Dark as Night by Katherine Pathak

17
     
     
     
    A ndy Calder was doing his best to keep a low profile at work. He’d volunteered to sift through the CCTV footage from the gay bars of Sauchiehall Street on the afternoon of Saturday, 25 th July. It was a long and tedious task but kept him away from the DCI for a few hours longer.
                  Calder could see his boss was still deep in conversation with that shrink in her office, the guy who looked like Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings but wearing an ill-fitting, shabby suit. So when the phone rang on Phil’s desk and there was no one else around, Andy strode over to answer it.
                  It was the lassie from reception, informing him that Ewan McLaren was down in the lobby, waiting to speak to someone from the investigation team. Calder sighed and picked up his jacket, heading for the lift.
     
    ‘What can I do for you, sonny?’ Andy laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder, noting how awful he looked. His hair was lank and greasy and it was clear he’d not slept in days. ‘Come on.’
                  The detective led Ewan into one of the family rooms, asking the desk sergeant to sort them out a couple of teas with plenty of sugar. He sat opposite the lad, waiting for him to start the conversation.
                  ‘I’ve done nothing but go over stuff in my head these last few days. I can’t help but think that you must have got it wrong about Dad – him meeting up with gay men, I mean.’ Ewan seemed to be struggling not to cry.
                  ‘I’m sorry, Ewan, but the evidence is very clear cut. Your Dad was seeing a therapist about his feelings. The situation is well documented. Your mother even knew about it.’
                  The boy shuffled forward in his seat. ‘But for the last few months, I actually thought Dad might have another woman on the go. Whenever we went out anywhere together, he was always pointing out the good-looking girls. It was so out of character I thought that maybe he was having some kind of mid-life crisis. Don’t you see? The lassies he was picking out were really fit – the kinds of girls I fancied too. So he couldn’t have been gay, could he? Not for real, otherwise he wouldn’t have known which were the pretty ones?’
                  Andy sighed. ‘It’s what’s called, throwing up a blind. He was trying to put you off the scent. I expect your dad really didn’t want you and your brother to find out that he was gay.’ Calder suddenly had a memory flash. He pictured his Uncle Donny in one of the dingy rock venues of Glasgow in the mid-nineties, nudging his young nephew whenever a bonny girl went by, winking exaggeratedly, playing up to his jack-the-lad image. The thought made Andy feel deeply uncomfortable.
                  The tears had finally escaped onto Ewan’s cheeks. ‘I know you’re probably right, but if that’s the case why didn’t he just tell me? I can understand him not telling Cormac, he’s just a silly kid. But I would have listened. I’m not some kind of bigot. I knew my parents weren’t happy, I’m not blind. Dad didn’t need to run around in secret and get himself bloody killed!’
                  The lad was sobbing by this stage and Andy held him in his arms. ‘It wasn’t as easy for your father as that. You were his son and he loved you to pieces. He didn’t want to shatter the image you’d built up of him. Believe me, Ewan, you were the last person your dad wanted to tell.’
                  The boy nodded, his head half buried in Calder’s shoulder. Andy thought that finally, the lad seemed to be taking it on board.
     
    *
     
    When Andy returned to his desk, the professor had gone and his boss was in the office by herself. He took a deep breath and walked over, knocking lightly on the door.
                  As Calder entered, Dani gestured towards the chair in front of her.