04-Mothers of the Disappeared (4 page)

The man I remembered was decent. Honourable, even.

Had that all been a cover?

Or worse, had I been too blinded by the legend to see the man?

I swigged back the beer, then stood up. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m going to pass.’

‘Let the dice fall as they may?’

‘You should get out more,’ I said. ‘Stop reading books and watching TV. Maybe make you better at persuasion.’

He didn’t stop me leaving, but I have a feeling now that he already knew what was going to happen. And I wonder if he even felt the tiniest moment of regret or human conscience.

Downstairs, in the lobby, two guys in jeans and white shirts got up from a leather sofa and walked over to me as I exited the lift. I clocked the way they walked – faux-cowboy gait that looked like a bad case of rickets – and knew where they’d come from.

‘Mr McNee?’

No point in pissing about: ‘He knows I don’t want to talk to him.’

The bigger of the two – he had a baby-like face that might have been jolly if it wasn’t pitted with the marks of the teenage-acne veteran – blinked a couple of times. Trying to figure how I knew who they were.

His companion was smaller, thinner, with a lip that constantly curled upwards in a poor attempt at a sneer. Thought he looked badass. Looked more like he had a bad cold sore inside his upper lip. He didn’t care whether I knew who they were or how. Just said, ‘When he wants to see you, pal, you go and see him. What you want doesn’t bloody well enter into it.’

I could have laid them both out. Over the last few years, I’d been in my share of fights, and these two weren’t in the best of shape.

But we were in a public place.

And I was realizing that I’d just been played by Griggs. What I wanted from life really didn’t matter any more.

I was a pawn.

But I still wasn’t sure quite whose side of the board I was on.

I
followed them out to the east of the city. Not that I needed directions. I knew where we were going. The last place I wanted to be.

Burns’s house was ex-council, but he’d expanded it so that the house stuck out from those around it, made you realize that here lived a man who loved his neighbourhood, but had risen above his neighbours.

Police statistics claimed that Burns’s street was one of the most crime-free in the city. Officially, this was just a statistical anomaly, or perhaps even proof that the local force were doing their job pretty damn well. The unofficial reason, and the one that made far more sense, was that no one in their right mind wanted to cross the old man or his family. A few years ago, some kids with grand ambition and little sense tried dealing drugs around the corner from the Burns family home. The schmucks had died hurting, their assailants never caught, their stash stuffed into broken, dead jaws.

I parked outside, just behind the car I’d followed, took a deep breath before getting out. The old man sat in a lawn chair outside his front door, sipping a beer. Waved it at me as I opened his front gate and walked up to him.

‘Fair weather,’ he said. ‘We should enjoy it while it lasts.’

‘Scottish summer,’ I said. ‘Ten minutes of sunshine a year.’

‘We’d complain if it was too hot,’ he said. ‘But you know, this isn’t about the weather, son.’ He sipped at his beer. Closed his eyes and let loose a long sigh. The way he sat, you’d think he was just another pensioner enjoying his retirement. Here, close to his family, he was just another old man enjoying the later years. You’d never imagine this was the same man who, in his youth, had nailed a priest who owed him money to a cross inside his own church. You’d never imagine that this serene old man had ordered the deaths of people he’d never even met, had spilt blood with his own hands.

I waited for his pitch. It was coming sooner or later. Always did, with Burns. He’d been obsessed with me for years. Claiming he saw something of himself in me. Perhaps because his own son had turned out so different from him. He was looking for a replacement. Decided I would be the best candidate.

First time anyone ever thought that about me. And it had to be the meanest old bastard I’d ever met.

Burns opened his eyes to look at me. ‘What did Griggs want? A recruitment drive?’

‘He has it in for you,’ I said. ‘Something personal?’

‘Old business,’ said Burns. ‘Men like Griggs have long memories. So, are we to see you decamping to the west coast? Off to join the good fight with the men and women of the SCDEA?’

I shook my head.

‘You’d be missed,’ he said. ‘By some folks.’ Adding that last bit like an afterthought, making sure I knew he wouldn’t get too sentimental.

‘What do you want?’

‘Friendly warning. That’s all,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust Griggs as far as you could punt him. He’s not above pulling out dirty tricks if the mood takes him.’

‘I worked with him for a few years,’ I said. ‘He was a good man.’

‘Listen to yourself,’ said Burns. ‘
Was
. People change.’

‘You’re not the first person to tell me that today.’

He sipped at his beer. ‘I’ve always respected you, but sometimes you can be a real pain in the arse, McNee. Anyone else, I’d know their price. What they wanted. What they desired. But you, I don’t know you as well as I used to think I did.’

‘I’m full of surprises.’

‘I’m sure you are.’ He smiled. ‘But know this: I’ve let you run around free for the past few years. Even as you called me names and slapped my hand away when I only offered friendship. But if you even think about working with a shitebag like Griggs, then it’s over. No more Mr Nice Guy. You and me, we should have been friends, McNee.’

It was the same old pitch, with a whole new angle. The tone was no longer paternal. It was aggressive, adversarial. Griggs had the old man worried. Which told me that the detective was a serious man. That his offer to me had been serious. If he had done enough already to rattle Burns, then he had to have an end game in mind.

And he also had to know that Burns would be watching me.

How much did the old man know about what the fair-haired copper had offered me? Did he know about the undercover operation?

They were stuck in their own cold war, Griggs and Burns, both aware of what the other was up to, but afraid to make a move in case they showed their hand.

‘If that’s it, then,’ I said and turned to leave, thinking about asking him for money for wasted petrol.

But I didn’t.

And he didn’t have any last moment words of parting advice.

Burns always liked to have the last word. His silence was more threatening than anything he could have said.

W
hen I got back to work, a woman was waiting for me. She sat patiently in reception, hands placed lightly on her lap, back straight, eyes staring at something no one else could see. Dot was over at her computer, not working too hard to disguise her discomfort.

‘I told Mrs Farnham that you would call her to arrange an appointment, but she insisted on waiting.’

The name sounded familiar. I tried to figure if I knew her face. She was dressed in dark colours, and the way she sat made me think of a woman in mourning. Her lipstick was dark red against pale skin and her hair was close to black, although the lines in her face and the skin on her neck gave her age away. Her earrings were heavy but not ostentatious. She could have stepped out of the 1950s with her fashion sense.

We’d met before. But I couldn’t place her.

Memories were bubbling somewhere in my mind. But they weren’t breaking the surface.

She stood. Didn’t offer a hand. Maybe she expected me to recognize her. But there was no expression on her face for me to read. I sensed a sadness in her, but it wasn’t recent. It was old, had become a part of her. ‘I just need five minutes of your time.’

I ushered her into my office and shut the door. Offered her a seat and a drink. She took the seat. Same straight-backed pose as outside in reception.

I perched on the edge of the desk. Informal. ‘Before we even begin, I should tell you that I am currently on suspension from the Association of British Investigators.’

‘Suspension?’

‘There have been allegations made against this company. I am legally obliged to—’

‘Are they true?’

‘No.’ The word slipped out. I hadn’t known how I’d respond to the question.

She nodded. ‘Then I’m fine with that.’

I must have looked confused. She said, ‘You have a good face, Mr McNee. A little sad, maybe, but good. It’s not scientific, really, but I have found you can tell a lot about a person by their face. Besides, I know you. I remember you. You were a kind man.’

The bubbles in my brain broke the surface. Memories took on recognizable shapes. I remembered her name. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t … it’s been a long time. You’re Elizabeth Farnham?’

Her head bowed.

I stood up. An automatic reflex. A strange kind of attempt to show respect for the bereaved.

It had been almost six years, now.

So much had happened since I last saw her.

‘How can I help you?’

She licked her lips, as though suddenly dehydrated. She could no longer look me in the eyes.

She said, ‘You can find my son’s killer. You can clear Alex Moorehead’s name.’

I wished I’d kept the beer that Griggs had given me earlier. Or asked for something stronger.

Justin Farnham had been ten years old when he disappeared.

He lived with his mother – his father, her husband, had left six years previously with a blonde ten years his junior – in a small village a few miles outside the city. The village was tight-knit, and if it had been the 1950s and not the 2000s, everyone would have kept their doors unlocked at all times, wandered freely in and out of each other’s houses with a cheery ‘good morning’.

Elizabeth Farnham had been frantic with worry. She’d told her son to come back at a certain time, but he never did.

She told the police he’d been out playing with some friends in the fields. They liked to play among the farmer’s bales, jumping from one to the other, hiding in the nooks and crannies, playing acrobatic games of tig. Once or twice, they hurt themselves. One of the kids had cracked a collar bone after mistiming a jump. But that was just the way things were; kids played and sometimes they hurt themselves. No parent can protect their child for ever.

But Elizabeth always told her son that he had to stay with other kids, that he couldn’t go off on his own or with a stranger. He’d always been sensible, but when Mrs Farnham rang some of the other parents, she found their kids had been home on time.

Only Justin was missing.

Three hours later, she called the police. We responded quickly. A missing child is every parent’s and copper’s worst nightmare. Logistically and emotionally.

The search brought out everyone in the local community. Elizabeth Farnham’s direct neighbour – a freelance IT technician called Alex Moorehead – spearheaded much of the local effort. He was a relatively young man, well liked by everyone in the village, although he was regarded as something of an oddball. No one ever knew him to have a girlfriend or any other kind of significant other. It wasn’t the kind of village where accusations of homosexuality would result in ostracism, and the generally perceived belief was that Alex simply didn’t have an interest in sex with anyone.

The cops took to him like a hunting dog who’d tasted blood.

I say the cops, I mean Ernie Bright.

He got the scent fast.

I remember seeing it in his eyes, first time he met Moorehead.

I was there to observe only; part of Ernie’s plan to groom me for CID.

Moorehead fitted the stereotypical profile.

Single.

No reported sexual preference.

Computer geek.

Regarded as pleasant enough but no one knew him.

Occam’s razor?

Maybe.

But it was more than just snapshot profiling. Ernie sensed something about Moorehead; an uneasiness that set him apart from the crowd. If he wasn’t directly responsible, then he knew
something
.

It was Moorehead who found the body. He was leading a search party out in the woods near the field where the kids had been playing. At the head of the pack, sweeping slowly with a long stick to move aside the grass and plantlife. When he found the body, he was reported to be out of view of the rest of the party, yelling back, ‘Over here! I’ve found … Oh God, I think it’s him! It’s Justin!’

That kind of thing, it sets alarm bells ringing. When something seems too coincidental or simply too good to be true, it usually is. Most crimes of passion, the perpetrator will go out of their way to get caught, acting in ways that draw attention to them, even if it seems like misdirection.

That was the second strike against Moorehead in Ernie’s eyes. Not enough to take him in for questioning, but enough to make him a person of interest, as they say in the trade.

Justin’s body was buried under a pile of leaves and grass. Six days out in the open had taken its toll on the corpse, and when the funeral was eventually held, the casket had to be closed.

‘He’s a cool customer,’ Ernie said, meaning Moorehead. He told me this as we watched the crime-scene technicians investigate the area around the body, while the villagers all stood at the edge of the crime-scene tape and watched with disbelief as we investigated the death of one of their own. ‘Finding that body the way he did, he should have been … I don’t know, but he shouldn’t have been cold like that. It was a performance, McNee. I know it. Feel it in my gut.’

Still, we didn’t talk to Moorehead. We couldn’t. We’d have brought the wrath of our superiors down on our heads. You don’t accuse a man without evidence. Without something more substantial than a simple gut feeling.

Elizabeth Farnham appeared on television several times over the next few weeks, paraded around news outlets and daytime TV like a performing animal. She looked like she barely knew where she was, and she told her story so many times that by the time the police finally arrested Moorehead, she sounded numbed and distant from the retelling.

When she appeared, she would plead not only for any witnesses to what had happened, but for the killer to admit the truth and turn themselves in. For months, before I fell asleep, I could hear her words echo around my head:
Please do this, not for me or for my boy, but for yourself. I am sure you regret what you did. I am sure you did not mean to kill him. Come forward and admit what you did.