I’d already let him down once. And here he was again asking me to protect his family. Was his confidence in me that strong? Or was this another attempt to keep me on the sidelines? Another babysitting job? One that he felt I couldn’t possibly fuck up.
It was hard to tell. The old man was an accomplished liar. The only way you could see the truth of him was in his actions. And by then it was often too late. As too many corpses could attest.
I hesitated.
‘You’re the one who came to me,’ he said. ‘Offered your support. Your allegiance.’
‘Because I had no other choice.’
He nodded. ‘Keep telling yourself that. You were cast out from your old friends. Oh, it’s a tragedy, all right, son. The good man who did all the wrong things for the right reasons.’ Was he mocking me? It was hard to tell. There was a bitterness dancing just underneath the words.
‘Isn’t that how you see yourself?’
‘Like I said, we’re more alike than you might care to admit.’
What could I say to that?
‘She’s an innocent, McNee.’
Really? Perhaps, in our world, innocence was simply a matter of degrees. But I had to wonder if his wife – who knew and quietly accepted the truth about her husband – was still complicit in his guilt.
‘You told me once that all you wanted was to do the right thing. This is the right thing, McNee. Protecting someone who has done nothing wrong.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I’ll pay for my sins. Sooner or later. All of them. The reckoning comes to us all in the end. So they tell us every fucking Sunday. I accepted that a long time ago.’
Did that make it easier or harder for him, I wondered? To know that the end, when it came, would be a tally of all his willingly accepted evils?
THIRTY-ONE
She knew why I was there. She didn’t like it.
Neither of us said anything, however. Just tried to carry on like everything was normal. She showed me the TV in the front room, told me that they had the full Sky Package. Anything I wanted to watch, I could. Except the blue channels, of course. Not that I looked like the kind of man who’d be into that.
I surfed for a while, stuck with BBC News 24. Watched as they tried their best to spin out stories that had stalled hours earlier. The news, like any good story, relies not on the moments between, but on the relative seconds of action that capture us. Good news is real life with the boring parts snipped out.
But in our all-day-all-night society, we get to relive the boring moments, too. Allowing ourselves to understand the frustration that comes with waiting for something – anything – to happen. For those watching, did that make the drama more or less involving? I really had to wonder.
Mary Burns busied herself in the kitchen. I heard her rattling about in cupboards. Realized that beyond her devotion to her husband, I knew nothing about who she was, where she had grown up, how she really felt. All I had to go on were the impressions filtered through the old man’s talk of her.
I tried to watch the news, but I couldn’t relax. Kept looking at the door every time she walked by.
I tried not to think about it. Distracted myself. Looked at the mantelpiece. Saw the family photos. Stood up and moved closer. The records of a family down the years. A young looking Burns and Mary standing outside their home, maybe after having bought it for the first time. She was already pregnant, beginning to show, looking proud as she cupped her stomach with both hands, while he beamed with a paternal air, arm draped across her shoulders to hold her close. There were pictures of the children as they grew up. All three of them – two girls and a boy. None of them lived at home, now. They had all moved out as soon as possible. One of the girls didn’t even correspond with her father any more, lived with her husband somewhere in California and pretended her family had died when she was a girl. I doubted it had anything to do with a lack of love from her parents. But I had to wonder about the sense of betrayal she might have felt when she realized the truth about what her father did to earn the money that kept them in food, clothes and education.
It was clear that the family home had been a loving place when she was growing up. You can’t fake a certain kind of smile. And in every picture, the kids were happy, their parents proud. They were the ideal family. Just don’t think about how they got that way.
The children disappeared in their early twenties. There were a few pictures of grandchildren, but the parents were noticeably absent in each.
What price had Burns really paid for the power he had built over the years?
The next time Mary walked past, I opened the door and said, ‘What was his name? The lab, I mean.’ In the pictures taken from years ago, when their children were young, when her hair had been long and tumbled over unblemished skin, there was a dog that stood beside them. A black Labrador. Proud and faithful. Dogs are simple animals at heart. You can tell a lot just by looking at them. This one had been a real family pet. Devoted. Faithful. Loved.
‘His name was Glen.’ Her face softened, and I saw something of the young woman in the photographs. ‘We got him just after the first wean was born, you know? He used to sit guard over Andy every night. Watch him sleep, as though afraid the wee one would just suffocate. Same with the girls, too.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘Bloody lovely dog.’
‘What happened?’
‘He got old.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He had a good life. You like dogs?’
I nodded.
‘Come with me,’ she said.
We went to the second level of the house. Up the narrow stairs. Past the bedroom to what I had always assumed was just a box or spare room. She opened the door, and walked inside. I followed her. The sharp smell of paint caught me.
The room was filled with paintings of dogs. Still lives. Observed moments. Thick oil based paints on tough canvases. A real attention to detail. Especially around the eyes. She had a way of capturing a dog’s eyes, of giving you a sense that in the moment of creation she understood what her subjects were really thinking.
I didn’t know much about art. But that didn’t stop me from understanding talent. The only person whose work I had seen before that affected me upon viewing had been dead a few days later, her brains battered out by a bearded psychopath.
Funny the connections you make.
Funny how I always found myself thinking back on tragedies and loss.
I looked at the painting still on the canvas. Close up on a black lab; sad brown eyes staring soulfully out at the viewer. Not an internal kind of sadness. But an empathetic kind of stare, as though he could see through to what you were thinking. He wanted you to know that he understood your pain.
Then again, they say that people read into art what they bring with them.
‘Beautiful,’ I said.
‘Just a hobby.’
‘You could sell these,’ I said. ‘I know people. Café’s, that kind of thing … they’d have people willing to—’
‘No,’ she said. Too quickly. ‘No, it’s just a hobby. I just thought you’d like them. You know, if you liked dogs.’ Her voice trailed off, as though suddenly embarrassed at having let me see the pictures.
I turned to look at her. ‘They’re good. Did you train?’
She shook her head. ‘Just a hobby. Helps me relax. Pass the time of day.’
‘Does David know?’
‘He knows. But I don’t let him see them.’
‘You should. He’d be proud.’
‘He would always be proud,’ she said, a little sadly. ‘That’s how he is.’ As though she knew that pride was her husband’s default setting. Even if he felt differently, he’d never really show it.
We were silent for a while. I looked at the pictures. Wondered how her life might have been if she never met David Burns. He loved her, I knew that. But his desire to protect her from the world had meant that she barely left the house without being accompanied by someone. There was a reason
he’d left me behind with her. It wasn’t to do with keeping me out of the loop. It was because he was genuinely afraid for her. He wanted someone with her. Someone who could stand in for him. Who could make sure that she was safe.
His greatest fear had always been that his personal life and his other interests would overlap. It wasn’t just the fear of them being caught up in a media glare if he were to be arrested. It was the idea that someone looking to hurt him would hurt them.
So now, we were hitting the mattresses. The old man covering every angle. He knew what his enemy was capable of, now. He would do whatever it took to protect his family.
I admired that in a way.
But the admiration left me wondering, who was I working for any more?
Myself?
The old man?
Griggs?
We went back downstairs, to the kitchen. Sat at the breakfast bar and talked for a while. I drank coffee from the pot she kept hot all day. She told me about the man she married, how he had come into her life with a benevolent charm and the kind of chivalry she’d only ever read about in books. ‘He was my hero. Stepping in at the dancing when I was being bothered by Bill Kirkton. The wee lech trying to cop a feel. I was too young to fight back properly and David just stepped in, laid a hand on Bill’s shoulder, whispered something in his ear. You know, David didn’t even try and kiss me until our third date.’ She smiled softly at this, her eyes gaining the sheen of youth, as though the very act of remembering had wiped all the years and worries away, transformed her into the innocent girl she remembered being.
He was her protector. Her saviour. While to others he would become a monster, to Mary Burns, he would always be her gentle David.
I had to press. Couldn’t help myself: ‘But you know what he does. You’ve always known the things he had to do to get where he is.’
‘People always knew what they were getting into. My David’s an honest man, Mr McNee. In the same way I think you are. He would never hurt anyone who didn’t understand why. No one went into business with him blind.’
‘And that makes it OK?’
‘Are you a religious man?’
‘Not really. I might have been a religious boy, but maybe that was just because people kept telling me to believe in God.’
‘Maybe you should come back to the Church sometime. David always said you were a lost soul. Someone looking for a purpose in life. Maybe that’s why he likes you. Even when you say such terrible things about him.’ She sipped at her tea, eyes never leaving my face. I felt as though when she looked at me, she was expecting me to say something. But I didn’t know what she wanted to hear. An apology? An acknowledgement that I had been wrong?
The silence between us stretched.
A car pulled up outside.
Burns back already?
I doubted it. He would be gone for days. Leaving me out of the loop.
So who?
I stood up, gestured for Mary to stay where she was. She looked ready to ask a question. But I was already moving.
THIRTY-TWO
Close protection is about trusting your own paranoia. See something, say something becomes the rule. You let yourself believe the worst can happen because then you’re prepared when it actually does.
I went to the front room, kept myself to the side of the windows. Looked out at the street. Grey BMW. Four men climbing out. Didn’t look like business types. They opened the front gate. I went back to the kitchen, hustled Mary into moving. She did so reluctantly. Not understanding my sudden change in attitude.
‘My coat,’ she said.
‘We’ll get it later,’ I said. ‘Just move …’
The knock came at the front door as I was opening the back. We bolted into the back garden. The space was blocked off, the only way out through the garage or back the way we came.
The second rule of close protection is preparation: always know your space. Always know the exits. I fished the garage keys from my pocket. Found myself wishing I’d taken up Burns on his offer of a weapon.
But what good would that do? Last time I’d used a gun, a man had died. I’d never really got past that, despite my posturing.
The key stuck in the lock. I twisted and rattled. Paused. Took a breath. Turned and clicked.
‘Out the back!’
I didn’t even look round to see how close the voice was. Just shoved Mary in ahead of me, and then locked the door behind us.
The front door of the garage led out into an alley between the houses. Burns’s pride and joy – a restored Bentley with walnut panelling and burnt red bodywork – sat inside the small brick structure, covered up with a white cloth. No keys, of course. The old man wouldn’t trust just anyone with this car.
Only one thing to do. I opened the front door, pulled the roller up. ‘We’re going to run,’ I said. ‘Next door. We’re going to lock ourselves in and we’re going to call someone I know.’
‘Who?’
I had a few ideas.
We dashed down the alley. Way I figured it, the intruders were behind us, in the back yard. It would take them a few moments to work out what we’d done and by then we’d be barricaded in someone else’s house. These guys didn’t want to make a scene or hang around too long. Someone would call the police. Or worse.
I pushed Mary in front, to make sure that I had my eyes on her at all times. She was slow and unsteady. Not just age but fright. I moved just behind her, urging her forward. Conscious of how slow we were; certain that we weren’t fast enough, that at any moment a hand would land on my shoulder, a blade would pierce my kidneys.
I’d been stabbed before. Had the scars to prove it. Not an experience I was eager to repeat.
We made it to the next house down, hammered hard. I shouldered the door when it started to open, pushing aside a man in his fifties. He protested in half-words and syllables that made no sense.
‘Lock the door,’ I told him. He did so, then looked at me with his eyes wide and his jaw dropped.
I ignored his hurt pride, and walked quickly to the rear of the house, pulling out my phone and swapping sim cards.
Susan answered in three rings.
‘Unmarked,’ I said. ‘Safe house. Now.’ I rattled off the address.
‘Just you?’
‘Mary Burns.’
‘Oh, Jesus, Steed. What the fuck have you done?’
‘You’re not the one who’s going to have to explain this to the old man.’
I was through with being somebody else’s pawn.
I was ready to change the rules.
THIRTY-THREE
We waited it out in a bedroom upstairs. Sitting on the floor, far side of a king size bed. Like little kids in their parent’s bedroom. Mary looked almost relaxed.
She said, ‘This was always going to happen.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Your husband has a lot of enemies.’
‘It’s what he always talked about. They would come after his family. They would come after me. They would come after the kids.’ The emphasis on ‘they’ every time. The royal ‘they’.
‘And you?’
‘What?’
‘What were you scared of?’
‘That they’d come after him.’ She let her head roll back, looked up at the ceiling. ‘What must you think of me? A silly old girl in love with a bad boy?’
‘Less of the silly.’
‘It’s true, though. I know who he is, Mr McNee. What he does to people. I’m not a complete fool.’
‘And?’
‘And I see everything else about him. He’s a loving father. He’s a good husband.’
‘You never showed him your paintings.’
‘Every relationship needs boundaries. Are you married?’
I showed her naked fingers. Wiggled them. Got a smile.
‘No girl, then?’ She hesitated. ‘Or boy?’
‘No one,’ I said. ‘Not now.’
‘There was that pretty policewoman, wasn’t there? Ernie’s lass?’
/>
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For a while.’
‘What happened?’
I almost said, your husband, and then held the thought. Not because it would upset her, but because it wasn’t really true. He was just an easy target. Instead I said, ‘Life.’
‘You messed it up.’ No blame in her voice. But she knew.
‘We both did.’ Because we didn’t talk. About the important things. Because we tried to pretend that things were perfect when they weren’t.
Maybe that was what she had been talking about when it came to her husband. She accepted who he was, no matter how ugly, and she talked to him about it. There was no hiding, pretending it wasn’t true.
Susan and I had hidden truths from each other that had been self-evident. We never talked about the things we knew we had done, about the blood that bound us together.
In the end, that silence was what drove us apart. Would we have been closer if we had talked about it? Could we have done things differently?
‘Maybe there’s still hope?’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
‘How long do you think until your friends arrive?’
I didn’t answer that.
Downstairs, someone was hammering on the door. Loud. Angry. I thought of those four beats from Beethoven: death knocking at the door.
Our host crawled in from the room across the hall. Pale. Shaking. ‘This was supposed to be the safest street in the city.’ He spoke in a loud whisper. ‘When we bought … They said … Oh, Jesus … Your bloody husband …’
‘You didn’t complain when he found your fucking car last year.’
Our host stayed quiet. No smart-arse comeback to that.
‘Or when he got you that whisky cut-price. Oh-no, no complaints there, eh, Jim?’
I looked at Mary. Surprised at the anger in her voice. She had always seemed so quiet, so mild, so accepting. To see genuine anger erupt from her was unexpected.
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