Кит Мори - Deathly Wind

Vincent had eased himself into a sitting position on the floor. ‘You killed Rhona!’

‘Not me, pal. She killed herself all those years ago when she took you in. Tell us about it.’

‘Drop dead, Cardini!’ Vincent retorted.

There was a thunderous noise as Cardini took aim and shot Vincent in the foot. Blood immediately gushed out of a hole in his boot and he gasped as he writhed in agony. Torquil made to move to help him but the sound of Cardini tut-tutting halted him.

‘I said – tell us !’

Vincent’s face was covered in perspiration, but he gritted his teeth and tried to talk.

‘You were always a sadistic bastard, Giuseppe. That was one of the reasons I needed to get away. Rhona gave me the means of escape.’

Cardini snorted disdainfully. ‘Aye, she was a good-looking woman and we never suspected she was a journalist, a spy. She got herself a job as a cashier in one of Luigi Dragonetti’s betting shops, then gradually worked her way up to be a manager. That allowed her to get properly in the know of things. And that’s when she started shagging Enrico there.’ He spat on the floor by Vincent’s feet. ‘And that’s when he betrayed his family!’

‘Does family mean mafia?’ Torquil asked.

Cardini guffawed. ‘Naw! You’ve been watching too many Godfather films. Luigi Dragonetti was just a god. He was like a father to us – him and me. Before him we were just slum tinkers. He gave us respect and gave us lives.’ He shook his head and took the cigar out of his mouth. ‘I tried to be like a father to my boys, Liam and Danny.’

‘That’s rubbish!’ Vincent snorted. ‘Luigi Dragonetti was a sadistic sod who modelled himself on Al Capone. He used folk like us to punish people. He didn’t give a stuff whose lives we pissed on as long as he got what he wanted. Rhona taught me that.’

‘Then that was another reason for her to die! I hated that bitch for the five years I lost in prison.’

‘So was that your real reason for coming to West Uist?’ Torquil asked. ‘To arrange for her death.’

Cardini shrugged non-comittally. ‘That was the ultimate aim. But first I planned to destroy her. And it was happening too, until this bastard started killing my boys.’

‘Did you, Vincent?’ Torquil asked.

Vincent’s face was fast draining of colour as blood oozed from the hole in his foot to form a gory puddle on the floor.

‘No – and yes,’ he replied in a rasping voice. ‘I killed the first little sod, but I didn’t mean to. I just got so angry over that letter and how he talked to Megan. Especially when we were getting close. When I left Megan I waited for him to come back by the causeway. When I confronted him, man to man, he spat in my face.’ He glared at Cardini. ‘That was one of the things you used to do before you hurt people. Anyway, he tried to throw a punch but he was drunk and slow. I knocked him off the causeway, then I jumped down and dragged him to the pool.’

Cardini let out a howl of rage. ‘My boy! You drowned my boy!’

Torquil realized that Cardini’s temper was brewing up to volcanic proportions. He needed to keep things flowing for the present. ‘So what about the other man, Danny Reid? Did you kill him too?’

‘I did. But it was because Rhona warned me about Cardini.’

‘That’s what she meant by CARD IN?’

Vincent nodded. ‘I knew that Cardini would have some sort of revenge planned for Sartori’s death. I saw the bugger sneaking into Gordon MacDonald’s cottage, planning to set it on fire. A warning to us. I recognized he was trying to provoke whoever killed the first piece of shit. So I stopped him and snapped his neck. And that’s why I left that message for him.’

‘Is that what the medallion in the mouth was all about?’ Torquil asked.

‘It was a sort of signature that we used in the old days,’ Cardini volunteered. ‘But that was when I realized that bloody Enrico Mercanti was alive and well on this piss-pot of an island!’ He laughed. ‘And that’s when I laid my wee trap for you. It actually worked out a bit earlier than I planned, but that TV woman forced my hand by giving me the opportunity to send out a message on Scottish TV.’

He raised the gun and Torquil slowly raised his own hand. ‘OK, McArdle or Cardini, whichever you want to be known by, it is time to give me that gun. I am arresting you both.’

Giuseppe Cardini looked back at Torquil in mock amazement. ‘You are arresting me?’ He guffawed. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. I am defending my property here. That bastard killed my boys, then he came here and killed my butler and tried to kill me too. I struggled with him and you, our heroic local flatfoot, rushed to help me, only to get tragically killed in the line of duty.’ He shook his head with mock sympathy. ‘There have been too many police officers killed while doing their duty and I will arrange with Superintendent Lumsden, my good friend, for some sort of local monument to be erected.’

Torquil was aware of a patina of perspiration on his brow, but he managed to keep his voice calm. ‘I said I will take that gun now. I have to get medical attention for Vincent here. And, by the way, thank you for your confession.’

Cardini scowled and pointed to the gun in his hand. ‘I am the one in the driving seat, McKinnon. Now how about just saying your prayers.’

‘I don’t think there is a need for that,’ Torquil said, deliberately looking past Cardini at the open door. ‘You have got all that, haven’t you, Constable Steele?’

Cardini sneered contemptuously. ‘Nice try, flatfoot. Now say your prayers. Both of you!’

Calum Steele’s voice came from the open doorway. ‘I have it all on tape here, Inspector McKinnon.’

There was a click followed by a whirring noise, then Cardini’s voice said, ‘Now say your prayers. Both of you!’

In a trice Cardini spun round into a broad-based crouch, both arms outstretched and steadying the gun.

There was a sudden flash from waist height, followed by a burst of gunfire from Cardini’s Smith & Wesson.

But it gave Torquil the time he needed. He flew across the room, kicked the gun upwards and, as he did so, grabbed Cardini’s right wrist. They wrestled with the gun, and it scanned the room, spewing out two shots. Then Torquil managed to twist and bend Cardini’s wrist back on itself. There was the snapping noise of bones crunching as the gangster’s hand opened automatically and he screamed in pain as the gun fell to the floor. Yet Cardini had been a street brawler and he immediately threw a left at Torquil’s head. It was a shade too slow, for Torquil ducked and threw a straight left to Cardini’s abdomen; then, as Cardini doubled over, he hammered an uppercut into his jaw. It lifted the laird off his feet and deposited him unconscious on the floor.

‘And that’s how we do things in West Uist!’ Torquil said, blowing on his skinned knuckles. He turned to the door where Calum Steele was climbing to his feet from the prone position he had adopted in order to hold up the digital camera and first dazzle then draw Cardini’s fire.

‘Well done, Calum. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life. I thought that either you hadn’t picked up my voice message or your Lambretta had finally packed in.’

‘Never a bit of it, Piper. Mind you, that’s the first time the West Uist investigative journalist has ever come under real live fire. And about that title “Constable Steele” – it has a certain ring—’

There was the sound of a click from the floor and they both turned to see Vincent propped against the leg of the snooker table, the crumpled body of Jesmond having tumbled into the bloody pool beside him. A rapidly spreading patch of blood was forming over Vincent’s abdomen where one of the stray bullets had struck home.