04-Mothers of the Disappeared Read online

  It’s what they call a foot in the door moment. A moment that I’m always glad is a metaphor.

  Finally he relented. Let me inside.

  NINE

  There were no offers of tea. Not even an invite to sit. Jonathan Moorehead preferred I remain standing. Told me what he thought of my turning up on his doorstep.

  His front room was neat and orderly. Knick-knacks lined the bookshelves and the original-feature fire-surround, but they were chosen for the sole purpose of filling the room and making it seem like someone lived here. There was nothing unique. Nothing that spoke of personality. Everything came from brand-furniture warehouses, assembled with Allen keys and fold-out instructions.

  The books on the shelves were sparse. Dog-eared Sudoku selections, a large, untouched Collins’ dictionary and a couple of thick paperback thrillers that had made the headlines or been turned into big-name movies.

  Not a reader, then.

  And by the size of the TV, he didn’t care too much for his soaps, either.

  Begging the question: what did Jonathan Moorehead do with his days?

  The settee where he parked himself while I remained standing was faded, probably a hand-me-down from the house’s previous owners or picked up at an auction. The fabric was dark, with a Paisley-style pattern.

  The room was hot. Did he ever open the windows?

  I thought about how the interior of the house was at such odds with village-idyll exterior.

  Had Jonathan Moorehead been like this before his son’s arrest? Or was this something that he had been driven to?

  Grief changes a person. Sometimes the change is marginal. Even temporary. But it happens. You can’t escape it.

  The change isn’t just exterior, but that’s the one most people see. I wonder if it’s easier to get over the death of someone you loved than come to terms with the repugnant actions of someone who betrayed you completely.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  The question was simple. Direct. Curious. Maybe a little angry.

  He had changed his name to Abbott. Clearly thought that was enough. But the paper trail – even in our increasingly paperless society – had been easy to follow. Unless you’re in a government-sponsored programme, or have contacts with special knowledge and the kind of money to get their attention, it’s tough to hide away completely. Particularly when someone is determined to track you down.

  ‘I’m an investigator,’ I said. ‘It’s what I do.’

  ‘You were a cop, before. What, you change your mind about my boy when you … retired?’

  I hesitated.

  He didn’t wait for an answer: ‘It’s over ten years, Mr McNee. If he was innocent, someone would have found the evidence by now. Would have already known that your boss sent my lad to jail for no reason. But it’s not happened. It’s not going to happen.’ He spoke slowly, kept any anger he felt in check. I could sense it, though, bubbling just beneath the surface. He was old, but his broad shoulders told me he wouldn’t be averse to lashing out if the mood took him.

  ‘Are you working for yourself? Is this a personal crusade, protecting psychopaths and perverts you helped put away?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘One of the victims’ families hired me. They went to see your son. Seeking closure. They … thought that by talking to your son they might understand why their boy had to die.’

  ‘And he told them that he was innocent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘killed that boy. Killed all of them, I expect. I’ve spent the past ten or so years coming to terms with what he did. Don’t pretend to understand why. Stopped asking. No answer that could make sense. You know?’

  ‘I know that it hurts you—’

  ‘You don’t know anything, Mr McNee. You can’t understand that kind of betrayal.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘He’d be better off dead,’ Mr Moorehead said, quiet again, body language loosening, almost in surrender. ‘Like a fucking rabid dog.’ The words didn’t trip naturally from his tongue. He was not a man who swore lightly.

  ‘Bring back hanging?’

  ‘Why not? Too good for the likes of that one.’

  A chill descended on the house. A father advocating the death of his own son. Blood is thicker than water?

  Aye. Right.

  We’re bound to family only by expectation. Our bonds are strong only because we work hard to make them so. To admit any kind of negative feeling to our flesh and blood can seem like admitting our weakness.

  Which was why it felt odd to hear Mr Moorehead talk about his son like that. His words seemed defensive, maybe even defiant. An act. A show for my benefit.

  The house was too warm. My head began to overheat. My brain pushed against my skull. A gentle buzzing started bouncing around inside there like a pissed-off fly.

  I said, ‘I’m not looking to find out what he was like as a boy. My client doesn’t care if she’s right or wrong, but feeling uncertain about this is … it’s not a good feeling, Mr Moorehead.’

  ‘I don’t know what I can give you. That I didn’t already give your boss all those years ago.’

  ‘Do you have anything of Alex’s from when he was a boy?’

  ‘I burned everything I had.’ He was blinking too much. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  I looked around. The pictures that sat between the knick-knacks had been bothering me for reasons I couldn’t quite determine. Only then did I realize what was wrong: there were no pictures of people. Most folk who live on their own keep pictures of family and friends in some tokenistic fashion. Especially as they get older. Perhaps to remind themselves that they are not alone. But the images on Jonathan Moorehead’s shelves were as impersonal as everything else. Postcard images from around the UK, but no faces. No people present at all.

  I wondered if he ever talked to anyone any more, aside from the few devoted journalists and true-crime fanatics who inevitably rocked up to his door asking questions just as insensitively as I had.

  He hadn’t lost a son like Alex Moorehead’s victims had. But in a way his grief was every bit as cutting. Every bit as real.

  As long as his son was alive, demonized, locked up and still breathing, Jonathan Moorehead couldn’t let go or externalize his grief. He couldn’t create another fiction for himself. Because his son still existed as a reminder of the truth. Jonathan Moorehead couldn’t escape the idea that what had happened was in some way his fault.

  I understood when he said his son deserved to be put down.

  ‘Rabid dog’ sounded like a right-wing press sound bite. But coming from the man’s own father, it sounded like a plea for mercy, as though death was the most tender option when dealing with men who committed crimes such as those Alex Moorehead had been convicted of.

  TEN

  I wanted to order a pint, but thought I would need a clear head for the road home. Some folks drink and drive easily, and when it’s a short trip, I’m not averse to the odd half. But with the drive in front of me, all I ordered was a Coke. With my stomach still growling after the poor quality of the roadside pie, I ordered the local steak and ale, which the menu claimed was the Coleman Arms’ speciality.

  I ate at the bar. It was only just past four, and the Arms was hardly a hive of activity. The middle-aged man with the deliberately old-fashioned sideburns behind the bar busied himself shining up the pint glasses. An old duffer in one corner coughed every time he turned the page of his newspaper.

  ‘Just visiting?’ the barman asked.

  ‘Passing through.’

  ‘Scotchman, eh? What’s your line?’

  I hesitated. ‘Private investigation.’

  He nodded, but gave no discernible reaction.

  I leaned forward. ‘You know if Jonathan Abbott is a regular round here?’

  The bartender shook his head. ‘Are you any good at your job?
Or is this just a bad day for you?’

  ‘I’m not the first to pass through?’

  ‘It’s an open secret. Man wants to live a quiet life. We’d like to let him.’

  ‘I don’t want to cause trouble.’

  ‘Then you’ll eat your steak and ale and piss off.’ He spoke lightly, with a smile at the end of the sentence. But the sentiment was clear. Even if it didn’t stop him from taking my custom.

  The pie was good. Nothing beats the work of a decent, or at least enthusiastic, chef. I ate in silence, pretended to read one of the papers they had lying on the bar.

  The Sun.

  The Times.

  What I was actually doing was playing chicken with the landlord.

  Most people in this world want to talk. Even when they tell you to piss off. The thing is, they have this dance they like to do.

  People have an innate sense of drama. The same sense that makes gossip so enticing. Details don’t really matter, but gossip-masters know all about the power of drama.

  The tease. It’s all about the tease. Like a good stripper, gossip-masters know that the build-up is as important as the reveal. Expectation is everything.

  The bartender was going to talk. He just needed the right incentive. The proper sense of drama.

  He finally snapped as I mopped up the gravy with the last of his rustic-cut chips, leaning over the bar with a nervous expression and asking, ‘Why’re you interested, anyway? Thought there was nothing more to say on the matter. His boy’s never going to talk to anyone, right? Taking those poor little buggers to the grave with him, so I hear.’

  I chewed slowly. Swallowed. Took a swig of my Coke and then looked up at him. I smiled softly, conspiratorially. ‘Thought you didn’t want my type round here asking questions?’

  ‘You seem different, mate.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I looked around. Conspiratorial. In his mind, I was Bob Woodward, and he was Deep Throat.

  The bar was still quiet. The old duffer in the corner was lost in his own world, still reading that newspaper, intent on each and every word in each and every article.

  The barman was free to talk.

  ‘Yeah.’ He stood back again. ‘Call it a gut instinct.’

  ‘I’m working under client confidentiality. I can’t possibly comment.’

  ‘You can trust me …’

  I hesitated. ‘They think he’s close to talking,’ I said. ‘The son.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘There are conditions, of course. Things that he wants. That he’s asked for.’

  The bartender’s cheeks flushed under those sideburns. He was hitting middle age, would soon start to resemble Mr Bumble from Oliver Twist if he wasn’t careful. He licked his lips. ‘Things?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it. But that’s why I’m here. Need to talk to the father. Unofficially, of course. You know how it is.’

  He nodded. I don’t think he really did know what I meant, but he was desperate to be part of something grander and more exciting than the everyday grind.

  ‘Thing is,’ I said. ‘His old man won’t talk to me. And who can blame him? I’m just trying to find a way to get him to open up.’

  ‘Don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ said the bartender. ‘I mean everyone knows who he is, but it’s an open secret. We just call him Mr Abbott when we see him. No one’s got the balls to actually say what they know.’

  ‘You all just recognized him?’

  ‘In a place like this, word travels fast. Heard it on the grapevine, know what I mean?’ He leaned forward again. All I had to do now was look interested, guide him occasionally, and I’d get what I needed. Which was context. Background. A sense that my visit here wasn’t entirely wasted. ‘It was the Mrs noticed first. She loves the true-crime stuff. Has this whole bookshelf of books about unsolved cases, famous killers, all the rest of it. Not sick stuff, mind. But she reckons she should have been a cop rather than a chef.’

  ‘I think she’s better off being a chef. Copper’s life isn’t what it is on telly.’

  ‘That’s what she says,’ he replied, and laughed. We were still mates, here. My new-found friend was looking relaxed, convinced I wasn’t some sicko in town to make trouble. ‘But, yeah, she recognized him. And then pretty much everyone did. But he can’t help it, you know? His son’s a psycho. Got to be tough. He just wants to be left alone, know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, I understand.’

  ‘No one’s ever really brought it up, face to face, I mean. Why would you? Long as he keeps his house in step with everyone else, everyone around here figures he can keep as much to himself as he likes.’

  ‘That’s the important thing round here? Keeping your house in good nick?’

  ‘We’ve won Best Kept Village three years out of six.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Matter of pride.’

  ‘So’s your steak and ale pie.’

  ‘I’ll tell Mo that,’ he said. ‘But yeah, he doesn’t really get out much into village life. Aside from occasionally popping into a coffee morning.’

  ‘He drink in here?’

  ‘He came in once or twice when he first arrived. Think he was trying to fit in, like, but maybe he knew that we knew who he was. Pleasant enough, though. Liked the steak and ale, too.’

  ‘Man of taste. Maybe I’ll open with that. Give us some common ground.’

  ‘That’s what I’d do, but I’m no detective.’

  ‘He doesn’t socialize with anyone, then?’

  ‘No, not really. Well, Mrs Hutton. She runs the newsagent’s, like. He has a standing order there for his papers and magazines. Does crosswords and the like.’ I thought about his bookshelves, the battered puzzle books I’d seen. ‘Everyone’s got to have a hobby, I guess. And aside from that and his garden, I don’t know what else he does with his time.’

  I downed the last of the Coke. Stood up. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a big help.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You ever write a book about this, be sure and send one for Mo. She’d love it, you know?’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ELEVEN

  Leaving the pub, I felt at a loss.

  What the hell was I doing here? Reopening an old man’s wounds because of a hunch?

  Or worse, was I distracting myself from real problems? Such as Griggs’s attempts to manipulate me?

  I took a walk down to the river, walked the footpath like any other tourist. It was late in the day. I’d wound up hanging around longer than anticipated. Talking to Moorehead’s father had left me feeling restless, uncertain. The drive back seemed long and daunting. Four hours could be an eternity in the wrong frame of mind. What I needed was to unwind. To digest everything I had heard. I thought about the call of a pint at the Coleman Arms. The appeal of a freshly laundered hotel bed.

  Maybe it would be a good idea. Give me time to rest and reassess.

  More important, give me a chance to have that pint. Some things in life can always be eased by a good beer.

  Walking the river, the chirping of crickets erupted from somewhere nearby, along with the call of birds somewhere among the trees. The sounds were unfamiliar to me. Dundee is hardly a metropolis, but its sounds are those of industry and the modern age: the rush of cars, the hum of generators, the beat of music from clubs and pubs. Those were the noises that welcomed my nights. To hear the sounds of animals and the rush of water was unsettling. And, at the same time, relaxing. I closed my eyes as I stood at the edge of the river and just let it wash over me.

  My phone vibrated gently.

  I took a deep breath. Even out here, in a place that promised isolation and calm, there was always something to remind you that society wasn’t ready to let you go. There is always a reminder; a message, an alert, a vibration that recalls you to your duties in the twenty-four-hour, never-sleep culture that we have slowly established since the industrial revolution. You could never really escape. Tied by invisible cords to the rest of your li
fe, no matter where you ran to.

  I checked the display that glowed unnaturally in the dim light of early evening. Unknown number. Clicked to the message content.

  Any thoughts? Offer won’t last forever. S.

  I nearly tossed the phone. Just wanted rid of it. And the rest of my life. Had this urge to run into the trees across the other side of the water. Return to nature completely. Forget about the world, about all the expectations that civilization brought with it.

  But I didn’t.

  What I did was, I pocketed my phone, turned and walked back to the village.

  I woke at 3 a.m., swallowed, still tasting the whisky I’d taken as a nightcap at the bar. The bartender had brought through Mo, his wife, so they could talk to me about what it meant to be a real private detective. They were hospitable and attentive, but all I really wanted was to get to my room and get my head together. By the time I was on my third Talisker, I persuaded them that I needed to do some paperwork before retiring.

  Truth be told, though, I could feel myself getting drunk, reaching the point of no return. And I wanted my head clear in the morning.

  The room they gave me was small, tucked away on the second floor, at the rear of the building. There were wooden struts built into the whitewashed walls. It was the kind of room Sherlock Holmes might have taken when a case required a country visit. The bed welcomed me with a comforting but firm embrace, and I was gone the moment my head hit the pillow. No time to undress or get under the sheets.

  But then, at 3 a.m., I woke.

  My eyes adjusted to the gloom. Something tickled at the back of my mind, maybe the remnants of a dream, or some idea that had been struggling to form while I slept. I tried to let it come through, take on some shape I could recognize, but nothing happened.

  Eventually I gave in and tried to close my eyes.

  But I couldn’t relax.

  I swung my legs off the bed. Finally, I took off my shoes and let my bare feet sink into the thick carpet. Stood up, walked to the window, looked out across the car park and to the countryside beyond. I understood why Jonathan Moorehead would choose a place like this. There was nowhere he could hide without the risk of someone like Mo recognizing his face, making the connection to the man he was trying to hide from. But at least in a place like this, he could pretend that the rest of the world no longer existed. Lose himself in the illusion of isolation. City workers escaped the reality of their working life by retreating to the countryside. A man like Jonathan Moorehead could attempt the same thing.