Page 169 of Playing By Ear

Martin looked away. “Maybe tomorrow. I’m dead tired. Hah. See what I did there?”

“It can be a short conversation.” Jamie’s breath quaked in his lungs. “Just tell me why you killed him.”

His father’s wide-eyed gaze slammed back onto him. For once in Martin MacKray’s life, someone had taken him by surprise.

“How…” He glanced down at Layla, as if he didn’t want her to know. “Who telt you that?”

“I was there.” He pointed to the massive wardrobe. “Hiding. Praying you wouldn’t notice I’d been looking at your gun.”

“You were…in the room?”

“I heard the shots, I heard him fall, and—” Jamie shut his mouth so hard his teeth clacked. If he admitted the rest was fuzzy, his father might use it to deny the truth.

“No, you couldn’t have heard. You’re saying you were there?”

Jamie nodded, his neck creaking.

Martin passed a hand over his hair, pulling the strands above his forehead so tight, the roots bulged where they met his scalp. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you killed him or sorry I was a witness?”

Martin closed his eyes. “Both.”

Jamie’s knees went weak, and he barely made it to the chair to stop himself falling. “Part of me always hoped it was my imagination. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew what I heard.” He gripped the chair’s arms. “That’s one reason I left. I thought if you’d do it to Ritchie, you’d do it to me.”

“Och, fuck’s sake, lad,” Martin said softly, putting a hand to his chest. What must it be like to know your own son feared you’d end his life?

I hope it hurts. I hope it hurts like hell.

“I’m sorry.” His father clutched the edge of the duvet. “Thought I was protecting you. But there you were in your own home, thinking…”

At least Martin understood. There was that, at least. But Jamie needed to understand too.

“Why’d you do it, Dad? You accused Ritchie of double-crossing you with foreign firms. But was that really why your nephew had to die? Over a business dispute?”

Martin shook his head. “That’s where it all ended, but it’s far from where it began.” He coughed a little, his voice rough and faded.

Jamie wanted to pull his chair closer to hear better, but Layla had lifted her head and was eyeing him with suspicion. He had to keep his tone under control in her presence, lest she think him a threat. “Meaning what?”

“Mind how your Uncle Mickey died?”

“Aye. Officially, a cardiac thing. Unofficially, suicide.”

“Ritchie got it into his head that it was murder, with me the one behind it.”

What? Had Martin killed his own brother, too? Evan’s report had shown Mickey had had a heart condition, but Jamie knew the medical examiner had been paid to say so. What if they’d covered up a homicide instead of a suicide?

“Why would Ritchie think that?” Jamie’s voice snapping like a flag in the wind.

“One of our foreign rivals telt him, to turn him against me and maybe grab some of my territory. They made up a whole conspiracy theory. Ritchie should’ve been too clever to believe that pish, but I suppose he wanted to believe it.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he was ashamed. Maybe angry at his da for giving up. More comforting to believe he was murdered.” Martin gripped the bed rail with his better hand. “I cannae blame him, cos I wanted that too. When Mickey died, I wished there was some bastard I could take revenge on. For Ritchie, that bastard was me.”

Jamie sat back in his chair. He’d had those thoughts about his mum, hating a capricious universe for an unlucky accident while praying it hadn’t been suicide. To feel you weren’t enough for your parent to live for…Jamie had been spared that, but Ritchie hadn’t.

Martin cleared his throat. “Funny, I done so many wrongs, it’s kinda ironic my own nephew comes after me for something I didnae do.”