behind the wheel, Zoey and Angus Quigg in the rear. The garage door remained closed, so Ashdown kept the engine off.

“You sure about this?” Ashdown said.

I shook my head. “But Alan says he is.”

And then Alan Tucker appeared in the doorway, a man twice my age or close to it, dressed in my black leather jacket and a matching fedora.

“Gotta admit,” Zoey said from the rear, “he looks pretty badass.”

It wasn’t my jacket, but the double-barrel shotgun resting in his palms.

Alan held up five fingers. Ashdown acknowledged the signal. Then Alan returned inside.

“He’s convinced they won’t shoot him because Maxwell wants me alive,” I said.

“And when they realize that he’s not you?” Zoey asked.

“He told me to trust him.”

The garage door began its slow automatic rise and Ashdown turned the ignition.

From the corner of my eye I could see Alan’s form as he stepped out the front door, moved swiftly up the walkway, lifted the shotgun to his shoulder and fired the first blast, which for us, also served as a starting gun.

The blast took out the first SUV’s front left tire and caught Maxwell’s men completely by surprise. They hadn’t been expecting incoming fire.

Ashdown slammed on the accelerator as Alan took out the second SUV’s front left tire and a moment later we were out of the drive.

Ashdown aimed the Ford Fiesta toward the city center just as the remaining two SUVs roared to life.

One got its front right tire shot out as it attempted to turn around. The other made it out of Alan’s line of fire just in time to give chase.

In the rearview I watched Alan Tucker duck indoors as a pair of Maxwell’s men ran up the front path after him. With Brenda upstairs phoning the police, I had a feeling they’d both be fine.

We, on the other hand, had a tail.

And it was coming up fast.

*   *   *

Though I knew much more about motorcycles than I did cars, I knew enough about the Ford Fiesta to fear that Maxwell’s men would catch up to us sooner rather than later. The Fiesta was an economy car, and unfortunately, fuel efficiency wasn’t a virtue when it came to car chases. At least not brief car chases. And I fully expected this one to be brief.

The Fiesta boasted a four-cylinder engine with a five-speed manual transmission. Traveled zero to sixty in just under ten seconds. Not exactly the Bugatti Veyron that Edgar Trenton’s driver used to pick me up last year on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles after I watched the Dodge Charger I was chasing soar off a cliff.

So even though Ashdown seemed to be a fine driver, we needed an edge, some significant advantage to counter the disadvantage of running from a Range Rover in an old couple’s early-model American hatchback. Something. Or we’d never make it back to Glasgow alive.

So as Ashdown turned onto Regent Road, I lowered my window.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at me.

“Whatever I can,” I said as I unhooked my seat belt.

I tucked the HK into my front waistband and struggled to pull myself up with my single good hand.

“Are you
mad
?” Ashdown shouted. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“You’re going to get us all killed if I don’t.”

I turned my body, leaned out the window, the wind batting me hard in the back of the head.

I removed the HK from my waistband. Steadied my hand as I aimed for the SUV’s engine, and fired.

And missed.

A moment later, the SUV’s passenger-side window glided down and a gun materialized, just as one had the previous night on Mollinsburn.

I ducked back inside just as it fired.

“I need a better angle,” I said to Ashdown.

“Oh,
right away,
sir!” he yelled.

“I’m serious!” I shouted.

“You’re mental is what you are.”

I turned and stared at him. “If we get out of this alive, you and I are going to have a grave conversation about cooperation.”

He glanced at me, said, “You
are
serious, aren’t you?”

“As death itself.”

He gritted his teeth. “Let me ask you something, Simon. Do I rub you the wrong way?”

I looked away from him. “Everybody does. Now get me that angle.”

“And just how do I do that?”

“A wide right turn. But first you need to slow down, let them come right up on us. Then accelerate roughly a hundred feet before the turn to put some distance between us and them. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Two minutes later, he said, “Right turn straight ahead.”

I lowered the window, pulled myself up again as Ashdown slowed the Fiesta. Once I had purchase, I told him to punch it, and punch it he did, curling to the right toward a freeway on-ramp, giving me a sixty-degree angle to take my shot.

Only we’d offered them a pretty decent shot ourselves.

And they took it.

The shot slammed into the passenger-side door, missing me by mere inches.

I took a long, deep breath.

Aimed at the SUV’s engine.

And fired.

Smoke immediately billowed from under the Range Rover’s hood on either side, effectively blinding them. The vehicle swerved one way then the other and finally began to slow.

And continued to slow until it was just a solitary dot of light in our rearview mirror.

I ducked back inside, glared at Ashdown.

Grudgingly, he looked back at me and muttered, “Jolly good show.”

Chapter 28

TWELVE YEARS AGO

Our dining room is set up like a war room. Rendell had offered to set up his team a few miles away at a Hollywood Video that had recently gone out of business. But I’d insisted they set up here so that I could play some role in the investigation.

Not that they have afforded me much of one.

I sit in the laundry room leafing through my copy of the file, trying to make sense out of what I’m seeing. As a federal marshal this is new to me. I’ve never before worked an investigation like this.

I’m certain they’re keeping some things from me. And I’m equally certain they have their reasons. To them I’m a civilian. A broken father with a wife rapidly spiraling toward a nervous breakdown.

According to Rendell, eyewitness accounts have ruled out the possibility that Tasha willfully or negligently killed our daughter and disposed of the body. The forensics team has thoroughly searched the premises and found no traces of blood or signs of a struggle. Hailey was seen by a neighbor retrieving our
Washington Post
that very morning. That same neighbor confirmed that our Ford Explorer hadn’t moved from the driveway in the previous twenty-four hours. So although Tasha’s polygraph was inconclusive because of her deteriorated physiological state, her story, as she’s told it numerous times, checks out.

Likewise they have been able to rule out all friends and family who attended Hailey’s sixth birthday party. Tasha’s parents were at home, one arguing with a neighbor, the other on the phone with Tasha. The parents of Hailey’s friends all happened to be at the school auditorium taking part in a bake sale, of which Tasha had bowed out. Of the neighbors who attended, two were at the mall (and caught on video camera), one was at work (confirmed by her boss), and two had taken a road trip to the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey (during which they had accumulated a hefty pile of receipts). Of my friends who attended, Jimmy the U.S. Marshal was in Bucharest with me, and Terry had opened his bar promptly at eleven
A.M.
as he does every Saturday morning. Thus, not a single fingerprint or fiber collected on our property has proven to be of use.

All delivery personnel—FedEx, UPS, U.S. Mail—who have been in the neighborhood over the past ninety days are being questioned, as are employees of our gas, electric, water, cable, and phone companies and the local sanitation department.

A map in the file shows that there are 903 sex offenders in the D.C. area, plus ninety-six “non-mappable” offenders for a total just shy of one thousand. I’ve been assured that each and every offender who meet the criteria will be questioned by local law enforcement. A list of the most likely candidates will then be passed on to the FBI for further investigation.

Meanwhile, I’ve downloaded a recent
New York Times
article that attempts to profile a child abductor and now that I’m alone I can finally read it without worrying its contents will cause Tasha to go into shock.

Ninety-five percent of child abductors, the article says, are men. They tend to be unmarried with few friends. Unlike the great majority of child molesters, who coerce their victims by winning over their trust, child abductors rarely have contact with children in their daily lives.

They have poor social skills.

Use child pornography.

And are willing to use violence.

Roughly forty percent of the time, men who abduct children for sex kill their victims.

I suddenly feel sick. I’m sweating and my head is swimming. I set the file folder on the floor and try to take deep breaths.

Think of something else, something positive.

With the aid of Tasha’s parents, we’ve offered a reward of a quarter of a million dollars for Hailey’s safe return.

It’s no use.

I jump off my chair, scramble to the washing machine, open the lid, and vomit into it violently.

Chapter 29

Back at Gerry Gilchrist’s house in Glasgow, the adrenaline wore off, and it felt as though I’d lost Hailey all over again. Sitting at the dining room table, I wanted nothing more than to close myself off in a room with a handful of Zoey’s pills and a bottle of Dalmore. But the flurry of activity made that impossible, since I still felt responsible, not only for Zoey and Ashdown but for Kinny Gilchrist as well.

And Kinny Gilchrist was missing.

“He’s not at the Old Soak,” the Chairman said, slamming down the phone. “I have Kerr checking all the hospitals and listening in on his scanner. But if someone in Maxwell’s pocket picked him up, we can expect nothing but radio silence.”

“Kerr?” Ashdown said.

“Detective Chief Constable Gavin Kerr. He’s one of mine.”

Ashdown nodded but said nothing.

Meanwhile, Doc Lochhead dropped to his haunches in front of me. “Give me that paw,” he said. “I’ll need to change the dressings, won’t I?”

“Forget it,” I told him. “I’m fine.”

Zoey stood a few feet away, her arms crossed over her chest. “Let him do it, Simon. Please.”

I bowed my head, held out my injured left, and Doc Lochhead went to work.

Gilchrist finally took his usual seat at the table. One of his bodyguards set a glass of whiskey in front of him and he pushed it away, then thought twice and put it to his lips.

Ashdown asked, “Mind if I take a quick shower? It’s been a rough seventy-two hours.”

“Help yourself,” Gilchrist said.

Zoey moved to a corner of the room where Angus Quigg was chatting with one of Gilchrist’s men. Since our arrival Quigg had made fast friends in the Gilchrist household.

“If Tavis Maxwell harms one hair on that boy’s head…” Gilchrist said to no one in particular. He took a pull of whiskey and turned to me. “I never finished telling you about Arthur Thompson, did I?”

I shook my head. Doc finished his handiwork and moved off in the direction of the kitchen, no doubt for a drink of his own.

Gilchrist said, “I told you how Junior—Fat Boy, they called him—was finally gunned down outside his residence, the Ponderosa.”

I nodded.

“Well, two of the hard men thought responsible for the killing were Bobby Glover and Joe ‘Bananas’ Hanlon.”

I flexed my fingers as best I could, thought I felt a bit of life returning to them.

“A few hours after Junior’s funeral, young Bobby and Joe Bananas were found outside a pub in east Glasgow. Each of the boys had a bullet in the back of his head. Plus an extra one fired up his fucking anus for good measure.”

“Christ,” I muttered.

Gilchrist shook his head. “There are naw saviors in Glasgow, Mr. Fisk. Not when someone brings harm to your boy. Naw, in fact, that wasn’t even the full extent of their injuries.”

As I listened I couldn’t take my eyes off Angus Quigg and what might have been.

Gilchrist leaned back in his chair and took a drink. “Earlier that day, Bobby and Joe Bananas had been stuffed in the trunk of a car. One of the cars that took part in Junior’s funeral procession, in fact.”

“Dead or alive?” I asked.

“Alive, but barely.” He emptied his drink, said, “In the middle of the procession, that car came to a complete halt. Four men exited the car and removed young Bobby Glover and Joe Bananas from the trunk. Laid them side by side in the middle of the road.”

I didn’t want to hear the rest. But Gilchrist was going to tell it.

He said, “When the procession resumed, Junior’s hearse—driven by none other than Arthur Thompson, Sr. himself—ran the bloody fuck over his son’s assassins.” Gilchrist smiled. “Slowly,” he added. “So as not to kill them.”

In that moment I thought of the old woman, Edie, from my Aer Lingus flight from D.C. to Dublin. Her number was still in my wallet. Her boy had been killed too, shot dead in a Baltimore Burger King for a couple hundred dollars.