Dave, I swear to God
I didn t do anything to it, OK? The place was like that when I got there. And you could ve bloody warned me! Water pishing down the stairs, the walls, all the furniture wrecked, ceiling caving in How was I supposed to tidy that up? What am I, Kim and fucking Aggie?
Water?
Main Street ended at a little make-believe roundabout. I took a right, into a car park overlooking the harbour.
The house wasn t wrecked when I left it! Well, maybe the hall and the stairs, but that s it. So don t
Nah: whole place was smashed up. Don t know how your visitor managed it with his ankle fucked like that, but your house was a bombsite when I got there. A sniff, then a honking snork as Shifty blew his nose. He got a bit rowdy: had to hit him with a spade a couple of times. Dumped him outside A amp;E, so he s either OK by now, or he s dead.
How could he My sodding house? A pair of seagulls stopped pecking at a fishing net draped over a couple of bin-bags, and stared at me, heads tilted on one side. I aimed a kick in their direction. And you can fuck off as well!
They scrambled into the air, screeching abuse.
Should be thanking me: put my back out, dragging that big bastard in from the garden. Bloody suit s ruined. And he puked in the boot.
I slumped back against a big Toyota flatbed. It was stacked with creels, the smell of stale fish and seaweed wafting out into the cold air. Is the whole place really wrecked?
Total bombsite. Hold on. Muffled crunches came from the phone, as if Shifty had stuck a hand over the mouthpiece. Then he was back. Got to go: three-line-whip briefing in the canteen. Party Crashers have turned up and the ACC s going mental. The connection went dead. He d hung up.
I jammed the phone in my pocket, then let my head fall back until it clunked against the truck s roof and stared up at the gathering clouds. It was my house
Even if it was a shithole.
The seagulls were back, swooping and jeering around a fishing boat as it chugged into harbour. Must be nice to be a seagull. You eat, you sleep, you shag, and if you re having a bad day you can shite on everyone from a great height. Doesn t even have to be a bad day, you can do it just for fun.
I leaned against the low stone wall and scowled out at the birds.
The whole house: wrecked.
How the hell could Mr Pain wreck the place on one leg? What did he do hop from room to room, smashing things like a demented Heather Mills?
Maybe it was local neds? Then again, maybe not. After the last thieving git got out of Castle Hill Infirmary the little sods tended to steer clear of my place.
Unless Shifty Dave Morrow was a lying fat bastard and he was the one who d trashed my house? But why go to all that effort? Not as if I couldn t tell his wife about him and Andrew the Barman
Definitely getting colder.
Let s be honest: it was probably more of Mrs Kerrigan s goons, sent to teach me a lesson after I threatened to come after her. What a great idea that had been. Really smooth.
I stuck my hands in my pockets and did the grand tour of Scalloway: all the way back down Main Street, past the various boathouses and halls and shortbread-box terraces, until the buildings ran out and I was walking along with water on one side and a scrubby hill on the other.
Two rows of small boats were tied to a floating walkway about twenty yards from shore. Someone had hauled an upturned fibreglass dinghy onto the grass at the side of the road I perched on the edge. Looked out across the glittering water to the grey-green hills speckled with tiny white houses.
Cold leached into my bones, nipping my ears and nose.
Arnold Burges had a point how did the Birthday Boy find them all the way up here? And how did he manage to track down Hannah Kelly s parents even though they d moved house again and again and again
It was different for us we d stayed put. Well, Michelle had. She got the house and I got a kicking from her divorce lawyer. But all the other parents
I gave Sabir a call and asked.
His Scouse accent was muffled, as if he had a mouthful of something. Dunno.
Oh, come on: don t tell me you guys haven t looked into it. Hannah Kelly s parents couldn t be more difficult to track down if they were in witness protection and they still get a birthday card every year. That doesn t seem a bit suspicious to you?
The sound of slow chewing came from the earpiece.
I waited.
Sabir?
Are youse finished?
I was just
Treatin us like we re a bunch of bell ends. Course we thought about it, you divvie. We gorra big list of jobs our lad could be doing that d let him find out where the victims families live. Might work for the Inland Revenue, or the DMV, or maybe he s a doctor, orra journalist, or he s in the Post Office, or with a telecoms provider, or he s a bizzie
A police officer?
Maybe. Or maybe he s someone who knows how to use the internet, you think about that? I want to find out bout a suspect I don t even bother with the PNC these days, I look them up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, electoral register Internet s a goldmine: everyone s gorra digital footprint, if you know where to look.
Yeah, right: because Donald Kelly would be updating his status to WE VE MOVED HOUSE TO 36 DUNROSS STREET, OLDCASTLE, OC23 9WP. DON T TELL THE BIRTHDAY BOY! LOL!!!!
Point is, if our lad s computer savvy, it s not gonna take him long The rattle of fat fingers on a keyboard. Ash Henderson: Forty-Two Fletcher Avenue; Royal Bank of Scotland overdrawn by a grand and a bit; mobile number: oh seven eight four two
OK, OK, I get the
Divorced, two children: Rebecca ran away when she was twelve, Katie More keystrokes. Katie lives at Nineteen Rowan Drive, Blackwall Hill, Oldcastle; she goes to Johnston Academy; and is in a relationship with someone called Noah. Apparently it s complicated, but
Enough. I get it. And who the hell was Noah?
How long did that take us?
Donald Kelly isn t on Facebook.
Doesn t have to be. If we re all seven steps of separation from Kevin Bacon, how many steps do you think it takes to find someone posting photos to Flickr, blogging, tweeting, sticking stuff up on any one of a million social networking sites? Might never have touched a computer in your life and youse ll still have a digital footprint.
Sod.
The clouds were getting darker, spreading like cancer across the pale-blue sky.
How s Dundee going?
Nothing more we can do there, so we ve all upped sticks to your neck of the woods. Helpin your divvie mates see if we can narrow the search down a bit. You wanna talk to the guvnor?
Nah, I m good. A tiny fleck of white drifted through the cold air, followed by a second and a third. Not really snowing, but definitely thinking about it. Do me a favour: find out who s been searching for Donald Kelly, or any of the other parents.
On the internet? I m good, but I m not that good. More munching noises. No one s that good. Youse are talkin about millions of servers all over the world and
Well, can t you Erm
What? If it was impossible it was impossible. I stood, stamped my feet to get some feeling back into them. Maybe we should start small.
What systems could you do it for?
Seriously?
