by Gray, Alex
Lorimer sat down opposite, glancing around. The smell of something spicy was coming from a pot simmering on the stove, reminding him that it was dinnertime and Maggie would be expecting him at home. All over the city couples and families would be sitting down to their evening meal, discussing the day’s events and relating whatever little new things had occurred.
‘Raheem?’
Lorimer looked up to see a young woman in a pale pink sari standing in the doorway, a baby asleep in her arms.
Both men were on their feet in an instant.
‘Go back into the room, Sarra. Please,’ her husband entreated. ‘I will explain later.’ There was a note of desperation in his voice.
‘Something’s happened,’ the woman stated, looking from one man to the other.
‘Go back,’ Singh repeated, this time more firmly.
She nodded reluctantly. Once the kitchen door had closed behind her, Singh sat down in his chair once more.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything.’
There were darker clouds gathering on the horizon as Lorimer drove the last few miles towards his own home, his thoughts full of the interview with Raheem Singh. That his youngest brother was dead seemed to be a complete shock, the man repeating over and over that Desi wasn’t a bad lad. It was as though he had needed to persuade this stranger in his home of the dead boy’s decent background. All of Lorimer’s questions had been met with answers. Yes, Desi had run with a bad crowd, no, he didn’t know any of their names, well, maybe one or two… yes, they knew he had been missing from home but they hadn’t thought to call the police. Desi wasn’t wild exactly, just a bit wayward, easily led.
And so a hazy picture had emerged of the young man whose life had been cut short, a picture as yet incomplete and needing a lot more to give the detective some clues as to why Desi Singh had been murdered and dumped in the River Clyde.
There were no smells of cooking wafting from the open-plan kitchen when Lorimer opened the door. The place was strangely silent as if nobody had been there for hours. Had Maggie gone to her mum’s? He looked round for a note then spotted his wife’s handbag hooked onto the back of a chair. A sigh of relief made him retrace his steps out to the hall and begin to creep quietly upstairs.
She was lying in bed, curled onto her side, sleeping silently, a couple of pillows banked under her growing bump. It had been a rough night, he remembered now; Maggie getting up to go to the toilet several times, pacing the floor as the baby wriggled and kicked inside her, denying its mother any rest. She looked so young, he thought with a pang, dark curls framing her face, cheeks flushed pink against the pillow. They were both so young, so inexperienced in this business of becoming parents. Would they cope? he wondered, thinking of the Singh family with their fractious baby. Police hours could be brutal during a high profile case and he suddenly felt a pang of guilt that this lovely young wife of his might be left to take the brunt of caring for their child.
It was late, Lorimer thought, glancing at his watch, and she might have been sleeping here for hours. The least he could do was to go downstairs and prepare some supper for them both.
Perhaps it was the memory of the exotic scents in that other kitchen, but Lorimer was suddenly taken with a notion for a curry. It had been ages since they’d had any Asian food, Maggie’s heartburn making it impossible for her to eat spicy meals. With a sigh he opened the fridge and examined its contents. He could rustle up a mushroom omelette when she awoke, put some salad on the side, but the unsatisfying thought of such bland fare made him close the door again with a disgruntled humph. It wouldn’t take long to drive to the nearest takeaway for a chicken mushroom breast, his favourite choice. No sooner was the thought in the young policeman’s head than he had picked up the car keys and was heading out of the door once again.
Asian Fusion was open seven evenings a week, a fact that had endeared the place to the Lorimers once they’d moved to their home on the south side of the city.
‘Good evening, my friend.’ Mr Gill, the proprietor, flashed a toothy smile at Lorimer as he entered the shop.
‘Hi, Sardar, how’s it going?’ Lorimer nodded to the grinning man who was standing behind the counter.
They had struck up a companionable friendship over the past few months and Lorimer had learned that Sardar Gill, a second-generation Pakistani whose parents had come over from Lahore, shared the Glaswegian passion for football. He and Lorimer had enjoyed many a post-match discussion on a Saturday evening after a Kelvin FC game when their favoured team had been beaten, Sardar’s strong Glasgow accent expressing his disgust at the run of play.
‘Ah, no’ so busy the night. Too warm for curries maybe?’
‘Not for me,’ Lorimer declared. ‘Chicken mushroom breast and a portion of fried rice, please.’
‘Just the one?’
‘Aye, my wife is expecting our first baby.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Not partial to curries right now, I’m afraid. But I’ve been getting withdrawal symptoms.’
Sardar Gill chuckled. ‘Thought I hadn’t seen you for a while.’
He took the order and disappeared through a narrow door that led to a kitchen, leaving the fragrant scent of spiced onions in his wake.
There was a television set at an angle on the wall for customers waiting for their food orders and Lorimer glanced up, interested to see a new feature at the foot of the screen: the slow unfolding stream of news from around the world as it was bounced off a distant satellite.
It seemed no time at all till Mr Gill was back, a neatly wrapped parcel tucked into a blue polythene bag.
‘Great thing, that,’ Lorimer said, pointing at the newsreel.
‘Ach, it tells you what you want to know, I suppose,’ the man agreed. ‘But it doesnae do the local news.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘Some terrible things going on in this city, so there are. The wife’s nephew…’ He drew a hand across his eyes. ‘Terrible, just terrible. Found in the river. Just a boy…’
‘Desi Singh?’ The words were out before Lorimer could stop himself.
Gill took a step back, the parcel still in his hands. ‘How do you know…? Oh, of course, you’re a polis, aren’t you?’
He leaned forward, the bag clasped to his chest. ‘Well, maybe you can explain how a nice wee boy from a good family comes to a sad end like that?’
‘I shouldn’t really be talking about the case,’ Lorimer apologised. ‘My boss would have my guts for garters.’
‘See young Desi?’ Gill shook his head as though remembering. ‘He was an okay wee boy. No’ very many brains, know what I mean? But a harmless wee fella.’
‘Ran about with the wrong crowd, I hear,’ Lorimer said, trying not to show his sudden interest.
‘Aye, I blame that school he went to.’ Gill made a face. ‘Nae idea how tae keep control of thae kids. Wee Desi was beat up wan time too many, if ye want tae know the truth.’
He rested his elbows on the counter, placing the blue bag to one side. ‘Started tae run aboot with the wee hard men. Thought that would protect him, I suppose.’
‘Asian lads?’
Gill shook his head. ‘Naw, mair’s the pity.’ He edged closer to the tall policeman. ‘I heard tell he was runnin’ aboot wi’ wan o’ the McKerrell twins. Bad wee rascals, baith o’ them. These boys got away wi’ murder, so they did.’
Sardar Gill straightened up, his mouth open in a moment of alarm. ‘Oh, I didnae mean… shouldnae have said that,’ he muttered, glancing around the shop as though fearful of having been overheard, even though there were no other customers in the shop.
‘Why not?’ Lorimer picked up the bag from the counter. ‘Maybe it would help to talk to anyone who knew Desi well. These McKerrells? I guess we’re talking about the same family that’s well known to Strathclyde Police?’
The man gave him a curt nod and turned away, his face showing signs of regret at having already said too much.
The curry was barely warm by the time he had put it on a plate but Lo
rimer hardly noticed, so absorbed was he by the recent conversation. Glasgow was a village, folk said, and the Asian community was a close-knit part of that village, so hardly a surprise that the proprietor of his local Asian takeaway should be related in some way to the dead boy. Word of this would be spreading throughout the south side of the city by now, he mused; but would news of Desi Singh’s death have travelled as far as the wider community that included the notorious gangland family?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The lurid images on the dead boy’s laptop had been at the forefront of PC Kennedy’s mind all morning. City boys! Calum Mhor had exclaimed in tones of disgust as Jamie had flicked through the images of sexual bondage.
‘BDSM,’ Crozier had declared, all the men’s eyes turning to her with a renewed interest. ‘Explains why Rory was tied up. He was restrained,’ she offered, looking at the big police sergeant who turned away, Kennedy noticed, his eyes to the ground as though unwilling to be hearing such things. ‘Bondage and discipline,’ she shrugged. ‘Two guys having some fun until something goes wrong.’
Jamie shuddered now as he thought about what might have happened to the victim. Someone had overpowered him, taken his life when he least expected it and then, as though he were so much rubbish, had tipped him into the water, removing the bonds first. That had been the thing that Crozier had stressed. Evidence had been disposed of.
‘Maybe they had dressed up, too,’ the DI had suggested, to Calum Mhor’s obvious discomfiture. ‘Would explain why he was found naked as the day he was born,’ the woman had added bluntly.
The thought that someone from his beloved island home could be responsible for these acts of sexual aggression made Jamie Kennedy’s blood run cold. And yet, here he was at the local garage, tasked with finding the whereabouts of a man he had always considered to be one of the town’s most amiable characters.
‘He’s no here. He’ll be at the Mishnish, more than likely.’ Jimmy Beag looked up at the young policeman from his prone position under the lorry. Wee Jimmy, or Jimmy Beag as he was known, made a face. Jock Maloney might have been part owner in the garage once upon a time but he had drunk away his share of the profits long ago and it was days since he had put in any time at all in the business.
‘Aye, well, I’ll see him there, then,’ Jamie grinned.
The policeman straightened his shoulders as he walked away from the garage. It was a fine day still and a stroll along the main street as far as the Mishnish Hotel would do no harm. He’d likely be stopped and quizzed by a few locals; no harm in that, the young man thought, especially if they came up with any titbits of information that they were reluctant to be seen sharing at the caravan on the pier. None of them would include hints about sadomasochism though, of that Kennedy was pretty certain.
It would be no surprise if Jock Maloney were to be found in the hotel bar. The man’s drinking had worsened over the years since his wife had upped and left him for an Italian waiter who’d been working at the Western Isles Hotel, the magnificent nineteenth-century, turreted building that dominated the view at one end of the town. Mrs Maloney had left the boys behind as well, Jamie remembered. Keith was away at the fishing now but Richard was still at home. Was he not meant to be going to college after the summer? Jamie wondered. Surely the boy had left school now? He shook his head. It seemed years since he’d been at Tobermory High School himself, a laddie with big dreams of his own about university and travel. Well, he’d been away right enough, even though Inverness was hardly the end of the world, and he’d made his mark by becoming a police officer, he thought proudly, nodding and smiling at a wee lassie whose wide-eyed gaze followed him as he passed. No doubt another holidaymaker thinking she’d actually seen the original PC Plum out of Balamory, he grinned. It wasn’t something Jamie minded; he was fond of bairns and sometimes bent down to talk to the wee ones who had stopped to stare at him. But not today. His pace quickened as he thought of what the old lady had told him. Jock hadn’t said a word about a quarrel with the dead lad. Why not? Was there something that he had he been hiding?
‘Aye, Jamie, in for a quick one?’ Rab the barman gave a smile as Jamie entered the bar of the Mishnish. He stood for a moment in the darkened interior, its contrast with the blinding light outside making him blink.
‘No thanks, I’m still on duty. Has Jock Maloney been in?’
‘No.’ Rab shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen him today, Jamie. Will I tell him to give you a call if he comes in?’
‘Aye, do that, will you? Thanks, Rab.’
Jamie wandered back out into the sunlight. There was no great hurry, but he would like to talk to Maloney if he could. Perhaps he was up at the house, he thought, glancing up at the steep hillside that overlooked all of the harbour.
Tobermory had been built as a fishing port and the colourful houses along the main street had seen centuries of comings and goings as the town grew and thrived, houses climbing further and further up the slopes above, the winding braes encompassing rows of terraces. Jamie’s own home in Rockfield looked out onto a grassy field and the roads that led to Salen and Dervaig. There were lots of incomers now, folk who were tired of city life and wanted to breathe clean, fresh air, their enthusiasm for their new home bringing a sense of renewed vigour to the place. There would always be the grumblers, moaning about the holiday cottages that lay empty during winter months, but on the whole the townsfolk were well integrated, accents from south of the border and elsewhere mingling happily with the local drawl.
Jamie’s thoughts had accompanied him along the Back Brae and past the Western Isles Hotel to a row of neat terraced houses that lay between woodland and the nearby golf course. He slowed as he came to the Maloney house. There was just an empty space where Jock’s ancient pickup usually sat in the driveway but he walked up the moss-covered path to the front door anyway and knocked loudly.
There was no answer so he knocked again then bent down and opened the letter box. Only dust motes floated past his eyes as he scanned the hallway.
‘Anybody home?’ Jamie shouted.
There was no response. He tried the door handle but the place was locked up. Jamie frowned. This was Tobermory, where nobody locked their doors, even when they were out for a while. Odd, he thought. Why lock up?
A quick glance upwards showed that the bedroom windows were also shut fast.
‘He’s gone,’ Jamie whispered to himself, a sense of foreboding filling the police constable’s mind. What if…?
He shook his head, already thinking of the need to contact the MacBrayne ferry ports to check if Maloney had left the island. Perhaps he should have been more vigilant, acted on Jean Erskine’s words a lot sooner. It was time to speak to DI Crozier and share the old lady’s observations – Jamie Kennedy was already dreading what the SIO would say.
Jamie knelt down, hands searching beneath the pot plants and several old metal floats beside the door that were tied together with pale orange twine. His fingers closed on a small, hard object. Yes! he thought, eyes shining as he fitted the key in the lock. It took several attempts as though it had not been used for a long time but eventually the door swung open and Jamie stepped inside to the shade of the hallway.
‘Jock? Richard?’ he called, but even as his voice fell dully in the silence he sensed that there was nobody in the house.
Jamie walked through to the kitchen where the breakfast dishes were still piled in the sink. Had they intended to return, then? He went back to the hall then took the stairs, slowly, keeping as quiet as he could.
There were two bedrooms on either side of the house, one with a neatly made single bed (Richard’s, Jamie supposed) and the other with a duvet crumpled upon the larger bed. Drawers had been pulled out and the wardrobe door was lying open as though someone had made a hasty packing. He really should have a warrant to search the house, he realised, pulling back his hand as he reached out to open a bedside cabinet. He couldn’t have his fingerprints all over this place. That would mean big trouble.
Instead he went back downstairs and entered the lounge, a square-shaped room with one large window that looked down towards the bay. It was an ordinary enough room with an old-fashioned brown three-piece suite in uncut moquette that looked as if it belonged to an earlier generation and a large-screen television that dominated most of one corner. Photographs had been placed on the mantelpiece, Jamie noticed, as his eyes travelled around the room.
Then he stopped and stared. A long wooden cabinet lay open, its contents missing. It was a gun cabinet, Jamie knew, and wherever Jock Maloney and his son had gone, it looked like the firearm had gone with them.
‘You’ve got what?’ Stevie Crozier clapped one hand against her left ear as the car ascended the steep brae above a scattering of white-painted cottages.
‘I can’t hear you,’ she shouted, glaring out of the window as the big car passed a rocky embankment.
‘Lost the signal,’ she said in disgust, turning to the man at the wheel. ‘Kennedy,’ she continued, tossing the mobile onto her lap. ‘For a moment there I thought he said he had a suspect, but the line broke up, so maybe that wasn’t it at all.’
A few yards further on, past the entrance to Lettermore Forest, the road wound along by the coastline once more and Crozier’s mobile beeped back into life.
‘Yes? PC Kennedy?’
The woman’s face hardened as she listened to the police officer’s voice. It was typical of the lackadaisical attitude in these parts where everything moved at a snail’s pace. Now it looked as if they may have lost someone who could be regarded as an important part of this investigation.
‘She said they’d quarrelled?’
‘Aye, that’s right. Saw Maloney with the deceased after the dance, said they were having a heated argument,’ Jamie agreed.
‘And when exactly did you receive this information?’