It was an unpleasant kill for Calum MacLean. Whole thing feels wrong. Counter-intuitive. Dressing up as a cop and picking the guy up in the city in the evening. Taking this long with the whole damn thing. Depending on Kenny McBride to dig the grave properly, something he has spectacularly failed to do. Kenny’s a good driver, but that’s all he is. And now he’s stopped digging, just because Calum’s pulled the trigger. Now is when he should be hurrying up. Not how Calum would have done it, if he was freelance. But he isn’t, any more. He doesn’t get to decide. Peter Jamieson does.
‘Keep digging,’ Calum’s saying quietly, ‘I have this.’
He’s using the towel on the back of the head to stop the blood-spray. He doesn’t want one drop going further than the tarpaulin that Richard Hardy will be wrapped and buried in. They need to move fast. Make the assumption that someone heard the gunshot and that you’re racing against the clock.
Unlikely anyone heard it, though. Calum picked the location for that reason. This has been his go-to location for a burial in bad circumstances for a while. Long way from the road, away from any occupied buildings. He was keeping it as his place to use for a daytime killing, on the assumption that such a killing might occur. This isn’t daytime, but it is still unusual and worthy of this precaution. He came out here and found the place on the first visit. Came back two weeks later and checked the barn, made sure it wasn’t in use. Didn’t look like it, but you have to know. He broke in, which involved nothing more than shouldering the rotten side door, and looked around. Big holes in the roof, and completely empty. Not in use. A safe place, if such a thing exists. At least the location’s right.
Nothing else about this night is right. Calum’s pressing the towel down against the wound, not letting the blood flow out. Holding it tight as he presses the old man down into the tarp and rolls him gently onto his side. Going through his pockets. Car keys, a wallet and a few coins. No mobile. Calum noted the fidgety fingers letting it drop onto the driver’s seat of the car back at the office. An ageing man in a nervous hurry to help the police. The wallet and keys Calum takes, the coins he leaves. He’s lifting the tarp up and wrapping it around Hardy from both sides, creating the burial sheet. Hope ful he’s done enough to make sure that no blood escapes before Richard Hardy’s put in the ground. The tarp will serve another purpose, now that Kenny’s proven his incompetence as a gravedigger. It should keep the smell in for longer. It really doesn’t look like a deep grave, which it should be. Shallow graves are for the unprofessional.
‘Right, that’ll do,’ Calum’s saying to Kenny. There’s a last lazy swipe of the shovel from the driver, and now he’s placing it on top of the mud pile he’s created. Clambering out of the grave, not watching where he’s going. Stumbling, exhausted. He has no sense of caution. No sense that even muddy boot prints could be a giveaway. Someone walks a dog through the area, past the barn; sees the boot prints, realizes they’re fresh. They go over and poke around, see the disturbed ground where Kenny hacked the turf. It could happen. But Calum won’t criticize Kenny. Not to his face, anyway. He’s a driver. He chauffeurs Peter Jamieson, their boss, around. He delivers stuff. This is way out of his league. He was obviously shocked when John Young, Jamieson’s right-hand man, told him he’d be working the job with Calum. A little horrified. He’s done it, though. Done it to the best of his ability, such as it is. He probably hasn’t seen a hit up close before. Hasn’t been involved in something this tense. That excuses his nerves.
Kenny’s plodding across towards Calum and the body. Looking to Calum for guidance. Calum has to lead the way. He’s the one who’s been here before. The one who knows how this works. He also appears to be completely at ease. No obvious nerves. No sweating, no shaking, no quivering voice. Seems like it’s no big deal for him.
‘You take the legs,’ Calum’s saying.
Kenny’s reaching down, grabbing the tarp in his hands. He’s starting to drag it a little. Then he’s startled by the raised voice.
‘No,’ Calum’s saying, louder than intended. ‘Don’t drag. You’ll leave a mark. Lift it up; carry it clear of the ground.’
Kenny’s doing what he’s told. Struggling to lift, the sweat running off him. But being obedient. What else can you do in this position? He’s conflicted, and it probably shows. He needs to do a good job, because he doesn’t want a bad report going back to Jamieson. Last thing he needs is to lose his job, especially now that they’re moving against Shug Francis. At the same time he doesn’t want to do such a good job that this becomes a regular thing. Please, God, let this be a one-off.
They’re lifting Hardy up now, carrying him across to the grave. Placing him down at the graveside. Calum’s starting to sweat a little now. Not used to manual labour. Burials like this aren’t common. Most of his jobs have been gun and run. This is how it’s going to be from now on. When you’re the lead gunman for a major organization there’s a lot of cleaning up. His last kill had a burial too, but he doesn’t want to think about that now. Kenny’s moving to lift the body again–Calum’s stopping him.
‘No, get in the hole.’
‘What for?’ Kenny’s asking.
They’ve been through this before. Calum explained the whole thing to him last night, but Kenny’s ignored a lot of it. You have to dig the grave carefully at the top, to remove obvious traces. You have to dig the rest quickly, to reduce the amount of time spent at the barn. Reduce the time between the victim realizing what’s happening and the kill. You have to make sure that you leave no mark away from the hole. And you have to bury carefully.
‘We have to position him in a way that takes up as little space as possible. You know this,’ Calum’s saying, exasperated. He told Kenny last night. You make the body as small as possible. You pack the soil around it as tight as possible. That way, when you roll the turf back on top, it should look just like it did before you got there. It won’t, because the turf will be a mess. Hopefully it’ll knit together before the soil pushes up. A small mound will form, but you hope that by then the turf will heal and it’ll look natural. It’s why you always try to bury on bumpy ground. Calum explained all this last night, and he doesn’t like having to say it again. Not now. A good sidekick doesn’t need a second set of instructions.
‘Fine,’ Kenny’s saying. He’s dropping carefully back into the hole. Ready for Calum to pass the body down.
Getting a grip of a dead weight wrapped in slippery material is a nightmare. This isn’t going to be dignified. Lifting Hardy, and taking a little baby-step to the edge of the grave. Ready to pass him down to Kenny, who has the easy part here anyway. He can just drop Richard and shove him into a corner.
‘I’m going to get mud on my clothes,’ Kenny’s saying now.
Bloody hell! They’ve been through this, too. ‘You’re going to get rid of every stitch you’re wearing,’ Calum’s saying, with a wheeze.
Kenny has a loose grip of the body, but it’s firmer than Calum’s. Calum’s let go, Kenny’s holding the body for all of half a second, pulling it backwards and letting it drop with a thump onto the soil. There’s a moment of relief for both of them. Familiar for Calum; a new experience for Kenny. It always comes when the body is in the grave. It’s that sense that you’ve broken the back of the challenge you faced. The hardest part done.
Kenny’s making a meal of moving the body. All he has to do is shove it over to the corner. The grave’s four feet deep at most. It’s almost circular, and not a fine example of Scottish engineering. There’s already a dent where part of one wall has fallen in. Calum’s shaking his head, preparing himself for the next part. Kenny’s oblivious to this. Trying to shove the lump inside the tarpaulin with his boot. Shoulders and arms burning from the effort of digging. Sliding the body across to the closest resemblance to a corner that this grave has. It’s the deepest point. He thinks he’s done.
‘No,’ Calum’s saying. ‘On his side. Push him right up against the wall. Flat as possible.’
Kenny’s sighing, but not complaining. He’s the junior man. The junior man doesn’t complain. He gets on with the job, no matter how bad. Get this done, go home and forget about it. That’s what he keeps telling himself. It’s a one-off. Doesn’t matter if you hate it. You’ll never have to do it again.
He’s right–he’ll never have to do it again. As Kenny’s bending over, shoving the body against the wall, Calum is taking his gun again from his inside coat pocket. He’s standing at the edge of the grave, just above Kenny. Calum’s dropping down to his haunches. Watching. Waiting for the right moment. Kenny is ducking slightly again, pressing the tarpaulin as tight to the body as possible. Now. Calum’s extending an arm. Kenny’s head is almost at knee height. An easy shot into the temple. Louder this time. Much more likely to be blood-spray. That’s the risk. Watching Kenny slump forward, face into the wall of mud. Calum dropping down beside him, pulling Kenny’s body from the wall. Laying him out and rolling him onto his side. Checking every pocket, making sure they’re as empty as Kenny was instructed to keep them. Pushing the body up against Hardy’s. Pulling the edge of Hardy’s tarp around Kenny. It needed a deeper grave for two bodies. Kenny should have seen this coming. Should have realized. This is what happens to a grass.