The Lost Sister (2 page)

“And why are the police hushing this up?”

Connolly chuckled like an undertaker. Amused at me, not the girl's disappearance. Journalism – like police work – brings out your cynical, callous nature. We've all got one.

He said, “I don't believe she ran off.”

“Good girl or not, you get some funny ideas at that age.”

“You ever go through a rebellious phase?”

I didn't answer.

Connolly persisted: “McNee, were you ever a bloody child?”

I didn't answer that, either.

“Christ, were you grown in a fucking factory?”

I broke down under the pressure. “Maybe.”

“Go shite.”

I couldn't resist a smile. He couldn't see me. It didn't matter. Long as I sounded like I had a poker face on. “Tell me why you don't think this one's a runaway.”

“The police are acting funny. DCI Bright's a cagey bugger at the best of times, but this time he's being real slippery.”

Me and Ernie Bright hadn't talked in a long time. Not since I left the force. Maybe for as many personal as professional reasons.

“What's the press release say?”

“The facts. And that lovely wee postscript that asks, anything we find, could we please give it to the police and keep it under wraps.”

“They're asking for help.”

Connolly chuckled again. “Ah, but they're not asking for it.”

“Devious bastards. That strike you as suspicious, then?”

“After a couple of years in this game, everything does.”

Cynical? Aye, but he had the instincts.

I was feeling it, too. This wasn't just a missing person case. Maybe you just pick up on these things after a while. Our businesses breed paranoia.

Or maybe I just needed something to occupy my mind. Looking for a case where maybe there wasn't one. I was bored; in need of something other than the run of the mill jobs I could do in my sleep. Photographing accident sites, assisting genealogical researchers. Not the kinds of cases that got my blood boiling.

This one had potential. Might prove interesting at least.

I said, “This one doesn't go on the books.”

“It's free then?”

“I'll sniff around,” I said. “If it seems interesting, I come at you with a price.”

“Fair enough.”

It wasn't. But I guess he thought it was better than nothing.

The popular image of the private investigator: a pariah to the local police force.

Check the antagonism they receive in the American pulp novels. The snide remarks. The beatings. The humiliations.

Only one copper treated me like that. And DI George Lindsay had reason enough.

There were others who, most of the time, I considered friends. Like Susan Bright.

Aye; the DCI's daughter.

A Detective Constable these days. Plain Clothes. Suited her.

We met for coffee at a small Italian-style café with stone floors. Trying to mimic the continental street culture. Bringing the experience inside was the only way to do it in Dundee. The local weather was hardly suited to the task. Especially this late in the year. The frost wasn't settled yet, but it was on its way.

Listen to the weather reports on the local stations and you might expect Arctic temperatures any minute.

Half ten, the place was empty. The staff chatted at the counter, paid us no attention. Didn't matter. We were looking for private conversation, anyway. Took a tucked-away corner table near the rear, just beside the display case of desserts. Susan deliberately took the seat that faced away from them.

I said, “When'd you start drinking tea?”

Susan met that with a smile. “Coffee was keeping me up at night.”

I nodded at her cup. “More caffeine in there than in mine.”

“That a fact?”

“Read it somewhere.”

“Give me the source.”

“Give me a break.”

She broke the grin; frowned. Tipped her head to the left and then the right. Trying to look at me from a different angle.

Worried me, sometimes. This way she had of seeing through my bluster. Felt a little too…intimate. Although you could chalk that up to guilt, a half-remembered night of drink and bereavement. Dangerous mixture.

“You want something?” I tried saying it with a grin. Off the cuff. Nonchalant. Not my style.

“Really, Steed,” she said.

Steed
. An old nickname. Got tired of explaining to people: like the actor who played Steed in the avengers. Patrick MacNee. No one ever said:
But he spelled it differently
and I'd long given up caring.

“I just thought…we hadn't talked in a while.”

True enough. But not the reason I asked her out here to talk. She knew it, too. Gave me the look she'd inherited straight from her old man. The one that said,
no shite today
, and made you realise there was nothing you could hide from this woman.

The look that made her a force to be reckoned with when interrogating a suspect. Probably the look that got her the fast track to CID.

She said, “Tell me.” No inflection. No stress. No implied meaning.

So I told her. Straight up. No use lying to Detective Constable Bright. Christ, but I could imagine being on the wrong side of her in an interview. She was delicate; small bones, sharp features, long fingers. And that look that said:
this is not a woman you mess with
.

She listened. Another skill every copper needs.

When I was done, she said, “You're talking about my dad's case.”

I nodded.

She said, “This is what they call a conflict of interest.”

I nodded again.

She ran her right hand through her hair as though pulling out the tangles. Didn't look directly at me. Said, “Remind me why I stick my neck out for you?”

I shrugged. “My rugged good looks?”

She shook her head. “Try again.”

I didn't.

She said, “You're bad for my career.”

“Who says that?” Like I didn't know the answer.

She had partnered with DI Lindsay for a few months after her promotion. He wasn't shy in sharing his opinions. Especially when it came to me for some reason.

Could never figure that out.

“Part of policing is politics.”

Aye, the part I never liked. My attitude: just do the fucking job, forget kissing anyone's arse.

Susan's attitude, too, I guessed. But she had more sense than me. Knew when to reign back her behaviour.

She said, “I know the journalist. Connolly. Arrogant. Thinks he's…entitled.” She chose that last word carefully. Maybe aware of the implications someone could pick up from it.

“Aye,” I said, “he's a journalist all right. But he's not so bad.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You've started seeing the good in people?”

I almost said, “I blame you for that.” Instead remained with what I hoped was a neutral expression. Said, “Did my homework. I know the coppers working the case. Didn't think they'd let father and daughter on the same gig.”

“You know how it is, Steed. You remember, right?”

“Never enough people to go round.” Same old story. The police were underfunded. Nothing new there. Every successive government made promises about policing and every time they fucked the boys and girls in uniform.

Not in the pleasant sense, either.

I know of one force that has a speed trap set up on a stretch of motorway notorious for speeding. But they don't have the manpower to keep a permanent eye out for naughty motorists. So they have a wooden car. I shit you not; a wooden car. Painted up to look like the real thing. They erect it when there's no one available to sit sentry at police parking spots on the side of the motorway. Motorists coming down can't tell if it's real or not till they're right on top of it, and most of them aren't going to take the chance.

Creative thinking, but borne of necessity. Lack of manpower. Lack of funding. Lack of support.

The
Daily Mail
crowd bemoan the lack of powers the police have and cry bloody murder when their comfortable incomes are taxed to pay for it. Of course, you read a paper like that, you're less than half a step from hypocrisy and self-delusion in the first place.

I said to Susan, “Then this is a big case? A priority?”

“Oh, aye. Couldn't you tell when your paraplegic wee friend got interested?”

“He's not paraplegic. Not like Denzel Washington in that bloody film.”

“Thought you hadn't been to the movies in decades.”

“I keep up. Trailers, mostly.”

“Best parts.”

“What I can gather.”

She smiled at me across the table. The Officer Bright façade had dropped, as it always did eventually. We spiked between two forms of communication: confrontation and…something else.

I didn't know what to call it.

“He's your client, then?”

“I'm running this down as a favour.”

“What's that mean?”

“What's it sound like?”

She nodded. For a second I thought she was going to walk. Wouldn't blame her.

But she'd never walked before with all the shite I put her through. This was no exception.

Don't ask me why.

She said, “You know, part of Dad wishes you were still on the force. He'd be glad to have you working this one. Even just consulting. Christ, you were the Golden Boy.”

She'd told me as much the first time we met. Back then it had sounded more like an attack, of course.

I said, “He knew me as a uniform. Nothing more.”

“He's a sharp cookie.”

“Like his daughter.”

“Aye, well, I'm not going to deny any compliments from you.”

“I'm not asking you to give me anything that's going to endanger the case,” I said. “Just enough access.”

“How much is
just enough
?”

How do you answer a question like that?

I said, “Tell me about her.”

“Mary Furst? What do you know?”

“Good student. Well liked. Not a care in the world. At least none beyond the usual teenage angst.”

“You remember how that was?”

“I can barely remember past last week.”

“Somehow, I can't see you as a teenager. With the spots, the gangliness, all that good stuff.”

“If anyone asks, I'll deny it.”

“I'll bet you stayed out of the yearbook.” She grinned, waggled her eyebrows at me.

I said, “You want to go to a casino?”

A couple of hours later I had photocopies of the case notes on my desk.

Unofficially, of course.

Susan still hadn't talked to her father about letting me in. Aye, who would envy her that conversation?

I skimmed the papers. The ground work had been done fast. Witness statements. Risk assessments.

Suspects.

No, scratch that last one:

Persons of interest
.

Whatever you wanted to call them, it wasn't a long list.

No enemies? No one who wished her harm?

Who was this girl?

I checked what they had on her. A potted biography. Hastily assembled. They were working on deadline, here. Mary's life at school revolved around drama societies, sports teams, the works. No one the police had spoken to had a bad word to say about her. Not unusual given the circumstances of her disappearance, I guess. Probably everyone was thinking about the media before the coppers opened their mouths to say word one.

That's the way the world is, now. Even the most unremarkable people are media savvy, cynical enough to know when to present their best side to the newspapers and the television.

Mary's ex-boyfriend, Richie Harrison, had been one of the first people the police talked to.

Aye, Mary had broken up with him before she disappeared, but in the report he came across as worried for her as anyone. When asked why they split he said, “It was one of those things.” I could picture this teenager trying to appear mature and nonchalant, when reading between the lines I knew that he was torn up inside.