Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'Uncle Mario! Uncle Mario!'

The voice was that of an angel. Everything around him was white; he was floating on a cloud. 'I am dead,' he thought. 'And there is another side, even if it is bloody cold.'

'Uncle Mario!' The angel's call sounded again, but closer this time. But then he felt a slap across his face and a blinding pain shoot through his head, advising him forcefully, that alive or dead, he was not in heaven. Since the alternative was not to his liking, he pulled himself to a sitting position and rejoined the real world.

Lauren had been four years old when last he had seen her in tears. She was on her knees beside him, her right mitten clutched in her left hand, the other red from hitting him.

'Hey,' he muttered, his voice weak, his breath forming a cloud in the snow. 'I'm all right, kid.' He tried to wink at her and the flash of agony returned, drilling a hole in his head behind his right ear, to make it clear to him that he was not.

'What are you doing here?' he asked. 'I thought I told you to ski down.'

'There was too much fresh snow,' the girl replied. 'It looked too dangerous, so I followed you instead. What happened to you?'

The memory came flooding back, and with it the fear, renewed. 'I was ambushed,' he told her. 'Whacked on the head.' Shakily, he pushed himself up, finding a precarious footing on the hillside. 'Did you make the call?'

'Yes. They said they would do what you said.'

'Good. This time I really do want you to wait here.' He looked around, trying hard to focus. There were more tracks on the ground, heading into the gloom. The snow had eased to little or nothing, but it was almost dark. In the distance he could see the glow from the floodlit slope and, beyond, the orange halo that covered the night city, offering the false illusion of safety, 'I'm going after them again. You should hear policemen soon. When you do, yell for all you're worth. You're good at that.'

He turned and headed after the tracks once again, but much more slowly this time. His legs were trembling under him, and the pain in his head would not abate. He drove himself on, though, ready in his heart to kill his attacker with his bare hands when he found him again. But if he did not find him again…

He did his best to banish his worst fear and pressed on. Gradually the light changed before him, and the landscape changed with it. He realised that he had come to the edge of a plantation of trees, and that the tracks led inside. He closed his eyes and prayed.

When he opened them again, a cloud had cleared away and the scene was moonlit. He looked into the forest. It would be impossible to follow the tracks; from that point on it would be guesswork. 'Please, Spence,' he murmured, 'please be alive.'

He stepped into the wood, knowing that there was no finer place for another ambush. At once it grew pitch dark; a branch slapped across his face, and round the right side of his head, setting a new fire burning within it. He stopped: a few yards in and he was totally lost. He was effectively blind: there was no way forward.

And then he heard a sound; distant at first then louder, coming towards him. He backed away, retracing his steps without turning, his eyes on the direction of the crashing din. He wondered whether there were deer that high up, in such weather.

Before he could dwell further on the question, the noise was upon him, a small dark bundle, running for his life, scraped and cut by the lashing branches, but safe, crashing into his arms. 'Spence!' he cried, a sob choking him. 'Are you okay?'

Without waiting for an answer, he turned towards the light and to the way out of the woods. The snow had turned heavy once again, although not as bad as before. He looked at the boy and realised that his weather-suit had gone. 'How did you get away?' he asked.

'He had a strap attached to me,' Spencer told him. 'In the dark he couldn't see me unfasten my snowsuit. When I had it done, I fell over, rolled out of it and ran away.'

'Is he coming after you?'

'I don't know.'

Mario's head swam. He knew that he was concussed, and that flight was beyond him. And so he stripped off his own suit and made the boy climb inside it, then turned, shivering already in sweater and jeans, but more than ready to face the kidnapper, should he be foolish enough to risk his wrath.

Alex heard the front door open; a few seconds later, her father appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. She checked her watch. 'It's nearly nine. What sort of time is this to be crawling in at?'

'Stop it,' he pleaded. 'You sound just like your mother when you say that.' He walked towards her. 'Have you eaten?'

'No, I waited for you. I've got a table booked at the Golf Inn, if you want. They said as long as we got there before nine thirty they'd feed us. Don't worry, I'm paying.'

'Trish is in?'

'Yes, her boy-friend's working tonight.'

'Come on, then. I'll change my shirt and we'll go.'

As he stepped into the light of the hall she saw him more clearly. 'God,' she said, 'you look bushed. Are you sure you want to go? I can always whip something up.' And then a memory came back to her. 'Oh, shit, I forgot: Stevie Steele called earlier. He said he needs to talk to you.'

'It had better be urgent,' Bob growled. 'Bugger the shirt, they can take me as I am. Come on, I'll phone him from the restaurant.' He fetched a heavy leather jacket from the cloakroom off the hall, and they headed for the door.

The restaurant was a few hundred yards away from the house; in less than ten minutes they were seated at a corner table, and Alex was ordering wine from the extensive list. As soon as the waiter had gone her father took out his phone and dialled Steele. It was Maggie Rose who answered. 'Hold on, I'll get him,' she said.

'Thanks, Mags. Oh, and before I forget, I want to see you in my office next week, as soon as we can both fit it in.' He waited, until her partner came to the phone. 'You wanted me,' Skinner grunted.

'Yes, sir. I'm sorry about the timing, but I don't think it can wait. I've spoken to Superintendent Chambers and she agrees. I want to reopen the investigation into George Regan's son, and link it with DCS Pringle's daughter's so-called accident.'

'Her death, you mean. Ross passed away this afternoon.'

He heard Steele's gasp. 'Sorry, sir, I didn't know that.'

'No matter. What's prompted this?'

'George has found a witness, a woman who saw someone legging it into the lower entrance to the car park at around the time the pathologist reckons the boy died. She described him as running away from someone, only there was nobody chasing him.'

'That's your link?'

'It's enough for me, boss.'

'And me, Stevie. Given what happened to young Spence McIlhenney, I've been kicking myself all night for not pursuing the theory, even with no evidence to say so, that the two events might have been linked.'

'What happened to him?'

'You don't know? Call Neil, and he'll fill you in. I'm on-side with you on this; this is your investigation. You're detached from all other duties and you report directly to me. Here's where you start. I want you to identify every investigation where Regan, Pringle and Neil McIlhenney worked together, plus I want a list of all the other officers involved with them. That's a priority: I don't want any more tragic so-called accidents. Get moving on it first thing tomorrow. If you find you need help, then co-opt Ray Wilding from the head of CID's office, on my authority. He'll be sat on his hands for a while anyway.'

He hung up just as the waiter appeared with Alex's choice of wine, and with a pint of lager. 'You look as if you need that,' she told him.

'I'll let the Faustino breathe for a bit.'