The Lost Sister (5 page)

Someone was waiting beside my car. Dark tracksuit trousers, white t-shirt, he had muscles on display and wanted the world to look at them. His hair was cut short, swept forward and held down with gel. His eyebrows grew close together, nearly touching above his nose. He smoked with the practised air of someone who doesn't even think about what he's doing any more.

“Help you?” I asked as I came out of the front gate.

He grinned, flicked away the cigarette. In the half-light of early evening, the orange sparks drew attention as they exploded into the air.

“McNee?”

“Can I help you?” Maybe he didn't hear me the first time.

He cocked his head to one side, folded his arms across his chest. Intimidation? Maybe, but I wasn't about to fall for it. I'd been threatened by worse. Or better. Depending how you looked at it.

He said, “Mr Burns wants a word.”

I shook my head, made to push past him, get into the car. “I've got nothing to say to him.”

The lug put a hand on my shoulder as I opened the door, pulled me back. “Aye, he said you wouldn't want to come. It'll be worth your while, pal.”

Pal
. The magic word that made everything all right.

“I doubt it.”

“He also said, if you didn't come, he'd make sure the police found out a few things you'd rather they didn't know.”

I straightened.

“About a gun you…
found
…last year. One you used in self-defence.”

The gun that had been given to me by Burns himself. If he came forward about
that
, he was putting himself in hot water as much as me.

All the same…this told me he was serious.

I followed the other guy's car, a beat up Ford 206, looked like it had been through the wars.

I didn't need to keep too close. Knew where I was going.

Burns wanted to meet at his house. This was the only reason I agreed to go along.

If we were meeting at his house, it meant nothing would happen to me. No extra-legal offers would be made. At least…not explicitly.

The drive took maybe fifteen minutes. We'd missed the rush hour traffic in the city centre by a few hours. Try and go anywhere in Dundee around five in the evening and you'd better not be in a hurry.

Burns's house was a modest, two-storey affair. He could have afforded a bigger place, but this house had meaning for him. It was the first home he had bought; he had raised his family here.

Burns thought of himself as a family man.

An impression that Jennifer Furst had tried to reinforce during our talk.

Just don't think of all the sons and daughters and mothers and fathers he destroyed with his drug trade. Oh, no, they didn't count. No, he was a family man but only where
his
family were concerned.

The man himself stood outside the front door, dressed in a heavy dressing gown and slippers, puffing away at a cigarette. He smiled when he saw my car pull up and walked down to the front gate to greet us. I noticed a limp. But other than that, he was standing strong. His back straight. His eyes unfaltering. Watching me as I came through the gate and walked towards him.

Last time I'd seen him, he'd been in a hospital bed. His hard man act gone, his body screaming frailty. How much of this apparent recovery was an act? A man like Burns had to be all front. No weakness. The life he chose.

“Mr McNee,” he said. “A pleasure to see you again. It's been a long time. You don't call. And here I thought we were friends.” He grinned, amused with his own humour.

I didn't grin. Didn't say anything.

“You're a coffee drinker, right? Come inside.”

My newfound friend was still in his car, parked a few metres up the road. I turned around to look at him, saw he was still behind the wheel. He threw me a wink, and edged the car out of the space he'd parked in.

Burns ran a tight ship.

His lads learned the value of discretion.

Knew when to make themselves scarce.

The kitchen was as I remembered: glistening and relatively unused. A showpiece.

I took a seat at the breakfast bar without being invited. Playing up the fake vibe he was trying to give. We were old friends. There was no bad blood between us.

Aye, right.

The coffee bubbled away in a percolator. Burns poured two cups, brought them over. “No milk, aye?”

I resisted the urge to tell him to go fuck himself.

Instead, I accepted the cup.

Burns said, “A good,
honest
, businessman needs to train his brain to remember things. The smallest details matter when dealing with people, aye? Not that this mattered last time you were here.” He fixed me with what I guessed was supposed to be a friendly smile. “I was out of milk, anyway. Details, son, details. Forget someone's name for a moment and months of carefully built trust can slip down the drain. You understand that, right?”

“Aye. There's a lot of things I never forget.”

He smiled at that, chuckled and raised his mug to his lips. He sipped, placed it back down on the breakfast bar. I noticed he hadn't sat down.

I said, “You're looking well.”

“What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, right? Your granny say that as well?”

“Never knew my gran.”

“Pity. Family is important. I am a family man. Built my business so I could provide for them.”

“Aye, and they all love you for it.”

A deliberate jab, if clumsy. Burns's son was an accountant, moved to Edinburgh to escape his father once he was old enough to realise just exactly what it was dad really did for a living. The two never talked. I wondered if Burns knew anything about the lad's life.

But other than a momentary twitch, there was nothing to gauge Burn's reaction to my blunt attack.

“You know that Mary Furst was family to me. My niece. Twice removed, but all the same…and she is my goddaughter.”

“I never pictured you as the religious type.”

“Every Sunday, McNee, without fail.”

I wondered if he went to the Confessional. If so, what he talked to the Father about in there. What crimes did he admit to when he thought there was no one else around except the priest and the Lord Almighty?

What lies does a man like Burns tell his God?

He said, “She's a good girl. I'm serious. So smart, she makes me proud.” He left the kitchen, moving swiftly and with purpose. I noticed he was still talking about her in the present tense. He believed she was still alive.

Some people, knowing the things that he knew, might have already given up hope.

I stayed where I was, breathed in the scent of the coffee he'd handed me and waited.

He came back with a framed painting. A portrait of himself in oils. I figured from the slightly darker hair that it was a couple of years old.

“She was thirteen when she painted that,” he said. “Gave it to me on my birthday.” He was smiling. For a moment I could have believed he was a human being; that he could genuinely care for another person.

But I shook it off.

It was a delusion. Had to be. This man manipulated people every day. I couldn't afford to believe anything he told me.

“I'm observing the official police investigation,” I said. “Eyes and ears only.”

“For personal reasons?”

“I can't disclose that information.”

“Client privilege?”

I nodded. Figured it would keep him off my back if he thought that.

“And yet you told Jennifer Furst about the reporter?”

He must have seen the wince. I couldn't stop it. Not when I realised how Burns had figured my involvement. He wasn't simply keeping an eye on the Furst house. Jennifer Furst had called ahead first chance she got. Told him everything about my little visit.

Did I believe it could have gone down any other way?

“Whatever you want,” I said, “I'm hands off in this investigation.”

“I know what you think of me,” he said. “But I love that girl. I want to find whoever took her. I want her back at her mother's. I want another portrait drawn of me before I get too fucking old.”

Burns sipped at his coffee again.

Mine still sat untouched on the breakfast bar. Cooling.

“Last time we met, McNee, I said that I knew you. That we were more alike than you care to admit. I don't say anything I don't mean. Don't believe anything I don't think I can prove.”

“I proved you wrong.”

He smiled. Patiently. Indulgently. I wanted to punch him. “We share the same worry over Mary. My fears of course are personal. She's my goddaughter. Might as well be my own daughter. I care for her like that. You…I don't know why you're so worried about her.”

“Empathy,” I said. “Doesn't matter if she's related. Right there, that's the difference between us.”

He smiled. “Your years as a copper…they drill that hate right into you, don't they? They say about men like me, these are the bad men and they are evil. The bad men, your superiors say, are not like us. They are not like the man on the street. They are not like the
victims
. They can never be victims.”

“Would you call yourself a victim?”

He turned, took his mug to the stainless steel sink and poured away what remained of his coffee. Couldn't be cold yet.

“A survivor,” he said.

He seemed tense, shoulders bunched, and every movement controlled. Keeping his back to me, too. I remembered how he'd been in the hospital. At the time, I'd thought maybe I was the first person in years to see him truly afraid.

He'd shown me something he never intended. Something no one else had seen. Maybe that was what gave rise to his sudden conviction that we were somehow the same.

“I want to hire your services, McNee.”

“My services?”

“As an investigator. You want an ‘in' so bad to my goddaughter's disappearance…well, here's your chance. An invite, as it were. I'll hold back nothing if she's recovered safely. You'll have whatever you need. Whatever fee you require.” He turned back to face me, relaxed again, whatever fear he'd been hiding washed away as easily as the coffee down the drain.

“Working for you?”

“Is my money somehow worth less than anyone else's?”

I didn't know how to react. Settled for silence and stillness. Giving nothing away.

“You can think on it,” he said. “I don't require an answer right away. But I know that you're not working for the reporter. That you're looking into this as a favour. He never paid you.”

How did he know that?

“Whatever it costs, McNee.”

I stood up. “Thanks for the coffee,” I said. “I hope your goddaughter is found safe and well. But…respectfully…I decline to take on your case.”

“May I ask why?”

“You can ask,” I said. “But I'm not obliged to say.”

Driving away, I started slamming my fists against the steering wheel, roaring inside the confines of the car.

Torn between wanting to find the girl.

And wanting to find Burns guilty.

Of anything.

After the incident at the Western Necropolis where I had shot one man in self-defence, came close to killing another, it had been Susan who responded to the emergency call, who saved me from becoming a murderer.

I remember her riding with me in the back of the van. I was shivering from shock, my hand having been broken. She sat across from me, and when I think back on it I know that she wanted to reach out and offer comfort. But she was a professional. Had to let all of that go when she was on the job.

“Did it have to end like this?”

I didn't have a response to that.

“Why'd you even get involved in the first place?”

Did she really want me to answer?

She'd reached across, then, and touched my upper arm. I looked up, caught her eye, finally.

She said, “What is it about your life that means you take other people's business so personally? None of this needed to have involved you. You could have walked away from it all. So why didn't you?”

I didn't have an answer.

I guess I still don't.

From the office, I called Connolly.

“Tell me you have something.”

“I'm backing out,” I said.

I'd been thinking about it, driving back. Susan had said that I get involved in some cases because of guilt, not because they're a sound business decision or because the pay off is worth the risk.

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.