by Owen Mullen
Nine hundred and ninety-six, as of today.
She read the words, eyes moving between them and me.
Charlie Cameron
Private Investigator
It must have impressed because she asked me to take a seat. Five minutes later I was in. The man behind the desk rose and shook my hand. Unlike the receptionist, he was everything I expected: three-piece suit; blue and white striped shirt and a serious face. Seeing him unannounced shouldn’t have been so easy, yet it had been. I wondered why.
‘Take a seat, Mr…’
‘Cameron.’
‘I don’t get many of you people in my office. What can I do for you?’
Friendly and condescending at the same time. A rare skill set.
‘I’m representing Caroline Law, Gavin Law’s sister. Gavin hasn’t been heard of since the thirty-first of December. Ms Law spoke to one of your people and was told he wasn’t here. Can you add anything to that?’
‘Unfortunately, no. Francis Fallon has a duty to protect the privacy of our employees. Without written permission from Mr Law, I can’t discuss his circumstances. It would be wrong, though I’d be obliged if you would pass on our support to Ms Law.’
His fingers flicked through the in-tray until he found what he was looking for. He placed it in front of him and studied it. I was forgotten; he had dismissed me.
‘Can I assume those circumstances include an allegation of rape?’
Hambley was an old hand. He didn’t react. ‘You’re free to assume anything you wish, Mr Cameron.’
It had taken less than a minute to hit a brick wall. As far as the director was concerned, the meeting was already over. I ignored the signs and soldiered on.
‘Ms Law is worried about her brother. On top of everything else this allegation has come as a shock. She’d like to know who made it.’
He spread his arms in mock powerlessness – a master class in fakery. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr…’
‘Cameron.’
‘It may go further – I couldn’t say – but at this stage it’s purely an internal matter.’
‘The police aren’t involved?’
‘Not yet. Whether that changes is a decision for the victim.’
‘Alleged victim, surely?’
Annoyance shadowed his eyes. He got it under control and quoted the hospital’s induction manual at me. Payback for daring to correct him.
‘Confidentiality is the cornerstone of employer/employee relations. Everyone who works at Francis Fallon is treated fairly and equally.’
There was plenty more where that came from and he’d prove it if I carried on. He paused and put me in my place with a final flash of sarcasm. ‘Inconvenient though it may be.’
Hambley picked up a pen and gave his attention to his papers. He’d owned the meeting from the beginning. He wasn’t obligated to tell me a damned thing and hadn’t. I was leaving with exactly nothing. At the door I gave it one last try.
‘Where am I likely to find the surgeon Mr Law made his complaint about?’
Hambley stopped writing; the pen froze between his fingers and his eyes locked on mine. ‘Mr Maitland is on leave.’
‘Is that his idea or the hospital’s?’
His lips pressed together; he was rattled. But give him his due – he recovered to throw another insult at me. ‘You’re a slow learner, Mr Cameron. Confidentiality is…’
I held up my hand. ‘Yeah… the cornerstone of blah blah blah… you said.’
For most of the time he’d been in control, bossing the meeting from behind the force-field that came with authority. Until the end, when he had carelessly let slip something I hadn’t known – the name of the man at the centre of Law’s complaint.
Maitland.
In the lift on the way to the ground floor, my mobile rang. Caroline Law sounded out of breath. Her excitement bubbled down the line.
‘I’ve remembered the name of the woman Gavin was supposed to be bringing to the party. It just came to me. Alile. From Malawi. She works at Francis Fallon.’
Good timing.
The hospital shop didn’t have the best selection of flowers I’d ever seen but what they had would do. I bought a bunch of red and white carnations and watched an assistant with Sandra on her nametag wrap them.
‘These are nice. I hope she likes them.’
‘I hope so, too. A nurse was particularly kind to my wife. Flowers are the least I can do. Alile. Do you know her?’
‘I don’t. Sorry. Try Tracy on reception. She knows everybody.’
Tracy’s reputation was well-earned.
I said, ‘I’m looking for a nurse called, Alile. Sandra in the shop says you might know her.’
‘Alile. Of course. From Malawi.’
‘Any idea where she’ll be?’
The receptionist checked her watch. ‘Normally has lunch about now.’
‘So the staff canteen?’
She made a face. ‘This is a great place to have a baby. It isn’t a great place to have something to eat. Unless you’re a patient, that is. Most of us avoid the canteen. Don’t know her shifts, but if she’s on duty, you might catch Alile in the tearoom. Out the door and turn right. Can’t miss it.’
I thanked her. Hospitals were one of the few places where a man carrying flowers wasn’t an unusual sight. Nobody gave me a second glance. In the tearoom, eight or nine nurses sat in groups of twos and threes, chatting. The only black woman was at a table by herself, reading a book, and she had to be fifty. Not Gavin Law’s type.
I got myself a coffee and waited. Five minutes later, a vision – black and beautiful – walked in and waved over to somebody. Law couldn’t have been thinking straight to cancel on this. Caroline’s concern seemed justified. Alile was slim and almost as tall as me. Shoulder-length hair framed soft features and smooth skin and when she reached for a tray, her uniform stretched against the perfect body underneath. I joined the queue and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned. Brown eyes smiled at me. Close up she was flawless.
‘Excuse me. Alile?’
‘… Yes.’
‘Could we talk? I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.’
‘Questions?’
‘Do you mind if we sit down?’
‘Questions about what?’
We were at an empty table near the door before I answered.
‘Gavin Law. I’m working for his family. His sister told me you and Gavin are friends.’
She seemed puzzled. ‘No. To tell the truth we hardly know each other. ’
‘Weren’t you supposed to go to a party with him?’
‘At New Year. That doesn’t make us friends. And anyway, he cancelled.’
‘Did he give a reason?’
She shrugged and managed to make it graceful. ‘I got a message. He said he was tired.’
‘Had you been out with him before?’
‘The party would’ve been the first time.’
‘Has he contacted you since?’
Alile looked me up and down. ‘Who are you again?’
‘Cameron. Charlie Cameron. Private investigator.’
I handed her my card. Nine hundred and ninety-five. At this rate I’d have to order a new print-run. She wasn’t persuaded.
‘I’m not sure I should be speaking to you. What’s happened to Gavin?’
‘He hasn’t been heard of since Hogmanay. And if I can’t find him the police will get involved. So it’s really me or them, Alile.’
It wasn’t intended to sound like a threat, though it did. Her reaction told me I was losing her. She handed the card back and those soft features hardened against me.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘you’d do better to talk to somebody who worked with him. There isn’t anything I can tell you. We were practically strangers.’
‘Alile, his sister is out of her mind with worry. She hasn’t spoken to him since New Year’s Eve. She’s convinced something’s wrong. Did you know he’d been suspended?’
&nb
sp; Her reply was unexpected. ‘No, though it doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Why?’
‘Mr McMillan had already been suspended for speaking out. Terrible for him with what he’s been through.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His wife killed herself. He was the one who found her. That didn’t stop them going after him.’
‘What’s his first name?’
‘Colin. He made the same mistake as Gavin and complained about the director’s brother-in-law.’
‘Maitland?’
‘Yes. Blowing the whistle isn’t done. There was a lot of gossip. People took sides. That was the reason I agreed to go out with Gavin, in spite of his reputation. I thought it was brave.’
‘His reputation?’
Alile glanced away. ‘A couple of the girls advised me to steer clear.’
I let her tell it her way.
‘Said he was a chancer. Famous for it.’
It was strange to hear a woman from Malawi use a Glasgow expression.
‘Alile, Gavin wasn’t suspended by Francis Fallon as a reprisal. An accusation’s been made by someone from here. Of rape.’ I studied her lovely face and waited for it to sink in. ‘You hadn’t heard?’
She didn’t respond; she had questions of her own. ‘When is this supposed to have happened?’
‘Can’t tell you that.’
Because I didn’t know.
‘Who says he did it?’
‘Can’t tell you that, either.’
Alile struggled to come to terms with the news. Finally, she made up her mind and slowly shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You seem very sure considering how little you know Gavin Law.’
‘That’s not what I mean. He wasn’t exactly popular, although some of the staff thought he was right. But this. As I said, hospitals run on gossip. I would’ve heard.’
She had a point.
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
Alile got up. I held the card out a second time. She took it.
‘You may remember something. If you do, call me.’
She didn’t say she would but she didn’t say she wouldn’t.
Result.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I walked down High Street in rain that had been falling, on and off, for the best part of a week. The guy Pat Logue mentioned, who played for Barcelona, might have something to do with it.
At NYB, the lunchtime biz was over. Most people had gone back to the snake pits and inside the scene was like a Jack Vettriano painting: Jackie Mallon behind the bar, polishing glasses; Pat Logue on a stool, switching his attention between the racing section of the Daily Record and the betting slip he was writing out; and Andrew Geddes, by himself at a table near the Rock-Ola. Andrew scowled and mouthed words that never came. The DS was having a conversation with somebody who wasn’t there and, by the looks of it, it wasn’t going well.
Jackie saw me and tried to smile but her heart wasn’t in it.
‘How’re you doing, Jackie?’
Her pained expression said it for her. Patrick broke away from picking losers to add his tuppence worth. Bad decision.
‘You want to watch that, Jackie. My mother always told me if God caught me making a sour face, it would stick and I’d be left ugly.’
She nailed him to the wall without missing a beat. ‘So you can’t say you weren’t well warned.’
Jackie Mallon might be feeling low; she was still sharp.
I asked Patrick to meet me in the office.
‘Give me twenty minutes, Charlie. Got to get these beauties on. Could be a game changer.’
I doubted anything very much would change apart from the amount of money in his pocket. Pat Logue was an optimist; the glass was always half-full. Andrew Geddes was the opposite, and today, the world was proving him right.
‘Winning, Andrew?’
He turned his scowl in my direction and answered with a question. ‘Ever feel you’ve been around too long?’
‘Can’t say I do, no. What’s the problem?’
‘I am.’
‘How so?’
‘I’m a dinosaur. Thinking of calling it a day.’
DS Geddes was always thinking about calling it a day.
‘What’s brought this on?’
Andrew blew through his teeth and toyed with the coffee he’d forgotten to drink. ‘You remember I mentioned DI Baillie had put in for early retirement?’
‘A while ago.’
‘Well, he’s gone. New guy’s arrived and I can tell right now it isn’t going to pan.’
‘Relationships need time to gel. Look at you and me.’
He didn’t laugh. ‘He’s come from a fast track programme. Quick promotion through the ranks. Not against it in principle. We should be encouraging good people to join.’
I waited for the “but.”
‘Candidates are moved around different departments and get a lot of experience in a short time. Usually promoted posts don’t get near CID because of the level of legal responsibility and knowledge of investigative procedure demanded. But this guy.’
Andrew poked a finger at the ceiling ‘Somebody up there likes him. Likes him a lot. He’s been parachuted in and, of course, hasn’t got a clue how to conduct an enquiry. Meanwhile, we have to hold his hand.’
‘Surely it isn’t too hard to steer him in the right direction?’
He made one of those faces Pat Logue’s mother had warned about. ‘I’m trying, Charlie. I’m trying. He’s out of his depth and he won’t listen. Why should he? He’s the ranking officer. Got a degree in psychology from Edinburgh Uni, so that’s all right. The fact he knows fuck-all isn’t important.’
‘You’ll find a way to deal with it.’
‘That’s the thing. Don’t know that I want to. Not with this one. On his very first morning, he brings out a tick sheet.Apparently, this is how he intends to stay in control. Then he says he’ll expect a daily written report from every officer. Christ Almighty!’
Andrew’s frustration wasn’t difficult to understand.
‘Joe Public doesn’t get what solid police work involves. Fair enough. But when people higher-up act as if it’s something you can just pick up, no wonder morale is low. I mean…’ He sighed. ‘If this is the future…’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Adam Barr. He’s thirty-three and already a DI. Can you believe it?’
I left him and went upstairs to the office. My meeting with James Hambley had been more than enough to convince me I wouldn’t be getting any help from Francis Fallon, though unintentionally, he’d given me a name: Maitland. Alile had given me another: Colin McMillan; the obstetrician who had added his complaint to Gavin Law’s and got suspended. I wanted to speak to him.
192.com offered a dozen C McMillans in the Glasgow area. Four under thirty – too young, and three over sixty – too old. Of the remaining five, one was a company director, three were female, and one was an obstetrician living in Bearsden. I wrote down the address then called the phone number. No reply.
Twenty minutes later Patrick appeared, noticeably less enthusiastic than he’d been.
‘Is the game changer on?’
‘Yeah, except it won’t be changin’ much. The favourite fell at the third and my next horse is still runnin’. What’ve you got for me, Charlie?’
The Malawian nurse’s belief that hospitals ran on gossip stayed with me. When it came to getting information out of people, Pat Logue was the best. I filled him in on the background. He listened; he didn’t write anything down. If you wanted boxes ticked or a written report, then you didn’t want Patrick.
‘Ask yourself this: who knows everything that goes on in a hospital?’
‘Pass.’
‘The porters.’
‘True.’
‘Everybody talks to them. And what do they do when their shift finishes?’
‘Go home?’
‘Eventually. After they’ve been to the pub.’
/> ‘So use them to get the SP on Gavin Law and this other one, Colin McMillan?’
‘Wallace Maitland, too. What’s the word about this rape allegation against Law? Has to be big news. Only the nurse I spoke to couldn’t tell me anything.’
Patrick rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘Could cost.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup. And since it doesn’t look as if the gee-gees have pulled, I’ll need expenses. Up front.’
Pat Logue never missed an opportunity for free booze. Alile would call him a chancer. I took three twenties from my wallet and handed them to him. He eyed the notes with contempt.
‘Okay. That’s tonight covered. What about tomorrow and the next night?’
‘How do you know it’ll be three nights?’
‘An educated guess, Charlie. Might be more.’
He saw my reaction and defended himself.
‘Have you any idea what it’s like hanging about strange pubs, drinking dodgy beer?’
‘Almost as bad as sitting at home listening to Gail on the phone to her sister. If you really do need more, I’ll give it to you.’
He went away grumbling about not being appreciated. It could have been Andrew Geddes speaking. I followed him out, drove to St George’s Cross and on to a busy Maryhill Road which brought me, four miles further, to Bearsden; at one time the seventh wealthiest area in Britain. Exactly where I would expect a successful Glasgow medical man to live. When I found it, the McMillan house was surprisingly modest: semi-detached, set above the road in a tree-lined avenue in Westerton Garden Suburb.
The street was quiet today; no doubt the weather had driven everyone indoors. I climbed the stairs and knocked on the front door. In the silence, the echo was like a gunshot. Across the road, a net curtain moved and, for a second, a face appeared at a window.
I knocked again and waited while rain drummed relentlessly around me. No answer. It wasn’t the best day to judge, but the neglected look of the garden suggested the property might not be inhabited. I peered through the letterbox and saw envelopes on the carpet. McMillan wasn’t here and hadn’t been here in some time.
On the other side of the road, the curtain moved again: the watcher was back. I crossed over. A thin woman with a stern face eyed me up and down, uncertain whether she should even speak to me. I explained what I was doing and asked how well she knew the doctor, expecting somebody as interested as she was in other people’s business to have plenty to say.