Referendum by Campbell Hart

now?”
    “I’m on the way; just driving from the west end.”
    “OK, I’ll get you there. I’ll be bringing our specialists so if we need to move patients from that ward, that needs to happen now, understand?”
    “I’ll get it sorted. Thanks Graeme.”
    Donald hadn’t expected the job to have been done so quickly. Ian Wark had been a thorn in his side. He’d been digging into his background at the time of the terror attack and he couldn’t be sure about how much information he’d uncovered. It seemed as though he didn’t have much but you could never be sure, it paid to check. At first they assumed he’d died. He’d jumped out of a light plane which had been shot down by the RAF. He’d been trying to make a martyr of himself by crashing a Cessna into the Trident fleet at Faslane. But he’d fallen short and a lot of the case had subsequently been covered up. The last thing I need is a court case. Wark was linked to the bomb blast at George Square, everyone wanted to know about that, so the less information that went public the better. And now he was gone. Murphy had been true to his word and would be rewarded, although his prize might not be what he expected. Donald made some calls and left for the hospital. This crime scene he had to see.
     
    It wasn’t pretty. By the time the Forensics team arrived the ward had been closed off and the remaining patients moved. Ian Wark had been kept in a private room. Technically under constant surveillance, the man hours had been relaxed in recent weeks. With the Games on, the officers were needed elsewhere. The room had been under lock and key, though, so there shouldn’t have been any way for someone to get to him.
    Donald made sure he was noticed, “How the hell did this happen?” No-one knew how the breach was made, closed circuit TV footage was being looked at; they hoped they’d find someone. All they saw was a man in a balaclava.
    The door to Ian Wark’s room had been picked. Donald suppressed a smile. It was a good job and there was no damage, a clean break-in.
    “Looks like a pro, sir.”
    “Thanks Constable,” Donald didn’t know where they found these guys. Is that supposed to impress me? He forgot about his irritation when he saw the body. A small calibre entry wound marked the front of Wark’s forehead. The bullet had rotated through his skull, mashing his brains and forcing its way out of the other side. The blood from the exit wound stained the light green wall behind the metal bed; fragments of hair and skull clung to the bed and plaster.
    “Sam Brown was right.”
    “What about, sir?”
    Donald turned back to the PC, “It’s a hell of a mess.”
    Kath Finch had arrived with her team but she wasn’t happy, “Why haven’t you got your shoe covers on, sir?”
    Donald looked down, he’d deliberately forgotten; the more confusion the better. It was more evidence that they’d need to rule out, something that was bound to slow things down. “Shit, sorry Kath. I was worried about the case. This isn’t going to be easy to explain.”
    Kath Finch stayed quiet. She knew she couldn’t argue with her boss, it wasn’t worth the effort, but what on earth was he thinking? She knew he’d been heavily involved in the manhunt to find Wark; this would be personal for him. “I need to ask you to leave the room, sir.”
    Graeme Donald tried to look chastised, “Sorry, Kath; it’s just you, know, it’s this case – I’d hoped to get answers from this guy. There was going to be a trial.”
    Kath nodded, “We need to work fast to try and isolate the evidence. It won’t be easy in this room. There must be dozens of people in and out of here every day, so it may take time.
    “Just do what you can, Kath; it looks like there might be someone else out there holding a grudge. This can’t leak out. We might need to try and keep this quiet.”
    As he left the Royal Infirmary, Donald was confident the coming months were looking decidedly better. But to be