His coffee. The realisation cut through the growing fog in his mind with terrible clarity. He’d left his desk that afternoon and attended a twenty-minute meeting about overtime schedules. His office door had been unlocked, his coffee cup sitting on hisdesk where anyone could access it. Someone could have slipped something into it – something that would take hours to reach full effect, timed to hit him when he was alone on a dark road.
He’d microwaved the cold coffee instead of making a fresh one.
Kennedy fumbled for his phone, trying to call for help, but his fingers wouldn’t cooperate properly. The phone slipped from his grasp, falling into the footwell where he couldn’t reach it without taking his attention completely off the road. His vision was deteriorating rapidly, the world becoming a blur of shapes and shadows.
He needed to stop, pull over and get out of the car before he lost control completely. But his foot wouldn’t find the brake properly, and the steering wheel seemed to be turning under his hands.
Headlights appeared in his rear-view mirror, approaching fast. Too fast for these narrow, winding roads. Kennedy tried to maintain his position and keep the car steady, but his reactions failed. Through his blurred vision, he watched the pursuing vehicle pull alongside him – a dangerous manoeuvre on this stretch of road – and then it swerved sharply.
The vehicle’s brake lights exploded on in front of him. The manoeuvre was precise, calculated to send Kennedy’s car spinning towards the trees. His vehicle left the road, crashed through undergrowth and wildflowers, and slammed into an ancient oak tree with a sickening crunch of metal and glass.
The airbag deployed, and the explosion stunned him further. Kennedy sat dazed, blood running from a cut on his forehead and his nose, unable to move, barely able to think. Whatever drug was in his system had done its work perfectly, leaving him conscious enough to understand what was happening but too paralysed to do anything about it.
Through the shattered windscreen, he saw a figure approaching. Calm, unhurried footsteps crunching through debris. Someone opened his door, and Kennedy tried to ask for help, but his mouth wouldn’t form words. His vocal cords were as paralysed as the rest of him.
Gloved hands reached across him, retrieving the briefcase from the passenger seat. Kennedy wanted to protest, to fight, but his body had become a prison. He could only watch helplessly as the figure opened the briefcase efficiently and removed Louise Grant’s post-mortem report and all of Sophie’s careful notes.
Then came the whisky – a bottle produced from somewhere, expensive single malt from the smell of it. Liquid poured over Kennedy’s face, into his mouth, down his chest, soaking his clothes and the car’s interior. The smell was overwhelming, creating the perfect tableau of a drunk driver who had lost control on a dark road.
The figure worked with mechanical efficiency, saying nothing, revealing nothing – just methodical preparation of a scene that would tell a specific story to anyone who found the wreckage. Three times over the legal limit, the toxicology would show. Tragic but not uncommon for officers under stress. And then the fatal heart attack.
As consciousness began to fade, Kennedy’s mind fixated on two things. First, Sophie had been right – Louise Grant hadn’t died accidentally. She had been murdered, probably by the same person who was killing Kennedy now. And second, Sophie would be next. She would keep asking questions, pushing for answers, eventually pushing too far and ending up like Louise. Like him.
Kennedy tried one last time to move, to fight, to do something that might help whoever investigated his death understand that this wasn’t an accident. But his body had shut downcompletely now, leaving only his mind trapped and screaming in a shell that wouldn’t respond.
The world faded to darkness, and DS Malcolm Kennedy’s final sensation was the taste of whisky he hadn’t chosen to drink, mixed with blood and rain and the bitter knowledge that he had failed both Louise and Sophie.
The discovery came at first light, when a farmer taking his early morning route to check on sheep noticed the skid marks and investigated. By the time traffic officers arrived, the story was clear – a drunk driver, well over the legal limit, had lost control on a notorious stretch of road and hit a tree. Tragic but not uncommon.
Kennedy’s colleagues were shocked and saddened. Margaret was devastated, unable to believe that her husband of twenty-four years had been drinking heavily without her knowledge. His daughter Rachel, inconsolable, was not able to comprehend that she’d never see her dad again. Everyone agreed that the job stress must have finally caught up with him, pushing him towards alcohol as a coping mechanism that he’d hidden from everyone who loved him.
The official report was straightforward: DS Malcolm Kennedy, forty-seven, died in a single-vehicle accident caused by drunk driving. Blood alcohol content three times the legal limit. His funeral was well attended, the chief constable sent a wreath, and colleagues spoke about the dangers of job-related stress and the importance of seeking help before it was too late.
But there was one person who knew it was a lie. Sophie Boyd instantly understood that she was responsible for this…
18
PRESENT DAY
Wednesday
The drive to Fettes station took Brodie through the morning Edinburgh traffic, past the rugby fields at Goldenacre and along Ferry Road to the modernist concrete structure that housed Fettes station. He’d been up since five, his mind still processing everything his sister Moira had told him about staging heart attacks and the implications for Mark Finlay’s death.
Fettes was busier than the Fife station Brodie had been working from, with the constant flow of personnel that came with being a major administrative hub. He made his way up to the MIT offices, where Detective Superintendent Rob Cross had said he’d meet him.
Cross was in his office, door open, working through what looked like budget reports with the kind of expression that suggested he’d rather be on a golf course, even though he didn’t play golf. He looked up as Brodie appeared in the doorway.
‘Here’s the late shift,’ Cross said with a grin.
‘I was working the late shift last night when I was confirmingsomething for this case you threw me into in Fife,’ Brodie replied, settling into the chair across from Cross’s desk.
‘Ah, yes, The Embalmer. Nasty business.’ Cross’s expression turned more serious. ‘You better watch out for yourself, Liam. From what I’m hearing, this case has a habit of making people disappear.’
‘That’s why I’m here. We need another body on the ground.’ Brodie pulled out his phone, checking his notes. ‘DC Morven Fraser is still in Greece, and we’re a team member short for the amount of ground we need to cover.’
‘You want Lucy Warren?’
‘If you can spare her.’
