And the World Changes, A M Kirk [best feel good books TXT] 📗

the crime scene. He was shown into the carriage where the shooting had taken place. Striped tape cordoned the carriage off. A uniformed policeman was sitting at one of the tables for four, making notes in a small, old-fashioned notebook. Above him, Roberts noticed a hole had been torn in the roof, the jagged edges punched outwards. At the far end of the carriage, a cloth shapelessly covered the body of the murdered officer.
The policeman, aware of Roberts’ presence, stood up. He looked glad and relieved to see someone of superior rank. He introduced himself as Sergeant Tod Campbell.
“Roberts, CIS,” said Roberts, sitting opposite Campbell and offering his ID for checking.
Campbell waved it away. “I knew you were coming, and you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess the helicopter with CIS on the side hardly ushers in Coco the Clown.”
The words could have sounded sarcastic but Campbell’s face indicated otherwise. The Sergeant was nervous.
“What have you got so far, Sergeant?” asked Roberts.
Campbell took him through what witnesses had described and what the visual evidence reinforced. “The killer came in that door. He fired one shot at the couple – the boy and his mother – who were sitting here” (he indicated the seat with the destroyed headrest) “but he was then grabbed from behind by McPherson. He’s the dead man. There was a struggle, the killer got another shot off - the one through the roof – and then managed to round on McPherson and shot him at point blank range in the chest. The bullet fragments exited the body and are embedded – some of them - in the plastic doorframe. It’s made some mess of the poor guy.”
“Did you know him?”
“Yes. I did, slightly. Anyway, I’ve left them there for the forensic team. They should be here within the hour. They’re coming from Glasgow too, but they’re not so quick off the mark as you, sir.”
“No. Any shell casings?” asked Roberts.
“I have them here in the plastic bag. And I’ve marked on the floor where I found them.” Campbell passed the bag over. “I can’t say I recognise them.”
Roberts squinted at them but did not take them out of the bag. “No. Home-made, perhaps? “ Roberts pondered this for a moment. “Witnesses?” he asked at last.
“We’ve started taking preliminary statements. Good witnesses. Very… articulate. Do you want to see any of them?”
“No. Just give me the gist. What happened to the killer after he shot McPherson?”
“The boy and his mother fled through this way. They jumped from the train.”
“Did they now! And lived to tell the tale?”
“We presume so. The witnesses said they saw them running off up Auch glen. The killer wasn’t so lucky. He hit the railing when he jumped and landed twenty metres or so below the bridge. The impact of the rail or the fall broke his neck. He’s still there, if you want to see him.”
“I’ll maybe have a look later. No ID?”
“No. And no gun. Just a broken mobile phone.”
“That phone could tell us a lot. Its chip will give us every call the phone’s ever made or received. Make sure the lab guys get on to that right away when they get here. What happened to the gun?”
“My guess would be the woman took it.”
“Hmmm.” Roberts was silent for a long while. “What else?”
“Shortly afterwards, witnesses reported two policemen running up the glen, apparently in pursuit of the mother and the boy. There’s just one thing.”
“They weren’t policemen,” said Roberts.
Campbell nodded. “I’ve sent a couple of our boys along the track in a Landrover, but it took a while to get started. We had to get gate keys from the farmer and he was out on the hill. But they set off up the glen just before you arrived.”
“You’ve covered all the bases, Sergeant, it seems.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“They got on the train at Bridge of Orchy?” asked Roberts.
“They did.”
“Have one of your men check the registrations of all the cars in the hotel car park, the station, all the cars he can find there, in fact. It’s just a small place. Have him check the hotel, too. Not just the register, ask the staff if they saw a mother and her boy. If they paid in cash they could have given a fake name. They spent last night somewhere. Let’s start ruling out the possibilities.”
“I’ll call that in just now,” said Campbell and began to speak into his police radio Mark at his collar.
Roberts surveyed the carriage. He knew from reports that Janette Daniels and her son had left Touch and travelled to Crieff yesterday. They fled Crieff after the second explosion at the guest house. They ended up on this train. If they spent the night at the hotel… They would have had some hand luggage. Where was their luggage?
“Sergeant – can you organise for the passengers to take their luggage off the train? Have it searched outside. You never know – there may be more than one killer on the train. And any luggage that is left over…”
“I see what you mean, sir. Whatever’s left belongs to the woman and her boy and whoever was trying to kill them.”
It was the work of a few minutes to organise the removal of the luggage. Roberts did not really think anything of real interest would turn up in the search – his chief concern was with what was left over, and sure enough, two small tartan overnight bags were unclaimed. He took them to the carriage table and started to examine its contents.
Most of the items still had wrappers with price bar codes attached: underwear, socks, pairs of jeans, thin jumpers, toothbrushes and toothpaste hardly used, a face cloth still damp. Roberts studied Janette’s wallet. He remembered too, what her husband had looked like. Quite like the boy. But that had been a long time ago. He recalled it was back in 2002 or 2003 – he had been a much younger Chris Roberts in those days, not long out of training college at Tullyallan. More details of the case came back to him. Daniels had been on the fringes of some bizarre plot to blow up the Scottish Parliament building. A latter-day Guy Fawkes? Roberts smiled at the memory of it. “The Tartan Liberation Army”… something like that – a stupid, student, amateurish outfit. But, they might have done the Scottish taxpayer a favour, after all…
He found some sheets of paper rolled up and apparently hastily stuffed in a side pocket. A graphic of the front of the Bridge of Orchy hotel decorated the top left corner of each sheet. Small, neat handwriting covered three of the sheets and the last one had a map drawn on it.
Roberts began to read.

**********

Another couple of kilometres had been covered but the situation was looking worse by the minute. Mark, having vomited his breakfast back at the train, was now very hungry and the morning’s exertions had only intensified that. Janette, too, constantly had to stop herself from complaining about her discomfort that was now, she felt, extreme. She had never been so uncomfortable in her life. She was wet from falls and trips, and blisters were making themselves evident on her heels and sent stabs of pain through her legs every time her feet made contact with the ground. She tried walking on different parts of her sole, but that just make movement more awkward and ultimately tiring. Progress was slow and frustrating and made worse by the insistent gloomy thought that they were going absolutely nowhere in this vast landscape that showed, to their eyes, no trace civilisation. Six kilometres to the east lay a hydro-electric dam, farms, a populated valley. But Mark and Janette could not see that. These signs of twenty-first century civilisation might as well have been on the moon. Here and now it felt like they were in the middle of an ancient trackless wilderness with no help for a hundred miles.
“We’re a couple of poor excuses,” remarked Mark.
“I know. God, I wish I’d kept up that fitness programme with Dawn Greenwood. I just feel so unfit, so inadequate.”
“You’re not the only one, mum. I just wish I could sit still and get my head straight. I’ve been all mixed up since the train. I just can’t -“
There was a sound to his right, a soft thunking sound, just a metre from his foot. It was the sound made by a bullet, they both knew. Automatically Mark looked back the way they had come.
“Oh no!”
Just cresting the rise, less than five hundred metres away, he saw a figure motionless and apparently taking aim again.
They dived for what cover was offered by the tussocky grass on the boggy banks of the narrow loch. Another bullet thudded into a thick boulder a couple of metres to the left. A large chunk of the rock fragmented off, proving how powerful these bullets were and suggesting what they might be capable of doing to a human being.
“What on earth do we do now?” hissed Janette, and Mark could not mistake the sheer terror in her voice. Her face had an unnatural pallor and her breathing was shallow and rapid as she crouched in a small furrow in the bank beside him.
“I wish I knew!”
“The gun! Do you have the other guy’s gun?”
Mark nodded and took it from his pocket. It was like no gun he had ever seen. He held it lightly in his hand, examining it, then tightened his grip determinedly on the butt. His index finger slipped almost naturally over the trigger.
“It might be our only chance, Mark!” whispered his mother.
Mark nodded again. “I’ll wait till I can get a clear shot.” He peeped over the rim of the hollow, aiming the gun out in front. The pursuing figure was clearly visible, descending cautiously in their direction, his own weapon poised and ready.
At two hundred metres Mark judged he could stand a chance. He tried to remember all he had seen in films and TV programmes about shooting techniques. Relax… take a breath…. hold it… and just squeeze the trigger gently. The gun jerked in his hand, but made little sound. Mark had been expecting a huge bang.
“What happened?” asked Janette asked.
And then was terrified out of her wits by the man’s voice behind her. “Your son got off a shot that shows he needs a few lessons. Don’t move an inch or I’ll kill you here and now!” The voice gave the impression of very a dangerous and very competent man who would do exactly what he said.
Mark felt the barrel of a pistol touch his left ear, just above his birthmark. Adrenalin pumped into his system and completely disorientated him. The flight, not fight, impulse was strong in him now, but he was utterly paralysed with fright.
“And I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.” A hand reached round and lifted the gun