The mention of the grey Mondeo again flashed an alert inside his head. Now he remembered where he had seen the driver before. The newly grown, thinning, sandy hair had tricked him. He was the bald headed man at Staithes whom he had seen arguing with his father that morning. It was all fitting into place.
The DCI continued. “Me and my team are down here for two reasons — one to track down Wallace and Geddes, and two, and just as important, to protect the main witness from that trial back in nineteen-seventy-two — your father.” She looked across to Jock. “I’ll let you take over.”
Hunter turned towards his dad, saw him take a deep breath and glance towards his wife. He tried to search out his dad’s look but as he had done so many times over recent weeks he avoided eye contact, instead staring down at his hands, which he rolled around one another.
“This is very difficult for me son,” he began. “I’ve not tried to hide this from you I just didn’t know how to tell you what you’re about to hear, especially with the important job you have. I suppose naively I hoped it would never come to this. What do they say about the best laid plans?” He gave a resounding cough.
Hunter saw tears well up in his father’s eyes.
“You know I’ve told you all about my younger days as a boxer and how my career ended and how me and your ma came down to Yorkshire where you were born and I set up the gym?”
Hunter nodded. He felt his stomach knot as he watched his dad wipe the corner of an eye with the back of a hand.
“All that is true but I have never told you why, have I son?” He made eye contact with Hunter for the first time. He lifted himself and took his wallet from his back trouser pocket, fished into one of the sleeves and extracted a crumpled yellowing piece of paper and proffered it.
Hunter reached across and took it. It was a yellow-aged Sellotaped news cutting, which he unfurled to get a fuller view. He glanced at the headline. It read: GLASGOW GANGSTERS SENTENCED FOR BRUTAL SLAYING OF MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. Below that was a smaller sub heading: SUPERGRASS TURNS QUEENS EVIDENCE. Hunter read most of the article before stopping.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to avoid all these years, you finding out the full facts. My names’ not Jock Kerr — or rather my birth name wasn’t that.”
Hunter felt as if he had been punched in the guts. His stomach turned and ached. He checked the looks on his mum’s face and then on the Detective Chief Inspector’s’. He knew from the exchange they gave him he had heard right. His head started to throb.
“I’m sorry son, I know this has come as a bit of a shock but now you know. I’ve been living under an assumed name for years. I was forced to change it after the trial. I took on your grandfather’s name from your Mother’s side and the Procurator Fiscal and the detectives on the case helped me to relocate to Yorkshire.”
“So you’re the supergrass in the article?”
“No — no, nothing like that. That was editorial licence. Let me tell you the full story before you judge me.”
“I think you’d better.”
“After I had to give up my boxing I didn’t know what to do, and Billy’s dad — Gordon Wallace — came to me one night when I was in the club having a beer, said he’d heard good things about me and maybe he could put some work my way. He knew I was good with my fists so he offered me some door work looking after a couple of clubs. I didn’t know who he was at the time. Then one day he turns up at the flat I had with your ma and says he wants me to keep an eye on his son Billy. He told me that some people were after giving him a good hiding and asked me if I’d drive him around and watch his back. Said he’d pay me a hundred pounds a week. Well I jumped at the chance didn’t I — where else could I earn that type of money? They gave me a Mercedes as well to drive. All he said to me was I wasn’t to ask too many questions but just watch his son’s back. Well the first time I picked Billy up he introduced me to his pal Rab and he asked me to drive them to this tenement because he had some business to sort out. I had no idea what he was up to until he and Rab came running back to the car and they asked me to get them out of there. There was blood everywhere. Billy said that the woman in the flat had slashed him with a knife. Then he told me that he’d shot her. They set fire to the flat as well. He was flashing this shooter about and I was really freaked. I drove them to some wasteland and watched them bury the gun and then they told me to drop them off. I was physically sick when I got home. Then the next day I saw on the news that they’d not only killed a woman but a five-year-old wee bairn as well. I told your ma what had happened and she told me to go to the police. I didn’t at first but I did give them a call and gave them Billy and Rab’s name. I don’t know how but a couple of days later two detectives came to the flat and asked me about the murders. I told them everything and they told me to find somewhere else to live until the trial. I knew I wouldn’t be safe especially once I found out about the gangster connections and so I agreed a deal with the police. I said I would give evidence if they gave me a fresh start and they did. I stopped being Iain Cambell.” For a second Jock closed his eyes. “Little did I realise what repercussions there would be. Do you realise now why I wanted to hold this back?”
“And that guy I saw you arguing with in Staithes?”
“Rab Geddes. It was sheer bad luck he recognised me, especially after all these years. Apparently he’d just dropped off an old friend of his after a stag night up in Glasgow.”
For a few seconds Hunter felt as if a great weight was pushing down on him. He was trying to make sense of what he had been told. It raised questions; what kind of person was his dad and just as important who was he.