52

Harvey was slouched in one of the deep leather couches that bracketed the fireplace in the lounge area. His face was a bloodied mess, lips swollen and split, eyes already swelling with bruises, a long gash on his cheek. He was leaning back, making a lisping, spluttering sound with every hitching breath. Doug had heard the sound before. It meant his nose was broken.

Pearson barked at Esther to take a seat beside her husband, then threw Doug into the couch opposite. He stood at the end of the two couches, like the head of the table, breathing deeply, wiping sweat from his face. Doug noticed blood on his knuckles, most likely Harvey’s, but there was something else about his hands: they were twisted and knotted, warped by arthritis. Doug concentrated, remembered the age he read in the copy, added the intervening years. Pearson wasn’t looking good for a man of fifty-six.

“Well, well, well, isn’t this nice?” he said, his voice a harsh rasp as he opened his arms out in an encompassing gesture. The knife glinted in the overhead lights. “All of us together like this. Though I’m a little surprised to see you, Doug, I thought from the way you tore out of here this morning, you wouldn’t let off the accelerator until you hit Edinburgh.”

Doug swallowed down the panic that chilled his throat with an icy caress. Watching, he thought, he was watching. Just like…

…like…

Just like he was before he shot Greig.

Doug forced back the images dancing in front of his eyes, of the blood and destruction and terror, forced himself to breathe, to focus.

“Why?” he heard himself say. “Just tell me why?”

Pearson laughed, the sound of glass being dragged across stone. “Why? Don’t you know, Doug, haven’t you worked it out? Hasn’t Harvey here ever told you the story of how we met? Of how he helped destroy my life?”

“Leave him alone,” Harvey murmured. “Please, he’s not a part of this, neither is Esther. Please, just let them go, it’s me who did this. Please…”

Pearson strode forward, slapped Harvey with a hard backhand. Esther let out a sobbing moan.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled. “You made them a part of this with your lies. Besides, hurting the innocent never seemed to bother you before.”

Hurting the innocent? Destroyed my life? Doug’s mind was racing, like he was trying pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and discarding them. Nothing fit, nothing made sense. He didn’t have enough of the picture. Harvey had covered Pearson’s trial, then lied about it to Doug’s face when asked if he recognised Pearson’s name, taking the coward’s option of cramming his cuts into his glove compartment to find later. Why? How had he ruined Pearson’s life? Why was the story missing from the Tribune archives? And where did Greig fit into all this?

A thought flashed across Doug’s mind. The archives. The switch from the physical copies of the Tribune to the online version that they used now. It was organised by the editor, administrated by senior reporters.

Like the crime reporter at the time.

“What else is missing?” he asked, turning to Harvey. “What don’t you want me to know, Harvey?”

Pearson clapped his hands slowly, the sound like gunshot in the silence of the lounge. “Very good, Doug, maybe Harvey did teach you a thing or two after all.”

He bent down, grimacing as he did, came back up with the file from the car.

“Here you go,” he said, throwing it at Doug. “I’m guessing from how quickly you got back here that you didn’t get a chance to read beyond the first article. Well, knock yourself out, it’s all there.”

Doug glanced between Pearson and Harvey. Harvey turned his head away.

“What? No, I’m not going to… Look,” – he glanced towards Esther – “she needs to see a doctor. Let me call one and we can talk this over, I can…”

Pearson strode over to him, grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. Doug yelped, thrashed around in the sofa. “Fuck off! Let me go, you cunt, let me…”

His words died in his throat when he felt the scalding thrill of the knife blade against his skin. Then Pearson, whispering in his ear, the sound and smell of death.

“Read, cunt,” he whispered. “Believe me, it’s a great story. You’ll love it. And if you don’t, I’ll paint this place with your blood. Just like I did with Greig. I promise.”

Doug’s head snapped forward as Pearson let him go. Fighting back tears, he glanced between Esther and Harvey. No help at all. With shaking hands, he flipped open the file, turned past Harvey’s first report and started to read.

And, for the second time in three days, Doug McGregor’s life fell apart.