Father Confessor (J McNee series)

by Russel D. McLean

  A headache burned right behind my temples.

  Susan told me I didn’t have to come in with her. That she would prefer to do this on her own. I offered to wait, but she shook her head. I watched her walk across to the main building, using the doors that were locked to the public. Still acting as though the place was her own.

  Someone was waiting to meet her.

  Sooty.

  I don’t think he looked my way.

  When Susan was gone from sight, swallowed up by the forbidding, grey 1960’s architecture of FHQ, I looked at my watch. Still morning.

  There was no-one there to say, so I told myself: this wasn’t my case. I had no reason to get involved. Except the worst kind.

  And I had a business to run.

  Such as it was.

  THREE

  Third floor, One Courthouse Square. New building, the sandstone still fresh. On the lower floors, there’s a building society. To get to my offices you come through a side door, climb an interminable number of steps and bang hard on the door.

  I used to have a guy did the admin, but he suffered a work-related injury. Since then it’s been a rolling series of temps who never quite have the staying power. Enough of a turnover I was starting to wonder if it was personal.

  The latest was a woman in her fifties by the name of Dot. Her husband was retired. Her son, so she said, was a “perpetual student”, the description a mix of love and exasperation. No doubt the same tone she used with him. She struck me as the kind of woman who didn’t hide the truth.

  Reminded me of my own mother.

  As I came through the door, Dot handed me a letter.

  “You’ll like this one.”

  I did.

  The letter was from a local woman whose daughter had run out on her fifteen years earlier. I’d managed to track the girl down to a small English village where she’d changed her name and moved in with a man ten years her senior. The daughter had got herself into some trouble at school which was why she had left in the first place. I sympathised. And, in a way, so did her mother, despite her daughter’s disappearance putting such a strain on the woman’s marriage that she had eventually split from her husband.

  The daughter’s own life story was extraordinary, and when she came clean to her husband about who she really was, what had really happened to her, I could have wept with him. As it was I felt like an interloper as I stood in their front room, watching the scene.

  You never get used to being around people during moments that many believe should be private. The girl had never contacted her mother because she’d been so ashamed at taking what she called the coward’s way out.

  But, according to the letter from the mother, they had a dialogue now. Things were moving forward. It felt good to know that in this world where everything can seem so bleak, there are the occasional happy endings.

  After I was done with the letter, I logged on to my email, checked my calendar.

  I was working another missing person. There’d been an upturn in such inquiries following media coverage of the Furst case the year before. I turned away most of them, especially while police investigations were still active, but a DS I knew from the old days had sent this particular client in my direction. So far I had turned up nothing on the husband who had slipped out in the middle of the night, but a history of undisclosed gambling debts to local sharks made the reasons clear to me.

  Dot buzzed through from reception. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”

  “Make an appointment,” I said. “But make it clear that business is currently backed up and – ”

  “I think you’ll want to speak to this one,” she said. “It’s David Burns.”

  Guess I should have expected the cockroaches to come out of the woodwork sooner or later.

  ###

  “You’ve had the place done up?” Burns said as he walked through into my office. His tone was upbeat and cheery, like we were old friends. Like this was a social call.

  I tried to mirror the façade. It didn’t work. So I said, “You know about Ernie.” It wasn’t a question.

  His mood darkened. I took that as a minor victory. He took a seat. Uninvited. “I know about Ernie,” he said. “And I know what you’re thinking, but believe me when I say that his death had nothing to do with our… friendship.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  Why should I? After all the shite he’d put me through over the last few years, he was lucky I didn’t just throw him out on his arse. Through the third storey window.

  I said, “You came all the way across town just to tell me that?”

  He chuckled. “Not even an offer of a tea?” he said. “After the hospitality I’ve shown you down the years.”

  I shrugged. Said, “Fresh out.” Knowing he could see the teabags and coffee-jars on top of the filing cabinet. Letting him know the score.

  He smiled. Self-satisfied. The urge to smack him one came on strong.

  But I resisted.

  Call that progress. Maybe I was evolving. Learning how to be a better man.

  I didn’t know exactly how old Burns was, but he was well past sixty, maybe into his seventies by now. His bullish build was gone, but there was still a power to his body that came naturally. You could see it in the way he moved. A predator, always on the prowl for other human being’s weaknesses. He hadn’t let himself go to seed. A lifetime of being ready for a brawl had paid off in terms of his health. Two years earlier, he’d been the victim of a particularly nasty assault. You wouldn’t know it to look at him. The way he sat, the way he smirked, you’d think the bastard was bulletproof.

  In his mind, I think he was.

  But all it would take was one good shot to prove him wrong.

  He said, “Cards on the table, then. You’ve turned me down before, but believe me when I say I’d rather have you on the case than the coppers.”

  The third time he’d offered me employment. Did he expect me to jump enthusiastically at the opportunity? Start wagging my tail like a good little puppy? Fucksakes, I’d turned him down twice before. Sure, some people think a private investigator will take on any old work if there’s a cheque at the other end, but most of us have morals.

  More than you might imagine.

  “It would go against the professional ethics of the Association of British Investigators,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”

  It was a good excuse. I could point to the relevant paragraph of the charter with my eyes closed.

  “Aye, forgive me if I don’t follow, son.”

  Maybe I’d have to get out the pointer. “I mean taking money from a known criminal.”

  He was silent. As though digesting what I’d just said. Burns was one of those hard-men who had become particularly sensitive about his reputation. He’d lamped a reporter on his doorstep, busting the hack’s nose, for merely daring to ask about his connections to a known London gangster.

  Mind you, even I had to applaud that particular move. The hack in question had worked for one of the more loathsome rags. It was a wonder he’d even made the pretence at checking up on his “facts”.

  “Never convicted, lad,” he said. “Not proven.”

  Not.

  Proven.

  The two most irritating words in the Scots legal system.

  During my years on the Force, I’d come to hate the returned verdict.

  It’s an aberration.

  Or, as DI Lindsay might say, a pain in the fucking arse.

  Most sensible legal systems have a two tier verdict system:

  Black and white.

  Guilty and Not Guilty.

  Fair enough. Justice cannot have room for grey areas. It must be harsh and absolute if it is to work. Which is why Not Proven seems such a waste of time. What it says is, “We know you did it, you prick, but there’s just not enough evidence to convict.”

  It’s a verdict that more often than not lets the guilty walk free.

  In my opinion, of course.

  And t
he opinion of many coppers and court solicitors.

  “That’s a slur on my name, Mr McNee. I won’t have rumours like that out in the open.”

  I nodded. Not apologising.

  “So I’m here,” said Burns, “to ask you to accept my cash. Because I know you, son, you’ll be all over Ernie’s murder like dog-shit on a shoe. And you can’t keep going around doing these things for free. Altruism is an over-rated quality in this world.”

  “As I’m sure my secretary informed you,” I said, “I currently have a backlog of cases and can’t afford to take on any new clients at the moment without impinging on those currently engaging my services.”

  He took the hint, polite and formal as it was. Stood up. Said, “If you change your mind, feel free to call me. Any time. I think you know the number.”

  When he left, I waited until I was sure he was gone from the reception area. Then I grabbed a mug from next to the kettle and threw it at the wall.

  ###

  He had me.

  The old tosspot, for all that I tried to deny it, had a way of getting right in my head. Knew how to push my buttons. And as much as I was aware of it, I still fell for the trick every time.

  He’d talked about being the client for a gig I’d just as easily do for free.

  He had my number down cold. I wouldn’t sit by and wait for the coppers to get results. I’d be forced to look into this by my own nature. Pragmatism would suggest that if someone was willing to pay me for what I would do regardless, then I should take the bloody money. Even if it did come from the proceeds of criminal activity.

  Ernie had been my mentor and, no matter what had happened between us, that counted for something. His murder felt like a personal attack.

  Not just against me.

  But against Susan.

  ###

  Three months earlier, in the days waiting to hear the initial assessment from the Investigative Committee who were looking into Susan’s actions during the Mary Furst case, specifically her connection to the death of the psychopathic arsehole called Wickes.

  Susan sat with her legs curled up beneath her on the sofa that faced towards the bay windows. She was blowing onto the surface of her coffee, a gesture that was as much habit as it was necessity. The coffee had already cooled.

  She was dressed down in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Every day, I thought her gaze looked more distant. We hadn’t talked about her lying to her superiors in order to protect a young girl who made a bad choice.

  And, even more damningly, her lying to protect me.

  What was there that we could say?

  It was what had finally pulled us together.

  And threatened to tear us further apart.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I think about telling them what I know... what you told me… about my dad.”

  I thought about her father in the interrogation room, telling me that I need to look at the bigger picture, that I didn’t understand what was really going on. I remembered the pained look on his face, the way his eyes had become glassy with tears he hoped to hide, when I confirmed that Susan knew what I’d seen.

  He’d looked as though he’d been betrayed. And yet he was the one who had betrayed her.

  When it comes to family, things are never simple.

  “But when it comes down to it,” Susan continued, “And I’m sitting in that room looking across at the arseholes in the suits, all of them searching for any excuse to find me guilty of some bloody infraction, I think, sod it. His own dirt’ll come out one day.” She blew on the coffee again. Never once looked at me, even though I was sitting in a chair directly across from her, the heat of the mid-morning sun warming the back of my neck as it came through the window. “And he’s my dad. That’s the worst part. He’s my dad and I looked up to him, respected him. Thought he was a decent man. He was the reason I became a bloody copper, you know that, right? Because it seemed noble. It seemed right. It seemed good.”

  She had told me before that she couldn’t believe what I told her, that there must have been some deeper reason for her father’s close relationship with Burns. And once that might have been true, in the days when the Force tried to work with organised crime gangs rather than against them. When they still retained the feeble and naïve hope that they might be doing something proactive and preventative instead of making costly deals with the devil that would never pay out.

  Ernie had been part of those deals, once.

  Now his friendship with Burns – and I had been there, witnessed for what it was – was crossing a line unacceptable on any level for a professional copper, especially with a reputation like DCI Ernie Bright.

  “There has to be something,” she said. “Something we don’t know. An angle. A play. Anything.”

  But back then I believed that she was fishing in empty waters.

  And I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  FOUR

  It was late afternoon when Susan called, asked me to meet her at a coffee shop on the Perth Road. One of those places that did fair-trade coffee and home-baking.

  When I arrived she was sat at the window, looking out.

  She tried for a smile when she saw me walk in. Failed. I guess you could say, miserably.

  I sat beside her. She inched a black coffee over to me. I took it, letting my hand brush against hers as I did so. A small gesture. Nowhere near enough. Like anything I could do would have been.

  I said, “Tell me.”

  And she did.

  ###

  The story that Lindsay told her was much the same as the one he’d given me.

  However, Susan was sure that the DI left out certain details, And it wasn’t to spare her feelings; that wasn’t Lindsay’s style. No, when it came to other folk’s feelings he was subtle as a shotgun blast to the groin. And, I sometimes thought, proud of it, too.

  “He asked a lot of questions,” Susan said. “Like how much I saw my father outside of work, how close we were, whether he’d been acting different lately, all that shite.”

  I wondered what her reaction had been. She’d talked about his secrets catching up with him, and I knew that Ernie’s colleagues – Lindsay in particular – weren’t dumb. They had to have known something was up with their boss.

  Or maybe they’d put any recent behaviour down to the fact of his wife leaving; an event that had been a blow for Susan as much as her father. Even when you’re an adult, there’s still a small part of the child inside you that wonders if, in some tacit way, you are to blame for the erosion. If only you had behaved differently they would still be together.

  I wondered how Susan really felt about Lindsay’s questions. Whether she’d seen them as purely professional, or if she had sensed some personal jab behind them. As though her superior officer was trying to find some way to blame her for what had happened to Ernie.

  But Susan was smart enough to know when she was being played. She’d worked alongside Lindsay for a year, had known him longer than that, knew his style when it came to an investigation. He was always one for looking at relatives first, of methodically following procedure and protocol.

  Even when his gut might be telling him something else.

  I looked at Susan’s face. Her eyes were puffed, bloodshot. Her forehead was creased. Feeling the strain. I wanted to hold her. Just hold her and tell her that everything would be alright.

  But instead, I pulled back and said, “What did you tell Lindsay?”

  She reacted to that by straightening her back. Looking at me with a strange expression. One I couldn’t read.

  “I told him what I could. Which wasn’t much. That we haven’t been talking as much since the Furst incident. That he didn’t know what to make of what happened between you and me.”

  Aye, there was another subject I’d been avoiding of late. We’d fallen into the rhythm of a relationship without thinking about it, without knowing the boundaries or the strengths of what was between us.

  But together, I sometimes felt t
hat we were further apart than we had ever been before.

  The strain of a secret.

  The tension of a lie.

  Susan said, “He asked about you, as well. About you and Dad. How you felt about being the Golden Boy and then just another piece of shite investigator getting up everybody’s arsehole, to quote the man himself.” She smiled, the way everyone did when talking about Lindsay’s own peculiar turns of phrase, but it was weary and more out of habit than anything else.

  The words started to bounce around my head. I should have known Lindsay would try and make this personal. Ever since I broke his nose – right before I quit the force – he’d gone out of his way to prove that I was a fuck-up, a gobshite, whatever.

  Some days, I believed he was right.

  Susan sipped at her tea. She said, “I need to go home, Steed. Need to sleep.”

  I said, “I’ll see you later.”

  She kissed me on the lips. Fleeting, so fast I almost couldn’t feel it. Then she got up. Paused, as though thinking about something. “Do I have to say it?”

  “What?”

  “Leave this to the people who know what they’re doing?”

  I shot her my best smile, reached and touched her hand.

  It seemed to be answer enough for her.

  ###

  The work of an investigator is rarely black and white. Unlike the coppers, you don’t have the same moral and legal high ground to dig into people’s lives. The various Freedom of Information Acts that arrived with the dawn of the digital age have served to make our jobs more difficult, despite the clear advantages the digital age has brought to the profession.

  Which means that sometimes you have to make friends off the grid.

  Like Bobby Soren. The Grinch, as he liked to be known.

  He was the one who hacked Tayside Police’s website and replaced the homepage with an animation of a pig humping a rat. As he said later, it was computer code and not artistic subtlety that was his strong point.

  The Grinch considered himself a political radical. “I don’t harm anyone,” he told me once. “I’m like the Banksy of the online world, ken?”

  His grandparents had been German, but The Grinch was Dundee through and through. Born in the city, grew up here. He’d run with the last of the Dundee gangs during his youth, and had some scars to show for it. He’d only received, though. The Grinch, as he would tell anyone who’d listen, was “a lover not a fighter”. Aye, and he said that in his best Michael Jackson impression, too.