The Lost Sister Read online

  She was right. If I wanted to live – and not just survive – I had to learn to distance myself from some things, to know when it was wise to step away.

  I had to pay attention to my own life. Stop getting so deep in other people’s affairs.

  “We need to let the police handle this one,” I said. “They’ll let you know when –”

  “This could be an exclusive.”

  “No,” I said, a little harsher than I meant to. “You’re not my client. This was a favour, right? So this isn’t my case. And I…I need to make a business decision. It’s what I’m doing here. I’m walking away.”

  I slammed down the receiver before he had a chance to reply, walked over to the window and looked outside. Night had come fast, ink falling over the city. Orange street lights seemed to take on a strange haze, and I realised there was a gentle mist rolling in the streets.

  I expected the phone to ring.

  Connolly to call back with the offer of my standard fee plus expenses.

  Never happened.

  I decided to call it a night. Head home. Call Susan in the morning, tell her she didn’t need to worry about me stepping on anyone’s toes. I was listening to her for the first time in my life.

  I was walking away.

  It felt good.

  At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself of as I trudged out into the stairwell, ignoring the rising tightness in my chest and stomach and the nausea in my throat.

  Walking down the stairs, my leg began to stiffen.

  Old injury. One the doctors seemed unable to find a reason for. What was the word one of them had used? Psychosomatic?

  Aye, what did they know?

  “Steed.”

  I hadn’t seen her, and she waited till my back was turned and I was locking up before she called my name.

  I clicked the key home, turned and said, “I was thinking about you.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  I shook my head.

  “I should be so lucky,” she said, with the kind of smile that I couldn’t quite read.

  “I’m walking away from this one,” I said.

  “The Furst case?”

  “Aye.”

  “You never went to see Richie Harisson.”

  We walked down the stairs together. Slowly. Neither of us wanting to reach the bottom.

  “Thing is…you have to look at why you take on a case. This one…there are elements that strike close to home. That threaten my…impartiality.”

  “You almost sound professional.”

  I grinned. Couldn’t help it. “Almost.”

  At the foot of the stairs, before we hit the main door, she stopped, turned and leaned in. Kissed me briefly on the cheek, and when she pulled away I could still feel the ghost of her touch on my skin.

  “You’re doing the right thing, Steed,” she said. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

  She slipped out the door and was gone before I could say anything.

  I couldn’t help but wonder why she’d come to see me. But maybe I’d saved her a speech.

  I’d like to think so.

  That night, I didn’t sleep well.

  No dreams. But I kept waking up. Anxious, like there was something I’d forgotten. I’d sit bolt upright, hit the bedside lamp and check the clock.

  I’d wander around the flat for a while, maybe grab a drink before diving back under the covers, trying to get comfortable. And failing. Miserably.

  Sleep took me at some point, but when I woke up again, it was as though I’d had no rest at all. My only clue that any time had passed was the light streaming between the curtains; brighter than it had been when I closed my eyes.

  The clock provided another clue.

  Half seven.

  Sodit.

  I showered and shaved. Stretched in the living room, listening to the radio.

  Looking out the window, I could see a thin layer of snow covering the city. By mid-morning, it would be slush or maybe even gone, but somehow it seemed to have quieted the usual noises from outside. Traffic drove slower, the early morning voices were muted. The world was holding its breath.

  I ate breakfast in front of the TV and took in next to nothing on the news.

  Just past eight o’clock, the phone rang.

  A rough voice on other end of the line, said, “McNee, you’re going to want to come down to your wee office. Someone broke in last night. Gave the place a good going over. Real fucking mess, pal. Unless you need to employ better cleaning staff.”

  Christ, one of the last voices I needed to hear.

  Chapter 10

  DI George Lindsay was loitering on the pavement as I pulled into the nearest parking space. As little as a year ago, there was a car park across from the office, but they shut it down, built new university accommodation that looks like it’ll collapse within the next five years.

  Dundee’s become one of those cities; filled with new money and dreaming of expansion. But as with all grand ideas, not all of them have been thought through. Some are plain eyesores and others are expensive mistakes; buildings that will barely stand five years never mind five hundred.

  Hasn’t the city learned from its mistakes? In the sixties and seventies, the council had knocked down grand old buildings to make way for imposing concrete designs that soon became ugly and outdated. Now they were knocking those down to make way for new buildings destined to become eyesores to the next generation.

  No 1, Courthouse Square, wasn’t so bad. Sandstone and refurbished in the late nineties, it was solid and interesting from the outside and beginning to age well enough. The bottom floors were occupied by a building society, and the entrance to the main stairwell which led to my own offices was round the side of the building.

  I walked over to Lindsay, every step slow and deliberate. He grinned when he saw me, plucked the cigarette from between his lips and ground it out on the pavement.

  “In case you’re still living clean,” he said. “Can’t have an inconsiderate bastard like me offending the delicate sensibilities of an ex-smoker, aye?” First time we met was in the smoking room at Dundee FHQ over five years earlier, when you could still smoke indoors. I’d given up shortly after I met Elaine. Didn’t miss it all that much.

  Except when the habit itched.

  Five years. The bastard had barely changed. Probably look the same at seventy as he did at fifty. He was short, with wide shoulders and the stance of a brawler. A large forehead, flat nose and tiny eyes that sparkled with a general hatred for everyone around him. He wore his suit reluctantly. Last thing you could accuse him of being was a clotheshorse

  “How’d you catch the case?”

  “Heard the call, couldn’t resist.”

  Couldn’t resist. Aye, couldn’t resist coming down here to piss me about. Long ago I realised he actually enjoyed our mutual antagonism, treated it like a game. Even when I broke his nose – and you could still see the crooked bump right there at the bridge – he’d taken to the role of wronged victim with what seemed a childlike glee.

  “They’re keeping you away from the big boy cases,” I said. “Figured you’d have been all over the Mary Furst investigation.”

  He craned his neck to look up the third floor windows of my office. “You know, pal, it’s a fucking mess up there.”

  “Tell me.”

  He turned his attention back to me. “They did a number, all right. Maybe you can help us figure what’s missing. Whether they stole anything of value.” He laughed at that; his own private joke.

  I moved past him. He followed at a discreet distance. I didn’t turn around, but still knew he was smirking.

  The prick.

  “Maybe you’d be better investing in security,” he said as we came to the top of the stairs. “I mean, this isn’t exactly good publicity for your services, aye? And we’ve done this dance before.” Last time he came to my offices, he’d found a man bleeding out on the floor. The worst kind of timing.

  I shot Li
ndsay the finger over my shoulder.

  He hadn’t been exaggerating about the mess. The door had been smashed off its hinges, the frame cracked and splintered. Inside, someone had emptied out every file, overturned the desk in reception.

  I felt sick.

  Remembered holding Bill as he bled out on the floor. Gut shot.

  We’d been friends as much as colleagues. These days, after the incident, we barely spoke. The poor bastard was still in a wheelchair. His boyfriend blamed me for what had happened. I did as well.

  Best not to think about it, of course. There was a long list of the dead and injured behind me. If I started taking personal responsibility for them all, there’d be no end to my litany of sins.

  Lindsay whispered in my ear, “You’re looking peaky.” A cartoon devil whispering bad thoughts. I was missing the angel, of course.

  Slipping away from him, I checked my private office. Again, the door smashed in, the tables overturned, the files emptied. The safe was on its side, the door blown open.

  A message?

  Maybe.

  I knelt down beside the safe. Checked the outside. Saw the warped metal, the scorch marks.

  “They knew what they were doing,” said Lindsay. “This wasn’t a bunch of wee neds breaking into someone’s office for kicks, right?”

  I closed my eyes. Pictured the explosion. Muffled, powerful. The door blowing off.

  They knew what they were doing.

  Who had those kinds of connections?

  I said, “They were looking for something specific.”

  “In the safe?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were just trying every nook and cranny.”

  I felt my stomach cramp. Started flexing my fingers. Not quite making fists, but like I was wrapping them round some bastard’s throat.

  Aye, fuckit, I knew who had those kinds of connections.

  Who’d think I had something up here worth nabbing.

  Someone who’d already made their interest in my work known.

  “You have a knack of pissing off the wrong people,” Lindsay said. “How’s the wee lad doing, anyway? The one who got shot?”

  I got to my feet. Spun on heels to face Lindsay. My nails dug into the palms of my hands. My body was humming.

  He saw it, and just for a moment he lost control. His eyes widened and he leaned away from me.

  Aye, he pretended like he was in control, had nothing to fear. But the cocky wee shite was shaking in his boots.

  Made me feel better.

  Not much. But enough that I could walk away.

  Another time, I might have been proud, just walking out of there. Not trying to throttle Lindsay.

  Call me a changed man.

  Or maybe the fight had been shocked out of me.

  Whatever the case, I was down the stairs and out on the street again, one man on my mind.

  Aye, maybe I walked out of there because I had some other arsehole to throttle.

  Had to be Burns. No other shite would give a toss about my files. He’d offered me a job, and I’d refused it. All the same, I’d been working on a case that interested him. He wanted whatever I knew.

  Did he think I was holding out on him?

  That I knew something about his goddaughter I wasn’t willing to share?

  As I made to cross the road, a voice called, “McNee.” Deep, heavy, enough to stop me cold.

  I turned, saw a man I didn’t recognise. Big guy. Dressed in a suit that seemed to pinch, as though there wasn’t quite enough material to make him clothes that actually fit. But he wasn’t fat. Even from a distance you could see the muscle. He sported the kind of beard that would make a lumberjack proud, and slicked his dark hair back from his temples. His eyes were wide, manic, made me think of Tom Baker who used to play the lead in Doctor Who.

  I hesitated.

  The big guy took it as his cue, came across. “You are McNee, then?”

  “And you?”

  He offered his hand. Bigger than a boxing glove. Christ, find yourself on the wrong end of that, you’d be in real trouble.

  “Wickes,” he said. Surprisingly, he didn’t try and crush my hand. I’d been expecting it, bracing for it. Figured him for the kind of guy who’d like to show off his strength. But he had a strangely delicate shake. “I’m in the investigation game like yourself.”

  I nodded. Tried to think. I knew most of the local crowd by sight, even the ones who worked for larger firms. But the name Wickes had never come across my radar.

  He said, “I work out of Glasgow mostly, but…d’you think we can talk?”

  “I don’t have the time.”

  “It’s about the girl. The one who’s missing.”

  Hard not to react to that one.

  He said, “I think I know what happened to her.”

  We grabbed a table at the Washington Café on Union Street. The café had undergone a recent facelift, getting rid of the old booths and vinyl pews and replacing them with rounded tables and high backed chairs. I still wasn’t sure what I thought about it, but the coffee was decent and we could talk in relative peace.

  The radio on the counter spat out local stations; a mix of nostalgic pop music and local news.

  Wickes got in the coffees, grabbed himself a bacon roll. I wasn’t hungry, my stomach still churning from bad memories.

  “I heard your name through the grapevine,” he said as he slid in across the table from me. “Bad business you were involved in last year.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time.”

  Wickes laughed. An unnatural sound. Almost guttural. “I’ve heard that before.”

  I didn’t bother defending myself or correcting him. Got the feeling he’d only hear what he wanted to.

  Grand quality for an investigator.

  “You said you knew something about Mary Furst.”

  “You’re the man to talk to, right? Hear you’re deeply involved with the investigation.”

  “I took an offer to look at the situation,” I said. “But I’m not involved any longer. I backed off.”

  He sat back in his chair, deceptively casual. “You backed off? From a prize investigation like this? What, that business from before make you gun-shy?”

  I said nothing.

  “Don’t mean anything by it,” he said after a moment. “I know your reputation. Your history. You’re something of a celebrity. Unusual for an investigator.” Christ, I didn’t think I could cope with any kind of hero worship. Or inane flattery designed to get me on side.

  “If you have information,” I said, “you should go to the police. I know the investigating officers and –”

  “Let me show you what I have,” he said. “See if it changes your mind.”

  I sighed. This guy wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  I figured at least he’d distracted me, stopped me doing something stupid. I owed him for that at least. And what harm could it do to hear him out?

  Even then, I was still fooling myself. Thinking over and over: I am no longer involved with this case. I’m taking the high road. Taking responsibility for my actions

  Aye. Right.

  Chapter 11

  Sixteen years ago, a woman – at that time, more a girl – named Deborah Brown agreed to surrogate for a couple struggling to conceive.

  Not the kind of decision anyone makes lightly. You don’t rush it, go in half-arsed. No. You go slow. Make the right decisions. Ensure that everyone knows where they stand.

  Contracts have to be drawn up. Surrogacy is not illegal in the UK, but there are measures in place to ensure that everyone is happy. That no one gets hurt.

  Beyond the obvious, of course.

  It’s a simple business on paper. What you’re doing is renting a womb. In theory, it’s letting out a flat for nine months or giving someone a loan of your car.

  Except it’s not.

  Because when it comes to people’s bodies, emotions follow fast.

  I don’t know that I ever really wanted
children. I certainly used to argue with Elaine about it.

  Susan once asked me why, when we’d been together so long, me and Elaine never even considered starting a family.

  I didn’t tell Susan about the fights we had.

  Or why Elaine had become distracted in the moments before our car was knocked off the road and she was killed.

  That conversation about…

  Children.

  Like I said, people get emotional.

  Watching Wickes tell me about this woman, Deborah Brown, I noted how he lit up. Something dancing in his eyes when he mentioned her name.

  Investigations require dispassionate distance. He’d lost his with this woman.

  Deborah Brown.

  Mary Furst’s birth mother.

  Aye, that’s the part that knocked me flat on my arse as well.

  The problem lay with Jennifer Furst. She’d suffered traumatic surgery in her youth: having a child could kill her. No joke, no slim chance.

  A real heartbreaker for someone who thought about nothing except family. In her youth, Jennifer had believed that a family of her own would end all her problems. She would become a real human being, a fully rounded person.

  Talk about buying into the myth.

  Surrogacy seemed a sensible option. But she realised the risks of asking a close friend or anyone they knew to act as the surrogate. So she and her husband set out to find someone.

  A difficult task.

  Like I said, while surrogacy isn’t illegal in the UK, there are measures in place.

  You can’t advertise. Either that you’re looking for a surrogate or that you wish to be one.

  Maybe I can understand the reasons for that. Any industry based on such a personal matter would be open to all kinds of disastrous loopholes.

  All the same, they searched for someone.

  That someone turned out to be Deborah Brown.

  Deborah was eighteen years old at the time. An art student facing expulsion and bankruptcy. Looking for a way out. Something that could help her get back on track.

  Jennifer spent time with Deborah. The two of them became close. Built a relationship of trust.

  One of the things you learn fast in my line of business is that trust is an overhyped virtue. Relationships can fall apart with the smallest of cracks.