Bitter Water (43 page)

We stumbled and ran over the rough grass towards the fleeing pair. The plane was trundling back past the hangar and then turning round to face into the prevailing westerly. Not that there was much of a breeze. For a moment the small plane sat poised, its wings quivering as the engine vibrations rose. Moira seemed to be shouting at her man to get going. Then he released the brakes. Its speed built up with every bouncing yard.

Like a small flock of starlings we changed tack as one, and started running at right angles to the grass airfield, aiming to intersect with the plane near the end of the runway. The roar of the engine grew. Suddenly the Cessna was in the air and climbing fast. We were about one hundred feet from the last marker on the field. The plane was rising and gathering speed with every yard. It would be past us in ten seconds.

Eight seconds.

Seven.

I halted and lifted the gun to my shoulder. Drummond held his Sten one-handed, above his hip.

Six seconds.

Alongside me, Sam stood already poised, right leg braced behind her, Dixon tucked neatly into her shoulder. Head tilted and aiming along the line of the twin barrels. All three of our bodies were angled to the airfield, our guns slightly aimed to the left, ready for the game birds to be flushed across our sights.

Five seconds.

‘Wait for it. Wait!’ I called. Our best target would be as the aircraft exposed its entire flank to us.

The plane came into the left corner of our peripheral vision about thirty feet up and climbing, its engine straining for height. Faster than a flushed grouse but a whole lot bigger. I sensed Sam’s gun track in unison with mine and pick up the plane. She would do it. I reached over and pushed her arm down.

‘No, Sam. Not you.’

She blinked and the trance was broken. I took up my aim again.

Two seconds. The plane came squarely into the left corner of our firing field, reaching higher and higher into the air. I tracked it with a steady swing of my gun.

‘Just like a clay shoot, Douglas.
Squeeze, don’t jerk. Keep it smooth
,’ she said in a calm echo of her father.

Drummond waved his Sten hopefully in the general direction of the plane. We were so close that Maxwell’s face was now perfectly visible through the screen. It was contorted with fury. He was screaming and cursing at us. I focused on the cowling and propeller.

‘Fire!’

I squeezed and took the recoil. Drummond’s Sten joined in with a rapid stutter. I saw my shot blast a fist-sized hole in the engine casing. Amazingly, a line of dots appeared in a rough zigzag alongside. Drummond raked away. The plane kept climbing and was now in the right of my field. Drummond fired again and perforated the tail.

Sam’s voice sounded gently in my ear. ‘Again. Steady. Squeeze.’

I pulled again. Another hole in the engine casing. Nearer the propeller. A shudder from the nose? Neither Drummond nor I had time to reload. I started regretting being chivalrous with Sam.

We could only watch as the red fuselage sailed above the trees and kept climbing. But the engine noise was different. A black plume flared from the nose. The engine stuttered, picked up, and then continued.

The craft held its height for a while, about two hundred feet above the treetops, aiming for the pass between Ben Uird and Ben Lomond that Sam and I had climbed earlier. The pilot seemed to realise he wasn’t going to have enough height, and swung the stick over. The plane dipped its wings to the right and heeled over. The engine coughed, and then cut out completely. The plane had become a glider. But without its power and with no altitude to work with, it couldn’t manoeuvre. We watched as it swung further right in silent slow motion.

Sam had her hand to her mouth.

Slowly, inexorably, the small red craft banked and banked and finally dived into the flank of Ben Lomond. It cartwheeled; bits flew off, then the fuel tank burst into flame. A moment later the sound of its passing echoed down the mountain.

I put my arm round Sam and held her close. We watched the wreckage until the flames died out. We looked at each other. Her eyes were glistening. I gave her a big hug. She squeezed my hand.

‘That’ll annoy the tourist board. Come on. Wullie needs us.’

I released her, broke the Dixon and ejected the spent shells. Drummond fell in alongside us. We trudged back to the castle and the mayhem.

FIFTY-EIGHT

T
he three of us walked through the carnage, double-checking for signs of life. There was none. But at least there was no barbed wire for the fallen Marshals this time. Drummond was drained, his face old and pained, as he knelt by each of his men. I knew exactly how he was feeling. An experience I’d known too often.

I said quietly, ‘The police are on their way, Drummond.’

He looked up at me and nodded. ‘Will you help me get my men on the truck?’

‘To do what?’

‘Bury them, of course. They’re my men.’

‘Where? In the forest? They deserve better. Leave them with me. I’ll see they’re taken care of. I’ll have a word with Jamie Frew, the police doctor.’

He stared at me with his one open eye, the other clouded with congealed blood. ‘And I just slope off?’

‘
You
surrender. You face the law.’

‘Oh, that’s a fine plan! They’ll stretch my neck. Either for this’ – he swept his hand round the blood-stained forecourt – ‘or the homo killings.’

I glanced over at Sam. She shrugged in agreement.

‘So what’ll you do?’

He looked beyond me at the towering hills. He grinned. ‘Take to the heather.’ Then his grin shut off. ‘Will you tell them?’

‘That you’re at large?’

He nodded.

‘That depends. Is this over? Your search for justice, redemption, whatever it was?’

‘You make it sound like I went a bit doolally for a while and now I’m better. It was more than that. It needed doing. It still does. The law stinks.’

‘The law’s OK. Enforcing it is the problem. But it’s not
your
problem.’

‘Is it yours, Brodie? It needs to be somebody’s.’

‘I’m just a reporter.’

He looked around. ‘Oh aye?’ He shrugged. ‘But yes. It’s over for me. Enough blood. And you’ll take care of them?’

I straightened my back. ‘From one brother officer to another.’

He held my gaze, then he walked over to the small pile of arms still lying in the gravel. He swapped his Sten for a shotgun and filled his pockets with cartridges. He loaded both revolvers and tucked them into his waistband. He turned, nodded once to Sam and me, and marched off towards the north, his shotgun at the ready, his shoulders back.

Sam and I climbed the front steps and stepped through the shattered doors. A man was waiting for us, standing tall in a kilt and jacket in front of the intruding truck. He stared at the guns broken across our arms, then beyond us to the bodies lying on the drive. He didn’t seem panicked.

‘Sir?’ he asked.

‘What’s your name?’

‘McGregor, sir. Is that you, Miss Campbell?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Hello, Andrew.’

‘Army, McGregor?’

‘Gordon Highlanders, sir. Sergeant.’

‘Good man. We need a hand. But first, how’s Sir Colin? Is he with you?’

‘He’s fine, thank you, sir. I have him in the library. Away from the noise. He thinks we’ve had a shooting party. Asking how many were bagged.’

We both looked back at the ‘bag’ and did our own short sums.

‘Look, first thing. Where’s the nearest ambulance station?’

‘That would be Aberfoyle, sir.’

‘Call one. We need it fast. I don’t suppose you have a stretcher?’

‘Yes, sir. In case of accidents on the estate.’

‘Bring it to the stables. Bring any first-aid box you have. Any other staff?’

‘A boy, two chambermaids, and the kitchen staff.’

‘Is he a good boy? Tough?’

‘He’s my son.’

‘Have him bring out some old sheets. If you think he can face it, have him cover the bodies. I’ll leave it to you, McGregor.’

‘He’s fourteen. He’ll be fine.’

We lifted McAllister on to the canvas stretcher and McGregor and I carried him into the house. I had more time to admire the scenery. Sam hadn’t understated the baronial trappings. A vast echoing space, walls filled with the bloody detritus of battles and hunts. It seemed fitting. Sam emerged from the library, shaking her head.

‘Colin seems to be coming and going. At the moment he doesn’t know what day of the week it is, far less what’s been happening. Best to leave him alone. His nurse is sitting with him.’

‘A nurse? Get her. Wullie has more urgent need of her.’

We carried him into a side room, a pretty lounge, and laid him on cushions dragged from chairs and couches. He moaned as we laid him down. The nurse bustled in and knelt to feel his pulse.

‘He’s in a bad way,’ she said superfluously.

McGregor said, ‘An ambulance is on its way. It’ll take a good hour, mind.’

‘We need to elevate his head. Help me.’

Sam and I stood back and watched her administer first aid. I looked round the room and walked over to the drinks table. I poured two large measures and gave Sam one. She shook her head at first, then accepted. We clinked glasses, nodded at each other and drank. Suddenly I was starving.

‘McGregor? Can you get your cook to rustle up a sandwich?’

‘Of course, sir, and for you, miss?’

‘God, yes, Andrew! I could eat a horse.’

‘I think we have some ham, ma’am.’

Then I remembered. ‘Oh blast. McGregor, hang on. There was a bit of ding dong in the kitchen, and . . .’

‘I saw, sir. What would you like us to do?’

I was thinking fast. I turned to Sam. ‘I think we probably ought to minimise our involvement in this business, don’t you?’ I said.

‘How minimum?’

I walked over to where we’d stood the Dixons, picked them up and placed them discreetly in the corner of the room behind a curtain. Sam’s eyebrow rose.

‘We got here and found the battle was over?’ she asked.

‘There are two sides out there. Both armed. No witnesses. McGregor?’

He’d had been standing by the shattered window. He turned. ‘I kept my head down, sir. Had to watch out for the other staff. I saw nothing.’

‘Thank you, McGregor.’

‘But between you and me, sir, we’ll shed no tears for those thugs of the young master. On which topic, sir, the man in the kitchen?’

‘Perhaps he should lie with the others?’ I nodded through the broken window.

McGregor caught the drift and we both went down to the kitchen carrying the stretcher. A little later we emerged with Curly between us, a bloodied sheet covering his body. We took him outside and set him down next to one of Drummond’s dead men. I picked up the stained kitchen knife resting on Curly’s chest, using the cloth I’d found in the kitchen. Holding the blade, I positioned the knife near the empty hand of the nearest prone Marshal and wrapped his dead fingers round the hilt. McGregor and I then tipped Curly out into the dust to lie alongside.

It could have happened just like this.

Sam and I were tucking into thick layers of ham and mustard when we heard the clanking of fast-approaching squad cars. Two of them, by the sound.

Sam turned to me. ‘What about Moira and Charlie?’

‘As in Charlie, the careless pilot? There isn’t much left of the plane. The fuel tank went up. Must have kept it full.’

‘Cartridge cases?’

‘Place is littered with them. All standard issue. Besides, if you were the police officer in charge of hunting down the Glasgow Marshals and following up murder inquiries involving some of Slattery’s old gang, what would be your reaction on finding all that out there?’

‘Go down on my knees and say a few thank yous to the great Chief Constable in the sky?’

‘Exactly. Shall we say hello?’

Sangster and Duncan Todd got out of the first and second cars respectively and commanded the bells to be stilled. Duncan was in his usual shabby suit, Sangster in full uniform, with Sergeant Murdoch skipping at his side. Behind them and spreading out with drawn pistols were four constables. We were waiting on the steps. They walked towards us and stopped in the midst of the draped bodies and the scattered armaments. They looked round. Then they looked up at the great doors and behind us to the truck parked in the hall. A gust of wind blew a curtain out through the broken window.

Sangster was the first to break the spell. ‘Mary Mother of God!’

Duncan was looking at me strangely. ‘We got your call, Brodie. But looks like we were too late. Who’s under the sheets? Anyone we know?’

‘Four are Maxwell’s men including two of the old Slattery gang. The other four are –
were
– the blokes who called themselves the Marshals.’

‘Well, that’s tidy, isn’t it?’ said Sangster. ‘A shoot-out?’