The Quiet Ones Read online

  It was hard to pin an age on Mrs Pettigrew. Alec reckoned she’d be close to sixty-five, given the age her son had been when he made the allegations, but she could easily have passed for twenty years older. It was just the way it was in some parts of this city. She’d contacted the station once the story about Nugent’s abuse had reached the front page of her local paper.

  ‘See this.’ She wagged her index finger in his direction. ‘I don’t want any of this ending up in the papers.’ She eased herself down onto the chair. Alec moved to help as she dropped the last few inches, but she swatted his arm away, and instead pointed towards the small kitchenette off the main living room, telling him to stick the kettle on. He did as he was told, pottering about the tiny kitchen, opening various cupboards until he’d found everything he needed. The place was spotless. He placed two mugs on the small tray alongside the sugar bowl and, judging by the number of milk jugs in the cupboard, Wilma Pettigrew was not a woman to tolerate a milk carton on the table, so he poured some into one of the jugs, and carried the tray through to the living room. She pointed to the nest of tables at the side of the settee. ‘Just let it brew for a while, son, eh?’ She smoothed a blanket across her knees, beneath which Alec could see her discoloured feet, the men’s slippers she was wearing cut at either side to accommodate the obvious swelling.

  ‘Mrs Pettigrew, I’d like to ask you a few questions about—’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, son…’ she held his gaze ‘… you’re a bit late.’

  Alec poured the tea, more for something to do than anything else. She was right, and there were no excuses. ‘We let your son down, Mrs Pettigrew.’ He handed her the mug, careful to place the handle in her fingers. ‘But if you give me the chance, I’ll try to put it right.’

  ‘My son’s dead, Inspector Davidson.’ Alec decided against correcting her. ‘What is it you actually want to put right?’

  Christ, this was a tough one. What the hell was he offering this poor woman? And how on earth could it ever be right for her again? Scott Pettigrew had been twenty-two years old when his body was found in a back close in Dalmarnock over twenty years ago; the needle had still been stuck between his toes. He’d been unemployed, with a history of drug abuse; his death had been one of a dozen such cases and had hardly caused as much as a ripple in the city. Certainly there was nothing to link his death to Harry Nugent, but his mother was in no doubt who was responsible.

  ‘I blame myself, you know. I made him go to the polis. His dad?’ She smoothed one hand over her knee; it seemed to give her some sort of comfort. ‘He wouldn’t even listen, screamed at him for not fighting back. Made him swear to tell nobody.’

  Alec felt the warmth of the cup on his hands, then blew on the tea before taking a sip, enjoying the strong tangy taste on his lips. ‘How did you find out? Did Scott tell you that Nugent had abused him?’

  She shook her head, still rubbing her knee, which Alec guessed was as arthritic as her feet. ‘No, not at first. But I’d hear him crying in his room. I knew something was wrong.’ She pulled a worn tissue from her sleeve and blew hard, dabbing her eyes before stuffing it back inside her cardigan. ‘I went down to the polis station, but they couldn’t be arsed. Didn’t care.’

  ‘D’you remember who you spoke to at the time?’ Alec held out little hope for this if she couldn’t even get his name right and he’d only introduced himself ten minutes ago.

  ‘Aye,’ she said, coming back sharp as a tack. ‘Aye, I do. Sergeant Gemmell at Partick. Big tall fella he was, shock of blond hair.’

  ‘So…’ Alec needed to know what had happened, why this was never properly investigated ‘… what did he do? Did he take a statement?’

  ‘Once I told the chap at the desk what had happened, he called us in. Ignored me completely, mind you, then told Scott if he knew what the word perjury meant. Scott didn’t have a clue, but I knew. Anyway, he told Scott that it was very serious to tell lies, and that if he went to court he could be in serious trouble for lying. Might even go to jail.’

  Shit, this was getting worse. ‘And that was it?’ Alec struggled to keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘More or less, aye. Told Scott to go home and think about what he’d done. Said he wouldn’t take a statement as he’d never been in trouble before and didn’t want him to end up with a record. Made out he was doing us a huge favour.’

  ‘And you left it at that?’ Alec hadn’t meant the accusatory tone that had crept into his voice and could have kicked himself.

  ‘Listen, son.’ There weren’t many people brave enough to get away with speaking to Alec Davies like that, but Wilma Pettigrew had earned the right. ‘A woman from Possil and her boy? We were no match against yous lot.’

  ‘Mrs Pettigrew, I’m so, so sorry,’ Alec said, and he meant it. ‘We’ve let you down. You and Scott and…’ He was desperately trying to find a way to make it up to her, find the words to say he’d sort it, but couldn’t.

  She rocked back and forth, trying to gain momentum to stand up. Alec reached over and held her arm until she managed to get up and steadied herself on her stick. ‘He was just another junkie to you lot.’ She took the photograph from the mantelpiece. ‘Another bit of litter on the street.’ She handed it to Alec. ‘But he was my boy and he deserved better.’

  Alec looked at the school photograph in the cheap gilt frame; the kid couldn’t have been much more than six, perhaps seven at a push. A boy grinning at the camera, hair messed up, school tie to one side and a slight tear in the V-neck of his jumper. ‘That jumper was brand new that morning. He was immaculate when I sent him off.’ For the first time since Alec arrived he noticed a slight smile on the old woman’s lips as she recalled the memory. ‘He was always getting up to mischief.’ She took back the picture and wiped the glass with her hand before placing it back on the mantelpiece. ‘He was a good kid.’

  She eased herself back down onto her chair, this time accepting Alec’s arm as he guided her the last few inches, then tugged the blanket over her legs. The sheer effort caused her to pant for breath. Alec crouched beside her; he wasn’t good at this sort of thing, but wasn’t sure what else to do.

  ‘Wilma…’ he placed his hand on her arm ‘… I know we’re too late to do right by you or Scott, but I can promise that I’ll do all I can do to find out what went wrong.’ Even as he was saying the words he knew they’d do little good. ‘You deserved better, Mrs Pettigrew, you and Scott.’

  The cold air caught the back of his throat as he stepped back outside. Wilma Pettigrew had said nothing as he’d left, his words meant nothing to her, and instead had sat worrying the fringes of her blanket between her fingers as he let himself out.

  22

  Alec pushed open the door. He did knock, but was already halfway over the threshold before he heard that it was OK for him to enter. ‘We need to talk.’ There was no need for introductions as he approached the desk.

  ‘It’s customary to use sir when addressing a senior officer.’ No one had been more surprised than Alec when Mike Conroy had been promoted to DCC. They’d trained together at Tulliallan and Alec had always found him a bit on the slow side. He could never quite get used to him being his new boss. But then again, dead men’s shoes were always filled.

  He nodded to Alec to take a seat, and to his credit didn’t look as pissed off as he could have been. ‘What’s your beef, then?’

  Alec guessed he knew what the problem was but paid him the courtesy of going over it anyway. ‘This case,’ he said, ‘it’s a fucking shambles and I need more resources. Sir.’ The last word came out like the afterthought it was.

  ‘Listen, Alec, the first twenty-four hours are crucial in a murder investigation.’ Davies hoped that Conroy hadn’t just learned this vital fact about policing and nodded quickly in agreement, urging him to get to the point. ‘Well, we’re almost two weeks down the line and you’re no closer to finding out who killed Nugent. Now…’ he took a breath, lacing his fingers together as though he were
about to turn Alec down for a mortgage ‘… throwing money at it is not the answer.’

  There was a fleeting moment when he considered telling his superior officer to fuck off, but realised that might not be the best career move. ‘I’m spending half my time chasing poor bloody sods who’ve been abused, listening to horror tales going back decades and trying to give them an answer as to why we didn’t investigate it at the time.’

  ‘Get one of your juniors to do that—’

  ‘You’re not fucking listening.’ He slammed his hands on the desk. ‘Sir.’

  Conroy stood up, perched himself on the edge of the table. ‘Alec, we go back a long way, but remember who you’re talking to.’

  ‘Mike, sir, this is a fucking car crash. We’ve got cases of kids being abused, young boys who had their whole lives ahead of them ending up on a slab; just another dead junkie because we let them down.’ He swallowed hard, surprised to find his voice cracking slightly as the emotion pulled at his jaw line. He tightened his lips. ‘I need a separate team to concentrate on the abuse victims.’

  ‘Pass is on to the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit. That’s what it was set up for. Fuck knows it’s costing enough.’

  ‘No. That’s not enough here. I need a specially trained team working alongside us on this. Co-ordinating their findings with us.’

  ‘You don’t call the shots, Alec.’

  Alec stood up. ‘This whole thing stinks of a mass cover-up and it makes me sick to my stomach.’

  ‘Things were different then…’ Alec had been hoping Mike wouldn’t resort to that line, but he had. ‘You know that as well as I do. Look at the way we dealt with victims of rape or domestic violence.’ He circled one hand in the air, as though trying to conjure up other similar crimes. He clearly meant the police force in general but Alec’s stomach shifted slightly at the associated guilt. ‘All abuse accusations were a fucking nightmare. They still are to an extent. But back then, well, we didn’t have the right training, attitudes were different…’ He trailed off, thinking that was a good enough answer. It wasn’t.

  ‘I’m not convinced it was just a few badly trained coppers, sir.’ Alec was deliberately overusing the word sir until it lost any of the respect Mike thought it gave him. ‘This to me looks more like a cover-up. These allegations were deliberately hidden. The witnesses discredited.’ He opened his briefcase and placed the buff coloured envelope on the desk. Mike raised an eyebrow as Alec slid the documents out from inside. There were several pictures, all chronicling various awards and charity dinners over the years, some with senior public figures. But it was the copies of press clippings showing the then Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police shaking hands with Nugent and other board members of the Caledonian Boys’ Club that he was most interested in.

  ‘Threadgold’s dead.’ Mike ran his hand through his hair and sat back down. ‘D’you want to completely discredit his name?’

  ‘What? You don’t think the press are going to have a field day with this anyway?’

  The familiar stirring of anger rose in his gut. Chief Constable Gordon Threadgold had been his mentor at one point. Not quite a father figure, but Alec had looked up to him for most of his career. He’d died after an apparent accident whilst cleaning his shotgun. For Alec, the memory of that day was still very much alive. He’d been with the newly retired Chief Constable just moments beforehand. Had called to his house to challenge him about why he’d held back vital information on a cold case he was reviewing: a murder investigation from the seventies. The pathologist had estimated Threadgold’s accidental death had happened just minutes after Alec had stormed out of his house. It wasn’t a day he was likely to forget in a hurry. ‘It’s not just him, sir, there are high profile figures in each of those stories.’

  ‘Fuck, Alec, that means nothing. These charity events are all the same. You know what it’s like – you get dragged into every shitey cause going.’ Alec knew what he was getting at, but he also knew that Nugent had friends in high places. Friends that meant allegations against him would be easily swept under the carpet or thrown straight in the bin.

  ‘You know as well as I do, sir, that we had a legal, and not to mention moral, obligation to follow up every one of those accusations.’ He paused, aware he was raising his voice. He took a breath and checked himself. ‘There’s not one single statement or allegation recorded.’ The scenario wasn’t that hard to imagine. Alec could understand the rank and file plods taking a statement and wondering how the hell they’d tell their boss that his golfing buddy was being accused of being a paedo. Easier if they just binned any that came in. But he also knew that he had to tread carefully here. ‘I’m not saying Threadgold or any of the men pictured were involved in the abuse.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, Alec. Some of these men are very well known. One went on to become a Cabinet Minister—’ Conroy tugged at the lapels of his jacket. That gesture alone made Alec want to smash his face in.

  ‘But what they did do was give Nugent a get-out-of-jail-free card. Having them on his side meant he was never going to be investigated the way he would have been had he been an ordinary Joe Soap.’ He stood up to leave; he’d taken about as much as he could stomach.

  ‘Just drop it, DI Davies.’

  ‘No can do, sir.’

  ‘You may have to.’ Conroy’s last statement was very matter-of-fact but it stopped Alec in his tracks. ‘If this is regarded as a matter of national security, then you have no choice.’

  Alec stuffed his hands deep into his pockets to stop them from shaking. ‘National security? You’re joking me, right?’

  ‘Look at my face, Davies – do I look as though I’m fucking joking?’ Conroy rocked back on his heels. Outside the faint drone of traffic made the world seem normal.

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. How d’you propose we make all this go away? The public will be baying for blood. Too late, Mike. It’s already out there. Tough.’

  ‘The public don’t give a shit. Not really. As long as they’ve got their beer on a Friday, their football on a Saturday, they’ll be happy.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Mike. People care, and those kids deserve justice and I for one plan to see they get it. This story will be splashed across every media outlet going. And I’m not going to stop it. So, as I said before, you’re too late. Genie’s out of the bottle, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Really?’ He gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Look at the balls-up of the investigation into the Westminster paedophile ring.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with—?’

  ‘Papers are full of pictures of Margaret Fucking Thatcher schmoozing with Jimmy Savile. That Currie woman. The one with the eggs…’

  ‘Edwina.’ Alec knew where this was going.

  ‘She more or less handed Savile the keys to Broadmoor and didn’t even get so much as a slap on the wrist. The Home Office, the fucking Home Office—’ he was shouting now ‘—lost more than a hundred files relating to that paedophile ring at Westminster. A hundred files, and you think anyone really gives a shit about a few boys in Glasgow? Get real, Alec. You’ve been told to drop it. Now drop it.’

  ‘Whose fucking pocket are you in, Mike?’

  ‘Close the door on your way out, Davies.’ There was no mistaking the anger in Mike’s voice. What Alec couldn’t work out was whether that was anger or fear in his eyes.

  23

  Oonagh slipped the pen-drive into the side of her laptop and heard it whirr into life. She looked down the list of files. Sarah Nugent had taken a certain amount of twisted pride in her late husband’s eye for detail. ‘You can say what you like about him,’ she’d said when she handed over the documents to Oonagh, ‘but he was fastidious about his bookkeeping.’

  Oonagh had felt somewhat sickened by the comment. ‘A bit like Mussolini and the trains?’ she’d replied, but the reference had been lost on Sarah. It was strange how such a minor detail could be heralded as a redeeming feature in an otherwise grotesque human being. Oonagh imagined the d
efence of serial killers asking for leniency because of their immaculate handwriting or impeccable table manners.

  Harry Nugent had been no fool, and neither, it appeared, was his wife. For someone who did a sterling job of acting on the wrong side of bright, this woman was smarter than the average bimbo. She’d acted on the right side of dumb to keep enough tabs on Harry to have access to most of his secret records. Oonagh suspected Sarah Nugent had known about Harry’s double-entry bookkeeping for quite some time. He’d kept most of his records here, in his luxury art deco pad. It was all here in black and white.

  As Sarah had said, Harry had owned several flats around the country. Most of which he rented out and property that presumably would now belong to his widow. On paper the rents had been minimal by all accounts. But Oonagh knew there was serious money changing hands here. According to Sarah, most of Harry’s businesses had been cash transactions. From what Oonagh could gather he’d had almost twenty bank accounts. All registered under various company names with money being squirrelled away each month.

  According to Sarah, Harry’s flats housed a string of upmarket brothels, catering to whatever tastes his low-level clientele desired. Underage mainly. A fair degree of rough stuff. Transsexuals too. Although from what Oonagh could gather these young boys were forced to dress up, act out and be whoever was paying for their company wanted that night. Child abuse dressed up as a business transaction.

  Most of it was written in fairly crude code. With just his clients’ initials alongside each payment. CW appeared a lot but Oonagh had no idea what it meant. There was nothing in the documents to identify where the properties were or indeed any of the clients who enjoyed the fruits of his labour. Whatever perk was being offered at each of these flats, it was more than was provided at your basic Airbnb.