The Bird That Did Not Sing

by Alex Gray

  ‘You wanted to see me about that black girl?’ Temperland began. ‘I’ve been away and only just got the message,’ he explained, not offering any clue as to where he had been or why.

  ‘You did her tattoo?’ Lennox asked.

  ‘Oh aye. That was my work.’ The tattoo artist nodded. ‘Quite a difficult part of the body to work on. Thin skin,’ he explained. ‘I do all the tricky ones. Marlene does the regular stuff.’ He jerked his head towards the main tattoo studio, where they had passed the skinny woman seated at her workbench.

  ‘Did the client come back for any reason?’ Lennox wanted to know.

  Temperland shook his head, sweeping back the wisps of hair falling across his face. ‘Never. Are you thinking she should have?’ The blue eyes regarded the two officers shrewdly.

  ‘We have reason to believe that the tattoo became infected,’ Lennox answered.

  Temperland shrugged. ‘Well they’re all given the fact sheet about after-care. Part of health and safety regulations.’

  ‘Who owns the studio?’ Lennox said, suddenly changing tack.

  Temperland’s grey eyebrows rose in surprise and he hesitated for a moment. ‘It’s owned by a businessman in Glasgow,’ he said at last.

  ‘Not by you, then?’

  Temperland shook his head, the brightness fading from his face. ‘I used to own it…’ he mumbled. Again no explanation was forthcoming, merely a shrug and a downward cast of those eyes.

  ‘Does the owner carry out any of the art work?’

  Temperland’s smile reappeared. ‘No way, man!’ He gave a short laugh. ‘We carry it out on him, though,’ he said. Then he stopped, mouth still open as if he had said too much.

  ‘We’d like the documentation from the girl’s visit, please,’ Lennox said crisply. ‘And a full account of exactly what took place during her time at this studio.’

  Clouds had obscured the morning sun by the time Lennox and Kirsty left the place, the river turning slate grey, a dampness in the air that presaged rain to come. As they walked along Clyde Street to the parked car, Kirsty wondered what Lennox was thinking. Perhaps, like her, he was silently processing the information that Temperland had given them. The details on the girl’s form were fake. They’d already expected that, but it was still a shock to see Yoruba Street written in the space for an address. But now at least she had a name: Celia. Temperland had not remembered anything about the girl’s personality, just that she had been very quiet. The black man with her had done all the talking. Her uncle? Could have been, Temperland had shrugged again, unable (or unwilling?) to remember such details. It had been a small but tricky job, he had told them. Needing a careful hand. Sometimes these little tattoos were harder than the big ones, especially on a place like an inner thigh. Was that a normal place for girls to ask for tattoos? Lennox had asked, and Temperland had pursed his thin lips. Not really, he’d agreed.

  Kirsty pondered the meeting as they reached the car, easing herself into the passenger seat and fastening the seat belt over her bulky uniform.

  ‘Well,’ Lennox said at last, breaking the silence. ‘What d’you make of him?’

  ‘Bit of a weirdo,’ Kirsty replied. ‘But I thought he was telling us the truth about the girl. If she was being trafficked, then her minder wouldn’t give anything away, would he?’

  ‘And at least we’ve got a date when the work was done on her thigh,’ Lennox said, putting the car into gear and heading off into the traffic.

  Kirsty nodded, staring out of the window at the trees blossoming by the river walkway. She felt a sense of anticlimax now; they’d achieved so little from that visit, interesting though the tattoo artist had been. The people behind the human trafficking had not been stupid enough to return to the same studio, but why, she asked herself, had they asked for that same Pictish design?

  Marlene shifted the wad of gum from one side of her mouth to the other. The folded newspaper was still in the back pocket of her jeans and the woman felt it every time she bent over to pick something up, a reminder of possibilities. Could she have followed those two coppers out of the shop? Spoken to them about the man she had seen? Charles Gilmartin’s photograph was still there, a grainy image on the section of the paper that Marlene had cut out of the Gazette. She still didn’t understand it; Harry kept her out here in the main studio, never in the back, especially when the big boss man was around. And the question was troubling her. Why had that nice, handsome-looking man spent time secreted in the back of the shop on the very day that he was supposed to have died?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ‘Why a triple spiral?’ Solly asked, nodding his dark head as they walked along the path that bordered the river Kelvin.

  Lorimer did not answer. He had barely slept on the train, his mind a fankle of questions that demanded answers; his first thought when arriving back in Glasgow was to seek out the one man who might possibly help untangle some of them at least.

  ‘It’s a female symbol,’ Solly continued. ‘“Maiden, wife and crone”,’ he quoted. ‘An odd sort of thing to have tattooed on girls who were little more than sex slaves.’

  ‘Costing seventy quid a time,’ Lorimer put in.

  ‘Indeed.’

  Solly stopped for a moment, turning to his friend. ‘There is another symbolic meaning that we might wish to consider,’ he said, sounding as though he were standing at a lectern delivering some sort of discourse to his students.

  Lorimer merely raised his eyebrows in expectation. And waited. Solly’s habit of creating lengthy pauses in his conversation might be irritating to some, but the detective superintendent was used to them.

  ‘Freedom,’ he declared at last. ‘That is an alternative translation, if you like to put it that way. Hm, yes, could we see it as an ironic comment, I wonder?’

  Lorimer watched the psychologist as he stroked the end of his beard. Solly’s gaze was far away now and he was talking as much to himself as to the detective.

  ‘They tattoo these girls who have no freedom. Why waste money on an irony? No.’ He shook his head once more. ‘These sorts of people are in the business of making money, not spending it without good reason. So,’ he continued, shaking a finger to emphasise his point, ‘there must be a good reason for giving them a tattoo, and not just any design. It brands them, of course, makes them identifiable as the property of their owner. Whoever he is,’ he added darkly. ‘But the freedom symbol is interesting. They tattoo it on girls who, after all, are merely commodities to them, right?’ He looked at Lorimer as though he had become aware of his presence again.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And it is not merely some scribble. These women are his property and he is defining himself by using that particular symbol.’ The psychologist’s eyes gleamed as he began to smile. ‘I think that whoever has brought these poor unfortunates into the country has another agenda going on altogether. Perhaps nothing to do with his lucrative sex business,’ he said, a note of eagerness creeping into his voice.

  Lorimer cocked his head to one side, waiting for more.

  ‘Could he be making a political statement of some sort?’ Solly asked. ‘Don’t laugh,’ he added quickly, ‘but an image that keeps coming back to me is of those Highlanders in Braveheart. Remember? The blue tattoos and the battle cry of “Freedom”?’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  Solly nodded. ‘The symbol has to mean something to whoever gave the orders for it to be tattooed on to these girls. His property.’

  ‘He brands them with a sign that is a sort of trademark, do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly!’ Solly beamed at the tall man at his side. ‘Find the person who uses this symbol in a different context and you may well find your trafficker.’

  ‘And the person who killed that girl,’ Lorimer reminded the psychologist.

  ‘Possibly one and the same, though I doubt it,’ Solly said, his smile fading. ‘Those sorts of people have others to do their bidding, do they not?’

  ‘And yet he wouldn’t be
so stupid as to give away his secret sign, would he? I mean, we’re hardly going to find it against a name on Wikipedia, are we?’

  ‘No,’ Solly agreed, ‘but perhaps that is his weak spot. His vanity. Putting down his marker where he thinks no one will ever see it. But you did,’ Solly spoke softly. ‘And so did Rosie.’

  Lorimer did not reply. Some of the skeins had begun to untangle themselves in his brain, but there was one particular thread that he was forbidden to share, even with the good man walking once more by his side.

  Glasgow is a village, Lorimer reminded himself. It was something that people said all the time: people had so many links and there were so many overlapping circles that made nonsense of coincidences. The intelligence services were seeking out a man whose identity included being heavily tattooed, a man who was part of some militant group seeking to overthrow the British government. There had always been such people, disaffected types who wanted to expel others from their homeland. Celtic lunatic fringe, the intelligence officer had said during the meeting with Lorimer and Clark. But his tone had not been disparaging: they had to take these secret organisations with the utmost seriousness. Might be mad as bats, but they can do one hell of a lot of damage, Lorimer remembered the man telling them. Could Professor Brightman have suggested something that would help to trace this group? Was the man they sought also involved in a sex-trafficking business here in the city?

  And why had the girl been murdered up in the wilderness of the Cathkin Braes? The cycle track for the Games was less than a mile from the marshy pond where her body had been discovered. Was there another sort of link? Did the man they sought have some legitimate presence within Glasgow 2014? Drummond had suggested this, but Lorimer was still disturbed by the thought.

  The meeting was taking place in an upstairs flat in the Merchant City, less than five minutes’ walk from the Commonwealth Games headquarters in Albion Street, a fact that had not escaped Cameron Gregson. Isn’t it a bit risky? he wanted to demand, but the grim faces of the other five men made the words die on his lips.

  ‘We have new intelligence that a senior police officer has been drafted in to find us,’ their leader told them.

  He was standing above them, his eyes glaring, hands spread on the table in front of him.

  The other men exchanged glances, Number Five’s eyes resting a fraction too long on his own for Cameron’s liking.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Lorimer,’ the leader added. ‘Anyone know him?’

  Cameron looked at the faces of the other men but there was nothing. No recognition of any sort. So it came as a surprise when Number Five nodded.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Works out of Stewart Street at the moment. Or so I’m informed.’

  Cameron Gregson’s eyes narrowed. Was this man a police officer himself, then, as he had suspected? Or did he have another inroad into organised crime?

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Number Five offered.

  ‘Do it discreetly,’ their leader said. ‘We don’t want to have to deselect you, do we?’ He grinned. The others laughed and Cameron joined in, though he was uncertain just what the joke had meant. Deselect? What on earth was he talking about?

  ‘Number Two, what new information have you to share with us?’ the leader continued, turning his attention to the big ginger-haired man whose shirtsleeves were rolled up, showing the swirling patterns of tattoos.

  ‘Meeting with the Aussie next week,’ the man declared. ‘I’ll brief him on what he has to do. Not that he will be any the wiser, of course. He thinks it’s a great honour to be part of the opening ceremony. Might even be his last thought!’

  The laugh that went up was louder now, though for the first time since joining the group, Cameron Gregson experienced a sick feeling in his stomach at the idea of the immense explosion they were planning and the innocent lives that would be lost, including those of some elderly couple from Melbourne. While it had been about unnamed crowds of people he had felt nothing, but now, by personalising two of the victims, the young man felt a bit uneasy.

  ‘Freedom!’ Number Two raised his arm, fist clenched, and each man copied his action, the word resounding in this room with its locked door and windows closed to the street below.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  He was home.

  Maggie breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the front door open.

  ‘Hi, gorgeous.’

  And there he was, holding her around the waist, nuzzling her cheek with a chin that had more than a day’s stubble, making Maggie pull back suddenly with a grimace.

  ‘Sorry, need to shave, don’t I?’

  ‘It’s okay.’ She slid back into his arms, head against his shoulder, letting her body relax as he held her, breathing in the smell of him: the faint hint of lemon drops he kept in the car and something else, a whiff that was acrid and sooty, as though the city still clung to his clothes.

  ‘Missed you,’ he murmured, though whether he meant the absence overnight or the long weeks when Vivien had intruded into their home, Maggie wasn’t certain.

  ‘Missed you too,’ she replied, knowing quite well what she was trying to say. ‘Hungry?’

  Lorimer smiled and nodded. ‘Starving. Quite a long day. Didn’t have time to eat much either,’ he admitted.

  ‘There’s some lasagne in the fridge. Just needs heating up. And salad. That sound okay?’

  ‘Wonderful. Shall I open a bottle of red?’

  Maggie nodded. Was this homecoming different? Something to celebrate?

  ‘Why not?’ she answered lightly. Then, stepping closer to him, she saw the dark circles under his eyes, the sheer weariness of those slumped shoulders. ‘You’ll be asleep after one glass, though,’ she warned.

  While Maggie slid the dish of pasta into the microwave she could hear her husband as he busied himself with setting out place mats and cutlery.

  ‘How was your day?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, not so bad. A bit quieter still with the seniors off on exam leave. That all stops next week when we begin the new timetable, though. Hard to think it’s almost June already.’

  ‘Any good?’ Lorimer reached into the wine rack to select a bottle of Italian red.

  ‘Okay-ish. I’ve still got the Sixth Years, thank goodness, but there are some classes I’d rather not have been given, to tell you the truth. One Third Year lot that have been making their presence felt all through the school. And not in a good way,’ she added gloomily.

  ‘Here.’ Lorimer uncorked the bottle of Chianti Classico and poured her a glass. ‘This’ll make you forget all about work for a while.’

  As they sat together at the table, there were so many questions Maggie longed to ask. How was Vivien? seemed a little lame. And anything else would be making dull and unnecessary conversation, something simply to fill the silence.

  At last her husband laid down his fork with a sigh and reached out to touch her fingertips.

  ‘That was excellent. Thank you,’ he said, looking at her intently. ‘Don’t deserve a wife like you,’ he added quietly.

  Maggie smiled. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said, basking in the sudden warmth of his gaze.

  Then he drew his fingers away, letting his eyes fall.

  ‘She came on to me,’ he said. ‘Down there. At the funeral. Would you believe it?’

  Maggie nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘I would.’

  There was a silence, then he looked at her again.

  ‘What did you make of her, Mags? Really?’

  Maggie Lorimer paused for a moment before replying. ‘She didn’t always seem consistent in her grief,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes I wondered how much was real and how much was…’

  ‘… an act?’ Lorimer finished her sentence for her.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘Did you really think I was completely taken in by her overtures?’

  It was Maggie’s turn to look away now and she took refuge in the Chianti, draining her wine glass then holdi
ng it out for a refill, wondering what to say without sounding like a jealous wife.

  ‘She always was a bit of a drama queen,’ Lorimer continued, pouring more wine into Maggie’s glass. ‘But that was to be expected, I suppose, when she wanted a stage career. Still,’ he went on, ‘she had every reason to be upset when her husband died like that.’

  ‘I know,’ Maggie sighed. ‘I tried to be nice, I really did, but…’

  ‘She wasn’t the easiest of house guests, was she?’

  ‘Odd circumstances,’ Maggie murmured. ‘Having a stranger under your roof who just happens to be your husband’s old girlfriend.’

  ‘And whose husband has been murdered,’ Lorimer added.

  ‘Did Alistair find anything in London?’

  Lorimer shook his head. ‘No. And that troubles me more than a little. So far we’ve got nothing that resembles a motive for the man’s murder. He was well thought of, happy in his profession, even expected a knighthood if the rumours are to be believed.’

  ‘No skeletons in his closet, then?’

  ‘None that we can find. And none that Vivien is admitting to either. They had the perfect marriage, so she said.’