By the Light of a Lie (Thane & Calder Book 1) Page 27

  ‘Aye, they’ve made two attempts to get him this week. That fire at his flat and another go at his studio. Luckily my boys got them both.’

  Rain started to pitter-patter on the conservatory roof, then to sheet down, casting a grey pall over the garden. The increasingly resonant thuds on the glass swamped the conversation. Wally stubbed out the chewed stump of his cigar in the gold ceramic ashtray on the table beside him and lit another. Then just as suddenly the rain eased off and a thin light spread across the glistening grass outside.

  ‘Now, how come you got away?’ he said, jabbing a stubby finger at Herk, who smiled grimly and didn’t respond. Tire flinched and stared at her glass.

  After a pause, Herk said steadily: ‘They had unfortunate accidents. All three of them.’

  ‘Did it to themselves, you mean? Good for you.’ Wally nodded approvingly, then frowned. ‘What do you mean three? I thought you said two.’

  ‘Another in California. But he’s not dead, just badly injured,’ said Tire reluctantly, her eyes downcast. Keen to get off the topic, she said: ‘You mentioned on the phone your nephew had been killed?’

  ‘Aye, Jimmy Black,’ Wally said grimly. ‘He swapped names with…’ he waved his cigar in the air, ‘this Jimmy, when they were in the Hall and got bumped off when he came out. Mistaken identity.’ His rumble of disapproval brought the Rottweiler to its feet, the massive black head level with his shoulder issuing a supportive growl. He added grimly: ‘And they made more of a mistake than they knew, tangling with me.’ He shook his head exasperatedly. ‘If I’d just known. I’d have looked after him when he came out. Bunch of real no-hopers on that side of the family.’ He cleared his throat with a bark. ‘But family is family. And I’ll have the bastards who did this. Now who is…?’

  Tire interrupted, saying there was also a journalist investigating the Stones who had been killed in a car crash up north.

  Wally leant back, screwing up his face in disbelief. ‘Christ, worse than the fucking mafia. Bodies all over the joint. Who are these guys?’

  ‘The son is a wide boy, sells illegal drugs and god knows what else. The father is a saint. Helps lonely old-age pensioners, funds Alzheimer’s research. Friends in high places. One of the untouchable ones.’ She held his gaze steadily.

  Wally looked as if he was going to spit on the floor. ‘They’re always the fucking worst, the charity mingers. Got black souls, my ma always used to say, and she wasn’t wrong.’ He blew a smoke ring across the room, watching it disintegrate as it reached the damp glass.

  The measured thud of heavy feet preceded the arrival of a hulking figure, well over six feet and veering towards twenty stone, dressed in scruffy jeans and sheepskin jacket. He stopped just outside the open doors, cast a hard look at Herk and extended a hand smeared with dried blood.

  ‘Sorted him, boss,’ he grunted.

  ‘The Glasgow lad, what did he say?’ Wally turned, his eyes intent. When no answer was forthcoming apart from a slight twitch of the massive bald head, he stood up and moved outside.

  ‘That’s Dorry.’ Ricky leant forward confidentially, offering Tire a bowl of nuts and lowering his voice. ‘He lives next door and is in charge of security.’ He grinned. ‘Do you know how he got his name?’ He paused expectantly. ‘The dormouse. Isn’t that great? He’s the size of a pantechnicon.’

  ‘What does Wally do?’ Herk asked, propping a desert boot across one knee.

  ‘Best not to ask,’ was the whispered reply. ‘He’s in construction and… other things.’ Ricky lifted an eyebrow knowingly and winked. ‘I loathed him at the beginning, but I’ve got used to him and he knows about protection.’

  ‘For sure.’ Herk cast a doubtful glance out of the door.

  After a muttered conversation Wally returned, sat down with a thump on the chair and waved his empty glass at Tire. She stifled a grin and moved across with the bottle. His musky cologne, with a hint of leather overlaid with cigar smoke, reminded her for a moment of Chip Nathon. With luck, the slinky blue dress would be keeping his miseries and her conscience at bay.

  Putting a ruddy hand thoughtfully on the Rottweiler’s head and teasing his fur, he said: ‘The lad admitted he’d done the first fire in Dowancross Street with the foreign geezer, called him Janski. And they tried to do the second fire at the studio, which is when Dorry got them. He said they were short-handed, which is why he’d been hauled in. Evidently two brothers headed security for this outfit and one was killed in Spain.’ He smiled unpleasantly at Herk. ‘Another’s in the States. And if I remember right,’ he said looking sharply at Tire, ‘he’s out of action?’ She nodded weakly.

  He stretched his leg, tapping his polished shoe against the metal table support. ‘Seemed to be some sort of desperation about this, he was told. They’d screwed up before and the boss wasn’t pleased. But…’ he paused for effect, ‘useful thing to know there were only four guys doing the dirty work. From Eastern Europe somewhere. So now they’re all accounted for. The one we’ve got can stay where he is. He’s not going any place till I find out if he was the one who killed my nephew.’

  Tire felt the relief ripple down her spine and glanced at Herk, who was sitting upright and stony-faced.

  ‘Can you find out who exactly they were taking orders from?’ she said. ‘Was it Paul or Harman Stone?’

  Wally eased himself out of the seat and nodded. ‘Might take a while. The local lad didn’t know and the Janski one is close-mouthed. Dorry’ll lean on him, but he can’t do too much damage since the polis will have to get him at some point.’

  ‘Are you not staying for supper, Wally?’ Ricky asked cautiously.

  ‘Nah, wife’s got company the night,’ Wally said shortly. ‘But before I go we need a plan of action here. What comes next?’ His eyes moved glacially round the group, stopping on Herk. ‘Getting the guy who did it is one thing. Getting the boss who ordered it is another. You reckon it’s the son?’

  A steady drip-drip of water from the creepers up the side of the house onto the glass roof filled the silence. Tire stared out into the garden, unable to clear the fog in her head, wondering when she could get some sleep. Herk sat looking blank, avoiding Wally’s glare.

  There was a hesitant knock on the inside door and Tire looked round to see a slight, grey-haired man in an incongruously large painter’s smock, standing waiting on the threshold. The Rottweiler’s tail thumped enthusiastically on the floor. Wally beckoned him in and Tire moved along the couch to let him sit next to her, with the dog on its haunches in front of them, happily licking at his hand.

  Taking a deep breath, she said: ‘You’re Jimmy.’ His grey eyes crinkled into a shy smile. ‘You get on well with Butch,’ she added, instantly feeling stupid, but it was the first thing that came to her mind. He bent forward to lay his forehead on the dog’s head and tickled it under its chin.

  ‘Aye, we used to have a Mastiff when I was little, all black but kind of like him.’

  Butch almost purred with pleasure at the attention. An impatient tap on the glass table from Wally’s heavy signet ring earned a disapproving cough from Ricky, who shifted in his chair and said: ‘Jimmy has been remembering more and more about his early days, which is great; well, most of it anyway.’

  A wave of sympathy for the crumpled figure now looking desolate beside her made her pause. Another clack and a stronger foot tap. She found her phone and, keeping it tilted away from Jimmy, she flicked through photographs until she found one of a younger Paul Stone. Putting a hand on his arm she said kindly: ‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ He nodded dumbly.

  His gasp of terror when he saw it as he shrank away and buried his face in his hands reverberated through her chest. She laid the phone on the table and leant across to put an arm round him and whispered urgently: ‘He’s nearly finished and he can’t harm you anymore.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Wally’s foot clamped down onto the floor, his body tense and his expression sceptical.

  ‘He’s the main protection for hi
s son and he’s gone to ground at a shooting lodge in Wester Ross,’ she replied with vigour, ‘with no security.’

  ‘Like a cornered rat,’ he said with relish, picking a flake of cigar paper off his lip.

  ‘Or a wounded panther,’ Herk answered sourly.

  ‘Ah well, just as well you’re going with her, then.’ Wally extended his mouth to show his stained teeth in a sarcastic grimace.

  An anguished ‘No’ from Jimmy made Butch flinch. ‘I won’t have anyone else put at risk because of me. There’s already two dead.’ His eyes flickered between Herk and Tire in agitation. ‘If he’s done for, why don’t you just leave him… to rot.’

  She took one of his trembling hands and said determinedly: ‘Because I think his son had one of my friends killed and there’s a man in prison who shouldn’t be there.’ Herk let out an exasperated sigh, so she added with a tentative glance at him: ‘And I’d like some photographs of the charity icon at his last stand.’

  ‘Then you can push him off the edge of a cliff like the others. Works for me,’ Wally remarked cheerfully, standing up. ‘Sorry I can’t be of help to you. Different country up there. I got no contacts.’ He clapped Herk hard on the shoulder as he passed his chair. ‘Good luck, son.’

  He paused at the door. ‘If you’re stuck, give me a bell and I’ll send Dorry and a couple of the lads up in my chopper.’ Butch reluctantly drew himself away from Jimmy and trotted after him.

  Needing fresh air to shake her head into gear, Tire stood up and said she would walk round the garden. Jimmy was bent over in the corner of the couch holding his arms across his chest, his head bowed, so she suggested he come along to tell her about the sculptures on the lawn. Once down the steps to the terrace, she looked back and saw Herk on his mobile.

  Studying the bronze headless torso of the woman seemed to revive Jimmy’s spirits and he talked eloquently about the sculptor’s intentions as his eyes roamed over the massive thighs and pendulous breasts. She glanced up to see Herk still engaged in conversation. Moving across to the male nude, Jimmy became more animated, talking of the classical tradition of naturalistic figures, at one point taking a paint-stained rag out of his pocket to wipe some bird shit off the statue’s leg. Tire tried to drag her mind away from an image of Jin’s naked body standing at her bedroom window, his long sinewy legs reaching up into a neat butt and triangling up to broad shoulders. She warmed at the thought, then instantly felt a clutch of dread, remembering where he was.

  After twenty minutes they turned for the house and Jimmy pointed out the intense blue pots and paintwork that Ricky had copied from Yves St Laurent’s Marrakech garden. She grinned and said they probably looked better in the stronger southern sunlight than in Glasgow drizzle. His lips twitched.

  Herk snapped his mobile shut as they climbed the steps. She looked at him and said: ‘Long conversation.’

  ‘Sorting out a four-wheel drive for Inverness,’ he said abruptly, chewing his lip and sighing. ‘There doesn’t seem much argument about it.’

  ‘I could go on my own,’ she said unconvincingly, which earned her a withering grunt.

  There were left on their own while Jimmy went off to change and Ricky to supervise dinner.

  ‘What exactly do you expect to get out of this jaunt up north?’ Herk said dourly, pouring himself another glass of wine.

  She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, searching for the right words, considered sitting down, then decided walking would keep her awake. ‘Look,’ she said, pacing up to the far end of the conservatory, flicking the leaves of a tall fern, then striding back, explaining it to herself as much as to him, ‘Pa Stone may well throw himself off a cliff, though I’d doubt it. He’s beyond stubborn, reinforced steel for a backbone. We just don’t have enough evidence against Harman at the moment. I need to drag something out of him and...’ she raised a hand to stop him interrupting, ‘it needs a dramatic photograph. Newspapers will take a flyer, hedged round with ifs and buts, if they have a decent image.’

  ‘I thought you were going to write a book,’ he said, shaking his head doubtfully.

  ‘Books take time. We need to get Greengate out of prison before his heart keels over. A Sunday splash first to launch the story will get publishers hungrier, bring in some cash and I’ll have time to sort out the detail of the Stone and Wrighton finances later.’

  ‘Well, if you say so, but I’m no arty photographer. Reconnaissance was my game.’

  ‘You’ll do fine,’ she said giving him a reassuring smile, then sagging into a chair. Blowing out her cheeks with tiredness, she added quietly: ‘I keep apologising for dragging you into this. But I just don’t see an alternative.’

  The dinner summons came, which turned out to be just the three of them, since Elly was under the weather in bed and Jimmy insisted on staying with her. A heartening lasagne sat in a ceramic oven dish in the centre of the kitchen table, with first helpings already on plates and glasses of red wine poured. They ate in silence, with Ricky forking his food around nervously, putting the occasional lump into his mouth.

  Eventually, he said in a hoarse whisper: ‘Not my kind of thing this. Violence gives me the total heebie-jeebies.’ He looked down the kitchen, bending forward slightly to check no one was listening. ‘What I haven’t told Jimmy yet,’ he said in a rush, ‘is that my cousin in Italy, he’s a lawyer, thinks he’s tracked down the will of Jimmy’s mother, Alessia Neroni. I thought I’d wait to see what’s in it before I let him know.’

  Tire’s tiredness disappeared. ‘That’s useful to know,’ she said, fingering her wine glass. ‘And he couldn’t trace the son after her death?’

  ‘No, he disappeared and the house was sold. Oddly enough, my family come from the same area in Umbria, so it wasn’t that difficult.’

  Noting down the details of the lawyer, she felt her excitement rising. It was all coming together, the jigsaw of the Stone family history. The pieces he’d kept separate from his public image. The polished, charming, altruistic Stone was only the tip of the iceberg. She knew his origins. His treatment of his stepson alone would nail him and there was enough circumstantial evidence of incriminating deaths to drag him into a major scandal. With him skewered, his son’s activities would come under scrutiny.

  She stared out into the blackness beyond the window, only the waving shadows of trees visible in the faint moonlight. Was she getting too hooked into Paul Stone? There would certainly be a colourful piece in him. But he might know nothing about his son’s involvement in Erica’s death, or the illegal drugs. Perhaps her loathing for society luminaries was distracting her.

  Exhaustion was making it difficult for her to focus. But she knew the decision to go north to face Paul Stone had been made. Her gut said he had to be the way into Harman and it was vital to get to him before he imploded. Herk’s reluctance worried her. It wouldn’t be lack of courage, but she trusted his instincts, which were clearly waving a red flag. Still, needs must. They were on a roll and stopping now was not an option.

  CHAPTER 48

  The Inverness plane shuddered in the cross-winds, dropped abruptly several times in the turbulence, then stabilised again. A few passengers, clinging to their armrests, looked terrified. The rest, mainly businessmen, continued to read their papers or tablets, with unconcern. The hostesses swished along the aisle, removing coffee cups and orange juice.

  Tire’s rising tension had little to do with fear of flying since she’d long ago in her travelling career given up worrying about crashing. Only one flight, years back, in a ramshackle Cessna with Jin, escaping out of Ethiopia with a drunk pilot, had ever seriously frightened her.

  She had woken up to a text from Chip Nathon saying Harman had been sent a cryptic message from his father saying goodbye. This levitated her out of bed in a panic. Shit. He couldn’t suicide or disappear before she’d got to him. Getting him to confess what he knew would be a stretch, but she needed the photographs and an interview of sorts as background.

  A quiet snore bes
ide her indicated Herk was power-napping. He only came to as the plane was taxiing along the runway.

  ‘I remember this when it was a wooden shack,’ he remarked, looking round the new, high-ceilinged, aluminium arrivals hall. ‘They used to weigh you with your luggage. Quite upset the ladies, as I recollect.’ He grinned, asked her for a hundred pounds and left her to wait for their bags – they contained walking boots and heavy outdoor jackets, which had been too bulky to travel in the cabin.

  Fifteen minutes later they were on their way in a battered, mud-spattered Range Rover. ‘One in every airport, have you?’ she murmured and got no response.

  The solid steel girders of the Kessock Bridge sped the A9 traffic over the Beauly Firth and on to the turnoff for the A835 for Ullapool. He had not asked her what the plan was, merely requested the address of the shooting lodge to set the GPS. The fertile farmlands of the Black Isle came as a surprise since she’d been mentally gearing up for the bleaker coast further north, although the dark sprawling ridge of Ben Wyvis in the distance struck a chord.

  ‘That’s known as the Hill of Terror,’ Herk said, pointing a finger. ‘Don’t know why. Dead easy walk up.’

  ‘You’ve climbed here?’ she said, surprised.

  He nodded. ‘My ma’s uncle was a great climber, all over the world. He retired up here and I came up a couple of times.’

  She looked questioningly at him, pleased to have a distraction. ‘He wasn’t from Glasgow, then?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Shipyards at Clydebank. When there was work. He was much older than my grandfather, born in the 1920s. The lads used to escape out into the country, live off the land, well, poach to be honest, and taught themselves to climb. World class, some of them, later on.’

  ‘You were fond of him?’

  ‘Fond?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Nah, he was a hard man. You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, I tell you. But he taught me a lot.’ He cocked his head. ‘He came out of nothing and made something of his life with no help from anyone. I respected him.’