Father Confessor (J McNee series) by Russel D McLean Page A

more pressing matters to consider.
    Like Ernie Bright.
    And Raymond Grant.
    Someone had got to him. Lindsay and I had seen the same things. Whoever it was, they’d got Grant to clam up on what he knew about why cash had been flowing from Ernie’s account into his.
    The way he acted, we figured he was more scared of them than of us. And why wouldn’t he be?
    We were coppers, after all. Or at least one of us was. There were rules we had to follow, boundaries we couldn’t cross. All the bluster and bluff in the world couldn’t change that.
    I had to wonder why someone would lead us to Grant and then scare him into not talking about what was plainly obvious; a trail of breadcrumbs left out in the open air. Of course his denial looked like he was hiding something, maybe even trying to protect Ernie.
    Was I reaching out in desperation? Seeing conspiracies because I wanted, more than anything, for Ernie to have been the man I once believed him to be. All the evidence pointed to a dark truth, to a copper who had gone over the edge, but I had to cling on to the belief that someone wanted Ernie’s death to look that way, to distract from the truth.
    Paranoia?
    Was I looking for vindication?
    Or merely praying?
    Rain spattered down. Dundee weather: temperamental at best. Sometimes I thought the city could shift the atmosphere on its own; as though they were indicative of a shifting mood. Which made Dundee as close as you could get to being a depressive; periods of unrivalled sunshine followed by unexpected and sudden bouts of downpour and dull.
    The rhythm soothed me.
    I had my hand on the keys, but I wasn’t turning.
    Who had got to Grant before us?
    What were they hiding?
    Was I so wrong about Ernie?
    I closed my eyes, let my head fall back against the rest.
    Who had got to Grant before us?
    If they had got to Grant, then who else – ?
    Sodit . We’d just walked away, like good coppers, because we knew we were beaten, that our rules prevented us from doing what had to be done.
    But I’d seen the way that Grant looked at me. Edgy and uncertain. Not sure who I was. Certain I wasn’t a copper like Lindsay.
    Wondering if I had to play by the same rules.
    I dialled in a number on the phone.
    “What?”
    “Give me ten minutes,” I said. “Then I want you back at Grant’s place.”
    “Christ, McNee, leave this shite to the professionals.”
    “You want him to talk as much as I do,” I said. “You’re the one who said you’d rather have me working with you. And you know I can do things you can’t, walk places you’re shut out from.”
    “You can’t touch him,” Lindsay said. “You even give the bastard a scratch, I’ll have you down for assault before you take another breath.”
    I said, “Just trust me.”
    Lindsay didn’t say anything. Just killed the call. I took that to be a “yes”.
    ###
    Briefing room.
    Early morning.
    Years ago.
    Seeing the memory from a distance. As though it belongs to someone else.
    Maybe twenty of us, wired on early morning caffeine and lack of sleep. A few hangovers. Easy to tell who was a candidate for hard-core alcoholism.
    I was in the third row, still a plod, maybe six months away from transfer and hopefully promotion. CID was the goal. The dream. The ideal. The reason I’d joined up in the first place. It was ten months before Elaine’s death. A year and one month before I’d break DI Lindsay’s nose and finally quit the force.
    Looking back, I realise how unlikely it seemed, how no-one could predict any of what happened.
    The world only ever makes sense in hindsight.
    In my memories, I am young. Little more than a kid, really. If you ask me what I look like, I’d say I look the same as I did at nineteen. I think I’m grown up. Back then, I knew nothing about the world. I just thought I did.
    Ernie Bright was up front. Standing before a projection screen.
    Talking Serious and Organised.
    Talking witnesses.
    Talking David Burns.
    “The problem is not that we don’t know