Deadly Harm Read online

  ‘I saw you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Mackenzie stepped in front of her. It was pointless. They’d been caught. ‘You were at the window, weren’t you? The night we…’

  ‘Buried a dead man? That what you were going to say?’

  Juliette padded over to the half-full water bowl in the corner and started to drink. Sylvia watched her for a minute before replying. ‘Haven’t you noticed I don’t allow Juliette in the garden and always take her for a walk? If there’s one thing dogs love to do, it’s dig.’

  Mackenzie said, ‘We’re going out again, so whatever it is you want to say, say it.’

  ‘Not like that, I hope. Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘And if I don’t, you’ll go to the police, right?’

  Surprise mixed with hurt on Sylvia’s face. ‘Wrong. I’m on your side. What makes you think I’d go to the police? Wouldn’t I have done it already?’

  It made sense. Why would anyone let months go by?

  Caitlin said, ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘An explanation might be nice.’

  And a strange night got stranger: Caitlin started with the attack on her in the back garden, faltering in places as she remembered. At the end she said, ‘Sometimes I can almost convince myself somebody else did it.’

  Mackenzie took over with Emily Thorne’s visit and her suspicion her daughter was in danger. Sylvia listened quietly and didn’t interrupt. When Jack Walsh grabbed Caitlin’s ankle, the lady from Corstorphine blurted out an uncharacteristic ‘Christ!’

  The clock on the wall counted off the seconds while they waited for her to speak.

  Eventually, she nodded, slowly, deliberately and asked a question. ‘Where’s his wife?’

  ‘Still there. We couldn’t let her see our faces.’

  ‘Oh, the poor woman. What now?’

  ‘An anonymous call to the police. We would’ve done it sooner, except it has to be from a phone they can’t trace to us. We mustn’t be involved. It would put the future of the refuge in danger.’

  Sylvia understood. ‘So not from here?’

  ‘We’re going out again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Glasgow. To the public phones in Central Station. It’ll be closed. Need to wait for it to open at four.’

  ‘Fine. Except, I’m coming with you.’

  On their way to the city, showered and changed, Mackenzie was unable to believe Sylvia was in the passenger seat. So often she’d been the heart of the refuge – the confidante, the cheerleader, the mother figure the others cleaved to. The letter from her daughters cutting her out of their lives had reduced her to a complaining old woman, the opposite of what she’d been. Being given the job of counsellor had helped her refind her spirit, though it hadn’t come back as strongly as before. Until tonight. Her eyes were clear; there was a light in them; she was enjoying herself.

  She reached over and rested her hand reassuringly on Mackenzie’s arm. ‘In case you’re beating yourselves up, don’t. Trouble came for you, you didn’t seek it. It ran up against women who weren’t prepared to look away. Courageous women. The kind of woman I want to be.’

  Sylvia Scott had no idea how much her words meant. Since Andrew had brought the awful news of Kirsty McBride’s violent death, Mackenzie had been haunted by the part she’d played.

  Sylvia glanced over her shoulder at Caitlin. ‘You did the right thing.’

  They turned off the motorway at the Royal Infirmary, drove along an empty Cathedral Street past Strathclyde University and the City of Glasgow College. In the doorway of the Christian Centre, a bundle of rags lay still, a common sight nowadays; the irony didn’t escape them.

  Mackenzie turned left, down the hill towards George Square. Apart from the occasional black cab, Glasgow was almost deserted. At the lights on St Vincent Street, she reminded Sylvia what they’d agreed. ‘Keep it short. Don’t answer any questions or give any information.’

  Caitlin threw in her twopenceworth. ‘Tell them where the cottage is and hang up.’

  Sylvia’s sarcasm was edged with resentment. ‘I think I’m still capable of making a telephone call, thank you.’

  Mackenzie smiled – the old Sylvia was back.

  And there they were: three women rattling around Glasgow in the middle of the night. Renfield was one of the busiest streets in the city. During the day, cars raced each other from traffic lights to traffic lights, on their way to the River Clyde. Mackenzie pulled in and Sylvia got out.

  ‘Caitlin couldn’t help herself. Don’t forget, they may be recording the call.’

  ‘I’ll do my Cilla Black impersonation. Relax, I’ll be in and out.’

  The black and white face of the clock suspended above the concourse showed quarter past four. At this hour, Central was a train station without trains and the giant electric sign which usually listed departures, might be used for advertising space. It was blacked out and would stay that way until services started running. Four youths in jeans and trainers larked about under it, barely giving Sylvia a second look. She was more familiar with Edinburgh’s Waverley Station. Glasgow was a foreign country, though at this time there wouldn’t be much difference. All kinds of nocturnal creatures found their way to places like this.

  The bank of telephone booths was where Mackenzie told her it would be. Sylvia stepped inside one, picked up the receiver, and dialled.

  His grandfather was asleep, his grey head hidden under the clothes. He listened for a moment to him snoring, then closed the bedroom door. The three thousand pounds was gone. Malkie would need more. Might as well get it now while the old bastard was out of it. His fingers searched the hole underneath the floorboards in the kitchen, pulled out the plastic bag, and emptied the contents on the table. He peeled a couple of hundred off, folded the notes and stuck them in the pocket of his jeans. Anxiety creased his forehead; he’d been kidding himself. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to see the future. Sooner or later it would run out. And then what?

  It was time. Once he had wheels he intended to quit Glasgow – whatever was left of the cash going with him. Everybody thought he was in London. Maybe he’d do something different and go north, to Dundee or Aberdeen.

  One thing was clear: he couldn’t stay there much longer.

  29

  For thirty-five years Sylvia Scott had been the wife of an Edinburgh lawyer. To their neighbours the Scotts seemed a solid, dependable couple, regular worshippers at Craigsbank Parish Church in Corstorphine who never missed the watchnight service on Christmas Eve. Her husband was secretary of the Edinburgh Conservative and Unionist Association near Cramond and insisted they both vote Tory. Sylvia had been lying to him about that for three decades – she’d never voted Tory in her life, not what she’d told him when he quizzed her.

  Robert wanted them to take their holidays in their own country even though, later on, they could easily have afforded to go anywhere in the world. As usual, he’d prevailed: they’d trekked in the Isle of Skye, walked the West Highland Way many times, and cycled through the Outer Hebrides. One memorable summer when she’d dug her heels in, they’d cruised the Crinan canal on a vintage steamboat and ended with a helicopter tour of Edinburgh. Soaring over the castle and the Forth bridges was unforgettable.

  But after their daughters returned to university and they were back home, Robert told her they wouldn’t be doing it again. They didn’t. The following year they’d camped in the Great Glen and been eaten alive by midges. With the girls gone, Sylvia suggested she find a job, even part-time, to get her out of the house. Robert wouldn’t hear of it – no wife of his was going to work.

  Looked at from a distance, the signs of what was to come were there. Sylvia had been blind to them until the suffocating behaviour was so bad she couldn’t breathe. The young Robert had been a man of strong opinions – attractive to the impressionable girl she’d been. Retirement had only increased his fear – or whatever it was that drove him. His hold on her tightened until the sligh
test disagreement was immediately overruled. Now she was homeless, expecting to hear she was being sued for desertion, and was an accessory to murder. Yet, for the first time since the norms of her youth had disintegrated around her, Sylvia felt alive. And if she regretted anything, it didn’t show.

  She was in the kitchen drinking tea with Mackenzie. Caitlin had gone to bed.

  Mackenzie was exhausted – the last twelve hours felt more like a week – but the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream wouldn’t let her sleep. Besides, when Irene and whoever was on the rota to help her cook breakfast came down, everything had to appear normal.

  In the background the radio was on low, tuned to BBC Scotland. Sylvia said, ‘It’s too early. The police won’t release a statement so soon.’

  ‘You never know. I can’t stop thinking about Judith Thorne, trying to convince myself we had no choice.’

  Sylvia had no doubts. ‘You hadn’t. There was more at stake than just her. You, Caitlin and the refuge had to be protected. It was the right decision.’

  ‘Was it? I wonder.’

  ‘Absolutely. People depend on you. Not just us. Women who haven’t found their way here yet. You saved someone without compromising any of it. And besides, as you pointed out, this way Judith can’t be suspected of any wrongdoing.’

  ‘You make me sound like a saint.’

  ‘In a way, you are.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something? I killed a man in the process.’

  ‘A man who would’ve killed you. So yes, since you ask, I am forgetting it, and so should you. Judith Thorne’s probably in poor shape. At least she’s alive. How much longer would that’ve been true if you and Caitlin hadn’t done what you did? I’ll tell you, not much longer.’

  Sylvia was playing the role she was born for: earth mother. Mackenzie realised how much she’d missed her. This wasn’t the grumpy woman from Ayr beach – this was a lady who, at different times, had breathed hope into all of them with humour and wisdom. Her daughters would never know how much they’d lost when they rejected her in favour of their father.

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘I’d like to know the answer to that myself.’ Caitlin was standing in the doorway in her pyjamas, rubbing her eyes like a tired child. She sat down, waiting for the response to the question that had kept her from the sleep she desperately craved.

  ‘Pray Emily Thorne doesn’t mention coming here.’

  Sylvia said, ‘Because the police might connect us to the cottage?’

  Mackenzie noticed the “us” and let it pass. ‘Yes.’

  The older woman played with her hands, uneasy with what she had to say. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? I don’t follow.’

  ‘Don’t you? Should’ve thought it was obvious.’ She leaned closer. ‘What happened to Judith Thorne isn’t an isolated case. We know terrible things go on behind closed doors – we run into some of them here, every day. This isn’t the end, surely?’

  The discussion had taken an unexpected turn. Mackenzie put her cup on the table and scolded Sylvia. ‘However noble you suppose it was, what we did was ugly and brutal. Caitlin won’t easily get over it and neither will I.’

  ‘Yes, but thanks to you, another woman might. That’s what I’m saying.’

  Caitlin listened to the exchange: ugly and brutal, an accurate description. Jack Walsh had been bludgeoned with the poker not once, but many times, the sheer viciousness of the attack shocking to witness. She’d been there; she’d seen Mackenzie standing over Walsh’s lifeless body, her mouth twisted in a feral snarl, while the dull thud of metal on flesh, iron on bone, filled the cottage, reminding Caitlin of the rock repeatedly striking Peter Sanderson’s head.

  ‘Can I ask something? Did whatever happened between you and Andrew when we came back from Ayr have something to do with tonight?’

  Mackenzie gripped her teacup with both hands. Her first instinct was to deny it, yet they deserved to be told. She wasn’t ready yet. Walsh had been paid out – not just for Emily Thorne’s daughter – for Kirsty McBride too. A crime he hadn’t committed. ‘Maybe. All I know is that last night was one of the worst nights of my life.’

  Sylvia tried to speak. Mackenzie cut her off.

  ‘The idea we would become some kind of avenging angels is crazy. Crazy.’

  ‘That isn’t what I’m suggesting.’

  ‘No? That’s what it sounds like.’

  ‘Are you seriously telling me that when you decided to go to the cottage, it didn’t cross your mind how it might turn out?’

  Caitlin stared at Mackenzie – she’d asked the same thing.

  The question was unsettling. Mackenzie was flustered. ‘You had to have been there to understand. The most likely scenario was that Mrs Thorne was a mother with a grudge against her son-in-law. It nagged at me, so we went to see for ourselves. What we found was worse than anything we imagined. If it had been right to get Judith Thorne out and call the police to arrest him, we would have. The situation was beyond that. Yes, we could’ve put a stop to him by calling the police, but we would’ve been sentencing Judith to a lifetime of sleepless nights and days looking over her shoulder. She would’ve been destroyed. Walsh would’ve won.’

  ‘You’re saying Walsh had to die?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you killed him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The cold statement of fact sent a chill down Caitlin’s spine.

  Sylvia considered how far to push it and decided to go all the way. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t believe you. I think you were willing to do whatever it took to finish it, really finish it, once and for all, even before you left here. You’d already accepted what you might have to do to Jack Walsh.’ She paused, a humourless half-smile on her lips. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not judging.’

  Mackenzie drew her shoulders back and sat straight in her chair. Sylvia Scott was forcing her to confront her darkest thoughts.

  no more Kirstys

  ‘You’re asking if I intend to become a vigilante, the answer is no. Am I prepared to do it again? The answer is yes.’

  30

  Andrew Geddes sat at the back of the bar in the Italian Centre, near George Square, waiting for the couple next to him to finish their coffees and leave. Thank Christ he didn’t have an early start. Sometimes, when his shift started in the afternoon, he’d arrive at NYB in time for breakfast, read The Herald from cover-to-cover and still be there when they started serving lunch. Eating was out; he couldn’t face it: his head ached, even his eyes hurt.

  The couple put money on the table and moved towards the door. Geddes took a moment to get himself together before making the call. The last thing he wanted was to reveal how ill he was or come across like a petulant child. Mackenzie wouldn’t appreciate either. She didn’t drink alcohol; he knew why. An under-the-weather man wouldn’t impress. From the start, she’d made it clear she was her own person and intended to stay that way. Accounting for every minute of her day wasn’t their deal. Having her in his life came with conditions.

  The detective hadn’t been looking for a relationship. Far from it. He didn’t do lovey-dovey. Divorce, along with a bad end to his relationship with a woman called Sandra, had soured him for life, at least, so he’d believed. Women were better avoided, said more times than he could remember. Mackenzie was different. And last night, even through the whisky mist, the DI recognised he’d reached a place he’d never been. Admitting the depth of his feelings was a seismic shock the hard-nosed policeman couldn’t blame on booze and shrug off in the morning, because the emotions were real and hurt more than his throbbing temple.

  He tapped speed dial on his mobile, conscious of his heart racing. No-one answered. He let it ring until Mackenzie came on the line sounding tired.

  ‘It’s me. Tried to get you last night.’

  where were you?

  ‘Oh, nobody told me. I went to the shops with Caitlin then for a Chinese.’ />
  ‘Which restaurant did you go to?’

  Unprepared, Mackenzie faltered, then blurted out the first name that came into her mind.

  ‘The Lotus in Bridge Street.’

  ‘Haven’t been there. Good, is it?’

  ‘Very good. Caitlin fancied vegetarian.’

  One lie, then another. Mackenzie’s palms were clammy. Was this how it was going to be?

  ‘What did you do?’

  Down the line, truth was in equally short supply. ‘Watched TV.’

  ‘Anything good?’

  ‘Is there ever? Switched off and went to bed. Felt the benefit of it this morning. Do you want to meet in town tomorrow, maybe grab something to eat?’

  The hesitation was almost imperceptible, yet Geddes noticed – it fired his insecurities. She was going off him, wasn’t she? Had enough of him. Who would blame her? He was hardly anybody’s idea of Prince Charming.

  ‘Can I take a rain check? Hook up in a day or two?’

  He tried the empathetic approach. ‘You sound exhausted.’

  ‘Well spotted, Detective. I am, I really am. Sometimes it catches up with me, that’s all, Andrew.’

  At the other end of the call, Geddes breathed a sigh of relief. “Andrew”. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

  ‘Will I call you or will you call me?’

  ‘It’s my turn. I’ll call you.’

  He waited for her to hang up. The headache had gone to a new level, but he felt better.

  Mackenzie’s reaction was very different. She lay on the bed, curled in a ball, close to tears. This wasn’t what she wanted. Deception didn’t come easily – it made her uncomfortable and unhappy, especially when Andrew knew she wasn’t being honest with him. And he did, she’d heard it in his voice.

  This was when Billy Cunningham missed the fags most, especially that first one, smoked to the butt before he got out of bed. He went through to the kitchen, lit the gas under the teapot from the previous night and poured milk over the cornflakes in the bottom of the bowl. Breakfast at two o’clock in the day had become his life. That and coughing what was left of his lungs up into the handkerchief he carried in his pocket. More blood than yesterday. Less than tomorrow.