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‘The Black Watch. We both served, just at different times, Ross being so many years older than me,’ said Max.
‘Not that much older, you cheeky bugger. You being a sniper explains many things,’ said Ross.
‘Like?’ said Max.
‘Ice cold, detached and calculatingly evil, I’d say.’ Ross smirked.
‘Is he coming?’ said Max.
‘Who?’
‘Mr Wakefield.’
‘Imminently, I’m told. He wants to talk to us as soon as he arrives. He sounds a bit stressed.’
‘How about the DCC?’ said Janie.
‘Not sure. I think as it was her call to ignore us, she’ll be getting her ducks all in a row. I suspect, she’ll be looking to shift the blame our way. Well, she can piss off. I know how to defend myself, and I keep records.’
‘You reckon the Chief is aware?’ said Max.
‘He is. He’s messaged me to say that he’s keeping abreast of events and wants updating later. He never switches off, and I suspect he’s watching the news with a G and T in his mitt. He won’t be happy; in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s currently looking at flight options.’
Max just shrugged, his mind still on Katie’s last words. She’d eventually hugged him and told him to go to work, but the atmosphere had been thick and tense between them. Pregnant. He was going to be a father. A dad.
‘Max, what’s up with you? Away with the fucking fairies, man.’ Ross’s sarcasm-laden voice jolted him back to the present.
‘Sorry, I was miles away, what was that?’ said Max. He knew he had to focus on the task at hand. Personal matters would have to wait.
‘Switch on, man. I need you firing on what few rusty and corroded cylinders you have left operational. I was saying that you’re going to have to have all your answers ready about where you got the initial info from, you know that, right?’ Ross stared at him with hard eyes.
‘Aye, of course,’ he said, wondering if it was true.
‘Anyway, look out, here comes a rather pissed-off-looking DCS Wakefield,’ said Janie, nodding towards the makeshift car park that was already overloaded with marked and unmarked cop cars.
Wakefield was a lean, grey-haired officer, who was wearing a well-cut blue suit and carrying an A4 notebook. Trailing in his wake was a harassed-looking officer whom Max recognised as Malky Douglas, a short and stocky cop in his late thirties whom he’d worked with when he first came to Scotland. Max nodded at Malky, who nodded back, his face flushed as he almost juggled with various notebooks, and preformatted logs. Being the Chief Superintendent’s ‘bag man’ could be a good career move, but it wasn’t without its share of problems.
‘Ross, what the hell is happening here? I hear one of your people was up here with a drone of all fucking things. Didn’t I make myself clear that you were to have no involvement in this operation?’ His face was hard, but his eyes told the real story. He was worried.
Ross clearly wasn’t in any mood for a dressing-down.
‘Shall we take this conversation elsewhere, Miles?’ said Ross, the picture of icy calm.
‘Ross, I just want to know how your man, whoever he bloody is,knew to be here,’ said Wakefield, nodding at Malky and making a writing gesture with his hand, indicating that he needed his bag man to start logging. The old adage ‘if it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen’ was never more relevant in high-profile cases such as this one. Malky uncapped his pen, opened one of the log books and began scribbling.
‘Well, Barney is actually a freelance technical expert. Just by coincidence he was testing a new drone in the area, as it’s pretty bleak here. He saw the activity on the loch so decided to use it as an exercise to ascertain the drone’s performance and capabilities. It works great, if you want to see the footage.’ Ross nodded to where Barney was standing, a roll-up in his mouth and smoke wisping from his nostrils.
Wakefield’s eyes narrowed, clearly planning his next move. ‘I’m not happy about this, Ross,’ he said after a pause.
‘Can’t say I’m ecstatic either, pal, but we are where we are. Now do you want our help? I don’t want to pull the “we told you so” card, but I think that it’s on record that the Policing Standards Reassurance Team made our suspicions clear that Hardie wasn’t playing with a straight bat. What we didn’t expect was a fucking sniper to blow his and his solicitor’s heads off.’
Wakefield exhaled despairingly, and rubbed his temples with his free hand. ‘The press are gonna go mad for this, Ross. Gangster taken from jail to expose high-level corruption gets murdered with his lawyer during escape attempt. It’s like something from an implausible Hollywood film.’
‘Shall I add the murder of Jack Slattery at Saughton into the mix, as well?’ said Ross.
‘Oh, bloody hell, that gets more significance in the light of this, doesn’t it? One of Hardie’s people murdered within twenty-four hours of this even if it looked like a typical hit on an ex-cop by a con with nothing to lose.’
‘Sorry, nothing to lose?’ said Janie.
