The Bird That Did Not Sing

by Alex Gray

  It was then that she remembered. He was going to be in late. Something to do with a meeting. She stood up, finding it hard to settle, wanting her boyfriend to walk in the door now, not later on once he had done whatever he had to do up in… where was it? Stirling. That was it. She recalled his words now. University stuff, he’d said vaguely.

  The young woman opened the windows of the bedroom, letting in the noise of the city, breathing in the air. She was restless and wanted Cam here. Wanted to have him in bed beside her, murmuring endearments. Wanted to show him the tickets with a grin of triumph. Wait till you see what I’ve got for you, she longed to tell him. She could always text him, but that wasn’t the same as seeing his expression when she had her ta-da moment. She tucked the tickets carefully back into her handbag, wondering if she ought to tidy the place up a bit before Cam came back. His side of the bed was cluttered with books and bits of paper. An odd sock lay half hidden under the bed and the wire for his iPhone adapter snaked out from behind the bedside cabinet. She had begun to pick things up, a desultory attempt at making the place a little smarter, when she saw it.

  The mobile phone was a cheap red thing, not like the expensive white iPhone her boyfriend carried everywhere. She had joked that he had to be surgically removed from it; he was always checking for messages, sending texts or googling something or other. Turning the mobile over, the girl was surprised to see a small sticker on the back placed neatly over the battery compartment. And on it, in red ink, the number 6. Did this belong to Cam? Or had someone left it here? She bit her lip, imagining another woman here in her flat. He wouldn’t… would he?

  Several times lately she had woken to hear him muttering in his sleep, a restlessness that he had laughed off as bad dreams. But what if he had been cheating on her and these nocturnal ramblings were the result of a guilty conscience?

  There was one way of finding out, wasn’t there?

  A few minutes later Gayle replaced the mobile phone where she had found it beneath the pile of papers, no wiser as to the owner of the device, knowing only that there were four other numbers listed under the headings 1, 3, 4 and 5.

  ‘Something to do with uni,’ she said aloud, not really believing her own hollow-sounding words, but refusing to contemplate any alternative that might have to do with Cameron Gregson seeing four other women. And trying to suppress the idea that she might only be number two in his life.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Lorimer sat opposite the young Nigerian girl, watching as she turned the box of sweets over and over in her hands.

  ‘They’re for you.’ He smiled. ‘A present.’

  She looked at him warily, then laid the box on her knees, still unopened.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘You like sweets?’

  She looked away then and murmured something that he did not catch.

  ‘Leila’s never been given a present like this before without having to give something in return,’ the psychiatrist explained.

  Lorimer nodded, saddened that his gesture might have been misinterpreted. And yet in a way, Dr Jones was right. He did want something from this young girl, though it was unlike any of the sexual favours that she had been forced to yield to a host of men willing to pay for them.

  ‘I was hoping you could tell me things that will help me to find a lost girl,’ he began, leaning forward so that he was not towering over her. ‘Her name is Asa and we are anxious for her safety,’ he continued, watching as Leila turned her large liquid eyes on him, eyes that were wary still.

  ‘I do not know anyone called Asa,’ she replied at last.

  ‘She is Nigerian, like you,’ Lorimer told her. ‘And she has been badly treated by some bad men. We have caught two of them and they are in prison.’

  The girl sat up at that, her expression less fearful.

  ‘These are pictures of the men,’ Lorimer added, taking the photographs of Abezola Boro and Odunlami Okonjo from his pocketbook and laying them on top of the box of sweets.

  Leila’s recoil was instant and the photographs dropped to the floor as she let out an eerie wail of anguish.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the psychiatrist soothed. ‘Mr Lorimer here has put them in prison. They can’t hurt you any more.’

  ‘Are there any other men with tattoos like this, Leila?’ the detective superintendent asked, taking out a photograph of McAlpin.

  The girl shook her dark head and Lorimer could see that both hands were clutched around the box of sweets, not because she wanted the gift but rather for something to hold on to in her anxiety.

  ‘Was that the man who hurt you, Leila?’ Dr Jones asked, putting a kindly hand on the girl’s arm.

  A nod of the head was answer enough.

  ‘Where did she come from?’ Lorimer turned to ask the psychiatrist quietly.

  ‘She was found by a Big Issue seller wandering around the streets one night,’ Dr Jones told him. ‘She was brought to me by the man and his lady friend,’ the grey-haired woman added.

  ‘Here?’ Lorimer frowned, puzzled.

  ‘To my home,’ Dr Jones said shortly. ‘These people happen to be patients of mine,’ she continued. ‘I don’t wish to give you their names,’ she added with a thin smile.

  ‘Patient confidentiality,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘That’s okay.’ He turned to the girl once again. ‘Leila, can I tell you how you might be able to help us find this girl?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone called Asa,’ Leila said again. ‘But I did have another friend. She was called Celia.’ She looked hopefully from Dr Jones to the tall man, who was bending down to meet her gaze. ‘They gave her a tattoo. The one you showed me,’ she said, turning to the psychiatrist. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  Rosie clicked CLOSE and the report on the girl disappeared into the ether. Was she ever to have closure on this case? The tiny form that had been taken from the dead girl’s womb had saddened her more than she had expected. To have been carrying another human life only to have her own snuffed out so cruelly made the whole thing much worse. And yet what sort of life could a baby like that have enjoyed? The mother entrapped in a life of prostitution, the father imprisoned somewhere… Rosie sighed. Lorimer would tell her about it some day. He had promised that at least. For now she had to leave the victim’s body where it lay in its refrigerated cabinet. She had already attached a label with the name Celia, the only name they had for the dead girl; her unborn child would remain forever nameless.

  The meeting with Dr Jones and the Nigerian girl had given Lorimer much to think about, not least the fact that Leila was to be deported back to Nigeria within the next ten days, something that had raised the young girl’s spirits, according to the psychiatrist. There had been no means of contacting family members: the village where Leila came from was remote and without the modern means of communication that Westerners took for granted. However, a member of the British consulate had undertaken to meet the girl and arrange for her transportation back home.

  The detective inspector closed his eyes tightly, resting his head against clasped hands. There were too many things vying for his attention right now. Asa, Foxy, Drummond’s latest missive about the Glasgow cell… For a moment he found himself wondering what life would have been like had he followed his original dream of becoming an art historian. Would he have liked the life of academia? Or would that too have brought the stresses and strains he was feeling right now?

  Recently he had addressed Rosie’s students at one of the weekly meetings that comprised the course in forensic medical science. ‘I’ve got the best job in the world,’ he’d told them towards the end of his lecture, after outlining some of the more celebrated cases where he had been senior investigating officer. And it was true. Though the case that demanded most of his attention right now was one that would never reach the ears of any of those students.

  Both Okonjo and Boro had denied any knowledge of a man called Robert Bruce Petrie, but Drummond persisted in his belief that Petrie and McAlpin were the m
en behind the plot. And it was Detective Superintendent Lorimer’s task to hunt them down before the date of the opening of the Commonwealth Games, a date that was edging closer with every passing day.

  It was now midsummer, June soon drawing to a close. Next week Maggie would be on holiday from school and then the countdown to the Games would gather momentum.

  The twenty-third of July was a date etched on the detective superintendent’s brain. He had just over a month to track down the members of this terrorist group and take them into custody. Finding McAlpin’s nest had been almost too easy, and he wondered just where the big bearded man had gone in the wake of the Nigerians’ arrests. Would that have scared them off? Would they have abandoned their deadly scheme? Or had they cast McAlpin adrift and changed tack somehow?

  Alistair Wilson was in charge of the Gilmartin case and Lorimer knew that he had to stop himself thinking about the flame-haired woman and the way she had beguiled him so long ago. And the way Maggie still looked sideways at him as if trying to read his thoughts. There had been a distinct coolness from his wife lately that gnawed at the edges of his conscience, something he would have to put right when he had the time.

  There were officers combing the city for Asa and Swanson, every hotel and boarding house being looked into as the tireless search went on. For a moment Lorimer wished that he could be one of those foot soldiers again, a copper like young Kirsty Wilson, not a senior officer who had to delegate so much to others.

  Rooting out the terrorists was one thing that he could not delegate, however. The man from MI6 had made that very clear indeed.

  ‘Not go to Mull?’ Maggie put down the salad bowl that she had been drying and looked at her husband. ‘Oh.’

  A muscle twitched in Lorimer’s jaw. It had been another long day, and breaking the news about cancelling their holiday seemed insignificant against the dangers lurking within the city.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ he told her. ‘To do with the Commonwealth Games.’

  ‘Something you can’t tell me?’ Maggie gave a wintry smile. ‘Security stuff?’

  Lorimer sighed. ‘One day I might be able to,’ he said at last. ‘Oh Mags, come here.’ He buried his face in her shoulder as she stepped into his arms. ‘You must get sick of my job at times.’ There was no reply, just a tightening of her grasp around his waist, reminding Lorimer that he was one of the lucky ones to have such an understanding wife.

  ‘All off,’ the big man grunted, glaring at the reflection of the man in the mirror.

  The tattoo artist nodded. The man seated before him, a hasty towel wrapped around his neck, was the boss and anything he demanded had to be satisfied. Harry Temperland picked up the thin-bladed scissors and began to snip, his eyes trained on the face of the owner of the tattoo studio rather than the locks of red-gold hair that were falling to the floor at his feet.

  McAlpin would have preferred to flee the city, knowing that he was a wanted man, but he had decided instead to call in favours from those who owed him big time, Temperland included. The ageing hippy had been lucky to keep this place on, his gift as an artist his one saving grace. The Celtic designs adorning McAlpin’s body were proof enough of the man’s consummate skills.

  McAlpin had turned up last night on Worsley’s doorstep, the older man’s face turning as white as his hair as he’d bundled his friend inside.

  ‘You know they’ve deselected you?’ he had said as McAlpin had headed into the main lounge, one hand on the blind cord to shut out any prying eyes.

  A grunt was all the big man had been able to muster as way of reply.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Worsley had already opened a cocktail cabinet full of bottles and lifted out a bottle of Glengoyne. ‘Whisky?’

  McAlpin’s glare and nod as he’d slumped into the squashy armchair were answer enough.

  ‘That young guy, Number Six, he’s been given your job with the Aussies,’ Worsley had told him as he’d poured generous measures into two plain glass tumblers. ‘Straight or with water?’ he’d asked.

  ‘Wee drop water,’ McAlpin had said shortly, remembering how his eyes had followed the old man as he’d disappeared into the adjacent kitchen to fill a little brown jug.

  ‘Say when,’ Worsley had murmured, handing the big man his glass and carefully pouring a trickle of water into it.

  ‘Nuff!’ McAlpin had exclaimed, taking the glass and downing the dram in one greedy gulp.

  ‘Another?’

  ‘Just bring me the bottle,’ he’d told him.

  Now, as he watched the hair being shorn from his head, then the foam applied to his beard, McAlpin wondered if Worsley would be as good as his word. He had promised to find the best forger in the East End, someone who would take a new photo and make it look old, give the big man a new identity. It was just a pity about the tattoos, Worsley had said, as the Glengoyne was emptied for the last time; looking at his heavily tattooed arms in the mirror, Kenneth Gordon McAlpin knew he was going to be hard pushed to conceal these intricate blue and green patterns from sight.

  ‘Goes without saying I’ve never been here,’ he said, catching Temperland’s eye.

  ‘Sure, boss.’ Harry Temperland nodded, the razor in one hand. ‘Never saw you today or any other day,’ he agreed as the blade cut through the first springy curls of the big man’s beard.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Had anyone noticed the two men walking by the pond in Queen’s Park, they might have been forgiven for assuming that they were Mormons discussing their next missionary visit. Both men were dressed smartly in suits and ties, document cases tucked under their arms, but a closer look would have shown their expressions to be less joyous than the perpetual smiles fixed to the faces of those latter-day saints.

  ‘It’s serious,’ Petrie told the tall, thin man walking by his side, a man known only to the rest of the group as Number Three. ‘That bloody detective’s determined to ferret us out.’

  ‘We could call it off,’ his companion suggested.

  ‘Never!’ Petrie wheeled around, catching the man’s sleeve. ‘I don’t believe you really mean that, Frank,’ he said.

  Frank Petrie made a face. He had been recruited by his cousin a long time ago, perhaps even as a child, listening to Robbie’s fervent stories about Scottish heroes and how they had been deprived of all their land by these foreign incomers. Now the plans they had made to take back what belonged to them seemed to be unravelling and Frank was beginning to wonder if they should admit defeat before the police and security services closed a net around them.

  ‘Maybe —’

  ‘Maybe I should have left you to rot in that stinking jail instead of spending thousands on the best lawyer money could buy!’

  The thin man shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly on. It always ended with the same old argument. Robbie had saved him from that hellish stretch. And he owed him. It was as simple as that.

  ‘There’s something we can do to make it all right,’ Robbie said, catching up with the taller man and flinging an arm over his shoulder.

  ‘Oh aye? What’s that?’

  Petrie’s eyes glittered with the fanatical gleam that the other men in the cell had grown to recognise.

  ‘Get rid of Lorimer,’ he said simply.

  The telephone rang in Lorimer’s office and he picked it up, giving his name as usual. It was a normal enough call, one from the Stirling office, a routine call about the initial explosion.

  There it was again. Faint but just discernible, a tiny noise on the line when the officer paused for breath.

  Had it been there before that engineer’s visit? Lorimer thought hard about it. No, he didn’t think so. Should he be concerned?

  Since Drummond’s arrival into his life, the detective superintendent had noticed how he had begun to question every little detail in a case; it seemed natural that having to work with the man from MI6 had heightened his suspicious nature. Should he make enquiries into these noises? Was someone infiltrating his telephone extension? He sat b
ack for a moment, steepling his fingers as he considered what to do. Would their internal security people call him neurotic? He was under enough stress from these cases to make them believe that.

  Then, thinking of Drummond and what he would advise, Lorimer took a sheet of paper and began to write a note, not trusting either to email or telephone in delivering his message.

  He looked at his shoes, then gave them one more rub with the cloth, nodding in satisfaction at the shine on the leather. Everything mattered, he told himself. Looking smart had been dinned into him from childhood by his father, a man who had made a success of bending the rules while appearing to be perfect in so many other ways. Malcolm Black had inherited the old man’s name and dark good looks, as well as his knack of making money from other people’s ignorance. Nobody had ever caught the police constable who took backhanders from the shadier folk who passed his front door. Had any whiff of suspicion come to rest on him, it would have been treated with derision: not Malcolm Black!

  The younger Malcolm looked at the photograph of his father that sat in pride of place on the sideboard. Smiling down on him, the man in full Highland dress was still capable of making his son feel the sense of pride that had been part of their shared heritage.

  ‘“Royal is my race”,’ he’d often said, quoting the MacGregor motto before reminding the young boy of his duties. ‘We need to take it back again, son,’ he’d told him countless times, going over that dreadful time when the foreign incomers had stripped the clan of every vestige of decency. These English king’s men had branded their women, stripped them naked and whipped them through the streets, taken away the children to be sold into slavery, executed the men. And even after these atrocities had stopped, the remnant of the clan had been persecuted by the denial of their human rights. It was not only their names that had been outlawed. They were forbidden to meet in groups of more than two persons, and there was no giving food, water or shelter to a MacGregor for fear of reprisals. Even the Church was ordered to shut them out, denying the clan the holy sacraments of baptism, marriage, Holy Communion and the last rites. ‘We were like rats,’ his father had told him fiercely, ‘hunted down by dogs and bounty-hunters whose humanity had disappeared in the lust for the king’s gold.’