Cry Uncle

by Russel D. McLean

  David Burns’s honey traps were notorious. The stuff of station-gossip legend. Which always struck me as odd, given that the old man was as conservative as they come when it came to sex. Definitely a one-woman man. He was never seen in any of the dancing clubs he owned, never had a bit on the side, never strayed from Mary. He pumped money into gentlemen’s clubs, but never ever set foot inside one. Often said he didn’t care to know what went on in such places. Private lives, he said, should remain private.

  Of course, hypocrisy could have been the old man’s middle name. And he was perfectly willing to prey on others’ predilections.

  ‘Griggs had been working on a few local dealers. These men were connected to Burns. The old man wanted revenge. Used the politician to set up the sting with Griggs.’

  ‘But Griggs never figured that part out.’

  ‘No. Not at first. The councillor never talked about it, either. He kept quiet, did his time for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Never once mentioned Burns.’

  ‘But someone at SCDEA knew.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Griggs found out?’

  ‘We think he found out before applying for the transfer. Maybe thought joining the Agency was his best crack at getting one over on Burns.’

  ‘Except he never got the chance …’

  ‘Priorities change.’

  ‘Anti-terror?’

  ‘Among other things, yes.’

  Burns had never been one for political causes. Rumour was he’d once attended a meeting with a high level member of the Provisional IRA – who had been looking to the old man for supply of weapons – simply to tell the man to ‘Kiss my arse’. Burns’s family were Catholic Irish originally, two generations removed from the old man himself, but he wouldn’t ally himself with anyone whose methods he disagreed with. Burns wasn’t averse to violence, but only against those who brought it on themselves. Either by getting in his way or getting in over their head. He saw those with addictions or perversions as making conscious decisions. Violence against people who knew what they were doing was fine. But Burns could never handle violence that involved innocents – or people who Burns could classify as innocent – no matter how just or unjust the cause. If you could be called a terrorist, you would get no help from the old man.

  I could see, then, why the SCDEA might allow their focus on Burns to drop. The new political climate was international. Hollywood blockbuster scale. The new lords and masters didn’t care so much about men like Burns: men who only fought for small land grabs, whose power was limited locally. The SCDEA and the Government wanted the public to see the kind of results that looked good on twenty-four-hour rolling news channels. Homegrown gangsters were old news. They were safe, even. Movies like Lock, Stock, along with the canonization of men like Ronnie Biggs had ensured that the public were no longer concerned about organized crime that operated to the old rules. There was something quaint about men like Burns when compared to the kind of brutal terrorism that started to flood our consciousness.

  If Griggs had transferred specifically to stick the boot into the old man, then it made sense that he would be pissed off when the priorities shifted so fast. But there’s a difference between that, and taking your campaign to a whole other level in the way Griggs had done.

  What made it so personal?

  ‘The only person who could answer that would be Griggs himself.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And we don’t know where he is. He’s not at home. He’s not at the hotel room Bright told us he’d be staying at. He’s vanished.’

  ‘Does he know you want to talk to him?’

  ‘Do I look like I just started at this job?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘You’ve already taken down one corrupt copper. Maybe two.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Griggs isn’t corrupt. Stupid. Misguided. Maybe just blind because he’s angry. But not corrupt. He’s not a bad man.’

  ‘You know what he did to you.’

  ‘I know what I did to myself. Griggs took advantage of my weaknesses. And he played a blinder by poking holes in the James Robertson case.’

  ‘Where you shot a man in self-defence?’

  ‘Killed him. Deliberately. And covered up the facts.’

  ‘You realize what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, I do. What I did, I did out of anger. Because I had no choice. But I lied about certain facts.’ Just saying it made my chest feel easier. Like a metal band that had been placed across it for the last five years had suddenly been removed.

  ‘The second gun belonged to you?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Someone else put it in my hand.’

  Mitchell nodded. ‘David Burns.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, like Griggs, he saw something in me that he could use.’

  ‘The anger.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you drinking?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘At the time you shot and killed a man, were you drinking? You were grieving the loss of your fiancée. You had a reputation as a man with a hair trigger temper. So I have to wonder if you were drinking. Excessively.’

  I shook my head. ‘No more than most folks.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘Exactly what I said. I drank. No more or less than I do now.’

  She put her hands on the table, fingers locked together. Leaned in. Serious. Made me think of the force-appointed psychologist I had seen after my suspension for assaulting a senior officer. ‘So how did you get through what happened?’

  ‘Anger. Hate.’

  ‘I see.’

  I nodded.

  She said, ‘During that period, by all accounts, you exhibited the behaviour of an alcoholic. Or at least a depressive.’

  ‘Maybe. Can you blame me?’

  ‘But you didn’t drink.’

  ‘Aye, I don’t like to be predictable.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘So tell me what happens now.’

  ‘Your confession gets swept under the rug. The situation was … extreme. And the matter resolved itself. I don’t want any more paperwork than I’m already facing.’

  ‘Tell that to DI Kellen.’

  She smiled. Tight lips and cold eyes. ‘I might.’

  ‘Won’t change her mind. Might make her more determined.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. But my point, Mr McNee, is that there are degrees of sin. And they can be measured by intent.’

  ‘Philosophical for Discipline and Complaints.’

  ‘We’re smarter than people give us credit for.’

  I didn’t argue with her.

  What was there left to say?

  FORTY-EIGHT

  My fifth cup of weak coffee. My third hour in a small room with only my reflection for company.

  The door opened. Susan came in. I stood up, not sure how to greet her. She did the hard work. Wrapped her arms round me and pressed her head against my chest.

  When she pulled back, she looked at me with her head cocked to one side and said, ‘Do you think it’s us?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Every time our paths cross, things get messed up.’

  ‘That’s depressing.’

  ‘Guess so.’

  We stood in silence for a moment.

  She said, ‘Or maybe it’s just me.’

  ‘No. Really. It’s not.’

  She smiled. We sat down, pulling the chairs out from the table so that there was nothing between us. She said, ‘I can’t help feeling this is my fault. I’m the one got you into this.’

  ‘One way or another, Griggs would have got what he wanted.’

  ‘I’m an idiot.’

  ‘No. He promised you the one thing you wanted.’

  She nodded. ‘He lied to me. Told me that Burns had been responsible for my father’s death, that none of this would have happened if the old man hadn’t got into his stupid feud with a crooked
cop. That was wrong. Burns wasn’t responsible. Not really. He wasn’t the one who forced my dad into the position of working undercover.’

  I had to wonder what magic Griggs had worked on Ernie. Or whether Ernie had simply allowed himself to become a stooge. Wherever Griggs’s obsession came from, Ernie’s had to have been greater. After all, the DCI had been trying to pin down Burns for years. Had been forced into a situation where Burns was the devil he knew back in the nineties. And then, when the truce was cancelled by brass, he watched time and again as the law failed to crack down on a man who flouted it so easily.

  Maybe all Griggs had to do was ask Ernie. Maybe that had been enough.

  But I didn’t say any of this. Not to Susan. She had to have the same thoughts. But we all lie to ourselves about the people we love. Assign them higher motivations than they deserve. Jump through hoops to excuse behaviour from them that we might deplore in others.

  Susan and I sat in silence for a while.

  Comfortable.

  She was the only person in the world could make me feel that way.

  Something to count against what she had noted earlier: that whenever we were together, things tended to go to shite.

  FORTY-NINE

  DS Ewan ‘Sooty’ Soutar popped his shaved head round the door and told us we were being moved elsewhere. ‘Orders from above.’

  ‘You’re babysitting? Who’d you piss off?’

  Sooty didn’t respond, just shook his head and waited for us to stand. As I moved past her, Susan’s hand brushed against mine. A momentary touch, but comforting. Filled with a kind of promise I couldn’t put into words.

  We left FHQ through the front entrance, climbed into Sooty’s unmarked. Susan took the front seat. I climbed in the back. Made sense. Susan was still a cop with a reputation. I was just an arsehole with seemingly limitless second chances.

  Sooty drove us down through the centre. We hit the mess of roadworks that were the first stages of the city’s regeneration. Every time you came down, the layout changed subtly. More than once, I’d found myself accidentally heading over the bridge. And it seemed no different. But he didn’t seem to care. Halfway across, I realized that it wasn’t a mistake. We were crossing the bridge.

  I leaned forward. ‘Mind telling us where we’re going?’

  Sooty didn’t say much. I saw his face in the rear view mirror. Uncomfortable. He was a direct man. Lying didn’t come easy. In interrogation, he opted for the straightforward approach, relied on his size to get a confession. He never beat anyone. But the idea that he might was a powerful, psychological weapon.

  Of course, physical intimidation aside, he couldn’t bluff to save his life. I’d learned that much during off-duty hands of poker back in the good old days, when we were friends by virtue of wearing the same uniform.

  He pulled into the car park across the other side of the water. Same place where Griggs and I used to park parallel for face-to-face meets. Sure enough, I recognized the only other car waiting for us.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Susan said.

  Sooty couldn’t look at us.

  ‘You know he’s under investigation?’

  ‘No one told me anything. I just know he’s SCDEA and he wants to talk to you.’ But there was a hesitation there. Maybe no one had told him anything, but he still knew the situation was dodgy.

  ‘My arse,’ Susan said. ‘You know Sandy. You two go back …’

  ‘He’s doing the right thing. It’s the bloody system that’s …’ His face was reddening. Frustration. Stuck between friendship and the job. He’d always told me that I didn’t know which side I was on. His world was simple: black and white. Right and wrong. He knew where his loyalties lay. Except that in that one moment, he didn’t. Because there was no right or wrong that matched up to what he understood. His friend and his superior was in the wrong. But because he believed so utterly on both things, he couldn’t accept that.

  I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

  He gripped the steering wheel so that his knuckles whitened. His jaw went tight. He spoke through a mouth that didn’t want to move. ‘Tell me you’ve always been in the right, McNee. Tell me how you were always morally fucking upright. Aye, Sandy’s made some mistakes, but …’

  ‘Last time I made a mistake like he did, you tried to break my neck.’ Like I said, Sooty could be direct. And when something offended him personally – and it was the rare person I couldn’t offend personally – he tended to get physical.

  This time, he didn’t say anything. Or do anything. He was aware of his own hypocrisy. But couldn’t do anything about it. Not now.

  I shook my head. Got out of the car.

  FIFTY

  Griggs met me halfway. We stopped as though there was an invisible barrier between us. The wind cut sharp. Whipped against my skin like branches of a birch tree. I dug my hands deep into my jacket pockets.

  ‘You fuck,’ I said.

  ‘Tell me you wouldn’t do anything to put him away, the things he’s done.’

  ‘I’d have given my patsy a choice. I wouldn’t have forced him into—’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d resist.’ There was some regret there, sneaking in just below the words. As though he knew he’d done wrong. Didn’t want to admit it.

  ‘I was putting my life back together. I was so fucking close. And then you came along.’

  ‘Back together? Didn’t look so hot to me. Or Susan.’ His body language was wrong. His shoulders were drooped. He had difficulty looking into my eyes. He wanted to be in control, but he couldn’t manage it. Because he could see his world falling apart. All the certainties he’d had were gone. He was no longer in control.

  I could sense Susan behind me. She must have wanted to speak. But didn’t say a word. Because she knew he was trying to provoke her? Or because she knew he had a point?

  Maybe she knew that this conversation was about me and Griggs. Her own words would come later.

  I said, ‘So you thought you’d help me find my sense of purpose?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And when I didn’t play along, you decided the only thing left to do was to manipulate me? Make sure I had no choice but to do what you wanted?’

  ‘Desperate times.’

  ‘Desperate? Like fuck, Griggs. So what did all of this achieve? Aside from monumentally screwing up both our lives? Tell me?’

  ‘We rattled him. The old man’s on the ropes. Ready to give up. He knows he’s past it. He knows the evidence is stacked. He knows—’

  ‘—Does it matter to you how many people are going to die? Needlessly? The old man’s gone to war. Against a psychopath who wouldn’t think twice about killing anyone who got in his way.’

  Susan couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t keep quiet. ‘Jesus, Sandy! All of this … all you think you achieved … it doesn’t mean anything! The evidence you gained was procured by illegal methods. Your undercover operation was never sanctioned. Everything you did undermines the legitimacy of your intentions.’

  Griggs nodded. I wondered how long he’d been saddled with that knowledge. He can’t have started this knowing that he was in the wrong. He had to have blinded himself with the zeal of the righteous. By the time he realized that what he was doing was morally and legally compromised, he must have also realized there was no way back. He was committed.

  Never start something you can’t finish.

  One of the first things my dad had taught me.

  Wonder who taught Griggs that. Or whether he learned that lesson the hard way.

  I looked at him. Saw something like I used to see looking in the mirror. A man who knew that what he was doing was wrong. Who knew that he was damned but still continued because he didn’t know how to do anything else.

  A man obsessed.

  Looking for a revenge he could never have.

  I said, ‘This isn’t about Burns setting you up all those years ago, is it? This isn’t about his empire stretching beyond the control of t
he police. This isn’t political. This is personal.’

  He nodded. Finally looked at me head on.

  I said, ‘So tell me.’

  FIFTY-ONE

  2007.

  Another junkie. Another death. Same old story. Repeated so many times, it was easy to stop caring about each individual case.

  This one was found face down in a big pile of bin bags at the rear end of a housing complex. Those who found her didn’t know which smell was worse: the rotting garbage or the rotting corpse.

  Her death was unremarkable as these things go. An OD. Shooting up at the rear of the property, collapsing among the bags. Her last desperate breaths taking in the scents of rotting fruit and decomposing meat. A sad end to a sad life. But in the grand scheme, no better or worse than most.

  The girl had a sheet stretching back decades. Drug addiction. Prostitution. Debts out of her eyeballs. Both to banks and other unregulated institutions. She was homeless in an on and off fashion. She sold the Big Issue for three months, working the pitch on Union Street, harassing the punters heading for the bookstore, sometimes getting a gentle warning from the community officers for being overly aggressive with her sales patter. Eventually she got booted from the programme for habitually and consistently selling while high.

  There are rules, after all. Helping the homeless to help themselves. Not just helping the homeless for nothing.

  She didn’t get that, really. Expected just another charity she could try and scam.

  Banned from the Issue, she turned tricks, same way she had when she was new to the scene. Back then she’d been heroin chic, still with that little-girl-lost appeal. But years pumping powder left her looking old before her time. Bone thin, plaster white, reminding any potential punters of death more than lust. Slowing hearts more than speeding them up. Her whining pitch didn’t help matters, like she was begging folk for a fuck rather than offering an illicit thrill.

  It didn’t work out. So she escaped like she always did.

  Got high. Turned on. Tuned in. Dropped out one last and final time. Right on top of Tesco Value meals and crushed cans of lager.