The Turning Tide (28 page)

Erykah gulped. ‘OK, I think I get the picture,’ she said. ‘What about the Major? Why didn’t he finish the job?’

‘Cold feet, who knows,’ Billy said. ‘He looked in shock.
PTSD
maybe.’

‘But if Schofield wasn’t dead yet, why do it? Why not walk out of there and call the police?’

Billy pursed his lips. ‘Is that what you would do?’ he asked. ‘As soon as we took the call we were involved whether we liked it or not. Might as well see it done right.’

‘I guess,’ she said. The sickening lump in her throat would not go away. She had known he was a killer, had even seen him inflict damage on her own husband, but the way he talked about it stunned her. Like a hunter talking about putting a stag out of its misery. ‘What house was it? Whose?’

‘I got no idea,’ he said. ‘We weren’t introduced. The place was dark, and the woman didn’t say nothing to us. I didn’t get a photo ID, you know? Had other things to deal with.’

‘Was it Livia?’

‘I don’t know,’ Billy said. ‘I never met any Livia before.’

‘Where was the house?’

‘Over in South Ken.’

‘What was the woman like? Old, young? Did you get a look at her?’

He shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘That seems uncharacteristically unobservant of you.’

‘Half of my job is to notice things,’ he said. ‘The other half is to make sure I don’t see nothing.’ He looked up at her. ‘Listen, woman, just so you know, this is between us. I got no interest in making you disappear.’

She wanted to trust him, or at least, trust that he was telling her the truth. ‘No?’

She lowered the gun, but her finger was still on the trigger. ‘Buster, you put yours on the ground,’ he said. Buster unclipped his holster and threw it in the dirt. Billy turned back to her. ‘I got no loyalty to that man that he ain’t paying me for. If the Major’s really dead then that’s my work with him done.’

Erykah considered this. He had no reason to lie. Seminole Billy might have been a criminal, but as far as she had seen he was also a man of his word.

There was something else as well. She couldn’t put her finger on it. The way he looked at her. No, not lust . . . something else. Like he – she didn’t even want to think the word – cared about her. She shook the thought out of her head. But in her heart she knew he wasn’t going to do anything to bring her to harm. ‘Really?’

‘Really. Now come on, drop that gun.’

Erykah threw the pistol into the dirt at his feet. Billy picked it up and examined the small grey handgun. He ran his fingers down the slide, stroking it like he might have been stroking skin.

‘Is that thing real?’ Buster said.

‘Real? Sure,’ Erykah said. ‘It came from the Major’s office. I guess it was his father’s.’

‘It’s an old school Haenel Schmeisser. Point-two-five
ACP
,’ Billy whistled. ‘This brings back memories. Seen a few at gun shows back in Florida. Not for a long while.’

‘In Florida? Really?’

Billy nodded. ‘Not as many of these around as Brownings, so some guys’ll try to pass it off to skinheads and rednecks as a Third Reich make. They’ll get an eagle stamp, hammer it in the body there, rub some shoe polish in so it looks like a ’40s mark. Worth a few hundred on its own, but scam the right Nazi fanboy and you might walk away with a cool two grand.’

‘Sorry – I’m not following,’ Erykah said.

‘It’s a pocket sidearm, not a service pistol,’ he said. ‘His dad would have been issued with an Enfield or a Webley, not one of these. This thing might even be older than Abbott Senior himself.’ Billy moved the slide back. ‘Fucking hell. Nothing in the chamber. Should have known.’ He pulled the trigger to hear it snap and wagged the gun at Erykah. ‘I oughta kill you for that, you know?’ But he was smiling.

‘Yeah, well,’ she shrugged. ‘Why was Schofield a target?’

‘Beats me,’ Billy said. ‘Like I said, the shady lady didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms. Whoever it is, once she hears about the Major though, we had all better start running.’ Erykah nodded. ‘Gimme your phone,’ he said. ‘Trade ya for the gun.’

‘Are you sure? About the gun I mean.’

‘Sure I’m sure,’ he shrugged. ‘What are you gonna do with an empty gun, pistol whip me? Nah, you probably got lipsticks in that bag of yours bigger’n this.’

She handed over her mobile, and he gave her the pistol. The Major’s phone was still in her handbag. Probably best to keep that information to herself for now.

Billy looked back through her sent and received messages. ‘This is the one I texted you on?’ She nodded. He scrolled through the menu until he found the option to reset to the factory settings, erasing any stored data. ‘Pay as you go or contract?’

‘Pay as you go,’ she said. ‘I have a contract phone for talking to Rob, but I never use it. This is for things I don’t need my husband to know about.’ Like Nicole. Like the Major.

‘Good girl,’ he said, and slid the back of the phone off. He popped the SIM card into his pocket, dropped the handset onto the ground and crushed it under the heel of his snakeskin boot. Erykah gasped. Before she could object he kicked the bashed mobile into the canal. It sank fast into the murky water.

He took one look at her open mouth and winked. ‘Cheer up, sunshine, we’ll drop in somewhere and pick up a new burner on your way home.’ Billy dusted his hands on the thighs of his black jeans. ‘I’ll even spring for an upgrade,’ he said.

‘That’s coming out of my share of the money, isn’t it?’

‘If there even is any money,’ he said. ‘More like it’s coming out of your pocket cash.’

Erykah hadn’t thought of that. ‘Shit. You two are not going to get paid, are you?’ Billy shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

Billy shrugged. ‘It ain’t my first time at the rodeo,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the jobs work out, sometimes they don’t. Besides, we got bigger things to think about. Once the news about the Major hits the airwaves, we’re both in for a world of hurt.’

‘But who from?’ Erykah asked.

‘You guess is as good as mine,’ he said. ‘All I know is, it’s someone who’s got a good eye for distracting attention.’ He chewed over the possibilities. ‘Someone who knows how to keep the press looking at the piece of totty, not what’s behind it.’

‘You think I’m just a – a piece of distracting totty?’ Erykah said.

‘Could be worse,’ Billy said. ‘Imagine if you had to go through life looking like me.’

‘Are you two done flirting yet?’ Buster grumbled. ‘I got somewhere to be, man.’

Billy flushed slightly. ‘Gimme the stuff. Get outta here.’ Buster threw the rolled canvas bag at Billy, scooped up his own gun and jogged away. ‘You got the money we gave you?’ he said to Erykah.

‘Most of it,’ she said.

‘Enough to make things look normal for a while? Keep up your bills, so no one asks questions?’

She frowned, totting up the sums in her head. ‘Yes. And I had a few grand in cash before that. I’m not sure how far it will go.’

‘Have to do for now,’ Billy said. He walked back to the Merc and stood with exaggerated formality at the passenger side door, still hanging wide open. ‘Your chariot awaits.’

Billy turned the key and the car coughed and shuddered itself into life. The radio came on, loud. It was tuned to
LCC
, where the mid-morning call-in was well underway. ‘Keep your ears glued to the news, OK?’ he said. ‘Odds are they’ll break it as soon as someone finds the body.’

He drove out of the estate at the same slow speed he had driven in. She looked back at the canvas bag on the back seat, the one Buster had thrown at him. ‘What’s in there?’ Erykah asked.

‘What we came for in the first place,’ he said. ‘Have a look.’

She unrolled the bag. It was a thick waterproofed fabric with a seal and lock along the top edge. ‘Key’s in the magnetic box under your seat,’ Billy said.

Inside the bag were wads of cash, three of them, thick bundles of fifty pound notes, Bank of Scotland. Much like the ones they had given her to look for Media Mouse. Sixty, maybe seventy-five grand in total. The money wasn’t all. An Italian passport and national ID, a US Permanent Resident card and a driving license for the State of Florida. All of them with the Major’s moustachioed face staring back at her. But an array different names: Jack Arsenal, Stephen Chelsea, Robert Fulham. ‘Fake IDs?’

‘In case he needed to disappear,’ Billy said. He dug out the last cigarette from the pack and jammed it in his mouth. ‘He called me yesterday. Said to be ready for when he got back to London.’

‘But all the dates on these are old,’ she said. ‘If he only rang you yesterday, why is that?’

‘Easier to fake,’ Billy said. ‘Before chips became standard. Most of the old style documents will be phased out or expire in the next few years, but for right now, and if you’re only going one way? You got a window.’

‘He must have thought time was up for him, too,’ Erykah said. No wonder the Major hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened in Cameron Bridge. She turned the pages of the Italian passport. The cover was the same colour and much the same as her own British one, apart from the lettering. The paper was thick and it felt legitimate. She would have been fooled. ‘Did you do these?’

‘Buster knows a guy who knows a guy,’ he said. ‘You meet all the best kinds in lockup.’ He glanced at Erykah. ‘It’s not good enough to get into the States, but it’d do for Latin America,’ he said. ‘Panama, Belize, places like that. Maybe Bahamas.’

‘Could you get one of these for me?’

‘It’s not cheap and it’s not fast.’ Seminole Billy shook his head. ‘Not today. I’m taking you home.’

Home was the last place she wanted to go right now. ‘Is it safe there?’

Billy shrugged. ‘Is anywhere safe? Woman, if the police are headed your way, home is exactly where you want to be right now. I’ll sweep the neighbourhood first if it makes you feel better. Tell that husband to cover your ass, and sit tight for a few days.’

‘Fine,’ Erykah said. The Merc cruised west in the light mid-morning traffic. Sitting tight was one option. But she had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

: 26 :

‘Good God.’ Arjun wrinkled his nose at the
LCC
green room with its sagging sofa and broken coffee machine. ‘This is, like, where interns’ dreams come to die.’

‘The glamour of politics,’ Morag said. ‘This sofa? No fewer than a thousand Cabinet ministers’ farts are trapped in there at any given time.’

‘Look at that carpet. I’m getting emphysema just looking at it.’

‘If you think it’s bad now, you should have seen green rooms before the indoor smoking ban,’ Morag said. ‘Vile. Even smokers couldn’t hack it. I once walked in on an anti-smoking campaigner – Royal College of Surgeons no less – sucking down Silk Cuts like a condemned man headed for the gallows.’

‘No!’ Arjun’s eyes opened wide. ‘Who?’

‘Before your time,’ Morag waved her hand. ‘Turned out he was taking money from the industry to make the stop smoking campaign as unappealing to kids as possible. Surprise, surprise.’

A runner came in with two cappuccinos from a café around the corner. Morag noticed the girl’s hands were shaking. She had the feeling she had seen the girl before, probably another studio somewhere. Morag’s memory was good but she had long since given up trying to remember the names of runners, cameramen, and make-up ladies.

‘I never hear any of the good gossip,’ Arjun said. He patted his pocket. ‘Hold on – I’ll take this while you go over the briefing.’ He thrust a folder in her direction.

Morag flipped through the notes Arjun had prepared. English regional devolution high on the list as ever. Immigration, as always. A ten-minute rule bill on sex education coming up later in the week that had about as much chance of going forward as the M25 at rush hour. Strict instructions to deflect any questioning about a challenge to the leadership, as per.

Arjun hovered in the far corner of the room. He kept the mobile on speaker, holding it horizontally a couple of inches from his mouth. ‘No, no, yes, no . . . I’m not certain that’s relevant . . . Is it breaking right now? Is this going to bounce us from the show?’ He jabbed at the phone screen and marched over to the sofa. ‘Morag, are you listening to this?’ he said.

‘Arjun, I have you on staff precisely so I don’t have to listen to whatever this is,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘That old Marine, Major Abbott, has only gone and died on a train.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘They found him locked in a toilet on the Caledonian Sleeper at Euston.’

‘Well, that’s terrible,’ Morag mumbled, turning back to her notes.

‘The news channels are going nuts. Apparently he was picked up by the police for inciting a riot in Cameron Bridge yesterday, and they have all kinds of phone footage,’ he said. ‘
BBC
24 is rolling the black bar under the headlines.
GONE BEFORE HIS TIME
, all caps, apparently.’

‘Oh for fuck’s—’ Morag snorted. If anything, the Major had squeezed out more time than he was strictly entitled to. According to those who claimed to be in the know, had he really been the fearless leader his memoir claimed, he probably should have died on a Falklands’ battlefield.

She wasn’t sure if she believed the people who said that. Morag knew all too well that nasty rumours had a surprising affinity with envy. But there was no denying the haunted, hunted look in his eyes behind the handlebar moustache and genial sexist exterior. The look of a man waiting to be found out.

‘I hate to be a pain,’ Arjun said. He did not really hate to be a pain. Being a pain was what he was paid to do. ‘But this is going huge. If he died at any other time, it wouldn’t be a thing. After that press conference earlier this month, then the protest in Cameron Bridge . . . I’m saying, be prepared for the producers to cut you down. Or even bump you.’

Morag frowned. ‘You think they’re going to pre-empt me for some dead soldier?’

‘A dead Royal Marines officer,’ Arjun said. ‘And yes, they are. Television is live at Euston right now. Radio won’t be far behind.’ He switched on a TV in the corner of the green room and turned it over to a 24-hour news channel. There wasn’t much to see yet apart from a bit of the platform and some police in high-vis. The carriage where the body was found had been detached and rolled off to a maintenance shed where crime scene investigators waited for a pathologist to arrive.

‘You told them no call-ins while I’m on, yes?’ she said.

‘I told them. No guarantee they’ll listen.’

Morag pursed her lips. The fact that Jonathan had not tried to get in contact after their last argument concerned her. She had left the organising of this interview to Arjun and hoped that sent the message that things were strictly professional now. On the one hand, it was good to have drawn a line under the relationship. What the hell had she been thinking? On the other hand, she had no idea what this meant in terms of news coverage.

Maybe he would take the high road and decide to be a gentleman about it.

And maybe pigs would be spotted in their customary migratory pattern over Westminster Palace this very afternoon.

The runner waved at them. ‘Diana’s ready for you in the tank,’ she said.

Arjun peppered the runner with questions. ‘Are we still on for the full twenty minutes?’ he asked her. ‘Are you cutting away to news while the Shadow Home Secretary is on? Is she going to be expected to make a statement on this?’ The runner didn’t know the answer to any of them.

‘Morag, hi, good to see you,’ Diana Stuebner raised herself halfway from her chair and held out her hand.

‘Pleasure,’ Morag murmured and put on a pair of headphones. Jonathan’s voice came over and counted them back in from the advert break.

‘Welcome back,’ Diana purred. ‘In the next half hour we’ll be talking with Shadow Home Secretary Morag Munro. But first, a recap of breaking news. Police report the death of Major Whitney Abbott whose body was discovered on a train early this morning. They have yet to confirm a cause of death, though sources say foul play has not been ruled out. Welcome to the show, Morag.’

‘Thank you,’ Morag said. ‘Although not quite the introduction I was expecting.’

‘Did you know the Major?’ Diana asked, crinkling her nose and leaning forward.

Morag paused. There was no point lying because the press would be scrambling to find out who he had been lobbying to and photographed with over the years. ‘Only slightly,’ Morag said. ‘We met once or twice; he was a regular at various fundraisers in Scotland, as I recall.’

‘But he was one of your constituents,’ Diana said.

‘He had a house in the Highlands,’ Morag said. ‘I don’t know if he was registered to vote there.’

‘Still, given his association with your area . . .’

‘You have to understand, Diana, the Highlands are not like London. My constituency is the size of Belgium.’ Morag was trying not to be patronising, but it wasn’t easy in the circumstances. ‘I’m not on first name terms with everyone there.’

‘Such a loss to Britain today,’ Diana cooed. ‘And of course the nation of Scotland. The Major was perhaps best known for his opposition to Scottish independence in later years, and most recently for his campaign to represent Scotland Liberal Unionists in Brussels. Did you agree with his party’s policy to dissolve the Scottish Parliament?’

Morag smiled tightly. She despised these kinds of questions, the ones that came with an obvious agenda attached. In this case the agenda was getting a quote out of context that they could chop and run endlessly in a news loop for the next twenty-four hours. It didn’t matter which way she answered as long as they got their yes or no. Either was spinnable. ‘I am certain that irrespective of the outcome of the referendum, the people of Scotland can be assured of a positive future,’ she said.

Yes, she knew their tricks well. It was a catch-22. Producers knew that the audience take their cues off of the presenter, not the guest. No matter how capably and truthfully you respond to questioning, all the listener hears is hostility from the host, and they assume there is a valid reason for that. Whether there was or not.

‘That’s not answering the question, is it?’ Diana pressed. ‘You said that you campaigned for the No side – and I quote –to preserve Scotland’s prosperity. But, as a member of the Shadow Cabinet, were you not also worried that had the Yes won, it would have sent MPs home? Including yourself?’

Morag’s face set in a tight line. Her right hand started drumming the table reflexively. ‘As a politician I have no greater mandate than to respect the choice of the people, whatever that choice may be,’ she said. ‘I am confident that the results of the referendum and the general election are fair representations of our nation. The point now, surely, is to move forward and build our country and economy together.’

‘Naturally,’ Diana said. ‘But you have to agree you have come very close to losing your job not just once but twice in the last eighteen months.’ She moved on quickly, before Morag had a chance to object. ‘Would you agree that the Scottish wing of your party was treated as a – again, I quote – branch office of the London party?’

Morag opened her mouth to object, but Diana was talking again before she could get a word in. ‘Now, a break as we recap the headlines.’ Diana read through a summary of the Major’s career, from the Falklands to the recent appearance in Cameron Bridge when he’d been locked in a pub as Scottish nationalists rioted outside. The show cut away to audio clips from news pieces featuring Major Abbott.

Morag smiled stiffly as the minutes ticked by with no sign of returning to her. Diana announced an advert break. She saw Arjun in the corner waving his hands at Jonathan. ‘Bring it round to her,’ he was saying. ‘Let her answer the questions, or I swear to you we are not coming back again.’

Jonathan came into the studio. ‘Morag,’ he nodded. His voice was perfectly neutral. As if there had never been anything between them. ‘Diana, a quick chat outside.’

He pulled the presenter out into the hall. His voice was low. ‘I know you’re used to managing the beasts on call-in, of being the voice of reason. But this is in danger of going soft, especially with two women on. You need to go harder.’

‘I need gravitas,’ Diana said. ‘A reason for listeners to take this interview seriously.’

‘Exactly,’ Jonathan said. ‘Get her wound up enough that she cracks.’

Diana laughed. ‘Morag Munro? Crack? She has a reputation as a bit of a bore, but I’ve never heard of her losing her cool.’

‘Oh, it can be done,’ Jonathan said. ‘She has a temper under that cold exterior. I can vouch – I mean, I’ve heard.’

‘If you say so,’ Diana said. Her eyes sparkled. She had a feeling there was a lot more to this than he was telling.

‘Trust me,’ Jonathan said. ‘Go hard after the break.’ He pressed a printout into her hand. ‘You wanted to bring social media into the station, well, here’s your shot.’ Diana unfolded the paper, looked at it, and nodded. ‘Be the terrier.’ Jonathan made a motion with his hand like a dog’s jaw snapping shut. ‘Get her.’

‘Got it.’

‘Good.’

Diana came back and gave Morag a smile. One that seemed to say, I’m so sorry about this. Morag suddenly felt stiff and sweaty. Something about that smile didn’t sit right. Before she could finish the thought, though, the show had started again.

‘We’re back. For those just joining us, our guest today is Morag Munro, the Shadow Home Secretary, and we have been discussing the shock death of Major Whitney Abbott whose body was discovered on a train this morning.’ Diana’s deep voice was pitched even lower than usual, as befitted the solemn occasion. ‘Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Morag.’

‘No, thank you, Diana,’ Morag said.

‘Before the break we were discussing your stand on Scottish independence . . .’ Diana said. ‘And since the topic
du jour
is Major Abbott, that leads us obviously to the uproar over Media Mouse.’

‘Um, I suppose so,’ Morag said. ‘To be honest, I haven’t followed that story. My office maintains an official social media presence, but I never go on it myself. It’s really for the younger generation.’ Moisture started trickling down her back under her jacket.

Diana tilted her head, obviously listening to something from Jonathan that Morag couldn’t hear. ‘And would you like to comment on Media Mouse’s latest scoop involving you?’

‘Scoop?’ Morag said. ‘As I said, my office have already released an announcement denying the silly rumour—’

‘Not about that,’ Diana interrupted. ‘About the photo posted today.’ Diana unfolded a piece of paper and passed it across the desk to Morag.

It was a printout of a picture, a black-and-white photo of her from the side. She was smiling at someone whose face was turned away from the camera. The angle was odd, shot from below.

She looked more closely at the picture, but couldn’t immediately remember what it was. When would she have been wearing a white jacket?

A shape in the corner of the picture caught her eye. It was a metal countertop, stainless steel. Just like the kind they used in the mortuary.

‘It appears to show you watching an autopsy,’ Diana explained for the radio audience. ‘Morag Munro, can you explain what this is please?’

‘I was on an official visit in my constituency, doing research for our planned response to natural disasters,’ Morag said. ‘I don’t see what the scoop is here.’

‘So you weren’t there for a particular autopsy?’ Diana asked.

The trickle of sweat down Morag’s back was now a flood. ‘As I recall, it was a routine day for them, nothing of interest,’ she said.

‘Our producer rang the facility. It turns out not only did you not sign in as a guest – they deny it was an official visit – the post-mortem was murdered scientist Professor Damian Schofield. And you had no particular interest in attending that? A murder victim turns up in your own constituency and this was routine?’

‘I had no way of knowing the body – Professor Schofield – was there,’ Morag snapped.

‘And what would you say about Media Mouse’s continued – I mean, sudden – interest in your activities?’

Morag’s hand ached to drum the table, but she resisted. The pent up frustration seemed to build under her skin like sparks of power down a cable. So now Jonathan was going to have his attack dog push the line that she was the one who was having an affair, without mentioning the inconvenient fact that he happened to be the other party? She had no way of dropping him into it without confirming that the blind item was indeed about her. He gave Diana a double thumbs up through the glass.