NOW, THIS is the point where the damn sexy woman walks into the private detective’s office looking like five feet five inches of pulp-novelesque seductive trouble. Her name was Maeve Campbell, she had long brown hair, dark eyes, a small mouth and when she smiled her cheeks dimpled. She was wearing a dark blue skirt under a dark coat and she sat with her pale legs crossed in front of Sholto’s desk. He cleared his throat and his dirty mind and welcomed her.
“How can we help you, Miss Campbell?”
She tried to look decorously sad when she spoke, but there was too much anger and it spoiled the impression. She said, “My boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend, I suppose, was murdered, about a month ago. The police have been investigating, but they haven’t found anything and I’m certain they won’t. They don’t want to. I do. That’s why I’m here.”
Sholto said, “I’m very sorry about your, uh, ex-boyfriend, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do to help you. That’s a police matter, it has to be left to them. We can’t interfere with that sort of case, a murder inquiry; it would be criminal for us to do so.”
She scowled and said, “There is no inquiry to interfere with; they’ve given up on him. Not that they broke a sweat in the first place, because they don’t want to find the person who killed him.”
Darian asked, “Why wouldn’t they?”
Maeve looked across the room at him, Darian sitting behind his desk at the window. She appraised him in a heartbeat, a woman who always knew what her best chance looked like. He was seething, the kind of anger that would trick a smart person into making misjudgments. Darian wanted to do the right thing, to bring a morsel of justice to a city that wallowed in a lack of it. He was too good a man to avoid bad decisions. The fire of anger inside him had cooled, but he was still hot to the touch and Maeve Campbell touched him.
He had taken the train up to Three O’clock Station in Whisper Hill that morning to tell the woman who had hired them to catch Lucas that her attacker was untouchable, thanks to the Challaid Police Force, a hellish conversation.
It’s worth a detour to point out that the names of the station, the hill and that district of the city, the furthest north-easterly side of the loch, came from an old folk tale about Bodach Gaoith. It started as a story from the late seventeenth century, before it was updated in the nineteenth, fleshed out a little. That’s the version local kids get spoon-fed in primary school. The moral, they’re told, is that being adventurous is good and the elderly have great knowledge and much to offer. A better message might be to keep a closer eye on your children before they wander off and meet weird men up a hill.
It’s also worth mentioning that the story first became popular when Scotland was trying to create its own little empire in Central America, and came back into fashion when we were thinking of war in the early twentieth as the three Caledonian countries were gaining independence. Through that prism the message that bold adventures are a good thing looks a little more cynical, doesn’t it?
Maeve said, “My…ex, his name was Moses Guerra; he was involved in some things. He was a crook, that’s the truth of it, and his crookedness was probably what got him killed. He was the sort of criminal who made money for people who want the world to think they’re saintly, and that’s why the police don’t want to dig any deeper. The bones of credible people are down there, and they don’t want the scandal of finding them. They brought in the anti-corruption unit and they did a damn good job of shrinking the investigation until it was small enough to focus only on me.”
Sholto was already shaking his hands in the air in front of him like a man in a foreign country who couldn’t verbalize his distress. “No. No, no, no. I’m sorry, but that’s not an investigation we can have any part in. That’s a case that only the police can handle, and any other research or investigative company will tell you the same. I’m sorry.”
Maeve looked at him and then across at Darian, the target that mattered. “It was clear from the start they weren’t interested in catching the killer. A Detective Inspector Corey has been leading the investigation, and all I’ve had from him are sly hints that he thinks I was involved. That’s what he’s aiming for, to persuade the world that I was the main suspect but never actually arrest anyone. It keeps people’s eyes focused on me and off the truth.”
“What did your boyfriend do?”
“Ex-boyfriend. We had split up, although, I suppose, there was still a chance for us. Moses handled money, took in dirty cash and rehabilitated it. He was a sort of accountant, but not really, he wasn’t qualified, just talented, and he used qualified people to add legitimacy. He connected people in possession of money they shouldn’t have to people who’d take a small cut of it to make the rest look like it had always belonged to the original owner. He dealt with real accountants and businesses and banks. He was the point of contact for the people needing to use the service; they’d deliver to Moses and after a long journey of cleansing it would be filtered back to the original person by him. It was Moses who created the network in the first place, and it seemed to work. He met a lot of people that way, a lot of people who are more important than this city cares to admit.”
She had turned in the chair to face Darian now, Sholto behind her still waving his hands as if semaphore was making a comeback. Darian said, “There are a lot of people fitting that description. Why does Corey think you might be responsible?”
“He doesn’t. Moses and I had an argument, I hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks, Corey has tried to make that tiff seem big enough to kill a man. I’m convenient, that’s all. My greatest crime was proximity to the victim. Corey doesn’t have to prove I’ve done anything wrong, he just has to persuade enough people with innuendo that I probably did so they have an excuse to stop looking elsewhere. I get to be the clichéd femme fatale so he can cover bigger beasts’ tracks.”
Darian nodded, both to her and to Sholto behind her. “That’s a very serious accusation. I’m sorry, Miss Campbell, but a murder investigation really is a police matter and if we were to get involved we would be breaking the law ourselves. You can make an official complaint about the current investigation and try to force a change in the investigating team.”
She had an angry smile now. “So you won’t help me? A man is murdered and nobody gives a shit about finding out who did it? My God, this is some city, it really is.”
Maeve got up and walked quickly to the office door. She stopped as she opened it and looked back at them both, thinking of something clever and cutting to say, but the anger that filled her and Darian both, it smothered things like wit. She slammed the door behind her as a petulant alternative.
Sholto started speaking as soon as the door stopped rattling. “Now you listen here, Darian Ross, please. You are not to go after her, you are not to get involved in anything, and I mean anything at all, that Folan Corey is at the heart of. That woman, she’s only going to lead you down the road to ruin.”
“I know.”
“You know, yes, you do, but knowing is only half the battle. A young man, all hopped up on justice and anger and seeing a vixen with legs up to her arse and dark eyes that weepingly tell you she needs your help, you’re likely to make a poor choice. It was a long time ago, but I’ve been there before and the scene hasn’t changed a bit. That woman is grief in nice packaging, and you stay away.”
Darian smiled and said, “I hear you, Sholto, don’t worry. I’ll stay away from her and I’ll stay away from Corey.”