Lawless (12 page)

‘When did you last have a shag, then, Mr McRide?’ he asked abruptly, his face twisting to a leer. ‘Do you know that’s what they used to call you – Campbell McRide, the fastest prick in the west … and the south, north and east. The scourge of every housing scheme round the back of Kingsway.’ Richardson became conspiratorial. ‘Do you remember the days when we went hoorin’ together?’ he asked, nostalgia overtaking him. ‘We did OK, didn’t we? Except you always seemed to get the best-looking one. Still, that wasn’t always the one with the biggest tits. Suited me. Sometimes the ugliest were the most rewarding – and the most grateful.’

It was a philosophy Richardson had comforted himself with at the time. McBride would lay money he still adhered to it. Not that he was alone in the practice. McBride had even heard Omar Sharif admit to the same kind of selection process on a TV show interview. He reflected on this for a few moments and concluded that not in his wildest dreams would he have imagined himself ever finding a close similarity between Double Dick and a suave movie actor.

‘Never mind twenty years ago. Are you still getting your share now, Richard?’ McBride asked.

The man who was never lost for words when he penned his paper’s finest news articles struggled to respond. He rolled his head slowly from side to side, making up his mind what to say. Finally, he said, ‘A bit here, bit there – you know the way it goes. Not as much as I’d like. Same as everybody else, I suppose. Except you, maybe.’

McBride changed the subject – or tried to. ‘I ran into Dave Novak, the other day,’ he said lightly. ‘Met his daughter too. Petra. Didn’t recognise her. Hasn’t half grown up. Couldn’t believe she’s a cop.’

Richardson said nothing at first. Then he managed to combine another leer with a laugh. ‘No chance,’ he rasped. ‘You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, McBride. She wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole. I don’t care how often you get lucky with women. The girl has class – and sense. Forget it.’ He chortled, taking delight at the thought of McBride being rejected by the divine Petra.

Before McBride could retaliate, Richardson began to gesture across the bar towards two females. They had entered ten minutes earlier but he had not been aware of their presence. McBride had. Richardson pointed at them and made drinking motions. They nodded. He shouted to John Black behind the bar to give them what they wanted and handed him the money.

‘An investment,’ he explained to McBride, unnecessarily lowering his voice. ‘That’s Kate from the office with one of her mates. Good lass. You can have her. I’ll see what I can make of her pal.’

After they collected their drinks, he waved again, this time beckoning them over. The two women hesitated only long enough to take a sip from their glasses before joining the predators.

The quartet observed the ritual of witty conversation, which was polite but unnecessary. All four understood the protocols required of those who sought the company of the opposite sex in The Fort.

Kate Nightingale – it was a great name for a byline.

Campbell McBride had no idea if she could write. He did not care. That night she was exactly what he wanted. She was late thirties, medium height, brown curls and eyes that flashed. Looked foreign – southern European. She wore a soft green blouse, two buttons undone, a black bra peeking at him. The trousers were black as well – tight as the top. A white jacket hung off a tanned shoulder. She was in control and when she laughed it sounded like an invitation to take her to bed – except it wasn’t.

When John Black threw them out at closing time, McBride offered to walk her up the hill to where she lived and she accepted. When they arrived at the house, which was in darkness, they went inside. They did not go to bed but they lay on it. They spoke and drank the coffee she made.

She told him when her marriage had ended and why. That it hadn’t been all his fault.

He didn’t tell her about his break-up or whose fault it had been. That was private stuff. He never spoke of Caroline to other women in the same way he never spoke of his women to other men. Everybody was entitled to their secrets.

They chatted about newspapers and she said she had admired his work from afar.

He didn’t tell her he had never seen any of hers.

She asked about the five awards he’d received for his work and he brushed her off – not out of false modesty but because the prizes were for big stories, the kind that wrote themselves. You just had to be in the right spot on the right day for them. The ones that gave him most satisfaction were the down-the-page pieces that needed most digging. So what if they didn’t have any international or national significance if they made life better for someone? But no one gave you trophies for them and no one else was really that interested, even on the day the stories appeared.

Then they spoke about Richard Richardson and she said Double Dick had told her he knew McBride was sniffing out a story. He’d even strongly implied he knew what the story was, she said. She wondered if that could be true and then, point blank, she asked what the story was.

McBride laughed. He did not answer either of her questions. Instead, he asked some of his own – like why Double Dick seemed to be troubled about something.

She said she didn’t know for sure but there was a rumour in the newsroom that he’d had a bad experience with a woman he’d met on the internet.

An hour later, McBride told Kate he should leave and waited for her to suggest he should stay and extend an invitation for breakfast. She did neither. Instead she put her arms round his neck and kissed him softly but briefly on the lips. Then she swung herself off the bed and took his hand, leading him towards the door.

When they reached the hallway, he turned both her shoulders until she faced him and asked simply, ‘Yes?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, lowering herself to the floor.

After they had removed each other’s clothing, it did not take long but what occurred did not depend on time, just compatibility. Then they said ‘Yes’ again but in perfect unison.

Not much later, as he walked back down the hill, McBride had no feeling of triumph, just the faintest suspicion that the conquest had been all hers.

The midday conference of
Courier
senior editorial staff had been brief. As the paper’s chief reporter, Richard Richardson might have been expected to give a full account of what could fill the next day’s paper but, beyond a swift rundown of the usual certainties of major court cases and other predictable events of the day, he did not elaborate. He had other things on his mind and had no desire to linger with the others in the editor’s room.

Back at his desk, he looked again at the clock on the wall facing him. Then he checked what he saw with his wristwatch, which he always removed and placed to one side of his desk on the opposite side from his computer mouse. The times matched identically, as they had five minutes earlier. Kate Nightingale was rostered for a 2 p.m. start. It was 1.45 p.m. and she had not yet arrived. It did not occur to Richardson that none of the other two o’clock starts were in the building either – or that there was no need for them to be.

When she walked into the room eight minutes later, Richardson was momentarily diverted from the task in hand by her appearance. She was no longer the glamorous pub-goer of the evening before. The curls had been stretched straight and the hair was tied back. In place of the tight top and trousers, she wore a masculine, bottle-green business suit with white blouse and olive-coloured tie. She was still a looker but the outfit had lesbian overtones. Not that he entertained any serious thoughts in that direction. He’d never had the pleasure himself but her heterosexual credentials were, by all accounts, impeccable.

Perhaps McBride would confirm their authenticity – more likely, he wouldn’t. The bastard had always been infuriatingly selfish about revealing precisely what he did with his women. Richardson did not believe for one minute that his silence had anything to do with protecting the reputations of his conquests. Knowing McBride, it was almost certainly because he didn’t want to ruin his chances of being welcomed back for a second helping.

The businesslike Kate was still booting up her computer when Richardson appeared, unheard, beside her L-shaped desk. She turned, startled, as he burst out, ‘Well, did McBride have his filthy way with you?’

‘Christ, Richard! Why pick your words so carefully? You should just blurt things out.’ She noted without surprise that he still wore the same shirt and tie from the night before. The only thing different was the amount of cigarette ash obliterating the pattern on his neckwear. ‘He’s a nice man, with a bit more sensitivity than some folk I could mention,’ she continued.

Richardson was dismissive. ‘How very charming for you. Another lamb to the slaughter, more like. Did he give you the spiel about only wanting to have sex with women who connect intellectually with him?’

A red flush appeared on Kate’s neck. ‘Piss off, Richard. What is it you want?’

‘Payback. Remember our little arrangement? I would introduce you to the great Campbell McBride if you would pump him for information. I need a return on my investment. You don’t think I bought you all that liquor just because I like the way you smell, do you? I need to know what you found out from your new boyfriend. I need to know what story he gave you about why he is back staying in town. I need to know if he’s still raking over the Alison Brown murder case. And I need to know if he’s following up any new information. You must have had some time to speak before or after – perhaps even during – your shag-fest. I will refrain from the obvious crudities about your mouth being too full to speak. What did he tell you?’

Kate shook her head in despair at Richardson’s vulgarity – as well as his interrogative techniques – but also to indicate a negative response. ‘No luck, I’m afraid.’ She didn’t sound sorry. ‘Whenever I touched on his professional activities, he just smiled and said precisely nothing. I think it’s called discretion – a word you may not be familiar with – but I can tell you from what he
didn’t
say that he believes there’s something big out there.’

Richardson said nothing. He did not question her final remark. He nodded several times. Finally, he spoke softly, more to himself than to his female colleague. ‘I bet he does – I bet he does.’

McBride felt like a stalker – or a pervert. He sat in his car wearing running shorts and a T-shirt that was torn at the shoulder. At his right hand was a pair of binoculars which he raised to his eyes every time he detected a distant new arrival at the Monifieth end of the Esplanade.

It was the second successive morning he had sat waiting for Petra Novak to appear. He did not know if she would show that day either but every athletic instinct in his body told him she would not be able to resist routing at least some of her training runs along the river’s edge where her only companions would be seagulls and dog walkers. She would be attracted to the solitude just as he was, especially on fresh mornings which were so clear that the only thing in the sapphire sky was the high vapour trail of a jet airliner bound for North America.

His conviction that she would pass that way was not entirely intuitive. From the moment he had driven away from her father’s house, he had resolved to be reunited with her as quickly as he could. There was the attraction he felt for her, of course – half the men in Dundee probably felt that way – but he also needed her police mind and her access to the information available only to police officers.

Once he learned where she lived, it had been easy to work out where she might run. His people-tracer website revealed that she lived in Monifieth, the upmarket suburb that ran along the coastline from the east end of Broughty Ferry. Her home was 200 yards from the high-tide mark and, when she ran, she had a choice of three directions: east, on the cycle path skirting the perimeter of the army camp, which was safe but uninteresting; north, which was more appealing but hilly; and west, which would take her over the soft sand of the beach where there were the kinds of views they put on picture postcards. He reckoned it was odds-on she’d be running over the scenic route. So he waited. And, whenever a running figure came out of the distance, he watched with raised glasses, like someone awaiting the arrival on the shore of a rare seabird.

When she appeared as a distant speck, he could not distinguish her features but he knew instantly that it was her. Two slender legs stretched easily across the sand where it appeared from the river’s edge and she moved gracefully, making good progress over the firm surface. There was no hint of effort and her relaxed shoulders swung lightly whenever she turned her head to take in the vista of the waves breaking gently ahead of her on her left side. The occasional flash of crimson showed she was wearing the same ribbon that had held her hair back on the day she appeared at her father’s home.

McBride watched longer than necessary to establish her identity. He refocused for a sharper image and, when her face filled the eyeglasses, he noted that, although she was moving at an impressive pace, her breathing appeared to be perfectly normal. It was more than might have been said about his own.

After a last lingering look, he started up the Mondeo, turned it and drove away from her. Half a mile down the Esplanade, he drew to a halt in a car park. He left the vehicle, crossed over a bank of sand dunes on to the beach and started to run towards the advancing figure of Petra Novak. Their paths crossed less than a minute later.

McBride had mentally rehearsed his performance. He would raise a friendly, fellow-jogger hand but show no recognition – at first. He would allow her to pass then belatedly and uncertainly call her name with a question in his voice. But his doubtful acting abilities were not required – when he was over fifty feet away, the lithe legs he had observed a short time earlier through a pair of binoculars suddenly changed direction and came straight at him. Their owner started to wave a delicate hand.

‘Campbell, hi, it’s me – Petra. What a small world.’ She seemed excited at the coincidence. She drew to a halt in front of him. ‘I’d heard you were a runner – a bit of a regular by the look of it.’