The house was off Maryhill Road, a neat 1930’s building with a well-kept garden in front. I guessed Cecelia McNeil was responsible. The garage where Christopher died was closed.
She was waiting for us, peeking from behind net curtains like a nosy neighbour. I brought Patrick along; he had two teenage sons and might spot something. He was quiet on the way over, not his jaunty self. I assumed his weekend hadn’t gone well. When she saw him she smiled and offered her hand. I introduced them. He raised his game and went into his Everyman act.
The room had the feel of ordered clutter, ornaments crowded on top of the fireplace beside furniture you might inherit from your parents when they passed on. We sat on a sofa that had seen better days. Mrs McNeil poured tea into china cups that could have belonged to her grandmother and probably had. A plate of biscuits went untouched.
She was smaller than I remembered, as fragile as the crockery.
‘I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,’ she said. ‘You’re very efficient.’
‘We haven’t located your husband yet I’m afraid. That’s why we’re here. I asked you about friends or mention of a new job. Has anything come to you?’
She shook her head.
‘We need to understand more about Stephen. There’s a photograph on the wall at Newlands. Darts, isn’t it?’
‘Stephen started the team not long after he went to work there.’
‘When do they play?’
‘Tuesday nights at the El Cid.’
‘Christopher ever go?’
‘No, darts was Stephen’s thing. Christopher wouldn’t have been interested, it was…’
She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. ‘I’m thinking of moving. In fact I’ve made the decision. This house. Too many memories. I don’t think I can ever be happy here.’
The tragedy had stolen her resolve; she was resigned to losing her son and her husband. I tried to give her hope. ‘It’s early days, wait ‘til we locate Stephen or he gets in touch. We won’t give up.’
A tear trickled down her cheek. She said, ‘He’s not coming back.’
Husband or son? I couldn’t tell which one she was talking about.
‘You don’t know, he could be on his way right now.’
Empty words. All I had.
‘He won’t, Mr Cameron.’ Her sadness weighed her down. Patrick made eye contact with me. Cecelia McNeil’s lip trembled. She cried, more like whimpered. If it had happened to me I’d cry too.
An old upright piano stood against one wall. The green leaves of a plant drooped from a pot with a strange design, half stone, half tin, a memento of a trip, flanked by statues of the Child of Prague on one side and Christ the Redeemer on the other. Above them a crucifix leaned into the room. And a memory of my childhood, a display cabinet; dolls from around the world dressed in national costume, plates and saucers, a fan from Spain, a couple of yellowing spoons, and a tiny sack of earth from the Holy Land; the kind of stuff it took a lifetime to gather, priceless to the collector, meaningless to anyone else.
With the exception of a flat screen TV in the corner, incongruent as an alien craft, nothing was even close to being new. Mrs McNeil read my mind. ‘Stephen bought it,’ she said. ‘I told him it was too big, he wouldn’t listen.’
Someone else might have described the decor as busy. The adjective in my head was less kind. It was a strange scene, out of time, at odds with the modern world. No sign a teenager had lived here.
‘It would be helpful to understand more about your son. Can Patrick take a look at his room? The garage too, if you don’t mind.’
‘I don’t see why.’
I reassured her. ‘It’s about building a picture, trying to understand. It’s how we work.’
She wasn’t convinced. ‘I suppose so. I’ve left it exactly the way it was.’
Patrick took that as a yes and got up.
‘The door to the right at the top of the stairs. Just don’t touch anything.’
Cecelia McNeil picked up where she’d left off, ‘I don’t watch television, too much violence. Can’t they find nice things to put on?’
‘Nice doesn’t sell, Mrs McNeil.’
Then something I hadn’t noticed. Although the room was full of personal touches there wasn’t a single photograph. The son was close to his father, the apple of his eye she’d said, sharing a musical talent with his mother. Why was there nothing of him?
‘Do you have a more recent picture of your husband? In the one you gave me Christopher’s only nine or ten.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, no. We hardly ever took photographs. Such a bother.’
I didn’t believe her. In most families an only child is the centre of the universe, every occasion, every achievement marked and celebrated. And photographed.
‘Where did you and your husband go on holiday? Did he have a favourite place?’
‘Stephen wouldn’t go abroad. He didn’t like planes and he couldn’t be sure what he was eating in a foreign country. We stuck to Scotland. Fife. He liked the east coast. Pittenweem.’
‘Beautiful part of the world. Has he got relations he might go to?’
‘No, there’s no one. Just me.’
‘No friends, other truckers he met on the road?’
‘Stephen didn’t make friends very easily. Too shy.’
Though not too shy to start a darts team.
‘Tell me about the guns.’
‘Stephen is a sportsman. Shooting is one of his hobbies. Been doing it since before I met him. He was always cleaning those guns, getting oil on the carpet. I went with him a couple of times in the early days. He tried to teach me.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t like it. Hated it really. He wasn’t pleased.’
Patrick came back and she saw us to the door.
She said, ‘I appreciate what you’re doing, Mr Cameron, I really do. Finding Stephen is all that’s keeping me going.’
We were crossing the Kingston Bridge before I asked. High above the Clyde the city skyline was etched in grey. ‘What did you make of it?’
Pat Logue gazed at the river. ‘Wouldn’t want to go through it every day. Couldn’t handle it. Absolutely no way. Losing your only son’s bad enough, losing your partner as well...’
‘What about Christopher’s bedroom?’
‘A couple of boy band posters. No books. Didn’t come across any porn. CDs, classical stuff. All his clothes on hangers, socks and pants in separate drawers. Very tidy for a young guy. When I was that age my room was like the bottom of a river. Gail goes mental at our two. Makes no difference. They wait her out. She cracks before they do ‘cause they don’t care. Eventually she can’t stand it any longer and guts the place, then they complain they can’t find things. Every once in a while I hear her laying down the law: “while you’re under this roof... this isn’t a hotel...” all that crap. Nothing changes, nothing will until some girl comes on the scene. Then they’ll set up camp in the bathroom, we’ll be choking on aftershave, and their mother won’t know how to iron a shirt. Apart from gardening stuff and a couple of fishing rods, the garage was empty.’
Nelson Mandela Place brought us to the Square. I said, ‘Took his guns, left the fishing tackle. Not good news. It felt weird being in that house.’
‘So what now, Charlie?’
‘Fancy a game of darts?’
-------
Patrick showed the photograph of Stephen McNeil at garages near the house. I thought it was a long shot. It was. We hung around the office the rest of the day. He didn’t say much. At five I suggested we go for a drink and something to keep us from falling down dead. What I had in mind was coffee and toasted cheese sandwiches. Patrick downed three pints and crunched his way through two packets of crisps. Smoky bacon. The alcohol did its work. He stared into the bottom of his glass. ‘Gail’s leaving me,’ he said.
‘What’s the problem?’
He drew himself together. ‘We’ve been together for twenty-two years. Gail gets the credit for that. If it had been down to me the marriage wouldn’t have survived. But she’s changed, she’s not the same woman. The boys are growing up; they don’t need her the way they did. And there’s a clash of cultures, Charlie. She believes there’s more to life than enjoying yourself.’
He finished his drink and let the subject drop. ‘What do I have to do?’
‘You’re on point. Check it out. See if Stephen McNeil keeps his regular date. The guy I spoke to at Newlands will be there. I’ll stay in the car.’
I passed the photograph to him. ‘Taken seven or eight years ago. Think you can recognise him?’
He looked at it hard. ‘I’ll recognise him.’
‘There should be a gang of them, Newlands finest.’
‘Stephen McNeil’s a broken man. Is it likely he’ll be throwing for double tops?’ Patrick was back to being a detective. ‘He might not be in Glasgow, or even Scotland. A truck driver can get a job anywhere.’
All true.
‘Got a better idea? It’s a line of enquiry. We don’t have too many.’
At the weekend the El Cid would be packed with teenagers, Tuesday’s crowd was older. I waited in the car park, Patrick went inside. Ten minutes later the door opened and he slipped into the passenger seat. He said, ‘It’s pretty busy. Local teams playing each other. There’s a guy in the corner, don’t think it’s McNeil.’
He handed me the photograph of Christopher and his father. I put it in my pocket and got out. I hadn’t been in a pub on a darts night in a long time. A crowd of over-weight men hogged one corner. The marker called the scores and chalked them on a board, adding and deducting with a speed that was way ahead of me. A man in a checked t-shirt and faded denims steadied himself and leaned forward, head still, eyes fixed, lining up the shot. The darts left his hand, true and straight - single twenty, treble eighteen; the last one landed in double twelve. His friends whooped their congratulations. I knew the face if not the expression. There had been no smile in the office at Newlands’ yard. The others were strangers and Patrick was right, Stephen McNeil wasn’t with them.