Doors Open

‘We had a date, Laura – didn’t work out too well…’

‘You give up too easily.’ She was still studying the painting. ‘Who did this damage?’

‘Hate.’

‘I’m sorry?’

He realised she didn’t know about Hate. ‘He’s a man Calloway owes money to – it’s a long story.’

Neither of them said anything for the best part of a minute. Laura broke the silence.

‘You’re going to go to jail, Mike.’

‘Believe it or not, Laura, jail’s way down my schedule of concerns right now.’

Just as Mike had done before, Laura was trying to push the canvas back into something like its original shape. ‘She was lovely, wasn’t she?’

‘She was.’ Mike agreed. Then he corrected himself: ‘She still is.’

Laura was blinking back tears. Mike wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until the world evaporated around them. He turned round and placed the glass on the draining board, then gripped the edge of the sink with both hands. He could hear her putting down the painting, then her arms were wrapping themselves around him from behind, her head resting against his shoulder.

‘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.’ Gle

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 Gle

And also if he would ever see Laura again.

34

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 ba

‘Do

‘Christ, man, what time is it?’

‘I just got your message.’

‘It can wait till morning.’ Do

‘Spit it out,’ Ransome commanded.

‘Give me a break.’

Ransome listened as Do

‘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, Do

‘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, Do

‘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 ru