MacLean kissed the bear and switched out the light.
The following week passed uneventfully but the weather was abysmal throughout. Continual drizzling rain dampened everyone’s spirits and kept Carrie indoors when she would much rather have been outside. When Sunday came and the sun shone. MacLean and Tansy decided to take her to the zoo.
Carrie chattered to the monkeys, walked like the penguins and stood uncertainly in front of the tigers at feeding time. She had a ride on an elephant and learned how to milk a goat in the children’s farm. She drank lemonade and ate ice cream and generally scampered around to the delight of both Tansy and MacLean.
‘I think this counts as the first family outing since Keith died,’ said Tansy as they watched Carrie try to attract the attention of a lion who seemed more interested in sleeping on a rock.
‘First of many,’ said MacLean and Tansy squeezed his hand.
They watched the polar bears dive for fish in their pool and Tansy said they made about as much mess as Carrie at bath time. They all laughed. It was that kind of a day. The coming meeting with Vernay was not mentioned until late that evening. Tansy asked, ‘How do you feel about tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be glad when it’s over,’ admitted MacLean. ‘I can’t really tell him any more about Cytogerm than what I’ve done already.
‘You’re going straight from work?’
‘Yes,’ said MacLean. ‘I should be home by seven.’
MacLean knew from the address that Vernay had given him that it was a predominantly working-class area. He would not look out of place coming directly from the building site in work clothes. He found the number he was looking for and walked straight past. He crossed the road a little further up the street and came back down on the other side. It was a simple precaution that Doyle had taught him. He was in luck; there was a fish and chip shop almost opposite Vernay’s building. He went in and bought something to eat. Using this as an excuse he was able to keep an eye on the entrance across the way for nearly ten minutes. Nothing happened to arouse his suspicions: he crossed the road and entered the building.
Vernay’s flat was on the third floor. MacLean rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened so he rang once more and then a third time. He heard a door open on the landing below and cautiously looked over the railings. An old woman was looking up at him. She seemed disappointed when she didn’t recognise him. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I thought it was Mr Vernay.’
MacLean thought she sounded distraught. Is something wrong?’ he asked.
‘Mr Vernay must have a leak,’ said the woman. ‘Water’s coming through my ceiling.’
Alarm bells went off in MacLean’s head. His first thought was to break down the door but the woman was a problem. He made sympathetic noises and asked if she had a screwdriver he could borrow. Anticipating some remedial action the woman went off to find one.
As soon as she was out of the way MacLean took a couple of steps back from the door then, lifting his foot he crashed it into Vernay’s door just below the Yale lock. He leaned his shoulder against the door and it swung slowly open.
It was dark inside. There were no windows in the hall and all the room doors were closed. MacLean could hear the sound of water pattering on to the floor. He followed it. He called out Vernay’s name but knew there would be no reply. He did it to release some of the tension that was building inside him. The floor was wet beneath his feet and the sound of the waterfall was becoming louder. He took care not to slip on wet linoleum as he opened the bathroom door.
The room was lit solely by the light coming in from a street light. Vernay was in the bath. His huge dead eyes stared up at him from below the surface of the water. MacLean swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and leaned over to turn off the water. He recoiled as he saw that two of Vernay’s fingers had been cut off from his right hand.
‘Yoo hoo! Are you there?’ came the old woman’s voice from the hall. MacLean suddenly realised that she was coming in and it shook him out of his trance. He came out of the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He stood in front of it as the woman came towards him. ‘I’ve found the trouble,’ he said. ‘My stupid friend left the taps running in the bath and the overflow seems to be blocked. I’ll have a strong word with him when he gets back and tell him in no uncertain terms that he is responsible for the damage to your ceiling.’
The woman seemed pleased at the attention MacLean was giving her. She offered to help him clear up the mess.
MacLean ushered her to the door kindly, ‘I’ll have it cleared up in no time,’ he insisted, breathing a sigh of relief when the door was closed behind her. He steeled himself to examine the other rooms of the flat. He needed to understand what had happened.
There was no evidence of a struggle in any of the rooms. Vernay must have been taken by surprise, thought MacLean. He found nothing out of the ordinary until he went over to the kitchen sink and saw the wooden chopping board with Vernay’s missing fingers on it. MacLean turned away for a moment and suppressed the urge to retch. He looked back and saw with a professional eye that something heavy had been used to cut them off, an axe or a meat cleaver.
It was clear that they had tortured Vernay to make him talk. He would have told them everything he knew. Lehman Steiner knew about Tansy and Carrie. They could even be on their way to the bungalow right now.
A gun! He had to have a gun! Vernay had carried one. Maybe it was still in the flat. MacLean started searching like a man possessed. He pulled open drawers and threw open cupboards until he found what he was looking for under a mattress. The pistol was still in Vernay’s shoulder holster. MacLean took off his jacket and slipped it on. The gun was under the wrong armpit for him but it didn’t matter. It was much more important that he was armed.
MacLean took the stairs three at a time and burst out on to the street. A taxi driver looked the other way when he tried to flag him down. His dress and the way he was behaving said that he was a bad risk. A second one stopped but looked sceptical. He was waiting to hear if MacLean sounded drunk.
‘Craiglockhart canal bridge! As fast as you can!’ said MacLean getting into the back and slamming the door.
‘Aye, ah saw that picture too,’ said the man laconically.
MacLean took out money from his wallet and waved it in front of the driver. ‘I mean it. I’ll pay double if you move it!’
The taxi took seven minutes. MacLean watched all of them pass on his watch. He urged the driver to greater efforts, despite being thrown from side to side at the current rate of progress. The cab screeched to a halt on the bridge and MacLean rammed a handful of notes into the driver’s hand and leapt out. The driver shook his head but MacLean was gone.
There was a black Ford saloon parked thirty yards down the hill from the bridge. How many? MacLean wondered. How many of the bastards? He ran down the slippery earth to the towpath and started to run along it. It was dark but he knew it well enough and reflections on the water helped.
MacLean saw the lights of the bungalow appear through the trees. Carrie would be upstairs in bed. Tansy would be in the sitting room or maybe the kitchen preparing the evening meal. Please God! Let there be time!
There was a movement in the trees ahead and MacLean dropped to one knee. Another movement and this time he saw the silhouette of a man against light coming from the sitting room window. He was holding something in his hand. MacLean thought at first that it was a gun but then he decided it was too big for that. The man drew back his arm and MacLean suddenly realised he was about to throw something. He yelled out a warning to stop but the missile left the man’s hand and crashed threw the French windows of the bungalow. The world was silent for three seconds then an explosion rocked the night as the incendiary grenade went off. A vivid sheet of flame shot skywards.
The man had not heard MacLean call out. He was standing directly in front of him at the bottom of the garden, framed in the firelight. MacLean pulled out the pistol from under his arm and levelled it at the silhouette. He shot the man without compunction, putting three bullets into him before he hit the ground.
He ran towards the flames, which were ripping through the bungalow, sending showers of sparks up into the night sky, continuing to run towards them, oblivious of the heat which seared his eyes but not of a scream. It was a woman’s cry but more of anguish than of pain. It came from Tansy!
MacLean followed the sound on all fours as the intense heat threatened to set his clothing alight. He found Tansy kneeling on the grass staring into the flames. She looked to MacLean as if she had lost her mind, her wide
