03-Father Confessor

by Russel D. McLean

  I couldn’t hit back at that.

  Susan had lied to cover for me.

  And every day, that was the first thing to hit me when I woke up. This strange feeling that I was a coward for hiding behind Susan’s lies. But if I’d stepped forward, I suspect things would have been worse.

  Her lie wasn’t to protect me. It was to protect an innocent girl. We’d agreed that I should be the one to take the fall. And then Susan made her “confession”. Knocked me off guard.

  We still hadn’t talked about it. Sex had become something that stopped us from thinking about consequences. It had always been between us, and now it was driving us further apart than we’d been before.

  I said, “She knows about you and Burns.”

  “You told her?”

  “She worked it out.”

  He nodded. Smiling? His head was half-turned away so he didn’t have to look at me and so that I couldn’t look at him. “Smart lassie, my girl. Never could hide much from her. Takes after her mother.”

  Did his wife know?

  I said, “You know you can’t be friends with a man like that. Even if you like him, Ernie, it’s a professional –”

  “Don’t talk to me about professional, McNee,” he said, keeping his voice calm. Knowing that people had noticed us. “Don’t say a bloody word about it. Because if anyone here’s a screw-up, it’s you. Assaulting a senior officer like that? Christ sakes, he was trying to help you too. And we all had sympathy for you then, but look at what you became. Look at the chaos that always follows in your wake.” He shook his head.

  I thought about saying something else.

  Realised I’d said too much.

  Slipped off the barstool and walked away. Leaving my pint untouched.

  A moment of self-control. But I never felt much pride about it.

  ###

  Had Ernie Bright been trying to tell me something? Sounding conflicted because he couldn’t tell me that the real reason he was getting close to Burns was so that he could get more information on Kevin Wood?

  He had said it outright: I wasn’t looking at things the right way. That there were aspects I couldn’t see to the situation.

  Months later, I had a kind of clarity. But it was too late to do anything about it.

  Ernie was dead. And his own colleagues suspected – whether they voiced it or not – that he’d been dirty. They were the same fears I’d been harbouring for months. For the same reasons: they didn’t have access to all the facts.

  Sure, I could go forward, same way Ernie had been planning to. But given my reception at the hospital the previous evening, I doubted whether I could really convince anyone of anything. Ernie had been my cheerleader on the force following my exit from the Job, and now he was gone. Even Lindsay, who might have stood up for me in this case, was at death’s door himself.

  Unlike Ernie, I didn’t have any concrete evidence and anything I had hoped to find would be long gone by now. It would be my word against those of fellow boys in blue.

  Tell me who you’d believe.

  And I couldn’t help but think about Ernie accusing me in a moment of uncharacteristic anger of all the shite that follows in my wake.

  He’d been right, of course.

  It was my own form of self-delusion, this idea that I was doing the right thing when in fact what I did more often than not was fuck everything up. Maybe not a conscious decision, but unconsciously you’d think I could see the consequences of my own actions.

  I was thinking about this when Susan said, “Wood knew that my father was getting close to him. Dad didn’t think anyone would take his side if he went public with what he knew. So who’s going to believe us?”

  I didn’t know. I walked over to her, put my arms around her. She pressed against me, raised her head so that her lips were at my ear. “I want him dead,” she said.

  I held her tighter.

  They were just words. Uttered in a moment of despair.

  Just words.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We couldn’t just accuse Wood of corruption. It would become a game of his word against ours. And he would win. He hadn’t played the game so long to suddenly get sloppy. We couldn’t just rush in, metaphorical guns blazing.

  In the back of my mind, I rolled Susan’s words over and over.

  I want him dead.

  It was the kind of thing someone says without thinking. A moment of anger that would pass and give way to rationality.

  This was Susan, after all.

  How many times had she pulled me back from the brink?

  What we needed was evidence. Or a reliable witness. The sheets of paper I had grabbed from Ernie’s place had one key name mentioned over and over again. A name I was convinced would be the weak link in Wood’s chain.

  Susan said she would stay out of it. Any action she took in the matter could affect the outcome of her hearing. She was already in enough trouble.

  I said, “I’m sorry I thought that Ernie was– ”

  She shook her head, kissed me on the lips. It was fleeting and felt cold, oddly distant. When she pulled back, I had to suppress a shiver. This sensation, the one my gran used to describe as “someone dancing on my grave”.

  She said, “It’s okay. He was my dad, but he was only human. And one thing you learn fast in the police is that anyone’s capable of anything.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll be fine. I just can’t take any stupid risks.”

  I nodded.

  She said, “And neither can you.”

  “I’m just going to talk to him,” I said. “Persuade him to do the right thing.”

  As I walked out the flat, I found myself shivering again. Something was gnawing at the back of my skull; a half-formed idea or suspicion. A notion that something was very wrong, and that I was an idiot if I couldn’t work out what it was.

  ###

  My head was becoming increasingly fuzzy. The shakes were coming on: my left leg seizing up. My right hand was numb. I had to keep stretching my fingers out in order to get any feeling back.

  What the hell was I thinking? These last few days I’d been pushing the limits. Which would have been fine if I was an action hero in a Hollywood movie. But in real life when you get battered about, it tends to have consequences.

  And not all of them are immediately obvious.

  I drove carefully, sitting forward, forcing my eyes open. I could feel the car slipping along the road, this terrible sensation that I was about to lose control. One moment of distraction, I’d hit something or just plough onto the pavement. Blame it on the lack of sleep. And maybe too many pills. Self-medication is a tricky business. A friend of mine, his brother had started medicating with over-the-counter painkillers, wound up just as fucked as any dope addict.

  Maybe worse.

  I figured I was on the right side. That this was an unusual situation. All the same, part of me was panicking, struggling to stay sharp.

  I forced myself to keep awake more through sheer willpower than anything else. Focussing on the goal, the end game. Knowing that once I was finished, I could let myself go. But I couldn’t stop before I was finished. I knew that much.

  The rain was heavy again. The windscreen was streaked. The lights outside became trails of orange and white that fritzed and sparked.

  I kept my mind focussed.

  On the road.

  On the goal.

  On the man I needed to talk to.

  The man who would give me what I needed.

  My eyes flicked between the road and the dashboard.

  The digital clock read-out:

  03:37

  03:38

  03:39

  ###

  Peter Keller.

  Tory candidate, Dundee East. An influential man.

  Sure, the Tories rarely got a look-in when it came to Dundee – we’re a city of workers, traditionally Labour voters, even during the 2010 elections when people had lost faith in the “worker’s party” that had so l
ong ago discarded its own roots and ideals – but Keller was a man of wealth and property who still had a strong voice in local Government. He could easily bend the ear of the right people if there was something he really wanted.

  What you’d call a good man to have on your side.

  Look at what Ernie had gathered, you had Keller approving so many projects and initiatives that benefited Wood and his various fronts, that you’d have to be missing your eyes and at least half your brain to not think Keller had been bought in some fashion. And was being kept. A good little pet.

  When I pulled up outside Keller’s house – a Victorian structure set back from the main road behind a walled garden and large trees – I noticed another car parked there.

  Looked familiar. It had only been a few hours since I’d been sitting in the back, passing crumpled papers to the man in the passenger seat and feeling like I was crossing a personal line, hoping it was for all the right reasons.

  I walked through the iron gate set in the boundary wall. Simple lock, no need for a key. The stone steps that led to the front garden were uneven with age; original features, probably something he was proud of.

  The front garden was mostly grass. There a few neatly trimmed bushes and flowers arranged in a deliberate fashion. It wasn’t a garden you took pride in looking after yourself. It was a garden you paid for.

  I followed the path that bisected the lawn. Flat paving stones, evenly laid. The covered porch in front looked new. Probably called it a conservatory and paid three times the price. Double-glazed and so clean inside you had to wonder if anyone ever used it. Even the furniture facing out towards the garden didn’t look as though anyone had ever actually sat on it.

  There were lights on inside.

  This early in the morning? Confirmed my suspicions about the car up front. Made me wonder if I was too late.

  I rang the doorbell. Waited.

  I wasn’t surprised by the man who answered the door.

  Simply said, “Let me talk to him.”

  The thug – still awkward in the suit that Burns insisted he wore – stepped aside.

  I think maybe he was smiling. But I couldn’t really be sure.

  ###

  Keller was on the sofa, his head tilted back, hankie pressed against his nose to stem the gush of blood. He looked out of shape; the kind of man who doesn’t exercise, doesn’t realise his lifestyle’s catching up on him until he hits middle age and that spread just happens.

  Burns sat in a comfortable armchair across from the politician. He’d helped himself to a glass of whisky. Or maybe he’d brought more of his own. Either way, he wasn’t drinking so much as just sloshing the liquid around in the heavy crystal glass.

  I stood in the doorway for a while. Taking in the details.

  Two ways in and out. Conventionally speaking, of course. In desperate times you could probably pull open those thick curtains and dive out the large French windows. Not that it would be my first choice. Diving through glass isn’t like in the films. You get cut bad. You get hurt.

  The television and stereo were tucked away in a corner that didn’t dominate the room. Unusual in a modern home. The size of the screen was modest, too. I remembered Keller quoted in The Dundee Herald as talking about how multimedia ruined culture, so it figured he wouldn’t give much prominence to flatscreen HD.

  The sofa he was sitting on was a wine red. Looked like you could just sink into it after a hard day taking backhanders from crooked coppers and other assorted arseholes. Maybe he would have been relaxing on it now if he didn’t have guests.

  Then again, it was past three in the morning.

  Burns said, “McNee, do come in. Peter’s already got guests. The more the merrier.”

  Keller looked at me as best he could in his position. Trying to work out who I was. The same look I’d seen earlier that week from a junkie ex-cop. But Keller’s eyes had more clarity than those of ex-cop and current junkie Raymond Grant. The question in them was the same though: Who is this man?

  Burns said, to me, “Why don’t you tell our host why you’re here?”

  I remained standing. Said simply, “Ernie Bright.”

  Got an immediate reaction from Keller. As though someone had run a current through that wine-red sofa. He didn’t loosen the grip on that blood-stained hankie, but he came close.

  I said, “What happened to your nose anyway? You have an accident?”

  Burns looked at me. A warning in his expression. Some people, when they want you to play along, they have this begging look about them. Burns didn’t have such a look. If I didn’t do as he wanted, I’d be as much in the shite as Keller. Maybe more.

  Burns said, “These things happen. Later at night. Maybe after a couple of glasses. He’ll be fine. Nothing important, eh?” This last question directed at Keller.

  I said, “Give me five minutes.”

  Burns looked at me again. Eyebrows raised. Unguarded surprise.

  I hoped that might appeal to his vanity, the idea that someone could still surprise him. Especially someone in whom he believed he saw something of himself. “Five minutes?”

  I said, “I know what you want. I can get it from him.”

  Keller let loose a strangled whimper. Of course he was scared. He didn’t know who I was. He’d heard my name, but clearly didn’t recognise it. To him I was just another associate of David Burns. Another man who wanted information.

  Another thug who would be prepared to hurt Keller to get what I wanted.

  All of which worked to my advantage.

  When Keller looked at me, he saw the bruises, probably figured I looked this way all the time. If he asked what happened, he would imagine me coming out with some line like, “You should see the other guy.”

  Which was why he didn’t ask the question. Didn’t put on any false bravado.

  He just made this pathetic little noise. A balloon with the final puff of air making its escape.

  I said again to Burns, “Five minutes.”

  Burns said, “I could do with a cigarette,” as he stood up.

  The old man gave me the warning look again as he left the room. Don’t screw with me. Aye, I had a certain amount of trust banked with the man but if I went over the score, he’d deal with me like anyone else. Burns was enough of a sociopath to turn off his empathy at will.

  When we were alone and the door was shut, I sat down in the seat that Burns had vacated and leaned forward so that I was looking directly at Peter Keller.

  The politician finally removed the hankie from his nose in a tender, careful movement. The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle. He sat very still, as though afraid any sudden movement might set it off again.

  As though any sudden movement might set me off.

  I said, “We have five minutes. So you’re going to tell me about Ernie Bright and Kevin Wood. You’re going to give me everything I ask for. That way, we both might make it to the morning alive.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  1973.

  Peter Keller graduated from St Andrews University. PhD in political science and a plan to “change this country for the better.” In his case, “for the better” meant actively campaigning for a Conservative government. Even decades after the Thatcher administration he’d be one of those who cried out the “more good than harm” line as everyone with half a brain remembered “Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher” and other, worse slogans that came to epitomise the perceived idiocy and greed of the Tory administration. Keller got involved in local level politics after he moved to Dundee with his fiancée, the two of them sharing a small flat in the city’s West End. She helped support the move by finding a job teaching English at a local secondary. They were a young couple on the up.

  Keller became involved in the local council later that year. Campaigned long and hard in his ward, promising more than he could ever hope to deliver. But he found that it wasn’t the voters who made his life better. Rather, it was those individuals for whom he could do small favours; nothing more
than turning a blind eye here or making a subtle recommendation there. Okay, you needed a degree of amorality to do it, but Keller found that came naturally, especially when the price was right.

  It was a good life.

  Until the police came knocking on his door.

  In 1975, Kevin Wood was a beat copper. A uniform, but with a future. Not because of his work – although everyone would say that he was a fine copper – but because he was kissing all the right arses, whispering all the right seductions in all the right ears.

  But what no-one in the chain of command suspected was that he was also playing the streets. How else do you explain his showing up at the door armed with hard evidence of Keller’s complicity in some of the shadier development deals of the last few years?

  “When I opened the door to him,” Keller said, “he was smiling. You’d think he was bloody Dixon of Dock Green popping in for tea and crumpets. What I remember was that he smiled. And it should have been warm and reassuring, but it made me want to turn and run. And not just because he was an ugly sod.”

  Wood had documents that proved beyond a doubt the facts of Keller’s corruption: under-the-table deals, development opportunities he’d passed through against formal recommendations, motions he’d carried on behalf of others, records obtained for the wrong people. Minor league stuff, but enough to get Keller in trouble if it ever fell in front of the right people.

  “People like me don’t go to prison,” Keller told me, over thirty years later, his voice shaking. His idea of prison probably came from popular rumours and tales of hell that circulate like a game of Chinese whispers until the thought of prison becomes, in its own way, worse than the reality. “We’re not made for it. Not brought up for it. We can’t survive.”

  I wanted to reach out and smack him. The presumed arrogance. The idea that “people like him” don’t go to prison. Twenty-first century arseholes like Keller still cling desperately to Victorian ideas of class. For a supposedly classless and modern society, we still breed morons who presume privilege and right above others just because of the family and wealth they were born to.