Blood & Guts, Ed James [book recommendations for young adults .txt] 📗

a lot longer than I expected, but he turned up. Then I had to wait for a young couple to leave. He phoned me back, and I said I’d been held up with work. But when the couple left, I went over.’

‘Did he recognise you?’

‘Didn’t give him a chance. I knocked on the window and he started to get out. I wrapped my arms around him.’ Mike enacted it on his lawyer, applying a sleeper hold. ‘I’ve seen this in films and the wrestling on TV. I found a few videos on YouTube. It cuts off the flow of blood to the brain and knocks people out.’

‘You did this to Mr McLean?’

‘About half an hour before I was due to meet Carly. I tied him up in the bushes and drove off.’

This was all fitting together too well. Vicky didn’t know whether his son had told him it all, but… But it felt more likely that Mike Wilkie had killed her.

‘Then what?’

‘I drove over to Ashworth’s. Carly and Teresa weren’t there, so I was relieved. Then I waited, and started to worry that I’d missed them. But I saw them approach, in that old thing Teresa was driving. I let them see the car, left it in a cone of light, then waited in the darkness. They drove up and got out. I pulled a knife and forced Teresa into the boot of the Skoda.’

‘And Carly?’

‘She resisted me. She wasn’t going to run. I had her friend’s life in my hands. But she grabbed my mask and pulled it free. She saw who it was. And she ran. I chased, but I fell over.’

‘On her?’

‘No. On the ice. The knife scattered. I lost it under a car. And she was shouting at me, calling me boomerang man’s dad. Asking if I had the same deformed penis. Kicking me. And saying what he was wearing in the video.’

‘The video?’

‘She’d recorded my son on a video call. Got him to wear my wife’s bra and pants. And I lost it. I grabbed her leg and pulled her over. She might’ve slipped on the ice, but she kept calling me “boomerang dad” and I lost it. I strangled her with my gloved hands. And she was dead.’

Vicky sat in the cool silence, just Adamson’s pen making any sound. ‘Then what?’

‘What do you think? I panicked, of course. I drove off.’

‘With Teresa in the boot.’

‘Right. I’d forgotten about her. And I drove around the town, trying to figure out a plan. Then I got a call from you, Victoria, saying that my son was a suspect in Carly’s murder. It all hit home. It was getting worse. You’d found her body. You’d linked my son to her. But you let him go when he told you about Dougie McLean, didn’t you? So I drove him home, and left him with Jane. I told her I was going to have a word with Ryan Ennis.’

‘You were trying to frame McLean for your crime.’

‘He was a guilty man, so what was one more crime?’

Brutal.

‘I found some videos on his phone. A young girl being raped. Screaming as he tied her up. Pleading. I realised I was dealing with someone who deserved what they were getting.’

‘You should’ve handed that over to the police.’

‘Well, I did the next best thing. I switched the phone on and ran. My car was down the hill. I saw the blue lights as I got in and drove off. Listen, when I met him and he was asking for his phone back, I told him I’d found a website open, with that video, marked as Catriona. I got him to strip off, told him to stay there. Get in his car and phone back in two hours. And I came back. I drove them up to the Law. It was harder to knock him out than Teresa, but I put him in the car, sleeping, with Teresa in the boot, and I switched his phone on. I knew you’d find him quickly, or he’d wake up. So he was a guilty man. What harm was there in adding murder to it? It might help you secure his conviction.’

‘But it wasn’t him.’

‘No. The guilt ate at me. I’d killed someone. A young girl, her whole life ahead of her. She’d wronged my son, but I’d taken her life. I was just trying to help my son.’

18

Dougie McLean looked tired, but was clearly trying to hide it with his usual bluster and confidence. Still, he wouldn’t make eye contact with Vicky. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She sat back enough to make the chair creak. ‘You do.’

‘You seem to know a lot about my life.’

‘I know about the three or so hours where you were knocked out and held in captivity naked at the monument.’

Now he made eye contact. ‘Right.’

‘Were you?’

‘Maybe.’ McLean stared up at the ceiling. ‘I mean… Aye. I was attacked at the Law. And you woke us up there. But…’ He frowned. ‘I woke up in the bushes, some boy was there. Asking me loads of questions.’

‘About what?’

‘This and that.’

‘Come on. What was he asking?’

‘Nothing much. Shite about Carly. About Teresa.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Hardly. It was pitch black. He’d tied me up, so I couldn’t move.’

‘That’s how you left Catriona Gordon.’

‘Come on, you’re still on about that?’

‘Your fingerprints are all over the crime scene.’

‘Keep telling you, that lassie had this fantasy about—’

‘Don’t.’ Vicky’s glare shut him down. ‘It wasn’t some sex game gone wrong. You raped her. And you left her tied up. You ate beans on toast in her kitchen. Then you collected another fare on the street. She would have died if we hadn’t found her.’

McLean sat there, arms wrapped tight around his torso. ‘What’s my help worth?’

‘It’ll give you a clean conscience.’

McLean laughed.

‘It’ll help prosecute the man who attacked you. The man who stole your car, stole your phone, who knocked you out, tied you up and left you in the bushes.’

McLean exhaled slowly, then nodded fast.