04-Mothers of the Disappeared

by Russel D. McLean

  Thinking about it, with a little distance, knowing what I did about what finally happened to him, I was beginning to realize what it might be.

  Fear.

  Not of being found out. It was too late for that.

  No, there had been something else in Alex Moorehead’s attitude. Something deeper and more primal than the fear of secrets yet to be uncovered.

  I called an old friend who worked in archives, asked her to pull files on Moorehead. ‘The ones Ernie submitted.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she told me over the line. ‘They’re sealed and confidential.’

  ‘Alex Moorehead is dead. I was one of the original investigating officers.’

  ‘They’re not for release to private citizens.’

  ‘Why?’

  She hesitated. ‘Normally, I guess I’d consider it a favour … but given all the shite you’ve brought down on this department recently …’

  ‘I assisted Ernie on the original investigation. Besides, he’s dead. He’s not going to care—’

  ‘I’m putting my neck out for you. You understand that?’

  ‘I know,’ I said. Feeling a lump in my throat. A hesitancy, knowing what I had to say to her. ‘But you’ve got kids, Aileen. Can you imagine what it would feel like to lose them?’

  ‘Don’t you bloody dare …’

  ‘I was asked to look into this by a woman whose child was taken from her. A woman who doesn’t know what happened to her child, but who believed that Alex Moorehead had all the answers.’

  ‘You’re a bastard, McNee.’

  Someday, I’ll write a book: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

  But not today.

  There are times when you have to pull out dirty tricks, distasteful as that can be. Even when you’re dealing with someone you like and respect. But you have to know that the tricks will work. You have to have no other choice. I was walking a fine line with Aileen. The wrong tone, even for a second, and I’d lose her completely.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘No one will know.’

  She was quiet on the other end of the line. I had to swallow, tried not to make a noise as I did so.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said. ‘But if anyone asks, you and I haven’t talked in years.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

  She didn’t respond to that. All she did was hang up.

  The copied files came encrypted, forwarded from a temporary and anonymous email address. Aileen wasn’t taking any chances. I couldn’t blame her.

  As for the consequences if any leaks came back to me, hell, if Griggs was serious with his threats, then it didn’t matter what I did any more. Compared to a manslaughter charge – they wouldn’t get me on murder; I was confident about that, at least – this was chicken feed.

  I transferred the files across to an older machine, disconnected it from the network. Feeling oddly paranoid about the whole affair. Perhaps Griggs really did have me rattled, no matter what I told him or myself. Maybe he was watching my every move, looking to compound error with error. So, sure, I wanted to give him the middle finger, but I didn’t want to look sloppy doing it.

  15/09/06

  DI ERNIE BRIGHT: Tell me how it felt to kill him. To kill Justin.

  ALEX MOOREHEAD: It didn’t feel good.

  EB: How didn’t it feel good? I need specifics, Alex. We need to talk about this. If you talk about this, you’ll feel better.

  AM: Confession is good for the soul?

  EB: I thought we were past this. The tough talk, I mean. The attitude. You’ve confessed, Alex. What we need to do now is help you to put your side of the story across.

  AM: I mean that … I mean, I didn’t mean to …

  EB: The wounds were deliberate, Alex. The medical experts confirmed that much. You knew what you were doing to Justin.

  AM: No, it was a moment … a moment … I didn’t think … it just … like a switch went off in my brain … Like …

  EB: They said that you could have conceivably killed a boy before. I don’t doubt the truth of what they told me, Alex.

  AM: No, that’s not … No, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to …

  EB: Did you fantasize about that, Alex? About killing a boy? The images we found on your computer, they weren’t innocent art. They weren’t downloaded by accident. They were the kind of images you would have to look for. Doesn’t matter what the Daily Mail says, you don’t just stumble across images of abuse on the internet. And you certainly don’t accidentally download them and hide them on your hard drive.

  AM: Oh God … (sobs)

  17/09/06

  EB: How are you feeling today, Alex?

  AM: Fuck you.

  EB: OK, so we had a little falling out last time we talked. Please, Alex, I’m just trying to get a full picture here. Because the story you tell us doesn’t entirely match the facts.

  AM: Where’s my solicitor?

  EB: You want your solicitor now? It’s a little late. You’ve already admitted to killing Justin. You’re not coming back from that. You can’t.

  AM: I told you, I …

  EB: I know, Alex. I know. You’ve played the same tune over and over again. But you and I both know the truth. Because you always hit the same bum notes.

  AM: No, no …

  EB: Is it something you think about? Do you dream about it, Alex? Is that what it is?

  AM: (muffled)

  EB: Was it something you couldn’t control? With Justin, I mean. Like when you can’t stop yourself reaching for another glass of wine in the evening?

  AM: Don’t …

  EB: Don’t what?

  AM: Do that.

  EB: Do what? Cheapen what you do? Children aren’t like glasses of wine, are they? They’re special, every one of them. Unique. Snowflakes. All of those kids in those pictures, there was no one else like them, was there?

  AM: Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

  [sounds of a struggle.]

  EB: Suspect restrained and detained. Interview terminated at 14.22 hours.

  By this point in the investigation, I was on medical leave following the accident that would lead to my leaving the force. DCI Wood had stepped into my role. The last thing on my mind was Alex Moorehead.

  I had never looked at the transcripts before.

  You could feel Ernie’s frustration building with each interview. And Wood never seemed to say a word, even if he was present in the room every time. No wonder Ernie finally palmed the case off on Wemyss. Alex Moorehead didn’t want to talk about what he’d done, almost as though he was deliberately misleading himself about the history of the case. It came across as though he was in denial of his own confession. Like he wanted to take it back, but was too afraid to come out and say so.

  I had to wonder if this self-deception was what would lead him to deny the other murders. The only other explanation was that his initial confession had been a lie. One that he was regretting but did not know how to back away from.

  Newspaper reports would claim in later years that he showed a distinct lack of remorse. Cod-psychologists and true-crime writers would refer to his own ‘supreme’ delusions or the fact that he seemed to be trying to distance himself from what he’d done.

  Nobody harboured any doubt that in some fashion he was responsible for so many deaths and disappearances. This, even though Amityville had only ever produced circumstantial evidence at best, which is why it was running now on one lonely cop and a dwindling budget.

  All the same, for Alex Moorehead, one admission had opened up a lifetime of possible charges.

  Reading the transcripts, I began to wonder if Alex truly believed himself to be innocent despite what he appeared to be saying. Why admit one killing and not the others? Even Peter Tobin, Scotland’s most prolific serial murderer, boasted of at least forty-eight murders, while perhaps not admitting to their full details. But Alex Moorehead denied every charge Amityville brought before him, save Justin’s murder, while simultane
ously failing to provide any explanation for his innocence.

  After a couple of hours locked up inside with only transcripts for company, I left the offices, took a walk down the road to the Howff Cemetery. The Cemetery is an old part of the city, built over the site of an abbey that burned down in 1548, and there is a sense when you walk among the old stones that here is a place that will remain untouched by the ever-changing city around it. Dundee is a city that sometimes seems in danger of losing its own identity through a series of ‘modernization’ initiatives from the sixties onwards, but in the Howff, the world seems calm and still, not resistant to change so much as immune to it.

  I sat down on a bench beneath the overhanging branches of an old tree that seemed to cradle the graves around it, protecting them from the world at large.

  I thought about what I was doing.

  I was looking for answers to support my own theories. Or rather, those of my clients. I wanted to give them the answers they needed, because it would help them to move on. Finding Alex Moorehead innocent – and perhaps someone else guilty – would give some meaning to the years of doubt that they had all suffered. There would be fresh pain, certainly, and even more questions, but some sense of closure would be attained.

  Perhaps we might even have answers as to why these children had to die.

  But was this a fantasy? Was I as deluded as some people claimed my clients to be?

  Why was I so certain I could find something where others had failed?

  I had been as convinced as Ernie that Moorehead was the killer. I had also been convinced in later years, that he had killed before. My assumption based on the evidence surrounding the body of Justin Farnham, and the circumstances uncovered by Wemyss and Project Amity, linking him to the other deaths and disappearances.

  Moorehead was not a pleasant man. When he finally admitted that he couldn’t escape the truth any more, he became arrogant and confrontational. Ernie had called him on his bullshit, but all the same he put on a show for our benefit; his way of not giving up the power he held.

  Was I missing something?

  I sat there for a long time, underneath the embrace of the overhanging tree, listening to the dampened sounds of the city that came from nearby, the noise of traffic dulled as though in respect for this final resting place in the heart of the city.

  I closed my eyes.

  Someone sat next to me.

  Susan – her hair longer than I remembered, maybe a little darker, too – smiled, not quite meeting my eyes as though embarrassed at us meeting this way again. ‘Steed,’ she said, ‘I think we should talk.’

  TWENTY

  ‘When did you get back?’

  ‘A while ago.’

  ‘You didn’t call.’

  She brushed a strand of hair away from her face. Kept her head slightly bowed, looking at the ground instead of at me. Something in her body language made me think of a guilty teenager. ‘I didn’t know if you’d want me to.’

  An excuse? Something she wasn’t telling me?

  She was acting like a stranger.

  Less than six months ago, we’d been each other’s touchstones. Now she was acting like she didn’t know what to say to me any more.

  ‘You know I wanted you to call. I sent emails. I waited for you to reply. And you never …’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘So why turn up like this? Why here?’ The unasked question: Why now? Given everything that was happening, I couldn’t take her sudden reappearance as a coincidence.

  She finally looked at me, the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. Tugging at her features, but unable to break past the awkwardness of our meeting. And whatever it was she wanted to tell me.

  ‘Steed …’ she said, but she had no words to follow my old nickname.

  ‘Just tell me,’ I said.

  ‘I left the force … Came back to the country about two months ago. I’m … I’m working with the SCDEA now.’

  She might as well have stabbed me. Slashed my throat. Stuck kitchen scissors through my eyeballs, into my brain.

  ‘You’re working with Griggs,’ I said.

  ‘What have you done with yourself the last six months?’ she asked. ‘I’ve seen the files. You’ve been taking on cases that you don’t really need to think about. Easy money jobs. Quick-fix investigations. Killing time because you don’t know what else to do.’ Again, there was that hesitation. But this time she allowed herself to speak. ‘Because you were always good at finding ways to distract yourself from the bigger, more personal questions …’

  ‘You take a course in psychology while you were gone?’

  ‘No need when we lived together over a year.’ The words snapped out hard, the same effect as a whip cracking across my face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, more softly. ‘I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You did. I can take it.’

  ‘You always wanted to take Burns down,’ she said. ‘Now’s your chance to actually …’

  ‘You said you know me,’ I said. ‘But you let Griggs crash into my life like a fucking earthquake. I want to take the bastard down, all right, but I’m doing it on my own terms. You know Griggs is manipulating me, right? Asking questions that have already been answered. Painting me in the worst light he can and then coming forward like he’s my fucking saviour.’ The old anger welled up inside me. Started in the chest, became this tight and unbearable sensation, spread out through my arms, all my muscles tensing, my fingers flexing. ‘You want that, too? Want me to give up my life for the greater good? Is that it? Some higher fucking purpose.’

  ‘You know what Burns has done, Steed. The lives he’s ruined.’

  ‘How long have you been working for Griggs?’ I asked. ‘How long did it take to brainwash you?’

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘You didn’t come here today because you wanted to. You didn’t come here because you cared or because you thought I was making some kind of mistake. You came because your boss told you to. And because no matter how long you went away, you still want to take revenge on Burns for what he did to your father.’

  ‘Steed …’

  ‘Jesus Christ, what do they do to people there? I used to respect Griggs. I always respected you. I …’ There were words I wanted to say, but they stumbled, faltered. I wondered if my inability to say them had played a part in her leaving. I cleared my throat, took another run up, let the anger guide me. ‘And now rather than ask me right out, he bullies me with one of the weakest efforts at emotional blackmail that … Christ, Susan, I thought you were—’

  ‘You know what I think?’ Susan said, as she stood up. ‘That you’ve become so damn good at lying to yourself about things, at closing off your emotions, at making excuses, that you don’t even know you’re doing it any more. This is our best shot at Burns, Steed. You are our best shot. I know you can do it. I know you want to do it. Sandy’s gone about this like a bull in a china shop, but he knew he’d need to work hard to get you onside. You always said you worked best when backed into a corner.’ She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. As she did so, she slipped something into the breast pocket of my jacket. ‘Change your mind,’ she said. ‘You call me. But don’t take too long. Sandy’s serious. He’ll follow through on his promises.’

  I had no doubt about that. None at all.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I can’t escape him.

  He’s been part of my life so long, I can’t imagine what it would be like if he was gone.

  Arrested. Dead. Whatever.

  What happens when David Burns finally gets what’s coming to him?

  You might call it an obsession. Maybe it is at that. Something passed down to me from Ernie, who had formed his own obsession with Dundee’s ‘Godfather’ following the force’s attempts to strike a deal with the old bastard in the mid-nineties. Ernie had been the go-between, something he’d never been happy about. It was an assignment that would colour the rest of his life.

&nbs
p; I often wondered if he’d passed the obsession on to me. A kind of legacy.

  Those old photographs. Showing Burns in happy little domestic scenes with one of the Disappeared. Walking the beach with a child and his mother. Acting like a genial old man. A friend. A neighbour.

  Griggs presenting them to me because he knew I couldn’t resist.

  Burns had never been part of the original investigation into Alex Moorehead. And even though I knew that Griggs was pointing me towards the big man for his own reasons, there was still the possibility of finding something that we had overlooked.

  Burns would want to help.

  A child had been murdered. Burns called himself a family man. Took the description seriously.

  I wonder if it’s part of the criminal mind, a kind of low-level psychopathy. A man like Burns will deal drugs to whoever wants them. He’ll hurt mothers’ sons, kill men’s brothers, order terrible vengeance on those who have wronged. Yet if someone else behaves in ways that reflect his own actions, he takes offence; vows revenge.

  And he’ll never accept his own complicity in the cycle of violence.

  He answered the door himself, dressed in a dark blue shirt and white trousers. Gave me the eye. After all, our last meeting had hardly been cordial.

  ‘You here because of that prick Griggs?’

  ‘You know I won’t work for him.’

  Burns nodded. ‘One thing I can always count on, your sense of morality. Always thinking you’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘I want to talk about Moorehead. Your connection to him.’

  He took a slow breath, and said, ‘You’re too late, pal. Should have asked me after you arrested him. Not that I knew then. Took a couple of years, aye? Before the truth came out in full.’ He looked around, as though he thought we were being watched. ‘You like to walk?’ When I didn’t say anything, he expanded on the question: ‘The countryside. Fresh air. Where no one else can hear what you’re saying.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I like to walk.’

  We took his car across the water, to Norman’s Law on the other side of the Tay. Much of the hill is used as farmland, but ramblers and walkers use the more public areas of the hill on a regular basis.