The Good Son (22 page)

My eyes were only just beginning to adjust to the light now that I was out of the sorry cover of trees. Above, the moon shone bright and full.

I listened to the sounds of the night, tried to quiet my heartbeat which threatened to echo into the shadows and reveal my hiding place.

I couldn't hear anything. But I knew I couldn't stay still for long. Ayer would figure out where I was, if he hadn't already. He moved softly for such a big
man. Could easily have been one of the dead, himself.

I was on the south side of the Necropolis. Ideally, I should have made a beeline to the north, followed the direction Robertson had taken. Going south would take me out of the Necropolis, towards the new Balgay Cemetery. Lots of wide open spaces between gravestones that were no taller than knee height. Ayer would gun me down.

That way, I was a dead man.

I took a deep breath. The cold air burned my lungs. I turned towards the thick bushes and large, crumbling gravestones to the north. If I stayed in cover, I stood a chance.

And I realised, with a perverse joy, that I wanted to make it out alive.

I had come here intent on an odd kind of suicide, hardly caring if I lived or died and fully expecting that I would be killed by these Cockney psychopaths.

It was an odd revelation to have in a graveyard in the dead of night. Odd enough that I laughed out loud.

That was when Ayer came round the north side of the tomb. The light from his torch like a fist in the face.

Purple spots obscured my vision.

I backed away, holding up the gun, tripped over a root.

There was an explosion. Whether it was from my gun or Ayer's, I didn't know.

I slammed into the ground.

The mud oozed between my fingers. Stones ripped through the leather of my gloves and into the skin of my hands.

I gripped my gun tight, fought to keep a hold of it.

Something gave way in the back of my leg. In my
head, I heard what I thought was the sound of a muscle tearing. The leg flopped, uselessly. A white-hot burning sensation screamed across my thigh.

I was on the curve, right where the ground started to gently move to an incline at the southern face of the hill. I rolled with it, let gravity take over. Skidded part of the way, hit the slopes that led into Balgay.

The headstones became regimented. Materials became uniform; marble, mostly. The headstones were laid out in rows, each one exact and precise. Order rather than the chaos that prevailed in the heart of the Necropolis.

I had to keep moving. Tried to stand. The white fire in the back of my leg burned fiercely, and I fell to my knees, grabbing at a headstone for support. No such luck. I slipped into the mud. Wishing it would pull me under, let me rest at last.

I rolled onto my back, rested my head against the tombstone. Beaten.

Fucked.

He ran down to me. I could have shot him, but I couldn't find the strength to lift my gun.

Ayer smashed the heel of his boot against the back of my hand.

I screamed, but the noise was muted by the sound of the rain.

He did it again. All his weight smashing down. Bones cracked. I let go of my gun.

He kicked it away, out of reach. I saw it slip across the muddy ground.

Ayer stomped on my hand once more. The pain was less now, as though the repetition had somehow numbed me.

His foot didn't come down a fourth time. The hand was broken, I knew. Useless.

I thought:
this is it.

Prepared. Accepting. Ready.

Ayer shook his head to get the rain out of his eyes.

And I remembered, just, that moment of revelation earlier. When I realised that I wanted to live.

I kicked out with my right foot. Caught his knee. He yelled and instinctively pulled on the trigger.

I closed my eyes.

Another explosion.

Something sharp cut into my face just below the left eye.

In the aftermath of the gunshot, the world went quiet, every sound muted.

The left side of my face stung. Rain sluiced into the open wound. My eye refused to open properly.

I kicked again. Thought I caught him in the head. Reached up, pushed myself forward using the headstone as leverage. Opened my eyes. Saw him on his knees. His gun was on the ground beside him. His hands grasped at his right foot.

And I realised what had happened. Any other situation, it might have been worth a laugh, a man like Ayer shooting himself in the foot.

I threw myself at the bastard.

Feeling the numbness in my left leg. At least it was moving again.

When I slammed into him, he fought back. Made to get up and roared with pain as he put weight on his shattered foot. I fell with him, landed on top. Gripped his right hand with my left in case he tried to reach for the gun he'd dropped. I lifted my head, and looked him in the eye. He attempted what I suppose was a cocky grin, but only ended up looking desperate. His left hand reached up and clawed at my face. I pulled away. Fingers pawed at the open wound
below my eye. I tilted my head, pulling back from the reach of his fingers, and then brought it forward again. Dropping fast; smashing the bridge of his nose with the hard bone of my forehead.

The impact was dull and the crack of bones breaking was the clearest noise I had heard since the gunshot. His body went limp. I rolled away, lay in the mud struggling to take a breath.

Ayer moaned.

I reached out with my left hand and grabbed his gun, took a deep breath, and then tried to climb to my feet. Off balance, with my stomach churning and my vision blurred, I managed to stand. It took a supreme effort.

The rain battered down on my head.

Sirens wailed on the other side of the hill.

But for the moment, it was just the two of us. Here in the rain. In the darkness.

And I thought,
this time
.

I could kill him.

It would be easy.

I looked down the gun at Ayer and in that moment I knew he'd been wrong about me. I could pull back the trigger, feel the kick, watch him die. There was nothing easier.

I was aware, now, of the coppers in the graveyard. Some concerned citizen had made that call. But I had to wonder if it was too late.

My left hand, holding Ayer's gun, started to tremble.

Ayer's eyes regained focus. He looked at me and smiled: the message clear enough.
Do it, then, if you've got the fucking bottle.

And he really was laughing, a lunatic corpse, blood and mud caking his skin, eyes reflecting the moon.

I slipped my finger round the trigger. Locked my eyes on his, saw him encouraging me to go ahead.

“Put the gun down.”

The wind brushed against the back of my neck. Cold but gentle.

I kept my eyes locked on Ayer's. The challenge was still there.

I kicked him in the face. I heard a crack as my foot impacted his already broken nose. I kicked him again. In the kidneys. I kept kicking him, made sure it hurt, made sure he understood.

A voice said, “Steed, leave him alone!” The same voice that had asked me to put down the gun.

I didn't listen.

“Leave him alone.”

I looked up; Susan stood maybe three metres away. She held out her hand, palms flat to show she meant no harm. “It's over,” she said. “Leave him to us.”

I stepped back.

The other coppers were on me almost immediately, pinning my arms behind my back, trying to get me to calm down. Susan spoke to me, but her words were indistinct.

They cuffed me.

I raised my head to look at the headstone. Saw the damage where the stray bullet had shattered the marble. The sharp objects I'd felt tear open my face had been shrapnel.

The cops were talking, trying to make sure I understood I was being detained. I listened to them, allowed them to do their job. I was past giving a shite.

As they led me down to the vans, I turned my head and looked at the stone. I expected to feel sadness, maybe even anger. But instead I felt a kind of peace.

We passed one particular grave on the way and I said, hoarsely, “Stop.”

No one listened.

“Stop. Please.”

Susan heard me. She dismissed my escort, slipped her hand round my upper arm in case I tried to make a break for it. Copper's instinct.

She looked at the grave and said, “Jesus, McNee,” and I wasn't sure if her tone was piteous or exasperated.

She shone a torch on the stone:

 

E
LAINE
B
ARROW

B
ELOVED DAUGHTER
,

DEAR SISTER, DEVOTED
F
IANCÉE

1978-2007

N
OTRE NATURE EST

DANS LE MOUVEMENT;

L
E REPOS ENTIER EST LA MORT.

 

I thought about the wind on my neck earlier.

Remembered how her lips used to feel against my skin.

My legs gave way beneath me.

It was seven in the morning by the time they got me to the station and set up in interview one.

My left eye was still half closed and beneath it the skin was swollen and bruised. But it was nothing serious. They'd cleaned out the wound, told me I'd just have to give it time. There was a good possibility I'd be marked for life. I'd joked with the attending doctors that a scar would give me character. Inside, however, I wasn't even close to smiling.

They did what they could with my hand. Broken metacarpals, joints fucked in the fingers and possibly a fractured carpal. The doctor had laid it all out for me. Told me he couldn't say for sure it would heal completely. For now it was a matter of wait and see.

Best case scenario was losing the use of my hand for several months. After that, if I was lucky, I might regain full movement. But for now it was bound up tight and God forbid I try and do anything with it until the doc instructed otherwise.

I asked him to look at my leg, told him I'd been having trouble with it recently. He carried out an
examination without complaint, but said there was nothing wrong that he could see.

I thought about the psychiatrist.

The doctor told me what I needed was rest.

Not that I felt like doing much, anyway. With the painkillers they'd prescribed, I felt as though I could just float away. Although I was still dimly aware of a thumping discomfort that had no real localisation.

When they finally got me to the station, Lindsay brought a couple of coffees into interview one and somewhat grudgingly grabbed the seat across the table. Cordial, or as close as he could manage.

I took the plastic cup and nodded my thanks. He had his own personal mug decorated with a picture of a gull flying proud against a clear sky. The mug was scarred through use, the image beginning to fade.

I tasted the coffee. The liquid burned. When I swallowed, it hurt bad enough I wanted to scream.

Lindsay was straight down to business, not even bothering to ask how I felt. “These were the two men who killed Katrina Egg?”

“Aye.”

“Under orders from Gordon Egg?”

I nodded. “Try getting Ayer to admit that.”

Lindsay nodded. “When the doctors say he can talk, we'll be having a nice wee conversation.” He looked me in the eyes, said, “You could have killed him.”

“But I didn't.”

He thought about that for a moment. Came to a conclusion: “Hardly worth a fucking victory dance.”

We could have talked about Liman and Ayer. He could have asked me what David Burns had told me. But he didn't. After all, what use was I? A third-hand
account of second-hand information would never stand up.

Nothing would ever connect the violence up at the Necropolis to Gordon Egg except rumours and hearsay. The coppers would get nothing on the big man. Mathew Ayer wasn't going to break down, even taking into account the death of his friend.

“You'd better pray that prick doesn't contradict what you've got to say for yourself.” Talking about Ayer. An idle threat, of course. Nothing behind it. No enthusiasm even.

Lindsay sat back in his chair. His limbs flopped. The top buttons on his shirt were undone and his tie was loose. I wasn't under arrest. I'd merely been detained. Unless I gave him a good reason, I was gone in a few hours. Without charges, Scottish coppers can only detain a suspect for six hours barring requests for extension. He'd keep me in for the full six. Consider it some kind of payback.

All the same, he had to say something, make it look good. “One thing I still don't get: you just happened to be there? What, you stumbled across them taking a midnight walk through the Necropolis?”

I shook my head. Told the story again.

He waited, even though he wasn't really listening. He just wanted to piss me off, wear me down. When I was done, he said, “You didn't think to come forward? Through all the intimidation, all the threats, all the shit you knew a man like you shouldn't be handling, you just didn't think that maybe the professionals could have helped you? I mean, if you were an ordinary bloke on the street, maybe I'd understand. But you were a trained copper. What, since you became a citizen again you just turned off your brain?”

I stayed quiet. Didn't mention that I'd tried to talk to him earlier.

“Once in a while, McNee, I like to be disappointed. I like it when some cocky eejit turns around and surprises me. Does the right thing for once. I guess you don't have it in you to disappoint, eh? We could have caught these bastards, done it right. By the fucking book. No deaths, no unnecessary violence. We could have prevented your client from placing himself in danger. Now he's no longer the victim. Thanks to you, he's as much a criminal under the eyes of the law as those two Cockney bastards.”

Did I say I thought he might have a point?

But nothing could have stopped Robertson. He'd been on the path before he stepped in my office. I gave him a direct line to the people he could blame for his brother's death. If he hadn't found me, then it would have been someone else. He'd been seeking revenge. He wasn't a killer. But he wanted to be. Gone over the edge long before I got involved.