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

nodded. His eyes moved from one dead boy to the next. I got the feeling that this had become a habit, a ritual for him every time he entered this room. A way of reminding himself what he was doing and why. His expression didn’t change. Maybe he was immune to feelings of despair. Numbed to the horror of what it meant for a life to be snuffed out before it even had a chance.
    ‘It’s not a new story,’ he said. ‘Man does something he can’t face up to, denies it until the denial becomes his truth. But just beneath the surface, the guilt remains. He can’t get rid of it. Can’t wipe it away like a file on a computer.’ He turned to face me. ‘Alex Moorehead killed those boys. And one day he’ll admit it. He won’t have any choice.’
    He was absolutely certain. Utterly convincing.
    Like Ernie all those years ago. He was desperate to find closure for the women whose children were frozen for ever on the wall of this incident room. And I had to wonder if that meant he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of doubt.
    ‘I’m sorry I wasted your time,’ I told him.
    ‘You’re not the first, McNee,’ he said. ‘And you won’t be the last.’

EIGHT
    I had two missed calls on my mobile, from the same number. One message waiting.
    Sandy Griggs.
    I figured this was what it was to have a stalker.
    I could have deleted the message, but instead let it play, listened to it while looking out the side window of the car, into the shadow of old industrial buildings that had fallen into disuse.
    ‘McNee, give some thought to my offer. I know it’s asking a lot, and maybe you think I’m trying to paint you into a corner, but I need you to understand how important your cooperation is to …’
    I let him ramble on.
    Didn’t call back.
    He could wait. Sweat it out.
    Meantime, I had a real job to attend to. A real client.
    Wemyss had tried to dissuade me from looking deeper into Alex Moorehead. Maybe he genuinely believed there was nothing more to be found. Maybe he was fed up of people like me stepping on his toes.
    Either way, I wasn’t going backing down.
    It was a fault in my thinking; a defect, maybe. I just couldn’t let something go until I had examined it from every angle. More importantly, I couldn’t leave a job knowing I’d given it a half-arsed attempt.
    Susan called it a chronic desire to please people. I called it keeping promises.
    And with Elizabeth Farnham, it was something more. If there was even a chance that me and Ernie had made a mistake when we arrested Alex Moorehead for killing her son, then it had to be examined. I needed to clear this up.
    For her peace of mind.
    And mine.
     
    Early afternoon, back in Dundee, I locked myself in the office with the coffee machine perking and the remnants of a sandwich from a shop near the university campus.
    What I did was fire up the machine, hit Google and enter ‘Alex Moorehead’ into the search box.
    Once I got rid of the estate agent and would-be author/singer/actor websites, the major hits came from true-crime sites. There were a few videos on YouTube of old documentaries. I watched them intently, fast-forwarding the talking heads and focusing on footage from home videos and news reports from outside the court.
    I watched old footage of me and Ernie, mostly as we tried to avoid the cameras and just do our job.
    Later, I was replaced in the footage by Kevin Wood. Getting front and centre for the cameras. Overshadowing Ernie.
    Ernie hated talking to the media. He’d been burned more than once early in his career, quickly decided that the press loved nothing more than finding ways to fuck up an investigation. Didn’t matter about justice, long as they got a good story. Wood, on the other hand, understood the power of the press. He gave interviews when asked, always had a sound bite. He came across as a political animal, someone who understood the power in forming good relations with the right people.
    Watching the footage was like walking into a house you