19

‘Where’d you learn to play bass like that?’

McLean was about to step out into the street when a voice from behind stopped him. He turned to see the shaven-headed young woman, Margie, standing in the darkness.

‘What, you mean badly?’ He saw the smile flicker briefly over her lips. ‘I played in a band when I was your age. Probably not the sort of stuff you’re into. We were all New Romantics.’

‘Oh aye? What were you called then? Your band?’

McLean paused before answering, remembered a time when he was still in his teens. How different the world had been then, and yet in many ways just the same. There’d been a point in his life where music was the most important thing to him. More important even than hopes of getting off with one of the girls from the college for young ladies at the other side of town from his hated boarding school. He’d bullied his grandma into buying him the bass guitar, scrimped and saved for an amplifier. He’d practised until his fingers bled, then daubed them with rubbing alcohol to build up calluses. Never really felt he was good enough to play in a band, but a couple of the other boys in his house shared the same taste in music, so they’d formed one anyway. Until term ended and the dream faded.

‘Sweet Jane. After the Lou Reed song. We weren’t very good.’

‘Neither are that lot.’ Margie hooked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the auditorium, where something distantly related to music was clattering away.

‘You’re supposed to suck, though. When you start out. That’s the bit no one told me. We were rubbish and gave up after a couple of months. I’ve not picked up a bass guitar in twenty years. More, probably.’

‘Fuckin’ ’ell. Gary weren’t even born twenty years ago. Talk about old man!’ Margie’s face lit up with mirth, then hardened again. ‘You mean it about that truck crash? Eric? Could he have been one of the …?’ She tailed off, too young to contemplate death so easily.

‘It’s only circumstantial at the moment, but his dad’s worried. That’s why he asked me to try and track him down. I’m in charge of investigating the crash, too, and we’ve still a lot of work to do on that.’

‘You can do DNA and stuff, though, can’t you? Find out that way, right?’

‘We can, and we will. But it takes time. Could be Eric’s one of the dead. I hope not, but it’s possible. If he’s not, though, then he’s missing. Been gone three days, and his dad’s a senior policeman. That’s a security risk right there, so I need to try and find him.’

‘Eric hates his dad, you know? Hates everything he stands for. The law. Government oppression. The man.’

‘I’m not going to try and argue him round to my way of thinking. You neither.’ McLean leaned against the doorjamb, cool evening air on the back of his neck, noise from the rehearsals sounding increasingly like a pair of empty dustbins dropped down a mineshaft.

‘He’s gone missing before, y’ken? His dad tell you that?’

McLean opened his mouth to answer, but Margie interrupted him.

‘Eric’s a good bass player, you know. Sings better’n Gary, too, but he’s shy. Doesn’t like to make a spectacle of himself. Only way he can get through a gig is if he’s had something. Booze, maybe, or some hash. Sometimes he’ll get into something stronger. Fuck, I shouldn’t be telling you this. You’re a fucking polis man. How’d you do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Get people to trust you, like?’

McLean shrugged, fished around in his pocket until he found a business card. He held it out for Margie to take. ‘Look, I said it before and I meant it. I’m not here to close you down or arrest you for anything. I’m just trying to find Eric for his father. You’ve helped me just by letting me know about the drugs. I’ll not ask you to give me any more details than that. But if you think of anything, or even if you just see him in the street, give me a call, OK? It’ll go no further than that.’

A large, white BMW soft-roader sat on the drive almost blocking McLean’s route to the back door when he finally arrived home later that evening. He inched his Alfa carefully past it, not wanting to scratch the shiny new paintwork on the rhododendron bushes that lined the driveway. The house might have been ridiculously large for two people with a small third one on the way, but it had been built at a time when horse-drawn carriages were the most elegant form of transport. Much narrower than modern machinery. He hadn’t appreciated how small his old Alfa had been compared to almost everything else on the road with four wheels. Thinking about it brought a curious pang of regret and nostalgia for the little car. Only a few months since it had been destroyed and he already missed it.

Warm smells of curry wafted past him as he pushed through the back door and on into the kitchen. No sign of any people, but Mrs McCutcheon’s cat looked up from her space in front of the Aga. An empty beer bottle stood on the table, but there was no sign of any food. Suspicious, McLean pulled out his phone, checking for any angry texts demanding to know where he was. Nothing, and he’d told Emma that morning he would be working late. He’d thought she was going to be, too, given the sheer amount of forensic work that had come in following the truck crash. But it had been her day off, hadn’t it. He remembered now.

Voices spilled from an open door as he stepped through into the hallway, but they didn’t come from the library. He hardly ever went into the dining room, yet another reminder of how ridiculously large and ostentatious this house was, but now the lights were on and there was laughter inside. As he gently pushed open the door and peered in, it died away slowly.

‘Tony. Finally you’re home. Thought you were going to stay out all night.’

Emma heaved herself out of her chair and waddled across the room, enveloping him in a welcoming hug. He hadn’t noticed before, but she smelled differently. Not just the curry that she had obviously been eating, there was something else. Her face seemed rounder, too, the angles of her cheekbones smoothed away. He was so transfixed by it that it took him a while to register who else was in the room.

The car outside had been a giveaway, of course. He’d borrowed it from his best friend and professor of biomechanics, Phil Jenkins, just a few months earlier and almost not given it back. Phil’s wife Rachel smiled from her seat at the far end of the table, alongside a baby chair in which her son, Tony Junior, burbled happily. McLean hadn’t been expecting a third adult, although he recognized her well enough.

‘Jenny. Hi. Haven’t seen you since …’ He stopped talking, remembering the night that Heather Marchmont had died. The night he’d not known who he could turn to until he had remembered Rachel’s older sister. Only, by the time she had arrived at the house, Emma was there, returned from two years travelling the world. Unexpected, complicated. It had been a strange evening.

‘It’s been busy.’ Jenny stood, came over to the doorway and gave him a hug. ‘We sold the shop and the flat. Moved everything to a warehouse out of town. It’s all online nowadays, but business is booming.’

‘I’m … pleased to hear that. It’s good to see you. All of you.’ McLean turned to Emma. ‘Did I know they were coming?’

Phil let out a bark of laughter that shocked a little squeak of surprise from Tony Junior and got him a scowl from Emma. He ignored it, stood up and crossed the room. ‘No, we dropped by unannounced. When we heard you were working, we were going to reschedule, but she insisted. Even phoned for a curry. Tuck in.’ He pointed to the table. ‘I’ll go grab you a beer.’