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‘Aye, literally this second, an email has come through from Heather Davies. They’ve a DNA hit from the fag butt by the loch. A team’s being scrambled now. He’s a nasty bastard, by all accounts. Name is Kyle Ellis, aged thirty-five. Born and raised in Manchester, a few juvenile convictions before joining the Army, where he served in the Grenadier Guards. He then got in the shit for topping an Afghan in questionable circumstances, went AWOL and then ended up in the French Foreign Legion, where he was a sniper and paratrooper. Was discharged from them with honour after serving his five-year contract and then went to ground, was thought to be somewhere in Europe, but clearly not right now, it seems.’
Bruce Ferguson popped into Max’s mind, and he felt a strange sense of relief. It was still possible that he had employed the sniper, but it didn’t feel likely. His first instinct that Bruce may be responsible had been strong, but looking at the mistakes that the sniper had made, it had been less and less likely. No way would ex–SBS sergeant major leave such a big trail of breadcrumbs, and he couldn’t see that Bruce would employ anyone so incompetent. It didn’t make sense. He pushed the thought away. ‘Where’s he from originally?’
‘Yorkshire, but not for a long time. MIT team are handling it, they’ll call us if they need us, but our priority is Frankie. Get back here now, we need to plan this properly, okay?’
‘On our way.’ Max hung up.
‘This is all gonna happen quickly, isn’t it?’ said Janie, starting the car.
‘Looks that way,’ said Max.
‘An on-the-run Légionétrangère, soldier and a maniac fixer killing people all over the place to protect a mysterious Mr Big.It’d be nice to have a small, simple and easy-to-manage job now and again, wouldn’t it?’ Janie engaged the gears, and moved off.
Max thought about Katie, sitting at home newly pregnant, as he was about to rush off on another hyper-urgent job. He closed his eyes and sighed, his beautiful wife’s face in his mind.
‘Aye, it would be nice. Let’s go.’
40
DROOPY SAT BACKin his Mondeo at the other end of the Shotts prison car park and watched as the Volvo containing DS Craigie and DC Calder moved away. One of his police contacts had told him about them both. Part of some covert team that looked into police corruption, but no one seemed to know much else. They smelled like trouble to him, and he’d learned to trust his instincts over the years. He wondered if they were the cops that brought the Hardies down. It would make sense, bearing in mind what had happened. He’d had no contact with any Hardie since the Polish girl, and he hadn’t closely followed the demise of Tam Hardie and his boys.
He smiled at the fact that his instinct was, once again, correct. After that idiot Almir Duka failed to finish Frankie, he knew that the cops would be called in, although he didn’t necessarily expect these two. His source in the police didn’t seem to know much about what was going down, so it seemed that Craigie and Calder were working on the downlow. That was bad news, as it almost certainly meant that Frankie was either talking, or was thinking about talking. This could make things far more difficult if they moved him to a secure facility to debrief him, but he doubted that Frankie knew that much, really. Davie had certainly known more as his boat had been used, but the kompromat held by old man Hardie would hopefully be out of reach now. He felt ninety per cent certain that they were in the clear.
Ninety per cent wouldn’t be good enough, that’s for sure. He needed to speak to The Ace.
He pulled out his phone, slotted in a new SIM card, and composed a message on WhatsApp.Need to speak, urgent.
The reply was instantaneous.What?
Final objective failed.
Within a minute, Droopy’s phone began to buzz with an incoming WhatsApp call from a totally new number.
‘Yes?’
‘What happened?’ came the voice. Deep and smooth, almost like melted chocolate.
‘Man on the inside failed. He’s locked down now, so no chance of a repeat and I have no more assets in Shotts. What can he know, anyway?’
‘I don’t know. Old man Hardie had proof of my involvement, which he would have handed on to Tam Junior, who may have passed it on to Davie. I can’t be sure of what Frankie knows. It’s too much of a risk, you need to sort it permanently.’
‘It’ll be expensive. If they move him out of jail to a covert facility, we may struggle to get to him.’
‘It costs what it costs. Get it sorted, how you do it is your business. This is the last link back to what happened six years ago, we need to excise this tumour, right now.’
‘As I said. Expensive. If he’s in a secure facility I won’t be able to do it on my own, even if I can find out where he’s being held. I’ll need a team.’
‘Listen, I don’t give a fuck. I’ll keep my ear to the ground. I’ll be getting some degree of a briefing on it at some point, and I may be able to assist, but you need to be ready to act. Know this, though. If I have to dig around and find out where he’s being held, it will affect your fee, so get on it, and find out where he is.’
‘I will,’ said Droopy, smiling. The man’s pugnacious attitude. He was easy to play, this idiot.
‘One more thing,’ said The Ace, his voice tight.
‘What?’
‘I just heard through the grapevine. The sniper has been identified. The idiot left a cigarette butt, and it’s been DNA matched. Some Foreign Legion man, or something. Every resource is being thrown at getting hold of him.’
‘They’ll not find him,’ said Droopy, his voice confident, but feeling a small flip in his stomach.
