04-Mothers of the Disappeared (2 page)

It wasn’t Lindsay. He’d be throwing away his own reputation if he raised questions about that night. Besides, if he’d wanted to lock me up and throw away the key, he’d have done it there and then. Maybe things would have been better if he had.

We were quiet for a while. Lindsay was the one who broke the silence, asking, ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Nothing I can do.’

‘Really?’

‘Except wait.’

He nodded. ‘Welcome to my world.’

He was awaiting the results of a physical. Nearly eleven months of leave, he wanted back on the job, even if he was just driving a desk. But they were making him jump through hoops. Almost literally. Police work requires a certain degree of fitness, and given what happened to him, no one was sure that he would ever return to that level. He hated the tests, and even worse hated the possibility that he might not be allowed back.

I’d joked that he could go private. He’d almost knocked my block off.

We sat together for almost an hour, not saying much. Mostly exchanging half-hearted observations about the re-opening of the investigation and why anyone would start to look into it now. But neither of us had any answers, and the truth was that after four years we just wanted to forget it all, and move on with our lives.

I’d done enough standing still to last a lifetime.

When I got up to leave, he said, ‘I stand by the report, you know. Back it all the way.’

I nodded to indicate that I understood.

And then I left.

About as close to friends as we could be.

I was suspended from the ABI, but the law didn’t require that I shut down my business. The ABI has been working with the Government for years to legalize the profession, but the inevitable red tape has held up many attempts to organize our merry band into something approaching a cohesive professional body.

So I could work under the radar if I wanted. Say I was doing favours for friends. That kind of thing.

I had myself a part-time security gig with a bunch of other eyes from Fife, providing protection for a top-level golf tournament in St Andrews. Rich assholes, richer movie stars, tourists looking to get too close, as though the success might rub off on them.

I drove over the road bridge, slipped on sunglasses as the day brightened. It was the arse-end of summer, the weather unpredictable. For the best part of June and July the heat had been on, and even on dark days, you could see the red remnants of the Scottish suntan among the populace who’d taken advantage of the sun. We’re pathetic that way. Scottish skin sizzles easy, and yet the first sign of a heatwave, we’re out there, topless, not even bothering with the weakest of suncream.

Eejits.

I pulled up outside the Old Course Hotel, right next to Andy McDowell’s gleaming BMW. He was leaning on the bonnet, waiting for me. Dressed all in black: a pasty Johnny Cash. Tipped his shades at me as I climbed out.

‘We need to talk, McNee.’

‘Something wrong?’

‘I don’t like to do this—’

I knew what he was going to say. Didn’t let him finish, just raised a hand.

‘Come on, man,’ he said. ‘Don’t be like that.’

I’d worked with Andy on and off since I got into the investigation game. Originally from Glasgow, he formed McDowell Associates after moving to the east coast to indulge his passion for golf. He’d probably have preferred to move to Tennessee to indulge his passion for Americana, but sometimes in life you have to compromise. His connections to the golf world allowed him access to cake-walk security details like The Open. And he liked to work with people he knew.

He wouldn’t take a decision like letting someone go without giving it a great deal of consideration. On all sides.

Didn’t make me feel any better, though.

‘I have policies,’ he said. ‘Everyone ABI certified and—’

‘Do you believe I did it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to have done,’ he said. ‘Just that you’re off the register. But I’m sure that—’

‘So what happens now?’

‘There’s a severance in the contract,’ he said. ‘You saw it. It’s generous enough.’ Aye, generous enough, he didn’t mind being an arsehole.

‘Doesn’t really help.’ It wasn’t about the money. He knew that, probably understood. And all I was doing now was making this tough on him.

‘Maybe you should take some time off while—’

‘Would you?’

He didn’t say anything.

I walked past him, stared out across the course and at the ocean. The wind was low, but you could still see the foam of breakers forming as the water lapped into the coastline.

‘You want to talk about it?’ he asked.

‘Not really.’

‘How about a beer?’

I looked at my watch. ‘It’s only just gone twelve.’

‘Beer and lunch.’

‘You’ve got work.’

‘I’ve got people working.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I was supposed to be one of them.’ I moved back to the car, started to climb in.

Andy placed his hand on top of the open door before I had a chance to close it. ‘If you were in trouble, you’d ask for help, right?’

I reached up and pushed his hand away before closing the door. He stayed where he was as I reversed, and then pulled out.

Looking in the rear-view, I saw him watch me. His shades hid what he was thinking.

But I could guess.

B
ack at the office, I stewed.

Windows closed. Door locked. In my chair, staring at piles of looming paperwork. Considering just chucking everything out of the window.

Maybe follow it all.

That last thought a joke.

Probably.

Dot buzzed through from the office. ‘Someone to see you.’

‘You know that I’m not currently taking—’

‘Police.’

I stood up, unlocked the door, opened it. Sandy Griggs nodded at me in greeting. He was still tall and rangy, as I remembered. But his fine red hair was wispy, and you could see his scalp beneath strands that looked like they’d been styled by a gale-force wind. His blue suit fitted him a little awkwardly.

But the geek-edge of his appearance belied a quick and fiery anger that had occasionally taken him before Discipline and Complaints during his time with Tayside Police. Guess I could empathize with that. Especially given that the worst of his ire had been directed towards wife-beaters and domestic abusers. Some cops have their own personal agenda. Sandy always wore his on his sleeve. Why it was a surprise when he upped sticks to join the SCDEA, go hunt down the gangsters.

But those days were behind him. In an official capacity, at least.

Now Sandy was SCDEA.

Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. Our very own Serious and Organized. Or, if you wanted to get all sound bite about it: the Scottish FBI.

Sandy stepped forward, one hand outstretched. I accepted the gesture, noted that he grasped just a little too long before letting go.

‘Ja—’ He caught himself, let his gaze drop for just a moment. Showing me he was embarrassed. Something told me it was a show. Work in the investigation game long enough, your shite detector gets a good workout. He was trying to show me that he remembered me well enough, that we were friends, even if we hadn’t spoken in a long time. ‘McNee. How you doing?’

‘Good. Didn’t think we’d see you round these parts any more. Thought you’d be too busy living the good life out on the west coast, keeping busy with the Glasgow gangs and all.’

‘Aye, doesn’t mean we’re not watching over you guys here. Mind if we have a chat?’ He didn’t glance at Dot, but he might as well have done. ‘In private?’

‘I can close the door.’

He thought about that for a second. ‘Fancy a coffee?’

Five minutes of sunshine in Dundee meant the pavement cafes were set up outside pubs and coffee houses in what was called, with some small sense of irony, the city’s Cultural Quarter. Sandy took me to one of the busier set-ups, ordered for us.

I sat at the table with my sunglasses on and thought about what he might want to discuss.

Sandy had been a DI back in the day. Young, possibly ambitious, but occasionally scuppered by that anger. Hence his decision to change direction and work with the SCDEA. I’d been in uniform, then. Remembered his departure as abrupt, the change in direction no doubt something to do with the shitstorms he allowed himself to get into following a friendship with another private eye. I’d met the eye – his name was Bryson – only twice, but knew that he was the kind of man who got his friends into trouble whether he meant to do it or not. Bad news followed him around like a sulky Rottweiler.

No wonder Sandy was acting like he knew me. I had more than a few things in common with his old friend.

When Sandy came back, he placed my coffee in front of me and kept a hold of his own mug as he sat down. ‘Sorry to drag you away from your busy day.’

‘Not a problem.’

We both sipped at our drinks. Keeping eye contact. Giving away as little as possible. Daring: call my bluff.

Around us, ordinary people indulged in ordinary conversations about kids, work, last night’s TV.

Sandy didn’t want to talk about any of that. Neither did I.

So he said, no pre-amble, ‘That night, did you have another gun on your person?’

I started to get up. His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. ‘That’s not why I’m asking.’

‘All due respect, I think it is.’

Sandy let go of me. I sat down. Waited for an explanation. Ready to leave if I didn’t like it.

‘The reason I ask is that I want you to say you did. Even if it’s not true.’

‘You want my business to tank?’

He hesitated. ‘You could say that,’ he said. And told me why.

The man I killed – and I still can’t say whether it was an accident, or in cold blood – worked for London gangster Gordon Egg. Egg was old-school hard-arse, had been waging a war in Dundee against a man named David Burns. The dead man was one of Egg’s best muscle-men.

I shouldn’t have got involved, but a client was mixed up in their turf war, and I’d managed to get noticed by both sides. Burns, claiming to recognize something of himself in me, manipulated me, made sure I wound up doing his dirty work. I didn’t agree to anything, but all the same found myself in the right place at the right time and with the proper motivation.

Since that night, Burns and I had what you might call a complicated relationship. He manipulated me again, forcing me into a hunt for his missing god-daughter, before using the death of an old friend to once more trick me into doing his dirty work. Looking at it from the outside, you might start to think I was enjoying it.

Which was precisely why Sandy Griggs wanted me to cosy up to the old man. To finally give in to everything he offered me. To quit being manipulated and willingly do exactly what the foosty old fuck wanted.

‘You’re a mental case,’ I said. ‘You know that, aye?’

He smiled. No humour. No warmth.

A couple took the table next to us. Oblivious to what was happening. Wrapped up in each other, laughing and sharing intimate little stories as they leaned in close across the table.

Wonder how me and Griggs would have appeared to them if they noticed us.

‘Seriously. I can’t do it.’

‘Then what are you going to do?’ Griggs asked. ‘You’re fucked, McNee. You know it. From the minute you made the decision to kill that man, you’ve been in freefall. The pavement’s coming up fast. One way or another, it’s going to hurt when you land.’

I massaged my forehead for a moment. Thinking about what he was asking me.

He leaned back, sipped at his coffee.

Sixteen months or so earlier, a good man had died because he lost track of what side of the law he was really on. Ernie Bright had been a good copper, and tried the trick of cosying up to the bad guys. It was a move that wound up killing him by inches until a shotgun blast to the chest finally put him out of his misery.

I still believed, even if others didn’t, that Ernie hadn’t switched sides. That he’d had some grander purpose. That he hadn’t died uncertain of who he was, of who he stood for.

Sandy was asking me to walk that same line. More than that, he was asking me to betray every principle I had ever claimed to have.

‘I don’t want to do this, man. But I’m down to my last hand. You’re my ace.’

‘Let me think about it. Jesus fuck, just give me a moment to …’

‘Sure, a moment.’ Griggs stood up. His coffee wasn’t even half-finished. ‘You know where I am. Just don’t take too long, huh?’

I
spent the afternoon making phone calls. Calling in what few favours I could. Shaking proverbial trees. Trying to get some idea of just how badly I was being fucked.

Nobody wanted to talk to me. Told me just about everything I needed to know.

Three o’clock got me a phone call from Cameron Connelly at the
Dundee Herald
. Playing the concern-for-a-friend card, but just beneath the genuine worry, I could hear his reporter’s instincts angling for a story. If he was calling me, it meant his colleagues were already sniffing blood, and he wanted to beat them to the exclusive.

I said, ‘How long?’

‘They’re waiting for official sources to disclose the nature of the charges.’

‘How much do you know? Off the record, of course.’

‘About what I knew before. Except the spin is different. Someone’s trying to make this about your incompetence.’

‘That how you’ll report it?’

‘I’ll report the facts. You’ll have right of reply. But I don’t want to run this if it’s simply a vendetta, know what I’m saying?’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘Aye, it’s been said.’

In those days, I had been angry. Recovering – slowly – from the accident that had left me ready to lash out at the whole world. When I wound up caught in the middle of Burns’s and Egg’s little turf war, I focused my anger on two of Egg’s thugs. Convinced there was no other option. Ask me today, I think things went the only way they could. Given who they were. Given who I was. Anyone trying to spin me as a have-a-go hero or a mindless thug was grinding their own axe.

The only witness to what happened that evening – the thug who survived – refused to talk to the police, to confirm or deny my story. Took the whole ‘honour amongst crooks’ bit dead serious. Dead being the operative word when he wound up knifed in prison just a few months later. The work of David Burns. He might as well have left his signature at the scene. But of course, even if everyone knew he had been behind the death, no one could prove it in a court of law.