by Alex Gray
She stopped abruptly as Lorimer put his finger to his lips. She watched as he got out of bed and walked slowly towards the hall. Her curiosity fully aroused, she followed him and watched him unscrew part of the telephone handset. As he turned silently towards her, he held out his hand. There in the centre of his palm was a small metallic object. And as she met her husband’s eyes, Maggie Lorimer knew exactly what that object must be.
‘Drummond? Lorimer here. Listen, there’s been a development. Someone tried to run me down this evening.’
‘Are you okay? Did they injure you badly?’
‘No, they didn’t, thank God. Just got a bit of a sore head, that’s all. But I think my home and office may be bugged.’
‘What about this conversation?’ Drummond’s tone was sharp.
‘No, it’s okay. This mobile hasn’t been out of my sight since you gave it to me. You’ll have been told the latest news about McAlpin, yes?’
‘Two knifed to death,’ Drummond replied, and Lorimer could hear the grimness in the MI6 man’s voice.
‘Yes. I was working on that earlier tonight,’ he said, mentally crossing his fingers and hoping that Drummond would not receive any intelligence about the fact that the detective superintendent had collapsed in the office.
‘Right,’ Drummond said crisply. ‘Now here’s what’s going to happen . . .’
Lorimer sat in the rocking chair nursing a large mug of cocoa, Maggie having flatly refused to allow him any more whisky.
‘The doctor said it wouldn’t be a good idea,’ she’d protested when he’d picked up the bottle of Laphroaig.
Now he was waiting for two men to arrive, men who would bring their technical expertise to bear inside his home, clearing it of any devices that might have been planted by the men who had wanted to kill him.
Asa sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the door. It was locked, but that was to keep her safe, she’d been told. Had that word taken on a new meaning? the girl wondered, hearing the click as a key had turned to shut her inside. A young Nigerian woman, Jeanette, had stayed with her all evening, her gentle voice explaining in Yoruba that Asa was going to be taken to a place of safety. The police would want to speak to her tomorrow, but meantime Dr Jones would take care of her.
Was she going to a hospital? Asa had wanted to know, but a smile and a shake of the head had been all the reply Jeanette would give.
And Shereen? Asa had whispered the Jamaican woman’s name, fearful of the answer.
Nobody had answered. Nobody had needed to. Asa could see the words in their eyes. Shereen was dead and she would never be enfolded into her warm bosom again.
Chapter Fifty-Four
July 2014
‘What’s this?’ Gayle held out the little red mobile, watching her boyfriend’s face intently.
‘Where did you get that?’ Cameron snatched it from her, but not before he felt the angry flush warming his cheeks: the sign of a guilty conscience?
‘Who are all these people? Numbers of your old girlfriends?’ Her voice wavered even as he heard her efforts to sound flippant.
‘Is that what you thought?’ He burst out laughing and the sense of relief on his face made Gayle feel suddenly ashamed.
‘Come here, you silly cow!’ Cameron held out his arms and the young woman allowed herself to be enfolded into his embrace. ‘Silly girl! It’s nothing like that,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Just something we’re working on at the uni. Bit hush-hush, though, so I’m not allowed to discuss it.’
‘Something political?’
‘You could say,’ Cameron agreed, looking at his reflection in the bedroom mirror as he held the girl closer. The sense of shock at her discovery was wearing off now and he congratulated himself on his ability to fabricate a ready story.
‘Oh, I’ve got something to show you.’ She extricated herself from his grasp and pulled an envelope from her handbag.
‘Look! We got them! For both of us. Isn’t it great!’
Cameron Gregson looked at the pair of tickets being waved in the air by the excited girl. He had been told that he was to accompany the two Australians to Parkhead, but the leader had been a bit vague about what was to happen afterwards.
He had a sudden vision of holding Gayle’s hand as the bomb exploded, smoke obliterating the sight of all those people thronged around the stadium.
‘Cam? Aren’t you pleased?’ Her voice sounded peeved.
‘Course I am. Can hardly believe it,’ he muttered. ‘Well done you.’
And as he listened to his girlfriend’s chatter about what she wanted to wear and what they would do afterwards, Cameron Gregson experienced a feeling that was like an icy hand closing around his heart.
The old man opened the door and staggered backwards as McAlpin thrust him aside.
‘What’re you doin’ here? What the hell . . .’
Worsley’s mouth opened as he saw the bloodstained shirt under McAlpin’s jacket.
‘Need to get rid of this. Find some new clothes.’
‘What if I pick up stuff at yours?’
‘Don’t be so bloody stupid!’ McAlpin snarled. ‘Place’ll be crawling with coppers. Get out and buy me some things, okay? And use cash.’
‘What’s happened?’ Worsley looked the big man up and down as he pulled off the shirt and flung it on to the floor.
‘Never you mind. But I need to lie low for a while, so don’t let anyone know you’ve got a lodger, hear what I’m saying?’
Worsley nodded. They had three weeks until the day when he detonated the bomb that would blow up Parkhead Stadium. It had been one of his more intricate jobs. The sgian dubh had been a stroke of genius, McAlpin had agreed. The old Aussie would never know that he was carrying in part of a device that would allow him to set off the bomb. It would be like a ticking clock, except there was no crude machinery within the heft of the dagger, only the smallest components, arranged carefully to match the design that was visible to any prying eyes.
But with the big man here in his home and a meeting maybe scheduled for tomorrow morning with the rest of the group, Rob Worsley began to wonder whether he would see his beautiful scheme come to fruition after all. McAlpin was a liability at the best of times. And now, with the evidence of blood on his hands, the ex-weightlifter could easily ruin everything they had planned.
‘Sleepy?’
Maggie shook her head. Lorimer looked much better after a decent night’s sleep, and although he had agreed to work from home, whatever had taken place here during the day had not sapped his strength.
‘The bugs have all gone,’ he told her with a grin. ‘And that’s all I’m saying for now, okay?’
She responded with a half-smile. There was still a feeling that her home had been violated just as effectively as if a burglar had come in and trashed the place. Maggie had an urge to spring-clean the whole house, to rid it of whatever presence had tainted it. She’d given a good description of Mr Black to the police officers and could only hope that he would be apprehended. But to what end? There had been no explanation given for their home being bugged and her husband remained as tight-lipped as ever.
Sitting back in the armchair, she picked up an unread newspaper and flicked through it, only stopping when she came to the page that included theatre reviews.
‘Here, look at this,’ she exclaimed, opening the paper wide and turning it so that Lorimer could see. ‘It’s that play we went to see, remember? The one in the West End that Charles Gilmartin was involved with.’
‘Yes?’ Lorimer was frowning. ‘That was years ago, love. Can’t even remember what it was about.’
Maggie took back the newspaper and sat for a few minutes scanning the column.
‘“Crime drama revamped”,’ she read aloud. ‘“New look for old plot . . .”.’
She bent closer to the page, her mouth opening in a moment of astonishment, then looked up at her husband.
‘What?’
‘The play.’ Maggie had put the paper down
on her lap, and Lorimer saw the colour drain from her face.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s what they said about the plot . . .’ Maggie whispered. ‘It’s . . . oh God, she could have done it . . .’
She handed over the paper wordlessly.
Lorimer looked at a black-and-white photograph of two well-known actors, and then at the critical review of the play. There was nothing there to produce the sort of shock his wife seemed to be experiencing. That was, until he reached a description of the crime and its risible plot.
The hackneyed plot device was only redeemed by the excellent acting from one of our best young actors . . . he read. Then, as the article continued, he suddenly remembered the play from all those years before, and how he had scoffed at its weaknesses.
‘“The hackneyed plot device”! Don’t you remember?’ urged Maggie. ‘The murderer turned up the heating to change the supposed time of death!’
Lorimer swallowed hard, her words drilling into his brain.
‘She could have done it,’ Maggie repeated, looking straight into her husband’s blue eyes. ‘Ask Rosie.’
Lorimer sat stunned by the simplicity of the idea. Had Vivien Gilmartin really poisoned her own husband? Could she have committed the deed then turned up the heating in the flat so high that it obscured the time of death the doctor had given hours later?
Worst of all, had they been harbouring a murderer in their home?
Chapter Fifty-Five
Rosie Fergusson stripped off her gloves and threw them into the waste bucket with a sigh. The wounds on the woman’s body were extensive and the report she would now write up would be one that she would certainly keep from her sensitive husband, who was squeamish about that sort of thing. Solly had never been happy to look at a crime scene where brutality was in evidence, and this one would turn his stomach for certain. The taxi driver had been luckier in one respect: whoever had slit his throat (and the police seemed to have a good idea of the person they sought) had killed him instantly. Not so with the big Jamaican woman, despite the number of knife wounds to her abdomen and chest, though the one that had cut through the pericardium must have been fatal. She had put up some sort of fight, defence wounds showing on the inside of one of her arms. The other still bore the imprint of her attacker’s boot.
Lorimer had called her last night, asking about the flat where the impresario’s body had been found back in April. Yes, she had told him. It was possible. Why? Had they new evidence to show that someone had tampered with the heating? But the detective superintendent had been non-committal, changing the subject to Abby and asking how Solly’s latest book was progressing. It was odd, Rosie thought. But then she was not always conversant with the details of every case they worked on together. She shrugged as she untied her apron. He would tell her in due course, she thought. Meantime, there was that report to write up and a husband and daughter waiting at home.
‘We need to bring her in,’ Lorimer told Alistair Wilson.
He saw his colleague nodding gravely. Wilson had listened as he’d related the conversation with Maggie the previous evening. The germ of what had been only an idea was growing into more of a certainty now that Lorimer was telling it to the man who was SIO in the investigation into Charles Gilmartin’s murder.
‘And there may be a motive that we could never have guessed,’ Lorimer murmured, half to himself. ‘We need to find out a lot more about that Nigerian theatre company and just how Charles and Vivien had planned on bringing them over to the UK.’
‘Right,’ Wilson agreed, rising from his chair. ‘I’ll make that a priority. And put out an international call for help in finding Mrs Gilmartin.’
‘And, when we bring her in, I’d like to be the one to interview her.’ Lorimer said. Wilson would be there, all right, as SIO, but there were questions his superior officer needed to ask.
The other man nodded. ‘See what I can do,’ he said.
Once Wilson had left the room, Lorimer sat staring at the wall, though it was not the array of maps and charts he could see, but the image of a fox-haired woman with green eyes smiling up at him.
‘Plans have changed,’ Petrie told them.
‘You’re cancelling the whole thing?’ Worsley tutted his disapproval.
‘On the contrary. We go ahead as originally intended. And eliminate Number Six.’
‘May as well call him Gregson,’ Malcolm Black growled. ‘Everyone else knows his name now.’
‘You’re the reason for our change of plan!’ Petrie stormed at him. ‘You were supposed to take care of that detective, and now, not only have you failed to eliminate him, we’ve lost contact with all of his sources!’
Black scowled back at the leader. ‘Not my fault,’ he grumbled. ‘Spooks must have done a sweep of his place, then checked Stewart Street.’
‘Well that’s you effectively on their radar now,’ Petrie argued. ‘We should just deselect you and be done with it!’
‘And who’s going to clean up after the attack, eh? You still need me for that, don’t forget,’ Black told him. His job at Folkfirst might have ceased to exist, but Black had installed systems in several other areas, notably the stadium itself. They would be in constant contact through the communication channels he had set up through a bogus company, as well as their dedicated cell phones.
‘Just keep yourself out of sight, okay? And what did you do with the vehicle?’
Black gave a short laugh. ‘Burned out over in a dump near Lennoxtown,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry about me. I can take good care of myself.’ He turned to smile at the others, a look of supreme confidence on his handsome face.
‘The need to deploy officers to do further background checks on every member of the Games personnel is of paramount importance,’ Lorimer told the woman sitting next to him. ‘I am sure that there is somebody inside the organisation itself. Someone who knows one of the terrorists.’
Joyce Roger, the Deputy Chief Constable of Police Scotland, heaved a sigh. ‘It’ll blow a hole in the budget,’ she admitted.
‘But you can’t put a price on human lives,’ Lorimer finished for her.
‘No, our responsibility is to the public. And to the members of our royal family,’ she added with a twist to her mouth.
‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘How long will it take?’
Lorimer raised his eyebrows. It was nearing the end of the first week of Maggie’s school holidays, and there were just over two weeks until the Games began. ‘Before July the twenty-third,’ he replied, mentally adding a fervent hope that this enormous undertaking would indeed be concluded before the date of the opening ceremony.
It had not been as difficult as he had expected. Finding someone who had gone through passport control at several major airports and checked into a French hotel was easier now that so much was carried out online. Now, standing here at arrivals at Glasgow International Airport, Lorimer felt more nervous than he had on their first date.
Vivien Fox had turned up twenty minutes late, just when young William Lorimer had given up all hope of the zany redhead keeping to their arrangement. He recalled almost nothing of that first teenage date, just a faint memory of her green eyes laughing at him, the way they always had.
Now he was waiting for her again, but this time they would not be leaving hand in hand but accompanied by other officers, who were waiting outside in a white car emblazoned with the Police Scotland sign.
Several passengers had moved through the area already, their luggage showing the London Heathrow tags. Vivien would have been escorted from the Bordeaux flight through security and on to the plane waiting to take her to Glasgow.
And suddenly there she was, a uniformed flight officer by her side, walking smartly through the crowds and turning heads as if she were some VIP used to special attention.
‘Mrs Gilmartin.’ Lorimer reached out a hand and took the woman’s arm.
‘Oh, William.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Do we really need to be so formal?’
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But the laughter died on her lips as she looked up at the expression on the tall policeman’s face.
The interview room smelled of her perfume for days afterwards, but that evening, Lorimer could only concentrate on the way she was affecting his other senses.
‘We have your prints on the glass phials that were recovered from my garden,’ he told her, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible. ‘And the shopkeeper who sold you the ginger wine has identified you from a photograph. So you may as well tell me exactly what happened.’
Vivien Gilmartin stared at him, her gaze unfathomable. She had barely acknowledged the presence of Alistair Wilson, sitting to one side.
‘What made you do it?’ Lorimer asked, looking straight into the green eyes that had bewitched him so long ago.
For a long moment the woman seemed to consider the question. Then she gave a long sigh and sat back in the chair, her whole body seeming to register an air of defeat.
‘It was the right thing to do,’ she said simply.
‘I have to ask you for all of the details,’ Lorimer said, a note of apology in his voice. ‘For the tape,’ he added, nodding at the recording device that sat to one side of the table in the interview room.
‘Oh, the details!’ Vivien raised her eyes to heaven. ‘What is it they say? The devil is in the detail?’
When Lorimer did not answer, she leaned forward towards him. ‘I tried so hard to get everything right, you know,’ she told him, as if this was an argument in her favour. ‘The ginger wine masked the taste of the other substances. He didn’t feel a thing.’ She shrugged as though she had done something worthy of his approbation. ‘And burying them in your garden, well, I loved the irony of that!’
‘Why did you kill your husband?’ Lorimer repeated patiently.
‘Lots of reasons,’ she sneered. ‘Because he was a bastard, put me through years of hell, refusing to cast me in any of his damned plays, though if I have the money to pay for a decent brief, they’ll tell a jury that I did it to stop him bringing all those poor girls across from Nigeria!’