To Kill Or Be Killed (28 page)

“You’re
shivering. Are you alright?”

Dean shook his
head and spoke falteringly. “He shot him from behind, straight in
the head. There was blood. He made me wrap the body and throw it
over the side.” Dean began to cry “I thought I was going to die. I
told him I had a family, it meant nothing to him. He said he was an
assassin, I offered him a million, but he wasn’t interested. Cold
blooded bastard!” Dean spat the words through gritted shaking
teeth.

“We’ll take it
from here George.” The larger of the two policemen spoke. “Get him
a coat and some boots. Give us a bag with his clothes and we’ll
wash and dry them.”

Dean was led
out to the car, oversized wellingtons on his feet and an oversized
coat hiding the pyjamas and dressing gown.

Hudson stood at
the door and felt his wife’s arm curl around his waist. Dean turned
at the door.

“Thank you Mr
Hudson. Thank you Mrs Hudson.”

Hudson closed
the door and put all the bolts on, turned to his wife and gave her
a strong look.

“Check all the
windows. Lock all the doors. I’ll get a rifle from the gun
cabinet.”

“Surely there’s
no danger now.” She said.

“Hmm. Can’t be
too careful, it’s a bad time when assassins roam the country
killing witnesses. Maybe he’ll be back.”

Jean Hudson
went to the kitchen back door to bolt it, as she bent down to the
lower bolt her husband’s big strong body filled the little doorway
of the country kitchen and the shadow turned her head towards
him.

“Jean you’d
better call Ivy McLane. I’ve a mind that this is some business
she’d be interested in.”

Jean nodded
seriously. She and Ivy McLane were old friends and some years
before, during the Northern Irish ‘troubles, Ivy had been seriously
ill. Jean had stayed with her and nursed her through a fever. Jean
had seen a diplomatic pass and hearing electronic sounds in the
loft had investigated, Ivy had left her equipment running. Jean had
told her husband what she had seen. He in turn had gone to see Ivy
and had been appraised in full and certain terms of her rights and
his need to back off, which he had respectfully done. George Hudson
assumed with the Irish coast so near and Arran being remote that
spies were needed. It surprised him little that a middle aged woman
painter, as that was her career, turned out to be a spy. Spies were
in his view those that we would least expect.

Whilst Jean
phoned Ivy he went upstairs to their room and unlocked the gun
cupboard removing a BAR hunting rifle. He sat down on the edge of
their double bed with a cleaning kit, tools and gun oil. The box of
ammunition lay unopened on the counter pane next to box clip.

The BAR
lightweight Stalker made from aircraft-grade alloy with a matte
blued finish had a detachable box magazine, which after stripping,
cleaning and oiling the rifle Hudson filled and locked into place.
He put the rifle on safety and went down stairs with it.

Jean was coming
off the phone. She didn’t like guns of any kind, but remote places
allowed certain members of the population to be armed and she
trusted George to be careful. That man, Dean, well she’d heard bits
of his story. She felt safer locked in with George and even safer
knowing how well he handled a rifle.

In the loft of
a house on Benlister Road, round the corner from the Arran police
station at Lamlash, Ivy McLane unlocked her small gun cabinet and
took out the Sig 220 ‘rail’ pistol. She didn’t need to clean it.
Since the alert two days ago she’d followed the memo on armaments
to the letter. Satisfied that she was safe, doors locked and
windows barred she sat in the loft and sent out her message.

'Stanton
heading down West Coast in a boat and has killed. The surviving
witness is at Lamlash Police. Please call to advise my right to
interview or send duty team to do same.'

The reply was
swift.

Duty team
members in Edinburgh mopping up post Perth to attend. Please
welcome and assist.

At Lamlash
police station after making a statement Kevan Dean had cried on the
phone to his wife. He told her he’d be back the next day. A police
launch was to take him to the mainland and he’d be driven home. In
their warm, plush and well decorated detached house his wife sat
hugging her children and thanking god for her husband’s
deliverance.

At a nearby
house Dean’s clothes were already washed and being tumble dried. An
on call doctor had given him a mild sedative after his interview.
Dean had refused food, but welcomed the cell bed with its thick
warm woollen covers. He was left to sleep with his cell door left
wide open. Arran police checked Mr Griffith’s details and made a
call to the mainland and a car was despatched.

In Edinburgh
Mrs Griffiths sat alone in her lounge. Her children were grown and
had left home, one at university the other working in London. She
sat singly on the sofa with her arms wrapped around her own
shoulders, body language showing her closed, shocked grief.

“I’m afraid we
are sure Mrs Griffiths.” The police man said and looked at the
family photos arranged on the nearby grand piano in the large and
comfortable reception room. “The owner of the boat saw it happen
and was to have been killed too. A lucky chance allowed him to
escape, even then he had to swim through a couple of miles of open
sea.”

Mary Griffiths
shook her head looking from the face of the police man to the face
of the police woman colleague brought along to comfort the
widow.

“Why?”

“A random
chance that this assassin would go for that Marina and that your
husband was on a boat he could use.” The police woman said
quietly.

There was
silence.

“Do you have
anyone who can stay with you?” She asked Mrs Griffiths.

“My sister is
coming over. The children will be coming home tomorrow.”

The policeman
and police woman rose to go.

“Please stay
until my sister arrives.”

They both sat
down.

“I’m sorry. It
makes me so afraid. Why do people like that do that? Why kill
people so easily… as if they were… insects… swatting people like
insects…” She broke down crying.

The police
woman moved over and hugged Mary Griffiths, who feeling the strong
warm arms wailed out loud, clung on and sank into sobbing.

The police
man’s eyes hardened and he exchanged a look of shared understanding
with the police woman.

That was the
way it was. A political or diplomatic viewpoint, a hired gun,
forces pitched against each other and there you were at a point
where one woman drank brandy with relief whilst another sobbed in
loss and grief. Some were killed and some lived when men in power
made their chess board moves playing games with armed men.

By the time a
doctor had sedated Mary Griffiths, whilst she was comforted by her
sister, and Kevan Dean was deep in sleep in a police station, that
was now at armed and ready status, the DIC helicopter from
Edinburgh airport was landing in a field to the west of Lamlash.
There were torches planted in the ground to mark the landing spot
and nearby Ivy McLane waited by her car, switching the headlights
on when the chopper had landed.

They were in
for a long night, but that was DIC work, occasionally rushed and
busy, most times simply watching and waiting.

Chapter
77

Dover

9 p.m.

April 18th

David sat
slumped in his arm chair, full of steak, kidney, suet and gravy,
not to mention potatoes and greens. In spite of this he was not
sleepy. Mary had noticed that he had been staring at the
television, but seemingly seeing nothing.

“You alright
Davy?”

David roused
himself from his introspection.

“No. I’m
worried about Beaumont.”

“Why don’t you
go up and log on. It’ll put your mind at rest before your sleep.
I’ve unpacked your bag, except the rucksack. That’s on our
bed.”

“Good idea.”
David smiled, rose and made for the door. As an afterthought he
came back, leant over Mary, lying back on the sofa, knitting, and
kissed first her forehead then her bump. She smiled and a little
glow rose on her face. She watched his broad back disappear.

In the loft he
unloaded the rucksack. Camera, gun mike, weapon and laptop were
laid out on the desk in the middle of the loft. The technicians who
put it there followed a pattern laid down since the war. Boards
were laid down, a hook down ladder added and a desk set up. Added
to this in modern times were ‘Velux’ windows in the roof, electric
power cables and wire link to the dish. David opened the Velux
windows on both sides of the roof, reached up to a high roof beam
and retrieved a key, locked the gun away in the cabinet, hung the
key back up, plugged and powered the laptop. Whilst he waited he
put on the head phones and plugged these in to the gun microphone.
He held his arm up, pointed the gun microphone out the ‘Velux’ at
the front of the house and flicked the on switch with his
thumb.

Programmes on
television came into range and went away, as did faint
conversations, as he swept it left to right, but it was the clearly
recognisable energetic sounds of love making at his one o clock
position that made his thumb flick the switch off. His mind’s eye
pictured the houses and he smiled when he knew it to be the house
across the road four doors down. It was the home of a big angry
man, bald and muscular, but ironically for his macho looks and
demeanour a ladies hairdresser, whom David had argued with in the
local pub once. His wife was the over made up kind of ‘dolly’,
obsessed with tanning and clothes.

David laughed
out loud at the image of their lovemaking, his first laugh for some
time which in some way brought him closer to ‘home’. He recalled
laughing last when he had been joking with Beaumont.

David logged on
and read through the night’s traffic. The murders along the routes
of the assassins had more details, such as names. The attached and
related files showed pictures of families and homes. Karl Bushby,
the Scottish truck driver, found in the Inverness car park; Grahame
Dodd the taxi driver; Stewart Mitchell and Moira Brown, two
Hertfordshire traffic cops; Bill Carter and ‘Jackie’, police dog
and handler; Tom Welby long distance lorry driver; with Wally
Tyson, DIC operative, Julian Young the Marina watchman; John Furze,
Tim Wilson and Dave Jarvis armed police at Gatwick and now Tom
Griffiths a Scottish banker, for whom details, new as the case was,
were sketchy. The DIC files showed passport pictures, which said
nothing to him about the people, but family pictures, children, in
Julian Young’s case his parents, carried him into the lives of the
slain with rapidity and detail. Small children in too big, gaudy
coloured coats grinning, holding hands with dads, a baby held in
Moira Brown’s arms, husband, hand on her shoulder, smiling down;
summer snaps of men in trunks children on shoulders. Bill Carter
squatting by his dog, muscle bound arms and a big grin. Family
portraits in lounges and restaurants, the background to life, lives
lived and now cut short. The ‘album’ of pictures was a plethora of
pleasure past and David felt deeply for those touched by this
massacre, empathetically sensing the years of pain ahead. David
shook his head at the thought of the twelve dead people and the
dead dog. He clicked through the files and images, stomach
churning, jaw clenched in silent fury. The injured weren’t so
numerous, two hospital workers, Beaumont and now Shadz, not to
mention Ben Dowling, Gatwick armed policeman, shot through the
groin, stable, but in intensive care. McKie’s eyes narrowed as his
hand relaxed on the mouse touch pad. Stolen vehicles and money,
damaged property and general mayhem and what for? What were they
doing? What did all this death, grief and crime add up to? What
could be worth all of this?

With no answers
coming to his tired mind he e-mailed Jack Fulton for an update on
Beaumont. A reply came back, from Diane Peters, Jack’s deputy,
telling him Beaumont was stable and conscious. His family were
there and he was making good progress. Beaumont had asked after
David, it seemed, and for the last time that day tears wet McKie’s
cheeks.

Diane didn’t
mention the growing chase on Mason and Stanton, but she noted from
the ‘Tekkies’ log report on David’s online activities that the
files McKie had looked at tended in that direction. It was always
the same with shootings. The man, or woman, always questioned
things, raw and a little sensitive with trauma, answers were sought
by those who’d been there and walked away in one piece.

Both David and
Diane checked the update on Arran. Both learnt at nine thirty that
night that the DIC duty team had interviewed Kevan Dean. Writing
from Ivy’s house, where they and the pilot of the helicopter were
spending the night, the report that came in made shocking and yet
vitally important reading. Dean’s witness account was gruesome. The
picture of Stanton was coloured in more clearly; cold stone colours
like the tones of grave monuments.

Dean told of
the murder, described the boat and direction, added the nugget
about the million pounds turned down and gave DIC a razor edged
etching of the kind of men they were after. Just one witness left
behind and by the looks of it psychologically scarred for good by
the encounter.

Diane sent out
alerts, the west coast DIC were to watch, coast guard had been
alerted and Stanton, Mason and Cobb were to be stopped and
questioned, but if it came to an armed showdown, as the lat two
incidents indicated it probably would, DIC were to shoot first and
shoot to kill. The three men were to be stopped at all costs.
Diane’s report ended with the remark that the hit had to be worth a
million which meant it was a high rank target and hard to
achieve.