THE COLD fingers of worry squeezed his heart when he saw the motorcycle parked outside his flat. It was a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, and it belonged to his older brother Sorley. His one bold extravagance. Darian didn’t mention it to Sholto, let him stop the car and say goodnight as he got out. He watched Sholto drive away and then went into the flat.
He loved his brother unconditionally, but there was a wall between them. Clear enough that they could see each other through it, but too firm to knock a hole in. Theirs wasn’t a sibling problem akin to The Waiting King and The Gaelic Queen, no violence and hatred, but it was awkward. Darian owed his brother too much, he and his younger sister Catriona both did. Sorley had been seventeen when their father had gone to prison. He had, with minimal help from their aunt Ann-Margaret, raised his curious fourteen-year-old brother and whip-smart twelve-year-old sister. Their aunt was, technically, their legal guardian, but she was a walking screwball comedy and chose not to even live in the same house as them.
The children’s hearts had been cracked by their mother’s death from cancer three years before, and a hammer was swinging toward them with their father gone, too. Sorley had thrown himself in front of it; let his heart break and prospects crumble to protect his siblings.
He had been an intelligent boy who excelled at camanachd, loved design and had talked about a career in architecture, but instead he dropped out of school and went to work. Odd that Darian, so inquisitive even then, hadn’t worked out that his brother was living a life of crime to pay for them. On reflection he could see that he hadn’t wanted to know. Sorley brought enough money back to the nice family house in the Cnocaid district to carry on the comfortable life their parents, a teacher and a detective, had given them. Then Darian grew up and moved out when he got a job with Sholto, and Cat went to university. It annoyed Sorley that they both stayed in a city he thought was poison, but he never mentioned it. Instead he sold the family house on Treubh Road and split the money evenly three ways so Cat wouldn’t have to worry about student debts and Darian could buy his new flat. Darian and Cat did both wonder if he really split it evenly, or if he gave them both some of his share.
Darian went into the building and up the stairs. He smelled the wisps of a San Jose cigarette before he turned the corner up to his floor. Sorley was sitting on the top step, looking bulky and bored, the cigarette dangling loose between his fingers. Sorley was the only one of the kids who got his looks from their father’s side of the family. Where Darian and Cat were both feminine, pretty, Sorley was a solid block with dark hair and eyes, thin lips and a square jaw, a long forehead and nose just slightly too big. He had a moody expression so often it had to be deliberate. He stubbed the cigarette out on the tiled floor beside him when he saw Darian.
“Getting bored waiting for you. I hope your late night was fun.”
Darian smiled sheepishly and said, “I’m on my own, so…”
He stepped past Sorley, making a note to pick up the crushed cigarette butt when his brother had left so the other residents on his floor wouldn’t complain. He unlocked the door and they went inside, through to the living room. Sorley had never been to the flat before so he took a good look around.
“Good job I wasn’t planning on swinging any cats.”
Darian got defensive and said, “It’s perfect for me. Good location, near the station, view of the loch. And the value’s going up all the time, every place in Bank is.”
“Aye, well, good. Still, about time you got something with an engine in it to get you around instead of using those shitty trains. They’re always late and dirty and miles away from everywhere. Only reason the bloody things don’t get lost is because they can’t. You should get a bike.”
“I’d be pretty easy to spot on some old classic.”
“Aye, well, you can get something a lot more boring than mine that would still let you slice through the traffic.”
The inevitable silence fell, two young men who should have had plenty to say to each other but couldn’t hold a conversation down and force it to talk. They were brothers, three years apart, and they cared deeply about each other, which was why Sorley was there. It was him who ended the quiet.
“I hear you’re sniffing round after the fragrant Maeve Campbell. That true?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“It true?”
“We have a job on. Her boyfriend was killed and we’re following the money trail, that’s all. What’s it got to do with you?”
“Doesn’t have a damn thing to do with me. I heard about Moses Guerra, and I know Maeve Campbell is worse news than the weather forecast. You should stay away from her, and from any investigation the anti-corruption unit are driving before they run you over with it. You and that fucking amadan Sholto, you’ll get splatted if you’re not careful.”
“We know what we’re doing.”
“No, you don’t. You’re following a good-looking girl and you got this huge sense of justice right in your face so you can’t see much past the end of your nose. She’s using you for something, it’s all she ever does, and the ACU won’t stand for someone like you sticking a finger in their pie. Just leave them all to their bullshit, go back to hassling poor people for rich clients, that’s safe ground.”
“They never found out who killed Guerra, but he deserves the truth being known. Don’t give me that look, everyone deserves that much.”
“If it was the girl then she wouldn’t have hired you, if it was for his work then it was heavier trouble than you can pick up. Either way you’re fucked.”
Darian said nothing. He spoke so rarely to his brother and here was Sorley bringing grief to his door in the dark of night.
“If you know something about who killed Moses…”
“I don’t. It was probably his work and it was definitely something Corey’s unit has a better chance of uncovering than you and Sholto do. Big-time criminals, that’s who you’re looking for. If you want to see what honor among thieves looks like you can usually find it lying in an alleyway covered in blood. This is out of your league, both of you. I remember Sholto, when he was working with Da; he never had the balls for it then and I don’t think he could grow them this late in life.”
Darian frowned and Sorley would have realized, a second too late, that he had offended him. Sholto had been good to Darian, giving him a job after their father went away, keeping an eye on the family. He may never have been the world’s most competent detective, but Sholto was a decent man and rarity gave that value. Sorley saw too little of good men in his world to recognize the worth. It went quiet again so the older brother took a different route, aiming for shared interests.
“Did you ever play the game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons?”
“No. It good?”
“Yeah, it is. It’s about these two young brothers and their mother’s dead and their father’s dying and they have to go find the cure for him. I know you’re making contacts that can help you prove Da is innocent; get him out of The Ganntair. I’m doing the same, just coming from the opposite direction. You the cops and me the criminals.”
“Meaning?”
“The game, Brothers, it doesn’t have a happy ending. All the stuff you’ve been doing, a man like DI Corey can ruin all of that, prevent you from ever getting Da out. Or you could lose more in the journey than you get from the destination. One error of judgment can make it all worthless, that’s the point I’m making.”
Darian said nothing to that either. He did try to make contacts with all the cops he could, journalists and businesspeople who might help him uncover the evidence he needed to prove their father was no killer, no thief. He had always known Sorley was doing the same thing using very different methods.
Sorley asked about their little sister before he left. “How’s Cat?”
“Good, I saw her last week. She was saying the three of us should get together a lot more often, Sunday lunch or something like that, make it a regular thing.”
“Yeah, she said something like that last time I saw her, last month. She came down to watch my camanachd team play the university side at Barr Park; she was full of big ideas that’ll never happen.”
“You win?”
“Against a bunch of middle-class university nerds? Hammered God’s green snot out of them.”
“You wish she’d left the city, don’t you?”
“I’m proud she’s at university, but I wish it was somewhere else. We should all have gotten out of Challaid first chance we got.”
“Then we couldn’t help Da.”
“We might not be able to help him from here, and spending our lives trying might be a bad idea.”
Sorley left and Darian struggled to avoid crying. Sadness ran through him every time he talked to Sorley, his big brother who was so clever, so strong, and reduced to running second-rate scams with bit-part gangsters. He was a talented young man, but he lived a life wasted to give Darian and Cat what they had.