The Lost Sister

by Russel D. McLean

  I climbed in the car on the street outside the office, idled for a few minutes, playing over my conversation with Wickes. Not the details of what he said but how he said it.

  Telling myself I’d imagined that last mumbled phrase outside the Caird Hall, that the noise of the fountains had distorted his words, that my own paranoia was playing tricks on me.

  I wanted to like the big man. Couldn’t say why for sure, but something about his story clicked with me. The idea of a man trying to make right his own mistakes: something I could relate to.

  But you can’t always go on your gut.

  After hearing more than my share of lies, I know that what you listen to in any confession or story is not the details of what someone says, but the way in which they tell you. You keep an ear out for trigger words, watch for signs of stress or anticipation, pay attention to patterns of words or tremors in tone and delivery.

  It’s not a science so much as an art. That old rumour about someone looking to the left when they’re lying is so much horseshit, even if it is based on a kind of half-truth.

  Wickes was lying to me about something. I think he believed almost everything he told me, but some part of him was either holding back or covering up. That was what unnerved me, made me start to question things I would otherwise have overlooked.

  The casual rapport that he displayed felt deliberate, maybe even a little cynical. His entire demeanour was designed to play against his physical appearance; that hulking body, those huge hands, those staring eyes.

  Aye, there was the rub.

  Can we judge a man on the way he looks?

  Like fuck.

  If we did, then a man like Wickes would be a monster. And a man like David Burns would be a hardworking family man.

  I drifted.

  Thinking about Wickes’s story.

  Deborah Brown.

  Mary Furst.

  David Burns.

  That bastard always coming back round. Always involved.

  I roared and punched the steering wheel with my right hand. All pretence at calm and collected lost.

  Wickes had his masks.

  I had mine.

  Why had I taken this case?

  I don’t know that even I could answer that for sure.

  Ten months earlier.

  My hand was aching. I made experimental moves, testing the boundaries of pain.

  Curiosity as much as masochism.

  Susan sat across the other side of the room, cradling her mug of tea in both hands and blowing at the surface to cool it down.

  I wasn’t looking at her. Not directly.

  “You really mean that?” she asked.

  I could have kicked myself. Opening up, even for a moment. What the hell else was she going to say?

  I kept trying to flex my fingers individually. The tight wrap of the plaster made the movement difficult. The pain had centred on the palm.

  If I closed my eyes, I could picture the moment all those broken bones, with a clarity that made me worry about what kind of dreams I’d face if I fell asleep.

  The rain falling from the sky. Each individual drop visible. The shadow of a man standing over me, his foot stomping down hard.

  My hand tried to spasm.

  Couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Tell me, Steed.”

  I looked up at her, finally. Said, “I’ve thought about it.”

  “So tell me what good it’d do.”

  “I’d feel a lot fucking better for one thing.”

  She nodded. Had this half-smile.

  Christ, of course it wouldn’t.

  It wasn’t supposed to.

  But what else do you do with anger? I’d been raging inside for over a year, searching in vain for someone who deserved this hate, who could be the signifier of everything that was wrong in the world.

  All I wanted was revenge against someone whose crimes I couldn’t even state.

  David Burns was as good a man as any.

  Which is why I’d told Susan the truth: one day, I was going to kill the bastard.

  Even if I knew I’d never gain any satisfaction. Even if I already understood the futility of my anger.

  “A month ago, you told me everything was different.”

  “He’s a fucking criminal, Susan. The worst of his kind. He does whatever the fuck he wants and gets away with it.”

  “And he gets you to do his dirty work?”

  I went silent.

  Better than a slap.

  What she said was true. Burns had set me up a couple of months earlier, seen my anger and recognised it for what it was. Set me on two London hard men in the hope that my anger would do the job he required. It had nearly worked, too.

  And I had killed a man. Self defence or not, I couldn’t escape that. A man who deserved to die. And still felt no satisfaction.

  So what would happen if I killed Burns?

  Would the anger inside fade away?

  Or would it become hungrier and more insistent?

  Susan stood up, came across and placed her hand on top of mine. I couldn’t feel her through the bandages.

  “Move on, Steed,” she said.

  If only it was so easy.

  I pulled up outside David Burns’s house just past lunchtime. Noticed a car in the drive. Black BMW. Recently washed.

  Aye, he may have been torn up inside with concern for his goddaughter, but like fuck was he going to appear slovenly.

  I crunched the path to the front door, rang the bell.

  The big man himself answered. “Can’t stay away, can you?” He was dressed casual; open-necked blue shirt, white chinos and brown slip-on shoes. Made him appear genial, but his stance still had the hunch of the hard-man. Always on the alert, waiting for the next threat.

  “Inside,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  “I’ve got guests.”

  “To fuck with them.”

  He grinned, made me feel like I was a child throwing a tantrum. Nothing serious in what I said. All a big joke to Burns.

  “We need to talk,” I said again. “Can do it out here if you like.” A challenge? Aye, and he knew it.

  He turned and gestured. “Out back, then,” he said. “Away from the twitching curtains of old busy-bodies across the street, eh?”

  I turned to look, saw blinds move.

  Street like this, of course they’d be watching his house. Better entertainment than a Saturday night on the telly.

  Out back, Burns lit a cigar. “Call it my luxury,” he said. “More so now the wife’s gone on a healthy living kick.” He grinned. “You don’t strike me as a smoker. Else I’d offer one.”

  “I quit,” I said.

  He nodded, like I’d told a good, dry joke.

  Blood thumped in my ears. Made me dizzy. “I told you yesterday that I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  He smiled. Took a puff of the cigar. Casual. “And here you are…Your lips say no-no, but your eyes…” He let the joke hang.

  I bulldozed past it. “You know why I’m here.”

  His puzzled expression could have won an Academy award. “No. I don’t, McNee. That’s the honest truth.” I had to wonder how much he was fighting the temptation to raise a hand to his heart in mock-seriousness. Just to rub it the fuck in.

  “The break in…you’re telling me it had nothing to do with you?”

  “I’m a business man. I don’t know why –”

  “Don’t give me that shite,” I said. “Don’t fucking start, okay? Just…fuck!” I spun away from him, wished there was something I could lash out against.

  The old anger.

  What would life be without it?

  “Swearing like that,” he said, “is the sign of a fucking tired mind.”

  I didn’t say anything. Slowly turned back. Saw that he was grinning. Made me think of Alice in Wonderland, that Cheshire Cat.

  “I’m tired of you and your fucking games.” I felt the urge to get in his face. Resisted. “I don’t help yo
u, so you break into my office? Sorry, you get some other poor prick to break in…because you think you’re fucking entitled. That you’re the fucking king of this city?”

  He didn’t respond straight away. Seemed to consider what I said for a moment. “I think…you need some rest.”

  I could have come up with a snappy response. Or walked away. I could have done a million things.

  But what I did was snap.

  Stepped forward, grabbed his shirt with one hand and slammed a swift fist into his kidneys with the other. He wasn’t ready for it, made it easier for me to get the upper hand. He’d had his brawling days about ten years back. Sure, he still had muscle, but he was old and unprepared. I hauled him back against the rough brick wall of his house. His head rocked. The back of his skull smacked against brickwork.

  He blinked a few times like the world had just gone out of focus.

  I got in his face.

  “You try another stunt like that again – I don’t care if it’s your fucking mother in trouble next time – and I’ll kill you. I’ll come here. Kill you.” I eased up a little, stepped back. “You said last year I had that in me, the fucking killer instinct. You want to put that to the test? Aye?”

  His eyes were unfocussed. He wasn’t looking at me.

  I thought, for a second, concussion.

  And then realised, he was looking at someone behind me.

  Slowly, I turned around.

  Saw that his guests had come outside.

  One of them was staring at me like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

  I stared back, probably mirrored his expression.

  DCI Ernie Bright. In his civvies. A glass of wine in one hand. An unlit cigarette in the other.

  Ernie fucking Bright.

  Chapter 18

  “Get it over with.”

  Ernie sighed, sat back and locked his hands behind his head. I might have called his expression one of fatherly concern, but maybe that was reading too much into things.

  Wishful thinking.

  I never thought about my parents.

  A conscious decision?

  Can’t say I remember making it.

  Ernie seemed about to say something and then stopped. Unlocked his hands and leaned forward.

  Restless.

  “I should do it, too. Arrest your arse. Charge you like the eejit you are.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Things are more complicated than that.”

  “Really?”

  I wasn’t even going to ask what he was doing at Burns’s house. Dressed up like he was over to the neighbours for dinner. Like the scheming old prick was a friend.

  Deep cover?

  Aye, believe that if it makes you feel better.

  Ten, fifteen years ago it might have been close to the truth. These days, there was no excuse. The backroom deals the Scottish police made with high level gangsters in the late eighties and early nineties were legendary.

  Unless…

  But why would I believe that of the man I had called my mentor?

  “Susan’s worried about you.”

  I tried to shrug that off. “She always has been.”

  “She said you were making progress. Getting better.”

  “I wasn’t ill.”

  Ernie chuckled. No real humour. “Sometimes we all wondered.”

  I leaned forward. Conspiratorial. “Tell me Ernie…” A whisper: “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  He sat back. On the defensive. “We don’t talk about that.”

  “No?”

  “I take you in, it’s because I was in the area and heard the commotion.”

  “Shite. You were a guest. At his house. Afternoon fucking tea?”

  He took in a breath between gritted teeth. Looked ready to start shouting, but spoke softly when he said, “I told you, it’s complicated.”

  Christ, I’d already made the insinuation, figured I might as well go all the way: “Something tells me it’s not your superiors you’re afraid of.”

  Hell of a punch. Check the shift in his expression, the way his eyes darted. Searching for the exit.

  We were having a nice friendly chat in the upstairs spare room of Burns’s house and not down at the station because Ernie didn’t want his daughter to know that he’d been here. If not exactly sleeping with the enemy, then certainly drinking with him.

  The question was why.

  Keeping tabs on Burns?

  Or something else?

  I see-sawed between wanting to forgive Ernie and grabbing him by the collar, yelling about how I’d trusted him. How he’d been the kind of copper I fucking aspired to be when I was on the force.

  In the end, I stayed stuck between both those options, just wanting to get out of there, head home and lock the damn door.

  Sod the investigation.

  Sod Wickes and his sob story.

  Sod everything.

  “So what happens, now?”

  “You tell me you’ve calmed down. You apologise. You leave.”

  “Fuck that!” I was almost out the chair again.

  “Calm down, McNee.” Three words, spoken quietly, but with a power behind them that could have flattened a bus.

  I sat back in the chair. Starting an incident here would be counterproductive at best.

  Aye, check Mr fucking Calm.

  Ernie said, “You know I worked deep with the old man in the 80’s. Back room deals. All that shite.”

  I said, “But it pays not to…” There was no better phrase, bad as it sounded in the circumstances, “burn your bridges.”

  Ernie had led a raid on Burns’s home a few years back. I’d been part of the team. Remembered the frost between the two men. Like they knew each other but hadn’t spoken in years.

  An act? Oh, aye. A bloody brilliant one and all.

  Ernie sighed. “You want me to arrest you?”

  I said nothing.

  “You want to apologise to the man? Make this easy on everyone? He’ll accept it. Like nothing ever happened.”

  Again, I kept schtum. Figured if I couldn’t knock Ernie’s block off, I could make him sweat some at least.

  There was just the two of us in the upstairs room. No sound except for the guests downstairs. Talking loud and drinking hard.

  Burns said, “I didn’t touch your office.”

  Did I believe him?

  Did I shite.

  Not that it mattered. I’d taken the safe road. Told Ernie I’d do the whole shake-hands gig and then get out.

  Deal with the devil?

  Better the one you know.

  Across the other side of the wee office room, Burns waited patiently.

  Looking around, you would think this was the office of any small businessman. A room in the house dedicated to files and folios and figures. You wouldn’t guess at what this man did.

  What he had done.

  You’d look at the photograph of the man’s son on the desk, never realise that the lad had left town ashamed of his heritage, of what the old man had done to get him through accountancy school.

  Burns was standing between me and the door, his hand outstretched. Not looking like a monster. Just a man waiting for his apology.

  Christ, that thought alone killed me.

  I said, “I’m sorry,” tried not to wince as I stepped across and offered my hand.

  Did I look like I meant it? No idea, but Burns seemed to buy into it. His grip was firm and his hands were hot, like he was burning up on the inside.

  I hoped he was.

  Hoped it hurt like hell.

  Outside, I drove away from the house fast. My hands hurt from the tension, and I stopped a few streets away, drawing in fast and bumping the pavement with my tyres.

  I dialled a number on the mobile. Dropped my head so my skull smacked the padded headrest.

  I breathed out long and slow as the line beeped in my ear.

  Susan answered: “Steed?”

  I didn’t s
ay anything.

  “What do you want?”

  That churning in my gut again.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear, hit the cancel button.

  Lashed out with my fist on the dashboard rather than let loose the tears I could feel stupidly gathering in my eyes.

  Second time that day.

  Maybe the car was the problem.

  Chapter 19

  “So you’re the Golden boy?”

  We’d met each other a few times before. Never had much to say other than hello and goodbye. But I knew her name.

  She only remembered mine after a couple minutes dancing around the subject. Why would she remember me, after all? A few nods as we passed each other in FHQ hallways? Hardly the stuff of a grand friendship.

  I felt stupid being at the house, welcomed in like an old friend when I didn’t deserve it. I was twenty-eight years old, barely felt out of school most days, and everyone here seemed so sure of themselves.

  Even this constable who was two years my junior.

  The gathering – not quite large enough to call it a party – had been Ernie’s idea. An informal evening to introduce me to some of the guys from CID, soften them up to the idea of my transferring in once I passed the exams. There were a few other beat coppers as well, all looking for a leg up. None of them looking as lost as I felt.

  They could play the game. They’d been waiting for this kind of opportunity their whole career. Politics as exciting to them as the work itself.

  She said, “He won’t shut up about you.” Meaning her father. This girl, the reason I knew her name was that she was the DI’s daughter. I had enough nous to try and remember those kinds of facts at least.

  I smiled, took it for a joke, not a barb. Susan smiled back. I couldn’t read her expression.

  I wished Elaine wasn’t away on some stupid conference trip. She’d have helped me here, given me a gentle nudge through the social minefield.

  I said, “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.”

  Susan said, “He did mention that, of course.” Nodding at me as though she’d noticed something.

  “That what?”

  “That seriousness. You walk around like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

  I tried to keep the grin going. Hard work. She was making me sweat.

  She said, as though she’d been thinking about the matter for a while, “Not sure if it suits you.”