Lone Wolf (DI Sutherland Scottish Crime Thriller Book 5) by Oliver Davies

Author:Oliver Davies [Davies, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

DOMINIC

I sunk into the bar stool.

Out of the fabric billowed a mixture of stale cigarette ash, aged ale and fruit juice. A recurring theme being each was well past their sell by date. Whilst the customers passed in their jovial summer evening fits and the landlord fiddled with the on-the-brink A/C unit, none of the hubbub struck their usual chord in my soul. Not even the prospect of shooting my veins full of liquor helped until I stumbled home in a blackout fever and forgot what it was which ailed me so.

I wouldn’t, of course. Not anymore. But the option was nice.

“Don’t keep the man waiting.” DCI Aikman wouldn’t face me.

“Rum mixed with so much water I can’t taste it. Strong as you like.” I barely paid attention to the landlord. DCI Aikman ordered the same, ignored the sliding of my spare pennies over the counter, and waited until he’d necked the warm-up round and ordered another. Maintaining his cool-as-a-cucumber composure, he eventually replied in such a monotone that I struggled to receive it above the chatter of the establishment.

“There’s a lot you’re keeping buried with Charlie Grieg’s body, Chief, things that can’t stay buried. Not from me, at least,” I said. “I had to go behind your back for a while to uncover the whole truth of the matter. Something I thought I’d never have to do with you as my ranking officer.”

“Truth is subjective,” DCI Aikman said lazily.

“Is that what once you told Annie?”

“To a criminal, the truth is that they had the worst childhood out of the bunch,” DCI Aikman continued. “I’ve heard it too many times to keep track. That the punch wasn’t fatal, they swear it wasn’t. It was only a knockout blow to the soft part of a drunk man’s head or the suffocation of a kid they were trying to rape. They didn’t mean to kill them, it’s how they were raised to deal with conflict, and they don’t deserve to go to prison for a mistake. I’ve heard so many of the same tales of innocence, I stopped believing them all. Looked at the pure, hard, facts rather than the person right in front of me. My truth was that Max Denton did it. I looked at the evidence we were given on paper and that’s what I saw.”

“Was?”

“Fifteen years down the line, I’ve finally seen Max Denton for who he is. The person, opposed to the paper.” DCI Aikman’s chin wobbled. “I visited HMP Greenock last night. Denton hasn’t changed a single part of the story he first told me in the interviewing room and to this day, he doesn’t deny the pieces of his alibi that weren’t so smooth. I’ve seen it before. When criminals pretend to be innocent, they drop the act once they’ve been put behind bars. Either that, or their story gets muddled with time. But Denton’s…” he petered off.

“If you looked at our activity over the past few weeks, Chief, we couldn’t account for much either.

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