Blindside Read online

  He went down to his study and called Melanie Stark. It was early evening in Kansas. He had no idea what he was going to say to her.

  ‘Alex,’ she said, her voice a flat monotone.

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘You know …’ She faded into silence.

  Cahill did know.

  ‘It takes time,’ was what he said.

  A cliché. Still, it was true.

  ‘Why are you calling? It must be late there.’

  Cahill looked at the clock on his desk. ‘It’s after one. But that doesn’t matter, I was working anyway. Have you spoken any more to the police or anyone else?’

  ‘No. There’s no reason to, is there? Tim’s dead. That’s what you told me.’

  ‘But don’t you want to know why, or what he was doing on that plane?’

  ‘I thought I did. But I’m not so sure any more. What good would it do? I mean, what if I find out he was mixed up in something … bad? Then what?’

  ‘That won’t happen. I know Tim.’

  ‘Maybe nobody really knew him.’

  ‘Melanie …’

  ‘Bye, Alex.’

  He sat at his desk, clenching and unclenching his fists, wanting to hit something. He’d known too many people who had died. And he couldn’t shake the anger he felt about this. About what they were doing to the memory of a good man. And his family.

  He didn’t like not knowing. Hated being lied to and bullied, which was how he felt now after the call from Boston. It wasn’t just Melanie Stark’s problem now. It was his.

  And maybe he would make it someone else’s problem.

  6

  Tuesday

  Irvine went to Liam Moore’s room and knocked on his open door. He beckoned her in with a wave of his hand, not looking away from his computer screen. She sat and waited while he typed something on his keyboard. Irvine had not yet worked out if Moore was always in the middle of something when she wanted to speak to him or if he pretended to be so that he could make her wait. Maybe he was checking his Twitter account.

  ‘How did it go yesterday with the SCDEA thing?’ he asked eventually, pushing the keyboard forward and resting his arms on the desk.

  ‘It was a long day.’

  ‘Anything you need from me?’

  ‘No. It’s too early to really know where the investigation is going.’

  He watched her silently.

  ‘They’re retaining overall control of the investigation, right? I mean, the SCDEA.’

  ‘Yes. They’re happy for me to lead on the latest victim. The girl.’

  ‘Territorial boundaries and all that. Plus, they think they’re better than regular cops. Hand-picked, you know?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I appreciate that boundaries are not your strong point, Becky.’

  She smiled. He did not.

  ‘Try to play nice, okay? Stay out of trouble.’

  ‘Sure.’ She frowned. ‘Of course I will.’

  Armstrong had changed and washed his hair but the stubble was still in place, grown heavier overnight. It looked like he didn’t need much time for a full growth to develop.

  ‘You going for a beard?’ she asked.

  He rubbed at his chin.

  ‘If it was good enough for Serpico …’

  ‘So what’s the plan for this morning?’ she asked.

  ‘Chase up the lab results,’ he said. ‘Talk to the uniforms. See what shakes loose.’

  ‘See what shakes loose?’ She squinted at him. ‘Kenny Armstrong, LAPD.’

  ‘You’re a little weird. And potentially very annoying.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She beamed at him.

  Armstrong took a large bite out of a chocolate muffin. Crumbs stuck in his beard and he wiped them away with his hand.

  ‘Uniforms are here,’ he told her. ‘They’re downstairs.’

  ‘When were you going to tell me this?’

  ‘I just did.’

  Irvine called down to the main reception and asked them to direct the officers to her desk. When two men came on to the floor she raised a hand in greeting and they started over.

  ‘DC Irvine?’ the taller of the two male officers asked.

  ‘That’s me. And this is DS Armstrong.’

  Nods all round. The uniforms took their hats off and set them on the empty desk next to Irvine’s then pulled up two spare chairs to sit down. It looked to Irvine like the taller man was probably in his mid-thirties and the shorter one not yet out of his twenties. They were both lean, with short brown hair.

  ‘You responded to the call-out yesterday morning, right?’ Armstrong said. ‘The body in the river. Joanna Lewski.’

  ‘Yes,’ the taller one answered again. ‘She called herself Tanya. For the punters, you know. I guess she thought it was exotic.’

  ‘And you arrested her before. When was that?’

  The taller man lifted a plain file and placed it on the desk in front of Irvine. She hadn’t even noticed he had been carrying it. She opened the file and skimmed the arrest report.

  ‘Picked her up for soliciting down on Waterloo Street about nine months ago,’ the tall cop went on. ‘She was high as well and had some gear on her. Heroin.’

  ‘Says here that she got community service.’

  ‘Six weeks. And she did it, to be fair to her.’

  Irvine looked up at the man.

  ‘How is it that you remember her?’

  The man held Irvine’s gaze.

  ‘She was new. I could tell. And, well, she was just a wee thing, you know. I felt for her.’

  ‘You’ve been on the job how long?’

  ‘Does it never get to you?’

  Irvine had felt the same resentment of detectives herself when she had been on patrol. She looked back down at the file, finding an address for the girl south of the river in Bridgeton.

  ‘Who does she live with?’ Irvine asked.

  ‘Another girl. An older one. Real hard case name of Suzie Murray.’

  ‘Someone put her up in the flat to keep an eye on her while they got her started?’

  ‘That’s the way it works.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  Irvine slid the file to Armstrong who picked it up and sat it on his lap to look through it.

  ‘Any family here that we need to know about?’

  ‘No. Far as we know she came over here on her own.’

  ‘Seems awful young.’

  He shrugged.

  Irvine tapped a finger on the desk and bit at her lower lip.

  ‘I saw her later,’ the shorter man said.

  The tall one twisted in his seat to look at his partner. The short one stared at him.

  ‘When?’ Irvine asked.

  ‘Couple of weeks after she got sentenced. Her community service was helping clean graffiti, you know. I saw her and said hello. Asked how she was doing.’

  ‘Was she high?’

  ‘No. But she didn’t look too healthy.’

  Irvine glanced at the photograph of the girl in the file that Armstrong was holding. She was an attractive girl.

  Armstrong closed the file.

  ‘Anything else that might help us?’

  The two men looked at each other and shook their heads.

  After they were gone, Irvine asked Armstrong what he thought of the girl – and the reaction of the two uniformed officers. Armstrong flicked the file open nonchalantly and looked at the girl’s picture.

  ‘She looks young in this picture. Vulnerable. I can see why men would react to her.’

  ‘What, you’re not a man?’

  ‘I try to keep the job separate.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’

  The corner of Armstrong’s mouth twitched.

  ‘You heard of her room-mate, this Suzie Murray?’

  ‘Can’t say that it rings any bells. But I know the type.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘She’ll not be well disposed t
owards us.’

  7

  Cahill was late getting into the office. He walked past Logan’s room and raised a hand in greeting before going into his own room and closing the door. He took his jacket off and draped it over his seat, stood looking out of the window thinking that he should have stayed at home today.

  Cahill glanced at a photograph on the shelf by his desk – him and Tom Hardy in uniform in the desert with their arms around one another.

  He heard the door open and turned to see Logan come in wearing a pair of faded jeans and a navy blue shirt, open at the neck. Lately Logan had decided that he didn’t want to wear the CPO combats and polo shirt. It felt too much like a uniform. Cahill still wore his.

  ‘What’s up?’ Logan asked, seeing the fatigue in his friend’s face.

  ‘This thing in Denver …’

  Logan sat on the couch.

  ‘Is it that soldier thing?’ Logan asked. ‘You and Tim Stark.’

  ‘We didn’t serve together.’

  ‘No, but you know what I mean. Army, Secret Service. Same thing, right?’

  Cahill looked at the photograph again.

  ‘I know you, Alex. You’re pissed off at the attitude of the Feds and everyone else. You don’t like it when they give you the silent treatment. Just stirs you up even more.’

  Logan smiled, knew that he was right about it.

  ‘You’re saying I’m a stubborn bastard who likes to pick a fight?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Tim’s got a family. You know what that’s like – making sure that they don’t come to any harm?’

  Logan nodded. Knew all too well.

  ‘You think they’re in danger?’

  ‘Christ knows,’ Cahill said, standing. ‘But I’d hate to find out that anything had happened and I could have done something about it.’

  ‘You thinking of going over there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For how long? I mean, we’ve got contracts lined up here for the next six months.’

  ‘Tom can handle it. All the clients know him.’

  ‘This is for free?’

  ‘Of course. It’s for a friend.’

  ‘Well, if you feel that you need to do it, you should go.’

  Cahill nodded, staring at Logan.

  ‘What?’ Logan asked.

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘What do you need me for?’

  ‘Look, I know what I’m like. I fuck with people just to get a reaction. I only know one way of doing things and that’s to move forward. Pushing all the way.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you’re different. You know the … softer stuff. How to talk. Negotiate. This isn’t the kind of operation I usually handle so I might be a little bit out of my depth.’

  ‘And I won’t be?’

  ‘Sometimes when you say that you’re a lawyer I can see people change. The way they react to you. They get careful with their words.’

  ‘Not the cops. Not usually.’

  ‘It’s a different world now. It’s run by the lawyers, not soldiers. That’s where the power lies.’

  ‘You’re saying people don’t fear violence or action so much as a sharpened pencil?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Me? I’d rather have a gun.’

  ‘What’s this about a gun?’ Tom Hardy asked as he came into the room.

  ‘They threatened me, Tom,’ Cahill said. ‘Scott Boston called last night and made it plain that it would not be good for me to keep asking questions about Tim.’

  ‘Scott doesn’t know you too well, does he?’

  Cahill turned to Logan.

  ‘I’m going over there with or without you. Let me know your decision by the end of the day.’

  He left the room without saying anything else. Logan looked at Hardy.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea if you went with him,’ Hardy told Logan. ‘He’s not good when he’s in this kind of mood. And it’s been a while since I’ve seen him like that.’

  He walked to the door, pulling it open.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Logan said. ‘I mean, I’ve got Ellie and everything …’

  Hardy looked down and closed the door again.

  ‘This is where you repay some of that debt you’ve accumulated,’ he said. ‘This is how it works with us, you know?’

  Logan knew. And both Hardy and Cahill had done more for him than he could ever do for them. More than he could ever possibly repay in kind.

  ‘I understand, Tom.’

  ‘I’m asking as a personal favour. Go with him and make sure he doesn’t kill anybody. Or, at least, anybody he doesn’t have to.’

  8

  Logan went to find Cahill to tell him that he would go to Denver with him. He wasn’t anywhere in the office. Logan walked to the reception desk.

  ‘Did Alex leave?’ he asked the woman there.

  ‘A couple of minutes ago,’ she told him.

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘Said something about blowing off steam at the range.’

  Logan said thanks and went to the elevator to go down to the underground car park. He was hoping to catch Cahill before he left for the CPO gun range at their building on the south side of the river – an old warehouse on Scotland Street.

  Cahill’s car wasn’t in its usual spot so Logan got in his car and drove up the ramp to follow him.

  Logan used a remote control device to activate the electronic gate at the warehouse. He waited in the road as the metal gate slid smoothly open and saw Cahill’s car parked inside. He drove in and parked beside it, the gate closing behind him.

  The warehouse was not just a shooting range – it was also where CPO stored its armoury. The security at the site was tight. Logan punched a five-digit code into a keypad beside the metal entrance door. The light on the keypad turned green and Logan used his key to open the door.

  The building exterior was deliberately shabby. A Hollywood set decorator would have recognised the skill that had gone into making it look like that. Inside was a different story.

  Logan walked along a corridor with a polished concrete floor and clean, grey walls, turning right at the end. Spotlights embedded in the floor and recessed in the ceiling lit the way to another door with a keypad. Logan heard faint gunshot reports behind the door. The sound did not carry beyond the building’s walls.

  After entering a different code, Logan went into what looked like a large cupboard. He pushed at the rear wall and it opened into the range. The room was long and narrow with various weapons arranged neatly on mounts on the walls at either side of the door. Beyond that were two separate ranges, about twenty-five metres long with target boards on rails suspended from the ceiling. The targets could be moved along the rails via a control panel in the enclosed booths for each range.

  Logan had been here many times, but was still surprised at how loud the gunshots sounded in such an enclosed space. Cahill was in a classic shooting stance in the right-hand booth, firing at a target around fifteen feet from his position.

  Logan grabbed a pair of ear defenders and put them on. He waited behind Cahill until he had emptied his magazine at the target. It was never a good idea to surprise a man with a loaded weapon. Especially one in a mood like Cahill.

  Logan noticed from the number of bullet holes that Cahill had already fired a full clip at the same target.

  Cahill’s gun clicked on an empty chamber and he stood straight, ejecting the magazine from the handle of the weapon.

  ‘You mad at someone?’ Logan shouted, taking his ear defenders off.

  Smoke hung in the air around Cahill, the smell of cordite sharp in Logan’s nostrils.

  Cahill turned quickly, taking his own defenders off and putting them on the counter in front of him beside the gun.

  ‘I’m plenty mad,’ Cahill replied.

  ‘So what’s new?’ Logan smiled, trying to lighten the mood. He walked to the booth and pressed a button to bring the target closer.

&n
bsp; ‘Hasn’t affected your accuracy,’ Logan said, looking at the target with its close grouping of bullet holes.

  ‘The old man hasn’t lost it yet.’

  Cahill was the most accurate shooter in the team. He never lost a challenge. Logan was getting better all the time, and was now giving some of the others a close run in their challenges. Cahill encouraged competition – thought that it was a good way to maintain their edge outside of a real engagement. His plan was always to get into as few fights as possible. He knew from experience that no matter how good you were, bad luck had a way of catching up with you eventually.

  ‘You’re dead set on this mission of yours?’ Logan asked. ‘I mean, going over to Denver.’

  ‘I booked our flights last night.’

  Logan stared at him.

  ‘We leave at seven tomorrow morning. Sam’s getting the spare room ready for Ellie to come over tonight. It’s all set.’

  Logan looked at his watch – saw that it was not far off noon. Ellie would be at school for a few more hours yet and so there was nothing Logan could do about speaking to her just yet.

  ‘I’m that predictable?’ he asked, shaking his head.

  ‘Not predictable. Reliable.’

  ‘How long will we be away?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you’ve booked a hotel, right? I mean, we’ll have to stay somewhere.’

  ‘Sure. I booked somewhere in Downtown. It’s corporate and anonymous.’

  Cahill frustrated Logan sometimes.

  ‘How long did you book the hotel for?’

  ‘Three nights.’

  ‘You think that’ll be enough?’

  ‘If it’s not, we’ll extend the stay there or somewhere else.’

  Cahill spread his arms out.

  ‘If you don’t want to go …’ he said.

  ‘I’m going. Okay. I just …’

  Cahill waited. Logan sat down again.

  ‘I mean, I feel a little lost when I go into the field with any of you guys. It’s not me. I don’t know what to do. I’m a lawyer not a soldier.’