The Lost Sister Read online

  She said, “Tell me.” No inflection. No stress. No implied meaning.

  So I told her. Straight up. No use lying to Detective Constable Bright. Christ, but I could imagine being on the wrong side of her in an interview. She was delicate; small bones, sharp features, long fingers. And that look that said: this is not a woman you mess with.

  She listened. Another skill every copper needs.

  When I was done, she said, “You’re talking about my dad’s case.”

  I nodded.

  She said, “This is what they call a conflict of interest.”

  I nodded again.

  She ran her right hand through her hair as though pulling out the tangles. Didn’t look directly at me. Said, “Remind me why I stick my neck out for you?”

  I shrugged. “My rugged good looks?”

  She shook her head. “Try again.”

  I didn’t.

  She said, “You’re bad for my career.”

  “Who says that?” Like I didn’t know the answer.

  She had partnered with DI Lindsay for a few months after her promotion. He wasn’t shy in sharing his opinions. Especially when it came to me for some reason.

  Could never figure that out.

  “Part of policing is politics.”

  Aye, the part I never liked. My attitude: just do the fucking job, forget kissing anyone’s arse.

  Susan’s attitude, too, I guessed. But she had more sense than me. Knew when to reign back her behaviour.

  She said, “I know the journalist. Connolly. Arrogant. Thinks he’s…entitled.” She chose that last word carefully. Maybe aware of the implications someone could pick up from it.

  “Aye,” I said, “he’s a journalist all right. But he’s not so bad.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You’ve started seeing the good in people?”

  I almost said, “I blame you for that.” Instead remained with what I hoped was a neutral expression. Said, “Did my homework. I know the coppers working the case. Didn’t think they’d let father and daughter on the same gig.”

  “You know how it is, Steed. You remember, right?”

  “Never enough people to go round.” Same old story. The police were underfunded. Nothing new there. Every successive government made promises about policing and every time they fucked the boys and girls in uniform.

  Not in the pleasant sense, either.

  I know of one force that has a speed trap set up on a stretch of motorway notorious for speeding. But they don’t have the manpower to keep a permanent eye out for naughty motorists. So they have a wooden car. I shit you not; a wooden car. Painted up to look like the real thing. They erect it when there’s no one available to sit sentry at police parking spots on the side of the motorway. Motorists coming down can’t tell if it’s real or not till they’re right on top of it, and most of them aren’t going to take the chance.

  Creative thinking, but borne of necessity. Lack of manpower. Lack of funding. Lack of support.

  The Daily Mail crowd bemoan the lack of powers the police have and cry bloody murder when their comfortable incomes are taxed to pay for it. Of course, you read a paper like that, you’re less than half a step from hypocrisy and self-delusion in the first place.

  I said to Susan, “Then this is a big case? A priority?”

  “Oh, aye. Couldn’t you tell when your paraplegic wee friend got interested?”

  “He’s not paraplegic. Not like Denzel Washington in that bloody film.”

  “Thought you hadn’t been to the movies in decades.”

  “I keep up. Trailers, mostly.”

  “Best parts.”

  “What I can gather.”

  She smiled at me across the table. The Officer Bright façade had dropped, as it always did eventually. We spiked between two forms of communication: confrontation and…something else.

  I didn’t know what to call it.

  “He’s your client, then?”

  “I’m running this down as a favour.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “What’s it sound like?”

  She nodded. For a second I thought she was going to walk. Wouldn’t blame her.

  But she’d never walked before with all the shite I put her through. This was no exception.

  Don’t ask me why.

  She said, “You know, part of Dad wishes you were still on the force. He’d be glad to have you working this one. Even just consulting. Christ, you were the Golden Boy.”

  She’d told me as much the first time we met. Back then it had sounded more like an attack, of course.

  I said, “He knew me as a uniform. Nothing more.”

  “He’s a sharp cookie.”

  “Like his daughter.”

  “Aye, well, I’m not going to deny any compliments from you.”

  “I’m not asking you to give me anything that’s going to endanger the case,” I said. “Just enough access.”

  “How much is just enough?”

  How do you answer a question like that?

  I said, “Tell me about her.”

  “Mary Furst? What do you know?”

  “Good student. Well liked. Not a care in the world. At least none beyond the usual teenage angst.”

  “You remember how that was?”

  “I can barely remember past last week.”

  “Somehow, I can’t see you as a teenager. With the spots, the gangliness, all that good stuff.”

  “If anyone asks, I’ll deny it.”

  “I’ll bet you stayed out of the yearbook.” She grinned, waggled her eyebrows at me.

  I said, “You want to go to a casino?”

  A couple of hours later I had photocopies of the case notes on my desk.

  Unofficially, of course.

  Susan still hadn’t talked to her father about letting me in. Aye, who would envy her that conversation?

  I skimmed the papers. The ground work had been done fast. Witness statements. Risk assessments.

  Suspects.

  No, scratch that last one:

  Persons of interest.

  Whatever you wanted to call them, it wasn’t a long list.

  No enemies? No one who wished her harm?

  Who was this girl?

  I checked what they had on her. A potted biography. Hastily assembled. They were working on deadline, here. Mary’s life at school revolved around drama societies, sports teams, the works. No one the police had spoken to had a bad word to say about her. Not unusual given the circumstances of her disappearance, I guess. Probably everyone was thinking about the media before the coppers opened their mouths to say word one.

  That’s the way the world is, now. Even the most unremarkable people are media savvy, cynical enough to know when to present their best side to the newspapers and the television.

  Mary’s ex-boyfriend, Richie Harrison, had been one of the first people the police talked to.

  Aye, Mary had broken up with him before she disappeared, but in the report he came across as worried for her as anyone. When asked why they split he said, “It was one of those things.” I could picture this teenager trying to appear mature and nonchalant, when reading between the lines I knew that he was torn up inside.

  The report wrote him off. He wasn’t behind it.

  I was inclined to agree, but figured I had to speak to the lad myself. People are more than words on a page. Sometimes even the clearest reports can leave out the subtlest of details.

  All the same, reading the report, I was thinking, Jesus, when you can split with a teenage boy and he shrugs it off like a rational human being…you’re truly something special.

  The school and Mary’s social life had been the investigation’s primary area of focus. Not that the police found much of anything except a whole lot of concerned friends.

  When they looked to her family, of course, things got interesting.

  They say you can choose your friends but not your family.

  Truer words never spoken.

 
It wasn’t her immediate family that caught my attention of course.

  But you’d never choose to have a man like David Burns as your uncle. No matter how many times removed. And godfather? Your moral guardian and role model? Aye, forget that one.

  Chapter 3

  When I called Susan back, I asked her if she was sure they had the family connections right.

  “Oh, aye. Dad’s heading round to talk to the old git this afternoon. See what he knows.” She hesitated. I could sense her gearing up to ask a question I’d been trying to avoid myself. “Given your…history with Burns, do you really want to touch this case?”

  I didn’t say a word.

  Thinking about David Burns.

  The old git.

  Old bastard, more like.

  It’s hard to open the local papers and not see a mention of the man. He’s a local hero. Dundee Boy made good, as so many people say. Has interests in the local community, does what he can, publicly, to be seen attempting to rejuvenate the poorer areas, keeping the profile of the city high and proud.

  A local hero. A good man.

  A scumbag.

  All that charity, that social work, those exhaustive public appearances are just so much smoke. He knows how to play the game, act untouchable. Except he’s knuckle deep in drug money, extortion rackets, underground deals, blackmail. You name it, he’s behind it. The kind of man who’s unafraid to employ violent methods as a means to an end. Long as he doesn’t have to get involved himself. Oh, no. He’s got an image to maintain. And, aye, he’d say himself he has limits. Never anything with children. Never in his street. Call that his moral yardstick.

  A year earlier, I’d got myself involved with his affairs. Almost lost my life because of it. Came out with a broken hand and a good friend lying close to death in the hospital.

  Swore I’d never go near Burns again.

  Or else I’d crucify him the first chance I got.

  I’d called him the devil incarnate. And worse. Hard to believe he was related – however distantly – to Mary Furst. The saintly girl I’d been reading about in the police reports.

  But there it was: this missing girl, no matter how smart and sweet she was…she had a dangerous kind of family.

  And maybe that put a whole new spin on her disappearance.

  “What do you figure?” I asked Susan. “Turf war?”

  Susan seemed to think about it. “You mean Gordon Egg? We’ve been talking to boys in the Met. Those flames have been extinguished.”

  “You really believe that? Last I knew, Egg had a price on our man’s head.”

  “Call it an uneasy truce between London and Dundee, then. Whatever, this has nothing to do with Burns’s…private business.”

  Some euphemism.

  I paced my office to the windows. Outside, the skies were dark, the clouds hanging heavy.

  “It’s not too late for you to back out, Steed,” Susan said. “Connolly would understand.”

  I made this non-committal sound. As in: I’d consider it. My track record for listening to good advice was spotty at best. And worse when it came to listening to Susan. She knew that as well as I did, didn’t push any further. She’d said her piece; what more could she do?

  Susan said, “You want to ask questions, you want to tag along, you talk to Dad.”

  I took a breath. One of those prices I wasn’t sure I could pay.

  Still thinking: David Burns.

  I told Susan I had things to do. Remained deliberately unclear on whether I wanted to remain on board with the Furst case.

  I hung up the phone. My chest started to constrict, like someone had wrapped an iron band around it and the metal was shrinking fast. I fought to control my breathing. Feeling dizzy, a little nauseous. My mind moving fast, replaying my conversation with Susan.

  Concentrate on the moment. The job. The case.

  But other memories intruded. Like my life had disconnected itself. A tape winding back on itself; becoming twisted like a nest of serpents.

  I remembered:

  Soft skin beneath my lips, the scent of perfume knocking my brain out of my skull.

  The agony as someone stamped their foot down hard on my fingers on a rain soaked evening.

  My hands seized up, muscles contracting, blood rushing away from my extremities. I knew what was happening, had to fight to control it.

  I fell back against my desk, just about toppled right over the top. Steadied myself. Concentrated on staying upright.

  On the rhythm of my breathing.

  Everything else was just a distraction.

  Concentrate on the breathing.

  Attacks like these used to come on and off during my teenage years. They lingered, recurring once or twice since my mid-twenties. But never anything quite like this. Easy to pass them off as growing pains over a decade earlier. But now…could I dismiss them?

  Maybe there was a reason. A psychological tick that sent my body into some hellish fight-or-flight parody without warning. But I figured it wasn’t anything I wanted to explore. Not yet, anyway.

  Chapter 4

  DCI Ernie Bright got out from behind his desk when I knocked at the door. He moved slowly. Old age, maybe. I didn’t want to think about it.

  The desk itself was cluttered. Paperwork spread out. Family photos, most of them old, featuring a Susan young enough you had to wonder if the newly minted Detective Constable wasn’t embarrassed to walk in here.

  Then again, maybe that was the idea.

  Ernie gave me the courtesy smile, but I couldn’t read what was going on in his head. Maybe I was distracted by how much he’d aged. Or else he was just that good.

  It had only been a couple of years since we last spoke, but Ernie looked more like ten had passed. His hair – salt and pepper before – had turned a distinguished silver and was longer; swept back from the temples. It gave him a distinguished air. Aristocratic seemed a good word to describe the way he looked now. His face was thinner than I remembered, too, and the lines cut deep into his weathered skin. The eyes were sunk deep, too, but still flashed with the energy of a much younger man.

  He said to me, “You’re looking older.”

  I hadn’t considered how much I might have changed.

  Ernie gestured for me to sit down. “I’m going to guess at something, Ja – uh, I mean McNee.” Remembering how I didn’t like people to use my first name. I used to kid that I even made my parents call me McNee. No one’s ever been sure how serious I am on that point. And Mum and Dad aren’t around any more to ask. Ernie was grinning at me, like he’d made the slip on purpose. Wanting to see if I was still the same man he had known.

  In some ways, I hoped not.

  “You were always good with wild guesses,” I said. “Hunches, too.”

  He snorted, put his hands behind his head as he leaned back in the swivel chair. “If I don’t give you access, you’re going to poke around anyway.” Not a question.

  I couldn’t say anything in response. Opted for a half-shrug.

  He said, “You were a tenacious little prick even as a constable. One of the things I liked about you.” An accusation?

  Fuck him if it was. He wasn’t my superior any more. Nothing he could do to me that hadn’t been done. So why was I still on the defensive?

  “The same can’t be said for others.”

  He got it. “Lindsay’s not attached to this case. Oh, I know he’d be all over it. You know how he is since he had his wee lad, but a case like this requires someone with a…subtle touch.”

  Subtlety wasn’t one of Lindsay’s traits. A lot of people in the department talked about how he got results, as though that one simple fact somehow excused the fact he was an unreconstructed arsehole.

  In the police, results wash away all other sins.

  I pressed on: “How much access do I get?”

  Was he happy that I’d avoided airing my opinions on Lindsay? Did I see a smile play about the DCI’s usually tight lips? Christ, time was I might have been a
ble to tell. He had been my self-appointed mentor and now…now we were strangers. Alien to each other in the worst possible ways. He said, “How much do you want?”

  “Much as I can. All the way. I need to know when there’s a break. What the break is. What it means. I need to be there in meetings, observing interviews, all that good stuff.”

  “You’re asking a lot for a courtesy.”

  I gave it a shrug. Emphasis; making sure he got the point. “Like you said, I’m a tenacious prick.”

  “Jesus, what is it with you? You’re bored, don’t have anything else to do?” He shook his head, leaned forward. “When I tell you to back off, you do it. Don’t think I don’t know about you and David Burns. I don’t want this getting personal. There’s a girl’s life at stake. So when I say…that’s the condition.”

  I hesitated long enough to worry him. Then I said, “That’s the condition.” Shot him a smile, too. Playing with him just a little.

  First time I met Ernie Bright, he called me up to give evidence on an internal police matter. A DI by the name of Griggs had got himself in hot water over his handling of a murder case. I’d been present at the scene when Griggs had taken charge. Didn’t do much more than guard the door at the crime scene. Standing around the hall of a halfway house keeping away the lookie-lous and the gawpers who came out to see what was going on.

  All of them wondering, who finally got killed. And was it by their own hand or someone else’s?

  It has been a shitty detail, but I followed the chain of command in those days. And why not? One of these days, I figured I’d be the one asking some poor sod to do the dirty work. The copper’s version of karma.

  I remember waiting to go in for the interview, sitting on a felt-covered chair in the hall outside and sweating beneath my uniform. Not knowing what to do. Whether there was a right or wrong way to approach this.

  I’d picked up fast on the politics of policing. As with every other job, there were ways of approaching affairs that had little to do with the work and everything to do with saying the right things to the right people.

  When the Chief Constable poked his head out and asked me to come in, I wasn’t even sure I could stand. In those days I was always waiting to be found out as some kind of fraud. As much as I loved and respected the Job, I always worried that maybe I wasn’t right for it. Or it wasn’t right for me.