The Good Son (25 page)

Robertson stood up, kept his eyes on the dead leaves beneath his feet. He left the clearing, taking slow, deliberate steps.

In his mind he played and replayed the events as he would later report them. He even convinced himself that his version was the truth. He had played no part in his brother's death.

I could have collapsed and joined Robertson on the ground among the dead leaves and the dirt. But when I thought about him as he watched his brother die, the empathy within me vanished.

I turned to walk away.

“Wait.”

I kept my back to Robertson, but I stopped walking.

“You have to understand. For what I did, for… for all of that… oh, Christ… I'm asking you…”

He didn't have to. I understood.

But I didn't care.

“Please!”

“Aye,” I said. “You're right. You deserve to die.”

But I thought it was a better punishment for him to live with what he had done.

After I refused to help him die, Robertson tried it himself.

Tied a rope to the branch that had held his brother's corpse. Let himself fall.

But it didn't work. The tree refused to support him. The branch snapped before he was strangled. He landed wrong, damaged his spine. Might even have got his wish and died out there if he hadn't been found by a young couple walking their dog.

It still didn't feel like justice to me.

Susan kept me updated on Ayer's arrest. She came to the flat and we drank coffee together. The first time, she sat on the sofa the same way Elaine used to, with her legs curled up underneath her.

“Please,” I said, nodding to an armchair opposite. “Sit over there.”

She seemed to understand.

I should have taken time off. I was no use for physical work. I started using the crutches again, claiming a tear in my hamstring. Maybe I was right about that. My hand was useless for weeks. I attended physiotherapy and was given too many stern lectures.

I tried to lose myself in those cases I could still pursue.

The arrest incident at the Balgay Cemetery made the papers. Some mention was made of my involvement although the details were vague. It brought me a few new clients.

I took on enough to see me through.

Susan stopped by every second day. Sometimes at the flat, sometimes at the office. All we did was talk. Sometimes about what happened. Most of the time just about whatever was on our minds.

“It's nice,” she said.

“What?”

“This. Hearing you talk. Like a human being.”

I felt myself blush, although I wasn't sure why. “Sure.”

“Aye, I mean it's nice that you're not turning away. Like you always do.”

I thought about the morning after we slept together.

And then about when I confronted Elaine's father
in the interview room.

Andy in the A&E.

Bill in the hospital ward.

Each time, I'd expected them to understand. And each time, I'd failed to speak, the words drying up before they even reached my lips.

If I'd just said my piece, maybe things would have been easier.

Bill's recovery was protracted and painful. The odds were in his favour, perhaps, but every day was a new struggle. Physically and mentally.

During my visits we talked about everything except what had happened. What was there either of us could say?

I went back to Elaine's grave. Stood there for ten minutes and found I couldn't say a word.

I had so many things I wanted to tell her, but they could wait.

I had thought about asking Rachel to accompany me. But she had done more than enough. Some things, you have to do alone.

Ayer was stabbed in Perth prison. Left to bleed out in the showers. Medical staff couldn't get to him in time and he died that same day.

The killer was caught and said he didn't like the way Ayer spoke. Hell of a thing to be killed for,
having an English accent.

But everyone knew that was only half the story.

The killer was a recidivist dealer who got caught too many times trying to sell pills to punters outside a Perth nightclub. He had no history of unprovoked violence and staff at the prison expressed their surprise at what he did.

What the papers didn't say was that the man had ties to David Burns.

Susan had to drive me. My hand wasn't healing well. It wasn't safe for me to go out on the roads.

She said, if I did, she'd arrest me herself.

When we got close, I said, “Here,” and she pulled over to the side of the road. I got out the car and she joined me as I clambered onto the stone wall. I struggled, trying not to use my fucked hand. Susan reached out to help me, but I pulled back.

We swung our legs over, faced away from the road. In the distance the gently rolling Lomond Hills rose to meet the horizon.

Susan said, “Why here?”

“This was where she died.”

She didn't say anything.

“I was selfish,” I said. “I wanted to hang on to whatever I had left of her. This place gave me something like that.”

“It sounds morbid.”

“It was,” I said.

“And now,” she said, “why come back?”

“I guess I needed to say goodbye to all this in some way.”

“So why am I here?”

I hesitated, watched the hills for a moment. “Maybe I felt I couldn't do it alone.”

Her lips turned upward in a gentle smile.

Gently she reached out, placed her hand on top of mine. Her fingertips brushed the bandages. She stayed like that for a moment before pulling back, swinging her legs over the wall.

“I'll be nearby.”

I sat alone for a few minutes as she walked further down the road, looking at the hills in the distance.

I looked at the field which seemed so peaceful in the daylight.

I thought about what Rachel had said in the graveyard about moving on. I turned to look at Susan, who was lost in her own thoughts.

I took out my mobile. Dialled in a number I hadn't called for over a year.

When Martin Barrow answered the phone, I tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak.

“Who is this?” he asked.

Finally I said, “I didn't kill your daughter. I know you need someone to blame, but it's not me. And I know we should have said all this a long time ago, but… we need to talk.”