The Riverman lab-4

by Alex Gray

  Alec Barr had baulked at the thought of taking the life of a fellow human being. He’d often wondered how on earth anyone could do it.

  Now he was beginning to find out.

  ‘I’ll ask you once more, Miss Devoy, where is Alec Barr?’ Lorimer wanted to thump the table between them, to jolt the woman out of her hard-faced complacency. He glanced over to the uniformed officer who was standing by the door and gave him a nod. It was time, he thought.

  The woman continued to stare at the floor as if she were trying to blank out everything around her: Lorimer, Solly and DS Wilson, who were regarding her with ill-concealed impatience. It had taken them three-quarters of an hour to achieve precisely nothing. Now they had to play their trump card.

  Solly watched her face as Catherine Devoy looked up at the man entering the room. Wordlesssly she rose to her feet, her cheeks drained of colour and then she slumped back into her chair, her mouth open.

  Standing there in the doorway, Michael Turner looked from one person to the other, an expression of bewilderment on his face.

  ‘How could you do this?’ the woman whispered, staring at Lorimer as if he were somehow responsible for making the dead come to life again.

  Looking at her, Lorimer saw the sudden change. She appeared older now, her white face a mask, those scarlet lips no longer the badge of a strong, confident woman but something painted on, making a mockery of the person she wanted to be. And he felt a surge of pity. Was she one more victim in this tangled web?

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ Lorimer said at last.

  All that pent-up energy had gone out of her now and she sat, arms limply by her side, following Michael Turner with her eyes as he left the room with a uniformed officer. He would soon be in the observation room adjacent to them, watching and listening.

  ‘Miss Devoy,’ Lorimer’s voice brought her attention back, ‘tell me how it all began.’

  ‘It was when Duncan showed Alec those papers,’ she said listlessly. ‘He was so concerned to do the right thing.’ She shook her head as if trying to clear away some distant memory. ‘The right thing would have brought the firm crashing round our ears. We’d been dealing with Jacobs’ people for ages.’

  ‘By dealing I take it you mean money laundering,’ Lorimer said.

  ‘Yes,’ she muttered reluctantly. ‘Then there was a proposition from another chain of bookmakers. Jacobs wouldn’t countenance it.’ She shrugged. ‘His death didn’t come as a total surprise. These sort of people can be very persuasive, Chief Inspector.’

  Lorimer stared at her. They’d known about the contract killing of one of their clients yet had said nothing at all. What had motivated them? Greed or fear? But the woman was talking again, the words flowing now like a dam that has burst its banks.

  ‘Made some good money out of that business, too. Then Duncan comes in like a knight in shining armour wanting to inform the London office that something wasn’t right. It would have meant ruin for us all,’ Devoy insisted, as if Lorimer should surely understand. ‘Good old Duncan was prepared to make that sort of sacrifice but we … chose a different option,’ she said heavily.

  ‘We?’ Lorimer prompted her.

  ‘All of us. Graham, Alec, Malcolm and me.’

  ‘Go on,’ Lorimer told her. ‘Tell us exactly what happened.’

  They listened as she described how West had obtained the drug, she had made sure it was put into Duncan’s drink at Michael’s going-away party and then West had led Forbes over to the edge of the water and pushed him in. Michael’s party had been the ideal opportunity. They’d got rid of Forbes and their contact in New York would see that Michael was taken care of, she told them. Then things had started to unwind.

  ‘And Adams? Where did he fit into all of this?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Malcolm was persuaded to take the money and keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘So where is Adams now?’

  A mere shrug of her shoulders told the DCI that Catherine Devoy didn’t know and cared even less.

  ‘Alec Barr,’ Lorimer began slowly. ‘You made him do all of this?’

  Her eyes widened in astonishment. ‘What? You really think that?’ Then she began to laugh, a dry harsh sound that ended in a sob. ‘My God, he really fooled you too, didn’t he?’

  Lorimer frowned at her.

  ‘You think I influenced Alec?’ Her smile trembled on the verge of tears and she looked down, fumbling in a pocket for a clean, folded handkerchief. Then, as if drawn back by Lorimer’s blue stare, she continued. ‘It was his idea from the beginning. He set up all our accounts, made the running to these bookmakers, everything. He was like a …’ she paused, trying to put her thoughts into words, ‘like a pioneer. He thought of it all, even down to the last detail. How we would spike Duncan’s drink, how Graham would make it look like an accident.’

  Lorimer looked at her hands twisting the handkerchief round and round. ‘Have you any proof that Barr was behind it all?’ he asked.

  For a moment she stared at him then her gaze dropped. ‘No,’ she said in a whisper. ‘He made sure nothing could touch him, didn’t he? We were all in his power, all of us.’

  ‘But how could you have agreed to kill Duncan Forbes?’ Solly interjected. ‘He was your friend. You were godmother to his son.’

  Catherine Devoy opened her eyes wider and looked at him as if seeing the psychologist properly for the first time. ‘Yes. Yes I was, wasn’t I? Good old Aunty Cath. Always there when she was needed.’ Her voice sounded hollow, only a trace of bitterness left. ‘And all the time I thought they were laughing at me. Poor Catherine. Nobody there to love her. Well, they were wrong, you know. They really were. I was loved. Alec loved me for years. Just because he wouldn’t leave that dried-up stick of a wife-’ She stopped suddenly as if realizing for the first time how long she had deluded herself, the mistress whose aspirations are never more than insubstantial dreams. Her jaw hardened. ‘Liz Forbes thought she had it all. Nice house, nice kids, perfect husband. Well, why should she be so happy? And why should Duncan take it all away from me?’

  ‘Those letters …?’

  She nodded silently, her head drooping once more, lips quivering.

  Lorimer had seen remorse before, but usually it was tinged with self-pity. As Catherine Devoy’s hands covered her face, he felt certain that the tears beginning to flow were ones of shame.

  ‘Duncan Forbes was never unfaithful to his wife, was he?’

  ‘Duncan?’ She choked on his name, then shook her head and sighed. ‘No. He was the perfect husband, wouldn’t look at another woman.’

  ‘Not even you?’

  She looked back at him, her eyes dark with unfathomable sorrow. ‘Especially not at me, Chief Inspector. Nor at any woman who tried to fling herself at him.’

  ‘You mean Jennifer Hammond?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Please speak for the tape, Miss Devoy.’

  ‘Jennifer tried it on with everyone. Duncan hated that. And she didn’t like being spurned.’

  ‘What exactly was her part in all of this?’

  ‘Jennifer? Didn’t you guess?’ She looked at Lorimer curiously as if nothing could possibly have eluded the man who was unravelling her very existence.

  ‘She knew who tried to telephone us about Duncan Forbes,’ Lorimer replied evenly.

  ‘I nearly blew the whole thing sky high with that call. If it hadn’t been for Alec-’ she bit her lip.

  ‘Alec Barr was with you that night?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘He was waiting at my flat after the party.’ She paused and looked into the middle distance. ‘Alec wanted to celebrate. But how could I? Duncan was out there somewhere in the water, cold, alone. I couldn’t bear the thought of no one finding him. So I tried to telephone.’

  ‘But why did you consent to murdering Duncan Forbes in the first place?’

  Catherine Devoy’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘We had to do it. Alec said it was the only way.’

 
‘And you spiked Duncan’s drink?’

  ‘Yes. Only, Jennifer saw me do it. She thought we were having a bit of a laugh. The idea of Duncan seduced by a date rape drug was too good for her to miss.’

  ‘And did you kill Jennifer Hammond?’

  Devoy’s head came up, here eyes meeting his own and before she spoke he knew what her answer would be.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded, turning her head away from Lorimer’s commanding gaze as if from a bright light that was hurting her eyes. ‘She was sniffing around Alec,’ she mumbled, ‘knew too much for her own good. I told him we should have got rid of her straight after the party.’

  ‘And why didn’t you?’ Lorimer’s tone was dangerously smooth.

  ‘Couldn’t keep his hands off her, could he? Said he had her under control.’ She glared at Lorimer, a sudden anger making her clench her fists. ‘What a fool!’

  ‘So what made you change your mind?’

  ‘Oh, it was when she tried a spot of blackmail. Not a clever move, that,’ the woman added, nodding more to herself than to the men in the room. ‘Not a clever move at all.’

  ‘Catherine Devoy,’ Lorimer began, ‘you are charged with the murders of Duncan Forbes and Jennifer Hammond.’ He continued reading the charge, watching her face as she tried to swallow down her emotion, eyes widening with a sudden apprehension.

  ‘Take her down,’ Lorimer commanded at last.

  They watched as the duty officer laid hands on the woman to march her out. She sidestepped at her touch then, realizing the inevitable, bowed her head letting them lead her away.

  Lorimer glanced over at Solly and sighed deeply. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he muttered, shuddering involuntarily as though the woman’s presence still lingered like a draught of chill, malignant air.

  Outside the room, Michael Turner was waiting for them. Lorimer put his hand upon the young man’s shoulder. ‘I can’t believe it,’ Turner whispered. ‘They didn’t want me to work for Kirkby Russell at all. It was just a ploy to get rid of me. They had it planned all along.’

  Lorimer sat down beside him. ‘Yes,’ he said grimly, recalling the woman’s confession. ‘They only wanted you out of the way. Tipping another accountant into the Clyde would have seemed too obvious, so they came up with a different scheme. Wonder how they came in contact with JJ?’ he mused. ‘Must have had dubious contacts through the international consortium who wanted to take over Jacobs’ bookies,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Sorry you had to find out like that,’ he added, patting Turner’s arm.

  ‘It’s just such a shock to know that people you worked with — people you trusted — could do such a thing! I mean JJ was supposed to have me killed as soon as I arrived, wasn’t he?’

  Lorimer nodded. ‘Yes, he was. But that old sin, greed, got in the way.’

  ‘Lucky for me, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Lorimer shortly. It had been nothing short of a miracle that James Jackson had decided to go out on his own. Bits of information had filtered through from the US police since Turner’s arrival. The man found in the woods with Michael Turner’s ID had turned out to be someone long suspected of being behind many contract killings in New York. He’d been sought after by NYPD for years. Jackson had undoubtedly made the execution to effect his own getaway. From being a hired killer, he’d decided to take a chance and cash in on the whole scam for himself. Blackmailing Graham West would have been just the start of it. And he was still out there somewhere, on the run.

  Lorimer stood up at last, ‘Look, you’re free to go, but I’d rather you stayed here until we bring Barr in.’

  Turner nodded and heaved a sigh. ‘Yes. I will stay.’ He smiled and shook his head wearily. ‘Besides, where have I got to go? Unless my flat’s still up for sale.’ He laughed weakly.

  ‘Good man, I’ll have one of my officers look after you,’ Lorimer beckoned WPC Irvine across to where the young man sat, head resting on his hands.

  *

  Solomon Brightman looked at him silently, waiting.

  Lorimer put up his hands. ‘Okay, your instincts were right. West didn’t kill them all.’

  Solly nodded. ‘I never saw him murdering a woman. It didn’t fit his profile.’ He paused, a habit that still irritated Lorimer. ‘I couldn’t work out which of them had taken it upon themselves to kill their colleagues. None of it seemed to add up until now.’

  ‘And we still don’t know what’s happened to Malcolm Adams,’ Lorimer reminded him.

  He turned to face the window that looked over the city. Was Adams out there somewhere? Well, there was only one course of action to take now. It was time to close the net on Alec Barr. He couldn’t have gone far; his Jaguar had not been spotted on any CCTV cameras leaving the city. Devoy had given them all the information she could about where he had gone, which was not much. He’d told her to keep her mouth shut, but that was before the ghost of Michael Turner had walked into the room and destroyed her nerve.

  ‘Sir,’ a uniformed officer broke into Lorimer’s thoughts, ‘we’ve picked up Dougie McAlister.’

  ‘Right, Mr McAlister, let’s have it all. And I mean all,’ Lorimer told him, his blue eyes boring into the man’s face.

  Dougie McAlister was a smaller, more washed-out version of big brother, Shug. He lacked the older man’s hard-edged experience, Lorimer guessed, looking at the eyes flitting from one person to another as he tried to avoid contact with the chief inspector on the other side of the table. He was on something too, by the looks of him. Not something that had instilled any confidence, however.

  ‘It wisnae me, Mr Lorimer,’ Dougie began, his voice a nasal whine. ‘It wis this man …’

  It was over in less than half an hour. Dougie McAlister had been the runabout for The Pony Express, a rival firm of bookmakers that had wanted to muscle into Tony Jacobs’ empire so badly that they were prepared to kill to get what they wanted. With no evidence and no information from big brother Shug, who was currently serving time for the murder, the police had been hard-pressed to find the brains behind it all.

  It had taken all of Lorimer’s self-control not to laugh out loud at the image of the Incredible Hulk handing over Dougie’s payment. Still, it was one of several leads they’d have to follow up. And with Forbes Macgregor being the financial adviser for both sets of bookmakers, Lorimer had no doubt they’d find plenty to keep their fraud boys busy.

  CHAPTER 50

  George Parsonage watched as the well-dressed man struggled with the padlock. His curses and the way he wrestled with the door spoke of someone in a panic. George looked on with mounting curiosity. These old sheds that bordered the water had been closed up for years. Any day now and another bulldozer would flatten them to make space for more of the luxury flats that were marching down the length of the river banks. Few old structures remained these days. The riverman’s own blue-painted boathouses lay opposite his home across a sward of green, cropped grass, metal hulks that kept the weather out and the seventeen vessels safely under cover. His racing boats hung suspended from hooks on the beams; the trolleys to take boats over to the other side of the weir were always near the massive front doors. Today George had been busy with his latest sculpture, a figure of a rower for a friend’s birthday. But he’d stopped what he’d been doing and lifted his safety visor as soon as the call had come to pull a kiddie out of the water.

  Now he was making his way back to where he’d left the trailer, a heaviness upon his spirit. The wee lad had only been trying to fish a football out of the water when he’d tumbled in. And this time it had been too late to save him. To distract himself from such thoughts, George stopped walking and watched the man disappear into the shed.

  The sounds of distress that followed made him reach for his mobile.

  He dialled the number, not needing to scroll it up. It was one he knew off by heart.

  ‘Get me DCI Lorimer,’ George whispered.

  Alec Barr pushed the body on the floor with his foot. It gave a groan as his toe made co
ntact with the man’s belly. Malcolm Adams gave a muffled yelp of pain.

  ‘Not long now. Soon put you out of your misery,’ he told the figure lying on the ground. ‘We’re going for a little ride, you and me,’ he said, heaving the man to his feet.

  Adams was bound and gagged. His slight frame was nothing to Barr who slung him across his shoulders and carried him out across the narrow strip that divided the shed from the river. With one almighty effort, Barr threw the man’s body from him into the swirling waters. It landed with a splash and he watched it with satisfaction as it floated outwards into the current.

  ‘What the-’ he grunted as a hand shoved him aside and sent him sprawling across the stony bank. He was aware of a second splash of water as a man dived into the river and headed towards Adams. Picking himself up, Alec Barr began to run back up the towpath, away from the water’s edge, away from the scene unfolding below him. This wasn’t meant to happen! Where the hell had that guy come from?

  Cursing, Barr turned into the main road and ran back towards the footbridge that would take him across the river and into Govan. Once there, he’d flag down a taxi.

  The sound of police sirens made him look up. One car had already screeched to a halt. A tall figure that he recognized emerged from the vehicle and began shouting at him to stop, but Barr was running across the bridge now, running and running as if his life depended upon it.

  The river below him swirled menacingly from the force of the swollen current. He could hear footsteps clattering behind him and, looking up, he saw two uniformed policemen waiting at the far end of the bridge.

  ‘Give it up, Barr,’ Lorimer yelled. ‘It’s over!’

  Barr whirled around, baring his teeth at the man who was gaining on him, one step at a time. He snarled in response. He’d not be taken like a cornered beast.

  In one quick movement he vaulted the railings and threw himself into the waters below.

  Lorimer reached the middle of the footbridge just in time to see the man’s body tossed by the racing currents. He watched, aghast, as Barr flailed against the might of the river and then disappeared in a wallow of white foam.