Ian Rankin: Doors Open

‘What are you going to do, Mike?’

‘Run away,’ he said, only half joking. ‘With you, if you like.’ What were the alternatives? He could hand the money over to Calloway and Hate, as requested, but they would always have a stranglehold on him, and he doubted he would see an end to the payments until the well was dry. Then there was the curator – when he turned up dead, or merely mangled, the police would have something else to investigate. And with Ransome’s input they’d soon be visiting the penthouse flat with difficult questions for its owner.

‘I’ll call Ransome,’ Laura stated. ‘You must see it’s the only sensible option.’

Mike turned towards her. ‘Sense hasn’t played much part in this so far,’ he said. Her arms stayed loosely around him. Their faces were only an inch or so apart, but there was something moving in the shadows of the living area. Mike looked over Laura’s shoulder.

‘Don’t let us stop you,’ one of Calloway’s henchmen drawled, adding for his partner’s benefit: ‘That’s twenty notes I owe you.’

The other man smiled. ‘Told you, didn’t I? The flat’s worth checking, no matter what the boss says.’ Then, to Mike: ‘You going to give us any trouble, Mackenzie?’

Mike shook his head. Laura had released her grip on him and had swung round to face the two intruders. ‘But she’s not part of this,’ Mike explained. ‘Let her go, and then I’ll come with you, anywhere you like.’

‘Sounds reasonable.’ Glenn and Johnno were in the kitchen now. ‘Mr Calloway should be fronting one of those TV design shows, shouldn’t he?’ Johnno said. ‘Renovations while you wait…’

Both men laughed at this. Their eyes were on Laura rather than Mike. He placed a hand on her arm. ‘Off you go, then,’ he instructed.

‘And leave you with these two animals?’

‘Just go!’ He gave her a little nudge in the back. She glowered at Calloway’s underlings.

‘I happen to be an old friend of DI Ransome’s. Don’t think I won’t run to him if you touch so much as a hair on Mr Mackenzie’s head!’

‘Bad move, Laura,’ Mike muttered.

‘He’s right, missy – means you’ll be coming with us now…’

Mike lunged at the two men, yelling for Laura to run. But Glenn brushed him to the floor while Johnno took Laura’s arm and spun her round, his other hand muffling her cries. Mike was up on one knee when a foot caught him under the chin, launching him backwards to sprawl across the kitchen floor. Glenn knelt on him, and Mike felt his organs want to explode. There was a grin on the face behind the fist, and then the fist itself connected with the side of Mike’s jaw. He had a moment to register that he was spinning towards unconsciousness. He wondered if his boat was waiting for him.

And also if he would ever see Laura again.

Ransome woke up and knew that was his lot. It was almost five – not bad for him; he’d managed four and a half hours. Mrs Thatcher, he seemed to recall, had got by on as little if not less. He left Sandra in bed and padded towards the bedroom door, leaving the landing light off as he made his way downstairs. In the living room, he turned on the lamp next to the sofa and reached for the TV remote. He knew that checking the news headlines on Teletext and Ceefax would keep him occupied for ten or fifteen minutes. After that, there was either Sky News or BBC24 on Freeview. He peered through the inch-wide gap in the curtains. The street outside was silent. Years back, whenever he woke up early he took delight in heading into town, stopping at bakeries and all-night cafés, listening to cabbies telling the story of their night’s work. But Sandra had started complaining that he was waking her and their neighbours both, revving the car as he reversed out of the driveway. Not too many of his colleagues had ever met Sandra. She didn’t like official functions or parties or the idea of the pub. She worked in NHS admin and had her own group of friends – women who would attend talks in bookshops and museums, or plan outings to foreign films and tea rooms. Ransome’s theory was that she felt she should have done better at school, maybe gone beyond secretarial college – a university degree, perhaps. She gave off an air of quietly simmering dissatisfaction with her lot, and he had no wish to compound this with early-morning engine noise, even though none of the neighbours had actually ever complained to him about it.

The kettle might wake her, too, so he stuck to a glass of milk and a couple of indigestion tablets. The faint peeping noise in the hallway he put down to a small bird outside, but when it persisted he knew he was wrong. His jacket was hanging up behind the front door. The coat rack had been Sandra’s idea, and woe betide if he draped his clothes over the end of the bannister or on the backs of chairs. His mobile was in the inside pocket. The noise wasn’t because it needed charging. It was a message from the previous evening. Donny was a guy Ransome knew who worked at the Criminal Records Office. The message was succinct: PHONE ME. So, having gone back into the living room and closed the door tight, that was exactly what Ransome did.

‘Donny, it’s me.’

‘Christ, man, what time is it?’

‘I just got your message.’

‘It can wait till morning.’ Donny was coughing and spluttering.

‘Spit it out,’ Ransome commanded.

‘Give me a break.’

Ransome listened as Donny got out of bed. A door opened and closed. More coughing and loud sniffles. Another room had been reached, the rustle of papers.

‘Got it here somewhere…’

Ransome was at his own window, staring at the outside world again. A fox cantered down the middle of the road, for all the world as if it owned the place. This time of day, maybe it did at that. Ransome’s street was quiet and tree-lined. The houses were from the 1930s, which kept prices low compared to the Georgian and Victorian properties only half a mile away. The area had been called Saughtonhall when Ransome and Sandra had moved in, but solicitors these days tended to say Corstorphine or even Murrayfield instead, in the hope of adding a few thousand to the price. Sandra and Ransome had even joked for a time about whether their street qualified as ‘South Murrayfield’ or ‘South South Murrayfield’.

Any further south and we’d be on the doorstep of Saughton Prison…

‘Take your time, Donny,’ Ransome muttered into the phone.

‘Here we go.’ A final flourishing of paperwork. ‘Right nasty piece of work.’

‘Who?’

‘The Viking with the tattoos – you asked me to track him down, remember?’

‘Of course I did; sorry, Donny.’

‘His name’s Arne Bodrum. Hails from Copenhagen but spends most of his time elsewhere. Served two years for what we’d probably call GBH. Ran with the Hell’s Angels and is now reckoned to be an enforcer for same, specifically a chapter whose HQ is Haugesund in Norway. It’s thought they make their dough running drugs into countries like Germany and France – not to mention the UK.’

‘That much I already know, Donny. What else have you got?’

‘More along the same lines, plus the guy’s mug shots. The whole lot’ll be on your desk in about three hours.’ Donny paused. ‘Can I go back to my pit now?’

‘Sweet dreams, Donny.’

Ransome ended the call and placed the phone on the windowsill. Hate was acting as a go-between. No… more than that… he was an enforcer. Glenn had said Calloway owed money on a drug deal, the creditors being an overseas Hell’s Angels chapter. It meant Chib was hurting, needing a quick injection of cash. And who did they both know had cash? Step forward, Mike Mackenzie. Or First Caly, come to that – and hello again, Allan Cruikshank. Ransome reckoned this was the sort of thing he could take to the Chief, ask again for a full-scale surveillance and maybe some of those search warrants. He wasn’t stepping on Hendricks’ toes – there was no need to mention the heist – so there’d be no reason to turn him down. If a budget couldn’t be found, Ransome would do the whole thing by himself, gratis and for nothing.