There was Martin’s sister, Alice, now a mother of three herself, and an uncle, Benny Welsh, who was often mouthing off to the media about how his nephew should never be forgotten. He seemed to have become the family spokesperson, given how many times his name appeared in recent years.
Witness were relatively thin on the ground. The boys from school – Tierney, Brown, Wallace and others – were still around, as were Michael Hill and Harris McKenzie, two of the three drivers who’d seen him walking to or at the bus stop. That was pretty much it. Everyone else she found quoted was merely someone with opinions rather than information.
Suspects? Well, there were more of those. Reading between the lines of the press coverage, she decided the first was Martin’s father, Alec. He was a drinker, even before his son went missing, and was said to have a temper on him. He’d been given a formal warning at work for thumping one of the other drivers, and a neighbour was quoted as saying that he wouldn’t want to be in the killer’s shoes if Alec Welsh got a hold of him.
The police had pulled all of the known and suspected abusers within thirty miles, finding reason enough to keep a couple of them in cells overnight. A guy named Eric McHattie had made some headlines, walked in with a blanket over his head and a bit of a mob waiting as he went through the door of the cop shop. He’d had some previous and no doubt some sly local bobby had let slip that he was on their list. McHattie had an alibi for the night Martin disappeared and, although it was only two alcoholic acquaintances, the police couldn’t break it. Twelve years later, an angry father took a baseball bat to the man’s head. If McHattie had been Martin’s killer, he took the secret of it to his grave with him.
The name that came up again and again in connection with Martin’s probable murder was a schoolteacher. A man named Alastair Haldane. He was Martin’s history teacher and had taught him on the day of the disappearance. He was taken in for questioning, largely, it seemed, on the basis of local gossip and some of his colleagues saying he was particularly distracted in the days after it happened.
He was named in the press, albeit in a roundabout ‘helping police with their enquiries’ kind of way. He was named again and again. A press pack took up residence in his front garden for a while, asking for quotes and demanding to know ‘the truth’. A mob mentality quickly and inevitably developed round Haldane. His windows were broken twice and his mother, whose house he lived in, claimed her life was made a misery by locals.
He was twenty-eight at the time and had been teaching at Calderrigg High for three years. Nice guy, said colleagues. Would never believe it of him, said others. Always pleasant, never any trouble, very helpful, dedicated to his pupils. The support wasn’t unanimous, though. No smoke without fire, said one unnamed newspaper source. Too friendly with some pupils, said another. Always something odd about him, implied a few.
She counted three trips to the police station, two by invitation, one by demand. The third lasted as long as the law allowed but then he was back on the streets. No evidence. No body. Just a whole heap of suspicion.
There were photographs of him, too. Reasonably tall, spectacles, fair hair in a side parting. Awkward-looking but, then, who wouldn’t be, walking into a police station with newspaper cameras pointed at you? In some pictures he was walking proud, aiming for unconcerned. In others he looked terrified, shying away from the prying eyes of the lens.
Harris McKenzie, the driver of the bus that Martin should have been on, also came under strong suspicion. The woman who got off with her child at Martin’s stop on the edge of town couldn’t say whether there had been anyone waiting there. She’d been too busy manoeuvring buggy and baby to notice anyone standing there or whether they got on after she’d left.
‘Did Martin really not get on bus?’ one tabloid queried. It was tantamount to calling the driver a liar, but not quite.
McKenzie had a record. Not much more than a couple of old convictions for breach of the peace and one for assault, but it was enough to interest the police. He too had been invited to the station for a chat, doubtless having his story questioned over and over. If there was no one else on the bus and no one to see them for a stop or two, then that left McKenzie with the dangerously double-edged sword of no witnesses and no alibi.
A quick calculation showed McKenzie to be seventy-six but she couldn’t find any mention of him after the fifteenth anniversary in 1988, so whether he was alive or dead was anyone’s guess. Either way he, like Alec Welsh and Alastair Haldane, was never charged. No one was.
Martin Welsh had disappeared not just from that bus stop but from public record. She could find only a handful of references in the past ten years, and they were largely insignificant. There were a couple of anniversary features from 2013, although far fewer than for the thirtieth: a local newspaper item about vandalism in Calderrigg cemetery that damaged four headstones, including the one the Welsh family had erected for Martin; an unsuccessful petition to name a street in the village after him; and a story about his sister Alice being robbed in a street attack.
Apart from those fleeting mentions, it was as if he’d slipped away into the mist of time. She lay in bed, forty years on, and made a vow to find him.
She knew whom she was going to call for help but she had no idea if he would answer or even if he’d know who she was.
CHAPTER 24
Nathan liked to follow people sometimes.
Tracking, trailing, tailing, all without their having the first clue that it was happening. Most people are stupid but even the smarter ones have no idea. They go around thinking they’re safe. Thinking no one is watching them. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There are eyes everywhere. We’re constantly being watched. Street cameras. Shop cameras. Traffic cameras. Cameras on houses. Cameras on car dashboards. Government cameras. Cameras in your computer. More than they tell you about. Much more.
And people are watching you too. Don’t think they’re not.
The man a few steps behind you, the unseen eyes in the window above, the couple standing on the other side of the street nudging each other and nodding towards you. Every step. Every movement. Everyone is watching you. Sometimes they look just because they’re there; sometimes they watch because it’s their job to.
You need to protect yourself against the eyes. Walk in the shadows and in the crowd, hide when you can. Nathan knew. They were all looking for him, probably always had been but definitely now. But Nathan was ready for them. Prepared.
Being aware was being protected. He was constantly thinking of CCTV and cops and people and threats. And he listened. That’s what people forgot to do most. Listen. People were dumb. Nathan listened to everything and everyone around him, and so he knew when they were coming for him. He was always ready.
The pills helped, too, not the ones they wanted him to take but the others. They kept him alert. Like jungle soldiers or desert warriors. He could hear everything, see everything, dodge everything.
People didn’t see Nathan. He saw them. He made sure of that.
Following people was an art. There were rules to follow and tricks to use.
Don’t get too close. Don’t make it at all obvious. Don’t ever get in their eye line. If they don’t see you then they don’t know you’re there. Watch out for shop windows or mirrors. Treat reflections as your enemy. Change your clothes. Change your hair. Change the way you walk. Change the way you think.
If you need to, you drop them. You can always pick them up again, but better that than they see you. So just walk on by without a sideways glance if you feel a threat of discovery.
If they go in somewhere, a shop or an office, maybe, then you find somewhere suitable to wait it out. It can be visible as long as there’s a reason for your being there, a bus stop, maybe, or a café. Don’t hang around in public view without reason. If you do, then you’re as stupid as they are and just asking to be noticed.
As a rule, the bigger the crowd the bigger the safety margin, but also the more difficult the
tail. Keep closer to the shorter ones, let the taller ones go a bit. Use colours, hairstyles, clothing, whatever you can fasten on to. Keep them in sight. Keep out of theirs.
Despite its being Saturday afternoon, there weren’t too many people on Anderston Quay but enough of a crowd to hide in. The Clyde was to his left, so he didn’t need to worry about anyone coming from that side. The office buildings all along the other side of the road were full of eyes, though. Hundreds of them. All hiding behind darkened windows and slanted blinds. Those he had to be careful of.
The person he was tailing was maybe twenty yards ahead and still unaware of Nathan’s existence. Six foot or so and wearing a bright-blue puffer jacket. Easily seen, easily followed.
Nathan had been behind him since the man had left Bacchus on Glassford Street in the Merchant City and then strolled down to the Broomielaw. All too simple. No sense of self-protection and no awareness of any possible threat. He was disgustingly stupid.
He’d been loud in the pub. Letting everyone know he had a phone and friends. Loud, drunk and obnoxious. No one liked him. Nathan didn’t like him. Nathan had sat in the corner, unseen, and listened.
The guy was on his phone again now, texting as he went and making people swerve as he walked without looking where he was going. Not looking up was rude. Not looking around him was potentially fatal.
You could tell a lot about people just by looking. Nathan was good at that. He could see when they were proud or sad. He could tell the worried ones and the dangerous ones. He knew when they were selfish, arrogant or just useless. The stupid ones, most of them, he could spot a mile off.
The blue puffer jacket walked lazily, no hurry to get anywhere, and had just spent two hours drinking in a pub on his own. He was a waster. On top of that, he turned his head very obviously to look at people who passed to see if he’d been noticed. That bothered Nathan because it was wrong and because he didn’t like the guy looking round.
He was in his early twenties and wore skinny blue denims that barely reached his boots and a flannel shirt under the jacket. His hand was constantly working through his hair or his stupid beard.
They were nearing the traffic lights at the corner and the guy had a choice to make. Straight on to Finnieston Quay, left across the Squinty Bridge or right on to Finnieston Street. Nathan stopped to tie his shoelace, giving the target time to decide and making sure he didn’t close in on him. If he had to stop at the lights to cross then Nathan had to avoid being next to him. That might ruin everything.
He chose left, over the bridge to the south side of the river. It was the road less travelled and there were fewer people around him now, so Nathan backed off further. That bright-blue puffer jacket, so good at keeping the howling April wind out and yet so noticeable. The idiot would have been better off getting cold.
CHAPTER 25
Alzheimer’s was as strange a disease as it was terrible. Often, five minutes ago didn’t exist while fifty years ago seemed like yesterday. She knew far more about it than she’d like but far less than was of any use.
She’d seen it in her dad long before either of them would admit it was a reality. Little things like losing his keys or getting stuck in the middle of a sentence because he couldn’t find the right word. He’d forget people’s names or just lose track of what he was saying. Little things that began to add up to a bigger thing.
It was the first time he forgot her name that signalled to both that it was serious. His daughter, his only child. He couldn’t remember her name. They both laughed it off but she was sure it had scared him as much as it did her.
Of course, it started happening more often. Forgotten meetings, repeated conversations, bumps with the car, getting lost. Still they denied it, still it got worse.
He drove through a red light at Anniesland Cross and smashed into a car turning right. No one was badly hurt but it was the day they couldn’t ignore it any longer. He agreed to go to the doctor and the diagnosis was the one they’d both expected and dreaded.
They learned about Alzheimer’s and they learned to deal with it. Sort of. They knew the short-term memory was usually the first thing to go, damage to the hippocampus, but that live events would be unaffected, for a time at least. So they enjoyed the benefit of that, talking long into the night about how he’d met her mother, his early days in the force, her childhood, any golden memory that they’d cherish while they could.
Even after he went into Clober Nursing Home, those long-term memories held firm. Some days they’d be so fresh he thought he was living them and they’d taken over from what had happened since. It could be a tangled mess, but on the good days the pathways joined up and he could walk down Memory Lane with a spring in his step.
They’d had some success a year earlier by bringing in an old Rangers player whom his dad had watched in his younger days and the pair of them chatted away as if the mud had only just been wiped away from the man’s boots. It had done him so much good and maybe, just maybe, she could try something similar now.
He hadn’t been on the original Martin Welsh case but his force had got called in a year down the line when the local cops had got nowhere. It was standard practice on an unsolved like that to bring in fresh eyes to look at everything from scratch.
She remembered him talking about the case, worrying over where he might have gone wrong, grieving about failing the family, the way that all good cops do on the ones they don’t get to the bottom of.
What she didn’t remember was the details. She’d been young and then she’d been busy. Too late now to wish she’d paid more attention except that maybe she could have a second chance.
It would be so much easier face to face, but that wasn’t going to happen. Tony would freak if she left the house, and, anyway, she wouldn’t take the risk. It was going to be by phone or nothing. She crossed her fingers and prayed it was a good day.
‘Hello, Alan’s room.’
‘Hi, Jess, it’s Rachel. Is he there?’
‘Hi, Rachel. Yes, he’s lying on his bed. Do you want a word?’
‘Yes, please. How is he?’
‘He’s doing okay. He had his breakfast and we had a chat about the weather. He was worried the rain would be bad for his tomato plants. I told him they’d be fine and that seemed to keep him happy. Hang on, I’ll get him.’
The moments between the phone getting passed over and her dad picking it up always seemed to take an eternity. It left so much time for doubts and fears to plunge into the void and leave her struggling. Would he know her, would he talk, would he be happy?
‘Hello?’
He sounded stronger today. It wasn’t necessarily a sign that he’d remember better than on the days he sounded weak and old but it still made her feel better. She liked him to sound like himself.
‘Hi, Dad. It’s Rachel.’
‘I’m sorry. Who?’
‘It’s Rachel. Your daughter. How are you today, Dad?’
‘I don’t . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know who . . .’
It hurt her every time no matter how much she readied herself for it. She’d learned not to push it too much, though: challenging him would most likely just distress him and that was the last thing she wanted.
‘It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Okay.’
‘I hear your tomato plants are doing well. That’s good news, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, they are. Lots of rain but they’re fine.’
‘That’s good, Dad. Listen . . .’
‘I’m Alan.’
‘Yes, of course. Alan, I wanted to talk to you about something. Do you remember the Martin Welsh case? The boy who—’
‘The boy who went to school and never came home.’
‘Yes!’
‘Terrible, it was. His poor mother. She was still crying her eyes out a year later. The father was no use. He was a bad lot.’
Her heart soared. He was lucid and articulate. And he remembered.
‘The local police said when it h
appened everyone in the village wanted to help. Do anything they could. A year later and they didn’t want to know. They’ve turned on the father and the teacher. I think they’re embarrassed about it all. They say it’s given the village a bad name.’
Past tense had become present. He wasn’t remembering now. He was living it.
‘No one is talking. Say they’ve said all they’ve got to say. Makes it hard work. I’m worried we’re never going to find out who did this.’
‘Who do you think might have done it, Alan?’
‘Eh? Oh there’s a few possibles. I’ve got my suspicions about the lorry driver. Michael Hill. His story doesn’t stack up. I want to talk to him again. And the bus driver, too. The father, though, a nasty bit of work, and he’s got a right temper on him.’
‘Anyone else, Alan?’
‘Could be anyone. That’s what scares me. Someone that drove past, saw the chance and picked the boy up and killed him. Some maniac that might be from nowhere near the village and nothing to do with what we know. So many back roads round here. He’d never be found.’
She had a question that bugged her.
‘Alan, are you sure that Martin Welsh is dead? Are you sure he was murdered?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘He probably was but we can’t be sure. No body, see?’
‘Can you think of anything else, Alan?’
‘It’s raining again. My tomato plants will be ruined.’
She told him she loved him and she’d call again soon. He’d already hung up the phone.
She went back onto KillingTime and went to her messages, pulling up the offer from RD, the person who was so desperate to buy the newspaper front page from her that he’d offered double what she’d paid.
I’ve changed my mind and if you still want to buy the Martin Welsh front page then I’ll consider selling it. Not for £250 though. I might take £300.
CHAPTER 26
The Clyde is the artery that lets life flow through Glasgow. It’s the heartbeat of the place. It’s where Glasgow was born and where it dies.
Murderabilia Page 10
