The Lost Sister (6 page)

DI George Lindsay was loitering on the pavement as I pulled into the nearest parking space. As little as a year ago, there was a car park across from the office, but they shut it down, built new university accommodation that looks like it'll collapse within the next five years.

Dundee's become one of those cities; filled with new money and dreaming of expansion. But as with all grand ideas, not all of them have been thought through. Some are plain eyesores and others are expensive mistakes; buildings that will barely stand five years never mind five hundred.

Hasn't the city learned from its mistakes? In the sixties and seventies, the council had knocked down grand old buildings to make way for imposing concrete designs that soon became ugly and outdated. Now they were knocking those down to make way for new buildings destined to become eyesores to the next generation.

No 1, Courthouse Square, wasn't so bad. Sandstone and refurbished in the late nineties, it was solid and interesting from the outside and beginning to age well enough. The bottom floors were occupied by a building society, and the entrance to the main stairwell which led to my own offices was round the side of the building.

I walked over to Lindsay, every step slow and deliberate. He grinned when he saw me, plucked the cigarette from between his lips and ground it out on the pavement.

“In case you're still living clean,” he said. “Can't have an inconsiderate bastard like me offending the delicate sensibilities of an ex-smoker, aye?” First time we met was in the smoking room at Dundee FHQ over five years earlier, when you could still smoke indoors. I'd given up shortly after I met Elaine. Didn't miss it all that much.

Except when the habit itched.

Five years. The bastard had barely changed. Probably look the same at seventy as he did at fifty. He was short, with wide shoulders and the stance of a brawler. A large forehead, flat nose and tiny eyes that sparkled with a general hatred for everyone around him. He wore his suit reluctantly. Last thing you could accuse him of being was a clotheshorse

“How'd you catch the case?”

“Heard the call, couldn't resist.”

Couldn't resist
. Aye, couldn't resist coming down here to piss me about. Long ago I realised he actually enjoyed our mutual antagonism, treated it like a game. Even when I broke his nose – and you could still see the crooked bump right there at the bridge – he'd taken to the role of wronged victim with what seemed a childlike glee.

“They're keeping you away from the big boy cases,” I said. “Figured you'd have been all over the Mary Furst investigation.”

He craned his neck to look up the third floor windows of my office. “You know, pal, it's a fucking mess up there.”

“Tell me.”

He turned his attention back to me. “They did a number, all right. Maybe you can help us figure what's missing. Whether they stole anything of value.” He laughed at that; his own private joke.

I moved past him. He followed at a discreet distance. I didn't turn around, but still knew he was smirking.

The prick.

“Maybe you'd be better investing in security,” he said as we came to the top of the stairs. “I mean, this isn't exactly good publicity for your services, aye? And we've done this dance before.” Last time he came to my offices, he'd found a man bleeding out on the floor. The worst kind of timing.

I shot Lindsay the finger over my shoulder.

He hadn't been exaggerating about the mess. The door had been smashed off its hinges, the frame cracked and splintered. Inside, someone had emptied out every file, overturned the desk in reception.

 

I felt sick.

Remembered holding Bill as he bled out on the floor. Gut shot.

We'd been friends as much as colleagues. These days, after the incident, we barely spoke. The poor bastard was still in a wheelchair. His boyfriend blamed me for what had happened. I did as well.

Best not to think about it, of course. There was a long list of the dead and injured behind me. If I started taking personal responsibility for them all, there'd be no end to my litany of sins.

Lindsay whispered in my ear, “You're looking peaky.” A cartoon devil whispering bad thoughts. I was missing the angel, of course.

Slipping away from him, I checked my private office. Again, the door smashed in, the tables overturned, the files emptied. The safe was on its side, the door blown open.

A message?

Maybe.

I knelt down beside the safe. Checked the outside. Saw the warped metal, the scorch marks.

“They knew what they were doing,” said Lindsay. “This wasn't a bunch of wee neds breaking into someone's office for kicks, right?”

I closed my eyes. Pictured the explosion. Muffled, powerful. The door blowing off.

They knew what they were doing
.

Who had those kinds of connections?

I said, “They were looking for something specific.”

“In the safe?”

“I don't know. Maybe they were just trying every nook and cranny.”

I felt my stomach cramp. Started flexing my fingers. Not quite making fists, but like I was wrapping them round some bastard's throat.

Aye, fuckit, I knew who had those kinds of connections.

Who'd think I had something up here worth nabbing.

Someone who'd already made their interest in my work known.

“You have a knack of pissing off the wrong people,” Lindsay said. “How's the wee lad doing, anyway? The one who got shot?”

I got to my feet. Spun on heels to face Lindsay. My nails dug into the palms of my hands. My body was humming.

He saw it, and just for a moment he lost control. His eyes widened and he leaned away from me.

Aye, he pretended like he was in control, had nothing to fear. But the cocky wee shite was shaking in his boots.

Made me feel better.

Not much. But enough that I could walk away.

Another time, I might have been proud, just walking out of there. Not trying to throttle Lindsay.

Call me a changed man.

Or maybe the fight had been shocked out of me.

Whatever the case, I was down the stairs and out on the street again, one man on my mind.

Aye, maybe I walked out of there because I had some other arsehole to throttle.

Had to be Burns. No other shite would give a toss about my files. He'd offered me a job, and I'd refused it. All the same, I'd been working on a case that interested him. He wanted whatever I knew.

Did he think I was holding out on him?

That I knew something about his goddaughter I wasn't willing to share?

As I made to cross the road, a voice called, “McNee.” Deep, heavy, enough to stop me cold.

I turned, saw a man I didn't recognise. Big guy. Dressed in a suit that seemed to pinch, as though there wasn't quite enough material to make him clothes that actually fit. But he wasn't fat. Even from a distance you could see the muscle. He sported the kind of beard that would make a lumberjack proud, and slicked his dark hair back from his temples. His eyes were wide, manic, made me think of Tom Baker who used to play the lead in
Doctor Who
.

I hesitated.

The big guy took it as his cue, came across. “You are McNee, then?”

“And you?”

He offered his hand. Bigger than a boxing glove. Christ, find yourself on the wrong end of that, you'd be in real trouble.

“Wickes,” he said. Surprisingly, he didn't try and crush my hand. I'd been expecting it, bracing for it. Figured him for the kind of guy who'd like to show off his strength. But he had a strangely delicate shake. “I'm in the investigation game like yourself.”

I nodded. Tried to think. I knew most of the local crowd by sight, even the ones who worked for larger firms. But the name Wickes had never come across my radar.

He said, “I work out of Glasgow mostly, but…d'you think we can talk?”

“I don't have the time.”

“It's about the girl. The one who's missing.”

Hard not to react to that one.

He said, “I think I know what happened to her.”

We grabbed a table at the Washington Café on Union Street. The café had undergone a recent facelift, getting rid of the old booths and vinyl pews and replacing them with rounded tables and high backed chairs. I still wasn't sure what I thought about it, but the coffee was decent and we could talk in relative peace.

The radio on the counter spat out local stations; a mix of nostalgic pop music and local news.

Wickes got in the coffees, grabbed himself a bacon roll. I wasn't hungry, my stomach still churning from bad memories.

“I heard your name through the grapevine,” he said as he slid in across the table from me. “Bad business you were involved in last year.”

“Wrong place, wrong time.”

Wickes laughed. An unnatural sound. Almost guttural. “I've heard that before.”

I didn't bother defending myself or correcting him. Got the feeling he'd only hear what he wanted to.

Grand quality for an investigator.

“You said you knew something about Mary Furst.”

“You're the man to talk to, right? Hear you're deeply involved with the investigation.”

“I took an offer to look at the situation,” I said. “But I'm not involved any longer. I backed off.”

He sat back in his chair, deceptively casual. “You backed off? From a prize investigation like this? What, that business from before make you gun-shy?”

I said nothing.

“Don't mean anything by it,” he said after a moment. “I know your reputation. Your history. You're something of a celebrity. Unusual for an investigator.” Christ, I didn't think I could cope with any kind of hero worship. Or inane flattery designed to get me on side.

“If you have information,” I said, “you should go to the police. I know the investigating officers and –”

“Let me show you what I have,” he said. “See if it changes your mind.”

I sighed. This guy wasn't going to take no for an answer.

I figured at least he'd distracted me, stopped me doing something stupid. I owed him for that at least. And what harm could it do to hear him out?

Even then, I was still fooling myself. Thinking over and over:
I am no longer involved with this case. I'm taking the high road. Taking responsibility for my actions

Aye. Right.

Sixteen years ago, a woman – at that time, more a girl – named Deborah Brown agreed to surrogate for a couple struggling to conceive.

Not the kind of decision anyone makes lightly. You don't rush it, go in half-arsed. No. You go slow. Make the right decisions. Ensure that everyone knows where they stand.

Contracts have to be drawn up. Surrogacy is not illegal in the UK, but there are measures in place to ensure that everyone is happy. That no one gets hurt.

Beyond the obvious, of course.

It's a simple business on paper. What you're doing is renting a womb. In theory, it's letting out a flat for nine months or giving someone a loan of your car.

Except it's not.

Because when it comes to people's bodies, emotions follow fast.

I don't know that I ever really wanted children. I certainly used to argue with Elaine about it.

Susan once asked me why, when we'd been together so long, me and Elaine never even considered starting a family.

I didn't tell Susan about the fights we had.

Or why Elaine had become distracted in the moments before our car was knocked off the road and she was killed.

That conversation about…

Children
.

Like I said, people get emotional.

Watching Wickes tell me about this woman, Deborah Brown, I noted how he lit up. Something dancing in his eyes when he mentioned her name.

Investigations require dispassionate distance. He'd lost his with this woman.

Deborah Brown.

Mary Furst's birth mother.

Aye, that's the part that knocked me flat on my arse as well.

The problem lay with Jennifer Furst. She'd suffered traumatic surgery in her youth: having a child could kill her. No joke, no slim chance.

A real heartbreaker for someone who thought about nothing except family. In her youth, Jennifer had believed that a family of her own would end all her problems. She would become a real human being, a fully rounded person.

Talk about buying into the myth.

Surrogacy seemed a sensible option. But she realised the risks of asking a close friend or anyone they knew to act as the surrogate. So she and her husband set out to find someone.

A difficult task.

Like I said, while surrogacy isn't illegal in the UK, there are measures in place.

You can't advertise. Either that you're looking for a surrogate or that you wish to be one.

Maybe I can understand the reasons for that. Any industry based on such a personal matter would be open to all kinds of disastrous loopholes.

All the same, they searched for someone.

That someone turned out to be Deborah Brown.

Deborah was eighteen years old at the time. An art student facing expulsion and bankruptcy. Looking for a way out. Something that could help her get back on track.

Jennifer spent time with Deborah. The two of them became close. Built a relationship of trust.

One of the things you learn fast in my line of business is that trust is an overhyped virtue. Relationships can fall apart with the smallest of cracks.

Later, Deborah would say that she thought they had become closer than sisters.

She'd be wrong, of course.

“There's something you're holding back.”

He shook his head. “But you see where this is going?”

“Deborah was important to you. You were close to her.”

He nodded. Closed his eyes, and kept his hands on top of the table. Rocked gently in his chair, keeping time to some melody only he could hear. “Close to her? I loved her.”

The pregnancy itself was uneventful.

The two women – Jennifer and Deborah – spent a lot of time together. Maybe more than they should have. Part of the agreement drawn up stated that after the baby was born, Deborah would sever all ties with the family.

Closer than sisters?

Chalk that up to delusional.

I could see Jennifer Furst's point of view. For her, it was a business arrangement. She got what she wanted. Deborah got what she wanted. Everyone was happy.

“Deborah was looking for a family,” I said.

Wickes nodded. “She wasn't close to her parents, then. Had a sister, but even if the lass kept an eye out for Deborah, they weren't close. The sister never had Deborah's best interests at heart.” He closed his eyes again. Close to tears? Hard to imagine this giant of a man welling up, but I could feel it in the same way you sometimes feel a storm coming over the hill.

Hearing Wickes tell me the story, I reckoned that things had got complicated before the ink on that agreement was even dry.

Any agreements between surrogates and parents are private. They cannot be upheld in a court of law.

In Scotland we have a law of verbal contract. All it takes is for two people to state their intent and the agreement is binding. There are grey areas, of course. This was one of them.

As the birth grew closer, Jennifer started to back off from her friendship. Treating the whole thing professionally; a transaction and little more.

Deborah didn't take too kindly to the cooling off of what she thought was a close friendship. Put this down to her being younger than Jennifer?

Maybe.

Or maybe she was just more innocent.

That's the way Wickes played it up in his version of events. Like Deborah wasn't cynical enough to grasp what was really going on.

I've been around long enough to realise that there is no such thing as pure innocence. That naivety is more often a cover than a truth.

Made me wonder why Wickes was making such a conscious effort to fool me. And himself.

I loved her.

Aye, love'll do funny things to a person, right enough.

When Mary was born, everything happened according to the agreement. The parental order was signed, meaning that Deborah Brown was no longer Mary's legal mother, even if her name would still appear on the birth certificate.

Jennifer Furst expected Deborah would just back off.

Take the money and run.

Like I said, these things have a habit of getting complicated.