Unnatural Justice

Forty-One.

I found Jay in the kitchen, making himself coffee. "Change of plan," I told him. "We're going to stay at Ellie's tomorrow night, after the dinner, and Sunday. We'll put you up in Rusack's Hotel, so you can enjoy the exciting nightlife of St. Andrews. Who knows, maybe you'll find a nice American coed. The place is dripping with them, especially since Thingummy went there."

"I should be closer to you, boss."

"No need. There's only two Bears left now, and they'll be too busy dividing up Jock Perry's bit of the empire to bother with the likes of us." He looked at me, surprised. Clearly, Jay hadn't been listening to the radio on the drive through.

"Make an extra coffee and come with me for a minute, though." When he was finished we picked up our mugs and I led him out of the kitchen and into the long garden of my father's house. There's a bench seat at the foot, looking out over the Firth of Forth, and we sat there. I laid down my coffee, took out my mobile and called Mark Kravitz, on a number he gave me once. He filters all his calls, so I left a message and he called me back a minute later.

"Hi Oz," he said, cheerily. "What is it this time? Another favour or a job?"

"The latter, if you can do it." I gave him the web address of King Neptune's Sea of Pleasure. "I want the ISP traced and I want the site shut down, whatever the cost."

"The proprietors might want a lot."

"The proprietors have become part of cyberspace itself."

"Should be easy, then."

"Today if you can. Send the bill to Jay, not directly to me."

"Sure. Take care up there." He hung up. That last part was a big speech for Mark.

I turned to my minder. "Jay, I need to know," I told him. "My whole fucking world's gone pear-shaped here. When you came back from your trip to Pittenweem, you said I wouldn't want to know what you'd done. I went along with that because I put the wrong interpretation on it. But now I really do have to know what happened."

He nodded. "If you've had a face-to-face with your old man, and I heard some of it, I guess you do." He took a sip from his mug. "I did as you asked; went to the Neiportes' cottage. I had a game plan all worked out; you don't need to know the details but I have certain calling cards that imply I'm officially connected, if you understand me. I intended to put on a small show for them and to convince them that by messing with your family they had stepped on some very sensitive toes, and that if they didn't desist, Walter would find himself deported and back in the States faster than you could say "Elvis". This could have been awkward for him, since there are a couple of small cases of internet fraud that the FBI wanted to discuss with him."

Jay looked at me. "I didn't anticipate any problems. That sort of approach never fails with small-timers like these were. But the big difficulty was, they weren't home. It was seven thirty in the evening, and the house was empty. So I went in, through a back window, easy as you like. I could tell they hadn't been home for a while, a day at least. The breakfast dishes in the sink were not from that morning, and the mail, and the newspaper, were still in the hall."

He drank some more coffee. "So I had a really good look around. There was nothing downstairs that told me anything, but upstairs, in a couple of attic rooms…" he whistled '… that was different. They told me the whole story. One was like a photographic studio, with a bed and various cameras, masks, costumes, props… it reminded me of a street in Amsterdam. The other room was full of computer equipment; a couple of desktops, one newer and a lot faster than the other, scanners and the like. I switched them on… no security at all. Probably figured they didn't need passwords. They were running a porn website, Oz; bloody hardcore too."

Jay seemed to wince at the memory. "Anyway, I wasn't interested in that. I wanted their diary, and it didn't take me long to find it, on the newer computer. There was an entry for the day before and it said "19:00. M. Blackstone. Lesser Saltgate Farm, Arncroach". So I let myself out… I took a key with me, so I could get back in through the door if necessary… and headed for that farm."

He looked at me, sadly. "People should not be allowed to keep animals that way, Oz. The place was deserted and it didn't look like anyone goes there very often. The poor bastards were filthy. They were penned in, and they were fed in troughs from these bloody great hoppers that were filled with this horrible stinking swill. There were dead piglets lying about too, and some of them…" He broke off.

"I found the bodies easy enough. They were in one of the troughs, but they hadn't been covered up properly. They'd been shot, him in the chest, her in the chest and head, close range, with a shotgun, not sawn-off, though, or the spread would have been wider and the wounds would have been worse."

"What did you do?" I asked him quietly. I was struck by the fact that he had been a lot more distressed by the state of the pigs than that of the Neiportes. Me too, I'm sure, had I seen them.

"I covered them up properly, that's all, then I got out of there before the farmer or one of his hands turned up." He held his mug close, in both hands. "Let's just say, boss, that I reached certain conclusions, and I acted accordingly. I went back to the cottage and I stripped it as best I could. I found a couple of suitcases and I packed all the stuff from the studio into them, then I made it up with clean sheets and covers to make it look like an ordinary bedroom. Then I had another look at the computers. I wiped them clean of all the porn stuff, all the databases, all the addresses, all the client information: and when I say clean I mean really clean. There's nothing in any wastebaskets or anything like that. I spent half the night deleting and removing all traces of what had been there, and then, just to make sure, I reinstalled the system software in each of them.

There's nothing left there to connect that place with what had been happening there. I sold the cameras to a bloke with a stall at Barrowlands in Glasgow; they'll be untraceable by now."

"What about the money?" I asked. "The Neiportes were collecting through credit cards."

"That all went into a bank account in Jersey, with a false name. The police won't find that, not by accident at any rate. I found the records in a filing cabinet, and a lot of other stuff too. When I was done, there was nothing left in the house other than purely domestic papers. Everything else is ashes."

"And the tabs? The ecstasy? What about that?"

"I got them through Mark," he replied. "I figured that I needed to send the CID off on a false trail, so I called him and asked him if he could get me a supply of something or other to plant on a bad guy. He sent me somewhere up in the Highlands. I picked up the gear, went back to the house again and hid it for the police to find when the bodies were discovered. Then I headed home."

He looked into his mug intently, as if something was swimming in it.

"You don't have to worry, Oz. Your old man's safe."

"I know he is. He didn't do it. He was up to his elbows in Rotarians when the Neiportes got it; as alibied as you could get."

"Eh?" Jay had been as convinced as me of my father's guilt. "But that only leaves…"

I nodded. "Exactly; me. I sound just like my father on the phone."

"You mean you sent me up there to clear up the mess?"

I winked at him. "Sorry. I didn't know there would be so much work. I didn't know about the porn site until today."

"What happens to me, now I know?" he asked, quietly.

"Nothing. You're as guilty as me in the eyes of the law. Accessory after the fact. All that happens to you is that you live long and prosper, like Mr. Spock."

He laughed. "You doing a Star Trek movie next?"

"Some day, mate, some day."

I glanced at him again. "How am I paying you for all that stuff? The gear must have cost more than you got for the cameras."

"I've been looking for a way your accountants won't spot," he said.

"You'll be paying me extra for the installation work on Janet's playground."

I smiled. "As much as you like. See you later."

He stood and walked back towards the house. The smile left my face as soon as he had gone. As I've said, I've been in some personal danger in my life, but I've never felt scared; it's all happened too fast for that, I suppose. Yet as Jay's footsteps crunched on the gravel behind me, I sat there feeling more frightened than at any moment in my life.