04-Mothers of the Disappeared Read online

  I told him that this was not harassment. That I was merely looking for more background detail. That if he didn’t talk to me, it was likely other people would be coming around with questions in the next few months. With the papers already running stories about Moorehead’s death, how long would it be until someone remembered his name again?

  He relented eventually. But there was still a reluctance about him. Maybe that was understandable.

  Once we were done, I figured on checking Taylor’s family. Twice now he’d mentioned his mother during conversations. Maybe just because it was her birthday, but there had been an odd emphasis in the way he mentioned her that set alarm bells off in the back of my brain.

  I dug deeper. With his full name, address and business details, it was easier to root further into the system, using back channels to get information on his extended family. It’s a little like researching a family tree, but the emphasis is not on reaching as far back as possible, but getting the maximum information on each person involved.

  Which was why I was surprised to find my search stopping early.

  Jason Taylor’s mother was dead.

  Her birthday was when he said it was, but she’d been dead for thirteen years.

  Thirteen years.

  The number felt familiar.

  Thirteen years.

  I pulled up the files on the Moorehead murders. Everything I had on the project that Wemyss had been running. All the Disappeared. All the evidence – however tenuous – that linked them to the Farnham murder and to Moorehead in particular.

  Thirteen years.

  The first death. The first child to die. Andrew Peterson. Ten years old. Body found in the Tay maybe five or six miles from his home. It had been death by misadventure until the post-mortem ruled that the injuries which killed Andrew could not have been sustained accidentally. By the time anyone realized this, of course, the trail was cold. Andrew had been dead for a week when they found him. Any evidence destroyed by his immersion in the water and exposure to the elements.

  But the dates matched with Alex Moorehead living two streets away. Had Jason Taylor called in to visit his old friend? Or was I looking too hard for something that was never there?

  Still, it gave me something to work with.

  I called Fife police, talked to the duty sergeant, asked if there had been any word regarding Alex Moorehead’s father. He told me, in so many words, to go fuck myself.

  I put in a request with the council for more information regarding Mrs Taylor’s death. Knew that it would be put in a queue, that I probably wouldn’t get the information I was looking for until the next day.

  That was fine.

  It was enough to know he had lied to me, or at least tried to steer me wrong during our conversation. That could prove enough to give me an advantage, to help trip him up.

  That night, I slept soundly, but when I woke up in the morning, there was a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach. I had managed to knock all the pillows off the bed while I was asleep, and was wrapped up in a mess of blankets that clung to the sweat of my body.

  I showered and shaved, heated up some porridge oats in the microwave and wolfed them down. The coffee helped a little, too, and an hour later when I looked at myself in the mirror, I resembled a normal human being. Vaguely.

  My meeting with Taylor was at 2 p.m. It was only just past seven. I killed time running over everything that I had, ensuring there were no gaps in my logic. Today, I planned to twist the knife, to see whether I could get him to admit the secret he was hiding.

  Maybe it was a leap, I admit, to think that Taylor was guilty. So far what I had was a coincidence of timing. But who else would have the means to frame Alex so completely? Not his father, certainly. And then there was the coincidence of his mother’s death timing so well with the first child to disappear. And the look in Taylor’s eyes when he had mentioned a woman who had been dead for thirteen years.

  All I had were suppositions and questions. I was focused on Taylor, but other questions needed answering. This time around no one would be left uncertain about the truth, and for once, there would be no loose ends. No questions to be asked.

  Just the simple truth.

  If I was right in my suppositions, I still had to know two things.

  Where was Alex’s father?

  What happened to him after he talked to his son?

  There was taking some time to get your head around something and then there was simply vanishing off the face of the earth.

  Hardly the stuff that High Court cases are built from. But then I wasn’t a police officer any more. I was a private citizen. There were things I could do that I would have never even considered as a policeman.

  I just hoped I didn’t have to find out what they were.

  Jason Taylor’s house, ten minutes outside Ayr, was an anachronistically modern monstrosity that only a small fortune could build. It stood on a gentle hill, overlooking the town on one side and the water on the other. In the summer it might have been oddly beautiful, but with autumn fast ending the building – glass and steel and angles – looked cold and impersonal. Hardly where you’d seek warmth in the winter months.

  When Taylor met me at the front door, he shook my hand. ‘I got lucky. An aunt I never knew I had passed away.’

  ‘This was built in her memory?’

  I didn’t mention his mother. Keeping that for the sucker punch.

  He smiled, his lips pressing together, and his eyes as cold and impersonal as his house. He said, ‘Come in, please. Don’t take it personally, but I hope you don’t become a regular visitor.’

  I didn’t say anything, followed him inside.

  The house was a property developer’s wet dream. Built before the recession, I had to guess, it was all open plan and white space. The high windows stretched from ceiling to floor. There was no sign of it actually being lived in. No sneaky stains waiting to be cleaned. No clothes tossed on chairs or books discarded. It was a show house. The word mausoleum crept into my brain and bounced around.

  He led me to what I assumed was the living area, designated more by the furniture than walls or doors. The flat-screen TV was placed at an odd angle, the real focus on those windows that looked out towards the water.

  ‘It has to cost you in window-cleaning bills,’ I said.

  ‘Self-cleaning,’ he replied. His tone implied that it should have been obvious.

  ‘I usually just let the rain do the job for me,’ I said.

  Again that tight-lipped expression that might have passed for a smile.

  We sat on white-leather sofas, facing each other. A coffee table separated us. The table was low, with a pine frame and glass top. I wondered if it was self-cleaning like the double glazing. I wondered just how much the aunt had left him.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Five years, give or take.’

  ‘A change from your student days,’ I said. ‘Sharing grubby little flats with Alex.’

  ‘I can’t be held responsible for his actions.’ He thought this over for a moment. ‘If that’s what you’re implying.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean to treat you like the enemy. Guess it was all those years being a policeman. You sit down to have a chat with someone, you start treating them like a suspect.’

  ‘Even when they’re not accused of anything? Even when they’re the ones who helped you break the case?’

  I shrugged. ‘Even then.’

  ‘You want a drink?’ He stood up. The leather of his sofa creaked gently. ‘Coffee, perhaps?’

  ‘Nothing stronger,’ I said. ‘I’m driving, after all.’

  He nodded and walked away. I couldn’t see the kitchen, despite the open plan. He disappeared behind a jutting wall somewhere. Of course, I had yet to work out where he slept or even worked. I looked around, and saw one of the walls had a bookcase embedded. There were very few books. In fact, there were none. Just some ornaments and a few DVDs and Blu-Rays. Most
ly blockbusters. Big-budget studio fare that didn’t demand much in the way of thought; the kind of movies sold on star names rather than compelling drama. Looking back at the TV, I noticed that while it didn’t dominate, it was still an impressive size.

  I heard footsteps, looked round and saw Taylor come back carrying two white mugs. I said, ‘Not a reader?’

  ‘I have books.’

  ‘Just not here.’

  ‘In my study,’ he said. ‘Mostly for work, you know. Maybe I should read, but there’s just so much else to distract us these days.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Like flashy websites and sparkling social-media feeds.’

  ‘You’re not a man who likes the modern world.’

  ‘It’s fine by me,’ I said. ‘I just think some people need to look beyond the immediate gratification offered by modern technology.’

  ‘I’ve heard it can be addictive.’

  ‘Once you realize you can find anything you need online,’ I said, ‘who has time for books?’

  ‘Reductio ad absurdum,’ he said. ‘About the only Latin I know. I think you’re mocking me, Mr McNee. Not a good start to our new friendship.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I reached out and took the coffee from him. I lifted it to my face. The heat made me think of when I was a boy and my mother got rid of colds by placing my head under a wet towel and over a bowl of steaming hot water.

  We sat down again.

  ‘What do you want to talk about, Mr McNee?’

  ‘The past.’

  He shook his head. ‘Everything you could want to know is in the files, surely.’

  ‘Not everything.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Tell me about DCI Wood.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man who brought you on board, Jason. The detective who called you in because he believed you could do what the techies couldn’t.’

  ‘Aye, right. Him.’ Jason laughed. It wasn’t natural. ‘Aye, I remember him, all right. Friend of a friend, you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘His daughter. We went to college together.’

  ‘He knew about the Moorehead connection?’

  ‘Alex didn’t know her so well. I mean, she’d know the name, I guess. Me and Alex being friends like we were. But Alex was a homebody, liked to spend his time indoors, know what I mean? Most of the time other people … he didn’t like them.’

  ‘And you did?’

  ‘Wasn’t a party animal, like. But—’

  I nodded. It was enough to cut him off.

  ‘Alex was odd. Always. And, Mr McNee, don’t think I don’t know what you’re implying …’

  ‘What am I implying?’

  ‘That the recently deceased Deputy Chief Constable Wood was somehow responsible for what happened to Alex. And that I was complicit.’

  It wasn’t like I was being overly subtle, I suppose. ‘Well?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint.’ He smiled. Unpleasant and unnatural. ‘There’s no conspiracy. He brought me in because he knew who I was. Before that, we had no contact. After that, I never talked to him again. Frankly, I thought he was a bit of a wanker.’

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Aye.’

  The same way you develop instincts for detecting lies, you also get the feeling when someone’s telling you the truth. Jason Taylor may have been lying about his feelings for his old friend Alex, but I got the impression he was telling the truth about Wood. The moment we started talking about the corrupt old fucker, Taylor’s body language had relaxed considerably. I had lost the scent of his deception, and he knew it.

  So if I was wrong about Wood, was I wrong about anything else?

  I said, ‘So if you weren’t coerced, tell me why you turned on your friend?’

  ‘He was a pervert.’

  ‘You didn’t know that before you found those images.’ I had to wonder what kind of friend would deliberately seek out evidence to implicate his buddy in any crime. Surely he would have been looking to prove Moorehead’s innocence?

  All the poise and suave he liked to project vanished for just a moment, revealing what I’d seen before; a man trying to hide his own secrets.

  ‘Tell me how you knew. Because when you were brought on board, no one knew about the images. All they knew was that a child was dead.’

  ‘I … it was … the situation. That was … I mean, your boss said it, right? That DI?’

  ‘Bright. His name was Ernie Bright.’

  ‘Sure. Right. That’s the one. He said it. He said that the way Alex found the body was … too easy. Too much of a coincidence. I agreed with him. And there were other things, too. Just set off warning bells.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then tell me about Alex.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How about everything?’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Alex Moorehead was a genius.

  He was also introverted, uncertain, prone to panic attacks and convinced that he would be proved wrong in spectacular fashion. About everything.

  This, at least, according to Jason Taylor.

  ‘He had this fear that one day he would just forget everything he knew about computers. The one thing he believed made him special would just vanish. Or worse, people would realize it had never been there in the first place.’

  They met on the second day of term. They stayed at the same halls, and were often, at half-past two in the morning, the only two people left in the computing lab working on something most of their classmates wouldn’t understand even by graduation.

  They were bona-fide geeks.

  ‘I’m not sure Alex even had a proper girlfriend at school,’ Taylor said in a way I wasn’t sure was meant to be a joke.

  Taylor didn’t have half the smarts of his new friend. He understood that even then. But Taylor was the one with the business sense, the one with the ambition. ‘You meet a genius,’ he told me, ‘and if the first thing you think isn’t, how can I make money off this guy, then you’re an idiot.’

  But their friendship wasn’t simple utilitarianism. Taylor grew to like the shy, introverted geek. Over the course of the next few months, they spent more and more time together. They shared a love of kung-fu flicks on dodgy VHS import and the kind of hair rock that must have seemed at odds with their button-down appearance.

  ‘Sounds odd,’ he told me, ‘but it’s true.’

  They started planning for the future. Designed programs riffing off their favourite games. ‘We had this idea for a Doom rip-off,’ he said. ‘It was pretty good, but you know how things are at that age. We had all these half-finished projects that never really went anywhere.’

  The big one, though, was anti-virus software. ‘Security’s big in computing,’ Taylor told me. ‘Always has been, always will be. Data is commerce online, and you can never be too careful about what you do with that data, whether it’s your own or a client’s. The system we designed was supposed to be this dynamic, self-propagating security system that dealt intelligently with threats, constantly encrypted secure data and generally did what your standard AV does with the added bonus that it really learned how to protect itself.’

  Sounded good to me. But apparently there were issues with the cost of the software and upkeep that stopped the project from becoming a real business proposition.

  In the end Taylor went down south, worked for a few game-development companies and finally started Redboot. But Alex, so Taylor said, never seemed too worried about going beyond the border. He worked for several Scottish start-ups before drifting into IT repair.

  ‘All that genius going to waste,’ Taylor said. He seemed genuinely to regret what happened. ‘Bloody shame, really. He could have done anything, but he never had the confidence.’

  All of this tallied with what he said the first time around. I had read his statements. Hearing the way he told the story, however, it came across as too smooth. Thought through. Practised.

  How had it sounded the first time? Not written d
own and captured on the page, but witnessed in an interview room by two senior coppers.

  ‘So what about all those plans you had together? What about using him to earn yourself some serious cash?’

  ‘The other problem with geniuses,’ he said, ‘is that they’re not as focused as you think they’d be. Try getting him to do anything he didn’t want to do? Like coaxing a five-year-old to eat their greens.’ He smiled, then. Something bashful in the smile that I didn’t really understand. ‘He wanted to do his own thing, and every time I had a sound idea, he’d laugh it off.’

  But they remained friends. Good friends. They’d meet up every few months, drink a bit too much, maybe break out some hair records and talk TV and comics. ‘We were geeks,’ he said. ‘I know we were. The kind of guys who never really grow up.’ He was silent for a second, and seemed to consider something. ‘I wonder … I mean, if that had something to do with what he did. The fact that he never really grew up …’

  I shook my head. ‘The geeks are the geeks,’ I said. ‘They tend not to be violent or psychopathic.’

  ‘Despite what the Daily Mail says about computer games players?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Despite that.’

  But something was rattling inside my head: the kind of guys who never really grow up.

  I was thinking about his mother. His apparent devotion to her so many years after her death. The fact he talked about her as though she was still alive.

  Taylor told me how he started to worry about Alex. How every time they saw each other, it became clear that Alex was becoming more removed from the world around him. ‘He was never really a guy for making friends, but that became more and more pronounced. At least at work. He always seemed to get on well with his neighbours,’ Taylor said.

  He hesitated, then. As though realizing what he’d just said.

  I was getting Oscar-nomination vibes from Taylor. Like I’d suspected before, this was an act. He was trying to lead me somewhere.

  Same trick he’d pulled all those years ago?

  It should have been my first major investigation. Ernie had been in charge, sure, but he’d involved me as much as possible. He’d run every theory past me, made sure I sat in on the interviews. I was as responsible as Ernie for any mistakes that had been made.