Back in the car, I called Wickes on the mobile number he’d given me.
He answered in three rings.
“My partner in crime,” he said. Laughed. The same animal sound I’d heard from him earlier. It made me uneasy for some reason. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Not in the mood for jokes, I said, “Where are you?”
He gave me an address. His tone suddenly formal. I’d upset him with my own straight-to-business routine. He’d get over it.
I said, “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“Grumpy bastard this afternoon, aren’t you? I tracked Deborah down. A flat registered in her sister’s name. I checked it out as far as I could. The sister doesn’t live there. She’s keeping an empty home. Strike you as suspicious? Right now I’m supposed to be meeting with the landlord.”
“No one’s home?”
“You think she would be?”
“Have you talked to the sister?”
“You seriously think she’d talk to me? I told you what happened when we met before. As far as she’s concerned I’m the bloody devil. Price you pay for trying to do the right thing, aye?” Painting himself as the martyr. And maybe he was.
But for all I wanted to like him, the more I listened to him talk, the more I felt that he was lying to me. Hiding the truth.
From himself as much as me.
I said, “If you have a line on the sist –”
“You think she’ll tell us anything?” Mocking me. The kind of verbal whip that gives you pause for thought.
“I want you to be sure,” I said. “I want you to be sure that Deborah’s in that flat. Then we call the cops, and they deal with –”
“No. No fucking way, McNee. You can’t do that to me.” A rush to his words. I couldn’t tell if he was scared or just plain angry.
I was thinking about my meeting with Ms Foster at Bellview. Her mentioning the other investigator. She hadn’t described him to me, but I knew it had been Wickes.
He told me he’d been there. But he hadn’t made a grand impression. They’d chucked him out on his arse. The question was why?
Stopping to think about it, what did I know about this man?
He was a fellow investigator.
With no references. No affiliations. Nothing to back up his story except old war stories about his career and the kind of earnest grin that made you want to believe him.
Where had he heard of me? He never really said. Talked about my reputation, but never gave any specifics.
Who the fuck was this guy?
“We need to talk to the police,” I said. “I know the investigating officers. They’re good people…” Well, one of them at least. The one who wasn’t jumping into bed with known figures in organised crime.
“You mean DCI Ernie Bright?” Wickes said, and I could hear a chuckle rumbling beneath the question.
“Aye.”
“You know his history? He was one of the officers offered David Burns a deal in the nineties. Worked with that bawbag to cut some kind of immunity in exchange for bringing down other gangs and known dealers. Christ, I wouldn’t trust that crooked bastard as far as I could throw him.”
I tried to muster some belief into my voice. “That was a long time ago. That program was sanctioned by the police, ended when they realised that it was doing more harm than good.”
“So he was following orders? He told you all about it?”
I swallowed. “Yes.” I could pass this one on a polygraph, right?
Wickes was silent.
I could figure his reluctance. This investigation wasn’t about finding Mary for him. This was about Deborah. This was about confronting her. Asking her why, after all he had done for her, she still betrayed him.
Did I understand his obsession?
His self-delusion?
Maybe.
You love someone, you wind up doing stupid things. Losing your sense of perspective. Your world revolves around the object of your love.
You end up sacrificing yourself for them.
I figured this was why he and Deborah had found themselves together; some recognition of one for the other.
Each was obsessed.
Wickes with Deborah.
Deborah with the daughter she never knew.
I said, into the phone, “There are other leads on what might have happened to Mary.” Meaning the ex-boyfriend. Meaning she could have simply run off. I wanted Wickes to start thinking rationally about all of this: “You want to check out this place? When you don’t know for sure –”
“Aye, and what have you been doing, pal? The way you were talking earlier, sounded like personal business.”
“I was at the school,” I said. Held a second to listen for some kind of reaction. Maybe a giveaway about what he’d been doing there before me. But all I got was the steady sound of his breathing. “And I was going to go have a wee chat with Mary’s boyfriend. Have to admit, I was running the investigation, he’d probably be my first choice of suspect.”
“You wouldn’t be holding anything out on me, pal?” Wickes asked it blunt. No slyness involved. Nothing that sounded like suspicion.
“No,” I said. Unsure whether it really was a lie. “I just want to make sure we’re not overlooking any possibilities.”
I arranged to meet him later, we’d see where his lead with the flat went.
After I hung up, I put the phone down on the passenger seat. Feeling lightheaded.
This was a bad idea. I knew it. Understood it. And still…
I should have called Susan. Ended the whole sorry affair right then.
But I had to know about Wickes. His stakes in all of this. He was hiding something; I knew it then: was absolutely convinced of it. He had lied to me. That was what stung the most.
Injured pride?
Aye, that and I was curious. Needed to know. To understand. Once I had some answers, could make sense of this man and his obsession with finding the missing girl and the woman he claimed was her mother, then I could go to Susan. Tell her everything.
If I went any earlier, I’d lose my chance. Maybe never be able to make sense of anything that had happened.
Talk about that itch you can’t scratch.