Potter's Field

by Dolan, Chris;

  After the separation, Packy struck with a coup de théâtre that took the wind out of everybody’s sails. He was the one who went back to Italy. Donegal Packy bought himself an old farmhouse on a hill in Tuscany, not a kick in the pants away from Rosa’s ancestral lands.

  With every foot that Packy put wrong – coming home from the pub drunk, late, arguing, not arguing, talking too much and talking too little, frying the fish too much, making the batter too heavy – Rosa threatened to “go home”. That Italy had not been the Di Rios’ home since 1919 was neither here nor there. That Rosa could survive a single day alone south of Girvan was unlikely. It didn’t matter – she was simply letting Packy know that she had made a big mistake in her life – him.

  “Marco would never have let me suffer like this!”

  So, what revenge! He probably hated it over there, Packy. He’d never learned Italian, and coffees and brandies on pavements were surely no match for big frothy pints and solid oak bars, shouting the odds about Ireland and socialism. Maddy refused to visit him, so it was possible he was living the life of Riley, but she doubted it. Sweet vengeance kept him going on a daily basis. Her mother’s only response was to stop talking so much about Italy, but become more Italian, in a B-Movie kind of way. The Gina Lollabrigida of Shawlands; Sophia of St. Catherine’s.

  The Mass was said by a different priest than usual. The old guy with the stutter must be ill, or at the nineteenth hole. Shame. Maddy liked the show he put on – gruff and bad-tempered and more quintessentially an oul’ Oirish priest that any minor character in Father Ted. There was a young zealot on the altar instead this evening. Almost good-looking, like a failed audition from The Thorn Birds. Unusually, Scottish. Maddy – Maddalena Benedetti di Rio Shannon – thought all priests were Irish or Italian.

  The priest’s sermon was a hideously happy series of silly anecdotes involving cute kids from the local school, his own auld granny, and Great Celtic Football Players of the Past… all of them shoe-horned together to reflect the meanings of biblical parables. Father Mike, as he matily called himself, was a self-satisfied bore, but Maddy was envious of him. She was envious of everyone who had it taped. Her dad and his socialism. Dan McKillop and a philosophy invented entirely by him: humanistic cynicism. Izzy and her private conservatism, public benevolence. Even Coulter must have some philosophy that helped him create his near-perfect little family. Maddy had never found a system that Explained Everything. She drifted off to Father Mike talking some nonsense about suffering little children; the face of the shepherded lamb in her living room becoming Eddie’s – torn, battered, but still serenely smiling.

  DI Alan Coulter and DS John Russell were sitting in the living-room of Anne Kennedy – a woman with small dark eyes like peek-holes in a long, flat door of a face. A door, Alan thought, she’d no intention of opening. Her house was a Govan new-build, poky rooms, sparsely furnished and decorated, but still more of a home than the Docherties’ Merchant city pad would ever be.

  “Your son’s name is Simon Kennedy.”

  “Sy.”

  “And he’s what age?” Coulter wanted to hear her say it.

  “Thirteen. Fourteen in ten days.”

  Holloway’s lowest guesstimate had been sixteen to just under. This woman – long and lank even sitting, as if hard times and stress had stretched the elasticity out of her – couldn’t be the mother of the murdered boy. At least, not their murdered boy. “Sy done this before, Anne? Disappear.”

  “This time’s different. He used to live wi’ his daddy. But now I’ve got myself sorted. He’s never bunked off from here.”

  “In how long?” Russell asked.

  “Near a year now.”

  “D’you mind me asking Anne – sorted from what?”

  Her dress was bright yellow, new or washed specially for the police, plain like an overall. Her hair was a rich solid brown, pinned back behind her ears. “Not drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Weren’t thinking anything, Anne.”

  But Anne Kennedy had her case for the defence at the ready. “I had Sy when I was sixteen. Everyone went mental, so I did too. Me and Tone – Sy’s daddy – got back together when I was nineteen. But it was on and off, you know?” Coulter wondered if this was the longest speech Anne had ever made. “In my twenties I acted like I was in my teens. Anyhow, I’ve settled down now. Got a job. This place. My Ma and me are talking again. Tony and me are history but he does his bit for the boy.”

  “When Sy went missing before,” Russell was being more direct with this worried woman than Alan thought necessary, “where did he go?”

  “There was a kids’ home up by Shawlands. He was in there for a while, when Tone was down south and I was being an arsehole. He made mates there. He could hide in their rooms, even get fed, without the staff realising he was around.”

  “Down south?”

  Anne stared at Russell. Coulter sighed. Russell had no idea what it was like to have kids. Coulter, with four of them, couldn’t imagine what it’d be like for a son or daughter to go missing. “Anne, if your husband was in prison, it’s best we know, the more we can find out about Sy….”

  “Saughton. Five year. Armed robbery. Wasn’t his fault..”

  “But he’s out now?”

  “Eighteen month ago.”

  Coulter wanted to get the subject back onto Sy. “He was put into care, you say? Why? What did Sy do, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  She steeled herself. “Shoplifting. Bit of cheek to the teachers. Sy’s no’ a bad kid, mister, just a bit wild at times.”

  “Have you checked with the home if they’ve seen him?”

  She nodded, then shook her head.

  “Which school did he normally attend?”

  “Cross High.”

  “Tell us about the last time you saw him,” Russell cut in.

  “Wednesday evening. He was fine. Nothing special. There’s five-a-sides over at the sports complex. I assumed he was going there.”

  “Did he take his kit with him?”

  Anne Kennedy looked at Coulter when she answered, as if Russell was just a voice in an earpiece, a translator. “His kit and his clothes are the same thing. Plays in trackies and trainers. Gets a shower when he comes in.”

  “Except he didn’t. Come in.”

  “The boy’s father, Mrs. Kennedy—”

  “Tony. Got his own house over in Partick.”

  “He be there just now?”

  “Doubt it. He bought himself a van. Set himself up doing deliveries. Gets a lot of work. London even.”

  Russell smiled at Coulter. “Wonder if the Inland Revenue know.”

  Coulter frowned. “We’re not taxmen, Mrs. Kennedy.”

  “Aye, you are,” she said, matter-of-fact. “Anyway. Tony does his bit for the boy.”

  Life, Coulter reckoned, was working out just fine for Tone, after his wee stretch for violent crime. It was Anne who had been pulled out of shape – all the recoil chewed out of her. Coulter pretended to write in his pad and, not raising his eyes, asked as casually as he could: “Just out of interest. What make of trackies?”

  “His newest. Coq Sportif. Like he wanted.”

  He wasn’t sure if the woman had noticed the wince he tried to hide. “What about friends, Anne? Had a special mate he hung about with?”

  “None in particular, no.”

  “What’s your theory?” Coulter finally said. “Where do you reckon Sy is, right now, Anne?”

  She looked out the window – a reasonable view from the Kennedys’ second floor flat. Lots of bright cloudless sky. “He’s in the shit. Life that boy’s had… mister – those bodies found in the park…?”

  Alan told the truth. “We think they’re older than Sy, and probably from north of the river. But right now – anything’s possible.”

  “If it is him, my wee stretch o’ sanity’s just ended.”

  The Fiscal, Maxwell Binnie, was visiting his underlings one by one to show off to his new Committee pal, John Ma
cDougall, the School Czar. “You’ll be dealing with the Kelvingrove case, I hear?” MacDougall asked Maddy at the door of her office.

  “If they ever catch anyone.”

  “So you take nothing to do with it until there’s a court case?” MacDougall had been a teacher or lecturer or something. Nothing to do with the law or the police. He’d been drafted into the Steering Group on Youth Crime and Delinquency because of a lifetime’s dedication to young people. Maddy couldn’t imagine him ticking off a naughty first year, let alone shouting the odds in the Scottish Parliament. Not with an accent designed for kindly remarks and reciting poetry.

  Maxwell Binnie got in an answer, even though MacDougall had clearly addressed Maddy. “The police will keep us abreast of the progress of the investigation but, yes, you’re right, John, our real work comes once there has been an arrest.”

  “And what do you do then?”

  This time Maxwell allowed his underling to respond. “We study all the evidence. Sometimes re-interview witnesses. Precognose the case—”

  “Precog…?”

  “Question witnesses, collate the data, bring all the productions – evidence – together, decide on an argument, have everything ready for the prosecution.”

  “Which you yourself then present in court?”

  Maddy looked at Binnie, who shuffled for a moment. “It’s not usual. Although Miss Shannon here is a solicitor advocate.” He gave his best patronising smile. “Passed her exams a year or so back. There’s a general feeling, however, that if you’ve been involved in the precognition of a case, you’re too close to it to prosecute properly.”

  “In which case,” Maddy said merrily to MacDougall, “we pass on all our hard work and months of preparation to an advocate who follows our advice for five times the money.”

  MacDougall looked at Binnie. “Does seem a shame, doesn’t it? No chance of this delightful lady prosecuting the Kelvingrove case?”

  Binnie walked away. “We’ll see.”

  Maddy smiled broadly at the retired schoolteacher, and he waved as he turned to follow the Fiscal.

  She returned to her fish-bowl cubicle, her email pinging. Coulter. Had Maddy ever come across a home for kids called Lochgilvie? She emailed back that she hadn’t, but would ask a colleague who’d done a lot of work with children’s panels. While she waited for a response she discovered that Lochgilvie House had its own website.

  The place appeared rather grand, set back a little off the street, two typical southside townhouses knocked into one. If you looked closer at the photograph, however, and you could see most of the windows have cracks in them, one completely boarded up. All the curtains had either been torn or torn down. The garden was like a little muddy patch of the Somme.

  The text that went with the proud photo was determinedly jaunty. “Glasgow City Council have a long standing and deeply held commitment to the youth of our city – especially in their time of need.” It listed a variety of services it offered young people – counselling, training, school taxi service, family links, ecumenical church projects, community involvement schemes.

  There was a picture of the Home’s director, a Mrs. Janet Bateman, with two of her staff, an older man and a younger woman. They were smiling – stalwartly, Maddy thought. She minimised the site, took out her Petrus files. But put them straight back again when Dan knocked and entered.

  “Report, ma’am, from the desolate land of Drumchapel, far oe’r the sea..”

  “See? You do keep bad company.”

  “There is a certain excitement in the neighbourhood. Groupings of young gentlemen surrounding older, better-dressed ones at corners. Talk of some generalissimo from London spotted loitering round local closes. Amazing what you can find out at the check-out of the local Home Bargains.”

  “Hey, you’re looking at the chip-shop queen here. All this wisdom you see before you was acquired over the judicious sprinkling of salt and vinegar. Haven’t the police noticed anything?”

  Dan picked her pen up off her desk and began clicking it annoyingly. “Possibly. There’s been a heavier presence of late.”

  “God – do CID and Uniforms never talk to each other? Coulter’s never mentioned any of this.”

  “Probably no connection. Just some internecine skirmishing.”

  “How many connections do you need!”

  “Oh dear, I can see where this is going to lead. Maddalena Shannon – Caped Crusader.”

  “Or just trying to do my job?”

  “Or alleviating crass bourgeois guilt?”

  Maddy’s email chirped again. She stuck her hand out towards Dan.

  “Pen.”

  God loves alcoholics and workaholics – He lights the way though they make no contribution to the journey other than moving their feet. Coulter was at Tony Kennedy’s door within minutes of hearing the man had reappeared. Half eleven at night. DS Russell stood beside him, staring at his shoes – this could’ve waited till tomorrow.

  Before Tony had finished opening his door, in a close backing nearly onto the Clyde, he’d clocked Coulter as the filth. Coulter could tell. “Take it easy. I’m not here to give you hassle.”

  A moment, and then Tony asked. “Sy?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Coulter brought the man up to speed, following him into his kitchen. Spick and span – the way a man learns in the army. Or in pokey.

  “Disappeared?! How d’you mean, disappeared? Nobody told me nothing.”

  “You’ve been away, Tony boy,” Russell snapped back. “Where were you?”

  “Dundee.”

  “Can you prove that? Order forms, invoices?”

  The knee-jerk clenching of the fists was quickly followed by Tony suddenly paling. “Fuck. The boys in the park. I heard on the radio.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Kennedy. There’s no direct link. It’s unlikely that your son has anything to do with Kelvingrove.”

  He’d be, what – five foot nine-ish? Thirty-three years old. In prison from twenty-four to thirty. He and two accomplices stormed a pub after hours one Saturday. Daft have-a-go-hero barman got himself killed. Not at Kennedy’s hands – one Billy Mitchell, well known to the police, had the gun. Mitchell gets himself shot in the subsequent chase. Dies, to everyone’s delight, even his own family’s, in hospital a week later. Anthony Kennedy got ten years, served six.

  “You’ve no idea where Sy is?”

  Tony sat at the kitchen table and stared at the salt cellar, as if it held the answer.

  According to all the documents Coulter had read that day, Kennedy had been a model prisoner. Liked by inmates and screws alike. Once out, he never broke his parole. He negotiated – with the help of the parole office and a voluntary prisoner support organisation – a loan for a second-hand van. Paints “A Van & A Man” on the side, and goes touting for business. Folk hire him for flittings, moonlightings, shifting washing machines or dryers from parents’ houses to kids’ flats. He undercuts parcel delivery services, breaks the speed limit to get farm produce into town. Has even delivered fresh-caught seafood from up north all the way to Glasgow and London. “What Anne’s told you’ll be right. She knows the boy better than I do.”

  “I need you to do something for me, Tony.” Coulter sat down in the chair next to him.

  “What?”

  “Just go see. Belt and braces job. Elimination purposes. It won’t be pleasant, but it’ll clear your mind and help our investigation.”

  The clouds hadn’t burned away yet, the morning woolly and colourless. Maddy walked along Argyll Street, passing other somnambulant workers. Tony Kennedy was waiting at the door of the mortuary when Maddy turned the corner.

  They hardly spoke as they made their way inside, through the hospital and chemical-plant smells, the disinfected corridors; cold tiled. The entire building a monument to the shortness of life and the banality of death. She didn’t need to be here; she was like a moth to a flame with this case. Kennedy with h
is little legs had to take two steps to every one of hers, but keeping a little ahead. He looked so alone. “I telt her, No point, Anne. I’ll go alone. You’ll only upset yoursel’ for nothing.”

  Maddy hoped, and believed, he was right. Pathology’s report wasn’t enough to put some poor guy through an ordeal like this. Sy Kennedy was too young to be either Micky or Eddie. “They telt me it’ll be a bit full-on,” Tony said, not really to her. “Not good at blood and stuff.” She stopped herself from saying that must be a drawback for an armed robber.

  They were met by WPC Dalgarno, Doctor Niven and a mortuary supervisor Maddy had come across before. They entered the already prepared room in silence, like Kennedy was being led quietly into the electrocution chamber. Two beds had been set up. Both bodies covered. The supervisor turned down the first sheet. A face so bashed and bruised you’d think it would be impossible to identify. But there was no need to pull back the second sheet.

  The Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, French, you name it, each in turn had wrenched the best out of Ettore’s home ground, and left him with dust.

  Ettore is walking back from Portoferraio, where he managed to get a day’s work unloading supplies from the mainland. He sees Antonella, outside the house half a kilometre away, tending the herb garden. He hears the boys’ shouts, Vittorio and Carlo playing happily, home from school. The local priest is forever saying Count your blessings, Ettore. Maybe he’s right. But how does a man know when it’s time to stop counting, to do something that’ll earn you blessings in the future.

  His grandfather had tended vines here, like his fathers before him, never suspecting that a disease was slowly rotting them. When Ettore’s dad returned from the war and the mustard gas cleared from his nostrils he smelled the sickness in the earth.