40

Gary Forres had been moved to a room of his own. A uniformed PC was sitting by the door, idly playing with his phone.

‘Hope you’re keeping alert, Andy?’

The officer looked up and nodded to McKay and Horton. ‘Afternoon, Alec. Ginny. This one of yours then?’ PC Andy Anderson was middle-aged but looked much fitter than McKay felt. McKay didn’t know how long Anderson had been with the force, but he’d become something of a fixture, one of those solid coppers you could rely on always to do a decent job.

‘Seems so,’ McKay said. ‘Anything we should know?’

‘Been very quiet. Docs and nurses in and out. Doc’s in there with him at the moment.’

McKay peered through the window into the room. Livingstone was standing by the bed talking to Forres, who was sitting up, looking healthy enough. ‘No sign of any trouble, then?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What about his wife?’ Horton asked.

‘She’s on her way back over. She’s been here most of the morning, but has gone with the kids to sort out somewhere to stay in Inverness. Sod’s law, he woke up after she’d gone.’

‘Thanks, Andy, you’re doing your usual grand job.’

‘Aye, sitting on my arse. One of my finely-honed skills.’

McKay laughed and tapped on the window. Livingstone beckoned them in.

‘Back in the land of the living, Mr Forres?’

Forres smiled and glanced at Livingstone. ‘Mark here seems to think so. I’ll keep an open mind till I’ve shaken off this headache.’

‘We’ll try not to make it worse. Do you feel up to talking to us?’

‘I want to find out what’s behind this as much as you do.’

McKay and Ginny Horton took seats by the bed. ‘We’ll try to be gentle with you.’

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Livingstone said. ‘You should be fine, Mr Forres, but if you do start to feel too tired, just let them know.’

McKay waited until Livingstone had closed the door behind him. ‘Tell us what happened, as best you can recall it.’

‘It is all a bit hazy. I’d gone to my dad’s house a short while after I spoke to you on the phone.’

‘How long after?’ McKay had already checked the time of his phone conversation with Forres.

‘Not long at all. Ten, fifteen minutes at most. I hadn’t been expecting to be able to get inside, so when you gave me the all-clear, I thought I might as well seize the moment.’

‘Talk us through what happened. You went into the house, and then what?’

‘I was at a bit of a loss at first, to be honest. As far as I can recall, I just wandered through into the kitchen and started to make myself a cup of coffee. I’d just sat down to drink it when the doorbell rang.’

‘Go on.’

‘I thought it would be one of the neighbours wanting to offer condolences. But it was the student.’

‘Student?’

‘The one who was part of the volunteer group who brought him shopping during lockdown. He’d mentioned her to me. The one who spotted that his wallet was missing. She told me her name. Kelly something. Kelly Armstrong.’

‘Kelly Armstrong? You’re sure?’

‘Pretty sure. That was why I was happy to let her in. My dad had mentioned her to me, and she’d obviously been good to him during the lockdown. Does the name mean something to you?’

‘We’ve come across Kelly once or twice. Not in any criminal capacity, though she does seem to have an extraordinary ability for being in the vicinity of trouble.’

‘She certainly was in this case. She said she’d come to call on my dad. She seemed to be unaware of what had happened to him. So I invited her in and broke the news to her. She seemed shocked, as you’d expect.’ He paused, clearly struggling to get his thoughts in order. ‘I offered to make her a drink. I suppose I was trying to give her a chance to take in what I’d said. Anyway, she sat down at the kitchen table. I finished making her drink, then sat opposite her, with my back to the kitchen door. We were talking. About Dad, I suppose, though I can’t remember exactly what. Then I heard a noise behind me. I thought it was the front door being blown open, that I’d maybe not quite shut it properly when she’d followed me in. It was blowing a gale off the firth.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I’m not exactly sure. I was turning to look at the front door, to see if I needed to go and close it. Then I was hit by something across the side of my head. Not enough to knock me out, but enough to stun me and knock me off my chair. Something was thrown over my head. I’m not sure what – a coat or a blanket. Something fairly heavy. I was being held down, didn’t know what the hell was happening. Then I felt my sleeve being pulled up and something jabbed into my arm, like an injection.’

‘Exactly like an injection, it seems,’ McKay said. ‘Apparently you were injected with a drug.’

‘So the doctor told me. I can’t remember anything after that till I recovered consciousness here.’ He paused. ‘So what happened to Kelly Armstrong?’

‘That’s the question,’ McKay said. ‘Or it’s one question among many. All we can tell you is that shortly after that, we received an anonymous emergency call informing us that a body had been found at your father’s house. We almost dismissed it as a hoax given the address, but luckily for you PC Billy McCann took it seriously.’

‘It seems to be one of his qualities,’ Forres said. ‘It’s stood me in good stead so far.’

‘As for what happened to Kelly Armstrong, that’s a mystery at the moment. She wasn’t mentioned in the call and there was no sign of her at the house. We can check with Billy McCann but I think he’d have reported her presence.’

McKay looked thoughtful. ‘You say you were held down after you were struck. How many people do you think were holding you?’

‘It’s difficult to say. The blow had left me disorientated, and I couldn’t see. But probably only one person. Someone who was holding my shoulders and arms. I remember trying to kick out with my feet, so they were still free.’

‘What about the injection?’ Horton asked. ‘Could that have been administered by the person holding you?’

‘I don’t think so. They were pressing down on my upper arms with both of theirs. I don’t think they could have got a hand free to inject me as well.’

‘So it sounds as if at least two people were involved in the assault.’

‘Are you suggesting that this Kelly Armstrong might have been involved?’ Forres said.

‘I’m suggesting nothing at the moment. But either she was involved or she’s in trouble.’

‘But why would they drug me but then kidnap her?’ Forres asked. ‘It makes no kind of sense.’

‘None of this seems to make much sense, Mr Forres. That’s why we need as much information as you can provide.’

‘I’ll get someone onto tracking down Kelly Armstrong,’ Horton said. ‘We should still have her details on file. As far as I’m aware she still lives in Cromarty with her parents.’ She rose and left the room.

‘Whatever the precise circumstances,’ McKay said to Forres, ‘someone attacked and drugged you. Have you any idea why anyone would want to do that, Mr Forres?’

‘No idea at all.’

‘Sometimes we make enemies without even realising we’ve done it. One of my own qualities, to be honest.’ McKay paused for a moment. ‘How much do you know about your father’s business.’

‘Not much, really. He never really talked about it.’

‘But you must have had an idea what his work involved.’

‘To be honest, not much.’ Forres was silent for a moment. ‘I suppose, as I got older I began to suspect it was something not entirely kosher.’

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘I honestly can’t remember. Something he said to me, or something someone else said about it. It was one of those things that starts as the germ of a thought and gradually expands to fill your head.’

‘You were maybe a bit excited by the idea and proud of him at the time?’ McKay suggested. ‘That sort of thing can seem a thrill when you’re a teenager.’

‘It never really felt like that. I remember mostly being scared by the idea.’

‘But you never talked to him about it?’

‘It just made me want to know less about what he might be up to. It almost became a superstitious thing. As long as I didn’t know about any of it, it couldn’t harm me. Or him.’

‘Did you remain on good terms with your father?’

‘We had the usual teenage son/father fallouts, but never anything that lasted or was serious. He was a fairly reserved individual, but there was no bad blood between us.’

‘You didn’t think you ought to report your father for his business activities?’

‘Report what? I’d no information, no evidence of anything. Nothing but gossip and hearsay. Even if I’d felt any inclination to do something, you wouldn’t have taken any notice of me.’

‘What if I told you his business activities included human trafficking and modern slavery?’

‘I’d say you were lying. I don’t know what kind of business Dad was involved in, but it wasn’t anything like that.’

‘Probably not directly, no. From what we know of your father’s business, he never really dirtied his hands with that sort of activity. But we think that he knowingly dealt with people who did.’

‘I can’t believe it. I’d envisaged a lot of things, but nothing like that.’

‘Something a little more romantic, maybe.’ McKay sat back in his seat, watching Forres’s reaction. Unless he was a very skilled actor, it was clear that he was genuinely shocked by what McKay had said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being more blunt than I’d intended. But we have three deaths, not to mention the assault on you, so I think it’s time for me to be straight.’

‘If he did deal with people like that, Dad wouldn’t have known what they were up to. Anyway, if there is anything in this, why didn’t you ever take action against him?’

‘Plenty of people slip through the net, for good or ill. We looked at your father’s businesses a few times, but, to be honest, there were always bigger fish to fry. If we’d have arrested your father, it would have been as a route to some of the more significant players, but the right combination of circumstances never arose.’

‘So you’ve no real evidence for what you’re saying?’

‘Not enough for a case that would satisfy the Fiscal, let’s put it that way. But enough for me. I’m sorry if this is a shock.’

‘So you think this is what’s behind his death?’

‘I honestly don’t know. Whatever the nature of his business, your father was retired. If this was connected to his past, I don’t know why someone would have acted now. But we can’t ignore what we know of his background.’

‘What you claim to know of his background.’ Forres was beginning to sound defeated now, his initial bravado fading in the face of McKay’s assertions. McKay wondered whether Forres had known or suspected more about his father’s business dealings than he was prepared to admit.

‘I’m not going to push it,’ McKay said. ‘Let’s just say there are some secrets in your father’s past that could provide a motive for his death. The same’s maybe true of the other killings we’re dealing with.’

‘You said three deaths,’ Forres said. ‘I’m assuming one is the body that was found just before Christmas. Has there been another?’

‘Another that we think might be linked, yes. The victim had a similar background to your father’s.’

‘What about me, though? I was attacked too. Whatever you might claim about my father, I can tell you none of that applies to me.’

‘You’re still living and breathing. Which strikes me as interesting.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I. Someone attacks you, injects you with a potentially fatal drug, leaves you apparently for dead. But calls us anonymously so we find your comatose body. According to the doc, the dose you were given, although substantial, seems to have been carefully calibrated not to kill you.’

Before McKay could say anything more, the door opened and Horton peered in. ‘The good news is we’ve tracked down Kelly Armstrong. The bad news is that what she’s saying just seems to raise more questions.’

McKay looked back at Forres. ‘Looks like we may have to leave you for the moment. I understand your wife and children should be here very shortly.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry if this has all been a shock. All I can tell you is that what I’ve said is the truth.’ He wasn’t sure what else to say. Finally, he simply repeated, ‘I’m sorry.’