Pitch Black

by Alex Gray

  ‘Tell me everything you can,’ Marion Peters urged. ‘Anything that can make your case plausible will help to sway the judge.’

  Janis Faulkner thought for a moment. ‘Ask them about the bruises,’ she said, slowly, aware of having been stared at by the two female officers outside. ‘They wanted to know about them when I arrived. There was this form – all these questions – and I didn’t let on. Too shocked, I suppose …’ She ducked her head, hiding her expression under that swathe of corn-blonde hair.

  Listening to the lilting accent, Marion wanted to believe her. There was something quite beguiling about her client’s voice, she was not a Glaswegian by birth, maybe from Inverness, or even farther north. Wherever she had originated, her accent was pleasing to the ear.

  ‘Tell me about the bruises, Janis.’ Marion leaned forward across the desk, her tone confiding, woman-to-woman.

  A huge sigh escaped the younger woman and she sat up again, tossing back that mane of hair with one slender hand. ‘He hit me. All the time. For anything.’ She shrugged. ‘I just couldn’t take it any more and that day I decided to go away.’ A faraway look came into Janis Faulkner’s eyes then as she added, ‘How was I to know that Nicko would be …’ She left the word murdered hanging in the air.

  Their eyes met and for an instant Marion had the feeling that there was something being communicated between them that she could not put into words. Was it a plea for understanding? No, it was a lot more than that. There but for the grace of God, the woman seemed to be telling her: it could have been you, a woman, a victim of male brutality. And had she ended it all by sticking a kitchen knife into her husband?

  Marion Peters, happily married wife and mother, put out a hand and touched her client’s sleeve. ‘How long?’ she asked.

  Janis looked away again, her lips twisted as if she were trying to stop the tears from spilling over. ‘Ever since we were married. I never knew he could be like that, thought it was my own fault most of the time. Nicko made me feel bad, stupid, worthless …’ The tears had started for real now and Marion fished in her pocket for a Kleenex tissue and passed it over.

  ‘Especially when I … lost the babies.’ Janis’s voice had dropped to a husky whisper and she was shaking her head as if further words were simply not possible.

  Marion Peters paused. Was it true? She could certainly check out the woman’s physical condition from the prison’s admission records and past medical history might well show a series of miscarriages brought on by so-called ‘accidents’. Was this woman really more sinned against than sinning? If that was really the case, a jury might be prepared to show some sympathy.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘He’s on holiday, I’m afraid. Can I ask who’s calling?’

  ‘This is Strathclyde Police. We were hoping to speak to Dr Brightman.’

  There was a short pause and a rustle of papers. ‘I think DCI Lorimer has his home number,’ the secretary’s voice came back, crisply. ‘We are not at liberty to give out details about our staff, you know.’

  WPC Annie Irvine made a face at the handset as she hung up. Silly of her, she knew, but Lorimer had asked her to contact Solly Brightman asap and she had rung the university before thinking. Irvine dialled again. This time a man’s voice answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  Annie Irvine felt a shiver up her spine. That dark velvety voice of his always had this effect on the policewoman. She instantly visualised his black beard and huge brown eyes, fringed with those thick lashes. That Rosie Fergusson was one lucky lady, she thought, wistfully. Maybe if Annie had the petite blonde pathologist’s face and figure she might have attracted the man on the other end of this line, she told herself.

  ‘Strathclyde Police here, WPC Irvine calling. Is that Doctor Brightman?’ Annie added quite unnecessarily, but she was enjoying this call too much to let it end.

  ‘Yes,’ the voice returned, the vaguest hint of a question lingering in its assent.

  Annie sighed inwardly. ‘DCI Lorimer would like to speak to you, sir. May I put him through?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Dr Brightman replied, his tone simply courteous now, no overtone of curiosity provoking the policewoman’s imagination.

  ‘All right, I’ll connect you,’ Annie said, no longer trying to conceal her sigh.

  ‘Lorimer.’

  ‘Ah, it’s you.’

  ‘Solly, are you busy?’ There was a silence at the other end of the line and Lorimer wondered just how long it might take the psychologist to decide whether he was or was not otherwise engaged. In normal conversation with him, the DCI was used to these lengthy pauses. Sometimes they aggravated him, but now, when he was anxious to have his friend’s full attention, he was prepared to be patient.

  ‘No, not really, that is—’

  ‘Good,’ Lorimer replied briskly before Solly could think up an excuse. ‘Then you won’t mind coming down to see if you can lend your weight on this one, will you?’

  ‘Ah, it’s the football murders.’

  ‘That’s right. I suppose Rosie filled you in on what’s been going on?’ Not waiting for an answer, Lorimer plunged on, ‘We want you to come up with a profile for us. See what manner of nutter – sorry, I mean psychologically challenged person – we have out there.’

  In the silence that followed, Lorimer could almost see the grin above that bushy beard. Solly would be shaking his head at Lorimer’s political incorrectness. Never mind, it would be good to have him on board again. ‘Can you make it down here this afternoon? Say about two o’clock?’

  Lorimer put the phone down, staring thoughtfully at it for a bit. Dr Solomon Brightman had come into his life some years back when he’d been Senior Investigating Officer in a murky case involving the deaths of three young women. His expertise had been helpful then and the University of Glasgow’s psychology senior lecturer had proved useful several times since. And now the Detective Superintendent had given his permission to use Solly once again. Lorimer drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. This Faulkner case looked cut and dried in all but one respect. And it was that element that Solly would inevitably bring up. Were the three murders linked? Had the same hand that had pulled the trigger on two occasions also wielded a kitchen knife? Okay, the MO wasn’t the same, Lorimer argued with himself, imagining Solly’s objections and trying to counter them first. But even if a different weapon had been used first time around, the locus was similar: Nicko Faulkner and Norman Cartwright had both been killed at their own homes. Admittedly the referee’s shooting had taken place outside his front door but, hey, that didn’t mean all that much, did it?

  The Detective Chief Inspector gave himself a mental shake. What was he trying to do? Prove to himself or to everyone else that Janis Faulkner was no killer? And for what? To show his superintendent that he’d been too hasty in his judgement? No. It was more than that, if he was to be totally honest with himself. He really and truly did not want to see that woman go down for a lengthy sentence.

  And it was more to do with the way she had looked at him that day on Mull, a look that had gone straight to his heart.

  Dr Solomon Brightman sat quietly, hands folded, his dark brown eyes taking in the face before him. Lorimer was in persuasive mode today, and the psychologist wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Take a look at the whole picture, Solly. Here’s a Scottish First Division club with a glowing history, no sectarian issues, just a good old-fashioned family club. Now all of a sudden there are three men dead: two of their newest signings and a well-known referee. Now, call me a simple soul, but that can’t just be coincidence, can it?’

  Solly smiled and looked away. There was so much earnestness in the DCI’s tone. It would be a pity to burst his hopeful bubble. Still, Lorimer was used to having his pet theories questioned, Solly thought. And maybe that was really what he wanted, after all – a fresh perspective in a case where he might have lost a sense of objectivity.

  ‘The modus operandi—’ he began.

  ‘Right. I knew you’d
ask about that. Frankly I can’t see why a gunman can’t also be a knife-man. There are plenty of both in this city,’ Lorimer grumbled.

  ‘The MO,’ Solly continued, unabashed by Lorimer’s interruption, ‘is quite different. On the one hand you have a crime committed within the victim’s own home—’

  ‘A rented place that Kelvin had sorted out for them until they’d bought somewhere permanent,’ Lorimer interjected once more.

  ‘And on the other there are two killings that look as if the victims have been stalked. One happened at night in the street after the victim had been in a nightclub; the other at the victim’s own doorstep. Each of these strikes me as calculated. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Maybe someone calculated when Nicko Faulkner would be at home, too,’ Lorimer argued.

  ‘But it has all the hallmarks of a crime of passion,’ Solly reasoned. ‘The kitchen knife came from their own set of knives, the injuries suggest a suddenness that is concomitant with this scenario and we now know that the widow was an abused woman. So you have it all, really: means, method and opportunity, not to say motive.’ Solly sat back and folded his arms.

  ‘Well, let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re wrong. Jason White and Nicko Faulkner had a lot in common. They’d both been new signings, they’d come up from clubs south of the border and they were expected to make a difference to Kelvin’s prospects.’

  ‘And the referee? Where does he fit into this picture? Anyone who had a grudge against the club would have welcomed Mr Cartwright’s decisions, surely?’

  Lorimer bit his lip. Solly was right. And he’d asked himself that very question over and over again. ‘What if …’ he tailed off, reluctant to voice a theory that had been gnawing away at him ever since the discovery of Jason White’s body. ‘What if we have someone who has no axe to grind with the club itself? What if this is a class-A lunatic? Someone who has killed these people in a fit of genuine madness.’

  ‘You mean a multiple killer who has experienced some sort of trigger that sets him off?’

  ‘Well, perhaps...’

  ‘There doesn’t appear to be anything to link these deaths at all, does there?’ Solly began, his gaze wandering out to the parts of the city he could see from Lorimer’s window. ‘Still, it might be interesting to look at the geography of it all,’ he murmured to himself.

  ‘I can give you a map of the murders right now.’ Lorimer handed over a sheet of paper with a photocopied area of the city of Glasgow on which circles had been drawn in red ink. The DCI came round the desk and leaned over the map as Solly took it from him.

  ‘There’s where the Faulkners were living, there’s Norman Cartwright’s house and that’s the street where White was gunned down. All within ten minutes’ drive of Kelvin Park.’ He pointed at a green dot on the map.

  ‘How would somebody know where to find this referee?’ Solly asked.

  ‘Telephone book. Or by asking one of the club officials.’

  ‘And did anybody do that? Ask them, I mean.’ Solly turned up his face to see Lorimer frowning.

  ‘No, we thought of that and no one can recall anybody asking where Norman Cartwright lived. Anyway, they’re careful about giving out that sort of information.’

  ‘So, we might want to begin looking at the personnel within the football club itself,’ Solly mused. ‘At those people who did have access to the victim’s home address, perhaps.’

  ‘Look for someone who wanted rid of two footballers and a referee?’

  The psychologist gave a sigh. ‘No, Lorimer, for someone who wanted rid of a referee and one football player, who had been making headlines for something other than his skills with a ball.’

  ‘But you will accept that there is a possibility that all three are linked?’

  Solly smiled wryly. ‘When did you ever know me to have anything other than an open mind, my friend?’

  ‘There’s no direct correlation between them,’ Rosie said, waving the ballistics report for Solly to see. ‘Cartwright was killed with a shotgun, White was killed with a pistol,’ she continued. ‘Can’t determine the exact type of weapon from the injury itself but I reckon it’ll have been something like the MSP.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s one of these silent pistols. Its Russian nickname is groza, it means thunderstorm.’

  ‘And can you say that’s what caused this death?’ Solly shook his head in astonishment.

  ‘We can’t,’ Rosie replied. ‘This is just me ravelling a thread about what might have been used. Won’t bore you with the science, but actually it’s the injury itself that shows it wasn’t a rifle.’ Rosie turned her head away to conceal a smile. Her fiancé was squeamish about the finer points of her work. Rosie reckoned that was a true and certain mark of his love for her; to hitch yourself to a forensic pathologist for life was no mean feat when you had a stomach as weak as Solly’s. Suddenly a memory of the evening they’d met came back to her. She’d been in her white coveralls, examining a woman’s blood-soaked corpse and Solly had almost fainted at the sight. He hadn’t been the manly knight-on-a-white-charger sort, Rosie thought to herself, but there had been something about him that had warranted a second look. She smiled for a moment, grateful that her day job hadn’t driven him away.

  ‘Anyway, whatever type of pistol was used could well be an assassination weapon and Ballistics will love to have a look if Lorimer ever gets his hands on it.’

  She watched as Solly merely nodded in reply. The report was fairly comprehensive and if ever they were to catch the perpetrator, the investigating team would want to see just where he’d obtained a firearm like that. Trouble was, her ballistics man had told her, the market was full of stuff the average career criminal could pick up in Pakistan or Eastern Europe. But the MSP was a bit specialised. If that had been his weapon of choice. Rosie looked again at the facts surrounding each of the shootings. Did a different weapon necessarily mean that a different finger had pulled the trigger? Or was Solly’s involvement justified? For a moment she looked at him, head bent over a paper of his own, and she longed to run her hands through his dark curls. Later, she thought, later. And with a little smile of satisfaction, Rosie Fergusson sat back and continued her own evening’s homework, wondering about these victims and her meticulous examinations of their remains.

  ‘So, you might have three different killers on the loose?’ Maggie said slowly, her fingers caressing Chancer’s golden fur as he lay curled on her lap, half-asleep.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Lorimer replied. ‘Either it’s one man with a strange sort of vendetta against the club or, if Solly is correct, the same man plus Janis Faulkner.’

  ‘You don’t think she killed her husband, though, do you?’ Maggie asked, her eyes troubled.

  Lorimer heaved a sigh and shook his head. ‘Don’t quite know what to believe right now. If there was some sort of logical pattern to it then I’d say no. But she’s well in the frame for it now it appears she has a motive as well. Battered wife,’ he added, glancing up to see what Maggie would make of it.

  ‘But why would she have to kill him? Why not simply walk out?’ Maggie bit her lip, suddenly wishing she hadn’t spoken those words. She’d walked out, hadn’t she? Well, sort of – those months away on that exchange programme in America had been a time of separation, a time to sort themselves out.

  ‘Hah! You should see the number of women who ask themselves that very question. Cornton Vale’s full of them. Think they’re somehow in the wrong, stay because of the kids, oh, all sorts of reasons but usually it’s because they’re in thrall to some bloke with a power complex.’

  ‘The Faulkners didn’t have kids, did they?’

  ‘No, but that’s not because she didn’t want any. Her lawyer tells us that Janis had several miscarriages following his brutality.’

  ‘I still can’t understand it. Why on earth would you stay with a horror like that?’

  ‘Hm.’ Lorimer sifted through a pile of papers until he came
to a photocopy of a newspaper cutting. ‘Here. Take a look.’

  Maggie studied the picture of the man and woman. They were laughing and having fun on some exotic beach somewhere. Janis Faulkner looked like something out of a fashion magazine, her tiny tanga showing off a gorgeous body, and as for that mane of glossy hair, well, there was nothing to show that the woman was unhappy with the man in the photograph or ill-treated by him.

  ‘You think she’s making it all up?’

  Lorimer shook his head. ‘No. There were bruises all over her body when they brought her in. Marion Peters, her lawyer, has asked for them to be photographed as evidence.’

  ‘But that might just as easily go against her, surely?’

  ‘That’s a risk her defence counsel is going to have to take. If they decide that all three murders were committed by someone else then she may well get off scot-free.’

  Maggie Lorimer put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. ‘And do you think she should?’ she asked softly.

  Lorimer glanced at his wife. What was she really asking? Did she want his professional opinion or was she probing more deeply into a sensitive area that he didn’t want to acknowledge right now?

  ‘Not for me to decide,’ he mumbled vaguely then planted a swift kiss on her forehead as if to conclude the conversation.