Mitchell wasn’t so sure herself what happened to Griggs. She had an idea, but couldn’t prove anything. A few things had happened to Griggs during his last few years with Tayside that might explain the changes in his behaviour.
Starting with the charges brought against him for police brutality.
‘The accusations were nonsense. Griggs was an outstanding officer. A force of moral constancy. Ask me five or six years – even five or six weeks – ago for a man who embodied the ideals of the Scottish police force, and I’d have said Sandy Griggs.’
Following the incident – Griggs had been set up by a local politician with a grudge – Griggs continued his career with enthusiasm and determination. Occasionally, he skated close to the edge of acceptable conduct, but he always did the right thing. Never once led D&C to believe he was anything other than a dedicated and upstanding officer. His flaws were human. Relatable. Understandable.
When he joined the SCDEA, Griggs had been a young hotshot. He had proved himself on the street. They expected great things from him on a national level. But something got in the way. He developed an obsession with a particular Dundee criminal: David Burns.
‘Do you know what started it?’ I asked.
Mitchell hesitated before answering. She played for time by rubbing her right hand along the back of her neck, as though massaging the answer out of herself. ‘A number of things. But mostly … Griggs made a connection between the man who tried to frame him all those years ago and Burns. It was a connection the SCDEA had been aware of for some time, but Griggs had been kept in the dark.’
‘Why?’
‘The politician in question was … well, he was involved in some less than salubrious hobbies …’
‘Sex?’
‘What are the two things that catch most folk out?’
‘Sex and drugs.’
‘Rock and roll comes a distant third. But, aye. Sex. He was …’ She didn’t quite know how to put it. Her impassive expression collapsed for a moment. Why bother to hide her disgust? ‘He liked to get his privates out in public places. Griggs caught him doing it once, and the bastard never got over the humiliation. But that was just the start. The man had a thing for working girls, too. And, well, he got caught out again. But this time, Griggs had nothing to do with it.’
David Burns’s honey traps were notorious. The stuff of station-gossip legend. Which always struck me as odd, given that the old man was as conservative as they come when it came to sex. Definitely a one-woman man. He was never seen in any of the dancing clubs he owned, never had a bit on the side, never strayed from Mary. He pumped money into gentlemen’s clubs, but never ever set foot inside one. Often said he didn’t care to know what went on in such places. Private lives, he said, should remain private.
Of course, hypocrisy could have been the old man’s middle name. And he was perfectly willing to prey on others’ predilections.
‘Griggs had been working on a few local dealers. These men were connected to Burns. The old man wanted revenge. Used the politician to set up the sting with Griggs.’
‘But Griggs never figured that part out.’
‘No. Not at first. The councillor never talked about it, either. He kept quiet, did his time for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Never once mentioned Burns.’
‘But someone at SCDEA knew.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Griggs found out?’
‘We think he found out before applying for the transfer. Maybe thought joining the Agency was his best crack at getting one over on Burns.’
‘Except he never got the chance …’
‘Priorities change.’
‘Anti-terror?’
‘Among other things, yes.’
Burns had never been one for political causes. Rumour was he’d once attended a meeting with a high level member of the Provisional IRA – who had been looking to the old man for supply of weapons – simply to tell the man to ‘Kiss my arse’. Burns’s family were Catholic Irish originally, two generations removed from the old man himself, but he wouldn’t ally himself with anyone whose methods he disagreed with. Burns wasn’t averse to violence, but only against those who brought it on themselves. Either by getting in his way or getting in over their head. He saw those with addictions or perversions as making conscious decisions. Violence against people who knew what they were doing was fine. But Burns could never handle violence that involved innocents – or people who Burns could classify as innocent – no matter how just or unjust the cause. If you could be called a terrorist, you would get no help from the old man.
I could see, then, why the SCDEA might allow their focus on Burns to drop. The new political climate was international. Hollywood blockbuster scale. The new lords and masters didn’t care so much about men like Burns: men who only fought for small land grabs, whose power was limited locally. The SCDEA and the Government wanted the public to see the kind of results that looked good on twenty-four-hour rolling news channels. Homegrown gangsters were old news. They were safe, even. Movies like Lock, Stock, along with the canonization of men like Ronnie Biggs had ensured that the public were no longer concerned about organized crime that operated to the old rules. There was something quaint about men like Burns when compared to the kind of brutal terrorism that started to flood our consciousness.
If Griggs had transferred specifically to stick the boot into the old man, then it made sense that he would be pissed off when the priorities shifted so fast. But there’s a difference between that, and taking your campaign to a whole other level in the way Griggs had done.
What made it so personal?
‘The only person who could answer that would be Griggs himself.’
‘And?’
‘And we don’t know where he is. He’s not at home. He’s not at the hotel room Bright told us he’d be staying at. He’s vanished.’
‘Does he know you want to talk to him?’
‘Do I look like I just started at this job?’
‘Hard to say.’
‘You’ve already taken down one corrupt copper. Maybe two.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Griggs isn’t corrupt. Stupid. Misguided. Maybe just blind because he’s angry. But not corrupt. He’s not a bad man.’
‘You know what he did to you.’
‘I know what I did to myself. Griggs took advantage of my weaknesses. And he played a blinder by poking holes in the James Robertson case.’
‘Where you shot a man in self-defence?’
‘Killed him. Deliberately. And covered up the facts.’
‘You realize what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, I do. What I did, I did out of anger. Because I had no choice. But I lied about certain facts.’ Just saying it made my chest feel easier. Like a metal band that had been placed across it for the last five years had suddenly been removed.
‘The second gun belonged to you?’
‘In a manner of speaking. Someone else put it in my hand.’
Mitchell nodded. ‘David Burns.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, like Griggs, he saw something in me that he could use.’
‘The anger.’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you drinking?’
‘What?’
‘At the time you shot and killed a man, were you drinking? You were grieving the loss of your fiancée. You had a reputation as a man with a hair trigger temper. So I have to wonder if you were drinking. Excessively.’
I shook my head. ‘No more than most folks.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘Exactly what I said. I drank. No more or less than I do now.’
She put her hands on the table, fingers locked together. Leaned in. Serious. Made me think of the force-appointed psychologist I had seen after my suspension for assaulting a senior officer. ‘So how did you get through what happened?’
‘Anger. Hate.’
‘I see.’
I nodded.
She said, ‘During that period, by all accounts, you exhibited the behaviour of an alcoholic. Or at least a depressive.’
‘Maybe. Can you blame me?’
‘But you didn’t drink.’
‘Aye, I don’t like to be predictable.’
‘I guess not.’
‘So tell me what happens now.’
‘Your confession gets swept under the rug. The situation was … extreme. And the matter resolved itself. I don’t want any more paperwork than I’m already facing.’
‘Tell that to DI Kellen.’
She smiled. Tight lips and cold eyes. ‘I might.’
‘Won’t change her mind. Might make her more determined.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. But my point, Mr McNee, is that there are degrees of sin. And they can be measured by intent.’
‘Philosophical for Discipline and Complaints.’
‘We’re smarter than people give us credit for.’
I didn’t argue with her.
What was there left to say?