THE SAM BRYSON COLLECTION

by McLean, Russel D; Chercover, Sean

  HER CHEATING HEART

  (Spinetingler Magazine, Summer 2008)

  The door was open. The lights were off. There was music playing.

  Soft.

  I walked inside, announced my presence. Five minutes early. The open door worried me.

  The country music didn’t help.

  I’d walked out on Ros for this. All the usual arguments. Accusations of me losing myself in the worlds of my clients, of knowing them better than the woman I loved.

  Did I cut out on her for the job?

  Or because I knew she was right?

  “Mr Williams?” I stopped at the stairs that led to the second level of the house. The music – soulful, cracked vocals and melancholic guitar – came from the rear of the house on the ground level.

  “Mr Williams?”

  In the living room, where the music was playing, the only light came from the streetlights outside. Illuminating the room just enough so I could see my client, Mr Williams, sitting in an armchair by the fireplace. Drinking from a crystal whisky glass, slumped like jelly.

  The first time I met him, Mr Williams had worn a well-pressed wool suit, white shirt and dark tie. His hair, thinning, was carefully combed. He walked tall. All confidence. Until he talked about his wife. The things he suspected. The things he feared.

  Seeing him slumped in the chair, some sadsack alcoholic catastrophe, made the hairs on my arms dance as though a cold breeze had blown across them.

  He turned his head. From the distance of a few feet I could smell the booze. Light a match, burn the bastard down.

  “Oh, aye,” he said, and laughed the laugh of a condemned man. “Mr Bryson. You’re early.”

  I stepped forward, took the glass from his hand. “It’s a little early.”

  “I’ve been at it all day. A little bit tae start me in the morning, a wee bit more at lunch and then…” he laughed, again, didn’t bother finishing his sentence. “Preparing myself, ken? For the news.”

  Williams had let this worry gnaw at his soul for a long time before he even came to me. A cancerous suspicion that had eaten away at him until he could think of nothing else.

  I remembered the moment he lost his poise in my office:

  “My wife… I think she’s cheating on me.”

  Simple words, enough to near kill him.

  This morning, I’d felt good, Knowing that his fears were unfounded. Not often in this business you bring anyone good news.

  I waved the file in front of him. He waved back, dismissive in the way only a drunk can be. “Dinnae need tae read it,” he said. “Know it all, Bryson.”

  “Know what?”

  I wanted to shake him.

  He mouthed along for a moment with the country song on the stereo. Then, he said, “Her cheatin’ heart.”

  I shook my head. “Mr Williams, your wife loves you.”

  During our fight, Ros had called me an emotional jackal, confirming people’s worst fears. “When’s the last time you made someone’s life better?”

  The proof was in my hands.

  Proof my client had begged for.

  Proof I knew now he had never expected.

  So what had I been expecting? A hug? Tears of joy?

  When you come to someone like me, you don’t expect to be told that your suspicions are wrong.

  You want…

  confirmation.

  He shook his head, mumbled something incoherent.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “It’s all here. Her every move, her whole life when she’s with you and when she’s away from you and when –”

  “Shut up!” he roared. Stood up, tried take a swing at me. He moved slowly, carried roughly by the momentum of rage. I stepped back. He fell onto the floor in front of me, rolled onto his side, tucked his knees up to his chest and started to sob.

  More to his reaction than drunken irrationality.

  Maybe I should have seen it earlier. But I hadn’t been looking. Taking his nervous twitches, the way his eyes refused to meet mine and the way he rubbed his hands harshly together to be signs of his concern rather than anything else.

  But seeing him here, in this state, I knew that there had been some deeper seated cause to his malady. And I hadn’t noticed. Or else ignored it.

  I walked over to the stereo, turned off the country music. Now there were merely sobs. Like there was a difference.

  I crouched beside him, said, “Its good news.”

  “Nah,” he said, sniffling like a child. “It’s not good news, Bryson.” He pushed his chin down, like he was trying to hide his face between his chest and his knees.

  Anger to sadness. All it takes is the flip of a switch inside your brain.

  He had told me during our initial consultation how much he loved his wife. His thick brow creasing with concern; heavy, black eyebrows closing together. Voice lowering to a near whisper as he told how much he loved her. “It’s killing me,” he said, “to even think that she would be… with someone else.”

  Alarm bells should have rung, perhaps. He’d been in a bad way. I should have seen it. Should have realised:

  He’d judged her already.

  Found her wanting.

  As he cried, I found myself reaching out as though to touch him, but pulled back, as if afraid he would turn his head and try to snap at my fingers like some wild animal.

  “If your wife finds you like this,” I said. “She’s going to ask some strange questions.”

  “Ye dinnae get it, do you, Bryson?” he said. “She’s been here all the time.”

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs,” he said. “In the bedroom.”

  I stood up. The hairs on my arms danced again, this time with an urgency that felt sharply electric. I walked out, leaving the files behind, taking the whiskey glass.

  Upstairs.

  The master bedroom. Her body underneath the bed covers. Like she was asleep.

  Except blood had soaked through the white sheets.

  He’d positioned her carefully, lovingly, gone to great lengths to make it look as though she’d simply slipped away in the night. Would have worked if the blood didn’t tell a different story.

  Same with the shattered bedside lamp and the cracked mirror. Blood on the carpet, too, soaking into the thick, cream fabric.

  He’d been sick when he came to see me. A paranoid and dark sickness that, unchecked as it was, had manifested itself in this contradictory scene of deep hatred and gentle adoration.

  I had to wonder, was there something more I could have done? Could I have prevented this terrible tragedy?

  I dialled the police from my mobile. Told them who I was, where I was.

  Every detail they asked for.

  Hung up and hung around.

  Waiting to hear the sirens, I dialled another number.

  Ros answered, sounding hesitant.

  I looked around the room, realised I didn’t know what to say. But I had to say something. Make some sense out of this.

  Figured hearing her voice might help.

  DAVEY’S DAUGHTER

  (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September 2008)

  One, two

  “Y’see…”

  Huff-huff

  “…Sam…”

  Huff-huff

  “…the matter….”

  One, two

  “…of money…”

  He relaxed. Stepped back. Kept dancing a little, back and forth, arms loose and his fists ready. He was getting on, but there was still a strength about him. Maybe he was a little loose around the edges now, but he still seemed dangerous. I’d never seen him in the ring, but from photos and the way he moved, I knew he’d been a real hard bastard.

  He took a few deep breaths, slowed down the dance.

  I stepped back from the punching back. No need to hold it steady, now.

  “I ken ye think ye’re doing the right thing,” he said, “But I dinnae take charity.”

  “Not charity,” I said. “Mate’s r
ates.”

  “Aw, don’t piss me about.” He stepped back, moved over to the ring where two boys were working on their punches. Davey yelled at them, “Keep at it, lads. No slacking!” They picked up the pace.

  I said, “I’ll find her.”

  “At yer usual fee.” He didn’t even let me start protesting. “Else I’ll knock yer block off. For nothing. How’s that for mates’ rates?”

  ***

  Davey’s daughter. Kirsty, was sixteen years old. Sweet sixteen, they say, but in my line of work you come to realise they’re always anything but.

  Kirsty was missing now for three days. Davey could have – and maybe should have – gone to the police, but he came to me. Because he didn’t like the local coppers. And more importantly, they didn’t like him.

  I’d known him now for four years, which was enough time for him to get over the idea that I had been one of the enemy. He thought the police had their place, but where he grew up that place seemed to be harassing him and his mates.

  Saying the force has changed is one thing. Proving it to some people is quite another.

  So when his daughter went missing, he called me.

  And because he’d done me some favours in the past, I took the case, no questions asked.

  Davey’s gym was falling into disrepair. Health and safety would probably have a field day. Not Davey’s fault. Dundee’s working class gyms used to be part of a thriving community. The lads lapped it up, all that controlled aggression. It was where Davey had learned, in his words, “how tae be a man,” and it had instilled enough pride in him that when the last owner died, he took over the business. But as Dundee became less of a working class city and the metropolitan posers took over, a gym became less a place to work out than a place to be seen. Working class clubs like Davey’s took the heaviest financial hits.

  So, yeah, in part my offer of mate’s rates was charity. But mostly it was because… I liked the man.

  And I knew how much he loved his daughter.

  First time I met Kirsty, she had been twelve years old. Small and innocent. Mischievous, too, always grinning like there was some joke going on only she could understand.

  She meant the world to Davey.

  I knew she was growing up. Over the past couple of years, much as Davey still talked about her in loving tones, he sounded exasperated and afraid. She was becoming a woman and Davey had no idea to handle that. How to handle her friends, her boyfriends. How to handle her.

  To hear him talk about what had happened, you’d think he lost control completely.

  Like I said, sweet sixteen, you soon realise how much of a joke that is.

  ***

  She was going with a lad from round Douglas way called Mick. To give him his most common name: Mick the Mick. Irish, and not about to deny the blarney stone as long as it gave him the freedom to make girls swoon.

  I made Mick my first priority. Davey said that Mick and Kirsty had been fighting of late. Sounded like another girl, but Davey’s daughter didn’t tell him anything these days, no matter how much he told her he loved her.

  Knowing Mick the Mick, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

  I’d run Mick in a few times while I was still a copper. He was twenty-nine years old, now, and as much a part of Dundee as the Overgate or the Howff cemetery. Known as a jack-the-lad. A rascal.

  A pain in the arse.

  I rapped hard on his door and waited. The hall in the tenement smelled faintly of something acidic. Difficult to ignore.

  I rapped again.

  Kicked the door.

  A voice inside said, “Jaysus, gimme a minute!”

  Mick the Mick.

  When he opened the door, he was wearing a thick dressing gown, and his hair was messed up like birds had been trying to make a nest on his head. “What the hell, d’y –”

  I pulled him out into the hall. He yelped.

  “Remember me?”

  “I owe you money?”

  “I arrested you.”

  He tried to focus. “Aye, police?”

  “I was.”

  “Right.”

  I gave him a shake. “Where’s Kirsty?”

  “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend.”

  “No, there’s no girl tying me down like –”

  “Wrong answer.” I pushed him into the flat. He didn’t resist. His body was loose, like resisting would be too much effort. Probably the thought didn’t even crossed his mind. He was too fried.

  We danced through to the living room. Thick carpets. Posters on the wall, mostly classic 70’s stuff. Serpico.The Godfather. Like a student pad that was trying too hard. That was how Mick had come to Dundee, and even if the university had chucked him out, it seemed that was how he intended to stay.

  I threw Mick on the sofa. He was skin and bones. All the same, the fabric sagged.

  “Kirsty,” I said.

  “I’m telling you – ”

  I kicked the telly that sat on a low display unit. The screen cracked.

  Mick looked ready to piss himself. “Aw, Jaysus Christ, man!”

  “She’s sixteen years old. Dark hair. The kind of smile could melt you if you’re not careful. Apple of her Daddy’s eye.” I made eye contact, hammered the point home. “Her Daddy, who could take your head off.”

  “The old man’s a washed up –”

  “The old man could still kick your arse.”

  Mick considered this. Really considered. Cocked his head, rolled his eyes. No sarcasm. Genuine effort.

  Then:

  “She’s not with me. Not any more.”

  “You got bored?”

  “She was… she was seeing some other fella.”

  “Who?”

  “She wouldn’t say. Just told me to sling my hook.”

  “And you had no idea?” I crouched down, getting to his level. Making sure he knew… there was a kind of conspiracy between us. An understanding.

  He fell for it.

  “Could be that bollix, Fosty.”

  “Fosty?”

  “Aye, Fosty. Christ… what’s his name? Tom Foster. Yeah, that’s it.”

  “But his mates call him Fosty?”

  “Don’t know he has mates, exactly…”

  “Tell me where I can find Fosty?”

  He told me.

  When I left, he said, “That prick’s not coming round is he? Like, Kirsty’s Da?”

  I didn’t answer. Left him shaking on the sofa. Drugs or fear, I didn’t give a shite.

  ***

  Ros, my girlfriend, said it:

  “Sam, you’ve become a hardass, you know that?”

  She’s American, which means she’s allowed to use words like “hardass”. Anyone else does it in Dundee, they’re poseurs and deserve what they get.

  After leaving Mick’s apartment, I had to wonder if she was on to something. I was feeling on edge, and not just about Davey’s daughter. For several months I had been finding my temper more and more difficult to control. I’d been through some crap, culminating in my best friend almost getting locked up on murder charges, but all the same…

  Just a year ago, I’d never have burst in on Mick all balls and bravado. Never have threatened him without taking another tack first. But I was going at this investigation like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

  When did I become careless?

  And when was I going to pull back?

  ***

  Fosty’s place was only ten minutes drive from Mick the Mick’s. A halfway house. Purpose built. Barely over ten years old and already looking like over one hundred years of winds had battered it from the outside.

  Through the main doors, a front desk. Behind that, a gaunt man who looked like he’d rather be waist deep in cow-manure than sat there.

  “I’m here to talk to one of your… residents.”

  The man regarded me coolly. “Police?”

  “No.” I produced a card, placed it on the desk when he didn’t reach for it.