Reaper, p.4
Reaper, page 4
Max saw the hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have been so fast to tell him to fuck off, then.’
‘Perhaps. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘Again, fair.’
She finished what was left in her cup and gave it the look of someone who wished for more.
‘So, after everything that happened with Jess…’ She looked at him squarely, her concern evident. ‘You sure you’re okay to hear this? It could be a bit triggering.’
Max took the last sip of his coffee and nodded slowly. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t. But thanks for checking. Appreciate it.’
She set down the cup and shuffled her stool around so she was facing him, the legs scraping across the polished-concrete floor.
‘Well, Max, at the time, as part of the overall investigation, we did some looking into Shane McFarlane’s background – to see if it was a case of like father, like son. Had the family environment that young man was brought up in contributed to his slide into addiction, his fucked-up attitude towards women, and ultimately what he did to your daughter? The sins of the father, you know?’
Despite his mental preparation for this conversation, Max couldn’t help his sharp intake of breath. Meredith picked up on it and tilted her head to the side – an unspoken you okay?
He waved his hand for her to carry on.
‘Initially, after interviewing him and his wife, both together and separately, and members of their extended family, it looked like it was one of those sad cases of a young man coming from a good, solid Christian family but rebelling against them, falling in with the wrong crowd, testing things out and getting drawn into the destructive world of drugs, then ultimately the mind-fucking disaster of crystal meth.’
Crystal fucking meth. They had both seen enough cases of people’s lives unravelling because of that scourge. It was one of those substances that could hook people in on one hit, and once addicted, it was a hell of a job to get off it. Most didn’t. And there were plenty of unscrupulous bastards out there who understood this and made their livelihoods off the misery and dependence of others. They didn’t care that it destroyed lives. They banked on it.
‘McFarlane came across as the devastated father, utterly shocked at what his only child had done. And to be fair, at the time, he probably was. It’s a hell of a thing to reconcile, your son taking someone else’s life so brutally. Someone he supposedly loved. And to lose him too. It’s hard to imagine what he and his wife would have been feeling.’
She checked herself then, throwing Max an apologetic look. He knew exactly what that devastation felt like.
‘But there was something about him that didn’t quite sit right, so I dug a little deeper.’
Meredith’s instincts were something Max trusted, and he pitied anyone who fell on the wrong side of them. She could be relentless.
‘You know that there are things I can’t tell you, that are privileged information. But what I can say is Shane McFarlane is not as squeaky clean as he would have you believe, or as innocent as his family think he is. Although I couldn’t find any definitive evidence, he is, or was then, involved in some pretty shady business dealings. He’s a real-estate developer, and although he might not be as well known as some of his high-profile colleagues – the ones you see in the media bleating about the lack of opportunity or how much they are hamstrung by City Council’s by-laws and the Resource Management Act, how expensive compliance to regulations and pointless bureaucracy is etcetera, etcetera – he quietly holds a lot of clout behind the scenes and has had a number of lucrative contracts find their way to him even though on the surface he’s seemed an unlikely choice, compared to the other companies vying for them.’
‘White-collar stuff?’
‘Yeah. Illegal? That’s a grey area. Dodgy as hell? Yes. To me it all points to a man with flexible morals who can be unscrupulous, and who will do anything to nail a deal.’
‘Property development and shady dealings aren’t exactly life-and-death stuff though.’
‘No, but they can still have detrimental effects on a lot of people. Bottom line: he smacks me as someone who is used to power and getting his own way.’ She tapped the tabletop with her middle finger, as if clarifying her thoughts. ‘He isn’t someone I would trust, Max. You wouldn’t want to cross him.’
Coming from Meredith, it was a warning he would heed.
‘You say he tracked you down at the library?’ she went on.
‘Yeah, he did.’
‘How did he know to find you there?’
It was a good question and one that had been niggling away at him. Max did his best to stay as under the radar as possible. He kept to himself and went about his job quietly. Unwanted attention was the last thing he needed.
‘Was he following you?’
That was the golden question, and a prospect he found very disconcerting. He always took precautions, especially when heading back to the villa, his secret haunt. He liked to think his antennae would pick up someone following him, tracking his movements. But in this instance they had clearly failed him and McFarlane’s intrusion at the library, a place he viewed as one of his havens, had come as a very unpleasant surprise.
‘That I don’t know for sure. But let’s be real, what were the odds of him just happening upon me at the library? It felt like an ambush. That is one of the reasons, now I’ve had time to think about it, that I will get in touch with him. Find out exactly what it was he was wanting from me.’
‘Best defence being a good offence?’
‘Sort of. Part of my defence is knowing what the hell I’m up against. Hence this conversation.’ He waved his hands between himself and Meredith.
‘Well, as I’ve said: I wouldn’t trust him.’
‘I don’t, and I won’t. But in light of what you’ve just said, I won’t be surprised if he approaches me again. I’m counting on it. He’s a man who is used to getting his own way, one way or another. And I’ll be on the front foot this time.’
Meredith sighed, picked up and tilted her coffee cup, then, disappointed, placed it back in the saucer.
‘Do what you need to do. But please keep me in the loop. And do be careful, Max. Don’t do anything dumb.’
12: Max
This time the sound of approaching footsteps on carpet didn’t trigger full-on fight-or-flight mode, just a lift in his heart rate. His conversation with Meredith had confirmed his suspicion that Shane McFarlane was a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer. So he’d been half expecting this, half hoping for it; and it solved the problem of Max having to try to track him down himself.
Max was seated in one of the more secluded spots on the first floor, a place where conversation would have less chance of being overheard. McFarlane moved into his peripheral vision and cleared his throat.
Max turned his head to acknowledge him. Different jeans, different jersey. Same jacket.
Max turned away again. ‘You’ve got a damn cheek coming back here,’ he said. He wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
‘Can I sit down?’ McFarlane asked.
‘It’s a public place, I can’t stop you.’
McFarlane grabbed an armchair and pulled it closer, but not too close, angling it so they were almost sitting face to face. Almost, but not quite.
‘Look, I think we may have got off on the wrong foot yesterday, and I can see that it wasn’t a good move for me to surprise you like that,’ he said in a low voice, looking around for library patrons in the near vicinity. Fortunately there weren’t many. ‘I’m sorry. Can we start again?’
Max didn’t say anything, just stared at the man, waiting in silence until the weight of it made the interloper shift in his seat.
‘I guess I’ll cut to the chase then. I know I have no right to ask this, but I need your help with something.’
Max didn’t reply straight away, leaving a pause that was long enough to be pointed, rather than idiotic. ‘What kind of something?’ he asked.
Some of the tension eased out of McFarlane’s face, and he leaned forward in the chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
‘You may find this hard to believe, but my Tim, he was a good boy.’
Max could feel his eye twitch, feel the heat rise in his stomach, but he pushed it down, breathed through the rage. Rage was a new sensation. He’d lived with numbness for so long that the intensity of this repressed emotion was something he struggled to deal with. But here, in this public library full of ordinary people going about their lives, people whose lives hadn’t been ripped apart by this man and his ‘good’ boy, he had no choice but to deal with it. He gripped the arms of his chair so tight, the pressure made his knuckles turn white. A good boy was the very last way to describe Tim fucking McFarlane. A murderer was what he was.
McFarlane must have sensed the anger, as he sat up straight, hands shifting to his sides, ready to move.
‘Look, I know what he did was messed up and sickening and unforgivable, but believe me, that was not the Tim that Sandy and I raised. That was not the Tim who was always so loving and kind, and who would do anything for anybody.’ Max could see the man’s eyes awash with tears, could hear the pain in his voice, but he was not ready to acknowledge that yet. He still felt the need to punish the father for the sins of the son. He was incapable of giving him any quarter.
‘Well, who the hell was it, if it wasn’t your son? I was there. I’m pretty sure that it was him that slit my daughter’s throat and laughed while he did it. I’m pretty fucking sure it was him who stole her life away, stole her from us.’
McFarlane shook his head, his hands moving, imploring. ‘For fuck’s sake, man. Cut me some slack here. This isn’t easy for me either. I lost my son that day, but the truth is I lost my boy long before that. I lost my boy to those arseholes that got him onto the meth. The arseholes who sold him his hits, hooked him into that evil, evil fucking drug. They stole him. They’re the ones who stole your daughter; they’re the ones who should fucking pay.’
McFarlane’s voice had risen and risen, and in the ensuing silence, Max knew it was up to him to calm things down, make sure the staff didn’t ask them to take this elsewhere.
‘And is that what you want from me? To make them pay?’ he asked quietly.
McFarlane stared, then crumpled as the wind left his sails.
He replied, voice muted, tired: ‘I need you – I’m asking you – to find them. The ones who hooked Tim in, who supplied him. I want to see them suffer.’
‘And by suffer, you mean…?’ Max didn’t know exactly what McFarlane thought he was capable of, or was expecting him to do.
‘I’m not asking you to do anything illegal. But you were a detective; you know how to find people, bring them to justice. This will help bring justice for her, for your Jess, as well as our Tim.’
Max relaxed his grip on the chair arms, clasped his hands and focussed on them as he rubbed them together, dry skin making tin-whistle scales.
‘You know the police didn’t manage to find the supplier back then, even with all their staff and resources thrown at it. What on earth makes you think I, a lone man, could do any better?’ he asked.
‘You have a vested interest, and you don’t have to play by any rules.’
‘But you just said you weren’t going to ask me to do anything illegal.’
‘I’m not. But you’re not a sworn officer anymore so you’re not restrained by police codes – and you don’t look like one either. You look like you could…’
‘I look like I could be one of them – be a user?’
‘Well, yeah.’
It wasn’t exactly a compliment.
‘And I can pay – I know you need the money.’
Again, not a compliment. It also raised a question: exactly how much did Shane McFarlane know about him? How long had he been following him, checking him out, sizing him up for this job? That thought was as disconcerting as hell, especially as he’d done so undetected, while Max had been trying to fly under everyone’s radar. But despite the red flags, there was some appeal in the task. A little part of him had been thinking the same thing. That it was the fuckers who started the addiction, the fuckers who fed the flames of that drug-crazed mania, who had a lot to answer for. A part of him had always wanted to go after them, make them suffer as much as he had.
‘I’ll do it,’ Max said, ‘but I don’t want your fucking money.’
McFarlane nodded and reached out his hand.
‘Thank you.’
Max took it, and shook, wondering what on earth he was getting himself into. Could he trust this man? Should he?
Meredith’s warning echoed in his ears.
13: Meredith
It had been more than two years since Meredith had dug into Shane McFarlane’s life, and with the inquest wrapped up and the investigation into Jess Grime’s murder closed, that should have been the end of it. But with the man suddenly making a reappearance into Max’s life, and by association into hers, she couldn’t control the urge to pick at that scab. She had been able to recall a reasonable amount when Max asked about McFarlane, but now she wanted to recall more. She typed in his name, clicked on the folders of notes and links she had carefully recorded all those years ago and settled in for a memory refresh.
She didn’t need to be doing this – probably shouldn’t have been doing this. Her boss certainly wouldn’t appreciate her spending time on something that was completely unrelated to her current caseload, which was already hefty enough. Lack of resources meant that every detective in the building – hell, in the region – was snowed under by the sheer volume of work, and of course by the need to be utterly meticulous and above board, so no criminal would be let off because of some technicality or procedural error on the part of a burnt-out, overloaded and exhausted police officer. Such mistakes were the stuff of their nightmares and were all the more likely given the pressure they were under not to make them.
Yet here she was.
Max was her Achilles heel. She’d come to realise that. Didn’t know exactly what it was about him that made her feel the need to intercede, to keep an eye on him. It wasn’t any romantic notion, that was for sure. There was no burning desire there, or even a vague smoulder. The best she could liken it to was brothers in arms – they had so much shared battle experience they were bonded forever. With people like that, no matter what, you had their back. If she were feeling more unkind, however, she could liken him to an emaciated, emotionally starved, semi-feral rescue dog. One who had experienced trauma and neglect, who ran and hid, or snarled occasionally and pissed inside, but that you still loved regardless and tried to protect. As with any such broken animal, all interactions came with a level of anxiety, because you never quite knew what you’d be dealing with on any given day. So far this week she’d been lucky though, despite the pretty awful circumstances under which she’d got in touch with Max. And he’d coped well, considering.
She hoped it stayed that way. But this thing with Shane McFarlane had her worried. This was the thing that would tip Max back over the edge.
14: Reaper
This one isn’t going to be so easy. If the old man has witnessed him wearing the large, hooded duffel coat he was in when he took care of the others, then he is hardly going to accept any gift from the Reaper, no matter how tempting. But he can’t afford to have a witness, so this loose end has to be tidied up, one way or another.
He smiles. ‘The Reaper.’ He speaks the words out loud, draws out the syllables, savours the sound, the very idea of it. He had called him the Reaper. To be likened to the personification of death, an evil incarnate that strikes fear into the heart of every man, is perfect. This he can use; after all, murder, like most things, is all in the selling, the theatre of it. Because the Grim Reaper isn’t only about death and the collecting of souls, the Reaper is also about culling, cutting, getting rid of the weak.
That coat had been an impulse. Something grabbed as a way of hiding his face from the myriad of shop security cameras and transport CCTV in the city. No one questions someone dressed warmly, hood up, protecting themselves from the intense cold of this harsh winter. Just another worker making their way home. But, if he can use this image the old man has conjured up out of a hooded coat, create from it some enigmatic entity, some ghost, an angel of death, then it could work to his benefit. Divert any investigation towards this ‘Reaper’ figure. The more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense, and the more excited he becomes at the prospect. It plays perfectly to his purpose to control and use fear, to be the master manipulator.
If they want a reaper, then a reaper they will get.
He will be a one-man plague upon this scourge on the street, cleaning up the filth and the undesirables who drag this great city down. He will be a god.
15: Max
This search history was sure as hell going to have to be wiped. Somehow Max didn’t think the librarians would be impressed by seeing a string of search terms such as ‘methamphetamine’, ‘crystal meth’, ‘ice’, or even the more humble ‘marijuana’. They weren’t the traces of research to leave behind in a very public forum, to be stumbled upon by some unsuspecting kid. About the only thing worse would have been porn. But at least searching for information here meant he didn’t have to worry about any rather noxious targeted advertising, reels and memes coming through on his social media later in the day. Big Brother was always watching, and the marketing gods were always pushing promotions at you. Algorithms were bloody creepy. Nowadays it felt like you couldn’t hide anything, that if you merely thought about something a related product would miraculously pop up in your feed. Not that he was active on social media – his life wasn’t exactly newsworthy, and frankly, who would give a damn? He was more an observer. He checked in on what his ex-wife was up to on occasion, to see how she was getting on. Was she happy? She deserved to be, especially after everything he’d put her through. And of course there was the boy. Not that he was a boy anymore. Harry was eighteen now, a young man, and rebuilding a father-son relationship with him was a work in progress. Some might call his social-media dabbling cyber-stalking, he preferred to call it safeguarding.
