Keep The Midnight Out (William Lorimer) (8 page)

Rising to his feet, Lorimer searched in his jacket pocket for his mobile phone. It was the matter of a moment to photograph the opened case, a small thing perhaps, but something to discuss with the unsmiling DI.

Kneeling down, he rearranged the dead boy’s clothes and toiletries, stuffing socks into hiking boots and making the case far neater so that his parents would not be shocked at the way his belongings had been packed by his employer. Had she felt that the search of the boy’s room and his belongings by the local police had tainted them somehow? The idea caught hold as he thought about the woman, trying to find a reason for the way she had packed Rory’s bag. Something had certainly sparked off that strange behaviour.

Mrs Forsyth had wanted to see Rory’s parents, he thought, zipping the case back up again. She’d even spoken quite kindly of the boy.

So, why fling his possessions into the suitcase as though she had been in a rage? Like some impassioned wife ridding herself of an errant husband?

T
he irony of using the Aros Hall where the victim had been enjoying a ceilidh the evening before his death was not lost on her. Several times the DI had glanced over her shoulder, imagining a band playing on that raised platform, the sound of whoops and hands clapping in time to the music a distant echo. Since taking over at the Oban station, Stevie Crozier had been invited to one of the dances there, her feet tapping to the rhythm whenever she was a mere spectator. Yet, despite her posting to the ‘Gateway to the Isles’, as Oban was known, she knew herself to be an outsider, born and bred in the Lowlands, no family connections up here to make her more interesting to the natives. That was why she had insisted that the local cops should be included in her team: she was wise enough now to understand that local knowledge counted for so much. The DI had fully intended to visit each and every one of the islands under her command but had not yet had the time to do so, hampered by the swathe of paperwork left by her predecessor, a taciturn, disappointed man, by all accounts, who had drunk himself into a fatal coronary.

The caravan had been brought into town and sited on the old pier next to a mobile fish and chip van.
Everyone will see it there
, the big police sergeant had assured her. It was in as central a spot as it could possibly be, right enough, the notice taped to the door asking for any information the public could give.

‘We need to examine his laptop as a matter of priority,’ Crozier told the small team of men assembled in the upstairs room of the Aros Hall overlooking Tobermory Bay.

‘I did an IT course, ma’am,’ PC Kennedy offered. ‘Would you like me to have a look at it?’

Crozier frowned. She was accustomed to having experts delegated to her cases and the absence of the usual technical staff was making her feel exposed in this small holiday town. At least they would have a professional from Glasgow before the day was out, she reminded herself. Another woman, too, sparing Stevie Crozier from the sudden feeling of isolation that washed over her as she looked at the faces of the men seated in front of her.

‘Can you download all the files from the hard drive? We need some memory sticks. Do you have any spare?’

‘I can get them from Browns,’ Kennedy murmured.

Crozier nodded her agreement. A quick walk along the main street had shown her the limited possibilities of the town and Browns the ironmongers had been pointed out to her as a place where almost anything useful could be obtained including, strangely, some fine vintage wines.

She studied the faces waiting for her instructions. DS Langley was sitting next to Kennedy and McManus, then, sitting slightly apart as if they were still uncertain of their role, the two community officers from Salen and Bunessan, one ruddy-cheeked like a farmer, the other a thin dark-haired man with a neatly clipped moustache who reminded the DI of a card-sharp from an old black and white movie. Stevie Crozier glanced at the paper in her hand, reminding herself of their names: Police Constable Roddy Buchanan was the farmer lookalike, PC Finlay Simpson the skinny one darting nervous glances towards the other officers along the row. She stifled a sigh. They were more used to hunting down poachers and the sort of vandals who attempted to steal eagles’ eggs than the killer of a young man. They were all out of their comfort zone, she realised, seeing Buchanan take a large handkerchief from his pocket to mop a sweating brow.

‘I need someone to man the caravan all hours of the day,’ she began.

Buchanan looked up hopefully, his hand paused in wiping his face.

‘Someone who knows the locals well enough for them to talk freely,’ she added, ignoring the expression on the burly man’s face. ‘Kennedy, you’re a local man, aren’t you?’

Jamie Kennedy grinned back at her. ‘Yes, ma’am, though I was in Inverness for a few years,’ he said, tilting his chin upwards as though to assure her that he had seen the tough side of policing in a way his fellow officers might never have done.

Crozier tried hard not to return the smile. There would be no favourites here while she was in charge of the case.

‘Very well, you take charge of the caravan. See to the laptop while you’re there. Buchanan, I want you there too,’ she said, turning to the sweating man. ‘And no sloping off together,’ she warned. ‘Make sure there’s always one of you in that caravan during the day.’

She looked hard at each of them in turn. ‘DS Langley and I will be doing the bulk of the groundwork, talking to the staff at Kilbeg House, attending the post-mortem once the pathologist arrives.’

She had been surprised that there was a mortuary at all on the island; one of her colleagues in Oban had told her that it was in the hospital at Craignure, a necessary feature for any unexpected deaths although murder had never been one of them till now. Dr MacMillan was in charge until the fiscal could make his way across from the mainland later today; Dr Rosie Fergusson, the consultant pathologist, was meeting him on Oban pier. Tomorrow she would be performing the post-mortem. Then, and only then, would they have a definitive cause of death; had he been alive when he entered the cold Atlantic waters? Or had the hands that had bound him taken his life then tossed him into the depths like so much rubbish?

‘Will Lorimer be at the PM?’ McManus asked, his face turned to the DI with an expression of innocence that didn’t fool Crozier for a moment.

‘Why should he be there?’ Crozier snapped. ‘He’s a witness, not SIO, for goodness sake!’

‘Just wondered,’ McManus replied meekly. ‘Word has it that he and the pathologist are close friends.’

Stevie Crozier gritted her teeth. That was all she needed, a senior detective sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. She had a good mind to stop off at the holiday cottage and tell the man just that.

‘Right, everyone know what actions they’re responsible for? McManus and Simpson, you’re doing house-to-house here in Tobermory, Langley, you’ll come back to Craignure with me after we’ve been to Kilbeg House.’

She looked at the team as they shuffled to their feet, wondering for the first time if she had been right to put such a big matter as a murder case into the hands of these island men. At least she had Langley, an experienced detective who had walked the mean streets of Glasgow in his younger days.

‘Seagull!’ Abby bounced up and down, her chubby hand pointing in the air as Solly and Rosie led her along the rows of cars that were parked on Oban pier awaiting the ferry to Mull. They had driven up through Inveraray and the winding roads of Argyll, arriving much earlier than the mandatory half-hour needed to stake their claim in the queue.

‘That one’s a herring gull,’ Solly remarked, hunkering down and watching the bird alight on a stone bollard. ‘See the red on its beak?’

‘Aye, it’ll give you a nasty bite if you put a finger anywhere near it,’ Rosie warned drily. ‘Big brutes, so they are,’ she whispered under her breath, seeing the three-year-old laugh as the seagull took off and landed again on another bollard, its great wings spread out, a guttural noise coming from that fearsome beak.

The seabirds had done a lot of peripheral damage to the boy’s body, Lorimer had warned her. And the sight of them now was a harsh reminder of what lay ahead.

Somehow the prospect of performing a post-mortem on the island was faintly nauseating, not something that had ever happened to the pathologist. The presence of her husband and daughter had given her a different outlook today: Abby’s excitement at the thought of travelling to Balamory and the sight of Solly in his windproof jacket and sturdy shoes were at odds with what they were really doing here.

‘What’s that, Daddy?’ Abby had turned away from the herring gull now, her eyes lifted towards a strange structure like a stone crown outlined against the pale skies.

‘That’s called McCaig’s Folly,’ Rosie answered, seeing the look of bewilderment on Solly’s face. Her husband adored Scotland but a London upbringing had not prepared him for every feature in his adopted country.

‘Once upon a time,’ she began, earning Abby’s immediate attention, ‘there was a man who wanted to build a big, big tower. Bigger than anything in the land,’ she exaggerated, spreading out her hands and making Abby’s eyes widen. ‘But he ran out of money and it was never finished,’ she ended lamely.

‘No big tower?’ Abby asked, shaking her head at the strange ways of grown-ups and seeing the stone structure with different eyes.

‘No big tower,’ Rosie agreed. ‘Folk said he was foolish to have begun it when he didn’t have the money to finish it. Folly is a word meaning something that comes from foolishness, see?’

‘Mr Folly’s tower,’ Abby declared, sticking a thumb into her mouth and nodding sagely.

Above her head Rosie and Solly exchanged amused glances. No doubt McCaig’s Folly was destined to be called ‘Mr Folly’s Tower’ in the Brightman household from now on. It was something she must remember to share with Maggie, Rosie thought.

They had reached the end of the pier now and were turning back when Rosie felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Dr Fergusson?’

The man who stood beside them was looking at them with an enquiring smile.

‘Yes?’

Rosie looked at him closely. Derek McClure had changed dramatically since the last time she had met him. It had been in the high court in Edinburgh, a case involving the victim of multiple stab wounds, she recalled. The defence had tried to tie them in legalistic knots but had failed.

Rosie smiled back, trying to hide her astonishment. The fiscal appeared so much older than she remembered him: the thinning white hair and the shining bald patch on top had taken her quite by surprise. She’d held a mental image of a dark-haired man of middle years, cheery and slightly overweight, not this ageing man before her. But the hazel eyes were the same, the shrewd smile crinkling his haggard face the smile she remembered.

‘Derek! Hello, good to see you,’ she said, clasping the fiscal’s outstretched hand. ‘This is my husband, Solly,’ she added, stepping aside a little to allow the two men to shake hands.

‘Ah, the celebrated Professor Brightman!’ McClure exclaimed. ‘I’ve read all of your books, you know. Should be mandatory reading for every law undergraduate, never mind the psychologists,’ he laughed.

Then, bending down, he stretched out a kindly hand. ‘And who is this pretty young lady?’

Abby slid behind her daddy then peeked out, giving the stranger a shy smile.

‘This is Abigail Margaret Brightman,’ Solly announced grandly. ‘And we are on an expedition to discover the amazing Balamory!’

‘Balamory!’ McClure gave a mock gasp, joining in on the fun of the moment. ‘Well, well. If you see PC Plum, give him my regards, young lady.’

He rose to his feet again and drew Rosie aside out of the child’s earshot.

‘It’s a bad business, Dr Fergusson. There has never been anything like this on the island in living memory. Or,’ he paused, ‘in any records that we know of.’

‘Do you think someone from the mainland came to target the lad?’ Rosie asked, walking in step with the fiscal towards the queues of parked cars.

‘I hope so,’ he said slowly. ‘It isn’t something we would think any of the islanders capable of, you know. We have the odd rumpus after drinking hours, doesn’t everybody? And a few domestics, but nothing,
never
anything like this.’ He drew a hand across his scant white hair as a breeze from the sea threatened to blow the wispy strands upwards.

‘I retire soon, you know,’ he went on, lowering his voice. ‘Health grounds,’ he added, seeing Rosie’s raised eyebrows. ‘And I didn’t want my final months spent searching for a killer on one of my favourite places on earth.’

‘You’re from Mull?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but my grandparents lived there and my mother was born in Tobermory before the family moved to Glasgow. I still feel the connection, though.’ He sighed, looking over the waters to the distant grey-green hills.

‘DI Crozier is a fine detective,’ he said suddenly. ‘But I hope she has the sense to ask Lorimer for advice if she needs it. You know what
he’s
like.’ There was a grin on the man’s face as he spoke the detective superintendent’s name.

‘Oh, aye, I know fine what Lorimer’s like,’ Rosie agreed. ‘Won’t rest until he can give some peace of mind to the family, is my guess. But he won’t interfere, either,’ she added, looking squarely at McClure. ‘He’s far too professional for that.’

‘But why won’t you take the case on yourself?’ Douglas Dalgleish paced up and down the hospital corridor where he and his wife were waiting to see Dr MacMillan.

‘It’s out of my jurisdiction,’ Lorimer replied.

‘But it’s all Police Scotland nowadays,’ Dalgleish protested. ‘Doesn’t that make a difference?’

Lorimer shook his head. ‘The Oban officers would have to put in a request for a more senior officer to take charge…’ he began.

‘So…?’ A gleam of hope appeared in the man’s eyes.

‘The fiscal has to determine whether the gravity of a case necessitates that,’ Lorimer explained. ‘If it is reckoned that there is a danger to the public then perhaps a more senior officer than a detective inspector would be appointed as SIO.’

‘SIO?’

‘Senior Investigating Officer,’ Lorimer said. ‘Sorry, it’s a habit we have in the police force, speaking in acronyms.’

‘But there’s a murderer running around loose somewhere!’ Dalgleish exploded, thumping one fist against his open hand. ‘Doesn’t that constitute a danger to the public?’

‘We don’t know that, sir,’ Lorimer began. ‘Yes, the signs are that Rory’s life was taken, but until we know more then I am afraid the fiscal’s position is clear. DI Crozier leads the investigation.’

‘Well, I’ll have something to say to this fiscal whenever he arrives,’ Dalgleish said, his lip trembling with emotion.

‘He will probably tell you just the same as I have, Mr Dalgleish,’ Lorimer said, laying a placatory hand on the bereaved father’s arm.

He could feel the shuddering sigh in the other man’s body and knew from experience that tears were not very far away.