Page 2 of Miki

EILIDH CAMPBELL

GLASGOW – TWO WEEKS LATER – DISILLUSIONED

It was early morning, and I was up and ready. It was my first day as a fully-fledged Detective Constable in the Criminal Investigation Department, for Police Scotland. I was seconded to the CID for a few months while I was in uniform, but this was me, now an actual detective.

For what seemed like the millionth time, I nervously checked myself in the mirror. Scrutinising my reflection, I gulped and nodded. With my hair tied neatly in a bun at the back of my head, a nicely fitted grey suit with a crisp white shirt, and black square-heeled ankle boots, I looked the part of a confident detective. Even if I didn’t feel it.

Tears sprung to my eyes. Dad would have been so proud of me. I missed him so much. He was killed on duty almost three years ago, and the crime was still unsolved. There had been a major investigation at the time, but when no significant leads were found, it slowly dwindled off. Now it was just another cold case.

Still, I always kept hope that one day the breakthrough I had longed for, which would help bring my dad’s killer to justice, would materialise. Yesterday, it finally did. Or so it seemed. I was still struggling to truly believe it.

Sniffing loudly, I swiped at my wet eyes with the backs of my hands. I would not cry. I needed to have my game face on this morning and act like I was happy to be going to work. Puffy red eyes were not part of my plan.

My mind flashed to the day before and the events that had changed everything for me.

When I returned from my usual morning run, I found a large brown envelope waiting for me on my doorstep.

There was no address or postage on the thickly stuffed envelope, only my name, Eilidh Campbell. Someone had obviously hand delivered it, but there was no sign of anyone in the quiet street.

Strange!

I took it into the house. Black and white pictures, which I immediately recognised were surveillance photographs, poured out as I emptied the contents onto my desk.

What the heck? Why would someone send me a load of photos?

As I looked through the first few images, I was filled with a growing sense of foreboding.

All of them showed my dad’s partner, my new boss, and the man I called uncle, Detective Chief Inspector Roy Allen, in what appeared to be compromising situations. And he wasn’t the only one. Several other members of the CID were in the photos, too.

What the hell are these?

Snatching up the rest, I shuffled through them, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

Another man I recognised in the photographs was Aiden Mathieson, a well-known Glasgow defence lawyer. His clients were always the worst of the worst and included members of a notorious crime family.

One photo showed Uncle Roy and another of my colleagues taking a package from him, and another showed Uncle Roy handing Mathieson something. After closer inspection, I noticed yet another of the photos showed Aiden Mathieson giving a briefcase to Uncle Roy.

Each photo seemed more damning than the next, and I felt queasy.

I didn’t want to believe what these photos were eluding to, but I couldn’t stop my mind from going there. Were the photographs showing payoffs? I shook my head; surely not! But it certainly looked that way.

Bile rose in my throat, and I gulped it back. There had to be another explanation for what I was seeing. Maybe an undercover operation of some sort that I hadn’t been aware of?

But if that was true, then why would someone take these photographs and then send them to me?

There was really only one explanation. Either my colleagues were corrupt, or someone wanted me to think they were.

But why?

As I reached the final three photographs, I froze in shocked disbelief.

“Oh, my god! No!”

A sob tore from my throat at the sight of my dad sitting in his unmarked police car on the night of his murder. He was reading something in a thin file.

With shaking hands, I moved the photo aside to look at the next one and immediately felt sick.

My dad lay on the ground, dead from a gunshot wound which had blown half his face off. A man stood over him, gun in hand. My vision blurred and my head swam. Bile rose in my throat, and I rushed into the bathroom, falling to my knees just in time as I vomited down the toilet.

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