They split up at the Stirling Highland Hotel, Simon heading through the car park for the Back Walk so he could loop around the church and approach from the cemetery. It had been his idea, and Connor knew he was testing him – trust me to cover your rear. Connor had agreed: he wanted to believe in Simon and their friendship, but trust wasn’t the issue. If he came in from the rear, it split up him and Jameson, meaning Connor could deal with them individually rather than together. He felt a momentary pang of regret at leaving his gun with Paulie, then pushed it aside. A gun was a coward’s weapon, and this was better dealt with by hand.
He stopped at the gate to the Holy Rude, the rain-slicked cobbles gleaming in the streetlights. There was no sign of the police or the violence that had been committed there, which made sense – Stirling might have a history steeped in blood and violence, but tourists tended to prefer more romantic reminders than decapitated corpses and blood-stained grass.
He walked up to the gate slowly, felt no surprise that it was open. Stepped into the gloom, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the light, then moved up the curved lane, aware of the hedges to his left that led to the bowling green, which dated all the way back to the sixteenth century. He kept walking, following the path as it swept gently left, past the Holy Rude and towards the hospital.
As he approached, a shadow peeled itself from the darkness pooling around the building and stepped forward. Connor kept his eyes on Lachlan Jameson, stopping to force his boss to come to him and move away from the old stone steps that led up to the graveyard, buying Simon more time.
‘Ah, Connor,’ Jameson called, as though they had run into each other on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. ‘I must say, you picked a hell of a night for it.’
‘Why, Lachlan?’ Connor felt as though the rain should evaporate into steam as it touched him, boiled away by the rage that coursed through him. ‘Why kill those three people? And why drag me into it?’
Jameson smiled, a predatory leer Connor had never seen before. He shook his head as he stopped, Connor tensing as he reached into his pocket. ‘Business, dear boy,’ he said, as he held aloft another copy of the book he had used to torment him. ‘Merely business. A client came to me asking for a job to be done, a message to be sent. The means of sending that message was left to me. Judging by the reaction, it was definitely effective.’
Connor felt frustration blend with his anger, turning it into something darker, more feral. He itched to lunge forward, grab Jameson and squeeze the answers he wanted out of him. ‘But why the book? Why stir up all that shite with Jonny Hughes if you wanted to keep your part in it quiet? You should have known something like that would only make me look into all this. And you should also have known I’d work it out eventually.’
Jameson’s smile intensified, and Connor felt a trickle of unease that was only fuelled when the other man nodded with a gleeful chuckle. ‘Ah, Connor, you’re good, very good. Always have been. But you’re missing the big picture. After all, I never said how many clients I had, did I?’
Connor cursed his sloppiness even as he whirled to his left, a sudden blur of movement from the darkness snapping his focus away from Jameson’s attempt at distraction. Cold agony, as bright as a star, exploded in his leg and he lurched backwards, clutching his thigh and feeling the world sway as blood coated his hand.
Shock shattered his thoughts as his past stepped into the light, the knife gleaming. And suddenly he understood. Simon had been wrong. Someone else would understand the message of the book, someone else who knew what Jonny Hughes had done and how Connor had reacted.
‘’Bout ye, Connor?’ Amy Hughes asked, her smile mirroring Jameson’s. ‘Been a while. You’re looking well on it, though. Well, apart from that.’ She gestured towards him with the knife.
‘Fuck! Connor!’
Connor whirled, the world heaving and swaying as his head snapped right, just in time to see Simon race down the steps from the graveyard. Connor tried to call out, warn him, but it was too late. Focused on getting to his injured friend, Simon gave Jameson all the time he needed. He stepped into Simon’s path, driving a crashing fist into his cheek and sending him tumbling to the ground. Even over the static hiss of the rain, Connor heard the dry, twig-like snap of Simon’s jaw, saw the knuckle-dusters glint on Jameson’s hand like obscene jewels as he pulled back his fist and turned to face him.
‘Connor, meet one of my other clients, Amy Hughes. I believe you knew her husband, Jonny, had some dealing with him. Amy was very keen that I talk to you and Simon about that, and what happened the night you visited their home. And now here we all are.’
Connor smiled. ‘What happened? Marriage counselling not work out for you?’
‘Fuck you!’ Amy spat. ‘You cost us everything! Jonny was a fuck-up, but he loved me, made sure we were provided for. Then you came along and beat the fuck out of him over a cheap hoor, and that’s him. You fucking ruined him, made him look weak. No one wanted him to deal for them after that, said he was a fucking embarrassment. Weak. You fucking pig cunt!’
She lunged forward with the knife and Connor collapsed against the church wall, rain-slicked granite driving icy needles into his back and shoulders. He focused on the sudden chill, tried to use it to clear his thoughts, calm the white noise of pain, confusion and rage.
‘You okay, Connor? Watch your step. Last thing we want is you slipping and breaking your neck. Been enough death here recently, hasn’t there?’
The knife rose slowly, flaring orange as it caught the glow from a streetlight overhead.
Connor braced himself against the wall, tried to draw strength from the ancient stone. ‘Come on, then,’ he hissed, dragging his gaze from her eyes, trying to focus through the growing fog in his mind. ‘I’ve not got all night, and this is getting fucking boring.’
‘Mr Take Charge, huh, Connor? I always liked that about you.’ A glance down at the knife. ‘Well, if you insist.’
Connor pushed off the wall as hard as he could when Amy lunged, using inertia to make up for the weakness in his leg. They collided in a tangle of limbs and fell to the cobbled ground, writhing. Connor’s leg was engulfed in agony as he jerked the wrong way, the sudden pain forcing another scream from him. He felt small, hard fingers scrabble across his face and twisted away, eyes searching desperately for the knife. He grabbed for it, felt Amy’s crazed strength behind the blade, inching it closer, closer, to his face.
He took another breath, tasted blood at the back of his throat, and gripped the arms that were quivering with the effort of driving the knife towards his face. He thought about letting go for an instant, the knife digging into the soft flesh under his chin, the blade slicing sideways and down to tear open his windpipe, blood and gristle splattering onto the cobbles. He could let it end with him. Let his blood be the last.
But then he looked to his side, saw Simon sprawled on the ground, Jameson looming over him. Simon, who had been manipulated as Connor had been, all to fulfil a deranged woman’s perverted lust for revenge.
No fucking way.
He snapped his head straight ahead, focusing on Amy Hughes’s face. It was a mask of hatred, teeth bared, eyes dark pits as she used her weight to try to force the knife down.
Connor let it happen. He released his grip, darted his head to the right, dragging Amy forward with the sudden momentum, the knife biting into the cobbles. Drove his hips up, bucking her, adding to her speed. He whipped his head to the side, crashing his forehead into her temple with a sickening crunch that detonated a shrapnel grenade of agony in his mind. Amy screamed and slumped to the right, Connor following her. He grabbed for the knife, his fingers thick and clumsy, the world swaying and nausea squeezing his gut. With the blood loss and the blow to the head, he had to finish this. Fast.
Grabbing the knife, he reversed it, drove the butt into Amy’s other temple. She gave a gargling grunt, blood exploding from her mouth in a fine, warm spray that peppered Connor’s face. Then her head lolled forward, eyelids fluttering over glassy eyes that were filling with the rain.
Connor watched her breathe, blood bubbling on her lips. Then he got to his feet slowly, his good leg screaming at being forced to take his weight, his wounded leg strangely numb.
‘Bravo, Connor,’ Jameson called, stepping over Simon and approaching him. ‘I was sure you’d get the best of Mrs Hughes, but it was entertaining to watch.’
‘Fuck you,’ Connor snarled, closing one eye to focus on him, thinking. He needed him angry if he had any chance of ending this. ‘You’re fucking diseased, Lachlan. You kill three people to save a minister’s career, then drag me into it to get revenge for a clapped-out gangster’s ex? Christ, how the hell did she make you agree to that? Or did she go the extra mile to seal the deal?’
‘How fucking dare you?’ Jameson spat, and lunged. He killed for money and pleasure, but by insulting his professionalism, Connor had made it personal.
Connor staggered back, feeling his leg threaten to give way as he dodged Jameson’s blind swing. He took a firmer grip on the knife, held it butt forward, the blade tight against his forearm.
Jameson turned, took a moment to aim, swinging for the open target Connor had left him. Connor dropped low, letting his leg give way and drag him down, then whipped the knife out, drawing a long slash across Jameson’s exposed midriff. Ignoring the pain, he drove up and forward, charging Jameson, pinning his arms to his sides in a bear hug and sending him stumbling backwards. He felt breath on the top of his head, hot as Jameson thrashed and writhed, trying to free himself.
No fucking chance.
Connor tightened his grip, put everything he had into it as he kept charging forward. Jameson, off balance, lost his footing and fell backwards, breath erupting from him as he hit the hard cobbles.
Connor reared up, a blood-streaked god in the rain-soaked shadows. He dropped the knife and drove his fist forward, splinters of teeth stabbing into his knuckles as he felt the back of Jameson’s head bounce off the stone ground, the shock juddering up his arm, like a gun’s recoil. ‘Fucking bastard!’ he roared, hitting him again. Jameson’s nose exploded, the crack reverberating deep in Connor, a cry to action for the part of himself he hated. He threw punch after punch, selecting targets on instinct – cheekbones, jaw, eye sockets, temples. As he struck Jameson, his mind was a kaleidoscope of pain – his mother’s funeral, his gran’s pleading confusion, the loathing he felt when he thought about what Jonny Hughes had made him become, the loss of . . .
He whirled as a hand fell on his shoulder, lashing out with a wild left.
‘Fuck, man, easy,’ Simon said, his words mangled by his obliterated jaw, his eyes glittering and over-bright. Connor could see he was going into shock.
‘That’s enough, Connor,’ Simon drawled. ‘Leave him now. Not worth it.’
Connor looked down at Jameson. His face was a bloodied, pitted ruin, the scaffolding that had held his features in place shattered by Connor’s blows. He tried to feel guilt, then looked back at Simon and knew he never would.
He staggered back, the act of getting to his feet robbing him of the last of his strength. Sat down, hard, the pain of the landing bringing his thoughts into focus. He fumbled for his belt and looped it round his leg, pulling it tight in a rough tourniquet. Grabbed his phone, squinted against the gathering dark as he looked for the number he needed. He hit call, then waited for an answer.
‘Ford? It’s Connor Fraser. You wanted that update? Cowane’s Hospital. Now. And if you could bring an ambulance . . .’
He let the phone fall to the cobbles without waiting for an answer, then looked at Simon. Fingers of guilt prodded him, even through the shock and the pain. ‘Sorry, man,’ he whispered. ‘I should have trusted you.’
Simon shook his head, eyes still over-bright. Concussion. Definitely. ‘No,’ he whispered, voice fading. ‘You shouldn’t. Rule one, Connor. Even though it’s peace time, always check under the car.’
Connor leant forward to catch him as he toppled forward. He held him close, refusing to let his body touch the cold cobbles greased with Jameson’s blood, and forced himself to ignore the warm blanket of unconsciousness that threatened to wrap itself around him.
Instead he listened to the sound of the rain.
And waited.