THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
WITH TIME TO KILL BOOK TWO
How can you save somebody else if you can’t save yourself?
When widow and young mother Stephanie McKinnon’s disappearance in the Scottish Borders is escalated to the Major Investigations Team, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for DCI John Waters. Pulled into a complex case while dealing with his own torment, his inner demons threaten to consume him.
While Waters’ turmoil worsens as he delves deeper into the investigation, CEO Garry Plumb is living his best life. But when someone threatens his fiancée, Megan, he must turn to his Carrier – the strange, organic, time-travelling mass he used to remove hurdles from his own past – to eliminate the danger. Soon, he finds himself embracing his old killing ways in order to protect what is most important to him.
John Waters knows about Garry’s past deeds, and, as reuniting the missing mother with her little boy takes on added personal significance, he starts to ask himself:Â can Garry’s past can be used to help their future?
SAMPLE CHAPTER
Jamie McKinnon’s mum vanished on a Wednesday afternoon. It was a cold, wet, miserable day that was completely out of place for early May – even in the Scottish Borders.
Wednesdays were Jamie’s favourite day of the week, apart from Saturdays and Sundays, of course. He didn’t mind school. In fact, some parts of it he actually enjoyed. Like when Miss Dodd would tell him and the other Primary Fours about things that weren’t just boring words and numbers. It was usually on a Wednesday that she’d gather everyone round, sitting cross-legged in a circle, and would talk to them about animals or glaciers or space. Jamie liked those sessions because, during them, he could imagine himself being an explorer who was off climbing up some great big mountain, searching for a rare plant that could cure diseases. Miss Dodd had told him and his friends that kind of thing used to happen all the time. Way back in the olden days, scientists and doctors made people better with plants and things from the sea. Some of the other kids had laughed at that – imagine sucking on leaves instead of just swallowing a spoonful of Calpol – but Jamie thought it sounded like just about the coolest job in the whole world. He’d filled the cover of his jotter with little doodles of himself, clutching a handful of vegetation and yelling out, ‘You reek, ah!’ with his hands in the air. Jamie didn’t know why Archie Meedies had told the rest of the world that they were smelly, but they did, so his little stick-figure scientist said it, too.
On top of all that, the other thing that made Wednesday his favourite day of the week was what happened after school. Jamie’s mum worked a half-day on Wednesday. That meant she had the whole afternoon to do whatever it was that mums did when they weren’t working, and she was free to spend the evening with him. Just the two of them.
Jamie couldn’t remember his dad. He had died when Jamie was just a baby. Sometimes, late at night, when Jamie’s mum thought he was asleep in his room, she would sit on the sofa with her feet curled beneath her, looking at old photos of his dad while she cried into a glass of wine. From the landing halfway up the stairs, you could see right into the living room, and Jamie was excellent at creeping there without making a sound. From that perch, he had seen his mum sob more often than a boy his age should, and every time he saw her like that, it hurt him that he couldn’t fix it. What he could do was be the gentleman she taught him to be, so, on the mornings after those episodes, Jamie would wake early to bring his mum toast and orange juice. They always took care of one another, after all.
Jamie didn’t know it, but his mum had only ever eaten his breakfast offering once. He’d developed an impressive knack for consistently preparing toast that was both unpalatably burnt and stone cold at the same time, and he would balance whacking great chunks of unmelted butter on top. She always drank the orange juice, though. He was great at pouring from a carton.
Their special Wednesday routine would start as soon as the bell signalled the end of the school day. Jamie didn’t need to take the school bus home because his mum would pick him up. From there, they’d go to McDonald’s for dinner. After some serious debate, he’d been able to convince his mum that nine years old was big enough to order something from the adult menu instead of a Happy Meal. Jamie’s mum had relented and now allowed him to pick whatever he wanted. She never ate much from McDonald’s, just a few fries and Jamie would get the rest, but at the cinema afterwards, she always bought a box of popcorn. Jamie knew from back in the days before he started eating popcorn that his mum preferred hers salted and, even though he didn’t like it very much, he wanted her to enjoy it, so he would tell her he wanted salted, too. Jamie’s mum, however, had that gift that all good mums have, and she’d spotted his lie from space. Every single time, she’d buy a box of sweet popcorn to share with him.
They never chose a movie ahead of time. Instead, they’d just turn up at the little cinema in Galashiels and whichever age-appropriate screening was due to start next was the one they’d watch. Jamie liked the idea of having no fixed plan, just letting fate decide his Wednesday afternoons. It took the pressure off, and he thought his mum could do with at least one afternoon each week with less pressure. She worked hard enough on her business the rest of the time.
But on that particular Wednesday in May, Jamie’s mum wasn’t there waiting for him outside the school gates. He scanned the narrow road for her Volvo – the safest cars, she always said – but saw no sign. A nervous glance to his right told him that almost all the kids taking his bus – the one that went towards Walkerburn – had boarded. Pretty soon, the doors would hiss shut, stranding him in the rain. It was too far for his little legs to walk the three miles to Galashiels where McDonald’s and the cinema were, and too dangerous to walk the two miles towards home along the A72, most of which did not have the refuge of a footpath.
He had to think. What would mum do?
She’d realise that the only way to guarantee he made it anywhere safe was to get on that bus and head home. Something must have happened at work, Jamie decided. He didn’t understand what his mum did for a living, but he knew she worked from her home office, she had lots of meetings on her computer, and she was her own boss. Maybe she had to fix one of those meetings or something. Whatever the reason, he was sure she’d be there and, if she was still feeling up to it, they could drive through to Galashiels a little later than usual. If she no longer wanted to go, he knew that Domino’s would deliver to their house. Although, come to think of it, the last time he’d suggested getting a pizza from there, his mum had said they’d need to sell the house first, and he’d rather not have to live someplace else.
Jamie joined the end of the queue and was the last one to board the bus. Shuffling his way up the aisle, he searched for a seat that was neither too close to the bad kids up the back, nor too far towards the front where the little kids were sitting. He found one that was just about perfect, and slid in next to Sebastian, one of the kids who lived beyond Jamie’s stop, towards Walkerburn. Jamie thought Sebastian lived on a farm out that way, though he’d never asked. It wasn’t cool for a primary four to take too much interest in what a primary three had to say.
‘Hey, Jamie. Doesn’t your mum usually get you on a Wednesday?’ Sebastian asked.
Jamie kept his eyes forward, his expression suitably nonchalant. ‘Yeah. So what?’
‘Nothing. Just… you’re here. On the bus. So… where is she?’
‘None of your business, Seb. If you must know, she’s probably planning something extra special for me when I get home. A great big cake or something.’
‘Aw, wow! Can I get a bit tomorrow? I’ll be your best friend.’
Jamie gave an aloof shrug. Man, he was absolutely nailing being cool today. ‘Dunno if there’ll be any left. My mum’s pretty great. Me and her are probably going to eat it all for tea tonight while we watch movies.’
Sebastian sucked back the saliva that had poured into his mouth at the thought of being allowed to eat an entire cake for dinner. ‘Wow. Your mum’s cool!’
‘Yup. She’s the best.’
Five minutes after pulling away from the primary school, the bus reached Jamie’s stop. This part of his journey involved crossing to the other side of a large roundabout which connected the A72, running from Galashiels to Peebles, with the back road to Selkirk. To get across, Jamie had to trudge along the grass verge that ran around the perimeter of the junction while traffic hurtled past. Sometimes, if he was lucky, and the bus was delayed leaving the primary school, he would arrive just as a handful of high school kids got dropped off. Most of them lived further up the hill, but one of them – Connor, who lived three doors up from Jamie on the Glencaddon estate – would let him tag along, and that made him feel safer. This day, however, Jamie’s bus had been swift leaving the school and he was forced to make this journey on his own.
Once he had made it to the other side of the roundabout, which took longer than usual thanks to the sodden ground, he walked a couple of hundred yards on the tarmac of the back road which was much quieter, then peeled off onto a single-track lane which descended to an old, stone bridge straddling the River Tweed. After a brief stop in the middle of the bridge, where he gazed down at the flowing water, making sure there were no crocodiles or sea monsters swimming upstream towards his home, Jamie started up the gentle incline on the other side, past the dense forest which grew there.
Rounding the bend at the entrance to the eleven-property estate, Jamie could see right down to his house at the far end of the cul-de-sac. There, parked in the short driveway in front of the garage, was his mum’s big Volvo.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Phew! She’s home. Time to initiate ‘Operation Domino’s’!
There were three models of house on the Glencaddon estate, all large, detached, stone villas painted the same shade of terracotta, and ringed by low fresco walling. With the four bedrooms that Jamie’s mum and dad had planned to fill, theirs was one of the smallest dwellings, but it was more than big enough for just the two of them.
Strolling past the larger homes, Jamie waved to the Galbraiths, an elderly couple who would usually have been tending to their show-worthy garden at this time of year but, instead, were huddled beneath the awning at their back door, keeping clean and dry.
‘How do, Jamie?’ Mr Galbraith said as he returned the wave. ‘What did you learn today?’
‘Oh, just stuff,’ Jamie replied with a shrug.
‘Stuff, eh? That sounds mighty exciting.’
Jamie gave Mr Galbraith a polite smile and splashed on through the puddles. He liked the Galbraiths. They must’ve been about a hundred years old, but they were always nice to him, and Mr Galbraith could make him laugh sometimes.
A trades van had become a permanent feature outside the house directly across the street. There, the occupants were always having some sort of work done. On this particular day, the windows were the source of some dissatisfaction.
‘Carl?’ Vito Karamba’s nasal American drawl boomed from the sheltered porch at the front of the house. ‘Carl, come and tell the man exactly what’s wrong with those hideous monstrosities. I’m clearly not explaining myself properly.’
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Vito disappeared back into the house, and handed a poor, bewildered, and soaking wet window fitter over to his husband, Carl Simmons.
Onwards Jamie strolled, stifling a giggle that had been building since Vito tagged his husband into the fight. What had tickled him was the tradesperson’s features knitting together in confusion from the moment Carl began firing off a barrage of insults in his thick, high-pitched, Liverpudlian accent. No doubt Mr Simmons thought he was giving the window fitter the scolding of his life, but it was clear to Jamie that the recipient hadn’t understood a single word.
Jamie’s amusement lasted only the few minutes it took for him to walk the remaining distance to his front door. Stepping inside, he felt a weight in the pit of his stomach. The whole house was silent. No sounds emanated from the TV in the living room, nor from laptop speakers upstairs in his mum’s office. The only sensation he detected was a gentle breeze weaving its way through the house.
Dropping his rucksack at the foot of the stairs, Jamie kicked his shoes off and stepped into the kitchen. There, he saw that the back door was standing ajar.
Silly mummy, he thought. You’d give me a row if I left that open.
He padded across the tiled floor, pulled the door closed, and decided he wouldn’t tell his mum that he’d found it like that. If she knew she’d left the door open, she’d be mad at herself, and Jamie didn’t want her to feel like that.
Even though no noise was coming from the living room, Jamie poked his head in to check. After confirming it was, indeed, empty, he climbed the stairs. At the top, the stairwell opened onto a wide landing with five doors leading from it, all standing open. His mum’s bedroom and the spare room were on the left, and he could see there was no one in there. Jamie’s room and his mum’s office were on the right. Those, too, were empty. The bathroom door faced him, and this was the only room which had the light on. A damp towel was lying in a heap on the floor.
‘Mummy?’
There was no response, so he tried again. When silence answered his third attempt, Jamie knew he was alone at home. Stepping into the bathroom, he picked up the towel, folded it, and hung it back on the rail to dry off.
Jamie wondered what had happened. Maybe Granny and Grandpa had come to visit, and they had driven his mum to pick him up. He hadn’t been looking for their car, after all. Plus, they’d probably been chatting away about all the boring things adults talked about, and that made his mum late. That would explain why there was a towel on the floor and the back door had been left open. She’d been in a hurry, that was all. They would all come home just as soon as they realised Jamie had taken the bus. Feeling better, he went back downstairs to the living room and clicked on the TV. He hopped up onto the big, L-shaped sofa, and found a channel that he liked.
Lost in a cartoon-induced trance, Jamie didn’t register the passage of time until his tummy started rumbling. Realising his mum was still not home, Jamie pondered. Eventually, he concluded that she was probably busy fetching something absolutely amazing for dinner. Maybe even getting that cake he’d told Sebastian about.
The last thing Jamie wanted to do was ruin his appetite, especially if he and his mum were in for a night of movie-watching in their matching onesies. But he was so hungry!
A wee bowl of coco pops won’t hurt, the voice in his head told him, and he had to agree with it. One teeny-wee bowl. He’d still have plenty of room for pizza, or burgers, or— wait! What if she’d gone all the way up the road to KFC? Well, if she’d done that, then this was going to be the absolute best night ever.
Almost tasting succulent fried chicken, Jamie skipped back to his spot on the sofa and resumed his TV consumption, switching away from the cartoons-only channel as they had now started showing stuff that was too babyish for him. By the time the new channel had given way to more grown-up stuff – like the boring news – Jamie was in a deep sleep. He remained there, on his side with his knees curled up to his chin, until the following morning.
After a couple of stretches and yawns, Jamie’s confusion dissipated and he realised where he was. Why hadn’t his mum woken him up when she came home? Five minutes of padding around the house – after an initial stop-off at the downstairs toilet for a wee-wee – gave him his answer. His mum wasn’t home. Hadn’t come home. She was still missing.
Standing in the doorway to her bedroom, his eyes flitted between the bed that hadn’t been slept in and the window whose curtains hadn’t been drawn. Jamie’s bottom lip trembled and his eyes began to fill. He gave a sharp sniff, which caused the tears to spill over the edge of his eyelids and down his cheeks, then he sobbed one great big ‘waah-haah’ like babies do. As soon as it was out, he plugged his mouth with his thumb. No more baby noises like that were going to come out. Somehow, having his thumb in his mouth soothed him and he was able to ask himself the important questions.
What am I going to do? What would mum do?
A second later, he knew the answer. His mum would go next door and ask for help. Mr Noble lived next door. He was an old, old man – even older than the Galbraiths. Jamie guessed he was about one hundred and eighteen years old. He never talked to Jamie, or smiled at him, not even when Jamie was trying to be extra nice. As far as Jamie was concerned, Mr Noble was just a grumpy old fart who gave him the heebie-jeebies.
But then he remembered the times his mum had gone to the neighbour for help. Not once had the man ever turned her away. When a storm had knocked the power out and they couldn’t get the alarm to stop sounding, it was Mr Noble who knew it was because the battery had died. Mr Noble had disconnected the alarm for them that night and had gone with Jamie’s mum to buy a new battery the next day. And when the neighbours on the other side – the ones who were often away for months at a time – asked Jamie’s mum to trim back the big tree at the edge of the garden because it was hanging over the fence into their garden, it was Mr Noble who had the right tools and had done it for her. If Jamie’s mum trusted Mr Noble to help, then he should, too.
Still wearing his school uniform from the day before, Jamie scurried out the front door, around the wall, and up the path leading to Mr Noble’s door. He had to lift himself up onto his tiptoes to reach the doorbell and heard a deep bing-bong from the other side of the thick door. A moment later, Mr Noble thrust the door open.
‘’Whit’s all this?’ The grumpy old man was standing in his doorway wearing a tartan robe wrapped around old-fashioned, stripy pyjamas. ‘It’s no’ even eight o’clock yet, boy!’
Mr Noble’s initial snarl soon dissipated, and it was only then that Jamie realised he was crying again.
‘Aw, what’s wrong, son? What’s happened?’
‘I don’t—’ heave ‘—know wh-where—’ gulp ‘—M-Mummy is.’
In an act which was contrary to everything Jamie had believed about his next-door neighbour, Mr Noble lowered himself down onto an arthritic knee, wincing as he did so, and took the young boy in a gentle embrace. ‘There, there, wee man. Let’s go have a look-see, eh? She can’t have gone far.’
Taking the old man’s hand, Jamie allowed himself to be led back the way he’d come. Once inside his house again, the choking sobs subsided and he could speak.
Mr Noble, having believed young Jamie had merely woken to find his mother gone – presumably out enjoying an early morning run along the bank of the Tweed, as many of the young folks seemed so fond of these days – had intended to sit with the boy until her safe return. After listening to Jamie’s story, however, his concern grew. He gave the house a quick check over, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Although he didn’t know the young girl who lived next door all that well – woman, he scolded himself; she was a mother after all – he knew she doted on her boy and would never leave him on his own. Forcing his deeply lined face from its resting scowl into what he hoped was a reassuring smile, Mr Noble told young Jamie to get himself ready for school, then sent him off towards the bus stop. When the boy was beyond the bend at the entrance to the estate, Jim Noble called the police.
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