Lethal Intent (28 page)

'As in Dolly the hooker; Frankie runs her. You know, that Mackenzie is a bloody lunatic: we'd hardly got a foot in the door before he picked a fight with the subject.'

'For Christ's sake!'

'It worked out all right, though: we wound up drinking with Jakes and his brother, and they swallowed our porter story all the way. When you think about it, what undercover cop in his right mind is going to tell the guy he's supposed to be observing to go and fuck himself?'

'In his right mind, indeed,' Skinner growled.

'Sure, but it worked. Frankie's our pal now. Do you know, the cheeky bastard actually asked us if there was any prospect of us nicking some diazepam from the Western? He said he'd cut us in if we did.'

'What did you say?'

'We told him that we'd just been transferred from the Royal, so we were new there, but we said that we'd suss it out and let him know if there was any chance.'

'There was no sign of Samir Bajram, though?'

'No.'

'Did he mention him?'

'Not by name. When he asked us about the drugs, he did say that he had another deal going down, but that it wouldn't get in the way of anything we could do for him. He could have been talking about the Albanian, or all of them for that matter.'

'Let's see how it plays out,' said Skinner. 'Keep on with the operation, but watch it. Tell Mackenzie from me that he's taken his last risk in there.'

'I will, but he'll probably tell me to fuck off too; he's the same rank as me, remember.'

'That may change soon. Listen, I got that report you left me, and I shredded it afterwards, like you asked. Your contact is right, Murtagh hasn't broken any laws, but that trust income is very interesting. I'll mention it to Andy next time I see him.'

'You won't…'

'Of course not. I won't compromise your friend in any way.' He paused. 'There's something else that's happened since you left for Glasgow. I'm going to take down Greg Jay.'

'When?'

'Monday. I can't leave it any longer: the bastard went to see Paula Viareggio this afternoon, and threatened to bring in a team from outside the force to go through all her books and records. Mario was going to kill him there and then, but I calmed him down.'

'Have you got the means to bring him down?'

'I have now, but I want some extra insurance. There's something I want you to do for me tomorrow, before you head back to Glasgow. I want you to pay a call on our friend Joanne Virtue. She told us something off the record once; tell her that it's time for her to make it official.'

Fifty-five

Spencer McIlhenney had thought that his weekend was ruined; most ten-year-old boys would have been pleased to see the December snow, but to him it was an enemy. It had wiped out his rugby session for that weekend, but worse the impending holiday break meant that he had played his last game for the year. He lived for rugby: his coach had told him that he showed real promise, and that if he grew to be as big as his dad, he might play at a decent level. Privately, Spence hoped that his growth would slow. His favourite position was fly-half, and he could not think of a single international Number Ten who was as bulky as that.

The boy was gazing morosely out of his bedroom window when he saw the car pull up outside. Several others were parked in the street, but there were no fresh tyre marks in the snow; even those his dad's car had made were almost covered over. He had tried to console himself with his PlayStation, but he knew all the games too well for them to be any real challenge. His dad had gone out too, on one of his mysterious missions, and Lauren and Louise, his stepmother, were closeted together somewhere. He liked Louise, and was still a little in awe of her, because of her former career, but not even she had been able to break his mood.

There was only one person he could think of who was capable of doing that; by some miracle, he climbed out of the Toyota that drew up at his front door. He jumped from his perch and crashed downstairs, opening the front door before the caller was halfway up the path. 'Uncle Mario,' he called out, then yelled over his shoulder, back into the house, 'hey, Lauren, it's Uncle Mario.'

'Hush, kid,' McGuire grinned, 'don't tell the whole street. This is an undercover operation.'

He stamped the snow off his feet and wiped them on the mat before stepping into the house. Louise was in the hall to greet him. 'I thought you weren't coming,' she said. She ruffled Spencer's hair. 'But I know someone who's glad you did.'

'I take my godparenting very seriously,' he told her. 'I couldn't let the day be a total write-off.'

'Where did you get the car?' Spence asked him. 'It's a Rav 4, isn't it?'

'That's right. It's Paula's; she made me bring it rather than mine, since it's got four-wheel drive. I have to say, it handled like a dream on the way up here. Fancy a drive in the snow?'

The boy's face lit up. 'Yeah!'

'How about you, Lauren?'

'Yes, please. Can Louise come?'

Her stepmother laughed. 'That's nice of you, dear, but Louise is quite happy in front of the television. Besides, I'm expecting your father home in an hour or so.'

'That's sorted, then,' said Mario. 'Kids, do your ski boots still fit you?' Both children nodded. 'And have you kept your skis in good order, like you should?'

'Of course we have,' Lauren replied, severely.

'Right, dig them all out, and your suits, then change into warmer clothes. We're off for an afternoon on the ski-slope at Hillend.'

Spencer gazed up at him as if he was a god descended from Olympus: his weekend was saved.

Fifty-six

Dan and Elma Pringle were in a place that had been beyond their reach or their worst imagining, but which they had reached nonetheless.

They sat side by side in the small office in the Royal Infirmary. Their surroundings might have been brighter and more modern than in its predecessor, the vast Victorian village where Ross had been born and where Elma's father had died, but they noticed not at all. Wherever they were, they would simply have held hands and stared at the wall.

The door behind them opened. Neither turned; they sat and waited as the consultant took his seat behind his desk. His name was Lewis Curry, and they had seen him before, on the day of their daughter's admission, when it had been his duty to tell them that the best they could hope for was that she would live the rest of her life in total helplessness, with no idea of who they were or of what she had been or might have become.

'Hello again,' Mr Curry said quietly. 'Have you been to see Ross?'

'We looked in on her before we came along here,' Elma replied. She had taken on the role of spokesperson. 'She looked very peaceful; it doesn't seem so bad when you see her asleep like that. Who knows? We're expecting her brother back from Hong Kong tomorrow. Maybe she'll just wake up and it'll be all right.'

The consultant looked down at his hands. 'No, Mrs Pringle. She will not awaken tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. I wish I had grounds for offering you a different prognosis than at our last meeting, but I don't. The fact is that things have resolved themselves since then. Your daughter seems so peaceful for one reason: there is nothing going on inside her head, no dreams, no reaction to light or sounds around her, nothing at all. What little brain activity we were able to detect following her admission has disappeared; only the vital centres continue to function, because of the ventilator. In my opinion and in that of my colleagues, she is clinically dead.'

Elma was struck dumb; her mouth fell open. Dan's eyes flickered, then his head dropped, and his shoulders began to shake.

The consultant had seen it before, all too often. Even in the strongest, most confident and most intelligent of people, there was always an element of denial. It was worse for them in a way: when the truth eventually hit home, it hit harder. 'Would you like to see someone?' he offered. 'We have a hospital chaplain and he'll be pleased to talk with you.'

'No,' Elma whispered. 'We don't know him and he doesn't know us. Anyway, he couldn't change what you've told us. What happens next?' She asked for Dan's sake: they both knew the answer for they had discussed the question, but she felt that he needed to hear it from Mr Curry.

'At the moment,' he said, 'the machine is keeping her breathing, and her heart beating. You may continue that, or you may ask us to switch it off.'

'And if we did, what would happen?'

'If the brain is dead, the body must follow. If she can't sustain respiration on her own, her heart will stop.'

'So if we ask you to switch the machine off, we're taking a gamble that she'll be able to breathe on her own?'

'I wouldn't call it a gamble.'

'Can we have a few minutes alone?' Dan mumbled, from somewhere down in his chest.

'Of course.' The consultant rose and left the room.

The Pringles sat there, still hand in hand. Eventually Dan lifted his head and they gazed at each other. Neither spoke, but he gave a single tiny nod, then looked away.

Mr Curry returned a little later. Elma looked up and him and whispered, 'Yes.'

He led them along to the small one-bed room where Ross, their only daughter, lay; the electrodes they had seen earlier had been removed from her head, but the thick tube was still in her mouth. There was a chair on either side of the bed, as if she had been expecting them. Her father sat on her right, her mother on her left, and each took one of her hands in theirs. When they were settled, Lewis Curry reached across and withdrew the tube, then signalled to his registrar, who switched off the ventilator.

If they had looked up at the monitor at the bedside, Dan and Elma would have seen the steady peak of her heartbeat grow irregular, until it stopped and became a straight line on the screen.

Fifty-seven

However hard he tried not to, George Regan could not help thinking back to the previous Saturday afternoon. His son had pleaded with him to take him to Easter Road, but he had been tired, and in any event the prospect of Hibernian battling it out with Aberdeen did not excite him. So, in the end, he had given him his bus fare and his ticket money and had let him go on his own. He knew as he gazed idly and unseeing at the television that he would regret that piece of selfishness for the rest of his life.

Saturday was the worst day so far: it was the weekend, and the house should have been full of George junior, of his noise, his boisterousness, his vibrancy. He had never known such quiet. He closed his eyes, but that was worse: he imagined himself in the coffin with his boy, and the vision made him wrench himself from his chair.

He strode through to the kitchen: Jen was cooking, her usual response to times of crisis. It was her hobby, the thing that made her happiest. 'What are you doing?' he asked her.

'I'm making a beef casserole. It'll be more than we'll eat ourselves, but I'll put it in the freezer so that it'll be done if we have visitors. After that I thought I'd make a rhubarb crumble.'

'Fine, love, but before you do that can we get the hell out of here? This place is doing my head in.'

She looked at him, her eyes slightly heavy, the effect of her sedatives, he guessed. 'Mine too,' she admitted. 'Maybe things will be better after the funeral.' He knew that they would be worse, but he let her have her illusion. 'Where do you want to go?' she asked.

'Uptown?'

'In that snow?'

'It'll be okay. The main roads are cleared, and the traffic won't be as bad as usual.' He had a sudden, positive thought. 'I'll tell you what. Let's go to a travel agent and book a break for Christmas. I don't fancy spending it here, so let's go somewhere with a bit of sun.'

'Are you sure? He'll be with us, George, wherever we go.'

'Aye, but at least the wee bugger'll be warmer.'

She sighed. 'If that's what you want, let's do it. Give me a minute, while I change and put a face on.'

George knew that it would take more than a minute, but he smiled and nodded. As Jen went upstairs, he pulled on his rubber boots and went outside to scrape the snow off the driveway as best he could, and to start the car, so that the heater would be effective when they were ready to leave.

He had just cleared the last of the tarmac when he heard his mobile ring. He patted his waxed cloth jacket, looking for it in one of its deep pockets, until he remembered that he had left it on the kitchen table. He bustled back to the door, risking Jen's wrath by bringing snow into the house, as he grabbed the phone and pressed a key to receive. 'Yes,' he barked.

'Is that Detective Sergeant Regan?' a prim female voice asked.

'Yes, who's this?'

'It's Miss Bee, Betty Bee. If you remember, we met in the car park the other night, although I'm sure that I'm only one among many people you've spoken to.'

'I remember you. What can I do for you?'

'You can accept my apologies, for I believe they're owed to you. Normally I have excellent recollection; I don't know what came over me this time. I can only suppose that I took your question too literally. You asked me, if you recall, if I had seen anyone in the street after I drove out of the car park. I told you that I hadn't, and that remains the case. However, I've just remembered something else that might be of interest to you. I'm only sorry that it didn't come to me sooner.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Regan saw Jen, standing in the kitchen door. She was looking at him curiously, and seemed about to ask who was on the phone, until he put a finger to his lips. 'What was it?' he asked.

'It was a man. He wasn't in the street, though; he was in the car park itself. I was on the last of the down ramps, close to the barrier, when he came running up towards me. I really do mean running, as if someone was chasing him, only there wasn't anyone else, there was just him.'

'How close did he get to you?'

'Not close enough for me to be able to give you a detailed description, I'm afraid. I caught him in my headlights for an instant, but he swerved off to the side, into the dark.'