Blood Whispers Read online

As the figure edged to the corner of the railings he glanced round and for a brief moment his face caught the spill from an overhead street lamp.

  It was the guy who’d been eyeballing him in the Holy Man’s pub: bawface Edi Leka.

  Jay-Go fumbled for his gun, but Edi Leka was already halfway down the road. When he reached the corner of Grudie and Shandwick a car drew up and Leka jumped in.

  Jay-Go wondered if the Holy Man had gone back on his word. Had he sent Leka to give him the bullet and retrieve the heroin?

  If‚ on the other hand‚ Leka was still working for Abazi then the Holy Man needed to know the bawfaced little shit was not to be trusted.

  He had no way of knowing for sure what had happened in his flat, but he could guess.

  The plan to distract the cops and grab the caballo was off the rails: it was time to go.

  Jay-Go broke from the shadows and, following Edi Leka’s route, sprinted down to the corner of Grudie Street.

  The only plan now was to keep running.

  Twenty-eight

  Marie Bain, Marie Leonard, Marie McGuire. The three names, in Bic-black ink, were scribbled on the last page of Sean McGuire’s diary. For twenty years they had faced the faded airline ticket to Niagara sandwiched between the last page and the inside cover of the schoolbook-style jotter.

  McGuire was a name from the past which for Keira brought with it ‘the darkness’. Whoever Marie was, she must have taken it on at some point.

  It didn’t really matter what she called herself – she was one and the same person, with a story that Keira wanted to hear.

  Keira had read the diary from cover to cover several times.

  It was filled with random notes, brief descriptions of events, lost now in the intervening years. There were sums jotted in the margins: additions and subtractions – none of them in any particular order and all of them with the dollar sign beside them. There were references to poems, mainly Irish writers with a page number and line, but without the collection or poem titles it was impossible to unravel any meaning from them. Two initials, ‘A’ and ‘H’, appeared on several pages, usually alongside the figures. And as Jay-Go had already pointed out, it looked as though these figures were references to drug deals, with Sean McGuire receiving a small percentage for watching A and H’s backs.

  The first section of the notebook had simple dates and brief descriptions of events:

  October 12th 1984. Arrived N.Y. 02.54am. Last connection to Birmingham Alab departed three hours ago. Nowhere to sleep.

  Finally arrive Alabama. October 15th. Another five hours on the train till Tuscaloosa.

  It wasn’t until the last few pages, dated simply Easter ’92, that the more revealing comments and descriptions came:

  No point running to save your life, if your life isn’t worth saving. Called Lep. Not sure it was the right move, but feel relieved. If they kill me at least I’m moving forward.

  From that point on there were lots of references to Northern Ireland and to someone called ‘M’, whom Keira presumed to be Marie. One of the final entries referred to her uncle, Danny McGuire:

  Danny is here! Lep must have passed on the message, but it has cost him his life.

  There was a passage Keira had read over and over again trying to figure out the meaning:

  The full tragedy unfolds. Held Danny for the first time in eight years. They’ve sent him here to kill me: my own brother! I am not the Thevshi.

  Then the most chilling entry of all: one name scribbled in the margin and overwritten so many times it had almost made a hole through the paper. There was a large question mark in red ink beside it:

  Owen O’Brien.

  Seeing the name of the man she had killed made her want to throw up. Her face flushed in a sweat and her hands began to shake. It was several minutes before she regained her composure enough to close the jotter and place it on the bedside cabinet. She hadn’t had a panic attack like this for several years now. When the nausea finally subsided, she lay back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling until eventually she drifted off to sleep.

  Keira started to organize the entries into a timeline. She felt that if she could structure the diary by making it into some kind of narrative she would have control over it. It was a coping mechanism, a way of losing herself. She had drawn up a list of people and outlined areas that she wanted to explore further. It was no different from building a case or compiling evidence for the defence in a trial. She noted straight away that Sean McGuire had entered the United States on 12 October 1984, seven and a half months before she was born. So it was still possible that he had left Northern Ireland without knowing that her mother, Orlaith, was pregnant. For every question answered, another five presented themselves. Who was Lep? Who was A? Who was H? Who was Marie and who or what was the Thevshi?

  There were supposed to be no secrets between them, but her grandmother had waited until she was dying to reveal the diary’s whereabouts. She must have known of its existence for all these years. The diary represented an area of Keira’s life that until now she had left undisturbed. For twenty years she had been Keira Lynch, not Niamh McGuire. Suddenly she wanted to know who her father was. She wanted to find out everything about him. Maybe this had been her grandmother’s intention all along.

  Although some of it made disturbing reading, the diary was a distraction from the vision that kept appearing in her head of Kaltrina Dervishi lying in a pool of blood on the floor of her flat. And there were plenty more images queuing up to take its place; David with half of his face missing, or the killer standing over her with his arms outstretched in the shape of the cross, taunting her, mimicking Keira in her most private moment. How could he have possibly known, unless he had been watching from inside her flat?

  Worse than all of these things put together, for Keira, was the fact that she had missed her grandmother’s funeral.

  She closed her eyes until the stinging sensation had passed.

  The doctors had warned her that this would happen, the trauma of events over the last few days overwhelming her. But she wasn’t ready to cry yet.

  She wasn’t ready to give in.

  A rapping sound at the door broke her thoughts. ‘Come in,’ she said, placing her own set of scribbled notes on the bedside table alongside those of her father.

  A nurse popped her head into the room. ‘Bathtime! You ready for another big adventure?’

  ‘I’d rather have a shower, Rachel, if that’s okay.’

  ‘If you’re feeling strong enough.’

  Keira nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure I am.’

  ‘There’s only a bath in your en suite; d’you want me to see if the room across the hall’s empty? It’s got both.’

  Keira nodded again. ‘I never feel properly clean after a bath.’

  ‘Back in a mo. I’m sure it’ll be fine to use it, but I’ll just check there’s no one in there. Two seconds!’

  Keira lifted her legs off the side of the bed and placed her feet on the floor. Even that simple movement left her feeling light-headed. She sat for a moment, then slowly stood up. She had been pushing to get discharged in the next day or so, but knew herself that she wasn’t quite ready.

  Rachel was back at the door. ‘All fine! I’ll help you across just now and get you in the shower, then Jacqui will bring your toiletries. She wants to change the sheets on your bed, too, so take your time over there. It’s not your electricity bill; use as much hot water as you like.’

  ‘I still get a bit dizzy when I stand up.’

  ‘Blood pressure’s a bit low, that’s all it is. Nothing to worry about. You’re well on the mend.’

  ‘Still on course for getting out tomorrow?’

  ‘What’s your hurry? Sick of the sight of us?’

  ‘No, sick of my own company! I need daylight and some fresh air.’

  ‘Probably not tomorrow, but definitely in the next few days. Everything’s just knitting together, so you’ll still have to take it easy, but it’s surprising how quic
kly some people recover. Another week and you’ll be back at the gym.’ The nurse took hold of Keira’s right arm. ‘You hold on to the drip stand with your other hand and let’s get out of here. Maybe tomorrow we’ll see if we can go up on the roof and catch some rays.’

  ‘In Glasgow?’

  ‘We’ll take a brolly.’

  Keira steadied herself by clutching on to the stainless-steel drip stand that held a bag of clear fluid, then the two women made their way slowly out of the room.

  The armed officer stationed outside in the corridor – whose name she’d learned was Richard – held the door open for them as they shuffled past. ‘Off somewhere nice?’

  ‘Change of scenery,’ replied Keira.

  ‘Any slower, Miss Lynch, and I’ll ticket you for holding up the traffic. It’s the national speed limit in this corridor.’

  ‘You should be a comedian, Richie. You’ve got the face for it.’

  ‘Aye, touché, Miss Lynch, touché!’

  *

  Even though the thin jets of hot water stung as they hit the freshly exposed wounds and made her teeth set against each other, it felt good. Streaks of iodine from the area around her punctured skin poured over the toneless flesh of her stomach and down her bare legs before swirling around the shower tray and disappearing into the drain. Certain movements sent sharp reminders that the muscles damaged by the passage of the bullets through her body were still under repair, but Keira was aware that her strength was definitely returning. Her movements were still laboured, but they were getting easier by the day.

  The door leading from the en suite through to the bedroom was open so that she could summon the nurse if she had any problems.

  ‘I’ll just nip over and see what’s keeping Jacqui with your toiletries,’ called Rachel. ‘Will you be okay if I leave you for a second?’

  Keira raised her voice over the sound of the spray. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘If you’ve even the slightest worry, pull the cord.’

  There was an orange nylon cord in the corner of the cubicle with a red triangular handle imprinted with the word ALARM.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m good, really!’

  ‘Okay. Back soon.’

  Rachel left the room, closing the door behind her.

  *

  Special firearms officer Richard Malloy clocked the suppressed nine-mil the guy was carrying too late to shoulder his own weapon and return fire. The first bullet hit side-on, just above the elbow, and knocked him off balance. The second grazed his temple close to his right eye and the third, which entered under his jawbone and exited through the top of his skull as he fell, was the one that killed him. It had taken less than two seconds to fire three bullets and the officer lay dead on the floor.

  Engjell E Zeze pushed through the door the cop had been guarding to find the room empty.

  It was obvious, however, that the bed had been recently occupied. Two notebooks sat on a pile of magazines on top of the bedside cabinet alongside a half-empty glass of orange juice.

  The room was definitely in use, but where was its occupant?

  Engjell picked one of the notebooks up. An airline ticket fell from the inside sleeve and fluttered to the floor, landing face up, the destination easily readable. A noise from the bathroom made him turn. A nurse was standing next to the bath holding a towel and a small toilet bag. The expression of surprise on her face had barely changed to one of confusion before she slumped backwards on to the floor clutching the entry wound to her chest.

  Engjell watched her with a look of curiosity as she struggled to draw in enough air to scream. One more squeeze of the trigger delivered the kill-shot directly between her eyes.

  Then there came another noise, this time from the corridor outside.

  *

  Nurse Rachel’s first instinct on seeing the police officer slumped against the wall was to check his vital signs. It was only when she turned and saw the small, anaemic looking man with the gun standing in the corridor next to her that she remembered her first action should have been to press the emergency call button on her pager. It crossed her mind to shout a warning to Keira, but that would only confirm her whereabouts. Without saying anything, the man raised the gun and pointed it straight at her head.

  ‘They’ve transferred her downstairs,’ Nurse Rachel blurted out. ‘She’s out of intensive care . . . getting better.’ Then pleading, ‘Please!’

  The Watcher briefly considered what the nurse had said, before deciding that she was probably telling the truth. The gun discharged with a dull thud that sent her slamming backwards against the wall. A trail of dark red blood smudged the wall as she slid to the floor and lay beside the police officer, her breath coming in wheezing gasps. In the brief silence that followed Engjell became aware of the sound of running water. Momentarily distracted from taking the kill-shot the Watcher turned and, with the gun still pointing at the nurse, took a few steps further along the corridor. The sloshing sound suddenly stopped. Engjell stepped back along the corridor and stood listening at the closed door opposite Keira Lynch’s room.

  Someone was moving around inside.

  A small puddle of water appeared from under the door.

  Engjell raised the Beretta up to roughly chest-height, aiming at the door, then carefully placed a gloved hand on the door handle and started to twist.

  *

  Keira had been standing in the shower wondering whether her towel and toilet bag would ever arrive when she heard something in the corridor. The faint noise was almost drowned out by the water streaming from the shower head, but there was no mistaking the distinctive, percussive thump. She immediately turned the tap off and stood, dripping wet, hoping that she was wrong. Having nothing to dry herself with, she stepped out of the shower and quietly made her way through into the bedroom, where she pulled a sheet from the bed and wrapped it round her dripping body.

  Something was wrong.

  She strained to hear the sound again. The whirring hum of the extractor fan in the bathroom had just stopped. The entire hospital seemed to have fallen silent.

  She edged towards the door leading to the corridor and leant forward to press her ear against its cold, veneered surface.

  In the light from the corridor spilling under the door, two long shadows stretched out across the floor just to the side of where she had placed her bare feet.

  Someone was standing on the other side of the door.

  The handle started to turn.

  *

  Engjell suddenly became aware of a movement from behind. Spinning round, he saw the nurse’s hand scrabbling at something clipped to her belt.

  ‘You lied.’

  He squeezed the trigger once more, but the final shot arrived too late. She had already pressed the emergency button on her pager.

  Somewhere further along the corridor an alarm started to sound.

  ‘Mutt!’

  Turning back to the door, Engjell fired three more rounds that punched ragged, fist-sized holes through its hollow-core panels. It was amateurish, and unlikely to yield results, but there was no time for anything else.

  The wailing noise of the alarm brought two male nurses running from the far end of the hallway.

  Engjell E Zeze turned and headed calmly toward the exit, firing the remaining rounds blindly over his shoulder before unclipping the suppressor from the Beretta and pocketing both.

  ‘There will be killing till the score is paid.’

  Twenty-nine

  Keira sat, eyes closed, tucked into the corner of the ambulance on a green high-backed chair. She was wearing a thin cotton hospital gown and white paddle slippers: there had been no time to dress properly.

  Her forearms were clamped together between her legs: wrists pressed hard against each other making small circular movements.

  The ambulance was speeding through the potholed city streets with the siren wailing loudly overhead.

  It felt cramped and claustrophobic.

  With no window to l
ook out of, it was all she could do to stop herself from throwing up.

  The hospital had erupted after the shootings, with police officers and medical staff running everywhere, no one allowed in or out and roads in the surrounding area closed to all but essential traffic: Glasgow was in lockdown. Keira had been held in the ward for a short while until Gary Hammond arrived on the scene, then she’d been led down the back stairwell to the ambulance bay. He’d told her not to look as they’d left the room, but she couldn’t help it. Another image seared into her memory as if it had been put there using a branding-iron. The instant the door had opened to reveal the two bodies splayed across the floor Keira knew who was responsible. It was her fault these people were dead.

  DSI Gary Hammond and another armed officer sat awkwardly on the gurney in front of her with their feet dangling over the edge. Next to them, on the only other available seat, was a doctor.

  Keira had Gary’s jacket draped over her shoulders for warmth.

  ‘How you feeling now?’ asked the doctor.

  Keira shook her head in response.

  ‘Once the painkillers kick in you should start to feel a bit better.’

  ‘It’s like being inside the hull of a boat,’ Gary remarked.

  ‘In a storm,’ cut in Keira quietly.

  ‘You get used to it,’ said the doctor. ‘You’re usually too busy with other people being sick to worry about heaving yourself.’

  ‘Nice! How much longer?’

  ‘Nearly there,’ answered Gary. ‘When we arrive, you stay inside the ambulance until the Doc checks you over and gives you the all-clear, then we’ll get you inside the station and find you some clothes.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we’ll take you somewhere safe.’

  *

  An hour later Keira was in the back of an unmarked police car speeding along the A814 out of Glasgow. The road was bordered on both sides by a low hedge and surrounded by flat, arable land laid out in an irregular patchwork of fields. To her left, in the distance, across a paddock dotted with brown cattle that rested on the grass like huge boulders, she could see the calm grey waters of Gare Loch.