by Gray, Alex
As he walked up towards the art school the sun slanted through the tall buildings; one minute he was in shadow, the next blinded by the morning light. It was important to look up in this city, he remembered his art teacher telling him at school, and she was right. The buildings were not just rows of tenements with shop fronts below, there were some real architectural gems to be found if you knew where to look; carvings on the edges of roofs, stained glass doors glimmering above a set of stone steps, the brass door handles lovingly polished. Glasgow School of Art was itself a testament to one man’s greatness. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, one of the pioneers of Art Nouveau, may not have received the accolades he had deserved in his own lifetime but he was now revered as one of Glasgow’s finest and the City Fathers were planning a worldwide exhibition of his work.
As he approached the towering building with its quirky design features – that metal arch with its dark purple eye suspended above the front steps – Lorimer felt a pang of regret. This was a place where he might have chosen to study; his grades had been good enough to try for entry rather than apply for History of Art at the University of Glasgow. Perhaps he might have completed a course here rather than dropping out and joining the police. But then he’d never have met Maggie, a jubilant inner voice reminded him.
Choices, he thought to himself. We make choices that can have such far-reaching consequences. What sorts of choices had led that nameless boy to his death and whose hands had bound him before strangling the life out of him then chucking the body into the river?
Less than half an hour later the detective constable skipped down the front steps of the art school, a gleam in his eye. It could be done, the lady in reception had told him. She’d taken him to an upper corridor where there were examples of some of the students’ ongoing work, Lorimer looking suitably impressed at what the folk in the portraiture class could do. Yes, she would pass these copies of the photographs to the lecturer in portraiture when he came in, she promised.
But soon that won’t be the only route you will be able to go down. One of these days we’ll be able to recreate images on computers, the woman had told him. There are all sorts of things to be found on the internet, she had added with a smile. Didn’t the police use it at all? Lorimer had shaken his head. He’d heard of the internet, of course, but only a select few police officers were being sent on IT courses, the rest struggling on with what other technology was at their disposal. You’ll soon be able to create a three-dimensional image of even the most wasted corpses, the secretary had assured him and Lorimer had smiled politely, wondering just how true that might be. Still, he’d be glad of a humble pencil sketch to take to the newspapers, whenever anybody at the school could find the time to undertake that particular task.
He was just opening the back door to Stewart Street when DI Phillips came barging out, almost knocking him over.
‘You, Lorimer! Come with us. Another corpse has been fished out by our friend at the Humane Society and we need to see it.’
‘What…?’ Lorimer followed his boss out into the car park and into a waiting squad car where a uniformed officer ushered them into the back seats.
‘George Parsonage,’ Phillips continued, stretching out the rear seat belt as the car swung out of the police compound. ‘The Humane Society officer. You know him?’
‘The art teacher?’
‘Ben’s son, yes.’ Phillips nodded. ‘He’s taken more bodies out of that river than you or I will ever hope to see,’ he said grimly. ‘A riverman, just like his father. Anyway, George has found a young man, naked and badly knocked about.’ He gave Lorimer a meaningful look. ‘Sounds just like the lad they pulled out. Your unknown red-head.’
There was a small group around the body when they arrived, several police vehicles already barring the way of curious passers-by. Lorimer noticed at once that some of the figures were clad in regulation white coveralls: the scene of crime officers were already in attendance, the on-duty pathologist amongst them, no doubt. Glancing at the group he was surprised to see that two of them were women, the tall figure of Dr MacMillan kneeling by the spreadeagled body and a smaller, younger one whose blonde hair was escaping from her mob cap. As she glanced up at their arrival Lorimer recognised her as the student from the mortuary who had been asking so many questions.
‘Dr MacMillan, this is DC Lorimer. You’ll not have met before,’ Phillips said, crouching down beside the tall woman. Lorimer felt his face redden. He had watched this woman at work from his place behind the viewing screen but Phillips was quite correct, the pathologist had not been formally introduced to this lowliest member of his team.
Dr MacMillan gave him a brief smile before turning back to the dead man.
He was about the same age as their unknown victim, but instead of a thatch of red hair, this one was dark, as befitted his Asian origin, whatever that might be. Taking a step closer, Lorimer could see the fine cheekbones and sloping jaw, though at that moment he was more interested in whether the way the man’s head lay on the wet grass was indicative of a broken neck rather than if he were Indian or Pakistani. The arms had been tied behind his back, the ankles fixed with twisted wires, pulling the limbs backwards so that the torso appeared to bulge outwards. He blinked, trying to remember exactly how the previous victim had looked. There had been no visible bonds left and the pathologist had hinted at some sort of twine rather than a wire. So was this a second murder linked to the first? Was Phillips’s inkling correct that they were related to the gangland killings that sometimes erupted in this city?
The blonde girl stood up and took a few steps back to allow the pathologist more space for her examination, coming to stand next to Lorimer.
‘Hi, are you with the SIO?’ she asked softly.
Lorimer nodded. ‘DC Lorimer, Stewart Street,’ he replied.
The student grinned and stuck out a gloved hand. ‘Yeah, I caught your name. I’m Rosie Fergusson,’ she said, then turned back to the scene before them. ‘That’s my tutor, Dr MacMillan,’ she continued, a note of pride in her voice. ‘I’d like to be doing that some day.’
Lorimer raised his eyebrows then followed her gaze as the older woman went about her initial examination. The young student was quite intent on every single aspect of the proceedings, her head tilted to catch every word that the pathologist was telling Phillips. Lorimer smiled to himself. Who on earth would guess this girl’s chosen profession just by looking at her? Appearance and reality did not always match up, as he’d learned from experience. Now he knew that even criminals and their ilk often appeared just like anyone else. The trick was to identify them by their behaviour and by sifting through every bit of evidence surrounding a crime. It had been one of those moments of fate that had changed his own life, that day in the police line-up when he had been taken from his holiday job in the bank.
He’d been quite on his own in those days, rattling around in the small house where he had lived with Mum until her untimely death. There had been nobody then to thwart his decision to drop out of university and join these men and women who dedicated their time to catching criminals, nor any family member to applaud as he marched out of Tulliallan Police College many months later.
‘Probably before you have your dinner,’ Dr MacMillan was saying to DI Phillips. ‘We’ll give you a ring to firm up.’ She turned and looked at Lorimer as though seeing him for the first time and he was struck by the twinkle in her hazel eyes. ‘And you’ll be bringing this young man to the post-mortem with you?’
‘Aye, DC Lorimer,’ Phillips said. ‘We want to see if there’s any link between this one and the body that hasn’t been identified.’
Dr MacMillan nodded then strolled away, the girl giving Lorimer a brief smile before following in her tutor’s wake, leaving the SOCOs to photograph the body and the area around it before the men who waited patiently on the upper embankment could wrap it into a body bag and transport it to the city mortuary.
‘What are your thoughts on this one, son?’
&nb
sp; Lorimer glanced at his boss who was looking at him with a faint grin.
‘Could be the same perpetrators,’ he began. ‘But why was the first lad not still bound up like this one?’
‘There’s a story in there somewhere,’ George Phillips agreed. ‘Something for us to untangle from whatever mess these bastards leave behind them.’ The DI’s face was suddenly grim. The older officers were forever remarking how things had changed in the city since they had joined the Force.
‘You think it’s drug related?’
Phillips shrugged. ‘There’s always that possibility after a sudden, violent death. These types don’t care what they do to people, even their own.’ He kicked a stone viciously with the toe of his boot, sending it flying down the embankment to land with a dull plop into the river. ‘Come on, I want to see if there’s been anyone missing a young Asian family member.’
The area around Byres Road was largely populated by students, the rental flats owned by a variety of landlords, many of them second-generation Asians. Since the troubled days of partition between India and Pakistan, Glasgow had become a safe haven for many Asian families seeking a new home and some of these hard-working men had climbed the ladder of prosperity via corner grocery stores and restaurants to the heights of property ownership. There had rarely been any racial tension in the city during Lorimer’s own boyhood; his classmates on the south side of the city had included several darker faces, clever kids whose aim was to become a doctor or lawyer, their quiet politeness and different religion simply accepted by their peers. Yet nowadays there was a feeling of resentment from some quarters that these successful businessmen had no right taking over swathes of property in certain parts of the city and this was something that DC Lorimer bore in mind as he walked up the hill of Great George Street to see a Mrs Singh whose telephone call had prompted his visit.
‘She was a bit hysterical on the phone,’ PC Winters told him. ‘I heard the tape. Had to listen to it twice to make out what she was saying.’ She made a face as she puffed uphill at Lorimer’s side; she had only recently returned from maternity leave, her rounded curves straining under the uniform dark skirt and jacket. Thinking of Maggie’s swollen belly, Lorimer felt a sudden sympathy for PC Winters. It couldn’t be easy coming back to work full-time in a job as a police officer with the sort of stresses that entailed. Winters had been given the task of speaking to the family members, something that the female officers were always unfairly landed with, Lorimer knew.
‘And she claims her son’s missing?’
‘Says he never came home last night and he has never done anything like this before. Come on,’ Winters scoffed, ‘a lad of nineteen staying out against his mammy’s wishes? Is that so unheard of?’
‘Maybe in families like theirs,’ Lorimer replied quietly. ‘They’ve got a much stronger sense of obedience than most British teenagers. Dad or Mum tells them to do something and they do it, simple as that.’
Winters raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him but said nothing more as they approached the close mouth of the tenement. The sunlight on this side of the road warmed his back as Lorimer walked up the hill, a sudden memory returning of the many mornings when he had left the subway in Byres Road and cut through Ashton Lane, climbing the steps up past Lilybank Gardens to his various university classes. It all seemed so long ago, not merely the handful of years he had spent as an officer with Strathclyde Police. And he remembered the intense Asian students from his own time; hard-working lads and lasses who lived at home, respecting the strictures of their families. No, there was something odd about this missing boy and Lorimer felt a sense of foreboding as PC Winters rang the buzzer next to the neatly typed name at the top of the list.
‘Why’s it always the top floor?’ she grumbled, tucking a stray lock of hair under her hat. Then she yawned and blinked, making the detective constable wonder how much sleep baby Winters had allowed his mother the previous night.
‘He-llo?’ The sound of a woman’s voice scratched over the intercom.
‘DC Lorimer and PC Winters, Strathclyde Police,’ Lorimer spoke clearly, his face close to the grille.
‘Come up. Top right,’ the voice said and then the buzzer let out a long note, releasing the lock on the heavy front door.
The close was chilly after the sunshine outside and they climbed the three flights in silence, their footsteps echoing down the stone stairwell.
The woman was waiting for them on her doorstep, a yellow and brown sari draped over one shoulder. Even before she spoke, Lorimer could see the anxiety etched on her face, making her seem much older than the mother of a teenage boy.
‘DC Lorimer.’ He held out his warrant card for her to inspect but Mrs Singh barely glanced at it, opening the door wider to admit them to her home.
‘He’s never stayed out like this before. Never,’ she repeated as she led them into the front room, a large bay-windowed lounge furnished with heavy pieces of dark wood furniture, brightened by red and blue patterned cotton throws spread across the settee and chairs.
‘Can you tell us when you last saw your son?’ Lorimer asked, aware of the police constable sitting down next to the woman, Winters’ chubby, sympathetic face turned towards Mrs Singh, her only aim right now to be a comforting presence to this distraught mother.
The questions began to draw out a picture of Desi Singh: he was a good boy, his mother assured them, just a bit slow at school, not university material like his older brothers and sisters, the anxiety in her tone tinged with regret and disappointment.
And all the while, Lorimer kept glancing at the framed photograph in the woman’s hands, measuring it against his recent memory of the dead boy by the side of the river.
None of them spoke during the journey across Glasgow to the mortuary, the silence only broken by Mrs Singh’s occasional sniffling into a handkerchief as she sat in the back seat beside PC Winters. How must it feel to anticipate the fact of your own child’s death? Lorimer wondered. What did this woman really know about Desi that she wasn’t telling them? The good boy, the one who’d been slow at school? Had he been bullied? Was he the sort of lad who was easily led astray by stronger personalities than his own? Had he ever been in trouble? She had shaken her head, refusing to admit to any more than she had already told them. Desi had been the one who helped his mother take care of the rental properties, the legacy of his late father, she had explained, trying to inject a note of latent pride into her voice and failing miserably.
And, if this boy lying in the mortuary should prove to be her son, what then? Would that open the floodgates to a different sort of story?
Later, after the screams and the tears, Lorimer managed to find the address for the eldest son, Desi Singh’s brother; the mother had been unable to answer any further questions, too distraught at the sight of her dead son lying on a mortuary table.
Albert Road in Pollokshields was a mere ten minute drive from his own home on the south of the city and as he drew up at the flat, Lorimer recognised the area as a place where he and Maggie had attended a couple of plays in the new Tramway Theatre. He grinned ruefully; when the baby arrived such excursions would become all too rare.
Then, looking up at the windows of the top flat, the policeman’s smile faded; they were here to tell a man that his brother had been murdered and to pose some difficult questions. As he turned to press the entry buzzer, Lorimer noticed that the sun had disappeared behind a bank of white cloud, the day far gone now, shadows lengthening along the grey streets.
‘Mr Singh? This is Detective Constable Lorimer and PC Winters. May we come up, please?’
There was a pause then a non-committal grunt as the buzzer allowed him entry, making Lorimer wonder just how accustomed Desi Singh’s brother might be to visits from Strathclyde Police.
A tall Asian man of about thirty stood on the landing outside the front door as Lorimer and his companion climbed the last of the stairs. His arms were folded across his chest, the detective constable noticed, a defensive sta
nce that was confirmed by the mulish expression around the man’s mouth, his large dark eyes hard and glittering as he watched the officers’ approach.
‘DC Lorimer.’ He put out his hand but the other man ignored the gesture, his arms remaining folded as he stood, legs apart, in front of his door.
‘The baby’s just got to sleep and I’m not about to disturb my wife for whatever that stupid brother of mine’s been up to now,’ the man sneered. ‘So just tell me why you’re here and then go about your business.’
Lorimer hesitated, taken aback by the older Singh brother’s words. Had young Desi brought shame on this family before? There was a wearied look about the brother’s face that had nothing to do with babies or sleepless nights, more about the tedium of having to hear about his youngest brother’s escapades.
‘He’s dead,’ Lorimer blurted out. ‘I’ve just been to the mortuary with your mother.’
The change in the man’s demeanour was dramatic; the arms fell to his sides and his mouth opened in a silent O of disbelief.
‘I think it might be better if we came in,’ Lorimer said. ‘We won’t make a noise, I promise,’ he added, taking a step forward and patting the man’s shoulder.
The young man nodded dumbly, opening the door wider, staring at the tall detective and the uniformed officer as though unable to process the news.
Lorimer and Winters entered the flat, squeezing past an empty pram that was sitting in the hallway. It was one of the big, old-fashioned kinds with huge wheels and excellent suspension, ideal for rocking a fractious infant to sleep, or so Maggie’s mother had tried to tell them when she had brought a catalogue for the prospective parents to see.
‘In here.’ The man ushered them into a large dining kitchen and slumped into the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands as though to blot out the world.