The Good Son

The
Good Son

Russel D. McLean

Minotaur Books  New York  

 

To Mum and Dad
With huge amounts of love.
But, sadly, still not enough money
to buy that house in France.

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters,
organizations, and events portrayed in this novel
are either products of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously.

 

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS
.
An imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group

 

THE GOOD SON
. Copyright © 2008 by Russel D.
McLean. All rights reserved. Printed in the United
States of America. For information, address St.
Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10010.

 

www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

McLean, Russel D.

The good son / Russel D. McLean. — 1st U.S. ed.

   p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-57668-4

1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. Scotland—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6113.C545G66 2009

 

First published in Great Britain by Five Leaves
Publications

 

First U.S. Edition: December 2009

 

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I could kill him.

It would be easy.

I'm pointing this gun right between his eyes and he looks like he's laughing at the best joke he ever heard.

The only thing that keeps him going is the thought that I won't pull the trigger. He said it himself: I don't have the balls.

Prove him wrong.

Pull the trigger.

It's no less than he deserves.

I've already shot a man this evening, so what's the difference now? Like smoking, it gets easier after the first one, right?

The image is still clear in my brain. The bald bastard, the look of surprise on his face, the way his body stops moving suddenly like he's walked into a wall. The way he just crumples, lands in a heap on the sodden ground.

The rain stings my skin, a thousand pins falling from the sky point first. There's a weight behind them that threatens to push me down into the sod. Root me in the ground like one of these gravestones.

The man in front of me is laughing. Beaten. Battered. But laughing. When he grins I see he's missing a tooth.

My leg buckles.

He sees it, and his grin widens. He thinks he's spotted a weakness.

Not that it matters. Because he'll be dead before he
can do anything.

Forget your fucking principles. Think about Kat. The ragged hole in the centre of her forehead.

Her body left in some empty shitehole of a flat.

Broken.

Violated.

Think about Daniel Robertson. Hanging by the neck. Only realising what a mess he made of his life as he struggled to take that final breath.

I hear voices nearby.

The police.

The fucking cavalry.

Which means it's now or never.

No more thinking.

Just act.

Kill the prick.

Think about the people who'll never know justice.

Bill, who might never walk again.

Elaine.

Jesus Christ, Elaine.

I've been looking for someone to blame. And who gives a crap that this isn't the guy?

Might as well be.

Might as well be every prick who ever took a human life.

Might as well be every messed-up fuckbag who killed for kicks or got his fucking rocks off watching his victims plead for mercy.

And that's why I should do this.

That's why this bastard should die
.

Nearly a week before the night I found myself ready to kill a man in cold blood, I was angling for the security of a job that paid up front.

Which is why I was grateful for the business of any client. Especially the man who huffed his way into the offices of McNee Investigations.

James Robertson stuffed himself into the sixties-style recliner I'd picked up a few weeks earlier at the Salvation Army store on West Marketgait. He was sweating, even though it was a cool day. As if he'd swum across the Tay rather than taking the bridge. The handkerchief tucked into the breast pocket of his suit jacket looked damp.

I offered my hand. His was slick and threatened to slip from my grasp.

It wasn't his size, even if he was a large man. No, the sweat came from agitation. Robertson was tense, his muscles practically humming they were stretched so taut.

After I introduced myself, he bobbed his head up
and down as though agreeing with me. “It's a climb up those stairs, Mr McNee,” he said, a strong Fife accent making him sound accusatory. His little eyes regarded me suspiciously. “For a man like myself, of course.” His features crumpled in thought. “McNee,” chewing the name over. He smiled. “Like the actor!” I shrugged the observation off, having heard it a hundred times before. “You're younger than I would have thought.”

Did he mean this merely as an observation or as something more subtly insulting? I let it go, and showed him into my private office. He followed, even though he seemed reluctant to leave the recliner.

Robertson looked around the private room, nodded approvingly at the minimalist decoration.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Hadn't taken him long to notice.

I shook my head.

“Bad looking limp.”

Not so bad. Not now. Could have been worse.

I could have lost my life.

“Doesn't interfere with the job, Mr Robertson, if that's what you're worried about.”

He shook his head like the thought had never crossed his mind.

Aye, right.

I gestured for him to sit down. He took one of the padded chairs in front of my desk. I stayed standing, asked him why he was here.

“The other fellow,” he said. “The one who used to work here. He had a reputation, you know?”

I nodded. “Sure. You knew him?”

“Not personally. He did work for some… people I know.”

I didn't ask what kind of work or what kind of
people. That would have been unprofessional.

The other investigator had been in business at least a decade, using these same offices. The centre of Dundee. Prime location. Down the road from the Sheriff's Court, too. It wasn't just the location, of course, that had helped build him a local reputation.

I met him before I took over the property, thought he looked old before his time. He said, that's what the business does to you. The implication was clear: I wouldn't keep my fresh-faced looks for too long.

Then again, maybe I'd keep them longer than he expected.

“I can give you references,” I said. “I used to be a copper.”

“Aye?” Robertson took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead. “Surely that's a wee bit more respectable than all this?” He gestured expansively and then let out a sigh.

I wondered, did he mean the office or the lifestyle?

Probably the lifestyle. In the UK, the life of an investigator is hardly seen as glamorous. We don't have the same lone-wolf mythology as our counterparts in the US. If people think of us, it's as sleazy, cheap last-resorts. And in Scotland, we're barely even thought of at all.

I waited, watching my client: how he moved, the set of his face, the way his eyes darted about the office. Afraid to settle anywhere, especially on me.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“You can tell me about my brother.”

I pulled out a tape recorder, placed it on the table. Robertson looked at the device, and then nodded his consent. I wasn't writing anything down. This was a friendly wee chat. Recorded for posterity.

Funny how people open up to a recorder and yet
clam up when they see you scribbling.

“Your brother?” I prompted.

“Do you read the papers?”

“I keep up.”

“The
Tele
?” he asked, meaning
The Evening Telegraph
: local paper for local people.

“Sure.”

“Then you know my name,” he said. “Or you should. Nosy bastards slapped it all over the front page couple of nights ago.”

I nodded, then; realised who he was.

“James Robertson,” I said, like I'd just heard his name for the first time. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

Like I said, people open up to a recorder. All I had to do to get Robertson's story was prod him once or twice in the right direction. Keep him focused.

The Robertson family farm, he told me, sat out across the bridge near St Michaels; a small hamlet on the outer edges of Tentsmuir Forest. Robertson — out of habit more than anything else — took a quick pint at the local pub most nights.

Two weeks earlier, Robertson had run into the pub. Ready to collapse from a coronary. Not just through exertion, either.

The barman gave Robertson a drink, calmed him down enough for the man to explain what had happened. He described how he'd found a body out in the woods and how the poor bastard swinging from the branch of a long dead tree was his brother, who he hadn't seen for over thirty years.

The police responded within twenty minutes. Two bobbies out of Cupar — the nearest town with a sizeable station — walked into the pub, their swagger of
authority tempered by an air of apprehension. They talked to Robertson briefly and he led them to the body.

As one of the policemen moved to investigate the swinging corpse, the other tried to keep Robertson from passing out. The farmer was on his knees, the harsh rasp of his breathing mutating into a deep hyperventilation. The copper tried to persuade the farmer to breathe easier and make him feel like he had a friend. Robertson wasn't alone.

Except he was.