Susan steadied the shotgun.
I tried to move. All I could do was raise my left hand. Slowly. Trembling as I did so like an arthritic old man in his last moments.
I said, “Susan,” but it came out like a croak, barely a word.
It was enough, though. She turned to look at me. Her eyes catching mine.
Maybe she saw something in there. Maybe she just realised she couldn’t do this with someone – anyone – watching.
Or maybe she remembered who she was. All those things she had said to me echoing around inside her head, finally and with a kind of clarity that made her lower the shotgun.
I heard a voice outside the door.
“This is Detective Mollison of Tayside Constabulary… I’m talking to the person…”
Susan yelled back, her voice hoarse and broken, “Hey, Molly! It’s Susan Bright. The suspect is… is in my custody.”
She let her arms drop, still holding the gun. Turned towards me. She took a step forward. “Steed?”
I tried to smile. Not sure if that only made me look worse. A corpse’s grimace.
I heard the flat door open.
Saw a movement behind Susan. But the strength I had found before to move, to make a sound, had vanished. All I could was watch as Mick the Mick scrambled to his feet, shoved Susan in the small of the back and made a grab for that gun.
I heard the stamping of feet from behind me. Voices screaming.
Drop the weapon
Drop the weapon
Drop the fucking gun, you bast –
And then a continuous, mechanical drone that ripped apart the inside of my head and turned my brain to jelly.
I closed my eyes. The sound of automatic gunfire brutally massaged my muscles.
When it stopped, there was a gentle ringing noise somewhere in the background of the world.
I thought about opening my eyes. Decided against it.
One moment of ignorance.
I needed it. Figured I deserved it, too.
THIRTY-TWO
“You need to take better care of yourself.”
I recognised the doctor. Dark hair, tied back. Heavy Mancunian accent. She’d dealt with me when I hurt my hand two years ago. Another gun-related injury. If I wasn’t careful, people might start to talk.
I couldn’t feel my shoulder. Couldn’t tell what was the anaesthetic and what was the damage done to nerve endings by the spread. Shotgun pellets aren’t like ordinary bullets. They’re filled with shot – tiny, compacted balls of lead – that explode and expand upon release, meaning the closer you are to the weapon the more damage it does. If you’re further away, your wounds might not be so bad, but they’ll be spread across a wider radius.
I’d been far away from the gun, relatively speaking. The other side of a large living room. Don’t know what it was in feet, but whatever, it was far enough that I didn’t get my arm blown off or my head knocked off my neck.
So chances were I’d survive. They got to me in time to prevent too much blood loss at any rate. All I could do was hope there was no permanent nerve damage.
I closed my eyes and laid my head back on the pillow. I’d been in enough hospital beds over the last couple of years to know the feel of them, the pillows that felt yielding and yet strangely stiff; just uncomfortable enough to remind you of the clinical nature of the bed you were in.
The tugs and pulls at my shoulder seemed distant and unimportant.
I floated away from them.
Away from the world.
###
“Oy, cuntybaws, wake up!”
I opened my eyes. Lindsay was staring at me from around the same eye level I was lying at. Took me a moment to realise he was in a wheelchair, dressed in the same clinical gown as me. His face seemed hollow and drawn, and the scars were at the stage where they looked a lot worse than you might have expected. There was something of Frankenstein’s monster about his post-surgery appearance; as if he was patched together out of awkward-fitting body parts.
I figured I’d keep that thought to myself.
“How long have you been about?” I asked.
“Most of last night and this morning,” he said. “They tell me you’re more fucked than me.” He nodded, sagely. “Good.”
I said, “You’ve talked to Mollison?”
“Oh, aye. He’s got some questions for you, lad. You’re in for a proper probing.”
I hoped he didn’t mean literally. “Maybe things are worse than I thought.”
“No, this isn’t hell,” said Lindsay. “Much more shitey than that. This is Dundee.” He grinned.
I closed my eyes.
This time, sleep failed to come.
###
When Mollison came to see me, he said, “Every time you’re involved in a case, our major suspects seem to wind up dead.”
I said, “You can’t blame me for Mick.”
He shook his head. “What about Wood?”
“What about him?”
Mollison shook his head. “There was a fire at the lockup, McNee.”
“What?”
“Big blaze. I’m serious. Would have taken out every storage locker there, maybe the train tracks too, if someone hadn’t called it in. Anonymous, of course. As it was, the fire did what I think it was intended to do…”
“…kill Kevin Wood.”
“Aye, that’s what we thought too. Just as well, too. The prick. See if I’d got my hands on him…”
“Chief Constable’s raging?”
“Oh, aye. This bugger climbed right to the top and no-one noticed he was more crooked than any country stile. Of course she’s raging.”
I said, “But now he’s dead, and he can’t talk for himself.”
“All we have is a paper trail.”
“You retrieved Ernie’s papers?”
He ignored the question. “And a big mess to clear up.”
“Mick was killed by your men.”
“Aye.”
“By the time that fire was set me and Susan were nowhere near the scene of the –”
“I don’t think you set it, McNee. You’re a pain in the arse, but I don’t think you’re a killer.”
I nearly asked, and Susan? but managed to bite back the question.
Not wanting to answer it myself.
“There’ll be an investigation.”
“And what about the current investigation into –”
“Officer Bright was lured to the deceased’s apartment on the promise of information about the death of her father,” said Mollison, the line coming smooth and rehearsed. “Given her emotional state, we do not believe that this relates in any way to her actions of over a year ago which are still being investigated as a separate matter.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Don’t do anything to make us change our minds,” Mollison added, not quite as an afterthought.
###
Sleep comes in waves when you’re in hospital. Maybe it’s the drugs or just something in the air, but the world runs past like a film spliced apart. Time skips. You don’t know when you’re asleep or when you’re awake.
I didn’t know Susan had come into the room.
She sat by the bed, watching me until I finally said, “I’m awake.”
“How do you feel?”
I considered my answer. Not something I could answer straight away.
In the end I opted for, “Tired,” and got the laugh I was looking for.
Susan said, “We need to talk, then.”
“Do we?”
She reached out and took my hand.
THIRTY-THREE
The Dundee Herald
TOP COP DRUG “MASTERMIND”
One of Tayside’s most senior policeman has been revealed as the “mastermind” behind a country-wide drug trafficking network as well as a series of illegal gambling and loan shark operations.
Kevin Wood, Deputy Chief Constable for Tayside, was exposed by fellow policeman DCI Ernie Bright following a
rigorous investigation that ended in tragedy.
Bright, who was murdered, gathered mountains of evidence against his senior colleague with the apparent intent of approaching the Independent Police Complaints Commision with his evidence. Following the Detective Chief Inspector’s death, an investigation involving several officers in Tayside CID uncovered the shocking evidence.
DCI Mollison, temporary head of Dundee CID, gave the following statement at a press conference outside Force Headquarters: “We are saddened to learn of the betrayal – not only of the department, but also of the public – by an officer who had been trusted with safeguarding the local community.” He went on to add that Tayside Constabulary would be conducting a “housekeeping” exercise to ensure that there were no other links to criminal activity within the force. Three other officers have been identified as working with Wood but their names have yet to be released.
Wood died in a fire at a lockup near Riverside, Dundee before charges could be pressed. The police have yet to issue an official statement on this matter.
###
Ernie’s funeral was a sombre affair. Those assembled broke away into small groups following the ceremony. There was an air of hushed uncertainty about proceedings. No-one knew what to say. No-one knew how to deal with the circumstances of his death.
Afterwards, I found Susan at the back of the church, leaning against the stone wall, her head tilted back and her eyes closed. When she realised I was there, she opened her eyes and said, “I can’t cry, Steed. I can’t cry.” Her voice sounded strangled. Panicked.
I stepped forward. She wrapped her arms around me. I pulled her close.
We stood there a long time.
Neither of us cried.
###
I was alone for Mick the Mick’s burial. He was interred at the Council’s expense, and I was the only person in the graveyard save the Catholic priest, who approached me and said, “You knew the deceased?”
I shook my head.
“Then why are you here?”
“Someone has to be.”
He looked at me with his head cocked to one side as though he suspected I had an ulterior motive, one he couldn’t quite figure.
I just wanted to see the bastard buried.
When the job was done, I felt some of the feeling come back to my shoulder. As I turned to walk away, rain started to fall from the sky.
###
I waited a couple of weeks before going anywhere near David Burns’s house. Even outside, I couldn’t be sure why I was there.
Except I felt I deserved some answers.
He wasn’t in.
His wife was the one who answered the door. She stepped back when she saw me, with the kind of look people reserve for the worst kind of devils. The last time I had been at her door was when her husband had gone into hospital after two psycho thugs had tried to kill him.
She still blamed me, I reckoned.
She had to blame someone, even if deep down she knew that her husband brought those evils on himself.
“What do you want?”
“To talk to him.”
“About?”
I said, “Fire insurance,” and turned to walk away.
She slammed the door.
I knew then that I didn’t need an answer. Not really. The only question I couldn’t answer was how he’d known where Wood had been.
And sometimes, you realised that once you know the answer to such questions, there can be no going back.
THIRTY-FOUR
Two weeks later.
The sun was out, but the air was brisk. I had to wear a scarf, button up my jacket against the wind.
I stood for a while looking at Ernie’s headstone. Thinking how so many people I knew seemed to wind up dead.
But this one wasn’t my fault. I had to cling on to that one silver lining.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling foolish for saying the words out loud. Knowing that if Ernie could see me now he’d probably find the idea of me talking to his grave amusing. He’d have credited me with more common sense than that.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “That I doubted you. That I believed the bloody worst of you.”
It didn’t seem enough.
But it was all I had.
###
After I was done at the graveyard, I drove to the Courthouse, parking two streets away and walking out to the front steps.
I waited there, as I had promised. Not going up. Not going inside.
Susan came out, alone.
She’d been waiting for this day for over a year. The final outcome of the official investigation into her actions during the Mary Furst abduction case. I couldn’t tell by her expression what the decision had been. She was composed. Her expression giving nothing away. Even when she looked right at me.
I walked up to her. Said, “Well?”
She took both of my hands in hers and stretched onto her toes to land a light kiss on my lips. It should have been reassuring.
But, really, I couldn’t tell.
Notes and Acknowledgements
Yes, it’s that time again. You’ve reached the bit at the back of the book no one really reads except for friends of the author and those looking to try and target contacts in the industry.
It’s also worth stating here that Father Confessor is obviously a work of fiction. All characters are fictional and any relation to real persons or situations is entirely coincidental. Also, there’s no such paper as the Dundee Herald. But I think all the pubs are real.
And while we’re on the subject, you should note that I don’t write these books as a real-life guide to Dundee. Some street names have been made up, moved, changed, mangled or otherwise messed up in the name of dramatic necessity or my own idiocy. You can decide which. However, I do hope I capture something of the city’s spirit. I have lived here for twelve years now, and believe that the city is far more interesting and complex than some people give it credit for.
No book is written in isolation. No writer is an island. Many people have had an influence on this book, and below are just a few of the people I’d like to thank this time out.
Mum and Dad: as ever, and for all the right reasons.
Allan Guthrie: Secret Agent Man and Blasted Heathen.
Ross Bradshaw: for pulling out all the unnecessary angst, making the books readable, and not completely killing off Elaine.
Matteo Strukul: who took McNee to Italy.
Robin Crawford, Angie Crawford, Duncan Furness: for last minute interventions, very much appreciated.
The Waterstones Dundee crew: present, past and future – thank you, all!
Booksellers everywhere: too many to mention individually, but your passion, expertise and brilliance are worth a million computer algorithms.
Librarians everywhere: without you, I wouldn’t be reading, never mind writing.
The Do Some Damage Crew: for forgiving me the odd slip up on a Friday.
The readers, and everyone who came out to events/signings and talks: without you, there’d be no point.
Alan Bannerman: who will never forgive me for not realising it’s a bull.
The usual suspects: Robert MacDuff, Duncan, Gary, Kim, Luke and Ben Smith, Gary and Trish Staerck, Becca Simpson, Jen “The Scientist” McDowall, Karen and Chris Petrie, The Blueshirts and Redshirts, Charlie Stella, Steven Torres, Steve Hockensmith, Linda Landrigan, Christa Faust, Zoe Sharp, Sean Chercover, Tim Stephen, JT Lindroos, Jon, Ruth, Jen and Paul Jordan – for advice, friendship, nitpicking, drinks and a million and one other things that helped get me through. If your name’s not there, and you still helped out, know that I’m thinking of you!
Lesley “The Literary Critic” McDowell: for Chinaskis, Paris, New York,
Toronto, oceans of wine, and so much more.
In memory: David Thompson (1971–2010)
Table of Contents
Father Confessor
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
Notes and Acknowledgements
03-Father Confessor Page 19
