Whilst Jean phoned Ivy he went upstairs to their room and unlocked the gun cupboard removing a BAR hunting rifle. He sat down on the edge of their double bed with a cleaning kit, tools and gun oil. The box of ammunition lay unopened on the counter pane next to box clip.
The BAR lightweight Stalker made from aircraft-grade alloy with a matte blued finish had a detachable box magazine, which after stripping, cleaning and oiling the rifle Hudson filled and locked into place. He put the rifle on safety and went down stairs with it.
Jean was coming off the phone. She didn’t like guns of any kind, but remote places allowed certain members of the population to be armed and she trusted George to be careful. That man, Dean, well she’d heard bits of his story. She felt safer locked in with George and even safer knowing how well he handled a rifle.
In the loft of a house on Benlister Road, round the corner from the Arran police station at Lamlash, Ivy McLane unlocked her small gun cabinet and took out the Sig 220 ‘rail’ pistol. She didn’t need to clean it. Since the alert two days ago she’d followed the memo on armaments to the letter. Satisfied that she was safe, doors locked and windows barred she sat in the loft and sent out her message.
'Stanton heading down West Coast in a boat and has killed. The surviving witness is at Lamlash Police. Please call to advise my right to interview or send duty team to do same.'
The reply was swift.
Duty team members in Edinburgh mopping up post Perth to attend. Please welcome and assist.
At Lamlash police station after making a statement Kevan Dean had cried on the phone to his wife. He told her he’d be back the next day. A police launch was to take him to the mainland and he’d be driven home. In their warm, plush and well decorated detached house his wife sat hugging her children and thanking god for her husband’s deliverance.
At a nearby house Dean’s clothes were already washed and being tumble dried. An on call doctor had given him a mild sedative after his interview. Dean had refused food, but welcomed the cell bed with its thick warm woollen covers. He was left to sleep with his cell door left wide open. Arran police checked Mr Griffith’s details and made a call to the mainland and a car was despatched.
In Edinburgh Mrs Griffiths sat alone in her lounge. Her children were grown and had left home, one at university the other working in London. She sat singly on the sofa with her arms wrapped around her own shoulders, body language showing her closed, shocked grief.
“I’m afraid we are sure Mrs Griffiths.” The police man said and looked at the family photos arranged on the nearby grand piano in the large and comfortable reception room. “The owner of the boat saw it happen and was to have been killed too. A lucky chance allowed him to escape, even then he had to swim through a couple of miles of open sea.”
Mary Griffiths shook her head looking from the face of the police man to the face of the police woman colleague brought along to comfort the widow.
“Why?”
“A random chance that this assassin would go for that Marina and that your husband was on a boat he could use.” The police woman said quietly.
There was silence.
“Do you have anyone who can stay with you?” She asked Mrs Griffiths.
“My sister is coming over. The children will be coming home tomorrow.”
The policeman and police woman rose to go.
“Please stay until my sister arrives.”
They both sat down.
“I’m sorry. It makes me so afraid. Why do people like that do that? Why kill people so easily… as if they were… insects… swatting people like insects…” She broke down crying.
The police woman moved over and hugged Mary Griffiths, who feeling the strong warm arms wailed out loud, clung on and sank into sobbing.
The police man’s eyes hardened and he exchanged a look of shared understanding with the police woman.
That was the way it was. A political or diplomatic viewpoint, a hired gun, forces pitched against each other and there you were at a point where one woman drank brandy with relief whilst another sobbed in loss and grief. Some were killed and some lived when men in power made their chess board moves playing games with armed men.
By the time a doctor had sedated Mary Griffiths, whilst she was comforted by her sister, and Kevan Dean was deep in sleep in a police station, that was now at armed and ready status, the DIC helicopter from Edinburgh airport was landing in a field to the west of Lamlash. There were torches planted in the ground to mark the landing spot and nearby Ivy McLane waited by her car, switching the headlights on when the chopper had landed.
They were in for a long night, but that was DIC work, occasionally rushed and busy, most times simply watching and waiting.
Chapter 77
Dover
9 p.m.
April 18th
David sat slumped in his arm chair, full of steak, kidney, suet and gravy, not to mention potatoes and greens. In spite of this he was not sleepy. Mary had noticed that he had been staring at the television, but seemingly seeing nothing.
“You alright Davy?”
David roused himself from his introspection.
“No. I’m worried about Beaumont.”
“Why don’t you go up and log on. It’ll put your mind at rest before your sleep. I’ve unpacked your bag, except the rucksack. That’s on our bed.”
“Good idea.” David smiled, rose and made for the door. As an afterthought he came back, leant over Mary, lying back on the sofa, knitting, and kissed first her forehead then her bump. She smiled and a little glow rose on her face. She watched his broad back disappear.
In the loft he unloaded the rucksack. Camera, gun mike, weapon and laptop were laid out on the desk in the middle of the loft. The technicians who put it there followed a pattern laid down since the war. Boards were laid down, a hook down ladder added and a desk set up. Added to this in modern times were ‘Velux’ windows in the roof, electric power cables and wire link to the dish. David opened the Velux windows on both sides of the roof, reached up to a high roof beam and retrieved a key, locked the gun away in the cabinet, hung the key back up, plugged and powered the laptop. Whilst he waited he put on the head phones and plugged these in to the gun microphone. He held his arm up, pointed the gun microphone out the ‘Velux’ at the front of the house and flicked the on switch with his thumb.
Programmes on television came into range and went away, as did faint conversations, as he swept it left to right, but it was the clearly recognisable energetic sounds of love making at his one o clock position that made his thumb flick the switch off. His mind’s eye pictured the houses and he smiled when he knew it to be the house across the road four doors down. It was the home of a big angry man, bald and muscular, but ironically for his macho looks and demeanour a ladies hairdresser, whom David had argued with in the local pub once. His wife was the over made up kind of ‘dolly’, obsessed with tanning and clothes.
David laughed out loud at the image of their lovemaking, his first laugh for some time which in some way brought him closer to ‘home’. He recalled laughing last when he had been joking with Beaumont.
David logged on and read through the night’s traffic. The murders along the routes of the assassins had more details, such as names. The attached and related files showed pictures of families and homes. Karl Bushby, the Scottish truck driver, found in the Inverness car park; Grahame Dodd the taxi driver; Stewart Mitchell and Moira Brown, two Hertfordshire traffic cops; Bill Carter and ‘Jackie’, police dog and handler; Tom Welby long distance lorry driver; with Wally Tyson, DIC operative, Julian Young the Marina watchman; John Furze, Tim Wilson and Dave Jarvis armed police at Gatwick and now Tom Griffiths a Scottish banker, for whom details, new as the case was, were sketchy. The DIC files showed passport pictures, which said nothing to him about the people, but family pictures, children, in Julian Young’s case his parents, carried him into the lives of the slain with rapidity and detail. Small children in too big, gaudy coloured coats grinning, holding hands with dads, a baby held in Moira Brown’s arms, husband, hand on her shoulder, smiling down; summer snaps of men in trunks children on shoulders. Bill Carter squatting by his dog, muscle bound arms and a big grin. Family portraits in lounges and restaurants, the background to life, lives lived and now cut short. The ‘album’ of pictures was a plethora of pleasure past and David felt deeply for those touched by this massacre, empathetically sensing the years of pain ahead. David shook his head at the thought of the twelve dead people and the dead dog. He clicked through the files and images, stomach churning, jaw clenched in silent fury. The injured weren’t so numerous, two hospital workers, Beaumont and now Shadz, not to mention Ben Dowling, Gatwick armed policeman, shot through the groin, stable, but in intensive care. McKie’s eyes narrowed as his hand relaxed on the mouse touch pad. Stolen vehicles and money, damaged property and general mayhem and what for? What were they doing? What did all this death, grief and crime add up to? What could be worth all of this?