Country of the Blind (9 page)

He had another gulp of juice and looked away, then quickly back at the proof, an old trick of checking what was the first thing that caught his eye. Nothing was amiss. No unintended insensitive puns in the headlines, no unfortunate juxtapositions. It was fine.

"Send it," he told the chief sub, and in that moment of surrendering his option to change anything, realised with a wry smile that what was missing was nothing to do with the page. What was missing was John Lapsley Parlabane, known to his accomplices as Jack.

He hadn't heard from him in a few days, which was not in itself unusual, as
The Saltire
was just one of several newspapers here and in London labouring under the misapprehension that Parlabane worked for them. They all frequently sent him large sums of money as retainers in vain attempts to entangle him in this deluded fantasy, but at best they were just buying a ticket for a raffle, and Parlabane was the one who decided who was going to win the prize of first look at whatever he had unearthed. Mostly it depended on who he felt would handle the story best, which paper he thought it suited, and sometimes he had deals worked out with the Sundays to run a big overview piece as a follow-up to something he broke elsewhere earlier in the week. But as he only lived ten minutes' walk from Saltire House,
The Saltire
and
Saltire
on Sunday
tended to see more of him out of sheer geographical convenience. Nonetheless, his arrangements were never sufficiently formal for him to see fit to show up on anything other than a random basis, but with a story as big 47

as the Voss one going down, it was odd that he hadn't phoned or popped in to shoot the shit and cast an eye over what they had on it. Especially as Jack and Voss went a long way back, although not exactly in a drinking-buddies manner.

It wasn't a question of putting your best man on the case or anything like that. These big feeding frenzies were the last place you'd find him; the rest of the hack-pack might wait patiently for the bounteous bovine of the police press office to squirt another pasteurised bulletin into their greedily gaping gubs, but Jack preferred his untreated. You didn't
send
Jack Parlabane to a press conference. In fact, you didn't send Jack Parlabane at all, as Jack very much did what he fancied then fucked off again.

Jack's name carried respect - if seldom affection - in any newsroom in the country; and to a lot of the paper's younger reporters, he was a legend, a figure they might have considered mythical if they hadn't seen him in the flesh, having heard tales from older hacks that they had previously assumed were made up or at least greatly exaggerated. Ken wasn't sure what any of his charges really believed about the devious wee Paisley bastard, but he was sure none of the apocrypha was as far-fetched as the truth. Jack for his part stayed tight-lipped about his reputation and his, ahem, "methods". He was a good man to bounce ideas off, and he was usually around somewhere when there was a big story going down because - like Ken - he loved the buzz of a newsroom in full panic. That he and Jack hadn't exchanged any words at all since Voss's murder was - and should have struck him earlier as

- bizarre.

Ken knew Jack had promised to go straight as a pre-nuptial condition, but had put the notion to the back of his mind, filed somewhere between sceptical

"I'll believe it when I see it" and worried "How am I going to cope if it happens?". He had reckoned that if the recidivist reprobate was actually serious, then the acid test would be something like this, and Ken doubted he would pass. Yet here they were, one of the stories of the decade unfolding round about, with a personal angle for Jack to boot, and there was no sign of him. It appeared he really was hanging up the black polo-neck and the grappling hook.

Say it ain't so, Jack. Say it ain't so.

The movie ended and Parlabane hit the Stop button on the remote as the image of Dennis carrying new bride Ellen around their apartment faded to black beneath the credits. The poe-faced bastard in the trenchcoat appeared, steam from his breath picked out by the lighting as he looked with browfurrowed concentration into the camera.

". . . believe that he must have taken some kind of poison, possibly cyanide, 48

as he was only alone for a matter of minutes. Police are trying to maintain as much calm as possible at this time, but the possible ramifications of this apparent suicide are obviously very sinister, and potentially very far-reaching, with the circumstances surrounding the death of Roland Voss becoming increasingly bizarre."

"Do you fancy a cup of coffee, honey?" Sarah asked, pulling herself upright and standing by the arm of the settee, a hand running through Parlabane's hair.

"Yeah, please," he said, and she turned and walked out of the room.

". . . appears to answer the riddle of who may have leaked information to the four men still being held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, given his involvement in coordinating security at Craigurquhart House, but poses many more disturbing questions as the mystery begins to assume trappings more usually associated with James Bond films."

The image of PFB Trenchcoat suddenly shrank to fit a screen in the studio, where the anchorman sat addressing him from his desk.

"But curiously, isn't it true that Mr Lafferty came forward
voluntarily
this afternoon?" the anchorman asked.

"Yes he did. Mr Lafferty had in fact been involved
in
the investigation at the Perthshire end, and was asked to come down to Edinburgh to help look into the allegations of a security leak. There has been speculation that he decided to take his own life after discovering the police knew something he thought they didn't, but it's far too early to draw any kind of conclusions. All I can tell you is that I spoke to Mr Lafferty a few hours beforehand, as he entered the station, and that he seemed very nervous and agitated. He. . . "

"Ex - Excuse me, Terry," interrupted the anchorman, "but I believe we have those pictures just now."

And Parlabane's heart stopped.

Donald Lafferty was standing in the light drizzle, a few hours ago and less than a couple of miles from where Parlabane sat. He looked about fifteen years older than he should, pale as a virgin at a vampire stag night, trembling visibly, eyes darting suspiciously to and fro.

"Obviously veh-very shocked at what has taken place, ah-and am eager to cooperate in eh-any way that can assist the ih-investigation. I am devastated at what has happened and intend to ss-stop at nothing to find out how our security arrangements weh-were circumvented."

"And do you have any suspicions about the source of a possible leak?"

"I'm afraid I can't really comment on that, f-further than to say I don't know much more than you about it at this stage. I-I've been busy at Craigurquhart since the eh. . . since it happened, and I haven't really had time to c-catch up 49

on developments down here at this end of. . . " He looked suddenly straight into the camera. ". . . of the arena."

He cleared his throat.

"It's not as if I've been sitting around listening to my favourite music, although I think a lot more people should. Excuse me," he muttered, and moved off-camera.

"As you can see, he did seem very concerned about something," stated the reporter as the clip ended.

"Yes," rejoined the anchorman, "and his last remarks seemed
very
curious."

"They did indeed. At the time they struck me as the words of a very distracted - and I suppose extremely tired - man, but as you can imagine, in light of the strange and tragic events that have followed, there has inevitably been speculation as to whether this was some kind of coded message. However, if that was the case, your guess is as good as mine as to what those words might have meant."

But Parlabane, tears welling in his eyes as he knelt trembling on the carpet, knew exactly what they meant.

They meant black was white, white was black, something was very,
very
wrong - and only he could prove it.

50

THREE

The death of Donald Lafferty hit Nicole like a fall from castle walls in darkness. As Monday had progressed, she had become distantly aware of the thought that her world was changing, unexpected doors and pathways opening before her and leading to unexplored chambers, unknown heights. An insecure concern that she was being urged or even led through, along, up - that someone somewhere had a role, a place for her. Fate, if you like, telling her great things were afoot; you took difficult decisions but made the right choices, and here is your reward, your future.

There had been the usual detachment she tended to feel during momentous events, the rest of her functions and processes carrying on efficiently while her emotions lagged behind like an old woman carrying too many bags. She had seen herself on TV when she got home, and couldn't remember saying a word of what she was hearing. It might as well have been someone else playing her; or was it just that she had been playing someone else?

Then there had been the phone calls, of course. Mum, then a couple of friends (not Dad; not home yet; not unusual). Saying how thrilled they were to see her on TV. How they could see her becoming a big legal personality, this was just the sort of thing that got you off to a great start, oh isn't it exciting. . . Nobody mentioned multiple murders or terrorism, but then that was, literally, last night's news. Mum talked about the well-known TV reporter, what was he like in the flesh; about how she had looked, was she nervous, it didn't show; and had she videotaped it, as Mum still couldn't operate the dashed thing. It was as if she had been appearing on a game show.

How do you feel about sticking up for those accused of the crime of the century?

Who is this man you're defending?

Do you really believe he's innocent?

Do you think you've any chance of saving him?

If not, how many millennia will he go down for?

Nobody asked those things, and during those conversations, she didn't think about them either. But then that was law. Footballers, she reflected, tend not to agonise over how the ball might be feeling. Law was other people's 51

nightmares. Nightmares of the victims, nightmares of the accused, nightmares of the guilty, nightmares of the convicted. All on the other side of the big screen, except that they were the ones helplessly, passively watching
you
in action.

She had got to be a player for a day.

Open the mystery envelope and see what you've won, Miss Carrow. Congratulations, a sensational day-trip to Edinburgh! And what a prize it is! You'll get to talk tough to some policemen, produce a sheet of paper like a rabbit from a hat, then enjoy the spectacle of several pompous middle-aged men suddenly ceasing to treat you like an eight-year-old girl. After that you will be interviewed and taken very, very seriously by some very, very serious men in suits, and finally, to round off your trip, you'll get to address the nation on BBC Television! Just set that video-recorder for an instant memento of
your
day as a legal hot-shot!

She still felt a nervous exhilaration as she sat at home later, feeling satisfied, important, part of something. Then she saw the latest news and discovered herself to be in a world whose nature she had entirely misunderstood. Normally the lawyers don't get involved until the action's over, when everyone who's going to die is dead. When all the pieces are on the board, and they can play out the moves between themselves. Donald Lafferty's death knocked the board to the wall and scattered the figurines; tore down the screen and revealed her to be among the corpses and the villains, part of the same story. She hadn't known him, hadn't set eyes on him, hadn't spoken to him. She hadn't even seen his baffling interview when it first went out, only catching it when it was repeated post-mortem. But his death still felt very close. Very, very close.

She had produced evidence that suggested someone connected to Craigurquhart was behind what had happened, and that Thomas McInnes and his colleagues were there to carry out a robbery, not an execution. Big news, dramatic development, in as much as it affected what was already known, moved the pieces already on the board.

Lafferty comes to Edinburgh to assist in the
investigation
of a leak, not as the suspected source, but then kills himself with a poison pill as soon as he's left alone for five minutes. If he had hanged himself with the belt of his trousers, or chucked himself off the roof then it would have been the last confessional act of a guilty man who couldn't face a future of harsh consequences, not least those of his own self-loathing for what his greed and scheming had led to. But cyanide pills? Not something you just happen to have on you, in the jacket-pocket or shoulder-bag pharmaceutical cache: paracetamol for those strip-lighting headaches, antihistamine for the occasional bout of hay fever, and cyanide in case you suddenly feel the need to top yourself and aren't 52

going to get home for
hours
.

All the assurance and confidence she had drawn from the idea that someone was behind McInnes soured and dissolved as she wondered, blindly, graspingly, at who was behind Lafferty. What body, what organisation, what person could inspire such loyalty or such fear, that taking one's life was preferable to betrayal? That taking one's life - in cold blood - was an option one was prepared for so readily as to carry the means at all times? And if Lafferty was behind McInnes, and someone else was behind Lafferty, how many layers deep did it descend?

Suddenly the world turned in upon itself; convex became concave, the image shifted and changed. She thought she had come along when the moves were complete and the action was over, but it looked now like the game was still in progress; in fact it might be just beginning.

Whatever pride and satisfaction she had felt at being the centre of attention was transformed into a sickening fear that she was exposed in the midst of matters beyond her ken and far out of her hands. The excitement of being seen by millions on television changed to a naked vulnerability, as the whole world now knew who she was.