Bad Blood (29 page)

It was very, very silent. The sky had cleared, apart from a few ragged clouds, and a thumbnail of moon was rising over in the west. Avoiding the noisy gravel Hepburn worked her way round the edge of the flowerbeds.

All the windows on the ground floor were dark apart from the fanlight above the front door and the outside lamp. She looked about her; there was a path on the far side of the house leading round to the back garden, but she would have to cross gravel to reach it and there would more than likely be security lights.

On the side of the house she was on, there was only a flowerbed planted thickly with shrubs. At least that would be silent enough, but the bushes looked to have more than the usual number of thorns – for burglar deterrence, perhaps. Grimacing, she began to force her way through.

It was slow painful work and round here it was pitch-dark. As branches snatched at her she could hear the fabric of her jacket ripping; blood was trickling down her face from two vicious scratches and a thorn had embedded itself in her hand, but at last she could see dull patches of light being thrown onto the garden at the back a little distance ahead. From the kitchen windows, perhaps – and she could
only hope that the blinds weren’t drawn. Hepburn battled on.

A trailing branch tripped her just as she reached the edge of the flowerbed and she fell heavily forward, winding herself. Had anyone heard that?

When she scrambled to her feet there was no sign of anyone coming to look out of the window. That was the good news. The bad news was that the windows were completely obscured by thin blinds.

‘Dad! What do you mean? You’re frightening me!’ Gemma dropped the packet of bacon she was holding, her eyes wide with alarm.

‘It’s all over,’ Michael said savagely. ‘We’re finished, my darling. All of us.’

‘All of us? Is it the business?’

He gave a short laugh. ‘Oh, the business and everything else. We’ve had the good times, though, haven’t we, sweetheart? I’ve looked after you – you and Vivienne and little Mikey. My boy.’ His voice softened as he said that. ‘You never wanted for anything, did you?’

Gemma shook her head dumbly.

‘I was here to protect you from everything that could harm you, to give you the perfect life. Now, it’s over.’

She sat down abruptly on one of the chairs by the table, feeling that her legs couldn’t support her any more. ‘What’s happened? For God’s sake, tell me.’

‘Drax betrayed me. After all these years, he turned against me. And like a fool I handed him the power to do it. I did what he told me, I trusted him. I thought I had protected myself against Grant – that his stupidity was the main threat. But I never thought that Drax would—’ He choked on a sob.

In her protected life, Gemma’s reaction to any problem had been to run to her father. Now he was the problem, her mother was upstairs in a drugged sleep as usual and there was no one to turn to. She was all alone, yet instead of panic all she felt was a sort of icy detachment.

She said, ‘Sit down, Dad. We need to talk this through. Explain to me! I’m a grown woman—’

But he was shaking his head. ‘You couldn’t cope with this. It’s too much. But I’ll take care of it, trust me. I won’t doom any of you to a life of poverty and shame. It’s because I love you, I love you all—’

Tears were pouring down his cheeks now. He slumped onto a chair and the coat he was still wearing swung forward. From the inside pocket a dark, dull metal cylinder poked up and from a hundred crime series she recognised it as the silencer of a gun.

She mustn’t faint. If she fainted she would die and Mikey – Mikey! – would die too. From somewhere she found a soothing voice. ‘I know you do, Dad.’ Her mind raced, searching out possibilities. She couldn’t get it away from him; even drunk, he was much stronger. Keep them talking – that’s what they always said hostages should do, and now, she realised, that shockingly she was a hostage to her own father, her beloved protector.

‘Dad, we both need a drink.’ She got up and went across to the cupboard in the kitchen where the drinks were kept, the cupboard by the kitchen door. It was ajar and beyond it she caught a glimpse of movement.

Marnie! He wouldn’t know she was there. Gemma stole a quick glance at her father but he was leaning on the table, his hands to his head. As she moved to where she was visible through the door Marnie materialised outside, making a ‘Shall I come in?’ gesture.

Gemma shook her head frantically. ‘Is Scotch all right?’ she said conversationally over her shoulder, then with a backwards tilt of her head mimed a gun, and then a baby. She saw Marnie nod and then silently disappear.

She could run, of course, race upstairs and snatch Mikey herself, try to make it to the car, but he would be after her a moment later. Marnie surely would be phoning the police, but how long would they take to get there?

No, her only hope was to sit down at the table again, try to talk him down or, failing that, get him drunk enough to pass out. She took the bottle over to the table and all but filled the glasses.

Swearing silently, DC Hepburn made her way back to the front of the house by the path this time, no wiser than she had been before about what was going on behind those blinds and considerably more worried. Since she had nothing to show for her insubordination she had better get back to her car before the boss arrived.

Fortunately the grass verge at the other side met the path so she was able to run down it after a quick glance back at the blank face of the front of the house to make sure no one was watching her. She saw the beam of a car’s headlamps appearing at the end of the road just as she slammed her own car door.

Hepburn was still slightly out of breath, though, when MacNee jumped out and came across to her. He was wearing body armour and he frowned when he saw her face.

‘What have you been up to?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing, Sarge.’ She was all innocence. ‘I just did a wee recce, that’s all, to check it was Morrison’s car. They’ve some nasty bushes around there.’

MacNee’s ‘Hmmph’, was sceptical, but he said only, ‘So he’s back, then?’

‘Yes, but I still don’t know if she’s inside.’

‘The boss is sending for armed response. We’ll have to wait till they get here – can’t go just ringing the doorbell when the man may be armed.’

‘That could be hours! Surely we can’t just leave it. If Marnie’s there she’s in danger every moment now he’s in the house.’

‘Louise, you’re not thinking straight. She may not be here. He maybe was just out working late and Lee got himself killed by some toerag in Glasgow. On the other hand, Gemma Morrison may have
lied and he was there all along and Marnie’s dead already. OK?

‘What we do know is that it’s possible the man is a murderer and has a gun. I’m not volunteering to get my head blown off for ringing the doorbell and neither are you. Anyway, where’s your body armour?’

‘Sorry, Sarge, in the boot.’

‘Not much use there, is it? For God’s sake, Louise, get a grip.’ He went back to join Fleming.

Hepburn got out and obediently strapped herself into the bulky armour. She wasn’t starring, at the moment. That really had been stupid – she hated wearing it, and she just hadn’t thought it through. She was lucky to have come out of it with just a scratched face.

She spat on a tissue and did her best to wipe the blood off her cheeks and was just pulling at the thorn to remove it when the phone in her pocket vibrated.

Marnie was breathless as she whispered into the receiver. ‘Gemma’s father’s here and I think he’s going to kill them all. He’s got a gun.’

‘Where is he?’ Hepburn said.

‘In the kitchen. Gemma’s with him. I’m upstairs. I don’t think he knows I’m here but I’ve got to rescue her kid. I’m going into his room now.’

‘Where is that?’ It was Fleming’s voice this time.

‘Front of the house, above the front door. How soon can you get here?’

‘Walking up to the house just now. Can you reach him and get down to the door?’

‘As long as her dad doesn’t come out of the kitchen. The kid might start crying – he’s asleep now.’

‘Hand over his mouth, grab him and run,’ Fleming directed.

Marnie drew a deep breath and bent over the cot.

‘Here you are – drink up. It’s not the answer to everything, but sometimes it helps.’ Gemma tried for a smile, but it didn’t quite work. At least he took the glass and drank half of it in one swallow.

‘You and Mikey have had such good times together,’ she said. ‘Do you remember the Halloween party? You were both covered with treacle.’

‘Yes. Oh yes.’ Her father was slurring the ‘s’s just faintly. ‘The wee man.’

There was a snap that Vivienne particularly liked standing on the kitchen surface, a pose of Mikey on a visit to a play farm, intent on the day-old chick in his cupped hands. As Gemma went to fetch it, the innocent face of her son almost broke her and she knew her voice was unsteady as she said, ‘This was a fun day too.’

He didn’t seem to notice, though, just took the photo and stared at it hungrily. ‘I’d to stop him loving it to death, didn’t I? He’s always needed me. And I would always have been there for him, looked after him just the way I always did you.’

‘You’re a wonderful dad.’ And it was true; he had been. Then, without thinking, she said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

She realised her fatal mistake as the words left her lips. Michael Morrison’s face changed and he got up and pulled an ugly, snub-nosed handgun with a suppressor fitted out of his pocket.

‘My sweetheart, I can’t do it to you. Or Mikey. Or my poor, darling Vivienne. They won’t know a thing, I promise. I wish it had been the same for you, but I know you can be brave. Remember when I took you to hospital with your broken arm? Like that – chin up! Goodnight, my precious!’

He’s quite, quite mad, Gemma thought. He levelled the gun at her and fired.

From somewhere, a great cry shattered the quiet night. ‘What’s that?’ Fleming said sharply then, ‘Marnie, stop! Don’t move! Can you hear me?’

She couldn’t quite make out what Marnie said but at least she was still at the other end. ‘Do you know what’s happened?’ She strained her ears to hear the whispered response.

‘A sort of muffled bang. Came from the kitchen. I can hear someone crying – I think it’s him.’

‘No screams or anything?’

‘No. Do you – do you think he’s killed her?’

Marnie’s voice had risen. ‘Sssh!’ Fleming said, alarmed. ‘I need you to stay calm. Find a room with a lock – bathroom, say. Keep out of line with the door. Don’t wake the boy till you’re ready, then keep him quiet – hand over his mouth if necessary – and hold him tight. Keep the line open.’

‘I’m going.’

Fleming, Hepburn and MacNee were crouching behind the
Mercedes. The patrol car was blocking the end of the drive and the officers were standing by, waiting for the armed response team.

Fleming turned to the other two. ‘It is strictly against regulations to enter this house before armed response arrives. Wait here while I check out what’s happening.’

MacNee sneered. ‘Aye, right. There’s a kid in there and I’m going to say he got killed because I was feart?’

‘Can’t stop you. But Louise, stay here. That’s an order.’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’ Hepburn took off ahead of them. ‘It’s round this way.’

MacNee didn’t follow but Fleming was close on her heels. She spoke into the phone again, whispering now too. ‘Marnie? Where are you?’

‘There’s a bathroom. I’m going to get him now and lock ourselves in.’

‘Tell us when you’re safe.’

They were approaching the kitchen windows with infinite caution, keeping low, as MacNee joined them, bearing an axe from the standard rescue kit. ‘Double glazing,’ he breathed and Fleming nodded.

Even up close there wasn’t a chink in the blinds but now they could hear a man groaning and sobbing. Nothing else.

Not a good sign, Fleming reflected grimly. She glanced at the phone, willing Marnie to tell her they had reached the bathroom.

It was the cat that undid them, a sleek black cat about its nocturnal business that dropped down from the roof of a small shed without noticing they were crouched there, and gave a startled yowl. A moment later the blind was lifted and a bleared grotesque of a face peered out at them, then with a yell of anguish disappeared.

MacNee was at the back door, swinging the axe. Fleming was at his shoulder, saying urgently into the phone, ‘Marnie. Watch out! He’s coming.’

Looking through the window, Louise saw with sick horror Gemma Morrison slumped on the floor, her fair hair plastered to her head with bright blood.

‘Mikey, wake up!’ Marnie murmured. As the sleepy child opened his eyes she went on, ‘Remember me – Marnie? We’re going to play a lovely game to surprise Mummy, so we have to be very, very quiet. It’s a special surprise.’

Mikey frowned. ‘It’s night-time.’

At least he wasn’t crying. ‘That’s why it’s so special. You’re not really allowed, are you? So it’ll be fun. Now, really quiet.’

He liked the idea of not being allowed, holding his arms up eagerly. ‘Mousey quiet,’ he said, too loudly.

Marnie gave an agonised glance over her shoulder. ‘Sssh! Yes.’

With him in her arms, she tiptoed out along the landing to the main bathroom. Mikey looked back through the open door of Gemma’s room. ‘Mummy’s not there!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where is she?’

‘Sssh!’ Marnie said again, desperately. ‘She’s downstairs. We’ve got to hide first.’

They were nearing the bathroom door when she heard Morrison’s despairing bellow and ran the last few yards, almost flinging the child inside so that she could bolt the door.

Mikey wasn’t pleased. ‘Don’t like this game. I want Mummy. And what’s that?’

That was Morrison rushing up the stairs. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all right. We just have to hide over here, behind the shower.’

She grabbed him, putting her hand over his mouth. Outraged, Mikey bit it, hard.

‘Mikey! Where are you? Where have you gone?’

At the sound of his grandfather’s voice Mikey gave a frantic wriggle and Marnie, in pain and unused to the surprising strength of small children, didn’t manage to hold him. She heard a woman’s voice shouting ‘Police! Drop your weapon and come down with your hands up!’ just as Mikey shouted, ‘Granddad! I’m in here, in the bathroom.’

A second later, the door shook under Morrison’s weight. As Mikey
stood looking hopefully at it, Marnie heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

She owed Gemma, who had tried to give her safe haven. And what did she care, anyway, about her rotten life?

She threw herself at the child, sweeping him aside and as Morrison shot through the lock she felt something in her chest like a heavy punch, then a searing pain, then nothing.

The thudding metallic sound of a silenced gun being fired brought the officers up short, just below the turn of the stairs which gave them cover. The child was crying, ‘Granddad! Granddad!’ now.

They couldn’t just stand by, waiting for armed response while the tragedy unfolded. Just behind Fleming on the stairs, MacNee poked his head round and saw Morrison standing on the darkened landing. He wasn’t looking in their direction; he was staring at the door, splintered around the handle, that had his grandson behind it. All he had to do was open it. There had been no sound from Marnie.

MacNee drew back again out of his sight line. He still had the axe. He hefted it in his hand, wondering whether he could throw it so that the blunt edge would hit Morrison and knock him out. Unlikely, he decided, and too open to disastrous error – if the child came out, say. And if it came to a fight it would be useless against a gun.

He set it down reluctantly just as Fleming stepped out into full view. ‘Boss!’ he said, alarmed, but she was speaking.

‘Michael, can you talk to me just for a moment? You’re suffering and we can help.’ Her voice was steady.

Courage was one thing, charging down the guns was another. Morrison could simply turn and fire on her; he’d killed already and it got easier. MacNee tensed, poising himself on the balls of his feet.

The man swung round. The gun was loose in his hand and he was swinging his head from side to side like a wounded animal at bay, baffled by its pain.

Fleming was going on, having to raise her voice above the frightened wails of the child. ‘You need to put your gun down so we can talk, sort everything out. Put it down, Michael.’

He was shaking his head now. ‘No, no. Too late.’ He was raising the gun.

MacNee erupted past Fleming, almost knocking her down the stair. As he leapt the last flight in two bounds and launched himself into a rugby tackle he heard her footsteps right behind him.

Just as MacNee grabbed his ankles Morrison, with a final roar of agony and despair, shoved the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Fleming was still feeling shaken the next morning. She had seen the mess of brain and blood from suicides before but had never herself been in intimate contact. Even after standing for twenty minutes under a shower at headquarters the night before, and taking another this morning, the memory still made her flesh crawl with revulsion as she and MacNee went to interview Grant Crichton at the Cairnryan police station.

It would be good if she could wipe out the memory of the aftermath too – of Vivienne Morrison, still in a drugged half-sleep, staggering out to be confronted by something that looked like a scene from the
Grand Guignol
. At least she had simply collapsed into a faint; the greater problem had been the child struggling to open the bathroom door, the child shut in with at best an injured woman, at worst a corpse. Going in to fetch him, given the gruesome state both she and MacNee were in, would only provoke hysteria.

Hepburn, mercifully, had paused downstairs to see if there was anything to be done for Gemma Morrison. At the sound of the shot she had raced up the stairs and taken in the situation with admirable efficiency, stepping over Vivienne to fetch the duvet from her bed to cover her husband’s body. Fleming and MacNee removed themselves hastily to let her bring the child out unharmed, though yelling and resisting.

Then there was Marnie, poor Marnie, who seemed to have taken the bullet that was meant to blast open the door. Perhaps the child, hearing his grandfather’s voice, had gone towards it and she had stepped in to save him? They might never know if that was what had happened: the medical prognosis was poor.

Gemma, though, was recovering in hospital. Impaired by stress and alcohol, her father’s aim had been wild and the angle suggested that she had actually walked into the bullet by ducking away as he fired. It had skimmed the side of her head, it seemed, without penetrating the skull. Despite a nasty concussion and some blood loss she would make a full recovery, physically. Mentally – that was another question. It was a sad and depressing business.

On the other hand, Grant Crichton was making life easy for them. He’d sacked his brief and waived his rights to appoint another one and, told of the deaths of his partners, he was singing like a whole aviary of canaries, his unctuous desire to prove himself helpful making Fleming feel she would need another shower.

‘The thing is,’ he was explaining, ‘I was always the one who was in the dark. They approached me, you know. They had their business set up and Drax spotted that my haulage company was good cover for them. I never had anything to do with the other side, you know – that was all them.’

‘We’re not concerned with that,’ Fleming said. ‘We are investigating the murder of Anita Loudon.’

‘So cut the cackle,’ MacNee put in. He was on a short fuse this morning. ‘You’ve admitted already that you went to her house that night and we’ve evidence you were inside there. What went on?’

Crichton was twisting his hands in his lap. ‘You’ve – you’ve got to understand. As God’s my judge, this is the truth I’m going to tell you.’

‘Never mind God – we do the judging here. Get on with it,’ MacNee snarled.

‘I wanted to talk to the girl who’d been watching Shelley’s little
ceremony. I told you that, remember? It wasn’t a nice thing to do. We’re divorced, but I don’t like to see her made a fool of – and my son.’ His face darkened. ‘That was Kirstie Burnside’s daughter, wasn’t it?’

‘Go on.’ Fleming’s voice was cold.

Crichton gulped. ‘Right. So I wanted Anita to tell me where I could find her, that was all. Not to kill her over it, for God’s sake – why should I?

‘When I went round there, I saw that Michael’s car was parked outside. That looked like good news – I knew Anita worked for his wife and I thought he could maybe put a bit of pressure on her. So I just went in – the front door wasn’t locked. I heard Michael swear as I opened it but I couldn’t see him. Then he said, ‘“Thank God it’s you!” and stepped out from behind the door. He was holding this iron bar – crowbar, I suppose you’d say – and when I looked round Anita Loudon was lying on the floor beyond the sofa. Her head …’ He shuddered. ‘Can I have a glass of water?’

Fleming pulled over the carafe on the table between them and poured out a glass. She handed it to him without speaking.

‘He told me what had happened. His wife had come home and told him Anita was in a terrible state. She hadn’t told her exactly what the problem was but there was something she’d done that was bothering her and there were some things she knew about that made her frightened of what Drax might do next. Well, Vivienne’s a nice lady – she’d told her to go to talk to you lot.

‘If I’d been Michael I’d have said, just let her tell them—’

‘Oh really,’ MacNee said. ‘Just like you did when you had the chance later.’

Crichton coloured. ‘They’d got me in too deep by then, that was the thing. You see, it was all Drax. He was the leader in everything, though it was Michael who put up the money. He bought him the nightclub as a pay-off for what he’d done before – before I knew them – but Drax
called all the shots. And he’d this genius accountant, too, who could make everything look the way it should – we needed her.

‘That night, though – well, Michael said we were all in danger from Anita, that Drax had said if she wasn’t eliminated everything would come out, but he couldn’t do it himself because he’d be number-one suspect with his DNA and prints all over the house. Michael would need to do it, unless he wanted the whole thing to blow up.’

He’d used Kirstie the same way all those years ago, Fleming recalled. It all figured. The puppet-master, pulling the strings.

‘I shouldn’t have known anything about it, that was the thing.’ Crichton sounded aggrieved. ‘It was just bad luck – I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could never have done it. But Michael …’ He gave a shudder. ‘From the way she looked he had just gone at her, as if he was too angry to stop once he started.

‘So he told me that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, he and Drax would both swear that I’d confessed to killing her. And he said – I’ll never forget it – “You know what Drax is like, if it comes to disloyalty”.’

‘What is he like, Grant?’ Fleming’s voice was gentle, but he reacted as if she had jabbed him with a needle.

‘Oh – I don’t mean – he doesn’t like it, that’s all, and he – he can be very, well, unpleasant.’

Fleming raised her eyebrows but she was more interested in hearing the end of the story.

‘I went home after that. I was in shock, I think. I didn’t know what he was going to do with her body and I didn’t want to know. When I heard in the morning where he’d put it, right where Tommy lay, I-I – well, I panicked.’

He took out a handkerchief and wiped at his forehead, then his trembling mouth. ‘I said it would look as if it was me or Shelley did it, but they said no, no, it was to implicate the vigilantes who’d attacked the girl already – that was the sort of thing they would do.

‘I just felt sick. I’ve felt sick ever since. And scared – I realised then that their plan was to drop me in it all along. But I couldn’t come to you, not once all this started.’ He gestured round the Cairnryan interview room.