04-Mothers of the Disappeared (13 page)

I was looking for answers to support my own theories. Or rather, those of my clients. I wanted to give them the answers they needed, because it would help them to move on. Finding Alex Moorehead innocent – and perhaps someone else guilty – would give some meaning to the years of doubt that they had all suffered. There would be fresh pain, certainly, and even more questions, but some sense of closure would be attained.

Perhaps we might even have answers as to why these children had to die.

But was this a fantasy? Was I as deluded as some people claimed my clients to be?

Why was I so certain I could find something where others had failed?

I had been as convinced as Ernie that Moorehead was the killer. I had also been convinced in later years, that he had killed before. My assumption based on the evidence surrounding the body of Justin Farnham, and the circumstances uncovered by Wemyss and Project Amity, linking him to the other deaths and disappearances.

Moorehead was not a pleasant man. When he finally admitted that he couldn’t escape the truth any more, he became arrogant and confrontational. Ernie had called him on his bullshit, but all the same he put on a show for our benefit; his way of not giving up the power he held.

Was I missing something?

I sat there for a long time, underneath the embrace of the overhanging tree, listening to the dampened sounds of the city that came from nearby, the noise of traffic dulled as though in respect for this final resting place in the heart of the city.

I closed my eyes.

Someone sat next to me.

Susan – her hair longer than I remembered, maybe a little darker, too – smiled, not quite meeting my eyes as though embarrassed at us meeting this way again. ‘Steed,’ she said, ‘I think we should talk.’

‘W
hen did you get back?’

‘A while ago.’

‘You didn’t call.’

She brushed a strand of hair away from her face. Kept her head slightly bowed, looking at the ground instead of at me. Something in her body language made me think of a guilty teenager. ‘I didn’t know if you’d want me to.’

An excuse? Something she wasn’t telling me?

She was acting like a stranger.

Less than six months ago, we’d been each other’s touchstones. Now she was acting like she didn’t know what to say to me any more.

‘You know I wanted you to call. I sent emails. I waited for you to reply. And you never …’

‘I didn’t know what to say.’

‘So why turn up like this? Why here?’ The unasked question:
Why now?
Given everything that was happening, I couldn’t take her sudden reappearance as a coincidence.

She finally looked at me, the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. Tugging at her features, but unable to break past the awkwardness of our meeting. And whatever it was she wanted to tell me.

‘Steed …’ she said, but she had no words to follow my old nickname.

‘Just tell me,’ I said.

‘I left the force … Came back to the country about two months ago. I’m … I’m working with the SCDEA now.’

She might as well have stabbed me. Slashed my throat. Stuck kitchen scissors through my eyeballs, into my brain.

‘You’re working with Griggs,’ I said.

‘What have you done with yourself the last six months?’ she asked. ‘I’ve seen the files. You’ve been taking on cases that you don’t really need to think about. Easy money jobs. Quick-fix investigations. Killing time because you don’t know what else to do.’ Again, there was that hesitation. But this time she allowed herself to speak. ‘Because you were always good at finding ways to distract yourself from the bigger, more personal questions …’

‘You take a course in psychology while you were gone?’

‘No need when we lived together over a year.’ The words snapped out hard, the same effect as a whip cracking across my face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, more softly. ‘I didn’t mean to …’

‘No,’ I said. ‘You did. I can take it.’

‘You always wanted to take Burns down,’ she said. ‘Now’s your chance to actually …’

‘You said you know me,’ I said. ‘But you let Griggs crash into my life like a fucking earthquake. I want to take the bastard down, all right, but I’m doing it on my own terms. You know Griggs is manipulating me, right? Asking questions that have already been answered. Painting me in the worst light he can and then coming forward like he’s my fucking saviour.’ The old anger welled up inside me. Started in the chest, became this tight and unbearable sensation, spread out through my arms, all my muscles tensing, my fingers flexing. ‘You want that, too? Want me to give up my life for the greater good? Is that it? Some higher fucking purpose.’

‘You know what Burns has done, Steed. The lives he’s ruined.’

‘How long have you been working for Griggs?’ I asked. ‘How long did it take to brainwash you?’

‘Don’t do this.’

‘You didn’t come here today because you wanted to. You didn’t come here because you cared or because you thought I was making some kind of mistake. You came because your boss told you to. And because no matter how long you went away, you still want to take revenge on Burns for what he did to your father.’

‘Steed …’

‘Jesus Christ, what do they do to people there? I used to respect Griggs. I always respected you. I …’ There were words I wanted to say, but they stumbled, faltered. I wondered if my inability to say them had played a part in her leaving. I cleared my throat, took another run up, let the anger guide me. ‘And now rather than ask me right out, he bullies me with one of the weakest efforts at emotional blackmail that … Christ, Susan, I thought you were—’

‘You know what I think?’ Susan said, as she stood up. ‘That you’ve become so damn good at lying to yourself about things, at closing off your emotions, at making excuses, that you don’t even know you’re doing it any more. This is our best shot at Burns, Steed. You are our best shot. I know you can do it. I know you want to do it. Sandy’s gone about this like a bull in a china shop, but he knew he’d need to work hard to get you onside. You always said you worked best when backed into a corner.’ She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. As she did so, she slipped something into the breast pocket of my jacket. ‘Change your mind,’ she said. ‘You call me. But don’t take too long. Sandy’s serious. He’ll follow through on his promises.’

I had no doubt about that. None at all.

I
can’t escape him.

He’s been part of my life so long, I can’t imagine what it would be like if he was gone.

Arrested. Dead. Whatever.

What happens when David Burns finally gets what’s coming to him?

You might call it an obsession. Maybe it is at that. Something passed down to me from Ernie, who had formed his own obsession with Dundee’s ‘Godfather’ following the force’s attempts to strike a deal with the old bastard in the mid-nineties. Ernie had been the go-between, something he’d never been happy about. It was an assignment that would colour the rest of his life.

I often wondered if he’d passed the obsession on to me. A kind of legacy.

Those old photographs. Showing Burns in happy little domestic scenes with one of the Disappeared. Walking the beach with a child and his mother. Acting like a genial old man. A friend. A neighbour.

Griggs presenting them to me because he knew I couldn’t resist.

Burns had never been part of the original investigation into Alex Moorehead. And even though I knew that Griggs was pointing me towards the big man for his own reasons, there was still the possibility of finding something that we had overlooked.

Burns would want to help.

A child had been murdered. Burns called himself a family man. Took the description seriously.

I wonder if it’s part of the criminal mind, a kind of low-level psychopathy. A man like Burns will deal drugs to whoever wants them. He’ll hurt mothers’ sons, kill men’s brothers, order terrible vengeance on those who have wronged. Yet if someone else behaves in ways that reflect his own actions, he takes offence; vows revenge.

And he’ll never accept his own complicity in the cycle of violence.

He answered the door himself, dressed in a dark blue shirt and white trousers. Gave me the eye. After all, our last meeting had hardly been cordial.

‘You here because of that prick Griggs?’

‘You know I won’t work for him.’

Burns nodded. ‘One thing I can always count on, your sense of morality. Always thinking you’re doing the right thing.’

‘I want to talk about Moorehead. Your connection to him.’

He took a slow breath, and said, ‘You’re too late, pal. Should have asked me after you arrested him. Not that I knew then. Took a couple of years, aye? Before the truth came out in full.’ He looked around, as though he thought we were being watched. ‘You like to walk?’ When I didn’t say anything, he expanded on the question: ‘The countryside. Fresh air. Where no one else can hear what you’re saying.’

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I like to walk.’

We took his car across the water, to Norman’s Law on the other side of the Tay. Much of the hill is used as farmland, but ramblers and walkers use the more public areas of the hill on a regular basis.

We trudged along a relatively light slope, through ankle-high grass still wet from the rain. I wasn’t wearing the right kind of shoes for the walk, and could feel the damp soak through into my socks. I curled my toes inside my shoes with every step. As we neared the edge of fields and enclosures, Highland cows and sheep ambled forward to examine us curiously, maybe sensing that we weren’t the usual recreational ramblers.

When we were far enough along, Burns said, ‘I hear he killed himself.’

‘You knew one of the children he killed.’

‘The cunt.’

‘The mother lived close to you. You knew the family.’

‘That boy should never have died.’

‘Why didn’t you do anything?’

‘At the time, we didn’t know that …’

‘I mean later. When he was sent to prison. When it came out about the other children. When that lad’s name was released. You had the power to do something. And don’t you dare deny it.’

Of course he had the power. Back when one of the thugs who had tried to kill me in the graveyard survived and was sent to prison, he was murdered by another inmate. Everyone knew that had been Burns’s influence. Everyone knew how far the old man’s reach extended.

Burns didn’t say anything for a moment. He stopped walking, turned to face me. ‘He should have died. He should have been fucking murdered. Not a quick death; he deserved to fucking suffer for what he did to those boys. Animals like him … No sympathy. You don’t give them sympathy. They never show their victims any.’

‘So why didn’t he? Suffer, I mean.’

Burns hesitated.

‘Don’t play coy,’ I said. ‘We both know what you’re capable of.’

Burns stepped forward. I held out my hands, posed like Jesus on the cross, let him pat me down. When he was happy, he stepped back. I saw tears in his eyes, but it could have just been the wind. ‘Who says I didn’t try? And that the hit was fucked. After that, security around the bastard got tight. Soon enough I had bigger problems. There are always bigger problems. You don’t deal with something right away, something else always comes up. I should have fucking done it, though. Sooner rather than later.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘The boy I sent in got the wrong pervert. Can you believe it? After that Moorehead was put in solitary himself. For his own protection. Like he was the victim. Bloody fuck!’ He shook his head. Expression on his face said he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘I got him a cushy fucking job in the kitchen. Supposed to put glass, you know, in the arsewipe’s dinner. Ground glass. You eat a plateful of ground glass and it churns up your insides. Nothing anyone can do for you. Not if they don’t know what’s happening. So this particular con who owes me a favour, he does this favour, and he gets the wrong bloody pervert’s plate. Puts the glass in the wrong food. Jesus, you should have seen the shitstorm after that one.’

I didn’t know about the failed hit. Never heard anything from anyone about some prisoner putting glass in the solitary meals. Wondered if it happened while I was in hospital. Or while I was busy feeling sorry for myself, practising my self-destructive tendencies.

The wind picked up a little. It tickled around my exposed skin. Cold and unsettling.

‘Think he’s guilty, then?’

‘No doubt in my mind, son.’

‘Why?’

‘What the fuck’re you so interested for?’

‘There’s been doubt raised.’

‘Then why would the wee prick admit to—?’

‘To that one crime and not the rest?’

‘He was a psycho! They don’t need a bloody reason, lad. Surely you’ve seen enough in your time to know that.’

I thought of a big, bearded man proudly boasting about the way he’d battered a woman, eventually bashing her brains out in the rear kitchen of an abandoned croft. A man to whom violence came as instinctually as breathing. The very definition of a psychopath. His name was Wickes and I had trusted him up to a point. Two years ago, and I still had nightmares about the violence he had brought into my life.

‘Moorehead was different,’ I said. ‘I’ve met psychopaths and sociopaths before. Seen them at their worst. Moorehead was … just … Did you ever actually talk to him?’

‘No. Why would I want to breathe the same air as that pervert?’

‘I don’t think I noticed it at the time. I was too green. In awe of Ernie, I guess.’ I hesitated. ‘But when I spoke to him the other week, there was … when he spoke … I don’t …’

‘You think he’s innocent?’

Did I nod? Shrug? I don’t know. It was hard to put my feelings on the matter into words. Alex Moorehead was accused of a horrendous crime, and like Burns, I believed a man guilty of those crimes should suffer. But if there was even the slightest chance that Alex Moorehead was innocent, then he couldn’t simply be punished to make us all feel better, to satiate our desire for revenge. If he was innocent, he’d been harmed as much as the victims of whoever had killed these children.

‘You’re like a dog with a bone, son,’ Burns said. ‘Most men would just accept what they were told. But you … you’re different.’