The Devil Among Us by Ramsay Sinclair (easy books to read txt) 📗

and I recognised that vexed tone all too well. My curiosity got the best of me and I dared to peer over the broken window. They must’ve moved further away from sight for I couldn’t see a single person from this angle.

“Crap,” I swore to myself and made a rash decision to enter the building and obtain the evidence we needed to charge them with.

I couldn’t move left or right of the wall I was hiding behind, for the man still reading in the van would spot me. The window height was near my hips, nothing which my legs couldn’t swing over easily. There was barely a proper light source to illuminate my movements as I scuffled through the open gap. I landed with a soft thud inside the deserted building and hid behind a large, stone pillar.

A faint drop of water leaked above my head. It smelled of damp and festered mould in here, how I expected Cillian’s desk to smell after the aged sandwich. The floor was made of industrial stone and I stood flush to the pillar in the main opening of the ground floor. A few larger rooms lead off from here and it sounded as if the group were in a room directly ahead.

“Crossing the borders again won’t be easy,” the gruff voice reached my ears again.

Softly pacing around so that my back was still firmly pressed against the pillar, I stuck my neck out towards their end of the building. A doorway leading to a larger room revealed a group of four men. DCI Reid flanked them and bathed in shadows. I could only differentiate them from their frames and height.

It didn’t help that they were all dressed in black.

“You’ve done it once, you can do it again,” DCI Reid replied with a calm certainty and I heard the pacing of his steps. I knew the way he walked off by heart.

“Let’s test these beauties out. Make sure you’re not setting us up to fail,” a third voice chimed in, the tone riddled with suspicion. I think it was the smallest of the group, for he appeared to twitch and fiddle with the guns.

“Go ahead,” DCI Reid allowed them to. “I’ve been true to you all this time.”

I heard them whisper in agreement. What followed was something unexpected. A billowing gunshot echoed from their weapons and I plugged my ears with my fingers. Worried that they’d discovered me lurking and that I was their target practice, I immediately flung myself to the ground.

“Huh,” the gruff man seemed to approve of his weapon.

“I told you boys--” DCI Reid began in a suave voice. “I stay true to my words.” To some of us maybe.

This was what I’d waited patiently for. A moment to catch them in the act, to see it first hand. To have them in a situation that they couldn’t deny or worm their way out of. Doing an army-style crawl from where I’d flung myself down in a hurry, I located the phone which I’d flung into a random pocket.

Silently opening the camera application, I pointed the phone towards the group and pressed record. Despite the gloom of Seafield house, the men were just about visible, and the outlines of their guns were unmistakable. Patiently letting them continue their deal, I managed to stay behind the pillar as best as possible whilst filming.

“You’ve still got some left over?” DCI Reid asked, and I presumed he was still talking about the drugs in the van.

“A bit,” the shortest man replied. He must’ve been the guy DC Taylor had photographed from the hospital visit. “We’ve planned to sell them tonight. One of the deals fell through, but luckily, we had the backup plan ready and waiting.”

The group of offenders gradually marched as they spoke deals and money, making themselves harder to be seen on my camera recording.

“You know how these things go. People are unreliable, they get spooked or scared.” The gruff man was of a similar height to me. David Roy. “But your plan to hitch up the prices worked well. We’ve already earned triple the amount of our usual shipments without having to sell it all.”

DCI Reid chuckled proudly. “I saw a gap in the market. It pays to have distinguished men on your side for once. Speaking of, what are you doing with Judge Ramsey’s cut?”

“All done and dusted. We owed him big time for getting us off the last charge.” David Roy stroked the body of the gun soothingly, voice barely louder than a grumble.

“Excellent.” DCI Reid rubbed his hands together to warm them up. “He deserves the appreciation. He’s a good man who hasn’t had the recognition he deserves by being on the straight and narrow.”

The shortest man piped up again. “This is more than recognition. He could easily leave the country with the amount we’ve earned.”

“Indeed.” DCI Reid stroked his chin thoughtfully.

My phone didn’t have much battery left, but I’d gotten more than enough footage on the lawbreaking group. Diverting my attention momentarily to the screen and ending the recording, I tried to send it straight off to McCall through a text message. That way, I’d be sure to have a backup of the video ready and waiting at home. The signal inside here, since we were in the middle of nowhere, wasn’t more than one bar.

Inwardly cursing the network suppliers and the remoteness of Dalgety Bay itself, I reckoned people working in London never had issues of the technical kind. A failed to send message popped up on my phone screen and a pinging notification alert accompanied it.

“What was that?” The man I believed to be David Roy shushed the group and fear took its steely grasp upon my soul.

They were talking about me. They had to be.

DCI Reid inhaled sharply. “I have no idea,” he muttered darkly.

“A phone,” the last guy who hadn’t yet uttered a single word confirmed and their guns clicked.

Any battle of nerves I had left melted away at that precise moment. Tucking