by Gray, Alex
‘It’s him. Got to be. Why else has he gone and done a runner?’
Lorimer watched as the Mercedes turned slowly back towards the main road. He lifted a hand in a perfunctory wave but the car sped past, its driver not even looking his way.
Could she be right? he thought. Could it be Jock Maloney who had committed these terrible crimes? The Jock Maloney he remembered didn’t seem to fit the frame somehow. Appearance and reality had lulled better persons than William Lorimer into thinking a man was incapable of murder. And, a little voice murmured in his ear, Maloney had come to Mull twenty years ago; perhaps just at the very time Lorimer had been investigating another death back in Glasgow. Yet there had to be a reason, another, more persistent voice insisted. Nobody simply killed at random unless some serious mental illness took over their behaviour. So, what reason had Jock Maloney for killing the lad from Newton Mearns? And why had he become a fugitive from the law?
He remembered then what Solly had said when they had discussed the Irishman’s flight from the island. Perhaps he’s not running away from anything, the psychologist had remarked quietly. Maybe he’s running to something?
‘I want to go home,’ Richard mumbled.
They were sitting in the hut, the door firmly closed against the sunlight outside, the boy sitting on the edge of his bunk, head dropped into his hands.
‘You want to give yourself up to the polis?’ His father gave a short laugh. ‘Know what’ll happen if they find you? Off to the nick and then on remand somewhere like Barlinnie or Peterhead.’ He leaned over his son, one hand on the back of his neck. ‘And you know what they do to pretty boys like you inside, don’t you?’
Richard looked up, his eyes large with fear. ‘But why would the police want to put me in prison?’
Jock let go of his son’s collar and took a step backwards. ‘You know fine,’ he said, looking into the boy’s grey eyes. He gazed hard at his son as though searching his face for some hidden thing. But Richard Maloney continued to stare his father out, unblinking, and so it was Jock who was forced to look away, sudden doubts clouding his mind.
‘You tryin’ to tell me you had nothing to do with that boy?’ Maloney muttered, looking at the dusty floorboards beneath his feet.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I want the truth, Richard, just the truth!’ Maloney snapped, grasping his son’s shoulders with both hands and shaking him till he fell back against the wall behind the bed.
‘No you don’t!’ the boy yelled. ‘You don’t want that at all. You just want me to be different from how I am, don’t you?’ He cringed away as if expecting his father to rain blows down upon his head but Jock Maloney staggered to his feet and strode towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ The boy pushed himself into a sitting position. ‘Dad? Don’t leave me here…’ he whined.
‘Just getting something from the car,’ Maloney muttered. ‘Stay here and don’t make any noise, okay? They’re out there somewhere and we need to lie low until I can be sure they’ve searched and given up. Okay?’
He looked at the pale face of his younger son as the boy nodded, a wave of compassion washing over him as he reached for the door handle; it wasn’t Richard’s fault, was it? These things just happened and there was nothing that Jock Maloney could do to change them now except hide them both away for as long as he possibly could.
If George Phillips was surprised to hear his former colleague’s voice on the telephone then he did not show it.
‘Lorimer! How are you? Still giving the Glasgow criminals sleepless nights I hope?’
‘George. Hello. Actually I’m on holiday up in Mull. Or supposed to be,’ he added with a hollow laugh.
‘Oh, aye? I read about that lad’s death in the Gazette. Didn’t see your name on that one, though,’ he added shrewdly. There was a pause and then former Detective Superintendent George Phillips asked, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Well, I want to pick your brains, George. Can you cast your mind back twenty years to that missing person we pulled out of the Clyde?’
‘Good lord! That was a while back. Nineteen ninety-five, eh? Lot of changes since those days.’
‘We never made an identification,’ Lorimer continued. ‘Or connected the young man’s death to Desi Singh’s.’
There was another silence as Phillips digested Lorimer’s words.
‘You went off on compassionate leave,’ he said slowly. Then Lorimer heard him sigh. ‘Aye, that was a hard time for you and Maggie. Always thought you two had been given a raw deal by Mother Nature. How is she, by the way? Maggie, I mean.’
‘She’s well, thanks. A bit upset that I had to find a body down on the shore, of course.’
‘Ah, that’s how you’re involved.’
‘Initially,’ Lorimer replied. ‘The SIO has asked me to help out in other ways, though.’
‘And do they include raking over a cold case?’
It was Lorimer’s turn to pause now before answering. ‘Not really,’ he confessed, ‘but there are points of similarity. Both boys happened to be red-haired, a possible coincidence, but what’s more startling is the way they were both bound up then released from their bonds post-mortem before being thrown into the water. Crozier reckons from the data on the more recent victim’s laptop that it was a case of BDSM gone wrong.’
‘Strangled first?’
‘Exactly. Both boys approximately the same age.’
‘And your SIO hasn’t made any links on the database?’
‘No. However there is something I wanted to find out. Did a chap called Maloney ever come under our radar at that time? John Maloney, calls himself Jock though he’s originally from Northern Ireland.’
‘Don’t recall that name at all, Lorimer.’
The detective superintendent gave a sigh – his old boss’s memory for names and faces was legendary.
‘Just a long shot. Thought I would see if there was any link. Oh, well.’
‘No, sorry. Don’t suppose we’ll ever find out who that poor lad was. Sometimes it’s better to let these old cases go, Lorimer,’ his old boss told him gently. ‘Concentrate on the here and now.’
‘Lachie? Can you give me a lift back to Tob?’
Fiona stood at the edge of the kitchen garden, watching as the handyman-gardener raised his head.
‘I’ll be off in about half an hour. That do you?’
‘Aye, thanks. I’m staying at Eilidh’s for now,’ Fiona told him. ‘Can you just drop me off at hers on your way?’
‘Aye.’ The word was dropped carelessly as the man turned back to his work, apparently weeding between rows of vegetables. The hot summer had made most of them shoot far too early, Fiona noticed. Lachie hadn’t been vigilant enough to prevent that happening. Och well, she thought as she gave the garden a last backward glance, he’s always at the beck and call of Mr Forsyth for all these wee inside jobs. How can Lachie be expected to carry on two jobs at once?
It was fair handy having the older man to give her lifts back and forth. Lachie spent most nights at his sister’s place in Tobermory, when he wasn’t away on one of his fishing trips, and Fiona had taken to travelling with him more and more since the death of her great-aunt. Okay, she could have taken more time off, but being back in Tobermory under the scrutiny of everyone’s sympathetic smiles had made the girl decide to return to her work at the hotel. And it was peaceful down here at Kilbeg, especially now that the hotel was so quiet.
It was funny, she thought, glancing back at the gardener; Lachie had never said how sorry he was about Aunty Jean. Morose old bugger, she told herself as she walked back inside the hotel. Hasn’t got much to say to anyone at the best of times. Still, he’d never refused any of them lifts in his old van, had he? She couldn’t fault him on that.
The gardener bent once more to his work, a hand fork easing out the intruders to his rows of beans and cabbages, mostly buttercups whose runners had spread all across the rows, their bright yellow flowers blo
wing in a breeze that came straight off the sea. Beside him sat a large plastic trug, almost full of dead and dying weeds. It was painstaking labour but the man seemed not to notice, steadily clearing more and more of the dusty earth, his eyes shielded by the brim of the old hat he wore.
It was not until a shadow fell across the ground that Lachlan Turner looked up.
Hamish Forsyth stood looking down on him, hands clasped. Lachie rose slowly, noticing the way his employer was fidgeting, his fingers moving round and around. Something was wrong, he decided.
‘A word, Lachie,’ Forsyth said, moving away and indicating that the gardener should follow him to the side of the house where there was a patch of shade.
‘Won’t be needing you after this week, old boy. Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. But I’ve decided it’s time to call it a day here.’
Lachie nodded. The news hadn’t been totally unexpected but he wondered why the man was avoiding his eye. Embarrassed at having to fire one of his staff? Worried that Lachie might make a fuss?
‘What do we owe you?’ Forsyth continued.
Lachie shrugged. ‘Just this week’s wage, Mr Forsyth. And a nice reference, maybe?’
‘Of course, of course. See to that right away.’ Forsyth looked over Lachie’s shoulder at the wreck of the garden. ‘Bit much for one man to tackle, I suppose,’ he murmured. ‘Doubt if anyone will want to take that lot on this season. Still,’ he turned to the gardener and clapped his shoulder, ‘may as well do what you can till the end of the week, eh? Might get a buyer for it if the place is tidier.’
Hamish Forsyth turned and walked back around the corner to the entrance of the country house hotel, leaving Lachie to stare at the garden.
Tidier, was that what he wanted? There had not been one word of thanks, Lachie realised. No sorry to see you go, no matter how insincere such a platitude might have sounded.
He looked down at his hands, lined and marked with dirt. What had he been doing with these hands? Making this huge bit of land a wee bit neater for a man who’d drunk away all the profits of his business? The time spent creating a design for these gardens had been completely wasted on a man like this. The gardener clenched his fists then looked at the tub full of weeds. Aye, he’d give him tidier, he thought.
Taking hold of the two handles, Lachie tipped the weeds back onto the soil then, lifting up the rake that lay on the path beside him, he carefully swept the dead weeds back along the rows, making sure they were spread out as evenly as possible. He stood back at last, a faint smile of satisfaction on his face. The rows were filled up with dead foliage now, but looked… tidy. The smile spread to a grin but it did not reach his eyes. Had there been anyone there to notice, they might have remarked on the expression of misery behind the hooded eyes.
End of the week, Forsyth had said. Aye, well, he’d collect his wages and the written reference and push off back to Tobermory. He spat on the path, aiming right at a slug that had crawled out of the pile of weeds. The slug seemed to hesitate, the gob of saliva confusing it. Then, with one swipe of the rake, the gardener mashed the slug against the hard-beaten earth, his face a mask of sudden fury.
‘Did he say anything about paying us off?’ Fiona wanted to know. She was sitting in the front seat of Lachie’s van as they headed up past the forestry cottages, the road climbing ever upwards from the still waters surrounding the ruins of Aros Castle. Lachlan Turner had been in one of his moods, Fiona had noticed, and the girl had asked him right out what he was mad about this time. His curt response had been to tell her of the meeting with Hamish Forsyth.
The man shook his head.
‘Won’t be long till they get round to sacking us though,’ Fiona remarked gloomily. ‘How can they afford to keep any of us on once all the guests have left? Archie included.’
Lachie did not reply. ‘I wonder what Maryka will do,’ she thought aloud. ‘She told me she was on a summer contract.’
‘Folks like them,’ Lachie snorted. ‘They make and break anything they like.’
‘Rory was on a summer contract too,’ she nodded, looking idly out of the window at the fields where Highland ponies grazed, their tails swishing to keep off the flies. ‘Wonder if the Forsyths paid his parents whatever he was owed.’
Lachie looked at the girl by his side, taking his eyes off the road for just an instant.
‘Hey! Watch out!’
Fiona grabbed at the handle of the door as the van swerved, a sheep and its half-grown lamb bounding out of the way.
She opened her mouth to say something, to protest at the gardener’s sudden carelessness. But something in the man’s glare as he accelerated around the corner stopped her. Lachie’s sudden anger made the girl shrink back in the passenger seat. It must be hard being paid off at his age, she decided, noticing the red flush that had crept over the man’s unshaven face. Well, she thought, at least he wasn’t going home to a wife and kids to break the news. Lachie Turner had never been married, something that didn’t surprise the young girl. Who’d want a surly old git like him? She sneaked a glance at the man again, silently appraising him. He wasn’t really that old, maybe ages with Donald Taig, her father. That scowling expression made him look like an old man, though. Mid-forties, maybe? Like Archie, the chef, she thought suddenly. Another man who never seemed in need of a woman by his side. Both of them past it, she decided, well past it for any notions of romance.
The remainder of the journey continued in silence, Fiona staring out of the window as the familiar landscape passed them by; the van protesting as they climbed the steep hills past Ardnacross to the Guline Dubh, Lachie noisily changing gear. Then they were heading down the two-lane road towards Tobermory.
Fiona Taig sighed. It was all very nice at Manor Gardens and Eilidh’s folks were more than welcoming, but the time would no doubt come when she had to take steps to visit the flat above the bank that was to become her own home. It had never been a secret that Jean Erskine was leaving the property to her great-niece.
You’ll have it when I’m gone, she used to say with a twinkle in her eyes. It’s been your home a whiley now anyway. But, she wondered, with the ghosts and memories that place now contained would it ever be a place that she could live in again?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Calum Mhor strolled across the grass verge and opened the big gate. He’d seen Lorimer’s silver Lexus parked on the driveway and, on a sudden impulse, had decided to stop off and talk to the detective superintendent. The fact of it being eleven in the morning when some folk broke off for coffee and scones was a secondary factor, Calum tried to assure himself.
The front door was open and from somewhere inside he could hear the gentle refrain of classical music coming from a radio. It was a melody he knew but could not put a name to; one of those popular tunes that had been used as the theme for one of his wife’s favourite television programmes. But better than the music wafting out was the smell of something freshly baked from the oven.
‘Hello? Anyone at home?’ he boomed, knocking the door as he stepped onto the doormat.
‘Oh, hello, Sergeant.’ Maggie appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. ‘I was just putting some scones on the rack to cool. Don’t suppose you’d like a cuppa?’ She smiled mischievously as though discerning his intentions.
‘Well, now, that would be very nice, very nice indeed.’ Calum paused. ‘Is the man himself at home? I saw the car…’ He turned and jerked his head towards the Lexus.
‘He’s been down at the shore,’ Maggie said. ‘Back any minute. Just come through, won’t you? Tea or coffee?’ She turned back into the kitchen.
‘Oh, a mug of coffee will be grand,’ Calum said. ‘Two sugars and milk, thanks.’
The big police sergeant sat down, relishing this break from his routine. He had spent most of the morning going over witness statements with several of the townsfolk from Tobermory, endless cups of tea proffered by the well-intended householders. Nobody, it seemed, had any clue
why Jock Maloney had fled nor, for that matter, why Richard should have gone with him. Only that poor lassie, Fiona Taig, had given any hint about the boy’s hasty departure with his father.
Wasn’t Richard a pal of Rory Dalgleish? she’d asked innocently. They hung about together. She’d shrugged. He’d written that up in his latest report for DI Crozier but something was gnawing at the back of the police sergeant’s mind, something he preferred to discuss with the tall man from Glasgow. And, seeing the big silver car sitting out beside the cottage, Calum had decided that a visit was in order.
‘Calum. How are you?’ Lorimer stepped into the room and Calum stood up, hand out to offer a firm handshake. ‘I was down at the shore. Having a look for seabirds.’ He gave a crooked smile, tapping the binoculars around his neck.
‘Anything interesting?’
‘No, just the usual. Oystercatchers and a few hooded crows. Some black-headed gulls.’
‘No bodies, then?’ Calum gave a tired smile.
Lorimer shook his head. ‘Finding one is enough,’ he replied. ‘How’s the search going?’ He sat down opposite the policeman.
‘No sign of them yet,’ Calum answered. ‘But we’ve got a map of the region with all the old bothies marked out. That’s where we’ll be looking next.’
‘Once they’re located we can have the Eurocopter scrambled.’
‘Aye, just so. DI Crozier mentioned that.’ Calum nodded then stood up, a mark of old-fashioned politeness, as Maggie entered the lounge bearing a laden tray.
‘I made coffee for us all.’ Maggie set down a tray with three steaming mugs and a plate of newly buttered scones, a pot of home-made jam by their side.
‘Oh, my, that’s a treat right enough, Mrs Lorimer,’ the sergeant said, taking hold of a mug with one hand and reaching for a scone. ‘Freshly made scones; better with just the butter, I always think,’ he murmured, sitting back down. He sank his teeth into the scone, eyes shut as though to savour the initial mouthful, as Maggie exchanged an amused smile with her husband. The policeman’s predilection for cakes was well known and it was not the first time in all their trips to Leiter that he had dropped in for a mid-morning snack.