Hostage to Murder (31 page)

“Has he got any theories?”

The lad looked self-important. “Mistaken identity. My boss reckons they got the wrong target. See, the Grand Master of the Orange Lodge, his name's Gourlay. John Gourlay. And he drives a Jag that's near enough identical to the victim's. That's the line we're going with, anyway.”

“Could be,” said Lindsay.
Biggest load of bollocks so far,
she thought, wishing Rory was there to share the moment.
I've got to stop thinking like that
, she admonished herself. If she was going to make it back with Sophie, she was going to have to train herself out of the habit of yearning.

Before she had to endure any more nonsense, the florist's van drew up at the edge of the cordon. An elderly man got out, carrying a lavish bouquet, and spoke to the nearest police officer. The cop took it and crossed to Bernie's door. It opened to reveal a uniformed woman officer, who accepted the flowers and closed the door firmly behind her.

Time crawled past. Lindsay chewed the skin round her nails, wondering what was going on inside Bernie's head. Eventually, the door opened again and the WPC who had taken in the bouquet spoke to one of the officers on guard. He nodded and stepped to the gate. “Is one of you Lindsay Gordon?” he shouted down to the waiting journalists.

Lindsay pushed herself off the wall and waved a hand. “That's
me.” Ignoring the outraged complaints from her fellow journalists, she pushed her way through and ducked under the tapes.

“I'll need ID,” the officer in the gateway said. Lindsay dug her driving licence out of her wallet and waited while he scrutinised it. “Hang on a minute,” he said, turning away and muttering into his personal radio. She wondered what would come up in any records search. She didn't have any criminal convictions, but she'd had some uncomfortable brushes with the law over the years. She speculated whether that information was stored on the Police National Computer, or if it was tucked away in some obscure Special Branch file.

Whatever his control told him, it clearly wasn't bad enough to prevent them letting her near Bernie. He glanced over his shoulder, nodded curtly and said, “OK, on you go.”

The WPC was right inside the door, waiting for her. She opened the living room door and ushered Lindsay in, then left them alone. The curtains were closed and the room was dim in the light of a couple of table lamps. Jack was locked into his computer game, while Bernie seemed fixated on the cigarette she was smoking. Neither looked up when she entered. Lindsay crossed the room and kneeled down at Bernie's feet, taking her free hand. Bernie raised her head then and met Lindsay's sympathetic gaze with a bleak, empty stare.

“I do know what it's like,” Lindsay said softly. “Years ago, my lover died. You feel guilty just for surviving. Never mind the hole they leave in your heart.”

“Are you here as a journalist or as a friend?” Bernie asked roughly.

“I'm here because I'm part of this. Tam made me a part of this, and I need to know what's really going on.”

“Oh God.” Bernie shivered and pulled her hand away, covering her eyes. Lindsay got up and sat next to her, putting an arm round her shoulders. It was time to start pushing, but she didn't want to lose the fragile contact she'd established.

“Bernie, I know there's stuff you haven't told me about. I don't think you told Tam about it either. And he's paid the price, hasn't he?”

Bernie shrugged Lindsay's arm off. “Who the hell gave you the right to sit in judgement on me?” She glared at her.

“You did. When you let me put myself in the firing line right beside Tam. I don't know what's going on here, but if you want to put an end to it before anybody else dies, you better start talking to somebody. And since my neck's already on the block, it might as well be me.”

Lindsay felt the long sigh shuddering through Bernie. “I don't know if I can.” She looked down at Jack and her shoulders dropped in resignation. “I can't do this by myself any longer,” she groaned. “He's not Bruno's son.”

Lindsay frowned, trying to make sense of this bolt from the blue. “Not Bruno's? Then what . . . ?”

“You want the truth? Well, listen,” Bernie said, her voice gathering strength from her determination finally to share her burden. “I grew up outside Belfast. On a farm. The man who owned the farm was called Patrick Coughlan. He was a rich man, a bookie in Belfast. But we all knew that he was a lot more than that. Strangers were always turning up at funny times of the day and night. That was one of the reasons why his marriage was so unhappy.

“Everybody knew Patrick and Mary hated each other. They say it started because she couldn't have children. And Patrick being a strict Catholic, he couldn't divorce her. Anyway, when I turned sixteen, Patrick offered me a job in Belfast, in one of his betting shops. I was glad of it, for there's not a lot of work back home. And he used to drive me back to the country at weekends. And he paid me a lot of attention. And like you do, I became his mistress. And because I was young and stupid, I fell pregnant. ‘Never mind,' says Patrick. ‘You'll have the baby in a nursing home in England, and me and Mary will adopt the child.' ” Bernie looked beseechingly at Lindsay as she lit another cigarette.

“I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't give a child of mine to that hellish marriage. And I didn't want my child growing up thinking the IRA was a fine and noble career for a man.”

“Jesus,” Lindsay breathed.

“I had some money saved, and I knew where Patrick kept his
emergency stash. So I took off. I got the boat to Stranraer and the train to Glasgow, and found myself a hotel job. I'd only been there for a fortnight when I met Bruno. He fell for me, and I let myself be carried along with the flow. He wanted to marry me and he was handy.”

“So did he believe Jack was his son?”

“At first. It wasn't hard to persuade him.” She gave a derisive snort. “You know men. They like to think they're all stud bulls. But eventually he figured out the truth. The marriage was in ruins by then anyway.” She sighed again. “I should have known Patrick would find me one day. I've always lived with the fear of it.”

“So what happened? How did he find you?”

“I've no idea. He started phoning me a couple of weeks ago. He said he wanted me to get used to the idea of Jack living with him. So I did the only thing I could think of to protect Jack.”

Suddenly, light dawned in Lindsay's brain. “You set the kidnap up with Bruno!”

“We made the plans a long time ago. Just in case. I couldn't think of anything else, and I knew Bruno would take good care of Jack. But I underestimated what Tam would do for love of the boy.”

Lindsay's mind was racing now, far ahead of Bernie's story. “So when we grabbed Jack back again, Patrick killed Tam?”

Bernie nodded. “As a warning to me not to thwart him. He phoned here this afternoon. He wants Jack. What am I to do, Lindsay?”

Lindsay felt about six miles out of her depth. “You could tell the police?”

“Tell them what? I haven't a shred of evidence. I don't know where he is. The police have never been able to stop him doing exactly what he wanted to. Why should they start now? You think they can do anything? Patrick's not some toerag. He's respectable, rich, and he's never been nailed for anything more than a speeding ticket. Sure, the security forces know he's 'RA, but they've no evidence. He's got more than Tam's blood on his hands but they've never been able to lay a finger on him.”

“Then you're going to have to do a runner again.”

Bernie shook her head hopelessly. “I can't. He's having me watched. He knows my every move. When I go in, when I go out. He phones to let me know. He said he'd phone me tomorrow with instructions for the hand over. If we try to get away, he says he'll have me killed and snatch Jack anyway.” Suddenly, her composure cracked and fat, heavy tears spilled from her eyes. “What am I going to do?” she sobbed.

Lindsay took a deep breath. “Well, we'll just have to think of something.”

The flat was clearly off limits now for Michael and Kevin. Everybody who lived in Kinghorn Drive would come under suspicion, everyone would be questioned, and it would only be a matter of time before the police got round to finding out about the two Irishmen in the vacant flat. Chances were that the estate agent would already have put two and two together and volunteered the details of his own venal stupidity.

This left Michael with the problem of how to carry out Patrick's orders without taking too many risks. He'd stayed out of jail throughout the troubles simply because he was good at figuring out the odds and staying on the right side of them. He wasn't about to change his ways now. And so his first move had been to send Kevin back to the B&B to await further instructions.

It had been easy enough for a while after Bernadette had returned. There were enough sightseers for him blend in. But the gawkers had thinned out now. Probably away home for their tea, like good wee civilians, he thought with contempt. However, their desire to fill their bellies didn't help him one whit. Eventually, he'd called Patrick and made a suggestion.

So when Lindsay was picked out of the pack and shown through a front door he'd become all too familiar with, Michael was standing only yards away from her, a camera round his neck and a camera
bag at his feet. He hadn't known the lad who had delivered the equipment to him on the corner of Great Western Road, but he supposed it had cost Patrick a bob or two to kit him up with something good enough to pass muster as a press photographer's gear.

It was the perfect disguise. Nobody gave him a second look. In the clannish world of news journalism, strangers stayed that way until and unless they made themselves one of the crowd. If you wanted to stay aloof, fine. All it meant was that you would be cut out of any sharing the pack decided to do with what meagre pickings they'd got.

He couldn't believe it when Lindsay materialised in front of him, carving a line through the crowd and walking straight in. He knew from what he'd read in the paper that she'd been at the heart of the operation to recover Jack Gourlay from his kidnappers. He didn't think Patrick would be pleased to find her in the thick of it again.

Michael walked a few yards away from the crowd and called Patrick. Quickly, he outlined what he'd just seen.

“Fucking bitch,” Patrick grumbled. “We're nearly done here. I don't want outsiders interfering. This isn't the time for playing games.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

There was a pause. “Follow her when she comes out. Persuade her to keep her nose out of our business.”

“How persuasive would you like me to be?”

“She's a woman. They frighten easily. What she saw this morning should be enough to keep her mouth shut, provided you give her a little encouragement.”

The phone went dead. Michael allowed himself a small smile. It would be a pleasure.

 

Sophie locked her office door with a sense of relief. It had felt like the longest day of her life, and all she wanted to do was go home, unplug the phones and try to make up for some of the sleep she'd lost the night before, tossing and turning and crying over someone who simply wasn't worth it.

She'd almost made it to the lift when she heard her secretary call her name. Sophie thought about pretending she hadn't heard, but couldn't bring herself to be so rude. Lucy was hurrying towards her with a hand-tied bouquet of yellow roses.
My favourite, damn you, Lindsay
. “These have just come, Professor Hartley. I thought you'd want to take them home with you.” She thrust the flowers eagerly at her boss.

Sophie's first reaction was to stuff the flowers in the fire bucket. But that would only provoke more departmental gossip than the bouquet itself. She forced a tired smile and accepted the offering. “Thanks, Lucy. See you in the morning.” She struggled to press the call button for the lift, but Lucy reached past her and helped out.

“There you go,” she said cheerfully. “You're obviously a very lucky lady,” she added.

“Sorry?”

“The flowers. Somebody must think a lot of you. A dozen roses. That's special.” Lucy sketched a wave and headed back down the corridor.

Not special enough,
Sophie thought grimly. She'd half-expected to be showered with phone calls, even to see Lindsay waiting hangdog outside her office when she'd arrived that morning, but there had been nothing. She wasn't sure how to interpret that. On the rare occasions when they rowed, Lindsay always went over the top when it came to mending fences, as enthusiastic for reconciliation as she was for everything else she cared about. Did her silence mean she was secretly relieved to have found a fire escape from parenthood and Sophie? Or was it that she realised that this was one time where she had overstepped the mark so utterly that all normal routes to appeasement were shut off? Or was she simply too busy having fun with Rory?

Sophie ripped open the envelope stapled to the cellophane. Reading Lindsay's words, she couldn't resist either the half-smile or the prickle of tears that accompanied them. “You are an asshole,” she said softly.

She wasn't ready to forgive. Not by a very long way. But for the
first time since Lindsay's admission had slashed at her heart, Sophie was prepared to consider that forgiveness might be a remote possibility.

 

Lindsay walked along Great Western Road in the gathering shadows of early evening, oblivious to the traffic flowing past her in a stuttering stream. Her head was whirling with questions and options, trying to process the full implications of what Bernie had told her. She had the vague glimmerings of an idea that might just get them all off the hook, but it was a long way from something that could be graced with the term “plan”.