Sabbathman (50 page)

Kingdom finished with the living room and moved into the bedroom. It was at the back, beside the bathroom. The window was barred on the outside and security lights flooded the tiny courtyard. Kingdom pulled down the calico blind and turned back into the room. There was a plain black duvet on the low single bed and three pairs of trainers in a line by the built-in wardrobe. Beside the bed was a cabinet, knee-high. On top, propped against the clock radio, was a notepad. Kingdom picked it up. Someone had made a series of jottings on the pad and then torn off the top leaf. They must have pressed hard because he could still read the indentures left by the pen on the sheet below. Kingdom removed the sheet and held it up against the light. ‘A1,’ it said. Then there was an arrow to another scribble, ‘A6136’, then a second arrow, ‘B6270’, with the word ‘Muker’ beside it. Road directions, Kingdom thought, folding the torn-off sheet and slipping it into his pocket.

Kingdom paused for a moment. A framed photographic print hung on the wall facing the bed. It was an image he’d seen before, Ayers Rock in Australia. The photo had been taken in low sunlight, the beginning or the end of the day, and it showed an orange, alien place, a landscape the colour of Mars, the dead heart of an entire continent. Kingdom looked at it, wondering what kind of man
would want to wake up to a picture like this. It spoke of something fierce and implacable, at once arid and overwhelming.

Kingdom shrugged, turning back to the cabinet. In the drawer, beside a box of Kleenex tissues, was a Jiffy bag. He took it out. It was addressed, in a child-like hand, to ‘Mr Cousins’ and it had been sent from Belfast only two days ago. Kingdom peered inside, shaking out the contents. A single audio cassette fell onto the duvet, no box, no letter, not even a note. He looked at it a moment, wondering whether or not it was important. On the evidence of the postmark alone, he knew he had to find out.

In the living room, part of the audio set-up, was a cassette player. Kingdom slipped the cassette into the machine. There was a dubbing option on the control panel and Kingdom began to go through the drawers below again, looking for the cassettes he’d examined earlier. Cousins kept a couple of dozen of them, mostly recordings from Radio Four, each neatly labelled. Kingdom found one at the back marked
File On Four: Nato in a Changing World
. He loaded it into the machine’s auxiliary cassette port, winding it back, hoping that Cousins wouldn’t miss it. This way, if the Belfast cassette was important, he’d be able to leave with a copy.

On top of the audio stack was a pair of lightweight headphones. Kingdom plugged them in, knowing that the machine would now play mute. The last thing he wanted was visitors. He reached forward, checking the audio levels, then pressed the play and record buttons. He was sitting on the floor now, his back to the wall beside the machine, his long legs reaching out towards the sofa. On the sound track he heard a rumble, then someone coughing. A door opened and closed again. Something fell over, something big, and a voice began to curse. It was a man’s voice, a rich Belfast accent, slightly slurred. Someone else was in the room, another man. He was laughing. A radio was turned on, very loud, then the same voice cursed again.

‘You’ll fucking turn it off,’ he said, ‘we’ll need the plug.’

The door opened again and someone else came in. Then the recording stopped. Seconds later, it started again. Kingdom had no idea how long the real gap had been but that didn’t matter because the situation had now become abruptly clear. Two men,
both of them with Belfast accents, and someone else who was refusing to talk.

‘You’ll tell me,’ one of the voices kept saying, ‘so help me God, you’ll tell me.’

The voice was low, almost a hiss, the tone you might use with a child who wouldn’t eat his breakfast, or a dog which wouldn’t sit down.

‘Fucking do it, do it, fucking tell me.’

Kingdom flinched as the first blow fell, the smack of knuckle against flesh, of knuckle against bone. Then the questioner again, more insistent.

‘Who did you show? Who else saw it?’

A brief silence. The sound of a passing car. Then another blow, much heavier than the last, and a gasp of pain. Kingdom stiffened, reaching for the controls, wanting to stop the tape, wanting to rewind it, play the last few seconds again, make sure he hadn’t got it wrong. A woman, he thought. A woman in there. Taking the punishment. Absorbing the pain.

The interrogation went on and on, the questioner beginning to lose his temper. The woman had something, something important, something no one else should see. Had she kept it to herself? Or had she shared this mysterious secret?

From the woman, so far, there was nothing. The odd gasp, the odd little cry, but nothing they could seize on, exploit, pull and twist until the truth came tumbling out. Whoever she is, Kingdom thought, she’s playing these animals at their own game, refusing to say a single word, refusing to even acknowledge them.

The man with the questions, the one in charge, was angry now and Kingdom could hear slurping noises from time to time, regular pulls from some bottle or other. Finally, getting nowhere, the man came up with a new suggestion.

‘Light the fucking gas,’ he said thickly, ‘and fetch the poker.’

‘But–’

‘Just fucking do it.’

The door opened. The other man went out. Then he came back in again.

‘It’s lit.’

‘OK.’

‘It’ll be a while.’

‘Sure. Take her top off.’

‘You.’

‘No, you fucking do it.’

The two men argued. Kingdom sat on the floor, his mouth dry now, a terrible certainty growing inside him. There was a tear of clothing and one of the men whistled. Kingdom shut his eyes, trying hard not to turn the sound-track into pictures, desperate not to visualise the way it must have been. The woman naked from the waist up. Tied to some poxy chair or other. Waiting for these animals with their red hot poker. One of the men was out of the room again. When he came back there was a moment’s pause. Then the low, gruff Belfast voice.

‘Fucking do it, before it gets cold.’

‘Where?’

‘Wherever you like.’ Pause. ‘There. That tattoo there. Yeah, that’s right, just move them.’

Kingdom reached up for the controls. He should stop the tape. He knew he should. Before he wrecked the flat, broke it up, piece by piece, starting with this hideous piece of machinery, an orgy of violence that would only be over once he’d got his hands on Cousins. The man must have listened to this tape. He must have sat here, just like Kingdom, eavesdropping. That was unforgivable. That was worse, in a way, than even inflicting the pain in the first place. Ayers Rock, he thought. The dead heart.

Annie Meredith spoke for the first time. She sounded calm, in control of herself. Only Kingdom could recognise the tiny tremor in her voice, undetectable unless you knew her well.

‘It’ll make no difference.’ she was saying, ‘I promise you.’

‘We’ll fucking see about that.’

‘I meant the whisky. It won’t help. If you do it, you’ll never forget it. It’ll be with you forever.’

‘And you, cunt.’

The men began to laugh and then there was a new sound, a high-pitched scream, unforgettable, and another and another, and Kingdom shook his head, trying to block out the noise, trying not to make the obvious connection, the poker, Annie’s naked
flesh, the rose tattoo scorching and bubbling under the red hot metal.

‘Stop, for fuck’s sake. You’ll kill her.’

‘Piss off.’

There was the thud of another heavy blow, the guy with the whisky out of control, then Annie again, the screaming louder and louder, then abruptly cut-off. Kingdom drew his knees to his chin, hearing her beginning to choke, recognising the low gurgling sound for what it was, hands around her throat, her life ebbing away.

The tape ended a minute or so later, silence in the room, the Belfast voice very close to the microphone. The man was out of breath. He had a message for the boss.

‘You’re in the clear, so you are. The wee girl’s gone.’

It was nearly midday before he saw the Range Rover. It came bumping around the shoulder of the hill across the valley, travelling slowly, halting every ten yards or so while the driver inspected another obstacle. The overnight rain, draining from the moorland slopes above, had filled the deep potholes in the track and the Rover’s paintwork was blotched with mud.

He eased his position in the wet heather, reaching for the rifle beside him. He’d expected them much earlier, around ten, ten-thirty, and the fitful sunshine had done nothing for the chill that had seeped through the layers of clothing beneath the thin camouflage smock.

The Range Rover had stopped now, another hundred yards down the track. The doors were opening and the men inside were getting out. There were five of them, and when he tucked the wooden stock of the Enforcer into his shoulder and lowered his eye to the sniperscope, he recognised at once the face of the man he’d come to kill. He stood in the middle of the group, a slight figure, dressed for his weekend in the country. He had a shotgun tucked under his arm and the flat tweed cap was pulled low over his eyes but the sun was out again and there was no mistaking the milky paleness of his skin, nor the rash of freckles, nor the diffident smile he offered to the man at his side.

A cocker spaniel had appeared from the back of the Range Rover, barking with excitement, and the shooting party began to walk along the track, deep in conversation. After a couple of yards, someone pointed out a path up the hill and they turned onto it, single file, winding upwards through the heather.

He leaned into the rifle, the stock cold against his cheek. He’d already estimated the range at 550 yards but the men were walking away now and every step they took widened the gap. The target was number four in the line, the cleanest of kills, but he had no taste for shooting a man in the back and he waited patiently for the party to turn round to enjoy the view. A head shot would be best, full frontal, anywhere between the hairline and the base of the throat. Just like Jersey, just like Blanche. He smiled.

Across the valley, the five men toiled upwards. Only when they were close to the top of the hill did they pause and look back. Through the sniperscope, their breaths clouded on the cold air. Unfit, he thought, as his finger curled around the trigger.

The target had something in his eye. When he’d sorted it out, he took off the tweed cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead. As his face tilted up again, the cross-hairs in the scope came to rest. The other men were already on the move again. The target was still enjoying the view.

His finger tightened on the trigger and he waited another second or two, taking the lightest of breaths. The sun went in as he fired, the cloud patterning the valley floor. The noise of the single shot rolled across the empty moor and seconds later the dog began to bark, sniffing at the fallen body, calling back the men above.

Allder had taken a room in a hotel in Kyle of Lochalsh. It was Monday morning and he’d been in residence just five minutes, scuttling in from the car, trying to avoid the torrential rain.

Kingdom had already been in the hotel almost twelve hours. Now, he joined the four other men who’d been summoned to the room Allder had hired, picking his way past the pile of soaking waterproofs heaped by the door. Allder appeared from the bathroom, mopping his face with a towel. The drive across from Inverness had done nothing for his temper.

He retrieved his briefcase from the floor beside the bed. Inside was a copy of
The Citizen
. Monday’s edition had yet to find its way to north-west Scotland but Allder had bought a copy at Heathrow and he gave it to Kingdom now. Kingdom looked at it. He’d heard the news on the radio, first thing, and he’d wondered then quite how
The Citizen
would cope.

The other men in the room joined him on the bed. Three of them had been out on the coast for four days now, part of the Special Branch surveillance team seconded to the Sabbathman inquiry from Clydebank Police HQ in Glasgow. They’d been watching the Skye ferries in six-hour shifts, one team down in Mallaig, the other here at Kyle. It was on the basis of their reports that Allder had felt relaxed about delaying Kingdom’s visit until now.

Kingdom was still reading the paper. The front page had been devoted to a head and shoulders photo of Willoughby Grant. The portrait was edged in black. Beneath it, the single headline,
‘SLAIN!’
The Citizen
’s chickens had come home to roost. Mr Angry had shot the editor.

Kingdom turned over. Amongst the testimonials and the hand-wringing he could find no trace of the usual communiqué.

He glanced up. ‘No word from the man himself?’ he queried. ‘Nothing in writing?’ Allder produced an envelope from the briefcase and tossed it across. ‘It’s a photocopy,’ he said curtly, ‘you can keep it.’

Kingdom nodded, sliding a single sheet of paper from the envelope. The message, as ever, was brief. He opened the paper on his knee, letting everyone read it.
‘Papers like yours,’
it ran,
‘use other people’s grief to make a profit. Your Mr Angry was a bit fed up about all that but profits obviously matter to people like you so I decided to make a little contribution of my own. The boss died smiling, by the way. Nice day. Clean air. Wonderful views. Over and out. Sabbathman.’