‘Do you have any idea what you’re doing?’ the older of the two demanded, angry spittle gathering around his lips.
‘Yes, sir, I do,’ Tiny said. He felt the rain dripping from his nose and chin. ‘We’re responding to a tip-off about a terrorist attack on the offices of the Scottish Herald. Now, lay your weapons very carefully on the ground in front of you.’ Both men responded, gingerly removing Glock 26 pistols from leather holsters, to place carefully on glistening wet cobbles. One of the uniformed officers moved in to pick them up, then retreated. ‘Now show me some ID.’
The one who had spoken reached into an inside pocket.
‘Careful!’ Tiny warned him, and the man moved more cautiously to produce a leather wallet, which he flipped open and held out towards the policeman. Tiny approached to take it from him. He looked up, surprised. ‘SIA?’ And cast a doubtful look from one to the other. ‘What are you doing here?’
The two men exchanged glances. And after a pause, ‘Same as you,’ said the older one.
‘Oh, aye?’ Tiny’s eyes narrowed doubtfully. ‘How come we weren’t informed?’
The man shrugged. ‘Crossed wires, I guess.’
Tiny handed him back his wallet. ‘We’re going to have to check you out. You’ll come with us.’ And neither of them was going to argue with him.
As they were led to the nearest vehicle, one of them glanced back towards the entrance to the Herald. The girl was nowhere to be seen.
Addie stepped out of the elevator and followed the young woman through a busy newsroom. A few heads lifted from computer screens to glance curiously in her direction. The girl opened a glass door into a fishbowl of an office with windows all along the far side, and ushered Addie in.
Macallan was a man of about Brodie’s age. He had a sculpted face with wary dark eyes, and the remains of once fair and abundant hair gelled back across a broad skull. He stood up from his desk and held out a bony hand, which Addie shook tentatively. He said, ‘I watched that whole debacle down there from the window. You must have friends in high places.’
Addie said, ‘My father had friends who owed him a favour.’
‘What have you got for me?’
Addie swung the pack from her shoulders to set on his desk. ‘Everything.’ She unzipped it to bring out Younger’s laptop, his notebooks and printouts, and the report which had sparked off his whole investigation.
Macallan lifted the A4 ring binder and flipped through the pages of shorthand notes. He lifted a hand to wave someone through from the newsroom and pushed all the notebooks towards the young journalist who entered. ‘I want all this stuff transcribed, as soon as possible. As many people on it as it takes.’ He picked up the report then and shook his head in wonder as he riffled through it. He looked at Addie. ‘You know if this all holds up, it’ll bring down the government.’ He sighed. ‘Of course, they’ll claim that any publication of Younger’s story is in breach of standing DSMA-Notice regulations.’
Addie said, ‘I don’t know what that is.’
‘The Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee decides what is in the public interest, and what is a danger to national security.’
‘They murdered my father.’ Addie stared unblinking at the editor. ‘And your journalist.’ She delved into the pack again and pulled out Sita’s notebook. ‘The pathologist’s notes on his autopsy, before they murdered her, too.’
Macallan looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got ten hours to make this stand up. And if we do, I’ll publish. Then I’ll fight them in the courts if I have to.’ A pale smile flitted across his face. ‘Better to be forgiven than forbidden.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
The SEC Armadillo was jam-packed. A sea of waving flags and banners. The chanting of the crowd rising to the rafters, reverberating throughout the auditorium.
The stage was bedecked by elongated saltires hanging from the roof, the campaign logo of the Scottish Democratic Party projected in blue on the screen behind the podium. ONWARD TO VICTORY.
Sally Mack was an island of calm in the eye of the storm. She stood at the podium smiling, facing a barrage of media mics. She turned her head slowly from one invisible teleprompter to the other, delivering carefully considered words crafted by half a dozen speechwriters. Victory was theirs. The future of Scotland assured. Tomorrow the electorate would return to power the party that had delivered both economically and ecologically.
She was a slim and elegant woman in her early sixties, her calf-length blue dress emphasising both her femininity and her power. Her carefully sculpted and dyed blond hair made Addie think of the photographs she had seen of the first woman to become British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Her delivery had the same syrupy sense of insincerity. Here, she told her adoring crowd, stood the woman who had delivered energy certainty for Scotland, while most of the rest of the world was still struggling to come to terms with the post-fossil fuel emergency. And suffering the consequences of their failures.
Addie and Sheila sat together on the edge of the settee, watching the screen, taut with tension. Sally Mack’s triumphalism was both infuriating and depressing. Addie wanted to throw something at her. Anything. But she contained her frustration. She was exhausted after the hours of intensive grilling she had endured at the offices of the Herald.
Cameron, wrapped in a blanket, was asleep in Tiny’s armchair. Oblivious. Addie glanced away from the screen towards her son, and her heart and soul bled for him. Just a matter of days ago, they had been the picture-perfect family, living the dream in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland, perhaps the world. And it had all been an illusion. The dream, a nightmare just waiting for the hours of darkness. And the darkness, when it came, had been both bloody and profound.
Addie had barely slept since the moment of pulling the trigger and watching the man she had once loved thrown backwards into the snow. The same look in his eyes then as she had seen in Brodie’s just thirty minutes later.
But she had no more tears to cry. They had spilled until she ached, her eyes red and scratchy, burning now only with anger.
She almost jumped at the sound of the front door opening, and Sheila leapt immediately to her feet. Tiny appeared in the living room door, his face grey and drawn. His overcoat hung limp from bony shoulders, dripping rainwater on the carpet.
‘Are you okay?’ Sheila’s voice was tentative.
Tiny sighed. ‘It’s been a long day. And I’d probably have been in a lot more trouble if those SIA guys had been able to claim they were there on official business.’ He slipped off his coat to hang on the coat stand in the hall, and they heard his voice come back to them from over his shoulder. ‘As it was, they had to go along with our story of a terror warning to explain why they were there.’ He came back into the room. ‘But it’s a mess. And I’m not out of the woods yet.’ He managed a pale smile. ‘Though I think we’re going to be okay.’
‘What’s SIA?’ Addie said.
‘Scottish Intelligence Agency, pet. Not that there was much intelligence discernible in those guys.’ He disappeared into the kitchen to open the fridge and grab a beer. As he came back through to the living room, he popped the lid off the bottle and raised it to his lips. He took a long draught. Then he said, ‘The good news is that the Herald have published. Simultaneously on the internet and in print.’ He mimicked the sensational delivery of an imagined newsreader. ‘Herald reporter murdered to cover up disastrous radiation leak at Ballachulish A.’