I could have lamped him. Instead, I bit back some retort about how he was to blame, how he was the one who had brought me here. How none of this would be happening if he hadn’t stuck his fucking oar in. But he had me, Because the truth was I had no idea how to comfort someone in grief. All I knew was what I was doing; following a trail of tragedy to its source. That’s not the official job description of an investigator, of course. In my case, however, it was as close to the truth of the matter as anyone was likely to get.
Burns said, “You’re a marked man, now. You know that Lindsay was supposed to be dead, aye? That they’ll be sending someone after him?”
I nodded.
“I have someone at the hospital,” Burns said. “The police – the ones that aren’t in Wood’s pocket – they don’t know what’s going on. And our man has enough influence that he can send any official investigation into a tailspin.” He was turned away, but I imagined he was smiling when he said, “Looks like you have no-one to turn to but me.”
I said nothing. We kept walking. Our footsteps echoed. But now I was aware of another sound. Somewhere close by. Movement. Not birds or even rats. Something big.
Another person?
Burns shone the light along the walkway. At the far end, against the wall, I could just make out the hunched-over shape of a man. A big man. Chained to a pipe that ran down the wall. He had been beaten, and when the light fell on him, he turned his head as though he could escape it.
But there was nowhere he could hide.
Burns said, to me, “Recognise this prick?”
I stepped forward. Burns shone the light around me. I knelt beside the man. He looked me in the eyes.
I fought the urge to recoil. Remained calm. Yes, I recognised him. “Cal Anderson.”
“He’s been here for a few hours, now,” said Burns. “Not really a chatterbox.”
“Get,” said the man, carefully enunciating as best he could through the blood he was still swallowing and the broken teeth, “to fuck.”
I remembered an old joke about a man in a bar who says that swearing is the first fucking sign of a tired mind.
When his friend asks him what the second sign is, the first man punches him out.
I stood up, “But he’s told you about Wood.”
“Loyalty,” said Burns, “is unusual among shitebags like this one. But so far he’s kept schtum. Maybe he’s not such a bad person after all.” Anderson responded to this with a snort. Spat onto the metal grille of the walkway. Burns said “Then again…” He looked directly at me. “This man is shite. Shite that should be shovelled off the pavements. Taken away so that decent people don’t have to deal with it.”
I said, “What you do is you turn him over –”
“Don’t you get it yet, McNee? If we turn him over, Wood’s going to make any charges disappear. This pathetic little bawbag’s going to get a free ride.”
“No,” I said. “If you turn him over to the right people, then…”
Burns shook his head. “I thought you of all people would have got it by now, McNee, that justice isn’t about law and order. That sometimes you have to bypass all these fucking rules and regulations because it’s just the right thing to do.”
He stepped closer to me.
I didn’t step back.
“I know you know that, McNee. Because we’re alike, you and I. You just need to accept it.”
Burns pushed past me. Knelt down beside Cal Anderson. The other man spat at Burns’s face, but it was a pathetic attempt, as though he had no liquid left. Burns stood up, wiped at his face with a sleeve. “Anger management issues. Christ, but he deserves whatever happens to him. He’s told us all he can.”
“So why show him to me?”
“To let you know that he was still alive. Because I know what happened after the death of your fiancée. You never found the bastard who was responsible. That must have hurt, maybe worse than losing her.”
I wanted to walk away. But I stood there, gripping the handrail, listening to my heart beating. Loud enough that Burns and Cal Anderson must have been hearing it, too.
“Two years ago,” said Burns, “You killed a man and stopped short of killing another. I know the rage you carried then.”
I said, “I got over it.” Sounding too glib, even in my own ears.
“No-one gets past that kind of anger, McNee. No-one. You know about my mother, don’t you? That she died at fifty-five in an arranged accident. That a man I thought was my friend arranged to have her killed just to show me that he was willing to go further than he thought I ever would. The most satisfying day of my life was the day I killed him. Personally.”
“And did that help?”
“Of course it fucking didn’t. What, you expect miracles from life? But it helped channel my rage.”
I said, “Forget it,” knowing what he wanted me to do. In his mind, this was some kind of loyalty pledge. He was initiating me. Or attempting to.
He said, “You can’t walk away.”
“Watch me.”
The further away from him I walked, the darker the warehouse became. My eyes struggled to adjust and all I could see were half-shapes and darker shadows.
Carefully, I picked my way down the stairs. My eyes adjusted enough to see where the exit was. At the bottom of the stairs, I walked more confidently towards the door.
Heard movement from the walkway above.
A roar cut short.
I don’t know if I was aware of movement or if it was a self-preservation instinct. Either way, I stopped, and looked up. Saw something was dropping from above. An impossibly heavy shadow.
I stepped back. Something crashed to the floor in front of me. A sharp crack was audible beneath a sound like someone smashing a jelly with a hammer.
Light shone from above.
I looked at Cal Anderson’s corpse.
His neck was broken, his head twisted so that his dead eyes stared up at me. If I was paranoid, I might have seen an accusation in them. But there was nothing there. No emotion. No life.
If anything, that made me feel more disturbed than blame or hatred.
Burns spoke, his voice echoing, bouncing off the inside of the empty warehouse. Seeming to come from every direction. “You have to find the strength to do what needs to be done, McNee. Or the world will get you. I know you have it in you. I’ve seen it.”
I could have come back at him with something.
But instead I stepped over the corpse that lay in front of me and walked outside. I went to my car, got inside and started the engine.
No destination in mind.
All I wanted was to get the bloody hell out of there.
TWENTY-THREE
Susan was at the flat when I returned. She knew something was wrong. There was no point lying. Told her what I could. We sat in the front room, separate seats, facing each other. The setup was combative, but I was unsure if she even realised that. Rain battered against the window.
It was past two in the morning.
I went through the story, through what I knew, as best I could. She didn’t stop me. Didn’t even seem to react. Just listened to the story, face set in neutral.
There were things I didn’t tell her, like Burns offering me Cal Anderson’s life. Or what finally happened to the corrupt bastard. I guess Susan assumed, as I had, that Anderson was dead from the moment Burns’s thugs laid into him.
Looking back, I can’t say precisely why I didn’t tell her. Other than to admit to what had happened would somehow make me complicit. Over years of talking to people, getting their stories, making narratives of their lives that would fit reports or case-notes, I found that so many would change their stories to make themselves look somehow better. Often omission wasn’t even conscious, as though it was simply part of human nature to lie, dissemble and falsely remember the truth.
When I was done, Susan said, “You don’t remember meeting Wood, do you?”
I hesitated. “I’d remember.” And I would. I
was sure of it.
“No,” she said. “You don’t. But that’s okay. You were too busy trying to behave like a normal human being at the time.”
###
A long time ago.
Longer than I cared to remember.
I had been the golden boy. Hard to believe, even though I was there. Detective Sergeant Ernie Bright had taken me under his wing. Told me I was a natural copper, but he wanted to teach me more than the mechanics of policing. To get ahead, he said, a really good police nab needs to play the political game. Which is how I wound up at a party, chez Bright, feeling awkward and out of place.
Elaine had been out of town. Had assured me that if I was my charming self, I’d fit in. I didn’t need her to make me seem human. I could manage it for one night. She had faith in me. More faith, even, than the man who wanted me to play the game.
My charming self, of course, had other ideas.
Lucky for me that someone else at the party wanted me to fit in. If only because her father’s judgement and reputation was resting on how all the high heedjuns in attendance took to me.
Susan Bright introduced herself by scolding me for my behaviour. Over a few shared cigs in the back garden, she told me that if I didn’t sharpen up and play the game she was going to kick my arse personally.
Sure, she was small, but she was tough. I got the impression she’d follow through on the threat.
The rest of the evening became a blur. Forced smiles and handshakes. The agony of small talk and political niceties; saying the right things to the right people. The trick, apparently, was never to agree but never to disagree either. I found that making odd noises to show that you were listening, and occasionally repeating what someone just said seemed to work.
I also made sure I had the same glass of wine in my hand for most of the night. Meaning that by the end of the evening, I was parched.
At one point, Ernie shepherded me into a gathering of CID detectives who were discussing a particularly chilling case that had captured the attention of the local press. A woman’s body found out in the woods to the north of the city; mutilated and abandoned. They were finding themselves at a loss for leads after the most promising had petered out due to an oversight regarding the man’s access to a vehicle for transporting the body.
One of the men had been tall and thin; you might have got papercuts if you accidentally brushed against him in the hall. He had big ears and eyes best described as buglike. His skin was swarthy, pocked from teenage battles with acne that had left him looking leathery. This man had been leading the conversation and when he turned his attention to me, he seemed surprised and disappointed. It was the bug-eyes gave the game away: why am I talking to this man? Who is he?
All the same, he introduced himself: “Kevin Wood.” His voice was oily and his over-friendly tones forced. I remember thinking that he sounded afraid of his own voice; working hard to control his natural accent. What came out was not quite RP, but just close enough to be false. At that time, Wood had only just been put in charge of CID operations in and around the city, and Ernie had whispered as we walked across that here was a man worth knowing politically.
All the same, I got the impression that on a more personal level, Ernie despised him. At that time, I didn’t press farther, but I guess even by that stage Ernie had realised that the ugly bastard wasn’t quite the supercop he had built his reputation on.
I think I suggested a few investigative ideas based on what I knew of the case. Thinking that at the very least they’d say they already thought of them. But I needed to say something in order to join the conversation. Fresh voices and all that.
Wood sneered at me, and shook his head as though I was a particularly remedial kind of student. “It’s not worth it,” he said. “This case will be solved by detective work. Not by beat constables and their procedural ideas.”
It wasn’t what you’d call a glowing encounter. But I figured I’d done well by not telling him to fuck off. Or even lamping him one.
It was only one of several encounters that evening, and to be honest most of them hadn’t gone as well as I or my mentor had hoped. Schmoozing, it seemed, wasn’t my style. So I’d pretty much pushed my meeting with Wood to the back of my mind. Just one more arsehole among an evening’s worth.
No-one worth bothering about.
###
“Dad always said to watch out for Wood. Never went into specifics, though. Just always said that he didn’t trust the man. Felt Wood was up to something. He could just never say what.”
The way Ernie operated was simple; he never advanced an idea without proof. While he believed in his gut, he knew that he always needed to back it up with proof. He had to know absolutely that he was right before he made a move. Which explained the filing system I’d found in his office; he’d been gathering evidence. I wished I’d had more time to go through them, but by now I knew the three men who’d arrived after me would have cleared – destroyed, more than likely – anything incriminating.
I said, “Your dad was building a case against Wood.”
“Working with D&C?”
I didn’t know for sure. “It’s possible. Or else he was getting ready to approach them.” I was reluctant to offer any definitive suggestions. Feeling confused, wondering how well I’d ever really known Ernie Bright.
People are complex. Sometimes those we think we know best are the ones we know least. We have trouble talking about motivation because no matter what we tell ourselves, we never knew anything about the way they thought, how they viewed the world.
I had believed Ernie was the perfect copper.
Then I had been convinced that he was a turncoat.
And now David Burns – a man I had vowed never to trust – was telling me that Ernie had merely been conflicted, caught between personal feelings and professional obligations.
Like I said: complex.
I stood up and walked to the window. Looked out at the rain. Something about rain on glass, the way it slides down, splintering your view of the world outside, has always been strangely comforting to me. “I told you about your dad, about seeing him at David Burns’s house.”
“I couldn’t talk to him about it. I wanted to. But then everything went to hell… and now…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t.
Susan Bright was tough. Always had been. Had a reputation as a terror in the interview room. Hard men broke down when she turned her anger on them. She could walk into a room and people would think: This is not a person I want to mess with.
She was confident. In control.
Always.
Even over the last few days, despite a few wobbles, she had been holding it together. But her confidence couldn’t last forever under the strain of the last few months. The last few days in particular. Sooner or later something would have to give.
Grief affects people in different ways. After Elaine’s death the force asked me to see a psychologist. I refused, until they made me go following the incident with Lindsay. I lasted only a few sessions before walking out. But some moments stuck with me.
He had talked to me about grieving. How some people lash out. Some people internalise. And some people do both.
When it comes out – and, he told me, it always does – sometimes the people closest to you are the most surprised by the form it takes. You can’t predict how anyone is going to grieve. Can’t put a timescale on it. You can only watch and do your best to accommodate the person, try and help them move through what they need to do to get past the trauma.
I had no idea what to expect from Susan. She was always in control. What happened when she lost that?
I said, “Let’s say he found enough that he was taking his evidence forward. Let’s say that he was using his connection with Burns to try and gain more evidence. Burns keeps saying that he and Ernie were friends, that Ernie was conflicted. What if that wasn’t true? What if your dad was just doing what any good investigator would do, using contacts to get at the truth?
”
Susan nodded.
Not sure if she was buying.
Not sure if I was buying it.
But it was what we had to go on. And it made me feel easier about the past few years. Made me feel as though I wasn’t so wrong about everything I had ever believed.
###
Two months after Susan admitted to killing the psychopath Wickes in self-defence, I popped into the Phoenix for a quick pint after the office was closed up. Figured I deserved it. Something to wind down after a long day crunching data and getting nowhere fast on an inheritance gig that looked like a dead end.
Ernie was there. At the far end of the bar.
The end-of-work crowd had finished their pints, and the bar was in the lull that comes just before the early evening rush. It was a time of evening I loved. Quiet enough that you could drink in peace, alone with your thoughts, if you wanted to.
The lad with long hair pulled my pint with some chat about how he enjoyed this time of night, before it got too mental. I paid up and then slid down the bar.
Ernie said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Because of Susan? Or because of what I know?”
He shook his head. “You’re a smart lad. Always have been. But this time you’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
He stared hard at his pint. “Not looking hard enough.”
“So tell me,” I said, “what it is I’m not seeing.”
He tried to ignore me.
At the other end of the bar, the young lad looked at us as he cleaned glasses. Sensing the tension. Maybe trying to figure if we were going to make trouble. The Phoenix wasn’t the kind of pub you found trouble. Any hint, the staff were quick on the alert.
I said, “You were at his house. You were drinking his wine. A guest, Ernie. Like the two of you were old friends. And, you know, I get it that you were his liaison in the bad old days when the brass thought they could make nice with the major players. Maybe during that time some lines got blurred, but you have to know –”
“I don’t have to know anything, McNee. And neither do you. For God’s sake, just leave me alone. You’re a good man, and I used to have hopes for where you’d be going. But now… now, all I want is that you take care of my daughter. Not just because she sees something in you, but because I know this investigation into her conduct has something to do with you. More than either of you are saying.”
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