Hostage to Murder (30 page)

Before she could probe further, the ambulance shuddered to a halt and the doors swung open. “Go home, Lindsay,” Bernie said roughly. “Stay away from things you don't understand.” She swung round and carefully clambered out of the ambulance, leaving Lindsay to stand and stare after her.

 

Among the cars, taxis and ambulances that drove in and out of the Western Infirmary, the Vauxhall Vectra parked in the disabled bay didn't warrant a second glance. Michael Conroy sat in the driver's seat, cleaning his nails with his penknife. Kevin leaned against the passenger door, frowning in concentration as he watched people come and go through the Accident and Emergency doors.

A taxi pulled up and Patrick Coughlan emerged, glancing quickly around before he climbed into the rear seat of the Vectra. “Neatly done, boys. At last.”

“I still don't see why,” Michael said.

“That's why I'm where I am and you are where you are, Michael,” Patrick said, the geniality of his tone doing nothing to hide the steel beneath. “Now, boys, I want you to make sure that where the bitch and the boy go, you go too. See that you let me know what's happening.”

Without further ado, Patrick got out of the car and walked off towards the street. As soon as he was a safe distance away, Michael shifted in his seat and scowled. “It's not right, this. It's too personal. And personal leaves traces.”

“I don't hear you saying that to your man,” Kevin said.

Michael jabbed his knife blade into the newspaper folded on the dashboard. “I want to go home in one piece.”

 

Lindsay walked out of the A&E entrance and leaned against the wall. Since she couldn't use her mobile inside, she'd already dictated her copy from a payphone in the waiting area, which had turned out to be a bad idea. She took out her mobile and called the newsdesk of the
Sentinel,
to check there were no queries on what she'd already sent. “Hi, Andy. It's Lindsay.”

“You still at the hospital?” he demanded.

“They threw me out. One of the cops overheard me filing copy on the phone and that was that. They had me out the door so fast I left skidmarks.”

“Bastards. At least you got some good quotes off the grieving widow. Nice one, Lindsay. So what's the real story on Tam Gourlay? You've just spent three days on a boat with him, you must have got some sort of idea what the big secret was.”

Lindsay frowned. “As far as I know, there is no story. He was just a second-hand car dealer. A pretty straight one, by all accounts.”

“No such thing,” came the cynical response. “There must have been a sideline.”

“Not that I know about.”

“Well, what about the wife?”

“What about her?”

“She's Irish, isn't she? Car bombs, that's very IRA.”

Lindsay couldn't believe she was hearing this. “Just because Bernie's Irish, that makes her husband an IRA target?”

“Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just passing on the off-the-record from the cops. So far, it looks very like one of the republican factions. So stick with the wife. See what you can find out.”

“Andy, I'm not going to get near Bernie now. As soon as the
doctors are finished with her, the cops are going to be all over her.”

“Never mind. Just stick with it.”

“Fine,” Lindsay sighed. So much for the new life. She'd barely been back in the game five minutes, and already she was stuck with exactly the kind of pointless task that had made her despair of the job all those years ago. Not only that, but she was homeless.

Where, she wondered, was the rewind button?

Café Virginia was half-empty, the lunchtime rush still some way down the line. Two young men gazed soulfully into each other's eyes like a pair of Labradors. A few singles read the papers and drank coffee. Annie was polishing glasses to the sound of Horse closing her eyes and counting to ten, and Rory stared gloomily at a bottle of Rolling Rock. Giles Graham slid into the booth opposite her.

“Terrible news,” he said.

Rory nodded. “I keep getting flashbacks of the three of them on the plane. They were so bloody happy.”

“At least he wasn't taking the lad to school.”

“Fucking Pollyanna.”

“Thank you, vicar. Where's Lindsay?”

“I have no idea,” Rory said. “She was going into your office first thing, I'm assuming she got caught up in the story. I tried ringing her a wee while ago, but the mobile was switched off.”

Just then, Lindsay walked through the door and headed straight for the back booth, pausing only to ask Annie for a large whisky. She dropped to the bench next to Giles. “Hell of a business. I just wanted to say I'm really sorry,” he said before she could speak.

“It makes no sense,” Lindsay said wearily. “They're saying it looks like the IRA, but that makes no sense whatsoever. Tam
Gourlay was one of the least political animals I've ever met.”

“The unofficial line is, ‘Bernie's Irish',” Giles said.

“Oh great. That's all right then,” Rory said with savage irony. “That makes it clear, logical and justifiable. Fucking slab-faced bigots.”

“You don't think it's anything to do with Jack's father? Revenge for snatching him back?” Giles asked.

“He's an Italian diplomat, not the Mafia. I know it's tempting to say the two things must be connected, but I don't see how,” Lindsay said. Annie placed a glass in front of her and she sipped at it immediately. “Besides, it's not exactly going to help his bid for custody, is it?”

Rory frowned. “Maybe it is to do with Bernie. Maybe she does have a secret past life connected to the IRA. Remember how edgy she was right at the start, how reluctant she was to go for publicity? And I thought she was really off-key in Helsinki. Her reaction was complicated, you know what I mean? It was more than just being thrilled to bits about getting her son back. You never know. What if she was on the run, and the story exposed her?”

Lindsay pondered for a moment. “You know, you might just have something there. You're right, she hasn't been behaving naturally since that first night when Tam took us back to meet her. I wonder if she does have a past . . .”

“There's only one way to find out. Hit her while she's down,” Giles said with chilling logic.

Lindsay winced. “Even if I wanted to, I don't think the cops will let me anywhere near her. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her for the
Sentinel
, but I called the newsdesk back and told them I had something more important to do. Life's too short for sitting around on stories that are going nowhere.”

“Giles is right, though. We're not going to find out the truth unless you get Bernie to talk. And we need to find out what's really happening here, Lindsay. Because we were there. We were in the firing line. We set up the sting that got the boy back. And if this is about revenge, we need to know if we're going to be the next targets.”

Lindsay's eyes widened. “I never thought about that.” A frisson of fear cramped her chest.

“Well, think about it now. I've never had any desire to be a heroic martyr for the cause of journalism. If I need to get on the next plane to the nearest faraway place, I want to know about it.”

Lindsay gave a wry half-smile. “Leaving me to face the music, huh?”

“Don't be daft,” Rory scoffed. “Paying single-room supplements is such a waste of money.”

They exchanged a look that for once contained no hiddenness. Lindsay swallowed the dregs of her whisky and stood up. “I'm out of here. See if I can find a way under Bernie's guard. Talk to you later.” She stood up and leaned across the table to kiss Rory's cheek. “Take no prisoners.”

Giles watched her leave then raised his immaculate eyebrows at Rory. “Sandra says . . .”

“I don't give a bugger what Sandra says,” Rory interrupted. “It's not going to happen.”

Giles shook his head sadly. “You'll never forgive yourself.”

“That's my problem.” Rory stood up. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and point out to David Keillor the error of his ways.”

“You're turning Keillor over again?”

Rory nodded. “He's on the take from CCD. Lindsay nailed the evidence, now it's time for the showdown. I might as well try and produce something that'll cheer us both up. There's nothing else on the horizon that's likely to do that.”

 

Lindsay didn't go straight back to Kinghorn Drive. She wanted time to think, so she caught a bus as far as Kelvingrove Park, then slowly meandered up towards the university. She got as far as the corridor where Sophie's office was, but realised she had no weapon in her armoury that would pierce Sophie's defences yet. There was no point in confrontation for its own sake, and no prospect of an encounter that could even begin to heal the damage between them. Lindsay couldn't afford to let herself believe there was no possibility of bridging the breach, but she couldn't
for the life of her imagine the strategy that would achieve it. Still, the thought of failure made her want to curl up in a ball and howl like an abandoned puppy.

With a sigh, she turned away and continued on her way to Kinghorn Drive. The area cordoned off by the crime scene tapes had shrunk to the immediate area around the explosion. Inside it, a team of white-suited Scene of Crimes officers were on hands and knees, collecting and bagging everything they could find. A clutch of journalists was still huddled in one corner, waiting for something to happen. Lindsay made her way over to them. “What's going on?” she said.

A BBC reporter shrugged. “Not a lot. We're waiting to see if the wife's going to make an appeal.”

“Is she back at the house?” Lindsay was surprised.

“The cops brought her back about an hour ago. Apparently she insisted on coming home. They tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't have it. So we all came back here from the hospital. It's a waste of time. There's no way she's going to talk. Not today.”

“Aye,” Lindsay said. “Probably not.” She eyed the scene. She couldn't see how she was going to get anywhere near Bernie. Her front door was flanked by two officers in full riot gear. Time for some lateral thinking.

She melted away and walked back up to the florist on Hyndland Road. “Can you make a local delivery this afternoon?” she asked.

The woman glanced at the clock. “Shouldn't be a problem. The van'll be back any minute now.”

“I want a large bouquet of lilies,” Lindsay said, giving the delivery details.

“Any message?”

“I'll write the card myself.” The florist offered her a selection of gift cards, and she chose one with a simple spray of forget-me-nots in one corner. I know how you're hurting. I've lost someone I loved, I understand the pain. But we need to talk about what's really going on here. Just between us. Then maybe we can stop it. Ask the cops to bring me in. Deepest sympathy, Lindsay.

She wasn't convinced it would work. But it was worth a try. As
she was about to pay, she had a sudden thought. “Have you got any yellow roses?” The florist pointed to a bucket in the corner. “A dozen, please. And can you deliver them too?” She chose another card, giving this message even more thought. You've always known I'm an asshole. But it never stopped you loving me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I never meant to put that at risk. Talk to me? Please? Love, Lindsay.

She didn't think for one moment it would change anything. But at any rate it showed she wasn't ignoring the situation. And at least Sophie was still within her reach, not like poor Tam Gourlay, lost to Bernie forever. Now she had to make sure she wasn't going to go the same way.

 

Jack sat on the floor, playing Nintendo with terrifying concentration. His whole world had shrunk to a tiny screen, the work of his fingers all he had space to think about. The headphones cut out any sound that might catapult him back into reality. Bernie was curled up on the sofa opposite, unable to take her eyes off him. She knew she was still in shock. She could feel nothing except a fierce desire not to let Jack out of her sight. The place in her heart occupied by Tam was frozen solid. Sooner or later it would melt and she would drown in the floodwaters of grief, but that hadn't happened yet.

It wasn't that she hadn't taken it in. She knew full well what had happened. She knew the how and she knew the why. The knowledge felt like a brooding bird of prey, perched inside her, biding its time before it ripped her heart out.

And she would deserve it. All of it and more.

The policewoman they had insisted must stay with her put her head round the door. “I'm sorry to intrude, Mrs. Gourlay. But there's a gentleman on the phone for you. He says he's family, that you'll want to talk to him? He said his name was Patrick.”

Bernie's heart lurched in her chest. The bastard would know they'd be monitoring her calls. He'd say nothing that would sound even slightly off key. But he'd want her to know that he was still
there, inescapable as death. “I'll be right there,” she said.

All she had left now was her son. All she could do was try to protect him.

 

Ten minutes later, Lindsay was sitting on a wall in Kinghorn Drive sharing a tube of Smarties with a local radio reporter who looked young enough to be her son. “See my boss? The guy that owns Radio NMC? He knew him,” the lad said proudly.

“What? Tam Gourlay?”

“Aye. They were at the school together. Stayed pals, like. Used to go fishing up Loch Lomond. He cannae believe it. I had to do an interview with him, like, this morning? He was just devastated. Couldnae make sense of it at all.”