03-Father Confessor Page 16

  I watched him more than the fire.

  As his expression hardened again. As he reasserted his authority, slipping back his mask and his bluster like a suit of armour that had momentarily come undone revealing something of the real man underneath. A man who was as afraid of death as anyone else. A man who did not expect such viciousness. Who could not conceive why anyone would want to attack him.

  He turned to me. “So much for doing it your way.”

  I swallowed, looked back at the fire.

  Already, I could hear sirens.

  There was nothing else I could do.

  I fell onto my back, looked up at the night sky. For a moment I believed the earth might just swallow me up, take me away from all of this. Let it all finally just end.

  TWENTY-SIX

  You don’t walk away from a crime scene.

  What you do is you stay where you are. Offer open arms and, more importantly, open mouth. You give the attending officers no reason to doubt your intentions.

  On that last point, admittedly, I was screwed.

  Not just given my history. Given my company.

  They separated us. Burns had stuck around, despite my worries that he’d try and make a run for it, pretend like he was never there. Maybe the explosion shocked him more than he was prepared to admit. Or maybe he was playing the game the best way he knew: acting like the innocent he wanted everyone to believe he was.

  Whatever the case, we weren’t given a chance to talk once the coppers showed up. Divide and conquer remains the cornerstone of interrogating multiple witnesses.

  Or suspects.

  I was sitting in the back of a Panda when the front door opened and a DI climbed in the passenger seat. He turned and grinned at me.

  I said, with no inflection, “Molly.”

  He twitched. The side of his face spasmed involuntarily.

  He said, “That’s DI Mollison to you.” Didn’t matter that he had a head like a slab of concrete and shoulders to could support it, he was stuck with the name “Molly”. I don’t even know if it was his real name, but the rumour his parents had a strange sense of humour, figured there was some truth to that Johnny Cash song about a boy named Sue and gave their lad the kind of name he’d have to fight to get respect for.

  “You want to tell me,” Molly said, “what you were doing here?”

  “Privileged information,” I said. “Confidential. Between me and my client.”

  “And your client is that crooked old sod talking to DS Soutar in the back of the van?”

  I shrugged.

  Giving nothing away. Knowing that whatever I did, Molly Mollison was going to try and twist it.

  “Hey, McNee,” Molly said, “I know your reputation. Pain in the arse. The last sheriff in town. Whatever, but maybe it’s time you started talking. Because whenever you’re involved in something, it tends to go to hell. Let’s make this the one time that things end well, that the real bad guys go to prison and no-one ends up paying for your mistakes.”

  That last one a clumsy jab.

  Susan had told me how a few years ago she and Molly had gone out on a couple of disastrous dates. Disastrous, at least, from her point of view. Molly’d always seemed pretty keen for another try, and in the end she found she had to sit him down and explain that she couldn’t return his feelings.

  I said, “You sure you’re not making this personal?”

  “I haven’t even started.”

  I gave Molly the edited highlights of my evening. He listened without interruption. The worst kind of interview is someone who’s wise to your tricks, who knows the game. A career criminal. Or an ex-cop. So he played it simple. And just let me talk.

  “What I don’t understand,” he said when I finished, “is what you were doing here in the first place.”

  Like I said, I didn’t give Molly the whole truth. In part because something Burns had said was itching at the back of my skull. A consistent irritation that grew worse the less attention I tried to give it.

  …in case you’ve forgotten, it was a brother in blue who tried to kill you earlier this evening. You tell me who you can trust.

  Molly had never struck me as corrupt. But there’s truth in all those old clichés about appearances being deceptive.

  “I told you, it’s confidential between –”

  “You and your client. Right.”

  Outside, the fire service tamed the blazing garage. Ambulances were on standby with the desperate illusion of hope. Neighbours had gathered at the edges of the tape, watching with folded arms, theirs eyes wide with expectation. Everyone present knew the truth. Keller was already dead. You didn’t have to be a forensic expert to figure the incident was far from accidental. And you definitely didn’t need to be Columbo to know that the only witnesses were holding back vital information.

  It’s hard to bluff when everyone already knows your cards.

  Molly, in the front seat, turned away from me and looked out the front windshield. He said, “I’d have thought you’d be with Susan this evening. Given everything that’s happened.”

  Molly was divorced. It would have been a cheap shot to bring up his suitability to offer any kind of relationship counselling, but I could feel it on the edge of my voice, wanting to creep up and lash out at this bastard.

  I held it in. Gave him nothing.

  Said, “What do you think about what happened to Ernie?”

  Molly grunted.

  I pressed: “You have to have an opinion. The old bugger was found in possession of narcotics and a shiteload of money. Had a hole blown in his chest. Was found at a location best described as remote. Hadn’t told anyone where he was going. He wasn’t working drugs. His undercover days were so far behind him he probably couldn’t remember them. You tell me what you think happened, Mollison.” Using his last name. It wasn’t a dig. It was a direct request.

  Because I wanted to know. Wanted to hear him say it.

  He said, “I want it to be a misunderstanding.”

  I said, “But?”

  “But it’s like that old Chuck Berry number. You never can tell.” Molly turned back to me. “Sometimes you can think you know someone, McNee, and then they turn around and do something so stupid you have to wonder if you ever really knew them at all.”

  Was he talking about Ernie?

  I’d never really worked with Mollison. Our paths had occasionally crossed at morning briefings and on a few social occasions. He had a reputation as a guy with a temper, and most of the younger coppers had kept their heads down in his presence.

  I’d watched him in interviews, seen the way he adapted his technique. He came off as little more than a brick shithouse; and then you could see him reach out and connect with some guy, fake empathy to the degree that even if you knew it was a trick, you started to wonder.

  I said, “Could you understand it, though? If he was tempted?”

  Molly didn’t turn to face me. “Don’t you bloody well start,” he said. “I know you think you’re better than us, now. A few articles in the paper calling you a hero; you start believing your own press. Aye, and then you start to think about things you saw, and half-whispered intimations you overheard. There’s always going to be corruption in the force, McNee. Don’t think I’m an eejit. I know what happens. The temptations that can come with the job, the power it brings. But I also know that Ernie Bright was a good man. I thought that you’d at least have enough respect to remember it, too.”

  I had no response.

  After a few moments, he said, “I could hold you without charge.”

  “But you’re not going to.”

  He shook his head. “I take you in,” he said, “And it’s because I have something to charge you with other than being a pillock in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I said, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t you dare,” he said, his voice low, his tone trembling as his anger fought to break loose. “Don’t think of that as a chance or a sign that I respect you beneath the
fucking bluster. Don’t take it for any of that.” He twisted round again. “Because I know you’ve been lying to me. Not all of it, of course. But enough to hide the lies.”

  I nodded. He got out, came round and opened the door.

  As I climbed out, I asked, “How’s DI Lindsay?”

  “Aye, now you ask, eh?” He hesitated, as though uncertain whether he should tell me. “Touch and go.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Sod it,” Molly said, standing aside to let me past.

  I found it hard to walk in a straight line. From the moment I stood up, without support, I found that the world had started spinning faster than I expected. It was like being drunk with the bright glow of supreme confidence or the gentle glow of a strong drink nestling in my stomach.

  Instead all I had was a dead weight in my stomach and a feeling like my legs couldn’t support the weight, that they were going to collapse beneath me and I was never going to be able to get back up.

  But I did it, walked away from the car and the clean-up crew and back onto the street. I got into my own car and once the door was closed, I took some deep breaths. Felt my eyelids getting heavy, but knew I couldn’t close them.

  If I did, there would be the temptation to keep them closed.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Back at the flat, the lights were off. Susan wasn’t waiting up.

  I checked my watch.

  Six in the morning. Daylight would be coming soon. There was a hint of it in the horizon, colour licking into the dark blue of the night sky.

  How long without sleep, now? All I wanted to do was crash. Stay in bed for the next week.

  I didn’t bother turning on the lights as I entered. I walked through the flat slowly, relying on the low illumination that came through from the living room where the open curtains let in the streetlights from outside.

  In the bedroom, my eyes adjusted enough that I could distinguish the shape of the bed. I pulled back the covers.

  Hesitated.

  I’d thought Susan was asleep. But she wasn’t in the bed. The covers were rumpled because neither of us had bothered to make the bed from earlier. There was no trace of heat. The sheets were cold.

  But I figured she’d be back. And all I wanted to do was sleep. So I crawled into the bed, pulled the covers tight over me. Shivering just a little.

  After a while, my own body heat stopped the shivering. Underneath the blankets I felt safe. Secure.

  My eyelids were heavy. I couldn’t have opened them if I wanted to.

  I thought maybe I should call Susan.

  But it was too late.

  Sleep came.

  ###

  I thought only seconds had passed. But it was dark when I opened my eyes, and I realised I had slept through the day.

  Susan was not beside me. The bedside clock displayed the time in angry red numerals.

  My stomach rumbled.

  I moved into the kitchen. Grabbed a ready-meal curry from the fridge and shoved it in the microwave. Normally I’d think about cooking for myself. But as long as I’d slept, I didn’t feel rested, and my body was still shaking like something had gone wrong inside me.

  When the curry was ready, I spooned it onto a plate and went through to the living room. The flat felt empty. I knew instinctively that Susan had not been here since my return.

  That was when I saw the note on the fold-away table near the window. I put down my plate and unfolded the paper. Susan’s handwriting was neat, with the kind of attention to detail I could strive for and never attain. She told me it was something that had just come naturally to her.

  I unfolded the note, smoothed it out on the table. Stayed standing as I read:

  Steed,

  If anyone can understand, I think it’s you. My father is dead. Unlike you, I know who is responsible. Thank you for all you have done. But I can’t just sit here and mourn. If my dad taught me anything it was that you have to do what you know is right.

  She didn’t sign off with “love”, or any other words that would have rung falsely, ended the letter on a note of uncertainty. Just her name.

  It was enough, I think.

  Enough for me to understand.

  ###

  “Tell me what you’d do, if you ever found the driver of that vehicle?”

  The doctor had his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles. He was sitting back in that chair, arms behind his head. All casual. Unintentionally smug.

  It was a few months after the accident. The counselling was mandatory. I was a few sessions away from quitting, the carefully portioned, methodically directed hours all blending into one long conversation that seemed to ramble all over the shop, with no clear direction that I could ever make out. Just when I thought I had a handle on where this guy wanted me to go, he’d weave onto another topic without giving me time to adjust.

  Of course, you have to figure that maybe that was the point.

  I tried to think about the answer.

  Going against everything this guy wanted. He was after the gut reaction, working on the principle that the unguarded mind gives away its deepest secrets.

  He wanted me to open up.

  I heard somewhere that Freud claimed the Irish were the one people for whom psychoanalysis was of no use whatsoever. I figured he hadn’t met a Scotsman. We despise the idea of opening up. Of people knowing us. Getting the very heart of whatever it is that makes us tick. Try and get close to a Scotsman, he’ll probably wind up further away from you than he was before.

  The doc said, “There’s no judgement in here. You can’t be rebuked for your thoughts.”

  I took a breath. “You want the truth? I’d want some time alone with him.”

  “Oh?”

  I was tensed up. The room was too small, not enough air for two men to breathe. Why didn’t he open a bastarding window?

  He used my first name. The word became an interrogatory. I hadn’t let anyone call me by that name in a long time. Made me sit up and pay attention. I said. “I mean I’d beat the shite out of him. I mean I’d slam my fists into his face until he understood only half of what I feel.”

  The doc nodded. Utterly calm. Only made me feel worse. He said that there was no judgement. But that wasn’t true. What he meant was that there would be no judgement aired. But we always judge other people. Even if we say nothing, no-one remains neutral about another human being.

  The silence was overwhelming.

  It was an old trick, one we used in interrogation, and I knew all he was doing was waiting me out because in the end I’d have to fill the silence with something. But I couldn’t last.

  I was fucked up. He knew it. And whether I admitted it or not, I knew it too.

  It was one of the reasons I suddenly backtracked and justified myself even though I didn’t need to. “I know it’s wrong. I know it goes against everything I’ve ever believed, but all I want to do is find that bastard, break his face, put my hands around his throat and throttle the life out of him.”

  “And what do you think that will achieve?”

  I hesitated. For real this time. Not searching for what I thought might be an expected answer, but suddenly genuinely unsure.

  Stuck for an answer.

  ###

  Susan had been there for me after Elaine’s death. Yes, we drifted apart after one mistake neither of could face up to at the time. But she had seen another human being in pain and she had tried to do something for them. It wasn’t merely about offering sympathy, but about being there. Soaking up some of that grief. Because she cared.

  And now?

  She had suffered. Loss. Betrayal. Grief.

  And where had I been? What had I done for her?

  I had taken her grief and twisted it into my own. Selfish bastard I was. Acting as though her loss was mine. I should have been there for her.

  Why hadn’t I realised? Too wrapped up in myself? Same old story. Made me sick just thinking about it: realising what I was. The selfishness and h
ypocrisy disgusted me as much as Peter Keller had done.

  Susan had been left alone with her grief. Allowed it to simmer. She had no outlet. No release. No-one to help her.

  I had let her down.

  Grief is a strange state. A momentary insanity. Your actions become unpredictable. While there are five recognised stages, they don’t all act out the same way. Grief is far from mechanical. It is chaotic. It is insanity. I read Susan’s note over and over. The words burned into my eyes. I could have recited them word for word without ever looking at them again.

  Because I understood everything that she wasn’t saying.

  All the words she didn’t dare write.

  I had tasted revenge. It was something I had sought for a long time. It had finally been ersatz, exacted on a substitute for the real source of my anger, leaving me empty and unfulfilled. More ill-at-ease with the world. Somehow removed because of the things I had done.

  For a long time after, I had dreamt of Elaine. She would stand over me while I slept, her expression... not angry. Just… sad. I wanted to wake up and tell her that I had done it for her. But I always knew that she didn’t want to hear that.

  The dream had faded with time. But the empty sensation had not.

  The only person to pull me back had been Susan. In spite of everything, she made me feel a little less disconnected to the world. She had become my anchor. Even before we began sleeping together, she had been there for me. A reminder of what I wanted the world to be. Of the best that people could be.

  Susan had been everything that I was not. I should have learned from her.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I blinked, brought the world outside back into focus.

  Despite spending the daylight hours beneath the bedsheets, all I wanted to do was sleep. Curl up in a corner and close my eyes.

  My body was trying to tell me to just give up. Finally admit defeat.

  But I couldn’t do that. After reading the note, I knew there was no time. What I had to do was consider the next move. And not give in to panic.