Crow Bait (27 page)

Donovan knew there was no point in arguing. He looked from Davie to Fraser and back again, seeing two men in love with the same woman determined to do whatever it took. ‘Les,’ he said, ‘you know what you’re getting into here?’

Fraser was staring at Davie. ‘I know.’

‘It could be the end of your career.’ Fraser’s eyes slid towards him then and Donovan knew his future was not a consideration. He nodded back at the young cop and said, ‘Fine.’

Fraser faced Davie again and said, ‘We going then?’

Davie nodded and stepped past him into the hallway. ‘You’re driving,’ he said. A grim little smile stretched Fraser’s lips as he dropped the tea cloth onto the floor and followed Davie out of the flat. Donovan listened to their footfalls descending the stone stairs as he absently stooped to retrieve the wet cloth then walked into the living room where Rab sat alone.

‘Davie gone?’

Donovan nodded. ‘Fraser too.’

Rab’s eyebrows jerked at that but he said nothing. Donovan raised his head and stared straight at him. ‘Where they going, McClymont?’ He saw a lie forming in the big guy’s eyes so he cut it off. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know because I know you do. You also know who they’re going up against. Now, you’re Davie’s mate – you want him out there on his own? That what you want?’

Donovan saw McClymont’s brow crease as he considered this. He knew he and Davie were tight, but he also knew there was little honour amongst thieves. He was far from certain that Rab would do the right thing, so he was slightly surprised when Rab finally said, ‘Ballantrae.’

31

AUDREY COULD HEAR
the twin sounds of
wind through tall grass and the scrape of water on shingle. The damp air around her was filled with the tang of salt and rotting seaweed. She knew she was on the coast somewhere.
Clever girl
, she thought,
now let me see you undo these bloody ropes and the blindfold. That would be a neat trick.

She was scared but she was also angry, at herself more than anything. How the hell could she have been so gullible? How many stories had she done over the years about opening the door to strangers? And yet when she was presented with such a situation she practically threw the door open and invited the bastard in. So, clearly, that sort of thing only happened to other people, not her.

And yet it had happened to her.

As she lay on her back, her arms tightly bound behind her, her legs roped together, a cloth tied around her eyes, listening to the sound of the sea rolling onto the pebbles nearby and feeling God knew what crawling over her skin, she thought about the night before. At least she assumed it was the night before, she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. She’d been alone in the flat, watching the telly, Les on nightshift, when the doorbell rang. She looked at the clock, saw it was after eleven, but thought nothing of it. They had a spare key for the young couple two floors up because one or other of them had a habit of locking themselves out. It wasn’t the first time that they had been bevvying and had come home having left their bag/jacket/whatever somewhere and weren’t able to get in. All the same, she peered through the spyhole first, just to be sure. It wasn’t either of her neighbours but she wasn’t sure who it was. The bulb on the close wall outside had obviously gone so all she saw was the dark shape of a man, slightly distorted by the fisheye lens, his face in shadow.

‘Who is it?’ She asked, one eye still pressed to the spyhole. The figure stepped a little closer, the head turning to the side to speak quietly.

‘Davie sent me,’ the person said. ‘He’s in trouble. He needs you…’

She shouldn’t have believed him, but she did. She shouldn’t have opened the door, but she did. She shouldn’t have been so stupid, but she panicked at the thought of Davie in trouble. She believed him, she opened the door, she was stupid. She knew it as soon as the fist slammed into her face.

And then she woke up here, wherever here was, listening to the waves nearby, feeling insects crawling over her, still dressed in her dressing gown and pyjamas, her feet bare. She was cold, she was angry at herself, but she wasn’t scared. If Danny McCall – for she knew who it was who had snatched her – had wanted her dead, she would be lying beaten and bloody in some room somewhere. No, he was using her as bait, to draw Davie out. And she had no doubt about it, Davie would come for her. If there was one thing that was certain on this earth, it was that Davie McCall was on his way right now.

Davie was coming. He would save her.

*  *  *

They drove fast and mostly in silence. There wasn’t much to be said. As they had left the city, Les Fraser asked who it was that had taken his wife, so Davie told him. The young cop didn’t respond, he merely stared straight ahead, but Davie saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. He knew what Fraser was thinking, that Davie was the cause of all this, and Davie agreed. He had known years ago that he should have distanced himself from Audrey, that there was too much baggage in his life, too much danger. But when he saw her outside his flat that day, something had rekindled inside him. He had known then that, despite his better judgement, part of her had taken root under his skin. He was still unsure what love was, and if he was capable of it, but whatever it was he felt for her would never die, he knew that.

When Fraser had turned up at his door and said Audrey was missing he’d felt fear flap in his gut, but he didn’t let the cop or Rab see it. Davie McCall had never felt anything like that before. He knew he feared his father, he always had, but the thought of Audrey being with him generated a terror he did not know existed. There was anger, too, although not Fraser’s white hot fury. Davie’s anger was more of a slow burn, but it was a cold flame which failed to consume the dread he felt over the prospect of facing up to the bogeyman of his nightmares.

*  *  *

Audrey heard the rasp of wood on rock and a blast of cool air heavy with the stench of rotting seaweed swept over her body. The sound made her wonder if she was being kept in a shed of some sort. The door was pushed shut again and she felt movement beside her, then hands under her arms dragging her upright to prop her against something harsh but softer than the stone floor. First the gag, then the blindfold, was untied and she could see again. Daylight struggled against the grime on a single window but it was enough to reveal her surroundings for the first time. It was a shed, a fairly large one, filled with the detritus of professional fishing – lobster pots, discarded netting, an old row boat upside down with a gaping hole in its hull. She looked behind her and saw she had been placed against an old sack filled with sand, presumably used to help protect the shed against flooding. Through gaps in the old wooden slats around her she could see sand, boulders and pebbles leading towards a grey sea.

Then she looked to the man standing over her and felt the shock of how much he resembled Davie. His face was impassive as he regarded her, his eyes roaming up and down as if appraising her. She tried not to let her fear or anger show. That was what men like him wanted – fear or anger. They got off on the power.

‘Danny McCall, I presume,’ she said, her tongue sluggish from having the gag in place for so long. He didn’t seem surprised that she knew him.

‘Spotted the family resemblance, have you? Me and Davie, two peas in a pod.’

‘You only look like him. He’s nothing like you.’

He smiled but it did nothing to warm his eyes. ‘Sure about that, are you?’

She gave him a slight laugh, still keeping up the pretence that she was unafraid, but the truth was that, with him looking at her the way he did, she was utterly terrified. He dropped the cloths he’d used to gag and blindfold her onto a chair with one broken leg that sat in the corner of the shed. She squinted slightly as she gave him a sad shake of the head. ‘You’re off your head, you know that?’

He laughed. It might have been a nice laugh from anyone else, but from him it just sounded hollow. ‘I knew you’d have spirit. I knew my boy wouldn’t fall for some little princess.’

‘Undo me and we’ll see how much spirit I’ve got.’ She was proud of herself but she knew it was mere bravado. McCall recognised it for what it was, too, for he laughed again but did not respond. Instead he picked up a plastic bag with the Safeway logo on the side and said, ‘You hungry?’

She didn’t answer, but the truth was she was famished. Being punched unconscious, kidnapped, tied up and left in a rotting old shed near the sea really gave her an appetite.

‘If I untie you, don’t try to be Wonder Woman, okay?’ He said. ‘You know you’ll come off worse.’

She neither agreed not disagreed and he didn’t wait for an answer. He dropped the carrier bag beside her, jerked her upper body forward and picked at the knot on the rope binding her wrists. She felt them give, generating a feeling of intense pleasure and relief, and she pulled her arms to the front, one hand rubbing the other wrist, then vice versa. The rope had been tight, it would leave a mark. He moved away from her and she opened the bag at her side. She found store-bought sandwiches wrapped in plastic and a can of Fanta. She ripped open the plastic around an egg mayonnaise sandwich and bit into it hungrily. Danny McCall watched her eat, an amused look on his face.

‘What’s so funny?’ She asked, her mouth full of food.

‘Was just thinking about life, love, the whole damn thing. It’s a funny old world.’

‘Philosopher as well as a psycho, are you?’

‘I’m a man of many parts,’ he said, obviously not taking offence to being called a psycho. ‘You’ll be surprised, once you get to know me. I can even be charming.’

‘I don’t think we’ll get too chummy, do you?’

He smiled again. ‘You think he’s gonnae come for you, don’t you?’

She swallowed some bread and washed it down with a mouthful of the fizzy orange before shaking her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘he’ll come for you.’

32

THE SMALL TERRACED
cottage was just as Davie remembered it. It sat in a narrow street, jutting off the
A
77 through Ballantrae towards the sea. If the sun had been shining this little street would have trapped the rays, the stone cottages soaking up the heat and basking in the light. But there was no sun this day. Dark grey clouds whipped across the off-white sky and a sharp wind sliced in from the water. The occasional strong gust buffeted the car, making it rock a little.

Davie told Fraser to park the car a little way down the road and they sat silently once more, each man staring at the door of the cottage as if they could force it open with their minds. Finally, Fraser said, ‘So what’s the plan?’

Davie had been thinking about this on the journey down. ‘He knows me, he knows I’d want to come alone. We use that to our advantage.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll go to the door, get in. You head round the back – there must be a back way in – and, well, burst in. You think you’ll manage that?’

Fraser’s eyes were cold. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘That should distract him, give me the edge I need. I’ll take him down then.’

For the first time, now they were saying it out loud, the coldness Fraser had shown all day began to thaw and the police officer that had lain dormant began to show himself again. ‘You’re not going to kill him?’

Davie shook his head. ‘I’ll just bring him down, that’s all.’ That was something else he had been thinking about. His initial thought had been that he had to remove Danny McCall from the world, like a cancer. But he knew that would make him little better than his father. No, Davie was going to hurt him, he was going to hurt him a lot, but after that it was jail for Danny McCall. He’d despise the regimented life, the rules, the routine. That would be worse than death for him. His words were confident but they belied the apprehension that had grown on the way down. ‘Just make sure you get through that door, that’s all,’ he said to Fraser.

‘I’ll be there, don’t worry.’

Davie knew the young cop was waiting for him to make the first move, but he found he could not get out of the car. He felt something knot inside him and moisture dot his palms. He threaded his fingers together on his lap to prevent his hands from trembling. He was finally going to face his father, who had haunted him throughout his adult life. He thought about the wrongs Danny McCall had perpetrated – beating him as a teenager, murdering his mother, sending men after him in prison, battering Vari and now taking Audrey. And that was just the personal acts – he had also murdered that girl in Springburn just to taunt him and he had killed Harris and Lomas. God knew what else the man had done over the years.

A wind blew, distinct from the one surging around the car, carrying the sound of waves crashing onto rocks. But only he could hear it. He ignored the deep-seated fear and forced himself to throw open the door and climb out. Fraser followed. They stared at each other over the roof of the car for a beat, their agreement unspoken, and then they parted, Davie walking up the street towards the cottage, Fraser sprinting in the opposite direction to find a way to the rear of the terraces.

Davie kept his focus on the blue-painted door as he drew close. It hadn’t been blue when he’d been here before. He couldn’t remember what colour it had been, but definitely not blue. His vision narrowed in on the door as he approached, on the heavy metal knocker in the centre, while still fully aware of his surroundings. That was his gift, and it had been honed over the long years inside. As a teenager he would have concentrated solely on what was before him, on the person in front of him, while everything else faded or vanished.