Blindside acalf-3 Read online

  Raines stood, went to where Johnson was standing and joined him in firing at the enemy position.

  An Apache gunship swooped overhead and its thirty-millimetre cannon roared. The pilot of the helicopter fired two missiles at the enemy position and sprayed them again with his cannon. Raines stopped firing his weapon and watched in awe at the devastation the Apache wreaked.

  A bullet ripped into his combat trousers and went straight through the flesh and muscle of his leg, clipping his shin bone on the way.

  Raines fell, more bullets thudding into the dirt around him.

  Above, the Apache’s cannon continued to roar.

  4

  Raines was quiet on the drive back from the compound and his passenger seemed content to watch the scenery pass by.

  ‘When do you leave?’ Raines asked finally as they passed the first sign for Denver.

  The passenger smiled.

  ‘I know that you don’t like me,’ he said.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to be friends.’

  ‘We won’t be.’

  ‘I like it that we are able to define our relationship now. So there are no misunderstandings later.’

  Raines glanced sideways at him but said nothing.

  ‘So you’ll do it?’ Raines asked. ‘I mean, we’re in business.’

  ‘Yes. We are most definitely in business.’

  Part Five:

  Excursions

  1

  Logan called Irvine while he waited outside Ellie’s school.

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he told her when she answered.

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. He realised that it was probably a confusing opening gambit.

  ‘I mean, I’m flying to Denver with Alex. The plane crash I told you about. Sam is going to take Ellie.’

  ‘How long will you be away?’

  ‘I don’t know. Three or four days maybe.’

  ‘The timing isn’t such a bad thing. I think this new case of mine is going to keep me busy nights anyway.’

  ‘I’ll come over tonight for a while. After dinner. Say goodbye properly.’

  ‘I’d like that. I’ll call you when I get in.’

  Logan could tell from the look on Ellie’s face when she saw his car and the brief but excitable discussion with her friends that followed that she wasn’t happy to see him there.

  Ah, fatherhood.

  Ellie opened the rear door, threw her bags in heavily and got into the front passenger seat. She made a show of huffing and sighing while she put the seatbelt on and shifted around in her seat in an overt display of petulance.

  Logan tried to ignore her and drove off. She waved at her friends from the car.

  After a couple of minutes, she rummaged in the door pocket and took out a CD to put in the stereo.

  ‘You had plans?’ he asked her eventually.

  She turned her head slowly to look at him and said yes.

  ‘Sorry. There’s some stuff we need to talk about.’

  ‘Sounds serious.’

  ‘Depends on your perspective.’

  Logan used the controls on the steering wheel to lower the volume of the stereo.

  ‘I have to go away on business for a few days. Maybe even a week.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  She turned back to look out of the windscreen. Logan glanced at her, couldn’t read her expression.

  ‘I’ve got school.’

  ‘I know, Ellie. You can’t come with me.’

  ‘I had kind of worked that out.’

  She was trying to be sassy. That was her way. But he could tell from the uncertain edge in her voice that the confidence was just for show.

  ‘I’m going with Alex, and Sam said you can stay at their house.’

  Ellie chewed on her bottom lip and squinted as sunlight fell across her face.

  ‘What do you think?’ Logan asked.

  ‘Might be kind of cool,’ she said.

  ‘Right. No dads.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘We’re going over for dinner tonight and you’ll stay there so we need to get you packed this afternoon.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Logan was relieved. Her continuing maturity still surprised him. He reached over and ruffled her hair with his hand to annoy her. She pushed him away and tried to look perturbed, not really succeeding.

  When they got home, Ellie went straight to her room and started laying out most of her wardrobe on the bed while Logan got a suitcase from the cupboard in the hall. He put it on the floor in her room, stared at all the clothes and shook his head.

  ‘It won’t be that long,’ he told her.

  ‘Just being prepared.’

  ‘Right. I mean, you are planning on coming back here when I get home? You’re not leaving me.’

  She stopped and looked at him — serious now.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  His heart contracted.

  She returned to packing. They didn’t dwell on difficult emotions, preferring to confront them and deal with them in a straightforward way.

  He realised she had grown a lot even over the last few months. Maybe in some weird way the death of his cat, Stella, a while back had helped. It was from natural causes. She was an old cat. And Chris Washington’s death too. It had shown Ellie that death is a way of life and that it touches everyone. She wasn’t special, at least not in that way. She hadn’t been singled out for any unique suffering.

  ‘What about Becky?’ Ellie asked, surveying the clothes on her bed and nodding her head as though she was satisfied with her work.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She turned to him.

  ‘You’ll miss her.’

  ‘Yes. But she’s got an important job and so she needs to be here to do that.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  That seemed to be the end of it.

  Logan went to his room and double checked his own carry-on bag. It didn’t look like he was taking much, not compared to Ellie, anyway, but it was all he needed. And he could always pick up extras over there.

  Ellie shouted that she was going for a quick shower and he heard the bathroom door close then the sound of the shower going on. He went back to her room to check her packing and was surprised to see that she had put a lot of stuff back in her wardrobe and the suitcase was ordered and ready to go.

  He bent down to shut it and saw a mobile phone he didn’t recognise. It was wedged down the side of the suitcase, only the top of it showing above the clothes. He pulled it out and turned it over in his hands. It was an old Nokia, which would have looked new maybe three years ago.

  He sat on Ellie’s bed and switched the phone on. It took a moment to warm up and then the logo for the phone company came on the screen. Logan paid the bills for Ellie’s phone and this one was on a different network. He frowned, not sure what he was looking at.

  Ellie came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later in her robe with her hair piled up in a towel. Logan was on her bed, leaning back against the wall. She stopped when she saw him.

  He held the phone up.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Her eyes flicked to the phone.

  ‘It’s a phone.’

  He raised his eyebrows at her.

  ‘I can see that, Ellie. I mean, why do you have it when I already pay for one? I’ve never seen this one.’

  ‘Becky got it for me.’

  Logan sat forward, frowning.

  ‘What?’

  Ellie came over and sat beside him, took the phone from him and started pressing buttons. He waited to see what it was she was going to show him, but when she was done she put it against his ear.

  He heard her mother’s voice. Heard Penny.

  ‘Hi, baby. This is your mum calling to say congratulations on your very first phone. Hope you like it. Love you.’

  Ellie took the phone and switched it off.

  Logan blinked aw
ay blurred vision.

  ‘Becky said they were getting rid of the evidence in my mum’s case after Christmas. At the police station. And was there anything I wanted. She showed me a list.’

  ‘She never said.’

  ‘Told me it was our secret. Anyway, I knew that message was on my old phone. I never deleted it.’

  ‘And Becky knows about the message?’

  ‘No. I didn’t tell her why I wanted it. It was just for me.’

  Logan put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She didn’t resist, leaning her head on his shoulder and toying with the phone in her hands.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She shrugged in his embrace.

  ‘You’ve got Becky now,’ she said.

  Logan gently eased her away from him and faced her.

  ‘Your mum was special to both of us,’ he said. ‘Becky knows that. You could have told me.’

  She looked down at the phone and back at him. She surprised him by saying okay, leaning in and kissing his cheek before getting up to plug in her hairdryer.

  She was stronger than him, that was for sure. And he loved her all the more for it.

  2

  Armstrong had left Pitt Street after the interview with the two uniforms — telling Irvine that he wanted to catch up on his other work. He promised to be back before five to go and see Suzie Murray with her.

  Irvine typed up statements for the officers and filled out internal reports. She hated the paperwork and it took her more than three hours to finish all of it. Sometimes she thought that modern policing was more about documenting what was done — rather than actually doing it.

  She called Jim Murphy at four in the afternoon to chase up the post-mortem results and to see if anything of note had turned up from the lab analysis of whatever was found at the locus.

  ‘I think the drug squad instincts are right,’ Murphy told her.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, blood analysis isn’t back yet but I’m betting that she died from an overdose. I spoke to the pathologist and his preliminary view is that she wasn’t killed by someone. There are no signs of violence and no water in her lungs.’

  ‘She was dead when she went in the water?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘CCTV show up yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Call over there and see if they can put a rush on it, will you.’

  ‘I’ll do it now. Talk later.’

  Five o’clock came and went with no sign of Armstrong. The clock crept towards six, then past it. She called her mother to ask her to pick Connor up from the childminder and endured a lecture about parental responsibility. After that, she called Armstrong’s mobile and left a message on his voicemail to call her when he could.

  Then it was six-thirty.

  Her phone rang and she picked it up without looking to see who it was.

  ‘It’s about time,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  It was Logan.

  ‘I thought it was someone else.’

  ‘You waiting for a call? We can speak later if you like.’

  ‘No. No, it’s fine. I’m a bit frustrated. Are you still planning on coming over later?’

  ‘I am. It’s just that, well, I wanted to ask you about something. About the phone you got for Ellie.’

  She’d forgotten about that.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Ellie asked me not to.’

  ‘She’s a kid, Becky. Did you not think I should have known about it? I could have helped her. I mean, who knew how she was going to react to hearing Penny’s voice. She could have regressed.’

  ‘What about Penny’s voice? You’re not making any sense, Logan.’

  He told her about the message on the phone.

  ‘I didn’t know. How did she react?’

  ‘She’s fine.’

  He sounded terse, angry.

  ‘I said I didn’t know,’ she told him, aware that he was reacting this way because he was upset — probably unsure how he felt himself about hearing Penny’s voice again.

  He didn’t respond. She closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her free hand.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘If I’d known about the message of course I would have talked to you about it first.’

  He sighed.

  ‘We can talk about it later,’ she said. ‘I’ll call when I get home, like I said.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Click

  Was there any other word in the English language so often used to mean something entirely opposite to its meaning as fine? She didn’t think so.

  She called Armstrong again, still pissed off at him. Got his voicemail and left a short message that she would go and see Suzie Murray on her own and he could meet her there if he liked.

  She put on her jacket, grabbed her bag and headed out of the building.

  Way to stay out of trouble.

  3

  Irvine stood outside Joanna Lewski’s building in Bridgeton. It was on the corner, three storeys built in red sandstone with a charity shop at street level and flats above. The sun was sinking in the sky and it glowed red-orange.

  She looked at the address she had scribbled on a piece of loose paper. Lewski’s flat was on the top floor, back right. She went to the entrance door and was looking for the buzzer for the flat when she noticed that the door wasn’t locked. She pushed at it and it swung into the common hallway. She wasn’t much of a fan of the red and yellow paint job in Logan’s building, but this one had bare plaster walls in charcoal grey. She could barely see the stairs at the far end in the murky light cast down from the grimy window on the landing.

  For a moment, Irvine thought about going home. This was something she could do tomorrow when Armstrong was with her. If he was happy to leave it tonight, maybe she should be as well.

  Nothing to do with the less-than-inviting interior, of course.

  She pushed the piece of paper into her bag and stepped into the hall.

  ‘Get on with it,’ she whispered.

  Halfway along the hall she was startled by the sound of her mobile ringing.

  ‘Hey,’ Armstrong said. ‘Where are you? I thought we were going to see this Suzie Murray together.’

  Irvine closed her eyes.

  ‘Before five you said. It’s now…’ she checked her watch — ‘nearly seven.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that. Had a bit of a domestic.’

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘Why so surprised? But, no. It’s my girlfriend. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at Murray’s building now. I was going to see her on my own.’

  ‘You want me to come too? I can be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘Do what you want. But I’m going up to her flat to get started. It’s late enough already.’

  ‘Go ahead. I’ll be there.’

  Irvine put her phone away and walked to the stairs at the end of the hall. The dirty grey walls continued up to the next floor and, if anything, it looked even darker.

  She started up the stairs and heard a noise above — like shouting. A male voice. She strained to hear but it had stopped and she wasn’t sure where exactly it had come from. It could have been at the end of the first floor hall or higher up. Sound echoed off the walls and down the stairs, distorted from its origin.

  She waited for a moment and started up again when there was no further sound. The stairs were old stone, polished by the foot traffic that had passed over them since the place was built over a hundred years ago. The centre of each stair was dimpled where the heaviest traffic had worn it away. Irvine was careful to look where she was walking, one hand on the rail screwed to the wall for support.

  As she neared the top of the stairs leading to the second floor she heard more noise. This time it was like a thump, followed by someone choking back a sob. It sounded like it was coming from the far end of the hall. Where Suzie Murray lived. Where Joanna Lewski had lived.

&nb
sp; Irvine stepped up into the hall and looked along to the door of the flat. There was a narrow window seeping dirty yellow light from the streetlights outside.

  She waited, straining to listen for any more sounds from down the hall. She thought she could hear whispers, but couldn’t be sure. There was another thump, this time definitely emanating from the flat she was going to visit. Irvine stepped back, wondering if maybe it would be a good idea to wait for Armstrong after all.

  She turned to look back down the stairs, didn’t see the door to Suzie Murray’s flat slowly open, revealing the black interior of the flat.

  She heard a slow creaking sound behind her as the door to the flat opened all the way, turned and saw the silhouette of a man against the light from the window. His face was indistinct in the gloom of the hall.

  She heard what sounded like a woman crying.

  The man didn’t move.

  Irvine reached into her bag and took out her warrant card, holding it up.

  ‘I’m a police officer. DC Irvine, Strathclyde Police CID.’

  Her voice sounded stronger than she felt. That’s how they taught you — got to sound like a cop, even if you don’t feel it.

  The man turned his head and looked inside the flat. She saw him in profile — long hair with a prominent brow and a boxer’s flat nose. Realised now that he was tall and wide.

  Wished to Christ she’d waited for Armstrong.

  The man turned back to look at her.

  ‘Bad timing,’ he said, and walked towards her.

  4

  Irvine held her ID out in front of her, as though it would act as a shield. The man continued to advance on her. She stepped back, felt her foot slip on the edge of the top stair — nowhere to go but down.

  He was close now, ten feet from her. She pushed her other hand into her bag and grabbed the canister of pepper spray, pulled it out and pointed it at him.

  ‘Stay where you are or I’ll use this.’

  She said it loud and it was enough to stop him. Still couldn’t make out his face. She smelled alcohol and aftershave.