Gone Cold
Page 10
“Live by the knife, die by the knife, right?”
“I suppose.”
“Don’t you ever argue with your mates?”
“Sometimes,” I conceded. “Though those arguments don’t usually end with my mate’s eyes popping out of his skull.”
He shrugged. “Guess you and I are just different, then.”
“I guess we are.”
Moffett shifted in his chair, the metal legs scraping against the linoleum floor. He leaned his head back and filled the ensuing silence by whistling a tune. Some sort of Scottish jig.
Then he turned back to me. “I played a bit of football with him though.”
“Did you?”
“Aye.”
“As kids?”
“Naw, after.”
“After what?”
He smiled again. “After I sawed off his head. I kicked it round a bit with a mate of mine. Got some fresh air, the three of us did.” He puffed out his chest. “Some exercise, they say, is good for the soul.”
I looked down at my injured left hand to avoid his gaze. My hand was sloppily bandaged. The pain in my palm was unbearable and I’d refused to take anything for it because I needed to stay alert. What concerned me most, however, wasn’t the pain; it was that the fingers remained completely numb.
“So,” Moffett said, “what brings you by?”
I looked up. He wasn’t in any rush to get rid of me, just curious.
With my good hand, I pulled out the photo Gerry Gilchrist had printed in his study. I unfolded it and held it out in front of Rob Roy Moffett.
“You know the girl in this photo?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly.
“How about the man with her?”
He nodded just as slowly. “Aye.”
“You know him?”
“Aye.”
“How so?”
His eyes remained glued to the photo. “He’s a cousin of mine.”
Unlike his cousin, Moffett wasn’t inked, at least not anywhere I could see, and his earlobes remained intact. But he did have scars. Plenty of them. On his face, on his arms. Many from deep, deep cuts. Some clearly self-inflicted.
“Your cousin,” I said.
“Aye. But naw the one who died.”
“Good to know.” I drew a deep breath, said, “What’s his name, your cousin? The one in the picture, I mean.” Kinny hadn’t known. Or if he had, he wouldn’t tell.
For the first time Moffett hesitated. “Why are you looking for him?”
“I’m not,” I told him. “Not really. I’m looking for the girl.”
He looked me in the eyes. “Why are you looking for the girl, then?”
“Because…” I suddenly found myself fumbling for words. I hadn’t expected to get emotional in front of this lunatic. But now my throat was closing up, my vision becoming blurry with tears that would never fall.
“Twelve years ago,” I finally managed, “someone took my six-year-old daughter.”
He processed this, then: “Could naw have been my cousin, mate. He would’ve been, like, fourteen years auld his own self.”
“No,” I said, “I know he’s not the man who took her. But he’s my only lead to this girl. This girl in the photo. Who may well be my daughter.”
His lips parted. “Oh, I see.” Following a few moments of reflection, he said, “And if you find her?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you find your daughter, does it all end there? Do you pick her up, tell her ‘Daddy’s here now, everything’s gonna be all right’ and bring her home?”
“What do you care?”
“Enquiring minds wanna know, right?”
I stared at him, gazed into his watery eyes and saw nothing but darkness. Like the bottom of the blackest sea.
His motivations were simple enough, transparent enough. Maybe even fair. I wanted to extract something from his head; he wanted to extract something from mine.
“No,” I said finally, “that won’t be the end of it. I also want to find the man who took her. I want to find out why.” I paused but his eyes insisted I go on. “And then I’m going to make him answer.”
“To the polis?”
“Not to the police.”
“To who, then?”
“To me,” I said. “I’m going to make him answer to me.”
“Answer what? Questions, like?”
I shook my head. “Not just questions.”
“What, then?”
“I’m going to make him answer for what he’s done. To my wife, to my daughter. I’m going to make him answer for what he’s done to me.”
Chapter 23
In Edinburgh, Zoey and I checked into the Tucker Guest House on Orchard Brae West. The Tucker was a two-story brick bed-and-breakfast less than one mile from the city center, which itself was compact and divided neatly in half by Princes Street with Old Town to the south and New Town to the north.
Family-run by a warm, old couple named Brenda and Alan, the Tucker was not exactly what I’d had in mind for this part of the operation. But Ashdown only knew top-end accommodations like the Bonham, the Balmoral, the Caledonian, the Le Monde; and when Zoey stayed in Edinburgh she slept wherever and with whomever she happened to be partying at the time. So we made our reservations sight-unseen and the Tucker was where we wound up.
At the desk, we hit our first speed bump.
“Cash or check in Pounds Sterling only,” Brenda said as I set down my AmEx. “We cannae accept credit or debit ’cause we’re naw set up for it. We’re just a wee establishment, see?”
When she noticed my pained expression, she added, “Sorry fer the inconvenience, laddie. But there’s a cash machine jus’ about a hundred yards down the road.”
“Not necessary.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out sixty pounds. Problem was, I’d been saving the cash for the drug-dealing cousin of the murderous psychopath I’d just met at Shotts—the heavily inked brute in the photo with the girl who may or may not be my daughter. But I couldn’t very well tell Brenda and Alan that, now could I?
As Brenda counted out the cash, I noticed a sign posted over her head. It read: NE’RE SPEAK ILL O’ THEM WHOSE BREID YE EAT.
Alan followed my stare. Said, “That’s a warning, laddie, naw to insult yer host.”
When I turned to him, he wasn’t smiling; he was dead serious.
Brenda slipped me a handwritten receipt. “Yer in the Lavender room, second floor as requested. Naw smoking whatsoever, but you do have free Wi-Fi.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Our guests tend toward the quieter side,” she cautioned me. “So please respect yer neighbors.”
“Of course.”
She eyed my left hand. “And Western General Hospital is but a ten-minute walk from here if you need it.”
With my right, I pulled out my BlackBerry and said to the old woman, “This fellow in the picture, he’s our cousin. Okay if he drops by later today?”
The old woman lifted the spectacles hanging from around her neck and studied the photo. She scrunched up her already wrinkled facial features, trying none too hard to hide her disgust. “I suppose. So long as he doesn’t stay the night.”
“He won’t be staying long at all,” I assured her. “But I’d be grateful if you could give us a heads-up when he gets here.”
“A heads-up?”
“A courtesy call.”
“I see.” She picked up a pen and tested it on a scrap of paper. “His name, then?”
“Angus Quigg,” I said.
* * *
Upstairs, I sat on the bed while Zoey toured the eight-by-eleven room. I pulled out the phone number Rob Roy Moffett had given me at Shotts prison and dialed. I listened to one ring followed by a sound I hadn’t heard in at least a few years, and a much longer time before that. Three beeps then dead air. I entered the Tucker’s number along with the extension to our room. Then I hung up and waited.
“What are we ordering?” Zoey said.
/> “Ordering?”
“Yeah, he’s gonna expect us to order something, isn’t he? He’s a drug dealer, not a stripper. He’s not gonna show up just to shake his bum.”
“All right,” I said. “What should I order?”
“How much cash do you have?”
“Less than I entered with, thanks to Brenda and Alan.”
“So how much?”
“A couple hundred. Moffett said Quigg can procure whatever his clients desire. I figured I’d ask for some weed.”
She considered this. “Let me pick up the phone when he calls. You sound too much like the filth. He’ll be onto you in a second, little brother. Take it from me.”
* * *
A few minutes later, the phone rang. I stood, but Zoey looked me back onto the bed, then answered.
I could only hear her side of the conversation. Which was plenty.
“Hey, Q, I’m calling to party.…
“Your number? From your cousin, the one who’s starred up over at Shotts.…
“Yeah, that’s right.…
“Wanted to invite some mates over, didn’t I? Make this a bash …
“Well, Tina and Charlie, for sure. Lucy’s if she’s round.…
“Bafta. By the way, brown is my favorite color.…
“Oh, don’t be so naughty.” She paused for effect. “Least not till you get here.”
As she spoke to Quigg, I inspected the HK .45 the Chairman had given me this morning. Two magazines, ten rounds each. Twenty shots.
“If I’m the fuzz,” Zoey said into the phone, “then Amy Winehouse is alive and queening Great Britain.…
“Decent. Oh, and I’ll need some artillery, love.…
“Yes, I think you’ll find me quite fit.…
“The Tucker, then. You know it?
“Kicking. Two B. Or not to be, right?
“All right, then. See you soon, love…”
Zoey set down the phone.
“How long?” I asked her.
“One hour.”
I paced from one end of the room to the other. A total of ten steps. “What do we do till then?”
“How about we continue that convo we started last night at the Chairman’s?”
I suppressed a sigh.
“Tell me, Simon. Tell me about you and Daddy in the good ol’ U.S. of A.”
* * *
I gave her the abridged version of life with Alden Fisk. Hit on the highlights (few) and the lowlights (many). Described the back and forth on everything from his insistence that I lose my British accent (and my pushback) to his urging me to follow in his footsteps by going to medical school (and my adamancy about becoming a federal cop). Told her how he deflected questions about my mother and sister using every tool in the trade, from diverting the subject to punishment and rewards to emotional blackmail.
He used guilt, I said. When I asked about Mum he asked was he not good enough. Didn’t he raise me? Sacrifice for me? Pay for my education? When that got old he resorted to anger. What business is it of yours, he’d demand. They’re part of my history; you don’t even remember their faces, so why do you care? What do they matter to you if they matter nothing to me?
“I visited her grave,” I said some forty-five minutes later.
Zoey frowned. “Whose grave?”
“Mum’s.”
“When?”
“Roughly two years ago.”
“You were in London? What for? Work?”
I hesitated. “To find you and Mum, actually. I didn’t want to mention it earlier, because I was a bit embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed, why?”
“Because I waited so long to come looking for you.”
She shrugged. “We didn’t exactly make a proper effort ourselves, you know.”
“I know,” I said quietly, with my head down. “And that’s why it took me so long. Part of the reason anyway. I told myself if you and Mum wanted to find me, you could have. Dad’s Rhode Island medical practice was always listed. Hell, I’m pretty sure our home address and number were listed as well.”
Zoey shrugged again. “Wasn’t really up to us, was it? I mean, you and me, while we were children. Would have been up to Mum and Dad to seek out their offspring.” She paused. “But I suppose their hatred of each other was too great.”
It was my turn to frown. “That’s something I never understood. How hatred for your spouse could outweigh love for your child.”
“I don’t know, do I?”
“I pondered it for a while. But it really came home to me after I had my daughter, Hailey. Minute she was born I knew it was impossible for me to ever despise Tasha in such a way that I’d give up Hailey being part of my life.”
Several minutes passed in silence.
“Did Dad ever talk about me?” she finally asked. “I mean, in the very beginning at least?”
“I don’t recall,” I lied. “And Mum?”
“She spoke of you all the time for a while. After we ran.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean after we hid from our boogeyman.”
I stared at myself in the mirror above the dresser. “I should have looked for Mum earlier, while she was alive.”
“You didn’t know that she’d died. She wasn’t so old. You didn’t know you’d find her at Streatham Cemetery when you arrived.”
I nodded, but I was still disgusted with myself. “When I saw her grave she’d already been belowground a decade.”
Zoey bowed her head. “How’d it look, her grave? I haven’t been there in years.”
“It looked fine. I’d noticed she’d used her maiden name. ‘Tatum Fuller,’ it read. ‘Beloved Mother.’”
“The headstone was so small. I’ve always felt badly about that.”
“Don’t.”
“So what happened after you found her? Did you think to come looking for me?”
I turned to her. “Of course I did. That had been the plan anyway. But after seeing her headstone, seeing how long she’d been dead, I didn’t think I could handle a reunion with you. At least not right away.”
I thought about the date of death on her headstone, how close it had been to Hailey’s disappearance. Made me think of that first night, after Hailey was taken. When Tasha and I were in bed, arguing. Over my father no less. And whether he was a viable suspect.
At the time Hailey was taken, my father had been away. At Virginia Beach. Closer than Rhode Island but still four and a half hours from our home in D.C. The feds hadn’t been able to reach him at his office or his timeshare.
That night Tasha told me she didn’t believe in coincidences.
I’d told her, “Well then, you should pay more attention. Because the world’s fucking full of coincidences.”
Seeing the date on Mum’s headstone at Streatham Cemetery caused that conversation to play out in my head all over again. Not just once, but dozens of times over the weeks that followed.
Now it was playing out all over again.
I parted my lips to ask Zoey how Mum died but never got out a word.
Because the room phone started to shrill.
Angus Quigg had arrived.
Chapter 24
“Yer, uh, guest has arrived, Mr. Fisk.”
I thanked the old woman and hung up the phone.
Zoey said, “Best you wait in the loo.”
“Won’t he check it out?”
“He’ll be checking out other things, little brother, trust me. Besides, if he does, so what? Most he’ll be carrying is a knife, won’t he? You can handle one of those. At least according to poor little Kinny.”
I held up my bandaged left hand. “And look what I earned for my troubles.”
I stepped into the bathroom. Closed the door behind me and leaned against it, breathing in and out slowly, thinking about another struggle I’d had with a knife, two years ago in front of a clinic in Minsk. A Russian named Jov had attempted to drive the blade into my throat. I’d blocked the blow. But the knife plunged deep into my left forearm.
I dislodged the knife from my left forearm. Meant to sink the blade deep into his chest.
Only there had been enough killing by then.
Now, as I stood against the bathroom door, I wondered if I could possibly show Hailey’s abductor the same mercy. Or whether I meant every word I’d said to Rob Roy Moffett this morning at Shotts. At the time I’d told myself I was just feeding him what he wanted to hear. Like a politician tossing red meat to the masses. But maybe that was just me telling myself what I wanted to believe.
A few moments later, a knock interrupted my thoughts. I pictured Zoey padding across the small room and opening the door to find the man from the photos on my phone, the man with the head shaven like Moffett’s, with the gauged lobes and heavily inked arms and neck. The man with the girl who may or may not be Hailey Fisk.
She’ll be different too, I told myself. Even more dissimilar than Zoey was from the Tuesday I’d known. If it’s Hailey at all, she’ll be nothing like the little girl who I held in my arms before I left for Bucharest twelve years ago.
Clear as day, I saw Kati’s e-mail in front of my eyes. Finder, open the two attachments and call me right away. First, the computer-generated fantasy. Then the real-world image of a harried woman who’d just committed murder by slicing a man’s carotid with a broken beer bottle in a pub full of people.
I heard Quigg’s voice.
He was with her, I thought. This man, he’d touched the young woman who may be Hailey. Had spent time with her, maybe even loved her.
Maybe used her.
I did my best to clear my head. Listened to Zoey and Quigg communicate in UK street slang but couldn’t make out what was going on.
Sounded cordial enough, I supposed.
I glanced out the tiny bathroom window onto the street. During any other season the multitude of trees would have blocked any view. But not now, not in the heart of winter. Everything once green was now bare and dead or dying. Which allowed me to look out on the rustic city center, the Georgian urban architecture, the quaint cobblestone walks.
It was dusk. Snow continued to fall and was sticking to the ground. The wind wasn’t so fierce but few Edinbronians had ventured out. Or if they had, they’d already found their seats in one of the dozens of warm pubs.