Lies of the Land by Chris Dolan

Author:Chris Dolan [Chris Dolan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908251732
Publisher: Vagabond Voices
Published: 2016-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

The doctors had decided to put Bill Crichton into a medically induced coma.

“Just what we need,” Coulter moaned.

“What is it?” Russell asked.

Amy had just returned from the hospital, taking off scarf and hat and gloves. “You shut down all brain functions with anaesthesia. Crichton has intracranial hypertension – trauma caused by the fall. The brain heals better if it’s allowed to rest. At least that’s the theory.”

“But it might not work?”

“No.”

“How long for?” Coulter sighed.

“A Dr Boergmann told me of a case where the patient was kept in a coma for six months.”

“Six months!”

“Did it work?”

“I didn’t ask. But apparently that’s unusual. Depends on how long it takes the swelling to go down. He hopes no more than a few days.”

“Even then we don’t know what state he’ll be in.”

“He might not even survive, sir.”

Russell picked up the phone. “I’ll get Zack Goldie to come in.”

“No. I’d like to see him in his natural habitat.”

Russell groaned. “Waste of bloody time.”

“Who I do want brought in are these protesting women from Belvedere.” Coulter looked at his screen. “Morag Boyd and Cathy Maguire. I’ll ping you over the details.”

“Where did you get them from?” Russell asked, suspicious. Rightly so. Coulter was reading from a long email from Maddy Shannon. Stuff she should have told him days ago. She tried to make it sound like she’d chanced upon the pair of them – something about researching another case. Coulter didn’t believe it, so no chance Russell or Dalgarno would. Was he going to have to rein Maddy in? For her own good, as well as keeping colleagues off his back. But she was good at this. She might go about things the wrong way, but it was like having another – keen, talented – officer on the case. Unpaid.

“Oh, stuff’s coming thick and fast, John. HOLMES, beat reports, you know…”

Then again, it nettled him that she didn’t trust him. She could easily have talked over her hunches, given him the names and the information he needed and let him, the detective inspector, do his thing.

“You got any further with East End gunrunning?” He turned the tables on Russell.

“Going over again this evening. Uniforms are asking around too.”

“That’s our best lead. Track down those guns, we get our killer.”

Two easy steps. If only.

Zack Goldie lived with his mum and dad. Or rather, he lived in his parents’ granny flat, the top floor of a massive Victorian villa in Dowanhill. He was clearly under instructions not to change anything. There must once have been an actual granny, the hallway and living room old-fashioned. A telephone table in the hall, with a phone and a chair. Antimacassars on the backs and arms of a sturdy three-piece suite in the room. Family photographs, many of them in black and white, in frames on the mantel and little tables in each corner.

“I knew one day it’d come back to haunt me.” Zack sat down, looking out of place on the floral-patterned sofa. DI Coulter and DS Dalgarno remained standing.

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