The Last Witness (26 page)

‘Hi, Daddy,’ she said, her voice wavering. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. This monster doesn’t—’ Her words were cut short as the phone was snatched from her grasp.

‘See, my old friend, Daddy’s little girl’s doin’ just fine. Fir now, at any rate.’ He smirked as though he was staring into the face of Frank MacDougall himself. He listened to MacDougall’s reply, then snorted with derision and clicked the phone off. He turned to smile at the girl who sat on the dilapidated couch, embracing her knees, which were drawn up to her chin. ‘There ye are, darlin’. Daddy’s on the ba’ a’ready. Pity he wisnae so keen on helping the rest o’ your family.’

‘I don’t want to talk about Cisco,’ she said.

‘Naw, I was referring tae yer brother Tam,’ he said, clearly enjoying this.

‘What?’

‘Yer faither’s threatenin’ me doon the phone, tellin’ me I’ll get ma throat cut, the same as Tommy.’ He grinned broadly. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but tae me, once yer throat’s cut, yer prospects at longevity are severely curtailed.’

She looked up at him, noticing the silver sparkle of stubble on his chin picked out in the thin light.

‘He caught me unawares,’ Scott answered, exasperated by Daley’s repetitive questioning.

‘So you say.’ Daley’s face was blank as he stared at the face of his subordinate.

‘Whit are ye tryin’ tae say?’ Scott shouted, loud enough to attract concerned looks from two uniformed cops standing thirty yards away.

‘Come on, Brian,’ said Daley, a look of disgust on his face. ‘Your old neighbour – a buddy from your childhood, not to mention one of Scotland’s most dangerous criminals – just happens to pick you to effect his disappearance, just as you’ve been issued with a firearm and a set of borrowed car keys.’

‘Have ye seen the fuckin’ lump on the back o’ ma heid, Jim? I struggled aff ma sick bed when I heard ye wiz in trouble. An’ ye accuse me o’ bein’ corrupt? I cannae believe this is you speakin’, Jim. Whitever happened in that shipyard must’ve done somethin’ tae yer reason.’ Though Scott was almost shouting, his eyes spoke of a different emotion as he implored his friend to believe him. ‘If ye remember, it wiz me who nabbed MacDougall in the first place.’

‘Oh yes,’ answered Daley, after a pause. ‘And I have to admit, Brian, I wondered about that at the time too.’

‘Listen,
sir
,’ said Scott. ‘I don’t fuckin’ know whit’s wrang wi’ ye, but I’m no’ sittin’ here wi’ a banging heid just for the pleasure o’ bein’ knocked tae bits by you.’ He moved to open the car door.

‘Stay where you are,’ Daley ordered. ‘Whatever I may think or not think, Brian, you know as well as I do that that bastard over there will be all over you like a rash as soon as he clears things up here.’ Daley’s voice was much quieter, as he massaged his temples, feeling the exhaustion of the last few days catch up with him.

‘Don’t worry aboot him, Jim,’ said Scott. ‘He’ll be tae busy covering his back efter this carry-on.’ He nodded towards the mortuary van that had just pulled up in the yard.

‘Yes,’ Daley replied thoughtfully. ‘You would think he would.’

‘Whit d’ye mean?’ Scott looked sidelong at Daley.

‘I don’t really know what I mean,’ Daley answered. ‘There’s something going on here, something I’m missing – something that’s been gnawing away at me for months, if you must know.’

‘Oh,’ said Scott, looking out of the car window as the sun spread golden rays over the loch, turning it from dark blue to a light green. ‘Right,’ he added, rubbing his chin.

32

She struggled to keep up with him as he strode down to the little jetty where the boat was tied up, bobbing in the swell in the clear morning light. She watched as he swung a large holdall aboard with ease, then carefully laid a metal-bound case on the deck of the small craft.

The sea was calm, slate grey, not yet reflecting the cold blue of the sky in which gulls circled, squawking loudly in the still air. The jetty itself was slick with white frost, as were the small windows in the wheelhouse. He grabbed Sarah roughly and bundled her on board. Bulked up with clothes against the chill, he looked even more formidable.

‘Take a wee seat, an’ we’ll set off an’ see Daddy,’ he said, pointing to a little bench at the side of the tiny cabin. ‘Who’d have thought Frankie an’ me would take tae life on the ocean waves, eh? What does he fish for, again?’

‘Just for pleasure, he’s not making a living out of it,’ she said. ‘You try living in this godforsaken place for years with nothing to do.’

‘Oh aye.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve been having the time of my life for the last few years, darlin’. Been a blast.’

‘Better than being dead, I imagine.’

‘Don’t know, I wisnae there,’ he said, misquoting the philosopher.

‘At least you had time to improve your mind,’ she said.

‘D’ye think so? Mebbe I learned things that I didnae know before, but as far as my mind goes, well, ye cannae improve on perfection. Right, just you hold on tight. It’s time tae put things right.’ In a puff of blue smoke and mechanical rattling, the diesel engine roared into life.

John Donald hated satnavs. They had taken him up hill and down dale over the years, so he was surprised when the small car park next to the bay appeared in view. He parked facing the ocean, then took the mobile phone from his pocket and looked at it anxiously. He had a signal – as they had promised – though no new messages. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as the strains of Mendelssohn’s ‘Scottish Symphony’ soared from the speakers, lending even more drama to the scene outside. In the distance, a large sea freighter punctuated the horizon and the white sail of a lonely yacht slanted into the distance.

Donald was almost asleep as his mobile pinged into life. He felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead as he read the message. He forced himself to breathe deeply and focus; the knot in his stomach grew even tighter.

As Daley walked into the hospital, an agitated constable jumped from his chair and ran to his side.

‘Sir, Mrs Robertson is awake and asking for her family. I don’t know what to say. The doctor’s won’t sedate her any further, sir.’ Betty MacDougall had been taken to the local
hospital, the shock of what was happening to her family simply too much for her to cope with.

‘OK, son,’ said Daley, trying to reassure his subordinate. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ He walked into the private side room where Frank MacDougall’s wife was sitting in bed, rocking backwards and forwards, her eyes red with tears: the picture of misery.

‘Hello, son,’ she said. ‘Have you got Frankie with you?’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Daley, taking a chair at the end of her bed. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘I want to see Frankie,’ she wailed in reply, just as a harassed-looking doctor appeared in the room. Daley smiled, recognising the man who had revealed Liz’s pregnancy.

‘Mr Daley,’ the doctor said, with a weak smile. ‘I’m afraid Mrs Robertson is in no condition to be questioned by the police. I take it that’s why you’re here?’

‘Mrs Robertson is not under arrest, doctor,’ Daley assured him calmly. ‘I’m just here as a visitor. Is that not right, dear?’ He smiled at the woman in the bed.

‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I need tae speak to this officer, anyhow.’ Daley was pleased that she seemed to have retained at least some reason. The young doctor frowned and left the room shaking his head.

‘You said something a couple of days ago,’ said Daley, conscious of the fact that their conversation might be cut short when a more senior medic arrived.

‘I cannae remember,’ she said, already sobbing. ‘When?’

This could be a fruitless exercise, but the chief inspector had to try. ‘In your house, just recently, the first time we met at the farm.’

Though she had closed her eyes, tears still rolled down her face. She tried to brush them away with a trembling hand.
Despite her age and mental plight, the detective could see the ghost of the beautiful woman she had been years before.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Dae ye never get times in yer life when it’s a’ too much, son?’

‘Yes, I think everyone does, Betty,’ said Daley, taking her hand in his.

‘The problem is when those are the only times ye have, the only ones ye can remember . . . that’s when it a’ gets too much. Ye just hide, aye, hide in a corner in yer own heid.’

Daley smiled at her, but said nothing. At times like this he felt like a fraud, representing himself as a caring human being, when in actual fact all he was interested in was extracting as much information as he could from this poor soul, and then abandoning her to fate as the pursuit intensified. She was a means to an end, a tool, nothing else. Not for the first time, Daley was repulsed by his own actions.

‘D’ye know the first time I saw him?’ she said, a brightness in her eye.

‘Who?’

‘Jamie Machie. Aye, wee Jamie Machie.’ She smiled, as though the memory of the monster in far off days gave her pleasure, something that surprised Daley. ‘Bright as a button he wiz, heid an’ shoulders above the rest o’ the weans. Bonnie tae. Aye, right bonnie. He could charm the birds oot o’ the trees, Mr Daley,’ she said, looking genuinely happy for the first time since they had met.

‘How people change,’ Daley commented, then wished he hadn’t. He had that gnawing feeling in his head again; the sense that he had the answer but couldn’t piece the strands together, couldn’t tie the rope tight enough to allow him to pull what he needed from the depths of his mind.

‘I wiz three years or so older than him,’ Betty said, her voice light and conversational. ‘Aye, an’ Frankie tae. Though he went tae a different school fae me on account o’ him being a Fenian an’ a’.’

Daley marvelled at the way casual sectarianism could enter a conversation in the west coast of Scotland. The idea that Roman Catholics and Protestants went to different schools, different churches, led different lives, in a city the size of Glasgow, had bemused him since he was a boy. Children living cheek by jowl in the old tenements who, left to their own devices, would have become playmates and friends. But that was impossible once the veil of bigotry was thrust onto them by their families. Children who shared the same close would grow up as ignorant of each other as though they came from different planets. While Daley had been brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, his father had no time for bigotry, so as a child he had been encouraged to mix with the other boys on his street who went to different schools and wore blue jerseys when they played football on the red blaes pitch at the bottom of the road. It was probably the greatest thing his father had ever done for him.

‘But that wiz later on, Mr Daley,’ Betty MacDougall said, the smile on her face stripping the years away. ‘When I first saw him he was in his christening shawl. I was only wee mysel’ but I mind o’ it like it was yesterday.’ She patted the policeman’s hand at the memory.

‘He made a big impression on you, Betty.’

‘Aye, I suppose he did. There they were, wi’ the wee blue shawls an’ the wee rattles – they were blue an’ white tae. Mind you, in oor street in them days, even the cats an’ dugs wiz blue an’ white.’

‘You said “they”, Betty.’ Daley’s ears had pricked up.

‘Aye, of course,’ she replied, a puzzled look spreading across her face. ‘Ye wid hardly get one christened an’ no’ the other.’

Just then the door burst open to reveal the junior doctor, a middle-aged nurse and a young man in a suit. Betty MacDougall withdrew her hand from Daley’s grasp and pushed herself back into the corner of the bed, her face a mask of fear.

‘Mr Daley,’ said the nurse, ‘you have no right whatsoever to be here. Mrs Robertson is in no condition to be questioned by the police.’ She cast a disgusted look at the young doctor, who was biting his lip.

‘I’m not here as a police officer,’ Daley replied, furious that they had interrupted Betty MacDougall’s reminiscences.

‘Do yourself a favour, Mr Daley,’ the well-groomed young man advised, an arrogant smile on his face. ‘Leave now, before I contact your superior. I know your boss is in Kinloch at the moment.’

‘All right,’ said Daley. He rose and looked down at the stricken woman as tears began again to stream down her face.

‘You can tell me about that christening another time,’ he said, hoping to elicit one more snippet of information.

Betty MacDougall merely sobbed. Mary Robertson was back and Daley knew he would get nothing more from her.

‘Right, officer, on your way, please. You realise that I’ll have to make an official complaint about your conduct today.’ He looked at Daley haughtily.

The man was tall, but Daley was taller. The policeman walked to within inches of him, smiled and patted the man on the shoulder of his expensive suit. Daley’s voice was low
and not without menace. ‘Don’t worry, son, I’ll be sure to let the heath board know how much you enjoy a recreational smoke. We arrested your dealer last week and he keeps excellent records. Your name was top of his list.’

The detective walked out of the room.

The car was small and nondescript. Donald was surprised; for some reason he had expected a much grander vehicle. He peered at it, trying to see the occupants, but the sun was too bright and he found it impossible to discern anything other than two shapes occupying the front seats.

Donald recalled the other times he had felt this nervous. He remembered his first day in the shipyard in Govan. He had left school the week before, only the paucity of his parents’ expectations exceeding the pitiful list of qualifications he had to show for his many years in education.

He recalled the noise, the heat, the vastness of the yard where some of the world’s greatest ever craft had been built. He had been placed under the tutelage of a middle-aged welder, a thin man whose tongue was as sharp as his nose, which was already turning blue due to his addiction to drink. He hardly spoke to his youthful charge, and when he did it was usually in a gruff, expletive-ridden manner.

On Donald’s third day in the Glasgow shipyard he and his mentor were detailed to weld a part of the vessel, high up under the prow. To access this, they had to ascend steel scaffolding to an alarming height. As Donald, who had never before been troubled by vertigo, looked at the void beneath him, his stomach lurched and dizziness took hold. The sensation heightened as they neared the top of the scaffolding, which swayed more alarmingly the higher they rose. He
remembered the way his chest had constricted, anxiety making his breath short, and how a film of sweat had coated his brow.