41

I think I know where they were taking that stuff now.

Sure, it took a while. Going to take most of the day to get there, too, scope it out, add the details to this little dossier I’ve been compiling. I’d have handed the whole thing over to the police already, but I’ve not had the best relationship with them, if I’m being honest. Who knows what would happen? What would disappear? No, I need to see this through to the end, then make sure enough of the right people know that it can’t be buried.

It’s not like they’re all bad, after all. There was Gordon at the start, and he was OK, I guess, if a bit driven. All those people he hoped to arrest on the say of a six-year-old boy who’d been traumatized to the point of murdering dozens of men, women and children in a house fire. That’s not how I thought of him at the time, of course, or how I thought of myself. I just saw him as a familiar face, a small rock of constancy in an ever-changing world. He never hurt me, never once let show the frustration he must have been feeling. The only times he ever treated me as anything other than an equal was when I asked about Maddy. Then he’d either change the subject or dismiss me with a half-answer.

Once he was gone, interest in the house fire seemed to dry up. I was too wrapped up in my own problems to really notice, but there’d be interviews, a succession of earnest or bored officers explaining what I’d done wrong or that I’d be moving to a new area or any number of other things I didn’t hear at the time. Too busy growing up and lashing out, making life miserable for anyone who tried to get too close.

And then I moved to Scotland, the west coast. A pair of middle-aged ladies living an unconventional lifestyle. Jean worked for the council, which was probably how they passed the test as suitable adopters. Sheila did some consultancy work with the police when she wasn’t lecturing at Paisley University. I guess that’s how I came to her attention in the first place. Or maybe she knew Gordon or something. It’s not important. They kept me from going completely off the rails, and gave me a purpose in life; still do, if I’m being honest, even though I don’t see much of them these days.

I’ve them to thank for bringing the police back into my life, too, I guess. That or the drugs.

I was never an addict. I know how that sounds, the sort of thing only an addict would say, but I’ve not even thought about drugs in years. It was more the crowd I hung with, what they were into. Going along with it just to be accepted. Having an English accent in a Glasgow school when everyone’s high on the thought of independence isn’t much fun.

It’s more fun than being swept up in a police raid though. Something must have pinged somewhere, because I was hauled off away from the others pretty sharpish. Next thing I knew I was talking to a man who said he knew Gordon, knew all about my background and the true name they’d taken from me. He wasn’t a bad copper as they go, a bit like Gordon only much younger, posher, like he’d been well educated. That put my back up at first. All the sad old men who’d fucked me and Maddy had talked like him.

But he let me off with a caution, then asked me if I’d be interested in working with him. With the police and the special task force he was assigned to. First job was to hack into a database and switch some data around, so the swab they’d taken from me when I was arrested wouldn’t flag up anywhere. ‘Call it a test,’ he’d said with a smile. It wasn’t even really hacking, given that I used a terminal in the police station to do it. They didn’t ask me to, but I doubled up a couple of other records, to make it harder to trace. Stuck in a little back door so I could keep an eye on things if I needed. And then I walked free.

Only, you’re never really free when someone’s got something over you, and that’s how I feel about the police. The National Crime Agency, as they call themselves these days. I hope they’re after the same sick fucks I’m after, but I’d be surprised if some of them weren’t in on it, doing their best to protect the privileged. So I watch them and they watch me.

Sure, I’m paranoid, but can you blame me?