Unnatural Justice

Thirty-Five.

The problem I faced was a simple one. In the fight against our opposition, I had run out of bullets. Ricky and I were making all the obvious moves to try and find evidence that would tie Natalie Morgan to the Three Bears. The only other things we needed were luck and patience. As I've said, I have more than my fair share of the former, but it's not a weapon that can be called upon at will.

As for patience, I find that the older I get the less I have.

So what could I do, I asked myself, to make things happen? Turning once again to my one-man army, Jay Yuille, was not an option. I was sure he would help, but I could never be sure how, given his 'no questions' policy.

After a day of thought, some of it spent working out in my gym, some spent swimming, and some spent hitting increasingly erratic golf shots, I had decided what to do. It would be chancy, and it might even be risky, given the people involved, but it was all I had, my only weapon.

I didn't know how it would work out, but I did know that it would require the performance of my life.

I called Ricky on my mobile, just before six. "Where's Morgan?" I asked him.

"Homeward bound," he replied. "There's nothing on the other three, though, Oz. It's just another day at the offices for all of them."

"Hang in there," I said, then hung up.

I found Susie in Janet's playroom; she looked as glum as she had in the morning. "I have to go out," I told her.

"Where?"

I pinched a few words from my favourite poem, and recited them in my best Ewan Capperauld accent. "I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."

She sniffed. "Be mysterious then. Just don't wake me when you come in, that's all."

I took the Lotus; it's my favourite toy when I'm alone. I didn't burn rubber or anything like that, but I made Edinburgh in an hour and a half, and from where we live, that's reasonable. I was glad that Natalie hadn't moved, for it meant that I knew exactly where I was headed. As I cleared the Barnton roundabout, I called Ricky again. "Is she still at home?" I asked.

"Yes, and all alone."

"Good. Tell your operative to be ready for action."

"When?"

"Soon, I hope."

Less than five minutes later, I pulled into the private car park attached to Natalie's block. There were several spaces in the visitors' area: I picked one, locked on my steering wheel immobiliser … Scotland's capital city hates to admit it, but there are car thieves in Edinburgh too… and wandered over to the entrance door. I knew that Ricky's operative would be watching me, but that didn't matter. I was paying his tab, and if things went pear-shaped in any way, and it became necessary, I would have been the Invisible Man. Not that I thought it would. I had rehearsed my performance time and time again. It was going to be good.

The first time I had entered the building, I had done so… informally; this time I pressed the button with the name "Morgan' beside it.

She must have been near the intercom phone for she answered almost straight away. "Hello?"

"Natalie? It's Oz Blackstone."

"Oz! What the hell do you want?"

"A chat. We need to talk, you and I. I have news that may interest you."

"Indeed." She sounded uncertain. "You'd better come up then." The door buzzed: I pushed it and it swung open. Last time I had used the stairs. This time I took the lift, all the way to the top.

She was waiting for me as I stepped out, framed in her doorway, her long legs disappearing into a pair of very brief shorts, her high breasts encased in a matching halter top. "Sorry to be overdressed," she murmured, 'but I wasn't expecting you."

The lift door hissed shut behind me as she stood aside, letting me into her sanctum. I looked around. "You've refurnished," I said. The place looked a lot more spacious, somehow, than when I'd seen it before.

"Totally," she replied. "I had interior decorators give the place a make-over. Then I hired a feng shui consultant. Remember the Fosters ad on the telly? Well, I actually did it."

I laughed. "There's one born every minute, Nat, but I never thought you were one of them."

"Nor I you." She moved in on me, standing close, gazing up into my eyes. "So what brings you this way. What do you have to tell me that'll interest me? Got a part for me in your next movie?"

"Sorry. Glenn Close does Cruella De Vil."

She chuckled. "Ouch. What can it be then? Is it that you've realised that you fancy me, and that you've decided to trade little Susie in for a winner? If so…" She reached up and tugged at the cord securing her top, but I put a hand up and stopped her.

"Sorry, but I've seen a lot better than those at work… and at home for that matter. Once upon a time, Natalie, I'd have fucked your brains out before I put the boot in. Not any more, though. That wouldn't be right and proper, so I'll get straight to it."

Her eyes narrowed. "How gallant of you to spare my feelings."

"I don't give a bugger about your feelings. It's my wife I'm thinking about. I wouldn't want to take anything from you back to her."

"Okay." She was definitely out of seductress mode. "Say what you have to say, then go."

I fixed her with my coldest stare. "Gladly," I hissed at her. "It's this. You will stop this vindictive nonsense towards Susie, and you will announce tomorrow that you are no longer interested in acquiring the Gantry Group."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because you wouldn't last a week in Cornton Vale Prison. You'd hardly be in there before you'd a brush handle up you. We've got you, Nat, Ricky Ross and I. We know you set up the New Bearsden plot, we know how you did it and why. When I called you a couple of nights ago, I dropped the name Aidan Keane, a little on purpose; let's call it bait.

You swallowed it and no mistake; as soon as my call was over… I taped it, by the way… you went straight through to Glasgow to see one of your associates, Mr. Ravens, we assume, since he was going to be Mr.

Keane's new boss. Twenty-four hours later, what happens? The poor guy's found in the Clyde, with so many bullets in him it's a fucking miracle he can still float. What that makes you, Nat, is an accessory to murder, and legally as guilty of Keane's death as the guys who pulled the trigger."

I paused to let that sink in, and to study her face; it was a mixture of anger, uncertainty and fear. "Offering Keane a job with Mark Ravens if he got found out was a bloody silly thing to do, by the way. But I don't suppose you expected that he would be found out, or that dear old Graeme would provoke him into resigning, or that he would let slip to a mate where his future employment prospects lay."

"You can't prove any of this," Natalie shouted, thrusting out her chin and her chest at the same time, in an odd show of hard-nippled defiance.

"Not without corroboration, we couldn't. It's too bad that one of the Three Bears has realised the risk he's been taking, and has given a full statement to Ricky Ross, so that Ricky can cut a deal with the SDEA that'll keep him out of jail while the rest of you go down. I'm not going to tell you which one; but even if I did, I wouldn't recommend that you have a go at him. He'll be expecting you."

I smiled at her. "So this is the deal. It's open for twenty-four hours, no more. You either drop the bid, or I will drop you." I turned on my heel and headed for the door. "Oh yes, and tell your partners not even to think about coming after Ricky and me either. He's got connections with the police that would make that a very bad idea, and I've got protection that's out of their league. They'd never make it back across the river."

I was back home in time for the ten o'clock news on telly. Susie was sat on the couch, with an anthology of twentieth-century poetry on her lap. "So whose woods did you stop by?" she asked.

"With a bit of the luck of the Blackstones, you'll find out soon enough."