Never Somewhere Else

by Alex Gray

  ‘Bill?’

  Maggie was by his side, looking anxious.

  ‘It’s okay. Just some information. Let’s go and see if there’s any pudding left.’

  He laced Maggie’s fingers through his and stumbled slightly as they moved towards the doorway, smiling an apology. She shook her head despairingly. Whatever had called her husband away was not as trivial as he was making out, not from the deep furrows etched around his brow.

  The pudding had indeed been served, a pink mousse topped with a single out-of-season raspberry. Lorimer wolfed down the mousse, his appetite suddenly restored, and began to chat to his fellow dinner guests.

  Solly wondered why Lorimer had suddenly become the life and soul of their table. Obviously it had something to do with that phone call. But what? Lorimer gave no sign that he intended taking the psychologist into his confidence and seemed content instead to push the party along.

  The meal long past, the speeches thankfully over, Lorimer watched the Superintendent rip paper off a stack of gifts and hold each item aloft amid much clapping and a few ribald comments. There were the usual ‘proper’ retirement presents, including several boxes of Edinburgh crystal, but other less conventional tokens had also crept in. China mugs with lewd comments, potions promising to improve everything from George’s golf swing to his sex life and, last of all, wrapped in shiny silver paper, a ‘Seeyou-Jimmy’ hat.

  There were cries of ‘Put it on, George!’ and the Superintendent made a great play of smoothing down the false red wig topped with its tartan tammy. Roars of laughter rang out as George gave a wiggle and sketched a pas de bas. Then the hat was tossed around the crowd. Lorimer pulled it on and gave a bow, then it was snatched off and passed to the desk sergeant who swept it on over his military crew cut.

  ‘Suits you!’

  ‘Better’n that suede head!’

  Jeers rang out as the sergeant capered around. Lorimer was watching the antics with everyone else when for some strange reason the whole tableau seemed to freeze. The red wig blurred in front of his eyes and for a moment there was ringing in his ears. Then the vision cleared and Lorimer searched around for the dark-bearded face of Solomon. The psychologist was watching him intently. Lorimer jerked his head in the direction of the hotel lounge and the two men withdrew unnoticed from the fun and games.

  ‘Your phone call?’ Solly’s query was eager but polite.

  Lorimer shook his head, still dazed by the revelation.

  ‘It’s not that. Though I’ve got some crucial new information. I’ve just seen our killer.’

  ‘Through there?’

  Solly’s jaw dropped in astonishment as he pointed back towards the reception hall.

  ‘In here,’ Lorimer tapped his head. ‘Christ! I’ve been looking down the wrong end of the bloody telescope! All this time we’ve assumed that our man answers to the description the Girdley girl gave us. But it’s the wrong way round!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t follow you.’

  ‘Kanekelon!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Japanese hair fibre. A wig. A bloody See-you-Jimmy!’

  Solly shook his head. It sounded like the ravings of a drunk man. But there was a chilling sanity in the policeman’s expression.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Lorimer’s excitement was mounting. ‘The short cropped hair. That was how he appeared to his victims. And in the dark. It’s not a disguise.’

  ‘I still don’t see …’

  ‘He wears a wig! I mean all the time. That’s the disguise … his normal everyday appearance. Not the other way around. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s – what’s that disease called? The one that the princess in Monaco had?’

  ‘Alopecia,’ Solly answered automatically, then added, ‘How can you be sure?’ One look at Lorimer’s face was all the answer he needed. ‘Oh, dear God,’ Solly breathed at last.

  It was as if the profile that had been theory for so long had become embodied and sat there between them. Solly felt weak. There always had to have been a reason for the savagery behind the killings. Even the most calculating of murderers would never have committed such butchery unless a deep force had driven him on. The lack of hair. The scalpings. Some strange vengeance.

  ‘Come on.’

  Lorimer was standing up now, smoothing down his dinner jacket.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘HQ. Get another warrant. Those traces won’t have been analysed yet. It’ll take at least another couple of days. But I can’t wait that long. I want him in custody now.’

  ‘Enderby?’

  Lorimer nodded, recalling Enderby’s fair hair flopping over his forehead. His heart began to pound. They’d interviewed him and let him go. Where was Enderby now?

  CHAPTER 33

  There was barely time for a garbled explanation to Rosie before the two men left the hotel in the first available taxi. The street gleamed wet under the sodium lights as the black cab curved effortlessly around in the direction of police headquarters. Maggie Lorimer was left gaping in disbelief as the blonde pathologist took her arm and led her back to the party.

  If the desk sergeant was surprised to see Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer in full evening clothes, accompanied by Solomon Brightman, he didn’t show it. Expecting the unexpected had long since become part of the job.

  Lorimer took the stairs two at a time, Solomon almost running in his wake to keep up.

  ‘What do you propose?’

  Solly looked uncertain.

  ‘Get another warrant. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours even at this time. The Deputy Fiscal will be glad to have his night brightened up, I’m sure,’ Lorimer grinned.

  Solly nodded, remembering the last time Lorimer had waited for a warrant to search that flat in Garnethill. There was always a Fiscal and a Sheriff on duty through the night. Crime didn’t keep office hours.

  There’s not much point going back to George’s bash, now. Anyway,’ he added, ‘Maggie’d kill me. She was really looking forward to an uninterrupted night out.’

  Solly thought of the woman’s face as they had hustled off from the hotel. Sheer disbelief might well turn to disappointed anger. Would Rosie be like that? he wondered. Rosie Fergusson, who spent her working life, scalpel in hand, out in the wilds of Rwanda or Glasgow parks. What might it be like being married to her? Solly’s mind wandered over the prospect. Her laughing smile and that deliciously short white dress chased his thoughts from the squeamish side of her profession to how he might have spent the rest of the night. His sympathies went out to Maggie Lorimer.

  The phone never seemed to be out of Lorimer’s hand for the next hour as the team was rallied yet again for the search to come. St Mungo’s Heights had, of course, been tried. There was nobody at the other end of the phones. That disembodied voice on the tape was not going to make itself heard again.

  ‘Pity,’ Lorimer remarked. ‘The voice match would have made helpful evidence. Mind you, it took fifteen months of painstaking work to analyse the voice of the Yorkshire Ripper tape. And at the end of the day it wasn’t him at all.’

  The Gazette security man was sorry, he couldn’t help. Nobody was left in the building. Where was Enderby?

  ‘Diane McArthur?’

  ‘Could be. Have we got a number?’

  Solomon blushed and produced her card from his wallet.

  ‘Of course, your book interview.’

  Lorimer didn’t glance at the psychologist but the sarcasm cut like a knife.

  The phone rang on and on. Just as Lorimer was about to hang up, the ringing tone stopped and he waited for the ubiquitous answering machine to roll out its message. He was wrong.

  ‘Please, who is it?’ A girl’s voice whispered. Lorimer stiffened. This wasn’t a woman disturbed from slumber. She sounded ill.

  ‘Chief Inspector Lorimer. Miss McArthur?’

  ‘Oh, please help me. Please, somebody help me.’

  ‘Is Martin Enderby …?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

&
nbsp; There was a pause and Lorimer heard the weak sobs as the girl tried to control herself.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He … I think he’s hurt … the knife …’ There was another pause and Lorimer could hear a choked sob. ‘Please, could somebody help me?’

  ‘Miss McArthur, I’m sending officers over right away. Just stay there. Can you open the door when they arrive?’ Lorimer’s voice was gentle and reassuring.

  ‘I think so. I don’t know.’

  The voice faltered again and Lorimer immediately imagined blood loss of some kind weakening the girl.

  ‘Help’s on its way. Won’t be long. I’m going to ring off now but if you need to talk to me ring this number.’

  There was a lengthy interval during which Lorimer gave Diane his number and she, in her weakened state, found pen and paper and took it down. He then took only a split second to kill the phone and redial. Solly listened as Lorimer barked orders. Diane McArthur wouldn’t be alone for long.

  At last the warrant arrived at HQ and the two men bundled out to the waiting Rover. The radio would keep them in contact with the woman DC who had been mustered to assist the young journalist.

  Diane McArthur was being helped into an ambulance as Lorimer and the psychologist approached her West End maisonette. Her head and shoulders were covered by a blanket and a WPC had her arms round her.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ the WPC began.

  Lorimer stepped up into the ambulance with the two women.

  ‘Just a couple of minutes.’

  He sat opposite Diane while Solomon stood outside. Diane McArthur raised her white face and slowly pulled off the blanket. Her long dark hair had been hacked off leaving a jagged, spiky mess and there was a deep wound running down one side of her neck.

  ‘Martin Enderby?’ Lorimer enquired.

  Diane’s eyes widened in horror and she jerked her head up painfully.

  ‘No! Martin tried to stop him. He just went berserk.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Davey.’

  ‘Where are they now?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. They went in Martin’s car. He had that knife.’ Her voice tailed off into gasping sobs.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About half an hour before you phoned, I think.’

  Lorimer made a swift calculation. That call had been made nearly an hour ago. They could be anywhere in the city by now. Or out of it.

  ‘Where have they gone, Diane? Think. Where could they be?’

  Her sobs were apparently ignored by Lorimer who leaned over the girl, persistent in obtaining this information from her. She swallowed hard.

  ‘I don’t know. I told your policewoman. He, he told Martin to put his bag in the car.’

  ‘What bag?’

  ‘His cameras and stuff.’ She paused tearfully. ‘He never went anywhere without them.’

  ‘Then what? Try to remember exactly what he said.’

  The girl’s face worked for a few moments then she shook her head.

  ‘All I can remember is Martin telling him to leave me alone, then he was being forced out of the house. I don’t remember. Honestly. I think I must have passed out.’

  Lorimer nodded. It made sense. The girl had sounded ghastly when he had made that call. She’d surely have made it to a phone sooner if she’d been able to.

  In a flash he was out of the ambulance and motioning to the attendant that he was free to go to the hospital. Solomon followed him back to the Rover where orders were given over the radio.

  Lorimer looked around him into the darkness. It was now well after three in the morning, that barren time when the soul is at its lowest ebb, the streets deserted save for the police presence. It was a respectable neighbourhood, this. The row of yuppie maisonettes faced a red sandstone church built in the Victorian tradition of mock Gothic vaults and slender spires. Beside him, Solomon shivered. They hadn’t stopped to take their coats from George Phillips’s party. The warmth and fun of the Superintendent’s big night seemed days rather than hours ago.

  ‘Are you going in?’ Solomon indicated Diane’s house.

  ‘No. Let the boys do it. No need for me there. Besides, looks like we’ll have other fish to fry.’ He frowned, seeing Solly shiver again. ‘You want to go on home? I could get you a squad car.’

  Solomon shook his head. Lorimer knew that many of his questions and theories had been answered but the psychologist might still feel an overwhelming need to confront the man whose shadow had fallen over so many lives.

  He had a warrant in his pocket. A warrant he’d been going to use to search Enderby’s flat once more. He’d just have to bend the rules a little.

  The car swept up to the black tower that was St Mungo’s Heights. Lorimer was suddenly aware of his incongruous evening clothes as uniformed officers swarmed over the place.

  Davey Baird’s room was exactly as Solomon had said it would be. To the casual, untrained eye, it was the epitome of minimalist chic. The floor was a bare sweep of pale, polished beech, the only warm colour in the room. Metal lamps hung in rows from the grey ceiling. A steel music system dominated one corner. The sofa was black leather with a silken throw the colour of pewter draped over the back, the shades of white and grey echoing the black and white photographs on the wall in their clip frames. He caught Solomon looking at the pictures, then at Lorimer. They were studies of redskin warriors.

  Lorimer’s eyes widened and saw the psychologist give a fleeting smile of satisfaction. He continued his examination. The room appeared to be waiting for a long-absent presence to return. There were no signs of the usual clutter of everyday living: no papers lying on the dark ash table, only a lump of porous rock and a white porcelain bowl that gleamed like a ghost in the subdued lamplight.

  They knew without looking that the uncurtained window gave a panoramic view of St Mungo’s Park. They had already been so close. Lorimer moved into the hall and Solomon followed him through to where they knew the bedroom would be. This, unlike Martin Enderby’s bedroom six floors below, was split into two rooms. The tiny bedroom held little other than a cabin bed and a set of drawers with a sliding wardrobe against one wall. It was predictably neat. Lorimer pushed open the connecting door. The other room was totally dark. There was the click of a light switch then the room was swathed in eerie red light.

  ‘His darkroom,’ Lorimer nodded, and both men slowly entered the photographer’s inner sanctum. Several large machines dominated the floor space.

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  Solomon’s hand flew to his mouth in horror as the sight met their eyes. On a glass shelf above a sink were small heaps of hair. The congealed blood had left brown stains that looked like varnish carelessly spilled on the glass.

  For a few moments they stood transfixed by what they saw. Lorimer’s gorge rose as he looked from left to right. Black, auburn, blonde and grey. Four bloodied scalps. A mental image of the wreck of humanity he had seen fixed itself in his brain and he struggled to remember the thin, gaunt face of Janet Yarwood.

  Lorimer broke the silence with a long sigh.

  ‘In here, boys.’

  He spoke softly as if they were in the presence of unhappy spirits that might somehow be frightened away. The scene-of-crime officer hovered outside in the hall and Lorimer nodded towards the darkroom. The painstaking work of gathering evidence would now begin.

  Lorimer stood at the window gazing out over the city lights that twinkled so innocently in the distance.

  ‘They’ll find it all here,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Even traces of kanekelon.’

  Solomon looked at the detective. Standing there in his evening clothes Lorimer seemed in no hurry now to be off and apprehend the killer. Instead a quiet calm had taken over.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be doing something?’ he asked.

  Lorimer turned with a weary smile. ‘Oh, I think we’ll be doing plenty before long. Once we know where they’ve gone.’

  Solomon didn’t speak but he c
hewed his lips anxiously. Then Lorimer’s radio crackled into life and suddenly the Chief Inspector was alert. The tinny voice on the radio came through clearly.

  ‘Got him, sir. The car’s been spotted in Paisley Road, turning up towards Bellahouston Park.’

  ‘The House for an Art Lover?’ Solomon interrupted.

  Lorimer and he exchanged glances briefly.

  ‘Scramble air support. We need them to home in on the park. We have reason to believe he may have gone in there.’

  ‘The road by the ski slopes,’ added Solomon.

  ‘Hear that? Good. We’re going that way now. Should be there within ten minutes.’

  CHAPTER 34

  Martin Enderby felt the pain in his right knee as he tried to keep the Peugeot at a steady speed. That stab had come as he’d tried to wrest the knife from Davey’s hands. The knife from Diane’s kitchen. Then, as he’d fallen to the floor yelling, he’d seen that awful slashing and hacking. Diane’s screams still echoed in his brain.

  Events had happened so quickly that he’d had no time to think. Sweat had made his jersey damp under the armpits and he was desperate to urinate. He tried not to look at the man on his left. The man he’d once thought of as a talented, funny guy. The man he’d assumed was his friend.

  His thoughts went back to their meal together, how Davey had leaned his long body back in his armchair. The yellow stains of curry were all that had been left in the foil containers.

  ‘See that inspector,’ Davey had begun, ‘did he say if he’d found anything in here?’

  Martin had opened his eyes in surprise then. ‘Jesus Christ, how could he find anything here? I’ve got nothing to do with that girl.’

  ‘Which girl?’ Davey had taunted.

  ‘What do you mean “which girl”? I only wrote about the other poor cows. Janet Yarwood was the only one I ever set eyes on alive.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. The postgrad student.’ Davey had lit up a cigarette, inhaling sharply. ‘She give you much info, did she?’