Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

Mary Griffiths shook her head looking from the face of the police man to the face of the police woman colleague brought along to comfort the widow.

“Why?”

“A random chance that this assassin would go for that Marina and that your husband was on a boat he could use.” The police woman said quietly.

There was silence.

“Do you have anyone who can stay with you?” She asked Mrs Griffiths.

“My sister is coming over. The children will be coming home tomorrow.”

The policeman and police woman rose to go.

“Please stay until my sister arrives.”

They both sat down.

“I’m sorry. It makes me so afraid. Why do people like that do that? Why kill people so easily… as if they were… insects… swatting people like insects…” She broke down crying.

The police woman moved over and hugged Mary Griffiths, who feeling the strong warm arms wailed out loud, clung on and sank into sobbing.

The police man’s eyes hardened and he exchanged a look of shared understanding with the police woman.

That was the way it was. A political or diplomatic viewpoint, a hired gun, forces pitched against each other and there you were at a point where one woman drank brandy with relief whilst another sobbed in loss and grief. Some were killed and some lived when men in power made their chess board moves playing games with armed men.

By the time a doctor had sedated Mary Griffiths, whilst she was comforted by her sister, and Kevan Dean was deep in sleep in a police station, that was now at armed and ready status, the DIC helicopter from Edinburgh airport was landing in a field to the west of Lamlash. There were torches planted in the ground to mark the landing spot and nearby Ivy McLane waited by her car, switching the headlights on when the chopper had landed.

They were in for a long night, but that was DIC work, occasionally rushed and busy, most times simply watching and waiting.

Dover

9 p.m.

April 18th

David sat slumped in his arm chair, full of steak, kidney, suet and gravy, not to mention potatoes and greens. In spite of this he was not sleepy. Mary had noticed that he had been staring at the television, but seemingly seeing nothing.

“You alright Davy?”

David roused himself from his introspection.

“No. I’m worried about Beaumont.”

“Why don’t you go up and log on. It’ll put your mind at rest before your sleep. I’ve unpacked your bag, except the rucksack. That’s on our bed.”

“Good idea.” David smiled, rose and made for the door. As an afterthought he came back, leant over Mary, lying back on the sofa, knitting, and kissed first her forehead then her bump. She smiled and a little glow rose on her face. She watched his broad back disappear.

In the loft he unloaded the rucksack. Camera, gun mike, weapon and laptop were laid out on the desk in the middle of the loft. The technicians who put it there followed a pattern laid down since the war. Boards were laid down, a hook down ladder added and a desk set up. Added to this in modern times were ‘Velux’ windows in the roof, electric power cables and wire link to the dish. David opened the Velux windows on both sides of the roof, reached up to a high roof beam and retrieved a key, locked the gun away in the cabinet, hung the key back up, plugged and powered the laptop. Whilst he waited he put on the head phones and plugged these in to the gun microphone. He held his arm up, pointed the gun microphone out the ‘Velux’ at the front of the house and flicked the on switch with his thumb.

Programmes on television came into range and went away, as did faint conversations, as he swept it left to right, but it was the clearly recognisable energetic sounds of love making at his one o clock position that made his thumb flick the switch off. His mind’s eye pictured the houses and he smiled when he knew it to be the house across the road four doors down. It was the home of a big angry man, bald and muscular, but ironically for his macho looks and demeanour a ladies hairdresser, whom David had argued with in the local pub once. His wife was the over made up kind of ‘dolly’, obsessed with tanning and clothes.

David laughed out loud at the image of their lovemaking, his first laugh for some time which in some way brought him closer to ‘home’. He recalled laughing last when he had been joking with Beaumont.

David logged on and read through the night’s traffic. The murders along the routes of the assassins had more details, such as names. The attached and related files showed pictures of families and homes. Karl Bushby, the Scottish truck driver, found in the Inverness car park; Grahame Dodd the taxi driver; Stewart Mitchell and Moira Brown, two Hertfordshire traffic cops; Bill Carter and ‘Jackie’, police dog and handler; Tom Welby long distance lorry driver; with Wally Tyson, DIC operative, Julian Young the Marina watchman; John Furze, Tim Wilson and Dave Jarvis armed police at Gatwick and now Tom Griffiths a Scottish banker, for whom details, new as the case was, were sketchy. The DIC files showed passport pictures, which said nothing to him about the people, but family pictures, children, in Julian Young’s case his parents, carried him into the lives of the slain with rapidity and detail. Small children in too big, gaudy coloured coats grinning, holding hands with dads, a baby held in Moira Brown’s arms, husband, hand on her shoulder, smiling down; summer snaps of men in trunks children on shoulders. Bill Carter squatting by his dog, muscle bound arms and a big grin. Family portraits in lounges and restaurants, the background to life, lives lived and now cut short. The ‘album’ of pictures was a plethora of pleasure past and David felt deeply for those touched by this massacre, empathetically sensing the years of pain ahead. David shook his head at the thought of the twelve dead people and the dead dog. He clicked through the files and images, stomach churning, jaw clenched in silent fury. The injured weren’t so numerous, two hospital workers, Beaumont and now Shadz, not to mention Ben Dowling, Gatwick armed policeman, shot through the groin, stable, but in intensive care. McKie’s eyes narrowed as his hand relaxed on the mouse touch pad. Stolen vehicles and money, damaged property and general mayhem and what for? What were they doing? What did all this death, grief and crime add up to? What could be worth all of this?

With no answers coming to his tired mind he e-mailed Jack Fulton for an update on Beaumont. A reply came back, from Diane Peters, Jack’s deputy, telling him Beaumont was stable and conscious. His family were there and he was making good progress. Beaumont had asked after David, it seemed, and for the last time that day tears wet McKie’s cheeks.

Diane didn’t mention the growing chase on Mason and Stanton, but she noted from the ‘Tekkies’ log report on David’s online activities that the files McKie had looked at tended in that direction. It was always the same with shootings. The man, or woman, always questioned things, raw and a little sensitive with trauma, answers were sought by those who’d been there and walked away in one piece.

Both David and Diane checked the update on Arran. Both learnt at nine thirty that night that the DIC duty team had interviewed Kevan Dean. Writing from Ivy’s house, where they and the pilot of the helicopter were spending the night, the report that came in made shocking and yet vitally important reading. Dean’s witness account was gruesome. The picture of Stanton was coloured in more clearly; cold stone colours like the tones of grave monuments.

Dean told of the murder, described the boat and direction, added the nugget about the million pounds turned down and gave DIC a razor edged etching of the kind of men they were after. Just one witness left behind and by the looks of it psychologically scarred for good by the encounter.