“You’re shivering. Are you alright?”
Dean shook his head and spoke falteringly. “He shot him from behind, straight in the head. There was blood. He made me wrap the body and throw it over the side.” Dean began to cry “I thought I was going to die. I told him I had a family, it meant nothing to him. He said he was an assassin, I offered him a million, but he wasn’t interested. Cold blooded bastard!” Dean spat the words through gritted shaking teeth.
“We’ll take it from here George.” The larger of the two policemen spoke. “Get him a coat and some boots. Give us a bag with his clothes and we’ll wash and dry them.”
Dean was led out to the car, oversized wellingtons on his feet and an oversized coat hiding the pyjamas and dressing gown.
Hudson stood at the door and felt his wife’s arm curl around his waist. Dean turned at the door.
“Thank you Mr Hudson. Thank you Mrs Hudson.”
Hudson closed the door and put all the bolts on, turned to his wife and gave her a strong look.
“Check all the windows. Lock all the doors. I’ll get a rifle from the gun cabinet.”
“Surely there’s no danger now.” She said.
“Hmm. Can’t be too careful, it’s a bad time when assassins roam the country killing witnesses. Maybe he’ll be back.”
Jean Hudson went to the kitchen back door to bolt it, as she bent down to the lower bolt her husband’s big strong body filled the little doorway of the country kitchen and the shadow turned her head towards him.
“Jean you’d better call Ivy McLane. I’ve a mind that this is some business she’d be interested in.”
Jean nodded seriously. She and Ivy McLane were old friends and some years before, during the Northern Irish ‘troubles, Ivy had been seriously ill. Jean had stayed with her and nursed her through a fever. Jean had seen a diplomatic pass and hearing electronic sounds in the loft had investigated, Ivy had left her equipment running. Jean had told her husband what she had seen. He in turn had gone to see Ivy and had been appraised in full and certain terms of her rights and his need to back off, which he had respectfully done. George Hudson assumed with the Irish coast so near and Arran being remote that spies were needed. It surprised him little that a middle aged woman painter, as that was her career, turned out to be a spy. Spies were in his view those that we would least expect.
Whilst Jean phoned Ivy he went upstairs to their room and unlocked the gun cupboard removing a BAR hunting rifle. He sat down on the edge of their double bed with a cleaning kit, tools and gun oil. The box of ammunition lay unopened on the counter pane next to box clip.
The BAR lightweight Stalker made from aircraft-grade alloy with a matte blued finish had a detachable box magazine, which after stripping, cleaning and oiling the rifle Hudson filled and locked into place. He put the rifle on safety and went down stairs with it.
Jean was coming off the phone. She didn’t like guns of any kind, but remote places allowed certain members of the population to be armed and she trusted George to be careful. That man, Dean, well she’d heard bits of his story. She felt safer locked in with George and even safer knowing how well he handled a rifle.
In the loft of a house on Benlister Road, round the corner from the Arran police station at Lamlash, Ivy McLane unlocked her small gun cabinet and took out the Sig 220 ‘rail’ pistol. She didn’t need to clean it. Since the alert two days ago she’d followed the memo on armaments to the letter. Satisfied that she was safe, doors locked and windows barred she sat in the loft and sent out her message.
'Stanton heading down West Coast in a boat and has killed. The surviving witness is at Lamlash Police. Please call to advise my right to interview or send duty team to do same.'
The reply was swift.
Duty team members in Edinburgh mopping up post Perth to attend. Please welcome and assist.
At Lamlash police station after making a statement Kevan Dean had cried on the phone to his wife. He told her he’d be back the next day. A police launch was to take him to the mainland and he’d be driven home. In their warm, plush and well decorated detached house his wife sat hugging her children and thanking god for her husband’s deliverance.
At a nearby house Dean’s clothes were already washed and being tumble dried. An on call doctor had given him a mild sedative after his interview. Dean had refused food, but welcomed the cell bed with its thick warm woollen covers. He was left to sleep with his cell door left wide open. Arran police checked Mr Griffith’s details and made a call to the mainland and a car was despatched.
In Edinburgh Mrs Griffiths sat alone in her lounge. Her children were grown and had left home, one at university the other working in London. She sat singly on the sofa with her arms wrapped around her own shoulders, body language showing her closed, shocked grief.
“I’m afraid we are sure Mrs Griffiths.” The police man said and looked at the family photos arranged on the nearby grand piano in the large and comfortable reception room. “The owner of the boat saw it happen and was to have been killed too. A lucky chance allowed him to escape, even then he had to swim through a couple of miles of open sea.”
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.
Chapter 77
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.
