04-Mothers of the Disappeared (7 page)

When did it break? How did it break? Or was there always something wrong with him?

Like a person with an aneurism, some people have deviancies lying dormant, waiting for that one moment when they can finally let loose upon the world.

There is no way to predict when this will happen, or how it will manifest itself.

The idea was terrifying enough in the abstract, but in the case of Alex Moorehead, there had been no real warning signs. Psychologists’ reports indicated none of the usual signs of deviancy or violent tendencies.

His actions had been a shock to everyone.

Human beings are the ultimate enigma. All we know of people are what we can see and what they choose to tell us. We do not know – not really – what goes on inside their heads, or how they really see the world. All we can judge on are outward appearances.

For a long time, people believed that you could judge criminals by their appearance. Read early reports by J Edgar Hoover, the man who made America’s FBI the force that it is today, and you will see his descriptions of Communist and alien agitators alongside actual career criminals as being identified by their looks, their ‘shifty’ eyes and general demeanour.

The truth is, most criminals and psychopaths are not identifiable. They could be anyone. Your best friend could be hiding a terrible darkness and you’d never be able to tell.

In the aftermath of terrible events – killing sprees, abuse, massacres – you almost always hear the same thing from neighbours and friends when they talk about the perpetrators. They were quiet, polite, kind, simply not predisposed to this kind of behaviour.

But the public at large and even the media can’t understand this. I remembered when Joanna Yeates was murdered in Bristol, the first person the media focused on was her landlord. There was no concrete evidence as to his guilt. They turned on him not simply because the police were talking to him as a person of interest, but because they decided he
looked
like he was guilty. They didn’t find the real killer until much later, because the man who killed Joanna did not fit the popular profile of what a murderer should be. The real killer was quiet, ordinary looking and had actually come forward to offer help to the police in their inquiries.

Guilt and innocence are never clear cut or easily defined. Humanity always finds a way to shock and surprise itself. Often in the worst possible ways.

I stopped after about four hours’ straight driving at a service station, filled up on cheap, greasy food, watched the people around me.

The best way to understand loneliness is to spend time at a motorway service station. People pass through all the time with no connection or sense of shared humanity. They remain huddled apart, rarely make eye contact. The buzz of arcade machines and the sounds from the overheated kitchens of the always-open hot food stations buzz and ring in your head, remind you not to stay too long. You watch other people and try to make sense of their journey, of why they’ve needed this temporary stop on the road. And you realize, in the end, that you know nothing about your fellow travellers. That you never will.

My steak pie was flat and unappetizing, the gravy stodgy, barely reheated in the microwave. The chips were half-cooked, the potato inside still crunchy and raw. I chewed at them half-heartedly, wound up leaving half the food behind, feeling disappointed, ripped off and still hungry.

I arrived in the village of Upper Coleman sometime after three. The white-walled houses and quaint upkeep of the gardens made me feel like I’d entered a time capsule. I drove slowly for fear of knocking some flat-capped farmhand off his rusty old bike. The houses all looked the same; everyone afraid to let any sign of age or wear show in case they let the village down.

Rivers End Cottage backed against the stream that ran along the western edge of the village. It was much the same as the others. I only imagined the slight darkness that hung around the windows.

I knocked on the door and waited.

The man who answered was in his early eighties, but he was in good shape and his shoulders were still as broad as I remembered. His skin was turning to leather, but it looked healthy. His eyes were a sharp shade of blue. They looked at me, suspiciously, trying to work out why he knew me.

Jonathan Moorehead had his son just after he turned forty. Before then, he had shown little interest in being a parent. Many newspapers stated straight out that Alex had been an accident, although none of them even considered calling it a happy one. In some way they thought that very nature of his being unplanned was significant to the way he turned out, as though being a surprise to your parents was the same as being born plain bad. An unexpected baby is a bad one? Maybe I was reading too much between the newsprint. Alex’s father was quoted once as saying that perhaps it had been his fault, having a son he never really wanted, but later retracted that statement claiming the reporter in question had ‘led me to an answer’.

When he looked at me, standing there on his doorstep, I realized that it wasn’t just phone calls he loathed. Unannounced visits were just as high up on his list of hated things.

‘Mr Moorehead, we spoke on the phone.’ I gave him my name and stated again that I was a private investigator. He moved to close the door on me. ‘I’m here because I want to try and prove your son’s innocence.’

That got him. Made him hesitate.

It’s what they call a foot in the door moment. A moment that I’m always glad is a metaphor.

Finally he relented. Let me inside.

T
here were no offers of tea. Not even an invite to sit. Jonathan Moorehead preferred I remain standing. Told me what he thought of my turning up on his doorstep.

His front room was neat and orderly. Knick-knacks lined the bookshelves and the original-feature fire-surround, but they were chosen for the sole purpose of filling the room and making it seem like someone lived here. There was nothing unique. Nothing that spoke of personality. Everything came from brand-furniture warehouses, assembled with Allen keys and fold-out instructions.

The books on the shelves were sparse. Dog-eared Sudoku selections, a large, untouched Collins’ dictionary and a couple of thick paperback thrillers that had made the headlines or been turned into big-name movies.

Not a reader, then.

And by the size of the TV, he didn’t care too much for his soaps, either.

Begging the question: what did Jonathan Moorehead do with his days?

The settee where he parked himself while I remained standing was faded, probably a hand-me-down from the house’s previous owners or picked up at an auction. The fabric was dark, with a Paisley-style pattern.

The room was hot. Did he ever open the windows?

I thought about how the interior of the house was at such odds with village-idyll exterior.

Had Jonathan Moorehead been like this before his son’s arrest? Or was this something that he had been driven to?

Grief changes a person. Sometimes the change is marginal. Even temporary. But it happens. You can’t escape it.

The change isn’t just exterior, but that’s the one most people see. I wonder if it’s easier to get over the death of someone you loved than come to terms with the repugnant actions of someone who betrayed you completely.

‘How did you find me?’

The question was simple. Direct. Curious. Maybe a little angry.

He had changed his name to Abbott. Clearly thought that was enough. But the paper trail – even in our increasingly paperless society – had been easy to follow. Unless you’re in a government-sponsored programme, or have contacts with special knowledge and the kind of money to get their attention, it’s tough to hide away completely. Particularly when someone is determined to track you down.

‘I’m an investigator,’ I said. ‘It’s what I do.’

‘You were a cop, before. What, you change your mind about my boy when you … retired?’

I hesitated.

He didn’t wait for an answer: ‘It’s over ten years, Mr McNee. If he was innocent, someone would have found the evidence by now. Would have already known that your boss sent my lad to jail for no reason. But it’s not happened. It’s not going to happen.’ He spoke slowly, kept any anger he felt in check. I could sense it, though, bubbling just beneath the surface. He was old, but his broad shoulders told me he wouldn’t be averse to lashing out if the mood took him.

‘Are you working for yourself? Is this a personal crusade, protecting psychopaths and perverts you helped put away?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘One of the victims’ families hired me. They went to see your son. Seeking closure. They … thought that by talking to your son they might understand why their boy had to die.’

‘And he told them that he was innocent?’

‘No.’

‘Then what?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘killed that boy. Killed all of them, I expect. I’ve spent the past ten or so years coming to terms with what he did. Don’t pretend to understand why. Stopped asking. No answer that could make sense. You know?’

‘I know that it hurts you—’

‘You don’t know anything, Mr McNee. You can’t understand that kind of betrayal.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

‘He’d be better off dead,’ Mr Moorehead said, quiet again, body language loosening, almost in surrender. ‘Like a fucking rabid dog.’ The words didn’t trip naturally from his tongue. He was not a man who swore lightly.

‘Bring back hanging?’

‘Why not? Too good for the likes of that one.’

A chill descended on the house. A father advocating the death of his own son. Blood is thicker than water?

Aye. Right.

We’re bound to family only by expectation. Our bonds are strong only because we work hard to make them so. To admit any kind of negative feeling to our flesh and blood can seem like admitting our weakness.

Which was why it felt odd to hear Mr Moorehead talk about his son like that. His words seemed defensive, maybe even defiant. An act. A show for my benefit.

The house was too warm. My head began to overheat. My brain pushed against my skull. A gentle buzzing started bouncing around inside there like a pissed-off fly.

I said, ‘I’m not looking to find out what he was like as a boy. My client doesn’t care if she’s right or wrong, but feeling uncertain about this is … it’s not a good feeling, Mr Moorehead.’

‘I don’t know what I can give you. That I didn’t already give your boss all those years ago.’

‘Do you have anything of Alex’s from when he was a boy?’

‘I burned everything I had.’ He was blinking too much. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

I looked around. The pictures that sat between the knick-knacks had been bothering me for reasons I couldn’t quite determine. Only then did I realize what was wrong: there were no pictures of people. Most folk who live on their own keep pictures of family and friends in some tokenistic fashion. Especially as they get older. Perhaps to remind themselves that they are not alone. But the images on Jonathan Moorehead’s shelves were as impersonal as everything else. Postcard images from around the UK, but no faces. No people present at all.

I wondered if he ever talked to anyone any more, aside from the few devoted journalists and true-crime fanatics who inevitably rocked up to his door asking questions just as insensitively as I had.

He hadn’t lost a son like Alex Moorehead’s victims had. But in a way his grief was every bit as cutting. Every bit as real.

As long as his son was alive, demonized, locked up and still breathing, Jonathan Moorehead couldn’t let go or externalize his grief. He couldn’t create another fiction for himself. Because his son still existed as a reminder of the truth. Jonathan Moorehead couldn’t escape the idea that what had happened was in some way his fault.

I understood when he said his son deserved to be put down.

‘Rabid dog’ sounded like a right-wing press sound bite. But coming from the man’s own father, it sounded like a plea for mercy, as though death was the most tender option when dealing with men who committed crimes such as those Alex Moorehead had been convicted of.

I
wanted to order a pint, but thought I would need a clear head for the road home. Some folks drink and drive easily, and when it’s a short trip, I’m not averse to the odd half. But with the drive in front of me, all I ordered was a Coke. With my stomach still growling after the poor quality of the roadside pie, I ordered the local steak and ale, which the menu claimed was the Coleman Arms’ speciality.

I ate at the bar. It was only just past four, and the Arms was hardly a hive of activity. The middle-aged man with the deliberately old-fashioned sideburns behind the bar busied himself shining up the pint glasses. An old duffer in one corner coughed every time he turned the page of his newspaper.

‘Just visiting?’ the barman asked.

‘Passing through.’

‘Scotchman, eh? What’s your line?’

I hesitated. ‘Private investigation.’

He nodded, but gave no discernible reaction.

I leaned forward. ‘You know if Jonathan Abbott is a regular round here?’

The bartender shook his head. ‘Are you any good at your job? Or is this just a bad day for you?’

‘I’m not the first to pass through?’

‘It’s an open secret. Man wants to live a quiet life. We’d like to let him.’

‘I don’t want to cause trouble.’

‘Then you’ll eat your steak and ale and piss off.’ He spoke lightly, with a smile at the end of the sentence. But the sentiment was clear. Even if it didn’t stop him from taking my custom.

The pie was good. Nothing beats the work of a decent, or at least enthusiastic, chef. I ate in silence, pretended to read one of the papers they had lying on the bar.

The
Sun
.

The Times
.

What I was actually doing was playing chicken with the landlord.

Most people in this world want to talk. Even when they tell you to piss off. The thing is, they have this dance they like to do.

People have an innate sense of drama. The same sense that makes gossip so enticing. Details don’t really matter, but gossip-masters know all about the power of drama.