The Darkest Goodbye (William Lorimer) (28 page)

D
etective Superintendent Lorimer looked around the interview room. It should have been Murdoch here instead of himself but the detective sergeant and his young colleague were seated on the other side of the glass wall that separated this room from where they sat waiting for the interview to begin, able to hear and see all that was going on but invisible to the occupants of the room. A little apart from the table and empty chairs sat the bearded psychologist, his presence a little unusual perhaps, but Lorimer wanted the man to witness all that was going to happen in the next hour or so.

Both men looked up as a uniformed officer led Billy Brogan into the room, followed by a tired-looking Pauline Dick, whose services Brogan had requested.

There was a swagger to the man’s gait as he came into the room and sat down, scraping the chair under him as if eager to begin.

A spell in prison had not done anything to improve the drug dealer, Lorimer thought, looking at Brogan. The man’s once sandy hair was turning grey, cropped close to his skull to mask the diminishing hairline. His arms were folded defiantly as he stared across the table at Lorimer. Once upon a time Billy Brogan had been a small-time dealer until his thieving ways had landed him in a lot of trouble. Something had changed while he’d been inside, Lorimer thought, regarding the man silently. There was a hardness around that thin-lipped mouth, a knowing look from those pale blue eyes so similar to the ones that the detective had read over the years.
I’m a hard man,
his expression seemed to be saying.
Crack me if you can.

Too right, pal
, Lorimer told himself grimly.

‘Interview beginning on Wednesday the twelfth of October,’ he began.

A sudden thought of the following week flashed into his mind; they had pencilled in for a break while Maggie was off school for the half-term holiday. If they could wrap this up in the next few days…

Kirsty watched the scene before her, conscious of the man by her side who was munching his way through the second of a plate of scones and jam that he’d lifted from Sadie’s trolley. Comfort food, she told herself. Or maybe he’d not eaten breakfast. How did you cope in the aftermath of a loss like Murdoch’s? The thought was pushed aside as they saw the detective superintendent move some papers around on the table, a look of affected boredom on his handsome features.

‘How does he
do
that?’ Kirsty whispered.

‘Years of practice, Wilson,’ Murdoch grunted. ‘Watch and learn, eh?’ he added with a chuckle.

Either Brogan had forgotten the tall detective’s methods or he was too cocksure about his own ability to dissemble, for the man leaned back in his chair, drumming the heels of his trainers against the linoleum as though he were home and dry already.

‘Francis Bissett,’ Lorimer began, not looking at Brogan but at the notes in front of him. ‘Slashes to the throat, fatal injury being the severing of his windpipe. Left to die in the bathroom of his rented flat in Byres Road.’ He looked up suddenly as though he had just remembered the presence of the prisoner.

‘Your flat too, Billy.’

‘Aye, jist for a wee while,’ Brogan replied, his jaws moving up and down as he masticated a piece of chewing gum.

‘After your release from Barlinnie on July the twenty-sixth,’ Lorimer agreed, his bank manager’s voice dry as dust.

Brogan sighed and nodded, clearly bored already by the conversation.

‘Please speak for the tape,’ Lorimer instructed, not deigning to look at Brogan.

‘Yes, I stayed with Franny Bissett for a couple of days,’ he agreed. ‘So what?’

The impertinent addition made Kirsty draw in her breath. Surely Lorimer would pounce on that piece of cheek? But no, he seemed not to have noticed.

‘And what date did you leave Byres Road?’

Brogan shrugged and shot a look at Pauline Dick who nodded to him to answer the question.

‘End of the month,’ he said, glancing sideways and licking his lips.

‘Effing liar!’ Murdoch growled by Kirsty’s side. ‘Bet you were there when poor wee Frankie copped it, you nasty piece of shit.’

Kirsty raised her eyebrows. Tam McLachlan had referred to the dead man as Franny, like Brogan, but the cops had known him as Frankie, as if there had been another side to him.
A better side?
Kirsty wondered. Nobody she’d met in the course of her work had been totally evil, had they? Wasn’t there always a redeeming feature in even the worst criminals?

‘We have reason to believe that you stayed a lot longer than that, Billy,’ Lorimer said mildly, stopping at a particular piece of paper and staring at it intently as if the evidence to support his statement was right there in front of him.

‘Who says?’ The words came out as Brogan raised his chin defiantly.

Lorimer smiled at him. ‘Oh, you know we cannot divulge our sources, Mr Brogan,’ he said. ‘Let’s just say we have been reliably informed that you left the Byres Road flat and took up residence in Cartside Street in mid August, around the time of Frankie’s death.’

He flicked through the papers again and, as if reading from the one he held up towards him, intoned, ‘August the nineteenth, to be exact. Just before all the students came back to look for flats in the area. Good time to move, I suppose.’

Brogan shuffled his feet, clearly rattled by this piece of news. ‘So what? Never been very good at dates and that,’ he blustered.

‘So you agree that your residence at Cartside Street did in fact commence on August nineteenth?’

‘Whit?’ Brogan frowned at the formality of the detective superintendent’s words, echoing as they did the sort of parlance that Brogan might come across in a court of law.

Clever,
Kirsty told herself.
Make him feel he’s in the dock already.

‘Aye, well, that’s right but ah wis staying with a burd before that,’ he said, one leg bouncing up and down, a sure sign of the man’s growing anxiety.

‘Name and address?’ Lorimer asked, his pencil poised above a clean page of the notebook in front of him.

‘Eh, um… Marianne,’ Brogan said, a note of desperation in his voice. Then, sitting back he looked down at his lap, clearly cross with himself.

‘Tut, tut, Billy,’ Lorimer said with the ghost of a smile playing about his mouth. ‘You can do better than that. Your sister, Marianne? That the first name that springs to mind? Oh dear, Billy, could it be that you have a guilty conscience about your poor sister?’ Lorimer’s tone was mocking now and Kirsty realised why. Brogan’s sister had been transferred from prison to a secure mental unit following the murder case that had involved the brother and sister. Had he ever visited her? Kirsty mused. But her thoughts were interrupted as the detective continued his questions.

‘Rob Dolan told us that you had recruited him for a job,’ Lorimer said suddenly, laying down the notebook and folding his hands upon the table.

Brogan glanced nervously at Pauline Dick whose face had taken on a familiar stony expression. Kirsty felt sorry for the lawyer. What must it be like to constantly be at the beck and call of types like Brogan, Cunningham and Dolan?

‘No comment,’ Brogan said, the line of his jaw tightening.

‘Mr Dolan also said that you were aware of the identity of the person whose idea this was. The person behind Quiet Release.’

Brogan dropped his gaze and leaned towards Pauline Dick, whispering in her ear.

‘You must speak for the tape, Mr Brogan,’ Lorimer insisted. ‘Mr Brogan has just spoken inaudibly to his lawyer, Ms Dick,’ he added lugubriously.

‘If I tell youse…’ Brogan looked up nervously. ‘Do I get witness protection?’

How the detective superintendent managed to keep a straight face when Murdoch burst out laughing at her side was anyone’s guess, Kirsty thought, marvelling yet again at the detective superintendent’s sangfroid.

‘Any information you provide us with today will be taken into consideration by the Crown Office,’ Lorimer assured him, the tones he now used more like those of a kindly head teacher to a wayward pupil.

‘I jist know who paid us,’ Brogan said, his eyes flicking from Pauline Dick to Lorimer then across to the bearded man in the corner as though he had just clocked him at that particular moment.

There was a silence in the two rooms then, Kirsty and Murdoch leaning forward intently as they waited to hear, Lorimer sitting patiently, a small smile of satisfaction on his face as though ready to reward the man opposite.

‘Wee fat man,’ Brogan told them. ‘Lawyer up in West Regent Street. Said his name was Barry.’

‘And how often did you meet this gentleman?’

‘No’ very often,’ Brogan admitted. ‘He’d see us in the Amber Regent for a Chinese meal and hand over the cash. Followed him one time, though. That’s how I knew where he worked.’

‘Us?’

‘Aye. Naw, jist me and him.’ Brogan looked at Pauline Dick. ‘Will I get time off for telling all this?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Brian Abernethy,’ Kirsty whispered gleefully from the next room. ‘
Has
to be him!’

West Regent Street was crowded with office staff spilling out into the street when Lorimer and Kirsty walked briskly up the hill. Len Murdoch had been given the task of questioning Brogan further, this time about the death of Francis Bissett. Would he still be tempted to cry no comment about that? Kirsty wondered as she walked as fast as she could to keep up with Lorimer.

The doors were still open when they arrived, the same receptionist sitting behind her desk

‘Mr Abernethy?’ Lorimer told the woman. ‘May we see him, please? He isn’t expecting us,’ he continued, holding out his warrant card to remind her of their official presence.

‘He’s not here,’ she told them with an air of surprise. ‘Didn’t you know? Mr Abernethy has sold the practice and gone overseas.’

‘A forwarding address perhaps?’ Lorimer asked, but his face did not express any hope of being given this and he was right.

‘It all happened so quickly,’ the receptionist told them. ‘One day he was here, the next he was gone, just an email to let the rest of the staff know what was happening. I’ve been kept on till the new owners move in.’ She looked from the tall man to the young woman. ‘Why? He isn’t in any trouble, surely?’

‘Can we see his room? There may be papers that we need to take away,’ Lorimer explained.

The woman put her hand to her mouth in a gesture of dismay.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘I thought it was strange, doing that, I mean… there aren’t any papers left…’

‘What do you mean?’ Lorimer asked.

‘He left it in such a mess,’ the woman whimpered. ‘All the drawers pulled out, everything empty.’ She looked at them both as though she might begin to cry. ‘And bags and bags of everything by his desk.’ She shook her head miserably. ‘You see, when we eventually unlocked Mr Abernethy’s office we found that everything had been shredded.’

‘A dead end?’ Kirsty asked as they retraced their steps down to the city centre.

‘Not necessarily,’ Lorimer told her, then fell silent. The technical staff were working hard on the Imries’ laptop computer. What they might find there could easily push the investigation forwards. But for once Lorimer was loath to share this information with his younger colleague. Maggie first, he told himself. Especially if it was news of the worst sort.

The late news programme was just finishing on BBC Scotland when his mobile vibrated in his trouser pocket.

‘Lorimer.’ He spoke into the phone as he rose from the settee, ignoring Maggie’s questioning glance. She’d know soon enough if this was what he was expecting to hear.

‘Go ahead,’ he said, walking out of the sitting room and into the hallway. ‘I’m listening.’

The detective’s face was impassive as he heard the woman’s voice reading from the report. As he had anticipated, the laptop had been pretty easy to search, the messages from Quiet Release simple to retrieve. He closed his eyes as the replies from Annette Imrie were read out to him then heaved a quick sigh.

‘Thanks,’ was all he said. ‘Excellent job. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Appreciate it.’

He closed the phone and slipped it back into his pocket then stood at the window, looking out into the darkness. The rain that had fallen steadily all day had abated, leaving skies that were clear, stars sparkling in the heavens. When all was said and done they were all just creatures with an allotted span. Some would slip away in their latter years, frail and tired, others were gone far too quickly, like the baby boy who’d been born to them all those years ago. There was nothing fair about life or death, Lorimer told himself. It was a matter of luck where you were born and what sort of life you made for yourself, wasn’t it? The Imries had been men of the soil, he had chosen a different path, but they had all had the good fortune to live in a country at peace with the rest of mankind. Why then were there folk who persisted in destroying that peace? People like Annette Imrie, whose misdeeds were about to be unfolded to the woman waiting patiently for him?

Maggie sat in the toilet weeping. The death of her cousin was bad enough, she’d told him. But to think that his own sister-in-law had been instrumental in having David murdered! Bill was downstairs now, the promise of a cup of tea a weak apology for the disastrous news he had given her.

‘Why?’ She whispered the word aloud. ‘What harm had the poor soul ever done to you?’ She thought about the red-haired woman at the funeral, her anger against the sick man palpable. It hadn’t taken too much guesswork to see what Patrick’s wife had achieved. And he’d taken steps to ensure that she would be caught. Maggie stopped crying and blew her nose. What sort of relationship did that pair have? The hard-working farmer and the younger woman who would not have looked out of place in a fashion shoot.
His second wife
, Maggie reminded herself. Some men were poor choosers, weren’t they? Stephanie Imrie, the first wife who she remembered from the lavish wedding in Stirling, hadn’t lasted the pace. She had never been cut out for the role of a farmer’s wife. At least the woman had had the sense to see that early on, unlike Patrick.