The Second Stranger

Martin Griffin is an exciting new voice in the crime genre. Before turning his hand to writing, he was a deputy headteacher and a doomed singer who was once asked to support The Fall on tour, a gig he had to decline having only composed two good songs. Martin lives in Manchester with his wife and daughter. CopyrightPublished by SphereISBN: 978-1-4087-2524-5All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.Copyright © 2023 by Martin GriffinThe moral right of the author has been asserted.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.SphereLittle, Brown Book GroupCarmelite House50 Victoria EmbankmentLondon EC4Y 0DZwww.littlebrown.co.ukwww.hachette.co.uk ContentsAbout the AuthorCopyrightChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39 1Since the night was going to be a milestone for me, I poured a plastic cup of wine and took a moment to watch the storm.It was a quarter to seven, I’d handed my notice in twenty-eight days before and I was about to begin my final ever night shift. Leaning against the snow-covered balustrade of my balcony, I was dreaming of the following morning; of packing my meagre belongings, driving my Nissan into Aberdeen, and dropping it off with its eBay buyer. Car sold and cash in my purse, I’d be at the airport for my 11 a.m. flight. A hop to Heathrow, on to Madrid for my connection, and then heading out to Santiago, Chile, by tomorrow evening. Tomorrow evening.The wild possibility of this unburdening, an escape I’d dreamt about for fifteen years, made me dizzy. I sipped the wine. Thinking like this felt something close to lunacy. My final night at the Mackinnon. It was a chance to say goodbye to my old self; to escape abroad a new person. I might not have box-ticked the other expectations associated with one’s early thirties – I had no career any more, no permanent home, no children and, after tonight, no job – but my final shift felt like it was the start of something. Live-in staff all got attic rooms with balconies, but the remainder of my colleagues had started their leave so I was the third floor’s only occupant. It seemed somehow appropriate, given the course of my life so far, that I was marking this special occasion alone, a woman in a winter jacket and beanie hugging herself against the snow.The wine was the cheap stuff that came in minibar bottles, but it tasted good enough as I cast my eyes across the Mackinnon’s grounds for what might be the final time. On summer days my quarters had a beautiful view, but early February was different. Loch Alder was frozen over the colour of Lakeland slate, a silent presence between our two mountains: Bray Crag on its far shore, snow-covered and wild, and, rising above the hotel on this side of the water, the peak of Farigaig. Tonight it was nothing but a silhouette on tracing paper, though the tangle of its steeply forested flanks came all the way down to the hotel’s perimeter fence. The sight of the loch, the mountains and the distant prison had become my life this last eighteen months. Most of HMP Porterfell was hidden by the pine plantations of Farigaig’s foothills, but the lights of the exercise yard were bright points haloed by driven snow, and the north watchtower was visible. I raised my cup in its direction in a final silent toast to Cameron and sipped, relishing the warmth of the alcohol.I was still staring at the place when I heard the klaxon’s wail.The sound was a familiar one. When trouble flared at Porterfell, as it often did, overcrowded and outmoded as it was, the first signs were always barking sirens and strobing lights. I felt a sudden rush of memory. I had to set my cup down and steady my pulse with big, deep breaths. A year ago, a Porterfell riot had killed my brother. The same wail of sirens had marked its beginning. Back then there’d been the flicker of fire against distant brickwork, a windborne roar of crowd noise and a night punctuated by the droning engines of security vehicles going back and forth along the mountain road. I hadn’t known Cameron was dead at first. Next of kin weren’t informed until later. In a fifty-five-inmate brawl, it’s apparently impossible to finger the murderer of a particular individual and, because unlawful killing was hard to prove, Cameron’s passing was recorded as misadventure. So now my brother was gone, his death remained unpunished and I’d been stranded here, a thirty-three-year-old woman working night shift at a highland hotel, studying the place that had penned him in.I watched the distant buildings, listening to the moan of the siren. Through curtains of snowfall across the loch, I could see the intermittent flicker of lights. The prison gates were open now. Three distant vehicles were pulling out; a car either side of a van that looked like a high-security transport. That might explain the disturbance. An inmate leaving, violence erupting as desperate scores were settled. The siren continued its looping moan and I watched the convoy turn left towards us, setting off along the mountain road in our direction. I thought about the drivers, thought about my two-hour drive tomorrow. I’d have the advantage of daylight, but we’d had plenty of snow in the last week and plunging temperatures had hardened the drifts into sculptured pack. The wind had changed direction, polar air from Siberia triggering red weather warnings,