The house was decorated in neutral colours. Greys and creams. The front room had a shag carpet, a white leather sofa, matching recliners. A big screen TV in one corner played The Xtra Factor on low volume. The one that no one really watches unless they’re obsessed, drunk, bored, or not that interested.
Which was she?
Judging by the CD racks on the wall, she wasn’t a music fan: Tesco and Asda’s idea of the top selling artists of all time dominated. Phil Collins. Meatloaf. Bonnie Tyler. A little Beyoncé to show her modern side. A bland kind of normalcy.
If there is one sign of a true sociopath, it’s this: they will always have at least one Phil Collins album in their collection.
If they have more than one, chances are they’ve killed at least two people. Probably while listening to Phil. The only thing worse would be a Sting solo album.
I scanned the shelves more closely.
Check.
Gemma offered me a seat on the sofa beneath the window. I took it. Our eyes remained locked. Did she blink?
She sat on the other sofa, crossed her legs. Maybe trying for sexy, but the effect was neutered by her eyes. They looked at me with the kind of gaze a butterfly collector might reserve for their latest specimen right before it goes under the glass.
‘Your friend was killed?’
‘He was my client.’
‘Oh?’
‘There were a lot of people who might have wanted to harm him. I’m just …’
‘He was a singer, then? Or actor? Didn’t recognize him.’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Sounds juicy.’
‘I want to talk to you about the night we met. Maybe you saw someone else hanging around?’
‘Someone who could have killed your friend?’ Her voice was carefully neutral. Her head moved forward. Made me think of a praying mantis. To become so detached takes a natural predisposition and a lot of practice.
‘Yes, that’s what I was thinking …’
She nodded. ‘Sure you don’t want a tea?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Still, think I could do with one. Maybe with something a little stronger in there, too?’
I nodded. She stood up and walked to the door. She stopped, looked back at me over her shoulder. ‘You never did say how you found out who I was …’
I didn’t say anything. Let her leave.
Did she know that I knew? Was she going to make a run for it?
I waited for a moment. Then stood up. I checked those CDs again. Not wanting to appear too eager. We were playing Chicken. First one to give away the fact that they knew what the other was hiding was the loser.
After a few moments, I walked through to the back of the house. Slow and casual. She was filling the kettle. Perfectly ordinary. The kitchen was long, galley-style with clear glass-fronted cabinets and a table that folded out from the wall. The back door was at the far end, with a frosted glass porthole at head height.
Gemma said, ‘You think I was going to make a run for it?’
‘You know why I’m here?’
‘You mean, dropping all the shite?’
‘Yes.’
‘You tell me.’
‘You know who I am.’
‘You’re a lucky man, Mr McNee. Tell me why the police aren’t outside. Tell me why they’re not chapping on the door right now.’
‘They don’t know.’
‘Is it true what they say about you?’
‘Depends.’
‘That you used to be one of the good guys. You were polis, and now you work for whoever pays the most?’
‘I work for the people I choose to work for.’
‘Not really an answer.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Sure you don’t want any tea? Or just the whisky?’
I shook my head.
She turned the kettle on. ‘Tea’s good for you. Relaxing. Nothing like it. Got to be good and milky, though. A touch of sugar when you’re feeling indulgent. And, well, the other bit’s optional …’
‘I’m not interested in you,’ I said. ‘I’m interested in who hired you.’
‘You were a professional investigator,’ she said. ‘Before they chucked you out of the Association.’
‘You’ve done your homework.’
‘They give me a job, I like to know what I’m up against. The preparation …’
‘Is part of the thrill.’
‘You get it, then?’
‘Sure.’
And maybe I did. There was something to be said about the prep work on an investigation. Whether the case was as simple as a cheating spouse or more complex, such as a skip trace, it was the work you did before diving into the investigation that intrigued.
The foreplay.
And that was how she saw it. It was clear. She delighted in the lingering time before the main event. The fire and the explosion and the flames got her off, but the delay of the event was just as enticing in its own way.
She smiled. ‘Once I tell you what you want to know, who’s to say you won’t just call the cops, anyway?’
‘I have an honest face?’
‘Maybe you did when you were younger. But you’re getting lines, Mr McNee. Bags under the eyes. How do you sleep at night?’
‘How do you sleep?’
‘Would you like to find out?’
I shook my head.
‘I could set your world on fire.’
‘I bet you could.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘You tell me what I want to know.’
‘And why would I do that?’
I smiled. ‘Because if you don’t talk to me, someone else will be here.’
‘And what if you don’t walk out of here?’
‘Oh, we have an arrangement. You know who I work for. You know that the man you were hired to kill was his nephew. And you know what will happen if he ever finds out who you are. He won’t care that someone paid you. He won’t care that you didn’t know who you were sent to murder.’
‘So I tell you, and you call off the bloodhounds?’
‘Something like that.’
She finished her tea. Lots of milk. No sugar. Sipped at it swiftly. Little pecks. A hummingbird grabbing pollen from a flower. ‘Jesus,’ she said. As though He could somehow help. ‘Sophie’s choice, eh?’
I didn’t say a word.
Was this what I had become?
The man who judged others? The man who chose who got to have a choice and who didn’t? A good man would have called the police and told them what he knew. Instead, I alienated the authorities and delivered my own justice. As though I didn’t trust the police to follow through on their own remit.
I was a stubborn bastard. Because I believed my own bullshit. In my head, I was the white knight, the one person who could make the world better. Who could wade through the sewage of the world and rescue the things worth saving. The flotsam and jetsam of decency and morality.
The white knight can do no wrong. Sometimes you have to do the wrong things for the right reasons. Those were the lessons I had learned from movies in the eighties when I was growing up. You can kill the bad guys and everything will still be all right because they were bad and you were good. Anyone can do anything for the right reasons.
I had got away with it once.
Twice, in fact.
Now I believed in my own immunity.
But did that still make me one of the good guys?
Gemma Fairstead had killed a man. Not a pleasant man, but not a monster either. Just someone with a confidence issue and an impossible need to live up to the reputation of his uncle. She had killed before. I was sure of it. She may not have explicitly admitted to it, but she wanted to. Just beneath that calm exterior, the pride at what she’d done scrabbled to burst out and announce itself to the world. Like the alien in the Ridley Scott movies.
Regardless of what she had done, who she had hurt, did I have any right to threaten her? Did I have any right to judge her with no one else to witness my decision?
The ABI had suspended me under suspicion of breaking the ethical code of the association. Had I taken this as a licence to become a vigilante?
I said, ‘This is your decision. Just tell me how to find Craig Nairn.’
She smiled. ‘You knew his name all along?’
Sometimes you go fishing when you just think there’s a shark in the water. ‘Never start an interview where you don’t know the answers you’re looking for.’
‘You’re good.’ She smiled, but behind those eyes I couldn’t be sure if she wasn’t mocking me.
‘A telephone number … an address …’
‘So … you send the heavies after him instead of me?’
‘Do you really care?’
She was the gun. She wasn’t pulling the trigger. She was a psychopath, no question, and maybe if she hadn’t killed Robert Burns, she would have killed someone else. But it was her nature. Burns wanted someone to blame. And that person, ultimately, was Craig Nairn. The man who wanted to topple the old monarch and become the new king.
Part of me would have left them to settle their own private war. But I was in the middle of it, now. No turning back. No getting out.
I had started this. I would finish it, too.
‘Just tell me where to find him.’
‘There’s a number I called. All I had. These things, they don’t work by just picking a number out of the Yellow Pages.’
‘But you knew who he was?’
‘He didn’t tell me his name, but I figure it’s the same man. Be a coincidence if two men wanted your friend dead for different reasons.’
Maybe not. But I didn’t say anything.
She wrote the number on the back of a kitchen roll. I put it in my pocket. ‘Thank you.’
‘What happens now?’
‘To you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whatever you like.’
She didn’t trust me. Had no reason to. I could have called Burns and told him that she was here. She might have given me what I wanted, but that meant she was no longer useful to me. Why should I care? Just because she was the gun and not the person pulling the trigger wouldn’t really make any difference to David Burns. He’d want her and Nairn dead. He’d want Nairn’s family dead. Everyone the man had ever known. Because in his head, that would be the only thing that could cancel out the blood-soaked tragedy of his nephew’s murder.
But would it make a difference?
Any of it?
I turned to go.
The glass on the kitchen door shattered.
I turned. Two men barged through. Heavy-set. Dark clothes. Knit hats. Rough faces. I didn’t recognize them. One of them grabbed Gemma, knocked her legs out from under her. She fell to the ground.
The other came at me. I tried to sidestep him, but the kitchen was too narrow. He punched low, caught me in the stomach with his fist. A meat sledgehammer. Knocked the wind out of me. Nearly knocked my lunch out, too.
I doubled over. He grabbed my hair, pulled my head back. I went on my knees. Slow. He kept up the pressure.
‘Don’t make this any worse than it has to be,’ he said. ‘We’re here for her. But you, pal, you’re just an added bonus.’