‘If it’s not on her, and it’s not in the car, then he took it.’
‘Doesn’t help us any, though, does it?’
We got back in the car. Sat there with the engine running and the blowers roaring.
‘So we look at who she’d already seen. One of the people Alice interviewed said something important about Gòrach.’
‘Yeah.’ Shifty bit his top lip and frowned. ‘Ash, you know I’m your best friend, right? And I’d go through... have gone through some pretty rough shit because you needed me.’ A finger came up and pointed at his eyepatch. ‘But tonight you’re talking about killing four people. I’m not going through everyone Alice saw today and torturing the living hell out of them. Chris McHale was different, he’s definitely dodgy...’ Shifty pulled his shoulders in and looked out the driver’s window. ‘I gotta live and work in this town, afterwards.’
‘How about—’
‘And these people you want to kilclass="underline" I get the bastard who hurt Alice deserves everything he’s got coming, but who are the other three? Why am I making myself complicit in their murder?’
‘They’re...’ Deep breath. ‘I made a promise to Helen MacNeil.’ Pulled down my collar and showed off the necklace of bruises. ‘Gordon Smith killed her. Then he strangled me, dumped me in a pit, and left me for dead.’ I held up what was left of my butchered hand. ‘Leah MacNeil hacked my finger off with a cutthroat razor. She’s been in on it all along.’
He stared at me. ‘So they’re the ones who gave you the black eyes.’
‘No, that was... someone else.’ No point naming names. Joseph and Francis were kind of a sore spot where Shifty was concerned. ‘Jennifer Prentice paid a couple of thugs to jump me. Didn’t go well for them.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Shifty sagged in his seat. ‘So, let me guess: she’s the fourth person who needs murdering?’
‘No. I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do there.’
‘Who’s number four, then?’
‘If it helps, there’s a cut of six million in it for you, when this is all over.’
That got his attention. ‘Six million?’
‘Security van, stolen from Steve Jericho. Remember him? Owned Hallelujah Bingo? Twenty K in cash, the rest in half-inched artwork and jewellery. It’s buried under a stack of washing machines at Wee Free McFee’s place.’
‘Wee Free McFee?’ Shifty covered his face with his hands. ‘No...’
‘I’m going to buy a family hotel out on the west coast, and Alice is going to run retreats and things.’
‘Yeah, but Wee Free McFee!’
‘He’s the possible fourth person.’
An old woman clumped past the car, dragging a big fat Yorkshire terrier behind her. Pausing only to make ‘wanking’ gestures through the windscreen at us.
Off in the distance, a small motorbike revved and revved and revved its engine.
The streetlight we were parked under flickered off and on.
Shifty’s hands fell from his face. ‘You do know this plan is totally insane, don’t you?’
‘How about we don’t torture the people on Alice’s list, then? How about we interview them, like Alice did. Would that make you feel any better?’
‘You want to break into Wee Free McFee’s scrapyard and steal six million quid’s worth of swag from right under his nose, but you think not torturing people’s going to make me feel better?’ He stared up at the car’s roof. ‘I must be off my bloody head.’ But he put the car into gear anyway. ‘Where next?’
43
Meathmill House and Meathmill Park stood sentry on either side of the road, eighteen-storey tower blocks, with lights glittering in nearly every window. Monolithic and ugly, even in the darkness. The pool car slipped down the ramp between them, disappearing into the curved embankment and an underpass that was almost solid graffiti. Not the artistic kind, either — the concrete walls were caked in decades of tags and swearing and claims that X loves / shags / ‘takes it up the arse’ from Z, Y, and their own dad. Had to be a foot thick in places.
We emerged out the other side and there was the huge architectural monstrosity masquerading as Burgh Library, perched on top of its dumpy hill. All curved concrete walls and ceramic tiles and weird rooflines that dipped and rose like a sales graph. Far too much glass on show, and not enough taste. Most of the lights were off, leaving nothing but a faint orange glow on the ground floor.
Shifty pulled into the car park, and I pointed towards the far corner, where the CCTV cameras dangled from their mounts like rabbits hanging in a butcher’s shop window. That was the joy of the Kingsmeath side of things, anything designed to help law enforcement didn’t usually last long.
I undid my seatbelt. ‘Stay in the car.’
‘Humph.’ Shifty killed the engine. ‘That’ll be shining.’
‘And before you get all stroppy it’s for your own good.’
A small laugh. ‘Ash, there’s no way—’
‘I’m serious. In — the — car.’ The wind wasn’t bad down here, but the roar of traffic, wheeching its way around the top of the steep embankment, was pretty much constant. That’s what happened when you built your library right in the middle of a massive great roundabout. ‘And stay here till I get back.’
I thunked the door closed and hobbled off to stand with my back against a sign advertising upcoming author events and computer classes for the over-sixties. My breath plumed in the sharp peppery air.
Hand was starting to throb. That would be the local anaesthetic wearing off.
Come on, Joseph, finger out.
At least he had all of his.
Good job I’d scored a blister pack of Naproxen from Dr Fotheringham when she’d finished stitching me up. Two got forced down, dry. Could’ve gone for something stronger, but being semi-stoned was probably not the best idea for tonight.
Not given what I had planned for whoever put Alice in Intensive Care.
Her phone buzzed as I unlocked it: bang on quarter past eleven, according to the screen.
No text from Joseph or Francis, saying they’d be late.
You’d think gun-peddling-thugs-for-hire would have better manners than that.
There, nestled amongst the rows of apps that covered Alice’s screen, was one with a bullseye target and a big arrow pointing at the middle. It sat above Henry’s left ear, the wee lad grinning, tongue dangling out the side of his mouth like a big pink sock. Couldn’t remember what the app was called, probably something spelled with ‘Z’s instead of ‘S’s and a couple of numbers or unnecessary asterisks replacing random letters. The tracker app she’d installed on my phone.
Meaning there was no need to sod about with official channels to find Leah MacNeil and Gordon Smith. Assuming they hadn’t ditched my mobile somewhere.
My finger hovered over the icon.
Of course, what I really should do is call Mother. Find out where the app said my phone was and let her send in the heavy mob. An end to Gordon Smith’s fifty-six-year reign of horror. Picture in all the papers, commendation from the top brass. Closure for Smith’s victims’ families. And he’d spend the rest of his life in a padded cell with no hope of ever seeing the outside world again.
Yeah, but you promised Helen, didn’t you? As she died.
You promised her.
What about Leah? She’d probably get off on a diminished-responsibility plea: eight years, tops. Bet she’d be out in four. If that. And if I brought her in, she’d tell everyone what I’d done to Gordon Smith. And that would be me screwed, because there was no way I could let him live. He had to die, which meant she did too.