The Riverman lab-4

by Alex Gray

  ‘Yesterday!’ he snapped. ‘We left the office together and that’s the last I saw of him!’ Cameron took in the fists clenching and unclenching as the man continued to glare at them. Barr opened his mouth as if to add something, thought better of it and closed it again. Cameron’s raised eyebrow did nothing to encourage him.

  ‘You’re quite sure of that, sir?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure! We left together then Graham remembered something he’d left in the office so went back to fetch it. Then I went home.’

  Cameron nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He wrote something into his notebook then looked up again. ‘He was expected in the office this morning?’

  ‘Damn right. Had someone waiting down in reception for over half an hour. We could lose an audit client because of this!’ Barr exploded.

  So that explained it, Cameron thought. That was why the managing partner was cursing West’s disappearance. He frowned. Dr Brightman had been quite specific on the telephone. Graham West had agreed to see him at nine-thirty this morning.

  ‘And this appointment was definitely meant to be today?’

  ‘Yes! West’s secretary had booked a client in for ten o’clock. When nobody had turned up by ten-thirty we tried to call him at home.’

  ‘And there was no reply,’ Cameron finished for him.

  Barr nodded.

  ‘Have you any idea where Mr West might be?’

  Another glare shot across the table, but Niall Cameron was impervious to dark looks and waited patiently for a response. He used Lorimer’s trick and stared at the man as impassively as he could.

  ‘No. I have no idea at all,’ Barr murmured. ‘He should have been here. Have you looked to see if his car’s still there?’ he added.

  ‘These matters are all in hand, sir. Perhaps I could speak to some other members of staff, beginning with the other two partners?’

  When Alec Barr rose from his chair this time, the detective constable could see small beads of sweat clinging to his upper lip. Whether he wanted to reveal it or not, Alec Barr was showing some genuine anxiety over the disappearance of his partner.

  ‘Where else did you go?’ Lorimer asked the psychologist.

  ‘Round the river-side of the building to look up at the front windows, then back here,’ Solly replied slowly, gazing into space as if he were repeating these steps in his mind’s eye. ‘It was the bin bags that gave him away, of course,’ he added.

  ‘Hm.’ Lorimer sniffed. The three large bin bags had been left outside West’s front door by a pair of ornamental bay trees. But West, or someone who had been in his house, had dumped the black bags right on his doorstep. Lorimer had picked through them with gloved hands, finding a selection of expensive men’s clothing stuffed carelessly into every bag. It had given him something to do until the search warrant had arrived.

  Now the two men and one uniform were painstakingly going through Graham West’s luxury penthouse flat, looking for clues as to where he had gone.

  Lorimer gazed out of the huge picture windows that looked over the Clyde and beyond to the city. Far below there were cormorants roosting on old mooring posts next to the ancient slime-covered jetty. From his vantage point high above the river, he could easily make out the Glasgow Science Tower and the hills beyond as the river curved westwards. To his right lay the City Inn and the Crowne Plaza Hotel, both dominated by the black silhouette of the Finnieston crane. Below, on the northern bank, lay apartments designed to resemble barges, their paintwork picked out in Cambridge blue. The mossy walls below revealed different shades of greys and greens like geological strata licked by countless tides.

  As his eyes roamed over the areas bounded by the river, Lorimer spotted the police helicopter flying down towards the city. Another team was busy at work.

  Graham West evidently favoured the minimalist modern look, two leather recliners his only concession to comfort. One wall held a serious-looking stack of hi-fi equipment. A quick recce round the house showed them the whole place had been wired for sound. His collection of compact discs and DVDs were neatly arranged in alphabetical order next to the stainless-steel sound system. The main room was a long rectangle, one end containing a glass and chrome table with matching chrome chairs, a curving panel of pebbled glass squares leading directly to the front door. It didn’t take much imagination to see that the man had kept a tidy house; even the magazines (mostly sports issues) were stacked into a W-shaped metal rack.

  A huge painting took up nearly the whole wall to the right of the window. Lorimer exhaled slowly. It was an Alison Watt, an original, not a mere print. Either West had had the good fortune to purchase before the artist’s meteoric rise to fame or he’d been earning some serious money. Lorimer sighed enviously. Who’d want to leave something as beautiful as that behind?

  ‘Let’s see his bedroom.’ The DCI turned on his heel and made for the upper level. The narrow staircase led him to the top storey of the building, the layout a mirror image of the rooms below. But that was where the similarity ended. By contrast to the pristine lounge, the place was a shambles. Drawers had been turned out, their contents allowed to lie where they’d fallen. The sliding glass doors of the wardrobe in West’s bedroom were pushed to one side, empty hangers testifying to a deliberate escape. This wasn’t a missing person’s job, Lorimer told himself. This was something far more interesting.

  ‘What d’you reckon?’ he asked as Solly joined him. ‘Has he done a runner?’

  The psychologist didn’t answer. He was looking around the man’s bedroom, eyes taking in goodness knows what.

  ‘Well?’ Lorimer persisted. ‘He was expecting to see you, wasn’t he?’

  Solly nodded, still regarding the various items scattered around the room.

  ‘So if he wanted to make a getaway, and we don’t know this for sure yet, why would he have appointments with you and a client in his office at almost the same time?’

  ‘He knew he wouldn’t be here, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ Solly murmured. ‘These meetings were only a smoke screen, I suppose.’ He paused, one hand on his beard, stroking it thoughtfully. ‘Wonder when he actually left,’ he went on. Solly walked over to the unmade bed and slid his hand across the rumpled sheet. ‘Cold.’ He nodded to himself. ‘But did he sleep here overnight, I wonder?’

  ‘Barr seems to have been the last person in his office to have seen him,’ Lorimer continued. ‘We’ll do a door-to-door in the building,’ he added, turning to the uniformed officer who hovered in the doorway. ‘And tell the caretaker to keep his mouth shut meantime. We don’t want him jumping to the wrong conclusions or, worse still, talking to the press.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ The officer walked back to the lounge and moments later they heard his voice as the order was relayed down the line.

  ‘West was due to come in and see us today,’ Lorimer said. ‘I wonder if that put the wind up him,’ he mused. ‘And perhaps he wasn’t too keen to meet up with you either.’

  ‘We can’t assume that’s the reason he left so suddenly,’ Solomon replied. ‘If it was indeed so sudden,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘What’re you thinking?’

  ‘This mess.’ Solly waved a hand at the chaos around the room. ‘Look at the lounge.’ He walked downstairs, the DCI trailing in his wake. ‘Not a thing out of place.’ He ran a finger over the wooden bookshelves. ‘See?’ Solly held up his hand and Lorimer did see. There was no tell-tale smudge of grey dust.

  ‘So you think he made a deliberate mess in there? Wanted us to think he’d left in a hurry?’

  ‘Such a hurry that he had time to bag up his clothes?’ Solly asked, a smile hovering about his lips. ‘My guess is he expected someone to take them away before I arrived. Why would he leave them there for us to find?’

  ‘Who’d take a pile of his clothes?’ Lorimer frowned.

  With a shrug of his shoulders the psychologist continued to smile. ‘That’s one thing you’re going to have to find out, but I’d hazard a guess that he was expec
ting an earlier visitor. The caretaker, perhaps?’

  ‘But why bag up stuff in the first place?’ Lorimer asked. ‘And it wasn’t rubbish. Some of these clothes had designer labels.’

  ‘A social conscience? Letting them be resold by Oxfam, perhaps?’ Solly mused. ‘Maybe this will tell us a little more about Mr West,’ he added quietly to himself.

  An hour later Lorimer had seen enough. The caretaker, a nervous-looking middle-aged man, was sitting in a glass-fronted cubicle on the ground floor. He looked up as the three police officers approached and slipped off his stool, wiping his hands on the hem of his brown dustcoat. Lorimer saw that one side of the man’s face was badly swollen and his eyes were pink-rimmed.

  ‘Sir, this is Mr Johnston.’ The PC introduced the man and Lorimer nodded briefly.

  ‘You weren’t here when we arrived,’ Lorimer began.

  ‘Naw.’ Johnson touched his lip, looking apologetic and scared at the same time. ‘Had tae go tae the dentist’s,’ he explained slowly, his words slightly slurred. ‘Been up all night with toothache. Said he’d take me first thing. An abscess,’ he said, indicating his right cheek painfully. ‘Wis supposed tae go up to Mr West’s,’ he added.

  ‘Oh? Any particular reason for that?’ Lorimer asked, his professional expression concealing an eagerness he dared not show.

  ‘Wanted me to take some o’ his things to the Accord Hospice shop,’ Johnson muttered.

  Lorimer and Solly exchanged looks, the latter raising his bushy eyebrows over eyes that twinkled with childlike delight. The psychologist had got it in one.

  ‘Did he specify what time you should collect them?’ Lorimer asked.

  ‘Oh, before breakfast. Said they had to be taken away early.’

  ‘What usually happens to the household rubbish?’

  ‘Outsize rubbish is supposed to be left down in the garage, the rest goes down a shute. I collect it every day,’ the caretaker replied.

  ‘So he could have taken it away himself?’

  The man shrugged and mumbled, ‘S’pose so.’

  ‘When did you last speak to Mr West?’

  The caretaker thought about this for a moment. ‘Yesterday. Well, last night, really. About ten o’clock. That’s when he asked me to see to them bags. I’d taken a couple of paracetamol and gone to bed but couldnae sleep for this tooth.’

  ‘Was it customary for residents to call you out of office hours?’

  Johnson shrugged. ‘No’ really. Usually they’d leave a message if they wanted me to do something particular.’

  ‘So it was odd that Mr West asked you to do this for him?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so.’ Johnson looked from one man to the other, clearly unhappy and wondering if he were in some sort of trouble.

  ‘When did you actually see him last?’ Solly asked.

  Johnson turned to the psychologist. ‘Well,’ he glanced back at the detective chief inspector as if seeking permission to continue, ‘it wis durin’ the night. Jist efter wan o’clock. It wis the noise that made me look out.’ Johnson paused before continuing. ‘I saw his Porsche leaving the driveway and turning towards Govan.’

  Lorimer and Solly exchanged glances. Govan led away from the city. Where had he gone? And why make such a thing of appearing to have left in some haste when it was clear he’d been prepared to leave all his business suits behind him?

  ‘I expect you have a note of his car registration?’ Lorimer asked smoothly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the man replied, turning back into the tiny cubbyhole that served as an office and flicking open a blue notebook. ‘Here it is. G21 WST.’

  An hour later Lorimer knew where Graham West had gone. His car had been sighted on the M8 and it hadn’t taken too much wit to check the airport and find the silver car sitting on the second floor of the multi-storey car park. West had taken a BA scheduled flight to Heathrow and Customs had cleared him for an onward flight to Singapore.

  ‘What now?’ Solly asked, only to receive a black look from the DCI. Lorimer was fuming. Could they possibly issue an international warrant to stop the man from leaving Singapore airport? They had to have some sort of reason to arrest him. Without that, Graham West was free to come and go as he pleased.

  ‘Just because he’s skipped the country doesn’t give us the right to assume he’s guilty of any criminal act,’ Lorimer seethed.

  ‘And is he?’ Solly murmured.

  Lorimer smacked his fist hard against the palm of his hand. ‘Well what the hell’s he running away from if he’s innocent? One of his clients is shot by a known hit man, three of his colleagues end up dead, or at least that’s what he thinks, then Joe Reilly makes a fuss and ends up with the fishes.’ Lorimer looked fit to explode. ‘So don’t tell me West’s sudden disappearance has nothing to do with all that! The man’s guilty as sin!’

  Solly remained silent, his eyes fixed on a spot in the middle distance. If he disagreed with the senior investigating officer he wasn’t saying. But his very silence seemed to infuriate Lorimer.

  ‘For God’s sake, Solly, surely you’ve got some kind of handle on the man by now? He’s rolling in money. Just look at the car, the fancy penthouse and that … that Alison Watt!’ The painting seemed to be the final straw for the DCI. Solly could see that such a work of art being in the hands of a suspect upset him. The accountant’s lifestyle certainly suggested a source of income well in excess of what even someone in his position could earn.

  Solomon Brightman had given a lot of consideration to Graham West. It was a disappointment that he had not been able to meet the man that morning for there were things he’d like to have asked, reactions to questions he’d have noted with due care and attention. But it was too late for regrets. What he had to do now was to examine the bigger picture of the river to see if West might indeed have committed those crimes.

  But Solly couldn’t help feeling uneasy about the profile of a cold-blooded multiple killer. It just didn’t fit with the image of a man who cared enough to ensure that his old clothes were taken away to a hospice shop.

  CHAPTER 45

  Alec Barr watched as the police constable carried the plastic bags full of paper shreddings. That was the fifth trip he’d made from the machine room. He felt the wetness of his hairline and took a handkerchief from his top pocket, wiped the offending perspiration away, then crushed the pale-lemon silk into a ball in his fist. If they should find anything …? For a moment as he pondered the situation, Barr found himself wishing for the familiar face of Duncan Forbes. The man’s presence would have been reassuring right now, he thought ruefully. Everything had gone wrong since Duncan’s death, everything.

  He had made a decision that morning to continue with the day-to-day business of Forbes Macgregor; if they were seen to be operating as normal then that would inspire confidence in the staff as well as showing those policemen that the accounting world didn’t stop during an investigation. But if things got out of control the Institute might become involved. The Institute of Chartered Accountants had the power to put a stop on their practising certificates which would effectively close down their operations, even on a temporary basis. To stop functioning in the international market would spell disaster. Reputation in this business was everything. Barr ground his teeth. He’d play all the cards he possibly could to keep the partnership afloat. The London office had already been notified (albeit with a watered-down version) of what was going on. The deaths of personnel could not be covered up in any case. The sad accident of a senior partner was now a full-blown murder investigation with two more unexplained deaths following. Peter Hinshelwood was flying up later today. The irony was not lost on Alec Barr. The London partner’s last act before retiring might be to make a statement to the press. God! It could be as bad as the Enron disaster when a multinational firm of accountants had collapsed.

  Barr had had the press onto him that morning. Some bastard had told them that Graham West was a murder suspect. As a fellow partner, what comment had he to make? Barr had g
iven a one-word reply and slammed down the phone. But he couldn’t evade them for ever. Sudden tears of rage smarted in his eyes. Peter would take over as soon as he arrived. Would there be anything he could do to limit the damage? His gaze wandered over to Catherine’s room. Maybe she could still be of use. He stared hard at the door. It was worth a try at any rate, he told himself.

  Detective Constable Niall Cameron came out of the interview suite, high spots of colour on his normally pallid face. Turning to the young woman at his side, he thrust out his hand.

  ‘Thanks for all of that,’ he told her. ‘It was good of you to break your schedule to come back up here.’

  Cindy Heron raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘But someone died!’ she exclaimed. ‘Surely that’s much more important than me having a day off between gigs?’

  ‘Wish every member of the public thought like that,’ Cameron told her, letting go of the girl’s hand. He walked her to the front door where Josh Scott, her manager, was waiting. They’d interviewed him too. Now all that remained was to collate these statements and see if there was anything positive to add to the investigation into the death of Duncan Forbes.

  Cameron watched the girl link hands with her manager and walk towards the waiting car. Her hair shone in the sun as she turned to see him standing there and the smile she gave him made his cheeks redden all the more. As he stepped back into the shadows of divisional HQ, Cameron gave himself a wee shake. To think he’d just interviewed Cindy Heron, the Cindy Heron. She’d been nothing like he’d expected, just a young girl really. A bit intense given the reason she’d been there, and much nicer in an ordinary pair of jeans and a T-shirt than her fancy stage outfits. Cameron smiled to himself. It would be a good story to tell in time, but right now he needed to go and write up this report or Lorimer would be on his back.