Keep The Midnight Out (William Lorimer) (12 page)

A
r
ed
-haired young man
, she read,
possibly in his late teens
, the short article went on.

Mona Daly put down the newspaper with a sigh. Had that been the lad she’d seen the other night, after work? The young chap she had seen here before…? She shuddered, remembering the two men standing in the shadows of the building where she worked. It had been the shock of seeing grown men do something so horrid that made her remember them so well. She’d looked at them for a moment, expecting one of them to be a daftie, a poor soul who didn’t know any better. That would have made it kind of sad, but understandable. These sorts hadn’t a clue what was right or socially acceptable, did they? And Mona had heard it said they were extra affectionate, these Mongol laddies who hadn’t the brains to understand what they were doing with their own bodies.

But the one with red hair, she’d seen his face and he wasn’t like that at all. He was actually an okay-looking sort of guy, shorter than the other one who had bent down towards him, their faces so close that Mona had stopped suddenly, horrified that she was about to see two men kissing one another. Then the younger one had slid his hand onto the other man’s trousers, fondling his groin, and Mona had turned and fled from the window, gasping, not wanting to see any more.

Then, to see them again in the middle of the town… disgusting types!

Could it have been him? Had he come to grief in the river afterwards? Mona twisted her lips in a moment of indecision. Was it something in her – God forgive her! – that wanted the laddie dead? A punishment for having offended her sense of decency? She re-read the notice in the
Gazette
and shook her head. There were thousands of red-haired lads in the city; Scotland was full of them. And no doubt there were queers everywhere too, only she hadn’t been used to seeing the nasty sort of things they got up to: not in broad daylight.

No, it couldn’t be the same person. There had been something mendacious in the red-haired young man’s face, something that made Mona think he could look after himself. And if it was him? Well, it was none of her business, was it? Nobody had come forward to identify the body, the police spokesman in the article said. But someone knew that lad she’d seen. The older man; the one who hadn’t even flinched when his private parts had been touched. He would have come to the city morgue, wouldn’t he?

But what if that had been the lad’s killer?
a small voice whispered in Mona Daly’s ear. She folded the newspaper and stuffed it into the wire mesh bin under her desk.

She wouldn’t think of it again. It didn’t concern her. There were too many other important things to take up her time, she told herself, pulling herself in to the desk and preparing to tackle another day with this new computer system that had been given to all the secretarial staff.

‘Not a thing.’ Lorimer shook his head as he sank back into the ancient armchair that had been a cheap saleroom purchase when they’d bought the house. ‘Not one single person in the whole city has responded to it,’ he said tiredly.

‘That’s a shame,’ Maggie said. ‘To think that nobody loves you enough to keep in touch.’

‘Oh, there could be any number of reasons why he wasn’t identified,’ Lorimer mused. ‘Probably wasn’t even from Glasgow. Most of the missing persons who are never found again have left their old haunts and live a life amongst strangers.’

‘Yes, you hear about old folk who are found behind their doors months after they’ve died.’ Maggie sighed. ‘It’s such a sad part of your job, darling,’ she sympathised.

‘Och, it’s the frustration of knowing that someone out there really does know who the boy is,’ he said wearily. ‘At least whoever trussed him up and threw him in the water does, but they won’t be letting on anytime soon,’ he grumbled.

‘It couldn’t have been an accident?’

Lorimer shook his head. ‘No. Phillips reckons it’s probably gang-related. But I’m not so sure.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, most of the Glasgow gangs are local, aren’t they? And even a bad lot has a mother or a sister who would be worried about them when they disappeared.’

‘What if they’re warned not to go to the police?’

‘Aye, well, that’s one of the things that Phillips said.’ Lorimer grinned suddenly at his wife. ‘You should be a polis, pet.’

‘Hard to see me in a uniform of any sort right now.’ Maggie smiled back, stroking the folds of her maternity dress.

She looked down. ‘Just a few more weeks and you’ll be out of there, wee one,’ she crooned. ‘And I can begin to get my figure back and not be such a huge big elephant.’

‘You’re gorgeous just as you are, d’you know that?’ Lorimer bent forward and patted his wife’s knee. ‘Pregnancy becomes you,’ he mused, smiling into her eyes. ‘And I don’t care if you’re never a skinny wee thing again.’

Maggie laughed. ‘Well you’ll be nothing but skin and bone if I don’t get your dinner.’

‘Here, sit where you are,’ Lorimer protested, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll fix the dinner. What are we having?’ He strode towards the kitchen part of the large, airy open-plan room that stretched the width of the house and beyond into an extension that the previous owners had built.

‘Mum made a casserole,’ Maggie called back. ‘A bit hot for this weather but it’ll be nice. There’s rice ready to be heated up in the microwave.’

‘Ah, the age of modern conveniences!’ Lorimer laughed, opening the microwave with a ping and slipping the covered dish inside.

Maggie Lorimer closed her eyes and sighed contentedly. They would never be rich people on a schoolteacher’s and policeman’s salaries, especially if she were to go part time after the baby was born; but right now she wouldn’t have swapped their lives for that of the wealthiest folk on the planet. Nobody could have as much as they had, she thought, feeling the ripples of movement across her swollen belly. They were the luckiest couple in the world.

They had been good together, he thought, blinking the tears that threatened to blind his vision as he chucked the last of his belongings into the rucksack and pulled the draw cord tight.
 

We make a good pair, don’t we?
the
boy had said, and he remembered smiling at that, imagining a future together where they made one another happy.
 

That would never happen now. The red-haired boy was dead, lying on some cold mortuary shelf, an unnamed victim.
 

He yanked the straps of the rucksack, gritting his teeth against the images that would not go away.
 

It was time to leave, time to go far away from this city of nightmares and vile memories. He would find a place where he was known and liked, he told himself. A place where he would make sure that nothing like that would ever happen again.
 

S
tevie Crozier snapped her mobile shut and stuffed it into her pocket. Damn the man! Could he not just get on with his holiday and leave her to carry on with the job? But, no, it appeared that Detective Superintendent know-it-all Lorimer had something important to discuss and was she free any time this morning? Stevie slammed out of the hotel room in annoyance, wishing she’d had the nerve to tell him to get lost.

Yet he hadn’t sounded as though he were pulling rank, she admitted, heading to the car park; his tone had been rather contrite, as though whatever he had to say might actually be a bit sensitive. And, if she were totally honest with herself, DI Stephanie Crozier was curious to know what it was that the detective superintendent wanted to share with her.

He was already at the water’s edge when Stevie drove up in the Mercedes, Langley having been dispatched to interview the staff at Kilbeg Country House Hotel. As she closed the car door, Stevie looked at the tall figure standing in his wellington boots, arms folded and gazing out to sea as though deep in thought. She clicked the lock, a spasm of annoyance crossing her face as she realised there was absolutely no need to secure her vehicle in this part of the world. ‘Old habits,’ she muttered under her breath and began the short walk along the narrow path where countless feet over the years had trod from the roadside to the wreck of an old boat shed.

It was a windless morning, the still waters reflecting the swathe of pines from Leiter forest in a mirror image, the sun a hazy suggestion behind a grey veil of mist. Looking up, the policewoman noticed clouds of tiny flies descending from the oak trees that sheltered this part of the bay. She cursed inwardly, remembering, too late, the anti-midge repellent sitting on the bathroom shelf back at the hotel. By the day’s end her fair skin would be peppered with tiny red marks, causing itching for days. Why on earth did someone who enjoyed his sort of salary come here year after year when he might have been swanning off to any part of the globe? Stevie raked slim fingers through her hair, hoping that the midges weren’t already feasting on her scalp. A lone buzzard swooped past and disappeared into the trees, hunting something more substantial than flies. Of course, the Lorimers were bird lovers; she remembered McManus telling her. And Mull was a haven for all sorts of wildlife.

There was a pebbled area that might have been a slipway at one time, the different-coloured stones bright under the clear water, and this was where Lorimer stood, letting the tiny waves of the incoming tide lap over his feet.

‘Good morning.’

He turned and smiled as she approached. ‘Good morning. Thanks for coming. Hope I didn’t take you out of your way.’

Stevie made a face and looked at her watch. ‘I don’t have all day, so let’s get on with it, shall we?’ she said brusquely.
Let him know who’s in charge here
, she was thinking.

He gave her an apologetic smile then stretched a hand out as if to encompass the scene before them: quiet waters with the backdrop of the dark green trees and the sloping hills beyond, a thin line of mist draped languidly across them like a woman’s silk scarf.

‘Never tire of this view,’ he remarked. She saw his back heave with a sigh and for an instant Stevie Crozier understood what this place really meant to him. It was the peacefulness, so at odds with the noise and bustle of the big city where he spent his working hours, she realised suddenly, following his gaze and beginning to see how the hills, sky and sea worked a certain magic on this quiet morning.

Then he turned and she saw his lips tightening as he regarded the fluttering lines of police tape that indicated where Rory had come to rest, the moment gone, the memory of a dead boy tainting this idyllic scene.

‘You’ll have seen the photos that were shot when we found the body,’ Lorimer began, waving a hand at the spot where Rory’s body had been, empty today of any ravening gulls.

‘Yes?’

‘It was a spring tide, really high, the highest on record for quite a few years, in fact,’ he continued, wading out from the water and walking towards an area several feet above the water’s edge where clumps of sea pinks sprouted from the bright green turf. ‘This is the exact spot where his body was lying. I knelt beside him…’ He was bending down slowly, giving Stevie the impression that he was reliving the scene in his mind. ‘I put my hand on the grass, here’ – he was kneeling now, one knee on the turf – ‘and do you know what?’ He turned to give her a quizzical look.

Stevie shrugged, not knowing what on earth he was on about.

‘It was bone dry,’ Lorimer said. ‘There hadn’t been any rain for days and the sun had dried all the residual dew. I think the shock of finding him and chasing off these damn gulls —’ He broke off, rising to his feet. ‘That’s one of the things I needed to tell you,’ he said. ‘Or, maybe to ask you?’

‘Ask me?’

‘How had Rory’s body come to be above the tide mark on dry ground?’

‘Washed up by a particularly big wave?’ She shrugged, puzzled for a moment, her eyes turning towards the quiet lapping of the little waves as they caressed the stones.

‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘No big tides at this inlet, then?’

Lorimer nodded. ‘No. So how did the body come to be lying above the water like that?’

‘You think someone dumped it on the shore? But that doesn’t make sense,’ Stevie protested.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘It doesn’t make much sense at all. But I think someone did move the boy’s body. Maybe for it to be found,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘And is that it? Did you drag me all the way to Fishnish Bay just to tell me that?’

‘I wanted you to see it for yourself,’ Lorimer explained, a look of mild surprise on his handsome face. ‘But that wasn’t all I wanted to tell you.’

Stevie waited, arms folded defensively across her chest. There was something in his manner, something hesitant that had her wondering if he was about to say that he’d been appointed to take over the case.
Her
case.

‘It was something that happened twenty years ago. When I was a young DC in Glasgow. Just starting out, really.’ He smiled as though embarrassed by the thought of his younger self. ‘We had a case where a young man was dragged out of the River Clyde. A red-headed boy, possibly around Rory’s age.’

Stevie frowned. Where was he heading with this?

‘There were marks on his arms and legs that showed where he’d been trussed up. Just like Rory,’ he added, giving her a meaningful stare. ‘He’d also been dead before he hit the water.’

‘So? You want me to look at whoever killed that lad, do you?’ Stevie asked, nodding. It would be okay, they’d access HOLMES, the database that was so up to the minute these days that cold cases were being reopened all the time, many of them to satisfactory conclusions.

‘That’s just it,’ Lorimer said, catching her glance and holding it with his own blue stare. ‘The perpetrator was never found. And, even worse, the boy was never identified.’

‘Dear God!’ The words were out of Stevie’s mouth before she could stop herself. ‘And you think there might be a link? A twenty-year-old case in Glasgow that coincides with this.
My
case,’ she added. As though to remind him. ‘Just because your victim had red hair?’

‘It was the way they’d both been secured,’ Lorimer insisted. ‘Same sort of twist to their limbs. I keep thinking about that other boy and how similar he was to the one I found here.’

Perhaps you keep thinking about how you never solved that case, Detective Superintendent Lorimer
, Stevie thought inwardly, fists clenched by her sides.
Or are you looking for a way to lever me out of this one?

‘Well, I have something to tell
you
, sir. I intend to find Rory Dalgleish’s killer and I am not having this case muddied by anything that happened back in
Glasgow
, twenty years ago.’

Lorimer seemed to hesitate for a moment as though deciding how to reply then he gave her a crooked smile and shrugged his shoulders.

‘So be it, Detective Inspector. I just wanted to see if you thought there might be some sort of connection…’ He broke off and gave an audible sigh, his eyes returning to the patch of grass where the young man’s body had lain.

She looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment, wondering just what he was seeing. Was it the recent body he had discovered? Or a missing person from long ago?

Stevie stood waiting for him to speak but he did not seem inclined to turn to face her again, leaving her feeling as though her presence was no longer wanted. Was that it, then? Had he been about to pull rank and try to take over her case here on Mull?

‘If there’s nothing more to tell me then I’ll be off, then, sir,’ she said, and turned back along the track, irritated but also confused that he had brought her all the way down here to consider… what? Okay, the tide problem was relevant, Stevie told herself grudgingly, but this cold case was a piece of complete nonsense. Probably just a way for him to stick his nose into her case, she thought angrily, slamming the car door and yanking on her seat belt.

Lorimer watched as the silver car gathered speed and disappeared along the tree-lined road towards Salen. He hadn’t expected her to be pleased, had he? And, to give Crozier her due, she was SIO in a murder case that was complicated by a senior detective having found the body. He’d wanted her cooperation, of course, hoped that she might ask him about that twenty-year-old case. Still, there was nothing to stop him from going back into the records himself, was there? Asking the right sort of questions might produce the right sort of answers. And there was one question that was like an itch in his mind: who were the people who had come to live on this island from Glasgow twenty years ago?

‘You have to tell him, Aunty,’ Fiona protested. ‘You cannae just see something and no’ let on, eh?’

Jean Erskine folded patient hands across her lap and looked at her great-niece. ‘I haven’t even told
you
what I saw and heard, Fiona,’ the old lady said. ‘And yes, of course I must speak to a police officer first. Jamie Kennedy will have to come up and see me, that’s all.’

‘No, Aunty, it doesn’t work like that,’ Fiona insisted. ‘You’re supposed to go to the wee caravan and tell Jamie Kennedy yourself,’ she said. ‘They need to get your statements, like,’ the girl explained.

‘Go all the way along the street?’ Jean Erskine raised her sparse white eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘An old woman who can hardly get out of her chair?’

‘Och, Aunty!’ Fiona giggled. ‘You’re no’ as bad as a’ that! See if I help you down the stairs, take thon wee zimmer that’s in the close? Surely you can manage a walk along the street?’

‘Well now,’ Jean replied, eyes twinkling. ‘Perhaps it would be better if the constable were to come up here and visit me. Then he’d be able to see the view from my window.’ She smiled, waving a tiny hand, its paper-thin skin showing a tracery of blue veins.

‘There is that, right enough,’ the girl said doubtfully. ‘Will I see if he can come up, then?’

Jean Erskine smiled fondly at her. She was a bonny girl, pretty and curvaceous like one of the old-fashioned movie stars of Jean’s youth. Fiona Taig had never been particularly ambitious at school but she was a well-liked lass with a good heart and would ensure that the young Kennedy boy came up these two flights of tenement stairs to see the old lady who had known him all his life, not to mention his father and grandfather before him. She nodded her acquiescence. ‘You do that, pet. That’s a good girl.’

Fiona was no sooner out of the parlour door than the smile fell from the old woman’s face. She hadn’t wanted to see that little scene on Main Street, had she? But there was no denying that Fiona was right. And it might really matter to the police to share what she had seen.