The Accused (PI Charlie Cameron)

by Owen Mullen

  He took hold of her chin and forced her destroyed face up to the light. Vicky trembled and pulled away. ‘Oh, Victoria, that’s nasty. You’re no fucking good to me now. Your price just went through the floor. Lucky for you not everybody has my standards.’

  Rafferty tired of the game and walked to the door. He spoke over his shoulder to Vicky huddled on the floor. ‘You and Noah are pals, right? He’d love to have some fun with you.’ He laughed. ‘Doesn’t mind if they’re ugly, do you, Noah?’

  Noah’s tongue ran over his lips; he nodded and grinned.

  ‘And in case you’re expecting your boyfriend to come riding in on his white horse and save you – forget it. He’ll never find you where you’re going. When you’re good and ready, you can take my whore of a wife’s place on the street.’

  The next morning the air was heavy, the sky grey. The forecast was rain and lots of it. I gave NYB a miss and went to the office, feeling flat. A phone call and a voice I hadn’t heard before straightened my mood. ‘Can I speak to Mr Cameron?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  A sigh came down the line, as if the person on the other end had come to a decision and was relieved. ‘This is Anthony McCabe. I handled Joe Franks’ accounts back in the Battlefield Road days. You talked to my son, Barry, about Joe.’

  ‘Yes. He was helpful but couldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Those files were long gone, I’m afraid.’

  A shaft of sun pierced the cloud cover, found the window and splashed golden light across my desk. I took it as a sign.

  ‘Barry told me you hadn’t been well.’

  ‘That’s true. Fact is, I’m still not great, one of the reasons I’m keen to meet up with you.’

  ‘You live in Arran, don’t you? I can come to you. Tell me when.’

  ‘Actually, that won’t be necessary. I’m in Glasgow today seeing a consultant. I’ll come to you.’

  ‘Excellent. What time?’

  ‘Just got off the train at Central Station. How about now?’

  ‘Great. My office is in Cochrane Street.’

  ‘I know. See you soon.’

  At last. Who better than his accountant to tell me the truth about what kind of businessman Franks had been? I waited ten minutes, then went downstairs to find the promised rain beginning to look less likely; the clouds were breaking up. Behind them the sun was flipping a coin, trying to decide what kind of weather the city was going to have.

  A taxi with two passengers in the back pulled into the kerb and a woman, petite and well dressed with steel-grey hair, got out and glared at me, before turning to attend to the man with her: the accountant had brought his wife.

  With the driver’s help they got him into a wheelchair. Even that small effort visibly drained him; his face was the colour of putty, he struggled for breath, and I understood why Mrs McCabe wasn’t pleased. When he saw me standing by the door, he raised a hand and tried to smile. The woman paid the driver, fussed with her husband’s coat the way a mother might do with a child, and pushed the chair towards me, her first words revealing exactly how she felt.

  ‘Are there stairs? Because if there are, forget it.’

  McCabe started to protest and was immediately overruled. ‘No, Tony. It’s crazy you’re even here. I shouldn’t have allowed it.’

  I stepped forward and shook hands with both of them. His fingers were cold, the skin stretched so tight I could feel every bone, and his eyes were watery. Losing weight had left deep hollows in his cheeks. He looked what he was: a man not long for this world. I wouldn’t have bet on him lasting to the end of the week, yet, against his best interests – and no doubt fierce and justified opposition from his wife – he’d made the journey to meet me. There had to be a very good reason.

  Mrs McCabe’s handshake gave perfunctory a bad name; it was over in a second, our fingers barely touching. The message was clear: we’d just met and already she didn’t like me.

  McCabe stared up from the chair. ‘Hate to admit it but she’s right. Then, she usually is.’ He gestured to his wife. ‘This is Julia. Never go anywhere without her and not just because of this.’ McCabe tapped the wheelchair’s metal frame.

  At his side, Julia’s lips tightened in a half-hearted attempt at a smile that died still-born on her lips, and in her face I saw the pain of knowing her husband – the man she’d probably loved for most of her life – wasn’t going to recover.

  The physical differences between them were stark: where he was friendly, she was terse and tightly wound; his pallor was bloodless, her face was flushed, as if resentment was choking her. McCabe’s eyes, glassy and weak, seemed fixed on the edge of weeping; his wife had long passed that point. Julia McCabe looked like someone who hadn’t had a night’s sleep worth a damn since long before their holiday had been cut short.

  I put a hand on the accountant’s shoulder. ‘No problem. We’ll do the simple thing.’

  He sounded relieved. ‘Is there somewhere nearby we can go?’

  ‘Absolutely. Place called NYB. It isn’t far and the coffee’s good.’

  Julia McCabe pounced. ‘Tony isn’t allowed coffee.’

  Her husband offered a veiled apology for her abruptness. ‘Afraid she’s right again, Mr Cameron. Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Then it’ll have to be something else.’

  The little talking he’d done had exhausted him and we made our way in silence to the Italian Centre. Beside me hostility rolled off his wife. Who could blame her? Her husband should be at home in bed, not being bumped around Glasgow.

  In NYB I cleared a path to a table over against the wall. Mrs McCabe ordered a latte from a waitress I didn’t recognise. I asked for an espresso. The accountant surprised us. ‘Brandy,’ he said.

  His wife started to argue; he dug in his heels and defied her. ‘Damn it, woman, I want a brandy and I’m going to have a brandy, because whether I do or don’t, it won’t change a thing. Drop the pretence; nobody’s buying it.’

  It was harsh. Julia’s lips trembled and her head went down. She might have cried if she hadn’t been all cried out. McCabe ignored her and spoke to the waitress. ‘Something decent. And a little water, if you don’t mind.’

  The atmosphere had suddenly become charged. I changed the subject. ‘What time is your appointment with the consultant?’

  The question was asked in innocence, but my timing was off. Mrs McCabe exploded. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! You’re supposed to be an investigator. Are you blind? There isn’t an appointment. There won’t be any more appointments. Tony only said that so you’d think he had a reason for being in Glasgow in case you were too busy to see him. Silly old fool. Told him he was off his head. He wouldn’t listen.’

  McCabe snapped back. ‘I do listen.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You haven’t listened to me more than twice in fifty years. If you had we wouldn’t be where we are, and you know it.’

  She sounded angry with him, and she was, but really what I was hearing was sadness from a woman who was out-of-her-mind scared. Ill health had driven a caring relationship to the brink.

  McCabe’s eyes met mine: look what I have to put up with, they said.

  The waitress came back with our drinks. He lifted his with a trembling hand and sipped it. I asked how it was. He set it down on the table before he answered. ‘Not bad. Not great.’

  Forcing the conversation would get me nothing. I waited until he was ready to continue. It was McCabe’s story; he could tell it how he liked, when he liked.

  Finally, he cleared his throat and began. ‘The Joe Franks I knew was a good guy – at least, according to his own lights. Like so many of us, he was honest up to a point. In business, he was straight as a die, known for it. To my knowledge that didn’t change.’

  McCabe let the implication sink in. Julia’s eyes didn’t leave him.

  ‘That said, the personal side of his life was something else again. Hooking up with Diane was a mistake made in the heat of the moment. The attraction was mutual: he had m
oney and she was a great-looking woman any man would be happy to be seen with. Of course, it didn’t last. Diane started running around behind his back. So far as I could see, Joe lost interest before she did. All he really cared about were stones.’

  None of this was news. Dennis Boyd had told me the same. McCabe took another sip of the brandy. ‘Most of it is common knowledge. What isn’t well known is that it wasn’t Joe’s first marriage. Or the first mistake he’d made with women. When our paths crossed, he was a man with a secret. As his relationship with Diane soured, he realised just how much damage he’d done.’

  ‘To his first wife?’

  ‘And to the girl.’

  McCabe saw the look on my face; his cracked lips parted in a smile. ‘That’s right. Joe Franks had a daughter. His wife was pregnant when Joe left her and set up home with Diane. Never saw her again, far as I know.’

  Skeletal fingers caressed the glass but left it on the table – maybe his protest had run its course. The accountant needed a breather. I obliged by recapping what he’d said.

  ‘Okay, so Franks had been married before. When he met Diane, he left his wife.’

  McCabe shook his head. I wasn’t getting it. ‘No. Leaving her for another woman would’ve been bad enough. Leaving her pregnant was what he couldn’t live with. I told you, Joe had his own values. In his book, that was about the worst thing he could’ve done.’

  ‘If he was as good a guy as you say he was, why do it?’

  The accountant shrugged. Under his coat I guessed he was a bag of bones. ‘He didn’t know. For more than a decade he didn’t know he had a daughter until one day a fourteen-year-old girl turned up at his office in the Argyll Arcade and introduced herself.’

  37

  We sat while McCabe thought about whether there was any more to add. His wife hadn’t touched the latte she’d ordered; by now it would be lukewarm.

  ‘He asked me to send them money; it wasn’t enough for him. His marriage to Diane was already in trouble. From then on, there was no saving it. The past ate away at him.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He accepted nothing that had already happened could be altered. But the future…’

  He let the potentials hang in the air. ‘Diane’s carrying-on made it easy for him. He told me the story and asked me to help. Of course, I said yes. Then he instructed me to make new arrangements. So, I did. He was a man who wanted to right a wrong. As his accountant, there was a part for me to play.’

  ‘These “new arrangements”, what were they?’

  He lifted what was left of the brandy and finished it in one swallow. His wife stared with empty eyes; she was losing him in more ways than one. Her influence, severe yet benign – at least for the moment – had reached its limits. I felt for her.

  McCabe said, ‘Like everybody, I’d heard the gossip. According to the rumours, Joe was going bankrupt. Supposed to owe money all over the place.’

  ‘And didn’t he?’

  McCabe wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat and shot a glance at his empty glass. ‘Julia, I’d like another brandy. What do you think?’

  For the first time his wife softened. Her hand found his and something only they could know passed between them. ‘Why not, Tony? If that’s what you want, why not?’

  ‘Will you join me?’

  She blinked, a single tear ran down her cheek, and she smiled. ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Brandy all right?’

  ‘Brandy will be fine.’

  He extended the invitation to include me. ‘And yourself, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘It’s Charlie. Make it three.’

  In an American diner in the centre of Glasgow, Tony and Julia McCabe had come to a decision to live whatever remained of life together and were happy about it.

  I went to the bar. Jackie wasn’t around. Neither was Pat Logue. Maybe he was out chasing down information on the witnesses. I hoped so. When I came back with the drinks the McCabes were holding hands, whispering to each other. Anthony McCabe seemed suddenly stronger: a man reborn. He added water to his glass. ‘Where was I?’

  I reminded him. ‘The arrangements Franks asked you to make.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember. Joe had reached a crossroads. His daughter showing up pushed him closer to doing what he’d already been thinking about doing.’

  ‘Leaving Diane.’

  ‘Not just leaving her. His money was the only reason she’d married him. I suppose he could tolerate that so long as there was something – anything – there. The daughter, her name’s Karen by the way, gave him the chance to make things right.’ McCabe paused. ‘Right isn’t the word.’ He searched for the phrase and found it. ‘To make amends.’

  ‘And to get back at Diane.’

  ‘That, too.’

  ‘What was he planning?’

  ‘Joe knew divorcing Diane was inevitable. She’d given up even trying to hide the affair. He needed to be sure there would be nothing – and I do mean nothing – for her. He got me to set up two new accounts: one for him, one for Karen.’

  ‘And siphon money into them.’

  ‘In the months before he was murdered, he was obsessed. It was all he thought about.’

  ‘Who were the accounts with?’

  ‘Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale.’

  The code: easy to crack it if you knew how.

  ‘BS – Bank of Scotland, CL – the Clydesdale Bank, and TM for Tony McCabe.’

  ‘Spot on, Charlie.’

  ‘You were aware of it?’

  ‘Yes. Joe told me he was keeping a record of how much he was taking from the business and everywhere else, though I would’ve worked it out in any case. After all, I was on the inside.

  ‘To the world it looked like he was on the skids. Not the truth. Not even close. In his determination to leave her with nothing, he’d squeezed every last pound, and started missing bills. The mortgage hadn’t been paid in months, the rent was behind in the Arcade, and the business account and his old personal account had been cleaned out long since.’

  His laugh sounded like an avalanche breaking on the side of a mountain – as if someone had told him a joke and he was only just getting it. It came at a price and Julia moved into the role of nurse, holding him until the coughing passed. ‘I’ve often imagined Diane’s face when she got the news.’

  ‘It didn’t take her long to land on her feet.’

  McCabe glanced at his wife. ‘I doubt it was her feet she landed on, Mr Cameron.’

  ‘She married a guy called Kennedy. Ritchie Kennedy. Ring any bells?’

  ‘Sorry, it doesn’t. But God help him, he’ll need it with that woman.’

  ‘Did you know about the last deal Joe was involved in, the one that probably got him killed?’

  ‘I had an idea something was going on, but not the details.’

  ‘What happened to the accounts?’

  Something clouded in his eyes; it might have been pride. ‘I did what Joe would’ve wanted, contacted his daughter. She came to my office and signed for the account with her name on it. By then she was in her late teens and her mother had died. I said her father had been a good man, that even the best of us make mistakes.’

  ‘Ever hear from her again?’

  ‘No. Didn’t expect to. What had to be done had been done.’

  ‘What about the other account, the one Franks set up for himself?’

  This was Anthony McCabe’s moment, very probably his last moment in the sun, and he wasn’t going to be hurried. His hand slipped inside his coat. When it came back it held a dark-blue book with a gold crest embossed on the cover. ‘Sent it to them every six months to get it updated. Last time was six weeks ago.’

  He handed me a white envelope. ‘A letter of authority.’ He tossed his prize on the table in front of me and watched it fall. ‘See for yourself. If you’re wise, you’ll take some free advice from an old accountant: never underestimate compound interest. There’s fifteen years of it in there.’
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  He finished his brandy and pushed the wheelchair away from the table; his work was done and he was pleased. His wife took her cue from him. She stood and again drew the coat around him, mothering him like before. He let her. The McCabes were back where they’d started: the two of them against the world.

  When your time on earth was tight, decade-old questions about who had done what and why had little importance. It no longer mattered. In his shoes, detaching from the future was easy – he wouldn’t be around to see how it played out. His wife wheeled him towards the door.

  McCabe gave me a half-hearted smile. ‘It’s your problem now, Charlie.’

  I waited on the pavement with them, though I needn’t have bothered. Anthony McCabe had discharged his duty and passed it to me. Julia McCabe’s lips were pressed together. In a strange way, she seemed satisfied, perhaps with good reason. There would be no more difficult trips to Glasgow and no more small rebellions from her husband. In that, at least, she’d won. Her eyes stayed on the traffic and didn’t look at me. Nobody spoke. What was the point? It had all been said.

  it’s your problem now, Charlie

  Finally, a taxi stopped and the struggle I’d witnessed before began again in reverse. When the ailing accountant was safely in the back seat, the driver stowed the chair and the passengers settled themselves for the journey to Central. The burst of energy McCabe had enjoyed in NYB was short-lived. His head lay back and he was breathing heavily. Whatever he was thinking he kept to himself – his wife would know but she wouldn’t be sharing those thoughts – or anything else – with me.

  When their car disappeared through the lights and into George Square, the first scattered drops of rain began to fall; the coin-toss in the sky had gone against the city. I headed to the office and climbed the stairs that had been too much for Tony McCabe. At the top, I closed the door behind me. Until this morning, the jeweller had been a man with a failing business and an unfaithful wife, a guy whose death at the hands of a robber was almost a welcome release from a life, professionally and personally, in freefall.