Chapter 3

When I called Susan back, I asked her if she was sure they had the family connections right.

“Oh, aye. Dad’s heading round to talk to the old git this afternoon. See what he knows.” She hesitated. I could sense her gearing up to ask a question I’d been trying to avoid myself. “Given your…history with Burns, do you really want to touch this case?”

I didn’t say a word.

Thinking about David Burns.

The old git.

Old bastard, more like.

It’s hard to open the local papers and not see a mention of the man. He’s a local hero. Dundee Boy made good, as so many people say. Has interests in the local community, does what he can, publicly, to be seen attempting to rejuvenate the poorer areas, keeping the profile of the city high and proud.

A local hero. A good man.

A scumbag.

All that charity, that social work, those exhaustive public appearances are just so much smoke. He knows how to play the game, act untouchable. Except he’s knuckle deep in drug money, extortion rackets, underground deals, blackmail. You name it, he’s behind it. The kind of man who’s unafraid to employ violent methods as a means to an end. Long as he doesn’t have to get involved himself. Oh, no. He’s got an image to maintain. And, aye, he’d say himself he has limits. Never anything with children. Never in his street. Call that his moral yardstick.

A year earlier, I’d got myself involved with his affairs. Almost lost my life because of it. Came out with a broken hand and a good friend lying close to death in the hospital.

Swore I’d never go near Burns again.

Or else I’d crucify him the first chance I got.

I’d called him the devil incarnate. And worse. Hard to believe he was related – however distantly – to Mary Furst. The saintly girl I’d been reading about in the police reports.

But there it was: this missing girl, no matter how smart and sweet she was…she had a dangerous kind of family.

And maybe that put a whole new spin on her disappearance.

“What do you figure?” I asked Susan. “Turf war?”

Susan seemed to think about it. “You mean Gordon Egg? We’ve been talking to boys in the Met. Those flames have been extinguished.”

“You really believe that? Last I knew, Egg had a price on our man’s head.”

“Call it an uneasy truce between London and Dundee, then. Whatever, this has nothing to do with Burns’s…private business.”

Some euphemism.

I paced my office to the windows. Outside, the skies were dark, the clouds hanging heavy.

“It’s not too late for you to back out, Steed,” Susan said. “Connolly would understand.”

I made this non-committal sound. As in: I’d consider it. My track record for listening to good advice was spotty at best. And worse when it came to listening to Susan. She knew that as well as I did, didn’t push any further. She’d said her piece; what more could she do?

Susan said, “You want to ask questions, you want to tag along, you talk to Dad.”

I took a breath. One of those prices I wasn’t sure I could pay.

Still thinking: David Burns.

I told Susan I had things to do. Remained deliberately unclear on whether I wanted to remain on board with the Furst case.

I hung up the phone. My chest started to constrict, like someone had wrapped an iron band around it and the metal was shrinking fast. I fought to control my breathing. Feeling dizzy, a little nauseous. My mind moving fast, replaying my conversation with Susan.

Concentrate on the moment. The job. The case.

But other memories intruded. Like my life had disconnected itself. A tape winding back on itself; becoming twisted like a nest of serpents.

I remembered:

Soft skin beneath my lips, the scent of perfume knocking my brain out of my skull.

The agony as someone stamped their foot down hard on my fingers on a rain soaked evening.

My hands seized up, muscles contracting, blood rushing away from my extremities. I knew what was happening, had to fight to control it.

I fell back against my desk, just about toppled right over the top. Steadied myself. Concentrated on staying upright.

On the rhythm of my breathing.

Everything else was just a distraction.

Concentrate on the breathing.

Attacks like these used to come on and off during my teenage years. They lingered, recurring once or twice since my mid-twenties. But never anything quite like this. Easy to pass them off as growing pains over a decade earlier. But now…could I dismiss them?

Maybe there was a reason. A psychological tick that sent my body into some hellish fight-or-flight parody without warning. But I figured it wasn’t anything I wanted to explore. Not yet, anyway.