‘And Mick the Mick who pulled it,’ I said. ‘But you’re right. We could play the blame game, keep going back and back and back, finally realize it was Jesus Christ himself killed Ernie.’
He smiled at that. A bloodless kind of smile.
‘So what happens?’ he said. ‘Now that we’re here, what happens?’
‘I’ve watched you kill two men,’ I said.
‘Corroboration,’ he said. ‘The one man who might back you up is dead.’
‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘You’ve spent your life skating past the law. Making sure you can get away with what you know is wrong. You justify yourself. You make excuses and grand sounding speeches. About how you had no choice but to do some of the things you did. But you always had a choice. You were like the Zombie once. Maybe not as extreme, but then maybe the world wasn’t so extreme back them. But you were a killer. A murderer. You were feared like the Devil himself.’
He said, ‘The good old days.’
‘Laugh all you want. That’s what they were. When men like you were respected, not hunted down like common criminals. When you were above the law. Un-fucking-touchable.’
‘The good old days,’ he repeated.
‘Kill me, they’ll catch you. They will link you to this murder. You know they will.’
‘My days are over, son. That’s what I’ve come to realize lately. There’s no place for me in this world. Everything’s changing. It was a bloody good run, though.’
‘Bako’s in prison,’ I said. ‘The war is over.’
He lowered the gun. ‘Then let’s do it,’ he said. ‘I can’t come back from this. I’m too fucking old. Call it a stalemate.’
I reached out, took the weapon from him. He didn’t resist. Didn’t try and run. He merely accepted what was happening as though it was inevitable. As though he always knew how things would turn out. As we left, I turned to look at Griggs’s corpse. Worried that it didn’t make me feel a sense of loss. In my own way, I had become desensitized to violence and death.
FIFTY-EIGHT
He wanted to say goodbye to his wife.
That was the condition. All he wanted. How could I refuse?
I called Susan. Told her this was all off the record. That we could end this peacefully if we did this on the old man’s terms. She didn’t try and dissuade me. She just said that she’d do it. No inflection to her voice. No emotion.
Burns told me where the meeting place would be. He said he had his reasons.
‘There’s something else,’ Susan said, as I was about to hang up.
‘What?’
‘Bako.’
My stomach tightened. ‘What about him?’
‘It’s not him. The man we locked up. We ran his fingerprints. Got back a hit fast. Maybe because we made it clear who we thought he was. But he’s not the Zombie. His name is Andras Halasz. Or Halasz Andras. However you want to do it. Some Hungarian family names come before the given name. Whatever, he’s ten years too young to be the Zombie. There’s something wrong. I don’t … no one’s ever seen Bako, Steed. I’m beginning to wonder if he ever existed.’
Like a bedtime story. A monster in the closet.
When the police go looking, Macavity’s not there.
I thought about the man I met. How he seemed a little off. And yet he had commanded authority. Made all the right noises.
I thought about him.
And the woman who had whispered in his ear.
‘Did Bako have any other family?’
‘Steed, I don’t know the case … I don’t … look, we all know he’s a legend. This guy, maybe he was just taking advantage of the name. Another in a long line of chancers.’
‘A sister, maybe. Something like that. Or a wife.’
‘It would be tough to …’
‘Just … I don’t know, I’m tired, Susan. I just want … I just want all of this to be over.’
‘What happened with Griggs?’
‘We’ll talk about it,’ I said. ‘Later.’
When I hung up, the old man said, ‘Thank you.’ He was belted in on the passenger’s side. He sat back, his head knocking against the rest. He seemed to be struggling to even take a breath. ‘Tired,’ he said. ‘We’re all tired. I’ve been exhausted for years, son. Hard to believe it’s all ending. But it’s the old problem: when you start something, you never think about how you’re going to end it. I started out on this road to stop my family from facing generations of poverty and having the shitty end of the stick handed to them. I wanted a better life. That was all. The rest of it …’
‘Did you get it?’ I turned the key, signalled. Traffic was light. The rain was starting up again. Getting heavier as it pattered on the roof of the car. ‘The better life?’
‘That’s the thing, son. Life could always be better. So … I don’t really fucking know.’
He closed his eyes. We drove on in silence. Something in my stomach continued to turn. A sense of expectation. Of something coming towards us.
An ending, perhaps.
A new beginning.
Something.
FIFTY-NINE
The peak of the law. In the shadow of the observatory. Looking out across the city.
Where David Burns proposed to his wife.
Maybe he was being sentimental. Hoping the good memories would soften the blow of what he had to tell her. Either way, he felt it was a significant place for all of this to end. Looking out over the city he loved with the woman he loved. Accepting the inevitable change that came with age.
In some ways, this was his funeral.
Death. Prison. For a man like Burns, they weren’t too far removed.
Mary was there, with Susan. Given everything she had been through, Mary looked good. A little shaky. Still hadn’t had the chance to change out of the clothes she’d been wearing when we were abducted by the man who may or may not have been Zsomobor Bako.
Susan’s eyes met mine as we approached on foot. A few times on the footpath, I’d felt the urge to reach out and steady the old man. He hadn’t been lying about feeling old. This was the beginning of the end for him. He’d achieved everything he’d set out to do. The last few decades had been about pride, holding on to what he was because he didn’t know what else to do. Now he looked ready to simply let go and move on.
Dead man walking.
Their embrace was simple and momentary. But you could feel the connection between them. Susan and I were separated by the couple, and I found that I couldn’t meet her eyes across them.
‘I’m sorry,’ Burns said, when he stepped back. ‘For everything, But especially, this … you were never supposed to be …’
‘It was always the risk.’
‘There were rules. Unspoken rules, but …’
‘Young people don’t have time for rules,’ she said, and smiled. ‘You never did.’
He nodded. She was the only person who could tell him he was wrong. It was strange to think of the old man having any kind of human connection. Even his children had tried to distance themselves from the family name and reputation. But Mary had stuck by him. The only person to ever see beyond the bluff and bluster to the human being underneath.
And he was human. Much as I – and so many others – had demonized him, the old man was as human and flawed as anyone else.
‘This is sweet,’ a voice said. Slight accent. But the mockery coming through clear. ‘Very sweet. Beautiful. A romantic ending. I do like a romantic ending.’
I turned to see a woman step out from the shadows. Dressed in an A-line skirt and a red cardigan worn over a dark blouse. It was hard to read her expression. Her features had a natural sternness to them. The same expression I had seen on her face when she whispered into the ear of the man we had believed to be Zsomobor Bako.
But there was no Bako. I knew that, now. Maybe there never had been.
Two men flanked her. Built like tanks. I recognized one of them from the building where myself and Mary had been taken. The second was new
to me, but I figured if he ever spoke, he’d have a European accent.
‘Ms Bako,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘Very smart. You are smart, Mr McNee.’
‘How long has your brother been dead?’
‘My fiancé,’ she said. ‘So maybe not that smart. A long time. We had … mutual interests. It was only natural that someone fill his place.’
‘But no one would accept a woman as the Zombie?’
‘Feminism is a dirty word in some circles. Even today. In these enlightened times.’
Burns laughed. Loud and long. ‘A woman?’
‘You see what I am saying.’
‘Oh, lass, if I’d known …’
‘Precisely. But you did not know. Now you will die knowing that a woman bested you. That a woman won the war men have been fighting for years.’ She was holding a gun. Small. Compact. Looked like a Sig. But what did that matter, when it would kill you just the same?
The two thugs carried Walther P7s. But of course. I knew the feel of the guns, knew that they would make these men feel powerful. The same style of gun I had used to kill a man what felt like a lifetime ago.
I let my hands go to my jacket pocket. Felt the weight in there of the gun I had carried five years ago. Was it heavier now that it had a man’s blood on it?
Hard to say.
I looked at Burns.
He shook his head. Saying, ‘no’? Or, ‘not yet’?
He looked back at the woman. ‘No one has won anything, lass. Except the bastard police. Your wee scapegoat is locked up. Your business partners are dead. And as for me, fuck all of this. I’m done. I’m out.’ He looked at Susan. ‘My name is David Burns and I am guilty of everything you care to accuse me of. I’ve been a bad bastard. I’ve killed men. And I’ve had men killed. I’ve been a drug runner. I’ve run illicit gambling dens, derived money through prostitution, organized corruption and—’
‘Enough! This ends tonight, Mr Burns. You will die. Your enterprises will be little more than an afterthought. A fond memory of the days when criminals played by rules. But this is a new world, Mr Burns. Without order. Without rules. The twenty-first century. No more borders. No more limits. Those who killed my fiancé, they taught me that. The rules are whatever is best for you. If you even once think about other people, you lose. No room for sentiment. No room for weakness.’
I looked at Burns again.
What was I waiting for? Permission?
He stepped forward, in front of his wife, between her and the people with guns. Showing them his sentiment. He got to his knees. ‘This is it, then,’ he said. ‘Kill me, then, you bitch.’
She smiled, nodded to one of the thugs. The big man moved forward.
Burns turned his head to look at me. Winked.
Did anyone else see it?
The heavens opened. The rain fell thick and fast. Its roar filled the space around us; an enveloping noise with a physicality all of its own. A cocoon of sound that sealed us off from the rest of the world. The rain pressed down, each drop a tiny knife pricking against my skin.
Burns adjusted his jacket. His hand slipped inside.
The knife.
He moved fast, the old energy back, as he forced the knife upwards, stabbed the thug straight in the balls. The man screamed and dropped his weapon.
I pulled the gun from my jacket and raised it. Flicked the safety with my thumb. Squeezed with my trigger finger.
The noise was deadened by the rain, but the blowback still shook my body; a deep and penetrating vibration.
The second thug had started to react, as I drew on him. He was halfway through spinning to look at me when he threw his head back and reached for his neck before collapsing to the muddy ground. Blood diluted in the rain. His eyes fluttered.
The woman raised her gun, but with at least two targets, she hesitated for just a moment. Burns was on his feet, strode forward and pressed the gun he took from the fallen thug to her head. He didn’t say anything. No final words. No punchlines. This wasn’t the movies or some cheap detective novel. He pulled the trigger.
As the sound of gunshots dissipated, we were left with the white noise of the rain and the low moans of the thug whose genitals had been ripped open by the old man’s knife.
Burns dropped his weapon.
I held on to mine. Staring at him. Unable to believe the brutality of what I had witnessed despite everything that I knew about him.
The old man kneels before me. He spreads his arms and lowers his head …
SIXTY
When daylight came, and the crime scene unit sealed off the area to search for evidence, two bullets would be dug out of the sodden earth just behind where the old man had been kneeling.
I could have killed him. I squeezed the trigger with intent. But at the last moment I raised the muzzle over his head. If I hadn’t done that, God knows what might have happened. That old rage that had been building was looking for a release. I had given it what it demanded. But refused to give in completely.
The old man would lose his hearing for two days, but given everything he had done, that seemed lenient.
Susan arrested him, gave him the full speech about his rights, even though he barely responded. She cuffed him. Called for backup.
Mary remained silent throughout.
After loosing the shots, I dropped the weapon, collapsed on to the grass. My chest constricted. My arms and legs turned numb. Pins and needles. The rain seemed gentler somehow. The cool drops numbed my face like dental anaesthetic. The inside of my skull quietened. I felt at peace.
I woke up in hospital. Under observation. Susan was there. When I looked at her, she reached over and squeezed my hand.
I slept for a long time.
‘You want to talk?’
DS Kellen. Sitting beside the bed, waiting for me to wake up. God only knew how long she’d been doing that.
‘Depends.’
‘On?’
‘Whether you think I’m the bad guy.’
‘Death follows you, McNee. I know that much.’
‘I try not to make a habit of it.’
‘Try harder.’
‘Do I need a solicitor?’
‘Do you think you need one?’
She produced a tape recorder. ‘Just tell me everything. From the beginning.’
‘That could take a while.’
‘Then let’s start with your name, shall we?’ She hit record. ‘Interview number one. Twenty-fifth November. Present in the room are DI Helen Kellen and the subject, Ja—’
The newspapers went wild. Local. National. International. The arrest of a man like David Burns was headline news. A triumph for the forces of law and order. It was the kind of narrative that sold papers, that garnered clicks, got people talking on and off-line.
I was confined to a private room in the hospital. Three reporters managed to get in. None of them got a quote. They called me the Silent Detective.
I was happy with that.
Mitchell came to see me a few times. I gave her an edited version of what happened to Griggs. She listened, made notes and nodded a lot. She didn’t believe me. That much was obvious, but there was little she could do or say. Griggs’s death put a kibosh on her investigation. All she could do was clean up the pieces and try to make a narrative out of what happened.
The last time she came to see me, when she was done, her notebook closed, she looked at me and said, ‘It’s a neat story.’
‘Too neat?’
She shook her head. ‘Neat enough.’
Three days after the bloodbath at the observatory, the news broke that Mary Burns was filing for divorce. She had told me that she knew what her husband was, that she had always accepted it. But seeing it first hand was something she had never expected to happen. She had watched him mutilate a man and kill a woman without a word. Even though his actions could be argued to have been in self-defence, the look in his eyes and the lack of remorse must have rattled her.
Meaning she
finally saw him as other people did.
I should have reached out to her, tried to show some kind of empathy.
But I never did.
What could I say to her, after all?
The trial was long and drawn-out. The defence tried to show that I had been involved in an illegal investigation and entrapment. But the man himself had admitted to his crimes. Despite the best efforts of his legal team, Burns allowed himself to be sent down. He did so in spectacular style, and I suspect he saw the trial and its fallout as part of his own punishment. If his empire was to burn, then he would be the one to light the match.
The woman who had been Zsomobor Bako’s fiancée was interred as a Jane Doe. Like her intended, she had become a ghost. No one knew her real name. The man who had acted as her front refused to speak, referring to her only as ‘the boss’. Her dental records and fingerprints had no known match. She died the same way she had lived; unknown, mysterious and deadly.
But rumours of the Zombie refused to die. Some people claimed that the operation continued even without someone in charge.
Cut the head off a snake, and sometimes it just keeps going.
Over the course of the trial, I admitted to my mistakes. All except one.
Three years earlier, a young girl had killed a man in a fit of rage. The man had been a psychotic killer. I had attempted to take the blame for his death, but Susan claimed to have killed him in the line of duty. And I had accepted that lie. The girl had been too traumatized to speak about the incident. I could never be sure if she really knew what had happened.
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