Out of Bounds (32 page)

Sometimes, honesty was the only policy worth a damn. This woman wasn’t going to be fobbed off. Karen was going to have to give a little on the off-chance of getting a lot. ‘Jeanette’s son was involved in a car accident recently and his DNA was taken. And we learned something important from that. We discovered that one of his male relatives was involved in a serious crime twenty years ago. We need to find his father. And the only way we can think of to do that is through Jeanette.’ She spread her hands in a gesture of appeal. ‘We didn’t have much to go on, but we figured out you might be able to help.’

Agnes took a rosary out of the pocket of her apron and absently began working it with her bony fingers. ‘Jeanette moved away in 2006. She’d met a lovely man through her work. She worked at Jumping Junipers up the road at Juniper Green and Kevin was the postie. Kevin proposed but he was from Ireland and he wanted to move back there. There was nothing to keep Jeanette – her mum had died the year before.’ Agnes pursed her mouth and lowered her voice. ‘Breast cancer. And her so young.’

‘So
they got married and moved to Ireland?’

Agnes shook her head. ‘No, they moved to Ireland and then they got married. Jeanette sent me a photo.’

‘Have you still got it?’

Agnes shook her head. ‘I kept it for a few years. We exchanged Christmas cards for a wee while but that petered out. I doubt I’ve heard from her in five years.’

‘And do you remember Kevin’s surname?’ Jason chipped in, notebook at the ready, obviously reckoning there was nothing controversial in the question.

‘O’Toole.’ She gave a little simper. ‘Like Peter O’Toole. Lawrence of Arabia, you know?’

‘Do you still have an address for Jeanette and Kevin?’ Karen asked.

Agnes nodded. ‘Give me a minute.’ She left the room and returned in a moment, clutching a battered book with a gingham checked cloth cover. ‘My address book,’ she said, thumbing through the index. ‘Here we go.’ She recited an address in Dublin and Jason dutifully wrote it down.

‘Did you know Jeanette’s boyfriend?’ Karen continued. ‘The one who got her pregnant?’

‘I wouldn’t say “knew”. But I did meet him a couple of times, waiting for the lift with Jeanette. A handsome devil. Dark hair, dark eyes and good broad shoulders. She’d told me about him. How they were in love and he was the one, but I always say, you don’t know if he’s the one till you’re walking back down the aisle. I disapproved of her giving herself to him, but you can’t tell young people anything.’ She sighed. ‘And this was one time when I got no pleasure out of being right.’

‘No, I can see that,’ Karen said. Somehow, she thought that in spite of the obvious religiosity of Agnes McCredie, the older woman hadn’t judged her neighbour harshly.

‘And then she fell pregnant.’ Agnes shook her head, sadness rather than self-righteousness in her voice. ‘She didn’t
tell him to begin with. She was worried he’d think she was trying to trap him. She was going to have an abortion and carry on as if nothing had happened. But I could see she was uncertain, and in the end, she decided to keep it. And then, of course, she had to tell him.’

‘What happened then?’

‘He was in the army, did I mention that? He was stationed at Catterick and he used to come up to see Jeanette whenever he could get leave. Most weekends, he was here. She told him on the Saturday afternoon and instead of staying the night, he got on his motorbike and went straight back to camp. That was the last she saw of him. He wouldn’t speak to her on the phone and he never answered her letters. I thought her heart would break. And then she heard he’d been posted abroad. And that was that. She had the baby, she handed him over for adoption and two weeks later she was back at her work. She was never quite the same after that. She was still a lovely lassie. A good neighbour and good company. She always had time for an old woman like me, even though she wasn’t a Catholic herself. But after she gave up the baby, there was always a wee air of sadness about her. Even after she took up with Kevin, it was always there.’

Now for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. ‘I don’t suppose you remember his name? The boyfriend?’

Agnes bridled, offended. ‘Of course I do. I may be knocking at the door of eighty but I’ve still got all the marbles God blessed me with. I do my Sudoku and the crossword every day, to keep my mind active. His name was Darren Foreman. Sergeant Darren Foreman of the Royal Highland Regiment. That’s the Black Watch to you and me, son,’ she added with a twinkle at Jason. ‘I remember it well because I wrote the details down in Jeanette’s family Bible. She wasn’t very devout and I knew she wouldn’t get round to it herself so I did it for her.’

‘And
you’re sure he was the father?’ Karen broke the moment.

Agnes straightened up in her chair. ‘Jeanette was no goodtime girl, Officer. Darren was her first serious boyfriend. She told me she’d grown up in a single-parent household and she was determined not to go down the same road as her mother.’ She sighed. ‘And of course, that’s what happened, only a wee bit different. She was a decent lassie at heart. But Sergeant Darren Foreman, he was her Achilles’ heel.’

42

A
gnes
McCredie closed her front door behind them, the chain rattling as she replaced it. ‘Result, boss, eh?’ Jason exulted, stepping out towards the lift.

‘Hang on, Jason, where are you going? We’ve got another potential witness here.’

He turned, his expression the all-too-familiar one of bafflement. ‘But we’ve got everything we need. Miss McCredie gave us chapter and verse. Now we just have to track down Sergeant Darren Foreman. One phone call to army records and we’re cooking with gas.’

‘Not so fast. Agnes McCredie is obviously a fully paid up member of the Jeanette MacBride fan club. And as we know, because we are nasty-minded, devious police officers, the version of the world people give us is never the whole truth. That’s why, when we have the option of two sources, we take it, Jason.’

Comprehension dawned. ‘What? You think there might be more to Jeanette MacBride than Miss McCredie was letting on?’

‘No
idea. But we’re not going to find out if we don’t try. And besides, I never trust anybody that doesn’t offer me a brew.’ Karen carried on along the gallery to Thomas Anderson’s front door. His windows were covered with, at a guess, thin cotton bed sheets that had once been white but were now a streaky grey. She knocked, three firm raps.

A long pause, then the sound of shuffling feet. The door swung back to reveal a man who could have been any age between forty and seventy. His face was creased and yellow, patches of missed stubble dotted his slack jowls and throat, and his greasy gunmetal grey hair looked like he’d cut it himself without a mirror. Skinny white arms stuck out of a faded black polo shirt and a pair of cheap joggers flapped round stick-thin legs. He had the hard pot belly of a beer drinker. He resembled an olive pierced by cocktail sticks. Except that he smelled of cigarettes and stale biscuits. ‘What d’you want?’ he demanded, glaring at Karen, then peering round her to visit the same glower on Jason.

‘Thomas Anderson?’

The scowl deepened, scoring his face more deeply. ‘Who wants to know?’

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Pirie of Police Scotland. And he’s Detective Constable Murray. We’d like a word about one of your former neighbours.’

‘Oh aye? And who would that be?’ His mouth set in a stubborn line and he thrust his jaw forward.

‘Jeanette MacBride.’

Anderson visibly relaxed. ‘She used to live at forty-three.’

‘That’s the one. Mind if we come in?’

‘Aye, I do. I’ve not been round with the Hoover lately.’

‘Have you got something to hide, Mr Anderson?’ Karen asked sweetly. ‘Should I be talking to the local bobbies about popping round with a search warrant? Look, I don’t care if you’ve got smuggled fags or dodgy vodka in your crib. I want
one thing, and one thing only. And that’s a wee chat about Jeanette MacBride.’

‘Why? What’s she done?’

‘Nothing that concerns you. Can we do this inside? I’m sure you don’t want everybody in the block to see you having a cosy wee blether with the polis?’

She’d found his weak spot. Anderson’s eyes flicked from side to side and he stepped back, waving them inside. Breathing in was like an olfactory catalogue of Anderson’s life. Cigarette smoke, stale fat, old farts and body odour tempered with a drift of piss as they passed the bathroom.

The living room contained a sofa whose upholstery was shiny with wear and grease and a massive TV dating from the days before flat screens were dreamed of. A spindly table with a laminated top sat by the window, a pair of wooden stools flanking it. Two upside-down cardboard boxes that had once held bottles of wine served as occasional tables. A pile of crushed lager cans lay on the floor by an overflowing pub ashtray. ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ Karen said.

‘You can fuck off any time you like.’ Anderson threw himself down on the sofa.

Karen had no intention of sitting on any surface in the room. She leaned a shoulder against the wall, crossing one foot over the other. Jason was less fussy. He chose one of the stools and took out his notebook. ‘So,’ Karen said. ‘You remember Jeanette?’

‘Aye. Nice lassie. She always said hello. Well, until she took up with that Fenian bastard she went off with. He didn’t like her talking to the likes of me.’

‘That would be Kevin O’Toole?’

Anderston tittered. ‘Tool, right enough. He was a tool, take it from me.’

Karen couldn’t fault O’Toole’s judgement. ‘Were you living here when Jeanette had her baby?’

‘Aye.
It wasn’t O’Toole’s bairn, though. That was a good few years before he appeared on the scene.’ Anderson pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up with a cheap plastic lighter. Karen could see the health warning on the pack wasn’t in English. She’d been right on the money with the smuggled fags.

‘Did you know who the father was?’ She sounded offhand, as if it wasn’t important.

‘She’d been going out with a soldier. I saw him in his uniform a couple of times. I suppose it must have been his, for I never saw her with anybody else.’

‘Did you know his name?’

Anderson snorted. ‘We were never introduced.’

‘Did she have a lot of boyfriends?’

He shook his head. ‘Not really. I heard she gave the bairn up for adoption and it was a long time till I saw her with another guy.’

‘So there’s no doubt in your mind that the army sergeant was the baby’s father?’

Anderson sucked hard on his cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘That’s what I heard. There’s no secrets round here.’ He sneered. ‘Except from the likes of you. But what folks were saying was he got her up the duff then legged it. So what’s he done?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’ Karen pushed off from the wall. ‘Why? Is there something you’re not telling us about what he was up to back then?’

Anderson shook his head. ‘I’m like Manuel. I know nothing.’

That, thought Karen, was the most reliable thing Anderson had said. ‘In that case, Mr Anderson, we’ll take up no more of your time.’ She gave Jason a tiny jerk of the head to indicate they should make a move.

‘Is that it?’ Having been so reluctant to let them in, he now
seemed aggrieved that they didn’t want anything further from him.

‘That’s it.’ She moved towards the door, Jason on her tail. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

As they waited for the lift, Jason heaved a sigh. ‘What’s the matter?’ Karen asked.

‘See guys like that? They give me the creeps. His life’s burst. How do you end up like that?’

‘Bad chances, worse choices.’

Jason sighed again. ‘I just think sometimes, they were kids once. They ran about the park kicking a football. They had things they wanted to be. Nobody dreams about being that guy there. Nobody sets out to be like him. And we keep coming up against folk that have got themselves completely fucked up.’

It was probably the most profound statement she’d heard Jason make. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘If you think about it too much, you’d never get out of bed in the morning. The way I look at it, we’re the lucky ones. We can’t fix it for everybody, but we get to try and make it a wee bit better for some people.’

‘I suppose,’ he said, following her into the lift.

‘And now we’ve got a name and a degree of confirmation that Darren Foreman is our man. So let’s get on his trail.’

Karen made the call to army records as soon as they got back to the office. It was always easier to call from a landline so they could call back via the switchboard to check she was a bona fide cop. While she was on hold, her mobile buzzed with a text from Giorsal.

Ship Inn, Limekilns. Table booked for 8. Fish suppers are on you.

Karen’s mouth filled with saliva at the memory of the Ship Inn’s haddock and chips. That was something to hang on to as the tail end of the day dribbled away.

The
phone crackled into life. ‘DCI Pirie? I think I’ve got what you need. Darren Foreman joined the Royal Highland Regiment in 1987. He was sixteen and at the time he joined, he was living in Glasgow. He was a combat infantryman—’

‘What does that mean, exactly?’

‘A foot soldier. Patrols, guard duties, protecting convoys. What most people think of when they think of a soldier. The boys on the front line who get shot at.’ The voice on the other end sounded mildly amused. ‘The equivalent of a bobby on the beat, I suppose. He appears to have been rather good at it. He hit Lance Corporal in under three years, full corporal in six and sergeant at eleven years’ service. He left at that rank after fifteen years in, in 2002. Managed to miss the second Gulf War.’

Karen was a little surprised. If pressed, she’d have marked Tina McDonald’s killer as having some issues with impulse control. ‘No problems with him? No disciplinary issues?’

‘Nothing on his record that I can see. Good soldier, by the looks of it. There’s a note here that his commanding officer recommended him for SAS training with a view to recruitment, but he didn’t make the grade. No disgrace there. Only about fifteen per cent of the men who go through the training make it to the regiment.’