‘Where are you?’
Crossing the Tay Bridge and heading into Fife. But I wasn’t about to tell Griggs. He could go hang for all I cared.
‘Driving.’
‘For him?’
‘For myself.’
‘I’ve got people breathing down my neck, McNee. They need answers. Results.’
‘This could have ended long before now. You know that. Your bosses have to know it, too.’
‘Aye, it could have. But not the right way.’
His constant refrain. The insistence was worrying. He didn’t just want to see Burns behind bars. He wanted the old man to suffer. This was old-school justice. Did Griggs give a damn about the legality of his operation?
What had fuelled this obsession?
Griggs had crossed a lot of people in his time. He’d nearly been killed during the final days of the Kennedy brothers’ reign in the city’s east end; a long-held grudge spilling over and landing him in hospital. In those days, the old man had been keeping his head down, waiting to see the end of his rivals as their empire imploded. Griggs had never been involved in the investigations into Burns’s activities, except on the periphery. They had no reason to deal with each other.
So what happened?
Was I asking the wrong questions? Looking in the wrong places?
In the bad old days I had been searching for surrogate bad guys: people I could blame for all the bad shite in the world. Maybe Griggs was the same, fixating all his anger on someone he had never really known, but who fit a certain profile.
Maybe that was it. But it didn’t sit right. Didn’t feel true.
‘You have to trust me,’ I said. ‘Some things that I do …’
‘I’m better off not knowing?’
‘Deniability. It works for the old man, right?’
‘Just remember why we’re doing this.’
‘Never leaves my mind.’
When I cleared the line, I was on the dual carriageway, heading deep into Fife. I turned off the main roads, on to winding country tracks. Flicked the headlights on full, illuminated the farmland before me. The crops cast long shadows.
I drove through small villages, past Guardbridge, hitting the oddly angled roundabout, taking the long way round to Cupar. Using the drive to clear my mind. The roads were quiet. Lambchop provided the soundtrack. The sound low, the music twisting in my brain.
Cupar’s a small market town that’s seen better days. Its home to one of Fife’s biggest secondary schools, and while the council operates its offices from the town, there’s a feeling like it’s little more than a commuter base. Nothing ever happens. If you want quiet, it’s the place to be.
I drove through the main artery, turned off at the war memorial, tripped alongside the river Eden and out to a small estate on the edge of the town. New buildings. A hope for the future when they went up in the sixties, now they looked tired and ready for their end. Small, boxy bungalows. Lawns in various stages of trim. Some resolutely proud. Others despondently forgotten.
I found the house I wanted. Same as the rest on the outside. A beat-up looking Fiesta parked on the street. Second-hand or long cared for? Hard to say.
I walked to the front door. Someone was in. Light sliced out from behind the dark curtains that swung across the living room window.
I rang the bell. Waited.
When she answered, Gemma Fairstead had to fight not to do a double take. But for just a moment, her eyes went wide and the blood rushed from her cheeks. Maybe she had expected me to be dead along with the mark. Maybe she thought I’d never make the connection.
Maybe she just never thought about the consequences of her actions.
On that, at least, I could relate.
But she couldn’t know why I was here. Not if she was to maintain the innocent act. She had to keep up the bluff she’d played the night we met.
I wasn’t going to make it easy on her.
‘It’s late.’
‘You don’t remember me?’
‘I … no. No, I don’t.’
‘Two nights ago, you were in Dundee. Round the back of Tay Mills, heading towards the clubs, I think. Liquid. Sams, maybe.’
‘Right. Maybe.’
‘We talked.’
‘I had a wee bit to drink. But … I don’t give out my telephone …’
‘On the street. We met on the street.’
‘I …’
‘I was with a friend. He was a little the worse for wear.’
‘I’m sorry. I hope he’s feeling bett—’
‘He’s feeling dead.’
She licked her lips. You wouldn’t see the sweat if you weren’t looking for it. She could keep cool even after the initial shock. In her line of work she had to develop that skill. You work with incendiaries, you quickly learn the dangers that panic can bring. You suppress the natural instincts that come with fight or flight. If you don’t, most likely, you die.
I used to know a guy worked bomb disposal for the army. Best poker player I ever knew. Because he could suppress his tics. Control his involuntary twitches. He had to. One wrong twitch on the job, he wouldn’t have the hands to hold his cards.
It was the same thing with Gemma. Her obsession was dangerous. If she didn’t respect that, she’d have been dead long ago. She had the cool, collected nature of someone accustomed to extreme pressure.
Talk about transferable skills.
‘What happened? To your friend.’ Like she didn’t know. But I could have believed her if I allowed myself a moment of doubt.
‘Let’s talk inside,’ I said.
‘I don’t know who you are.’
I pulled my wallet, showed her my ABI card. Of course I was no longer a member of the Association – they suspended my membership when the questions about my legal conduct were first raised, and while no one had officially made a statement, I assumed from the long silence that my suspension was probably a permanent expulsion – but I still had the ID, and most people wouldn’t bother to check any further than that. It’s the same phenomenon that allows you to walk in almost anywhere wearing a suit and carrying a clipboard. People are lazy enough to assume that if you look like who they think you are, there’s no way that you could lie to them.
I had one more advantage as I talked my way through the front door of Gemma Fairstead’s place: she was trying to appear normal. She was the one with something to hide; lying just as much to me as I was to her.
She wanted to be duped.
Just to appear normal.