We’re driving out of Edinburgh towards the coast. Ruiz is playing music on the car stereo, something bluesy with rolling guitar chords that rattle the speakers in the doors. Closing my eyes, I can picture endless fields of sugar cane in the American South rather than bleak Scottish hillsides. Opening them again I see the wind lifting white plumes from the waves and trees that are bent and twisted like arthritic old men.
‘You thinking about Caro Regan?’ he asks.
‘I’m thinking about Gordon Ellis.’
‘He strike you as the killing kind?’
‘Not until now.’
My mind goes back to the murder scene. Ray Hegarty wasn’t expected home that night. Ellis could easily have known that Helen Hegarty worked nights and that Sienna was on her own. Knowledge and opportunity are not enough to place him in Sienna’s room or put a weapon in his hand.
‘What are the chances?’ I say out loud.
Ruiz glances at me. ‘The chances of what?’
‘Ray Hegarty saw his daughter kissing Gordon Ellis and complained to the school. A week later he’s dead. A coincidence?’
‘Coincidences are just God’s way of remaining anonymous.’
‘You don’t believe in God.’
‘Exactly. An affair with a schoolgirl is a motive for murder. It could destroy his career and end his marriage. A man like that had a lot to lose.’
‘Is it enough to kill?’
‘I’ve seen people kicked to death for fifty pence and a packet of pork scratchings.’
Forty minutes later we pull through stone gates into a shooting club. Cyprus trees line the long drive. Flags flap noisily against flagpoles. Workmen are erecting scaffolding around a stone clubhouse that clings to the hillside like a limpet on a rock.
Frank Casey is mid-sixties with white wispy hair that spills from beneath a woollen cap and the sort of wide blue eyes that deepen with age. We watch him break open a shotgun, plug two shells in the chambers and snap it closed again before tucking the gun against his shoulder and gazing along the barrel.
‘Pull!’
Two clay discs launch into the air flying left to right. The shotgun leaps in his hands and each disc disappears in a cloud of dust that disperses in the wind.
Casey pulls yellow ear-muffs to his neck and turns, cracking the shotgun again. Most of the shooting bays are empty.
‘Do Ah know you?’ he asks.
‘I used to be a DI in the Met. Vincent Ruiz. This is Joe O’Loughlin.’
Casey shakes our hands. ‘How long you been out?’ he asks Ruiz.
‘Five years.’
‘Ah been out two. Hypertension was going tae put me in a box. Should have done it sooner. My wife wouldn’t agree. She’s going off her head, having me around.’
His accent is a blend of Glaswegian and something less harsh on the ear. Reaching into his pocket, he produces a small silver flask.
‘Fancy a wee snort?’
‘I’m good,’ says Ruiz. I shake my head.
‘Suit yourselves.’ Casey tips up the flask and swallows noisily.
‘So what can Ah do for you gentlemen?’ he asks, resting the gun over his forearm.
‘We wanted to ask about Gordon Ellis,’ I say. ‘He used to call himself Gordon Freeman.’
‘Aye.’ Casey studies me momentarily over the top of his flask. ‘Ah did know a man called Gordon Freeman, but why would you want tae talk about him?’
‘You handled the investigation into his wife’s disappearance.’
‘Aye, Ah did.’
‘We’re looking into a murder down south. A teenage girl is accused of killing her father.’
‘And you think Gordon Freeman is involved?’
‘He’s a possible suspect.’
Casey’s eyes keep returning to Ruiz as he speaks. ‘So this is not an official police request?’
‘No. We’re investigating this on behalf of the young girl who’s been charged.’
Casey presses his thumb to the centre of his forehead. ‘How old is the wee lass?’
‘Fourteen.’
He nods knowingly. ‘Do you fish, Vincent?’
‘No.’
‘How about you, Joe?’
‘No.’
‘The thing with fish, you see, is they exhibit two drives - fear and hunger. The large eat the small. They even eat their own - starting with those youngsters that are nae paying attention at fish school. Know what Ah’m saying?’
The answer is no, but I don’t want to interrupt him.
‘Gordon Freeman, or whatever he calls himself - he eats the young. He finds the weakest and picks them off. The youngest and the prettiest and the happiest - he devours them bit by bit.’
Two more shooters have walked down the path from the clubhouse. They take a bay at the far end of the range and put on vests with pockets for shotgun shells.
Casey presses his hand to his lower spine as though relieving himself of a sharp pain in his back.
‘Gordon is the one that got away. The one Ah wish Ah’d caught.’
He glances at Ruiz, his face suddenly tired and his eyes shivering.
‘We found Caro’s car parked at the railway station. A suitcase was missing from the house wi’ some of her clothes, but she didnae leave a note or tell her family.
‘It took the Regans three months before anyone took them seriously. By that time the trail had gone cold. The CCTV footage wasnae kept, so we had tae rely on witnesses. We interviewed passengers on the trains and filmed a reconstruction - had an actress wearing Caro’s clothes and put it on TV - but naebody came forward.’
‘What did Gordon say?’
‘He claimed Caro was having an affair and had run off with her boyfriend.’
‘So what do you think happened?’
‘Me? Ah think Caro Regan is dead. Mah guess is he weighted down her body and dumped it in an abandoned pit. Countryside is dotted with them - old silver mines and coalmines - we dinnae have a register of all of them.’ His mouth constricts to a pucker. ‘We tried to break him. We pulled him in, followed him, pieced together his movements, but came up with fuck-all. The bastard has ice water in his veins. He’s a genuine fucking sociopath, you know what Ah’m saying? Clever. No remorse. Two years after she disappeared, Gordon applied for a divorce.’
‘He had a new girlfriend.’
‘Aye.’
Casey takes another swig from his flask.
‘There’s no way Caro Regan would have left home without her son. It was Billy’s birthday the next day. She’d bought him a rocking horse. What mother leaves her son the day before his birthday?’
Casey closes his eyes. His eyebrows are so pale they’re almost invisible.
‘Ah didnae get to meet Caro Regan, but Ah think Ah would have liked her. Ah talk to her sometimes, you know, in mah head. You probably think Ah’m mental.’
‘Only if she talks back,’ I tell him.
He grins. ‘When Ah talk tae Caro, Ah ask her where she is now, but she doesn’t know the answer. Maybe that’s what they mean by Purgatory - trapped between Heaven and Hell. Ah knew her mother, you know. Philippa was a fine-looking girl when she was younger. You wouldnae know it now, but take mah word for it.’
There is a click in his throat and an exhalation of breath like he’s blowing out a match. He raises his face to the sky. Sniffs at the air.
‘Gordon had a caravan. We found the receipt for when he bought it, but we couldnae find it.’
‘Maybe he sold it,’ says Ruiz.
‘It’s still registered in his name.’
‘Is it important?’
Casey shrugs. ‘We turned over every rock and shook every tree.’
‘What did Ellis say?’
‘He told us he lost the ’van in a poker game. Gordon likes playing the cards and he likes the horses. Spread betting - the work of the devil. Word is that he skipped town owing a loan shark called Terry Spencer fifteen grand.
‘Terry is a reasonably easy-going lad, but he lost patience and sent one of his boys looking for Ellis to remind him of his fiscal responsibilities - know what Ah’m saying? Stan Keating took a flight down south to Bristol and visited Ellis; roughed him up a wee bit, poured acid on his motor, the normal stuff.
‘About a fortnight later Stan was back in Edinburgh, drinking at his regular boozer in Candlemaker Row, when a guy turned up looking for him - an Irishman with weird tattoos on his face. He asked after Stan, who was sitting not twelve feet away, but the barmaid was old school and didnae say a thing.
‘For the next hour the Irishman waited, drinking orange juice and doing a crossword puzzle, cool as you like. Stan was watching him and making phone calls, arranging reinforcements - two brothers, the Lewis twins, good wit’ iron bars.
‘Eventually, the Irishman gets sick of waiting. Stan follows him outside where the Lewis twins are waiting. “You looking for me?” he asks, taking off his gold watch and rolling up his sleeves. The Irishman nodded. “You got fifteen seconds tae state your business,” says Stan.
‘“You paid a visit to a school teacher.”
‘“What’s that got to do wi’ you?”
‘“You made a mistake.”
‘Stan gives a glance over his shoulder at the twins. Smiles. In that split second he discovered the truth about the Irishman. A silver knuckleduster spiked with half-inch nails crushed his windpipe. It was three against one. They didnae stand a chance. The Irishman drove the knuckleduster into one twin’s jaw and took out the other twin with a telescopic baton that broke both his arms.
‘The fight lasted less than thirty seconds. Stan and the twins were on their knees, foreheads bent to the ground, whimpering. Stan’s voice box couldnae be repaired.’
The skin on Ruiz’s face flexes against the bone. ‘How did Gordon Ellis get a friend like that?’
Frank Casey shrugs his shoulders. ‘Ah wouldnae want one.’
‘So what about Terry Spencer?’
‘He got his money eventually. Ellis’s new family probably stumped up the cash, but that’s just a theory.’
‘And Stan Keating?’
‘He drinks in the same pub, but he don’t say much any more. Ah guess you could call him a man of few words.’ Casey rises from the bench and extends his hand. ‘Ah know Ah shouldnae say this, but Ah’m glad Gordon Ellis isn’t mah problem any more. Ah hope you have more luck than we did.’
Resting the shotgun over his shoulder, he shuffles up the cinder path to the rest of his retirement.
It’s mid-afternoon. Bobby’s Bar has a dozen or so drinkers inside and the nicotine-addicted at an outside table. The retired, the unemployed and the unemployable - old men in quilted jackets with awful teeth. It’s like a horror film: Night of the Unsmiling Granddads.
A plaque on the wall tells the story of the place. John Gray, an Edinburgh policeman, died of tuberculosis in 1858 and was buried in the adjacent yard. His dog, a Skye terrier called Bobby, spent the next fourteen years guarding his master’s grave until the dog died in 1872. There’s a statue of Bobby on a plinth outside - another monument to our desire to erect monuments.
The barmaid tries not to react when I mention Stan Keating’s name, but a small twitch in the corner of her mouth tells me she’s lying. Ruiz is already ordering a pint so as not to waste the trip. He hands the barmaid a fiver and waits for his change. Bottles of spirits are like glass organ pipes above his head.
Collecting his pint, he joins me at a table and surveys the bar. A lurid computer game winks and squawks in the corner trying to woo punters into competing unsuccessfully.
‘You know the problem with banning smoking in pubs?’ he asks, sucking an inch off the top of his Guinness.
‘What’s that?’
‘The smell.’
‘Of smoke?’
‘Of farts.’
I wait for an explanation.
‘Take a whiff of this place. Disinfectant and farts. Lager farts and Guinness farts and cider farts. When people could smoke, you couldn’t smell their farts. Now you can.’
‘Farts?’
‘Yeah.’
He takes another huge swallow and wipes his mouth. Then he nods over my shoulder. Further along the bar, one drinker sits on a stool studying a racing guide. A cravat is wrapped around his neck, making him look like an ageing fifties film star.
I sit on the barstool next to him. ‘I’m looking for Stan Keating.’
He doesn’t answer. His jacket has holes in the elbows and his nose is a roadmap of broken capillaries. The racing guide is ringed with red pen marks.
‘I wanted to talk about Gordon Ellis,’ I say. ‘Maybe you know him as Gordon Freeman.’
The barmaid answers, ‘He can’t talk.’
I turn to her. ‘I just need to ask him a couple of questions.’
‘Good luck with that,’ she says, polishing a glass. ‘Mr Keating doesn’t like being disturbed.’
‘Maybe he should tell me that.’
Keating reaches for his pint glass and raises it to his lips. The cravat on his neck slips, revealing a scar that extends from his Adam’s apple down his throat until it disappears beneath the fabric.
‘He can’t talk,’ says the barmaid, ‘unless he’s got his machine.’
‘What machine?’ asks Ruiz, who has taken a stool on the opposite side.
She holds her hand to her neck and silently moves her lips.
Keating lowers the glass and continues reading the form guide.
‘You’re not deaf, though, are you, Stan?’ says Ruiz. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’ He motions to the barmaid. ‘Same again.’
Keating takes his hand slowly from his pocket. I see the dull gleam of steel as he presses a pencil-shaped device to his neck.
‘Tell them to fuck off, Brenda.’
The words have a buzzing metallic quality, like listening to a Stephen Hawking interview without the pauses between the words.
Brenda wipes a rag along the bar. ‘You heard him, gentlemen.’
Keating lowers the device and goes back to his newspaper.
‘Maybe you don’t understand our motives,’ says Ruiz. ‘We’re investigating Gordon Ellis. We know about his first wife. We know about his gambling debts.’
Keating doesn’t respond. He folds the paper and looks at the clock behind the bar.
Ruiz tries another approach. ‘You got children, Stan? I got two. A boy and a girl. Twins. They’re grown up now, but I still worry about them. Joe here has two daughters. Still young. Gordon Ellis is a nonce. He preys on schoolgirls.’
Keating shifts slightly and reaches for a glass, finishing the dregs before placing it carefully down again.
He prods the amplifier into his neck again, aggressively this time. ‘Ah used to sing. Nothing professional, like, just around the piano in pubs and clubs. Ah’d warm up the crowd before the main act. Ah sung Dean Martin stuff and Bing Crosby. Do you remember Dean Martin?’
Ruiz nods.
‘That boy could croon, drunk or sober, but he preferred to be drunk.’
Keating pauses and takes a gurgling breath. His eyes meet mine in the mirror behind the bar. ‘Ah cannae sing nae more.’
‘Who did this to you?’
‘Go home. There’s nae point coming here.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
The statement hits a nerve and Keating’s nostrils quiver as he sucks in a breath. His ears are like cauliflowers pressed to his scalp.
‘Fuck you,’ he says, mouthing the words silently.
At that moment the door opens and a young woman appears wearing low-cut blue jeans, sockless trainers and a tight-fitting grey T-shirt that rides up to show a strip of smooth abdomen. Her hair is held back with a band and a toddler perches on her hip sucking on a biscuit.
‘Come on, Dad,’ she says. ‘I’m running late.’
Stan Keating folds his paper and turns on his bar stool, finding his feet. His daughter is gazing at Ruiz and me. A breath of concern clouds her eyes.
Keating points to the men’s room.
‘Hurry up then,’ she says.
He pushes through a door and disappears from view. The woman talks to Brenda behind the bar, consciously ignoring us.
‘Who did that to him?’ I ask.
She looks from my face to Ruiz and back again. ‘Are you coppers?’
‘I used to be,’ says Ruiz. ‘We’re trying to help your father.’
‘Let me guess - he won’t talk to you, so now you’re asking me?’
‘Has he ever mentioned someone called Gordon Ellis?’
‘Never heard of him.’
She picks a sodden crumb of biscuit off her chest and wraps it in a tissue. Shifting the toddler on her opposite hip, she tucks the tissue into the tight pocket on her jeans. She’s not wearing a wedding ring.
‘How old is your little one?’ I ask.
She eyes me suspiciously. ‘Just gone two.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Tommy.’
‘Must be hard.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Being a single mum, looking after Tommy and keeping an eye on your dad. Does he live with you?’
‘Yeah.’ She’s anxious now. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m trying to help a girl who’s in a lot of trouble. She’s not much younger than you. Still at school.’
‘What’s that got to do with us?’
‘Your dad went to collect a debt from a man called Gordon Ellis and that’s how he got hurt. We’re trying to find out who did it.’
The toddler is growing heavy in her arms. She sets him down, holding tight to his hand. Then she looks over my shoulder towards the men’s room.
‘My dad fought in the Falklands with the Paras. Battle of Goose Green.’
‘Second Battalion?’ asks Ruiz.
She nods. ‘They gave him a medal and a piece of paper. What good is that?’
‘He fought for his country.’
‘You know he never stops talking about it - the Falklands. Two months out of his whole friggin life and he can’t forget it. Doesn’t want to.’ She looks from face to face. ‘Sometimes I think he wishes he’d never come back.’
The door to the bathrooms swings open. Stan Keating nods goodbye to Brenda. The machine touches his neck and he looks at his daughter. ‘Let’s go.’
I talk to her urgently. ‘Gordon Ellis preys on underage girls. I’m trying to help one of them.’
‘That’s nothing to do with Dad.’
‘Who did this to him?’
She fingers a silver chain around her neck. ‘He’s never said.’
Keating is already out the door. Reaching down, she picks up her little boy whose hands go around her neck.
‘We heard it was an Irishman.’
She shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t know, but he calls him something in his sleep.’
‘What?’
She draws two fingers down her cheeks leaving white lines that fade to pink on her smooth skin.
‘The Crying Man.’