by Gray, Alex
‘Archie?’ She looked at him sharply, wondering why he had not responded to Fiona’s impromptu toast.
Then, without looking at either girl, Gillespie downed the wine as though it were a glass of lemonade, set it down on the table with a thump and rose to his feet. In a moment, the chef had turned on his heels and disappeared through the doorway once again.
‘What was that all about?’ Maryka whispered behind her hand.
But Fiona merely shrugged and lifted her glass.
‘He never liked Rory. You know that,’ she said at last, then took a sip of her wine. ‘Called him a wee snob. Specially when Rory was showing off about the wine.’
She stared at Maryka as though remembering.
‘But you’d think he’d show a bit of respect for the dead,’ she muttered darkly, looking at the empty doorway.
There were only two parties left in the hotel and both would be gone by the end of the week. The knowledge made him want to grind his teeth but Hamish Forsyth had to continue to play the part of cheerful host, plying his few remaining guests with drinks whilst a gnawing at his guts reminded him of the problems that lay ahead. There were no bookings at all now that the final cancellations had come in. The newspapers, he told himself, pouring a large dram from the last bottle of twelve-year-old Deanston. They were to blame. Splashing pictures of the hotel over the front pages, the boy’s face smiling out from an adjacent photograph. And to think how helpful he’d been to that mild-mannered fellow in the tweed jacket! Turned out to be a bloody reporter!
Hamish downed the tumbler full of whisky in one gulp, unaware of the man and woman who were staring at the hotelier as they hurried past the entrance to the lounge.
‘Off for the day, are we?’ Hamish called out as the couple passed the bar.
‘Just picking up Janet’s cardigan,’ the man answered, not stopping, but taking his wife’s elbow and propelling her through the doorway. ‘We’ll see you later,’ he murmured, ducking his head to avoid the hotelier’s glance.
The other couple had already checked out and the lounge was empty now, the glare from the morning sun casting shadows across the empty tables. He should go into the kitchen, hurry the girls to begin cleaning up this room.
What was the point? Hamish asked himself, sitting down heavily on one of the bar stools, seeing the place for what it really was: the unmerciful sunlight revealing the stains on the ancient carpet, the dusty windows…
It was over, he thought suddenly. There would be a winding-up process, he supposed. Receivers, probably, seeing what they could salvage from the wreck of his business. He turned to look for his wife, but she too was nowhere to be seen.
That would be a bigger problem, he knew, as his hand reached across the bar to take hold of the whisky bottle; taking her away from this place where she had been haunted by the ghosts of their past.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
‘And that’s what happened?’ Solly looked at his friend, trying to catch his eye, but Lorimer was gazing past him towards Fishnish Bay and the hills of Morvern.
‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘Came back to the division and everything had changed. They’d charged both the McKerrell brothers with the Asian boy’s death. Each of them swore blind that they’d had nothing to do with the first one. That red-haired lad.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’ Lorimer asked.
‘Were they convicted? Of either of the crimes?’
‘Just the Singh boy’s death. Poor wee lad had got himself mixed up with some drug dealers. Got ripped off by a junkie and lost the McKerrell clan a shedload of money. Their way of solving that particular problem was to…’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t want to know the details, Solly.’
The psychologist winced, his imagination filling the blanks in Lorimer’s story. The policeman had talked about several things this morning as the two men sat outside Leiter Cottage: how Maggie’s sadness at being unable to bring a baby to full term had affected them both, the old wounds opened up by the death of this boy practically on their own doorstep. He had known this man for years now, guessing many things about his past and his life, but until now Lorimer had never spoken about the tragedy of losing that first baby.
‘And the boy you never identified? Were they tried for his murder?’
‘Ach, there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge them with that. Besides, they had a lawyer who wouldn’t countenance it being brought to trial.’
‘So, you never found out who he was?’
Lorimer shook his head. ‘No.’
There was a pause as both men looked at the view. From where they sat side by side on the wooden bench the entire scene appeared to be framed by the ancient oak trees and the row of silvery green willows that bordered the garden. Earlier, Solly had taken a walk beyond the extensive grounds, stopping to listen to the little burn trickling over the brown stones, its margins fringed by reeds and meadowsweet. The sound of chuckling water had raised his spirits, making him smile. Such elemental things, he had mused. The immutable forces within nature guaranteed to give us a different perspective upon life.
‘Do you still think these… who were they? The McKerrell brothers?’
Lorimer glanced up and nodded.
‘Did you think they knew who the boy was?’
Lorimer made a face. ‘By the time I got back after Maggie had lost the wee fellow it was in other hands. I wasn’t even given a chance to talk to them. Och, everything was so different back then, Solly,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There were no crime scene managers and we didn’t have such a big liaison with the fiscal as we have nowadays.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘We didn’t even have encrypted radios, for goodness sake! Anyone with a mind to do it could listen in to police calls.’
‘What about George Phillips? He was a decent sort, as I recall from the few times we met.’
‘Aye, he was,’ Lorimer replied shortly. ‘But you have to remember I was pretty much at the bottom of the food chain in those days. A lowly detective constable.’ He gave a rueful grin. ‘I did make a bit of a nuisance of myself, though, and poor old George put up with me. The case is still officially open.’ He smiled at Solly in a meaningful way.
‘And the McKerrells? Are they out now?’
Lorimer shook his head. ‘One of them is back inside. Assault to severe injury on his common-law wife. The other one was gunned down in Sighthill. Never found out who the gunman was. We always suspected it was the work of a rival gang.’
‘So you could still talk to one of them?’
Lorimer raised his eyebrows. ‘About a case from twenty years ago?’ He picked up the empty mugs at their feet but lingered on the bench as though reluctant to tear his eyes away from the sweep of water and the gently curving hills. ‘I suppose I could,’ he murmured.
Even as Lorimer spoke, Solly knew that the policeman was responding to some inner voice rather than the friend sitting quietly by his side. Would Lorimer travel back to Glasgow? Ask questions that had not been asked for all these years? And what of the lad from Newton Mearns? Could there be any possible link between Rory Dalgleish and the dreadful things that had happened in Glasgow twenty years ago? The tall man staring out to sea evidently thought that there was and Solly Brightman had learned over the years to trust the detective superintendent’s instinctive feelings for such things.
‘Nothing on the database,’ Stevie Crozier, said, tilting her chin defiantly. She had gone through the correct procedure, had double-checked everything and still there was no sign of a similar sort of murder anywhere on HOLMES. What the hell had he expected? A flurry of red-haired corpses hog-tied and chucked into the drink? She paused for a moment. What if she were wrong? What if there was a link between that twenty-year-old cold case in Glasgow and Rory Dalgleish’s murder? She’d come out of all this looking like a real fool, wouldn’t she? The DI tapped a pencil on her desk, wondering, then looked up impatiently as DS Langley entered the room.
‘Any word?’
The DS sho
ok his head. ‘No sign of them yet, ma’am, but the patrols are all out searching the peninsula.’
Crozier banged her fist on the desk. ‘How hard can it be to spot the man’s vehicle?’
‘There’s a lot of tree cover…’ Langley began but a withering look from his superior officer made him close his mouth again.
‘What we really need is the Eurocopter,’ she muttered. ‘There used to be two of them, but the one that crashed in Glasgow was never replaced.’
‘I’ve seen them being used on TV,’ Jamie Kennedy said, looking up from where he had been working through several witness statements. ‘It can track a fugitive by their body heat, can’t it?’
‘Well our chances of having aerial support for this case aren’t exactly high,’ Crozier said gloomily. ‘Hicks from the sticks like us aren’t usually given priority.’
‘Maybe if you asked Detective Superintendent Lorimer…?’
There was a sudden silence as the two men looked at Crozier, her face frozen in a tight mask of suppressed rage. For a few moments nobody spoke then a telephone ringing broke the tension. Jamie bent his head once more to his task as Langley answered the call.
Crozier sat still, hands clenched, fuming inwardly. Did the men think she was incapable of carrying out the necessary actions? But, she conceded, PC Kennedy was probably right. Lorimer would carry just the right sort of clout to get things moving. Perhaps it was time to admit she needed his help. Besides, there was a man with a shotgun who might very well be a dangerous killer running about the countryside – surely the detective superintendent would be able to make a case for the EC135 helicopter to be scrambled?
‘You okay, son?’
There was no answer from the shape beneath the grey blankets but Jock Maloney could see Richard’s head moving in what he took to be a nod.
They had driven all day and half of the night, down tiny farm roads, doubling back through forest tracks in an effort to cover their tracks. It was like being on patrol again, Maloney thought, recalling his younger days in Northern Ireland when he had been a soldier with the British army. He’d seen plenty in the few years he’d been garrisoned there, explosions that had killed military personnel as well as civilians; nothing like the bad old days of the sixties when the IRA had held the country in thrall, but bad enough for a raw recruit whose only desire had been to handle a gun.
His eyes shifted to the shotgun leaning on the chair by his side. It was a long time since he had taken aim and fired at a living human being but he would do it again if he had to.
They were safe enough here for now, he told himself, looking around the room. The bothy he had found was pretty remote and they had spent hours sealing the entrance to the forest trail and covering the roof with pine branches to conceal it from prying eyes. Apart from a few birdwatchers and wildlife photographers, the bothy was rarely used, or so the Forestry Commission online guide had informed him. He’d switched off his phone before leaving Lochaline, aware that any signal could bring the police hastening after them and now, sitting in the half darkness, Jock Maloney felt the twitchiness that came from being out of contact with the rest of the world.
What do we do next? Richard had asked when they had closed the door behind them, his eyes looking accusingly at his father. And Jock had looked away, unable to answer his son’s question. What was he to do? He’d fled Tobermory with Richard, terrified that the police would come for them.
The man looked down at the slumbering form of his younger son. Why had he got mixed up with that red-haired boy? If only he’d never set eyes on Rory Dalgleish… But all the if onlys in the world wouldn’t change the facts, would they?
Thank God wee Fiona had told him about the old woman! He’d had to get them away fast. And all because Jean had looked out of her window that night and seen him quarrelling with the boy. That particular bit of gossip was guaranteed to bring Jamie Kennedy and his lot straight to their door, wasn’t it? And somehow Maloney knew that Jean Erskine’s words would have the police scouring the countryside for them, even now. He drew a breath, silently cursing all old women and their spying eyes. Perhaps they were already near at hand, ready to pull him and Richard from their hiding place, take them away…
Jock fingered the gun. He wouldn’t let that happen. So much had been lost already, he wasn’t going to let them take Richard from him too.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘We’d have to locate them first,’ Lorimer explained as he stood beside the detective inspector’s Mercedes that was parked in the lay-by near Leiter Cottage. ‘Have the patrol ask at every cottage and farmhouse on the peninsula if they’ve seen his pickup.’
‘And if we do…?’ Crozier looked at him but he failed to see the expression in her eyes behind the large designer sunglasses.
‘I think that would merit the Eurocopter being flown in,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘Better at night, though, when he isn’t expecting anyone to come.’
‘And the thermal imaging camera would be able to follow him if he caught sight of us?’
Lorimer nodded. ‘I’ve used the ’copter before in night cases when a fugitive was holding someone hostage,’ he explained. ‘It’s a wonderful bit of kit. Can be scrambled in four minutes and keeps radio contact with the units on the ground.’
‘Even in a remote part of the country like Ardnamurchan?’ Crozier risked a doubtful smile.
‘Even there,’ Lorimer agreed. He looked up at the sky. It was one of those rare Hebridean days where the sun had burned off an early mist leaving a panoply of blue stretching from the hilltops; a pair of buzzards mewed faintly overhead, mere specks against the unseen thermals. A helicopter would easily be seen on a day like this, he thought. ‘There’s no way they’re going to sanction its use until we have a better idea of Maloney’s whereabouts, though.’
Crozier made a face. She’d already told him about the patrols from Oban spread out from Lochaline to Kilchoan, explaining that the network of single-track roads and remote trails on the Ardnamurchan peninsula made it slow work for the officers involved.
‘What can you tell me about the man?’ he asked. ‘I only know him from his work at the garage. Always struck me as a particularly pleasant man, I must admit. Bit of a blether, but seemed a decent type.’
‘Originally from Northern Ireland. Came to the island from Glasgow twenty years ago,’ Crozier told him. ‘Ex-army, works as a mechanic in the garage in Tobermory as you already know. Was married but the wife ran out on him some years back, leaving him to raise his two boys. Got a drink problem, but that’s not a secret apparently.’
‘What about his sons, they’re both still at home?’
Crozier shook her head. ‘The older one lives on the mainland, it’s just the younger one, Richard, who lives with his father.’
‘And the ferryman at Fishnish reckons they were both in Maloney’s pickup when he left the island?’ Lorimer nodded towards the dark outline of the forest across the bay; somewhere, hidden from their sight, the Fishnish ferry was accessed by a road that snaked through these trees.
‘Correct,’ Crozier said. ‘We’ve had officers around the older boy’s place but he hasn’t seen or heard of his father or brother in months. Or so he says,’ she added darkly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
‘And the mother?’
‘Lives in Edinburgh, Keith Maloney thinks. They’ve had no contact with her since she ran off with her Italian boyfriend. He’s a waiter in one of the big hotels there. We checked.’ She tilted her chin upwards as though to assure the detective superintendent that she had left nothing to chance.
‘So intelligence has it that he’s holed up somewhere in the wilds of Ardnamurchan.’
‘Aye, and I hope the midges are eating him alive,’ Crozier muttered, waving a hand across her face as a swarm of the tiny insects swooped towards them. The lay-by was close to a burn that trickled underneath the road, a haven for insects brought to new life by the unexpected warmth.
Lorimer risked a smile. DI
Crozier had moderated her appearance since coming to the island. Gone were the high-heeled shoes and dresses. Today she was wearing a pair of light camel-coloured slacks and sturdy flat loafers, a checked shirt rolled up past her elbows. She’d made time to make up her face and put on tiny silver earrings though, he noticed, a concession to her feminine side. And possibly some sort of hairspray or perfume that was beguiling these tiny biting insects?
‘Do we know if Maloney has a licence for the gun?’
‘No.’ She shook her head, swatting away the midges and turning sideways to avoid the small cloud that seemed to be attracted specially to her. ‘I mean, no we don’t know if he has one or not. That’s still being investigated.’
‘But he kept it under lock and key in a proper gun closet, that suggests it was legit.’
‘Or maybe he was simply not bothered who knew he had one,’ Crozier countered. ‘He was ex-army, remember. Might just have been careful not to let his boys near it. We’ll know soon enough. Point is,’ she sighed, waving a finger at the detective superintendent, ‘he’s got it with him and we suspect him of being a killer.’
She took off her sunglasses and looked up at Lorimer. ‘See, what I’m thinking is: Maloney killed Rory Dalgleish, heard that he’d been spotted quarrelling with the boy beforehand and so tried to bump off the old woman before she could tell the police what she’d seen.’
‘Any reason why a man who had lived quietly in Tobermory for twenty years…’ He paused, gazing into space for a moment. ‘Peaceably with his neighbours, by all accounts, no hint of any trouble with the police… why would someone like that suddenly kill a young chap from a nice part of Glasgow, someone he could scarcely have known? And Jean Erskine? It takes some sort of nerve to murder a person in cold blood,’ he said, looking Crozier in the eye.
She glared back then dropped her gaze, shaking her head slowly.