The old high rises were coming down. Once dominant on Dundee’s skyline on approach from the West, the old symbols of poverty and hopelessness – in the twenty-first century, it was hard to believe they were conceived as part of a shiny, utopian future – were being demolished. One by one, they were disappearing. Old mistakes being erased in the hope that no one would remember them. In their place, the council had created shiny little villages and called them estates. With the blue plastic window frames and the clean brickwork, these new council houses felt cleaner and safer than the old high rises with their rickety lifts and corridors daubed with graffiti. But it was tempting to wonder whether all anyone had done was brush the old problems under the carpet, and apply a fresh coat of paint. Sooner or later, the old issues would come back to the surface. But for now these new estates seemed hopeful, busy and thriving.
The address that White gave us was a low-roofed bungalow along a street of similar looking houses. A small driveway, but no sign of a car. A trampoline dominated the front garden, such as it was. The woman who lived at the address had two kids. Rumours said the children were Nairn’s, but she had always claimed the father to be another man who had vanished some 8 years earlier, after the birth of the second child. A waster. A drug addict. A man who was bound to disappear sooner or later. Probably not through his own volition.
I walked to the front door myself. The old man waited further down the street with Malone. Out of sight.
I tapped out six short raps. Stepped back. Resisted the urge to pull out ID, like I was still on the force.
The woman who answered wore hooped earrings and a fake tan that was beginning to streak just a little. Her naturally dark hair showed at the roots, contrasting with the bottle blonde curls that were sprayed to within an inch of their lives and hooked stiffly around her shoulders.
‘Aye?’
‘I’m looking for Craig Nairn.’
‘Nut,’ she said. ‘Don’t ken that name.’ Bad liar. She did, of course. Her eyes gave it away. She was terrified. Of me? I was sure she wasn’t scared of Nairn.
‘I’m not police.’
‘Don’t care. No one here called Craig, right? So fuck off. Sharp-like.’
I shrugged. Shouted past her, ‘Tell him it’s McNee.’
Nairn came down from upstairs. Slow. Cautious. His head forward so he could get a good look and see it really was me. ‘The fuck d’you want? The fuck did you find me here?’
‘Jesus, Craig, someone’s going to see—’
‘Shut up, and go watch telly. Me and this man need to have a wee chat.’ He was smiling. Maybe still convinced of his own hard man image. Thinking he’d fooled me the other night.
The woman looked ready to argue but then just shook her head and walked away. Her bare feet didn’t make a sound on the laminated wood flooring.
Nairn said, ‘You really are a detective. How the fuck’d’you work out I was here? Or did we rattle your brain pan so hard you actually got smart?’ Cocky. Arrogant. Believing his own press.
‘A wee birdie told me.’
‘Aye?’
‘Oh, aye.’ That wasn’t me. Another voice from behind me. Low baritone. Cracked with age but still conveying the strength and brutality on which its owner had made its name.
Nairn made to bolt.
I lunged in, grabbed at his legs, tripped him on the stairs. Poor man’s rugby tackle. But it worked. He landed hard.
‘What the fu—’ The bottle blonde came back out to have a go at me and her man, stopped talking when she saw Burns and Malone.
Malone said, ‘You and me, darling, are going to go check on the kiddies, aye? While these lads have a little chat.’ He stepped towards her. She backed off.
On the stairs, Nairn made a moaning sound. Sounding like a child who’s been caught hiding the remains of his mother’s good china under the bed after weeks of protesting his innocence as to where it had gone.