04-Mothers of the Disappeared by Russel D McLean Read Free Book Online Page A

passing. Time to get to the reason I was here. ‘I still try not to think about what I saw. At Moorehead’s place.’
    He chewed a few times, swallowed, then took a slow sip of his coffee before answering. The whole time he eyeballed me, trying to figure what kind of man I was. Finally he said, ‘Sure. That kind of stuff gives you nightmares. It passes, though. Want to know what’s worse? Trying to find out what he actually did. Linking all these murders and disappearances to a man who refuses to talk. The bastard won’t confirm or deny anything. He just sits there and looks at me, you know? Every time I go in there to present him with evidence, he just gives me this look like he doesn’t hear what I’m saying, see what I’m showing him.’
    ‘I went to see him yesterday.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And he remembered me. That’s about all he said.’
    ‘Little cunt,’ Wemyss said, matter of fact. He ripped into his roll with the relish of a starving man. ‘Nothing like a good bacon buttie.’
    Bacon rolls are the cure for all evils. At least in Scotland. I remember talking to a forensic specialist who confided in me that working murder scenes always gave her a craving for ‘the fattiest, greasiest, most butter-soaked buttie you could find’. She couldn’t explain it. But it seemed to work for her, helped her to deal with what she did.
    Wemyss said, ‘Which of them’re you working for?’
    I played dumb.
    He persisted: ‘Which of the mothers?’
    ‘Elizabeth Farnham.’
    His face screwed up, like he thought he’d maybe misheard.
    I said, ‘She thinks Moorehead is innocent.’
    He took a moment to digest his food, and what I’d told him. ‘Fucksakes,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think she’d actually carry this through.’
    Elizabeth Farnham didn’t come running to me the second she thought that Moorehead was innocent of killing her boy or any of the others. She went to Wemyss first. Told him what she’d told me: that she looked into Moorehead’s eyes and understood that he really didn’t know anything.
    ‘Gut instinct isn’t a natural thing,’ Wemyss told me as we walked through the front doors of Kirkcaldy FHQ. ‘Takes years of practice. Know what I mean?’ I resisted the urge to make a joke about guts, figured a man of his size had heard them all before. Besides, I was playing nice. Not a game I was used to, of course.
    I said, ‘What do you think about Moorehead?’
    ‘That he’s guilty. He’s hiding something.’
    I tried for flippant: ‘Everybody’s hiding something.’
    The big man didn’t look at me, but if I wasn’t careful I’d have been knocked down by the sheer strength of his disgust.
    Project Amityville was stationed in a room on the third floor, tucked away to the rear of the building. Anonymous. The walls a neutral beige. The furniture temporary. Had been temporary for over five years now. But that’s what happens with these cases. You can begin with all the enthusiasm you like, but sooner or later they become a never-ending slog; the copper equivalent of a Sisyphean punishment. How many times had Wemyss pushed the rock up that hill?
    What struck me about the incident room were the images and charts that did their best to hide that anonymity, forcing your attention on them as you entered the room.
    At least ten different faces I could see pinned to the boards. All young boys, all smiling, all happy. All around ten years old. Between them, hand-written suppositions, copies of evidence, circled transcripts, and pictures of their mothers. Some of those photographs looking like before and after shots for what grief can do to you given enough time and heft.
    I tried to speak, but couldn’t say anything. Humbled by what this place represented.
    Wemyss said, ‘All of these boys, I know that Moorehead killed them. Show him any one of these pictures and you can see a reaction. Even if he tries to hide it. He flinches, looks away.’
    ‘Doesn’t want to admit what he’s done.’
    Wemyss