The long knives, p.11
The Long Knives, page 11
Hollis is ranting deliriously as they hoist him onto a stretcher and take him away. Red blood stains the seats and the wooden floor. This looks bad. Lennox and the Hollis brothers follow the paramedics who lead the blacked-out Mark Hollis from the hall. At the rear of the car park, they help them load him into the ambulance, then the brothers promptly exit the vehicle, leaving Lennox to travel with Hollis to the hospital. — Don’t mind, do ya, Jock? This fight could be tasty, and they shut the doors on Lennox and their semiconscious big brother.
As Hollis groans, the ambulance tears off.
The ambulance, siren blaring, tears through traffic towards the thankfully nearby Royal London Hospital, vehicles making way for it. Looking out the back windows, Lennox is just thinking this is fucking serious, when the stricken Hollis appears to focus a little on him. — Sorry, Ray, he groans, — this is the worst they’ve been.
— What is it? What’s going on, Mark?
Hollis averts his gaze from Lennox, looking at the roof of the vehicle. Sweat drips from him. — The Harry Styles, mate. I was due to go into hospital next week to have them done under general. I was dreading it … hopefully they’ll move it forward now … do it straight away …
Lennox can scarcely believe his ears. Looks into the front of the vehicle where the paramedics sit, one tense at the wheel, the other one mimicking his edginess. — I’ve never known piles that severe. Fuck sake, I’ve got them myself …
— Nah, mate … these ain’t your normal Rockfords, Hollis gasps, his eyes bulging as he swivels his head to Lennox, — they’re potential killers. You can bleed out like a haemophiliac from them. The consultant warned this could happen any time … should have been done years ago …
They reach the hospital and Lennox sits with Hollis for a bit after they administer sedatives and stem the bleeding. The specialist confirms that Hollis is suffering from chronic ruptured haemorrhoids. Far from being trivial, this is the worst case the doctors have seen and he needs to be operated on straight away.
Compelled to return north of the border, Lennox asks Hollis if there’s anybody he should call.
— Nah, you’re alright, Ray. I just wanna get this done and get the fuck out, as quietly as possible. Some cunts in the Met will see this as … Hollis shakes his head, deadpan, — well, you know how that goes …
— Your secret is safe with me and no doubt a few thousand Millwall. Lennox smiles as Hollis’s face creases in grim recognition. — Good luck, and I’ll check in when I get back home.
— Thanks, Ray, Hollis says. — You’re a diamond.
Lennox squeezes his big shoulder and exits the ward, picking up a cab in the hospital car park.
He heads for the Premier Inn at Euston, fuddled with alcohol, cocaine and a maddening disorientation as he tries to piece events together, placing the still-malfunctioning phone on the radiator in his room. It’s only then he sees the note on his bedside table, or rather a series of them, advising him Toal has called and that it’s urgent.
He groans, and sucks in a breath, steeling himself, dialling on the hotel phone.
Toal immediately snaps, — Where the fuck have you been?!
— My phone packed in, Lennox half lies. — The first attempted victim here is Christopher Piggot-Wilkins, a Home Office luminary. They’ve closed ranks and the case obviously isn’t being handled through normal investigative channels. We’ve been staking out people Hollis believes might be able to shed some light on things.
Toal has seen through Lennox’s ‘daft laddie’ defence, the recovered bite of his reaction telling the detective his boss has received instructions from on high. It’s evident that the Chief Super knows all about Christopher Piggot-Wilkins. — Leave it! Don’t be getting involved in Hollis’s extra-curricular bullshit, he was told to pull back on that case! I need you back here in Edinburgh right now.
— But, boss … Lennox is stunned to hear his own voice, that of a petulant teenager told he can’t stay out past ten o’clock — … I thought I might give it another day. A few developments here that have –
— Return immediately, Ray. The first flight tomorrow morning.
— Okay, Lennox says. — What’s happening?
— Gulliver’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon.
— Jesus, that was quick.
— Wasn’t it just! I want you there.
— Right, and Lennox sighs, hangs up, pulls off his clothes, and sinks into the black hole offered by the Hypnos mattress.
Day Three
* * *
THURSDAY
15
Morning drifts in. A cold, slate London sky, as Ray Lennox wakes up in the Euston Premier Inn with the worst hangover he’s had in a long time. Only the contemplation of his unstable guts and badly cauterised sinuses afford him minor respite from the attentions of his banging head.
With a shaking hand, he forces down some of the hotel’s bottled water. He avoided the blizzard of cocaine, but that solitary line in the club was still enough to wreck his cavities and add an hour on to normal excessive drinking, before Hollis’s incident called time. From the radiator a light blinks through the darkness: divine hope and sickening fear are in instant stand-off for control of his senses. His phone is back and his wrung-out body springs into animation.
As well as the texts from Toal, there are many from Trudi, Jackie, Drummond and some others. But it’s his fiancée’s that grip him. Skimming her road map of mounting despair and deadened resignation, he tremblingly dials her. It goes straight to voicemail. Fires off a guilty text:
Honey, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad. My phone has just come back on. I had a bizarre accident with it. Call me. Love you x
Jumping in a cab to City airport, he buzzes Drummond, once more compelled to explain the plight of his phone. Then he asks, — So what’s new?
— Not much … Drummond wearily concedes, and he wonders if, given the hour, she’s still in bed, — banks, phones, bills, bookings … working through the usual data, trying to piece together Gulliver’s movements, associations and rivalries. No shortage of people who don’t like him, but someone who’d take him out like that is more difficult to manifest … How’s London?
Lennox shudders, thinking of the van hurtling at him and Hollis. One or both of them could have been seriously injured. Assassination attempt, or random nutter? Related to the Piggot-Wilkins case or long-standing enemy of Hollis? — The top brass is protecting the guy who was the victim of the attack … Lennox can’t say the name. Not yet. — Hollis, the investigating detective, is on it; has plenty ideas and we’re following up some leads. We have to tread carefully though.
Drummond is silent for a bit. Lennox guesses she’s trying to decide whether or not to ask him who the London attack victim is. She opts for, — So the two cases are related?
Lennox blows through pursed lips, stopping when he realises that it will sound like electrical static to Drummond. — It’s obvious, but until they’re candid about the identity of the Savoy victim, we can’t tie him in with Gulliver.
— Well, the post-mortem has confirmed that Gulliver was smashed on the front of his head by a mallet. They found some wooden microfibres there. It is the Rab Dudgeon MO.
— Interesting, Lennox says, meaning ‘old news’. — Anything else?
— Toxicology positived him for alcohol and Rohypnol.
— So he was definitely unconscious before this blow?
— Yes, though it cracked his skull and they discovered that brain fluid was pushing down on the front membrane.
— What does that mean?
— Without treatment he’d have probably died within a few hours.
— Difficult to see castration and bleeding out as a mercy killing.
— Not how I’d choose to describe it, Ray.
— Of course not, Lennox mumbles. Drummond has changed. She now sees you as a rival for Toal’s job. Nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps you have too. The matey collusiveness of ex-partners is gone. — We’re checking out the London victim’s movements, associations and, of course, any possible connections with Gulliver, he explains. — Nothing obvious so far to suggest they even know each other.
— No overt old school tie connections?
— Not yet. He thinks of Hollis in the hospital bed. Wonders how much investigating David and Soppy Bollocks will be doing on his behalf.
An acerbic bite she rarely shows on investigations tinges Drummond’s voice: — These people are only one degree of separation from each other.
Lennox decides to take advantage. — So, what’s your gut on this?
— Gulliver was a piece of shit, so some person or persons, whom he’d probably wronged in a heinous way, decided to take grim retribution. Going into some of his past incidents … there’s been three alleged rape and sexual assault victims. And you remember Graham Cornell, from the Confectioner case …
— Right …
— All settled out of court, one a Judy Barless, several years back, the other two designated Ms X by the media. I’ve spoken to Barless, she was paid fifty grand to be quiet. I absolutely believe her account of the rape at a Tory Party conference weekend.
— So, we’re trying to identify the two Ms Xs?
— No luck so far. What do you think about all this?
— Not a lot, apart from the obvious, that Rab Dudgeon’s inside. Thanks to the tabloids, the world knows his MO, but I’m not sure why anybody would rip it off to get revenge on Gulliver.
— Like a lot of things to do with this, it makes very little sense, she observes. Then she changes tack. — Are you okay?
With the Drummond of old, Lennox would have taken this as genuine concern. Now he’s not so sure. — Think I might have picked up a bit of a bug, he contends, — but nothing incapacitating, so far.
— Take care.
— Thanks. He hangs up, a little confused.
Is Drummond fishing? Looking for weakness? Perhaps of the sort that cocaine brought to the party? Or are you just being paranoid? Coke paranoid?
He laughs to himself. Thinks of her trying to ‘cop him oot’ or ‘polis him tae fuck’ as his old senior partner Bruce Robertson was prone to saying.
We’re off duty, so dinnae cop ays oot.
The City airport check-in has minimal fuss. Lennox, in his jeans, loafers, scarf and Harrington jacket, surrounded by suits that cast disapproving eyes over him, is relieved to be airborne and heading home.
You’re protecting the wealth and power of cunts that think you’re a fucking jakey.
Arriving back in Edinburgh, feeling like he’s been away for a week instead of just one night, he checks his phone: still nothing from Trudi. Curses himself for not having her mum’s number. Texts her again, jumping in a cab to her place. En route he checks his emails: an interesting one from Sebastian Taylor.
To: RLennox@policescot.co.uk
From: staylor125@gmail.com
Subject: Ms X
Dear Ray,
You might want to look at this case from 15 years ago:
Ms X was repeatedly raped by two men, in a cable car in the exclusive resort of Val d’Isère in the French Alps. She was working as a barmaid. The men were described as from good homes and of good character. Justice Aubrey Humphries QC said: ‘I’m afraid this seems to be a case of young people in high spirits enjoying too much alcohol and getting carried away. This young woman went skiing with these two young men. I suppose it must have been an exhilarating experience for her.’
It’s been an open secret in Whitehall for years that Chris Piggot-Wilkins is one of the two men. His family pulled strings to keep the names out the paper in case it wrecked his Civil Service career. Ms X’s identity was concealed too. I’ve no intel on who they could be, unfortunately.
You can quote me if you like. Not much they can do to me now!
The second Ms X case I’ve no information on, other than that it took place in a Brighton hotel eight years ago.
Best,
Sebastian
If this cunt Piggot-Wilkins was one of the ski gondola men, then Ms X might have the motivation to do that to him. Who was the other man? Could it be Gulliver?
In the spirit of cooperation, he forwards everything to Mark Hollis.
Just as he gets to Marchmont, pushing some money into the cabbie’s mitts and stepping out the taxi, he sees Trudi coming out the stair door. She’s with somebody; a suited guy her age, around thirty, who offers an escorting arm, ushering her into a brown BMW. Instead of going to her, the detective in him makes Lennox pull back as he steps behind the bus shelter on the main road. The BMW takes off at the same time as his taxi, leaving him standing in the street, contemplating his losses.
Fuck sake …
A brutal thump of despair hits. All adrenaline leaves him. He’s aware of a keen hangover pulse. It throbs in his head, erupts in sweat from his pores.
It was your fucking phone … an accident … you were almost fucking killed by some cunt in that van … and she’s hanging out with – probably riding – some slimy fucker in a BMW …
Lennox cannot think of what to do. Does he go to the hospital? Falls into a trance, letting his subconscious do the decision-making, dispirited as a cab pulls him into the driveway of Police HQ at Fettes.
He heads to the office of a strangely dishevelled Bob Toal. His boss now looks as if he’s been sleeping in his clothes, sparse but normally well-tailored grey hair sticking up in tufts. This uncharacteristic shabbiness hints at a man who has recently taken to advanced binge drinking. With the barrier of the large desk and a force field of Blue Stratos between them, Lennox cannot get close enough to detect alcohol fumes. He’s ready to ask how he is doing, but Toal nips in first. — Glad you’re in, Ray, I need you to brief the team … Any developments? No, I’ll hear it all in the briefing … Look, I didn’t want to tell you this on the phone, Toal stumbles, — but Jim McVittie … Lauren … well, you know she turned … Toal’s mouth puckers as he slides a file over the table. — It’s a bad one, Ray.
Lennox reads the top sheet in disbelief:
Trans activist Lauren Fairchild was found badly beaten in a Glasgow street. After visiting several bars with friends, she was attacked in the alley by Queen Street station, when preparing to get on the late Stirling train.
Seemingly unrelated events scramble together; Lennox tries to form connective tissue between Lauren’s plight, Gulliver’s murder, Piggot-Wilkins’s attack, the speeding van outside the Savoy, and the shadowy web of posh sex fiends around Wallingham that Hollis is on to. On one level it’s ludicrous to imagine another conspiracy or cult, but the notion of a protective network in operation is far from fanciful. All criminality is to some extent social; a web of friends and family either positively enable or, more usually, are in mass denial of the sex fiend in their midst. An old boy network is simply a well-established extension of that.
— Jim … Lauren is in a coma and not expected to survive, Toal tells him.
Gayle. Lauren was wary of that big lump. It didn’t sit right. You need to find him, or her. Surely he wasn’t driving the van at the Savoy …
— I have to go and check some stuff out.
— After the briefing, Toal insists. — And, Ray, stick to Gulliver; keep the London case and Hollis out of this for now.
The top brass have definitely got to Toal.
— Is that wise? They’re obviously related.
— Do you want to be promoted, Raymond?
— We should tell the team, boss. They’ll find out through the grapevine soon enough, and it would be undermining and unfair to let them ferret around blind when every cunt in the Met knows. We need to tie Piggot-Wilkins to Gulliver, and to the perp … I got sent this … and he produces the article from Sebastian having printed off a hard copy for his boss.
Toal puts on his specs and reads. A strange sound between a mumble and a growl escapes from him, then he shuts one eye, fixing Lennox in his Cyclops stare. — So this fucked-up old journo, who probably has a ton of grievances against Piggot-Wilkins, is claiming he was one of the rape assailants in these cases. Of course, no evidence at all provided. And you’re saying the second Alpine gondola rapist is Gulliver, and the victim, Ms X, is his killer and Piggot-Wilkins’s assailant?
— Well, I’m not saying it is, just that it’s a worthwhile line of inquiry.
— Okay. Toal lets out a long breath. His face crinkles in pain. — Pursue it. No, he snaps his fingers. — Drummond and Glover will pursue it. They’ll operate with discretion.
— Yes. Lennox forces a taut grin. As he regards his boss, he reminds himself that ulcers are caused by a certain viral infection or bacteria in the gut, and have nothing to do with stress. However, it’s hard to escape the impression that Toal’s stomach is an acid-manufacturing plant, which will corrode its lining, and sharpen the potency of any blemish caused by infection. Lennox’s mind spins with nervous humour about Toal and Hollis in an ulcer-vesus-piles suffering stand-off.
Looking at his watch, Toal indicates it’s time. Lennox resolves that he will tear through the briefing at speed, then go and see Lauren. As they get to the conference room, a low-ceiling head-wreck of fluorescent lighting, Toal wisely swerves the canteen-issued industrial-strength coffee, settling on a custard cream. Lennox, succumbing, knows he will pay.
A high, nasal accent tells them that Norrie Erskine is in full flow, — … so the wee Glesca lad says, ‘Aye, miss, but muh da’s been in the jile fur ten years!’ Haw haw haw … yuv goat tae laugh!
A trademark scowl indicates Dougie Gillman is growing tired of his Glasgow sidekick and the constant stream of jokes mythologising his home city.
Erskine doesn’t notice. — Did ah tell yis the wahn aboot the boy in the pub? Nah? Boy walks intae a pub in Glesca, he says, implying a laugh.
