He relaxed. Stepped back. Kept dancing a little, back and forth, arms loose and his fists ready. He was getting on, but there was still a strength about him. Maybe he was a little loose around the edges now, but he still seemed dangerous. I'd never seen him in the ring, but from photos and the way he moved, I knew he'd been a real hard b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

He took a few deep breaths, slowed down the dance.

I stepped back from the punching back. No need to hold it steady, now.

"I ken ye think ye're doing the right thing," he said, "But I dinnae take charity."

"Not charity," I said. "Mate's rates."

"Aw, don't p.i.s.s me about." He stepped back, moved over to the ring where two boys were working on their punches. Davey yelled at them, "Keep at it, lads. No slacking!" They picked up the pace.

I said, "I'll find her."

"At yer usual fee." He didn't even let me start protesting. "Else I'll knock yer block off. For nothing. How's that for mates' rates?"

Davey's daughter. Kirsty, was sixteen years old. Sweet sixteen, they say, but in my line of work you come to realise they're always anything but.

Kirsty was missing now for three days. Davey could have and maybe should have gone to the police, but he came to me. Because he didn't like the local coppers. And more importantly, they didn't like him.

I'd known him now for four years, which was enough time for him to get over the idea that I had been one of the enemy. He thought the police had their place, but where he grew up that place seemed to be hara.s.sing him and his mates.

Saying the force has changed is one thing. Proving it to some people is quite another.

So when his daughter went missing, he called me.

And because he'd done me some favours in the past, I took the case, no questions asked.

Davey's gym was falling into disrepair. Health and safety would probably have a field day. Not Davey's fault. Dundee's working cla.s.s gyms used to be part of a thriving community. The lads lapped it up, all that controlled aggression. It was where Davey had learned, in his words, "how tae be a man," and it had instilled enough pride in him that when the last owner died, he took over the business. But as Dundee became less of a working cla.s.s city and the metropolitan posers took over, a gym became less a place to work out than a place to be seen. Working cla.s.s clubs like Davey's took the heaviest financial hits.

So, yeah, in part my offer of mate's rates was charity. But mostly it was because... I liked the man.

And I knew how much he loved his daughter.

First time I met Kirsty, she had been twelve years old. Small and innocent. Mischievous, too, always grinning like there was some joke going on only she could understand.

She meant the world to Davey.

I knew she was growing up. Over the past couple of years, much as Davey still talked about her in loving tones, he sounded exasperated and afraid. She was becoming a woman and Davey had no idea to handle that. How to handle her friends, her boyfriends. How to handle her.

To hear him talk about what had happened, you'd think he lost control completely.

Like I said, sweet sixteen, you soon realise how much of a joke that is.

She was going with a lad from round Douglas way called Mick. To give him his most common name: Mick the Mick. Irish, and not about to deny the blarney stone as long as it gave him the freedom to make girls swoon.

I made Mick my first priority. Davey said that Mick and Kirsty had been fighting of late. Sounded like another girl, but Davey's daughter didn't tell him anything these days, no matter how much he told her he loved her.

Knowing Mick the Mick, it wouldn't be a surprise.

I'd run Mick in a few times while I was still a copper. He was twenty-nine years old, now, and as much a part of Dundee as the Overgate or the Howff cemetery. Known as a jack-the-lad. A rascal.

A pain in the a.r.s.e.

I rapped hard on his door and waited. The hall in the tenement smelled faintly of something acidic. Difficult to ignore.

I rapped again.

Kicked the door.

A voice inside said, "Jaysus, gimme a minute!"

Mick the Mick.

When he opened the door, he was wearing a thick dressing gown, and his hair was messed up like birds had been trying to make a nest on his head. "What the h.e.l.l, d'y "

I pulled him out into the hall. He yelped.

"Remember me?"

"I owe you money?"

"I arrested you."

He tried to focus. "Aye, police?"

"I was."

"Right."

I gave him a shake. "Where's Kirsty?"

"Who?"

"Your girlfriend."

"No, there's no girl tying me down like "

"Wrong answer." I pushed him into the flat. He didn't resist. His body was loose, like resisting would be too much effort. Probably the thought didn't even crossed his mind. He was too fried.

We danced through to the living room. Thick carpets. Posters on the wall, mostly cla.s.sic 70's stuff. Serpico.The G.o.dfather. Like a student pad that was trying too hard. That was how Mick had come to Dundee, and even if the university had chucked him out, it seemed that was how he intended to stay.

I threw Mick on the sofa. He was skin and bones. All the same, the fabric sagged.

"Kirsty," I said.

"I'm telling you "

I kicked the telly that sat on a low display unit. The screen cracked.

Mick looked ready to p.i.s.s himself. "Aw, Jaysus Christ, man!"

"She's sixteen years old. Dark hair. The kind of smile could melt you if you're not careful. Apple of her Daddy's eye." I made eye contact, hammered the point home. "Her Daddy, who could take your head off."

"The old man's a washed up "

"The old man could still kick your a.r.s.e."

Mick considered this. Really considered. c.o.c.ked his head, rolled his eyes. No sarcasm. Genuine effort.

Then: "She's not with me. Not any more."

"You got bored?"

"She was... she was seeing some other fella."

"Who?"

"She wouldn't say. Just told me to sling my hook."

"And you had no idea?" I crouched down, getting to his level. Making sure he knew... there was a kind of conspiracy between us. An understanding.

He fell for it.

"Could be that bollix, Fosty."

"Fosty?"

"Aye, Fosty. Christ... what's his name? Tom Foster. Yeah, that's it."

"But his mates call him Fosty?"

"Don't know he has mates, exactly..."

"Tell me where I can find Fosty?"

He told me.

When I left, he said, "That p.r.i.c.k's not coming round is he? Like, Kirsty's Da?"

I didn't answer. Left him shaking on the sofa. Drugs or fear, I didn't give a s.h.i.te.

Ros, my girlfriend, said it: "Sam, you've become a harda.s.s, you know that?"

She's American, which means she's allowed to use words like "harda.s.s". Anyone else does it in Dundee, they're poseurs and deserve what they get.

After leaving Mick's apartment, I had to wonder if she was on to something. I was feeling on edge, and not just about Davey's daughter. For several months I had been finding my temper more and more difficult to control. I'd been through some c.r.a.p, culminating in my best friend almost getting locked up on murder charges, but all the same...

Just a year ago, I'd never have burst in on Mick all b.a.l.l.s and bravado. Never have threatened him without taking another tack first. But I was going at this investigation like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

When did I become careless?

And when was I going to pull back?

Fosty's place was only ten minutes drive from Mick the Mick's. A halfway house. Purpose built. Barely over ten years old and already looking like over one hundred years of winds had battered it from the outside.

Through the main doors, a front desk. Behind that, a gaunt man who looked like he'd rather be waist deep in cow-manure than sat there.

"I'm here to talk to one of your... residents."

The man regarded me coolly. "Police?"

"No." I produced a card, placed it on the desk when he didn't reach for it.

"Didn't know we had private investigators in Dundee."

"Well now you do."

"Even in Scotland? What do you really do?"

I didn't have time to argue with him. Said, "Thomas Foster."

The gaunt man didn't bother checking the register. He just rolled the name around once and then said, "He's leaving us soon."

"Aye?"

"A real success story." Heavy on the sarcasm. "Turned himself around. Found the Lord and aw that s.h.i.te." He gave up. "Jesus, suckered some poor wee bint into taking him in."

"Who's the... bint?"

"Like I pry? Look, I sit here, I hear things, and I don't really care."

And he seemed so socially conscious, as well.

"So is he here tonight?"

"Like I said, pal, you're not the police."

"This important."

He looked at the card again. "Christ, you can print these at service stations. They put a machine in the Overgate where you pay a quid, get fifty of these tae pa.s.s around tae anyone who cares."