by Alex Gray
Gail Stewart was well trained in question-and-answer technique. Lorimer had nodded his approval hearing the woman talk the child gently through the physical part of his ordeal. The preliminary interviews had served to create a rapport with Kevin; now detailed information was sought. Mrs McFadden had reported his case to the social work department. Kevin, it had transpired, claimed to have been taken away by a bad man who had ‘done things to him’. The child had suffered since, his behaviour fluctuating between bouts of aggression and spells of withdrawal.
Lorimer was glad that he himself had no capacity for questioning the child. It was hard enough listening to this WPC trained in the gentle probing of areas that pained the boy so much. Now the child had to be taken through the experiences step by step in an effort to uncover the criminal behind such atrocities.
‘Tell me about the van, Kevin. Can you remember if it was a big van, say as big as an ice cream van?’
WPC Stewart had removed her spectacles and her earnest young face was lit by concern. Kevin’s chair was at an angle beside her. He was perched on a large cushion, his legs dangling into space. From time to time he glanced up at her face as she spoke. Was he trying to see if she had ulterior motives? wondered Lorimer. How secure was the trust that had been built up? The boy’s hands gripped the edges of his seat and he frowned now in concentration. The policeman willed him into remembering.
‘It wis bigger ’n ’at.’ He paused then added, ‘Therr wur mair steps up intae it.’
‘Were the steps at the back, Kevin?’
‘Aye.’
‘You said it was a white van. Now, can you remember what colour it was inside?’
All eyes were on the child’s trembling lip and his downcast face.
‘Ah cannae mind.’
‘All right, Kevin. Just tell us what you do remember about the inside of the van.’
There was a silence broken by a murmur then, as Gail Stewart asked ‘What was that, Kevin?’, Lorimer realised that the boy’s answer had been an unintelligible whisper. He repeated it now.
‘A bed. Thir wis a bed.’
The sobs began and Kevin’s foster mum slipped into the chair beside him, taking the child in her arms. His dark head was motionless against her ample bosom and Lorimer couldn’t help wondering if the boy resented the belated protection of her arms. But then the sobs subsided and Mrs McFadden withdrew.
The WPC smiled encouragement as she asked, ‘What was it like inside?’ Her voice was casual, almost indifferent in her anxiety not to disturb the demons in his memory. Lorimer glanced at the others in the room. Gail Stewart’s colleague was writing furiously in her notebook, trying at the same time to observe the boy’s body language and facial expressions. The social worker sat silently beside Mrs McFadden. He was a thin, balding individual whose beady eyes reminded the detective of a hamster. The child was clearly struggling with this one and if it had not been for Gail’s gentle and patient persistence, Lorimer was sure Mrs McFadden would have called a halt to proceedings by now.
‘Ah’m no very sure. But Ah think it wis … Ah think it wis an ambulance.’
Gail shot the detective a meaningful look and Lorimer felt the hairs on his scalp tingle. It couldn’t be. Hastily he riffled through his copy of the relevant notes, checking dates. My God, it could be, after all. His palms began to sweat. Kevin’s abuse had occurred between the date that Lucy Haining had bought the old ambulance from Sangha and the fateful day on which it had been found a burned-out wreck.
Now Gail came and squatted in front of Kevin taking both his hands in hers so that he looked down into her eyes.
‘Kevin. It’s all right to tell us about the bad man. He won’t be allowed to do any bad things to you any more.’
The child’s eyes looked doubtful.
‘Will he go tae jyle?’
‘We hope so. Is that what you’d like?’
The boy nodded. Christ, thought Lorimer, what’s going through that kid’s mind? His old man’s in the nick and now he’s going to associate that with this beast, whoever he is.
‘Now take your time and tell me just what the man looked like.’
Slowly the words jerked from the boy.
‘He wis big. Awfy big. Ah thocht he wis a, a doctor.’
‘A doctor? Now what made you think that?’
‘He had a big white jaicket on.’
‘Go on. What else?’
The boy gave a shuddering sigh as further memories were dredged up from the place he didn’t really want to see again. Lorimer felt the tension all around him.
‘He had wee hair.’
‘Wee hair? Describe it.’
‘Like the back o’ yer hair when ye’ve had the razor oan’t. A slapheid.’
‘All right. Now, Kevin, do you think if you saw a picture of him you would recognise the man?’
‘Aye.’ The word was pulled out of him reluctantly.
‘Well, how would you like a trip in a police car to see some pictures?’
Kevin’s eyes grew crafty.
‘C’n Ah have the siren oan?’
Lorimer wanted to laugh out loud and he felt the atmosphere relax as several of the faces around him broke into wide grins.
‘Oh, let’s ask Chief Inspector Lorimer, shall we?’
Gail Stewart’s expression was impish.
‘I think that could be arranged, Kevin,’ Lorimer said, trying to keep his tone suitably grave, but the boy had sensed the change in the room and his eyes shone with mischief that was suddenly wholesome and healthy.
An hour later Kevin left the station having been shown around the CCTV room as a reward. The boy was skipping between his foster mum and the social worker and Lorimer could almost feel his eagerness to get away to tell his pals all about it. As they reached the main door Mrs McFadden nudged him.
‘Oh, aye,’ said Kevin. ‘Thanks very much for the ride in the car. It wis great.’
They disappeared out of the building leaving Lorimer shaking his head. How quickly kids seemed to bounce back. Even his medical examination by the police doctor hadn’t been too much of an ordeal, according to WPC Stewart. Still, the process of delving into his traumatic experiences was not all over yet.
Upstairs George Phillips would soon know about this latest development. Kevin Sweeney’s grubby little finger had jutted out defiantly at the photofit. Aye, he was sure. It was the same bad man.
Lorimer whistled through his teeth as he took the stairs two at a time. In his hand he held the envelope containing the photofit put together by Alison Girdley.
‘It’s too big a coincidence to ignore.’
Lorimer’s voice betrayed his excitement. Maybe this was the break they’d been looking for. Phillips swung back in his chair contemplating the photofit and Kevin Sweeney’s statement which he held between his finger and thumb.
‘The kid’s been systematically abused. In an ambulance, he says. Valentine Carruthers had a record of involvement with paedophiles.’ As Lorimer raised his eyebrows questioningly, Phillips added, ‘Supplying rent boys in his nefarious past, you say?’
Lorimer stood up suddenly and began to pace the room.
‘He dies in a burnt-out ambulance. Now this. Young Kevin has ID’d our photofit. So. What’s the link?’
Phillips said nothing. Lorimer slapped his fist down on a pile of papers on his desk.
‘Look,’ the DCI continued, ‘We’ve got these reports from the down-and-outs who knew Valentine Carruthers.’
‘The response was pretty limited,’ ventured Phillips.
‘Only to be expected. Protecting their own backs. Even those who admitted knowing him didn’t give much away.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘I want all of these street contacts brought in for further questioning. Someone must know something.’
‘You think now that a child’s involved, tongues will loosen?’
The Superintendent leaned forward, elbows on the desk. Lorimer nodded, his mouth a single, grim li
ne. He knew that Phillips could see his drift.
‘What I want to do is circulate this photo among the men. Get them down to Glasgow City Mission and the regular haunts the old man visited.’
George Phillips gave a brief nod and, as Lorimer shot out of his office, added, ‘And I suppose you want it done by yesterday.’ But he was already speaking to a closed door.
Back in his own room, Lorimer stared at the aerial photograph on his wall. The trees and shrubs of St Mungo’s Park looked so tranquil from that angle. Even the surrounding high-rise flats didn’t seem such an eyesore. The red circles disturbed the picture, however. Lorimer saw beyond them to other scenes; the carnage in Janet Yarwood’s home and the smell of burnt grass out at Strathblane where Valentine Carruthers had been so cruelly torched. A paedophile? Did the gross brutality of the killer fit in with this sort of crime? Lorimer thought of Solomon and picked up the phone.
To Solomon, Lorimer’s news wasn’t entirely unexpected. His own profile of the killer was not so much altered as more clearly in focus. That the man was a loner, he had never had any doubts. Loneliness often led to some striving for love and affection.
The less well-adapted members of society didn’t cope with normal relationships. Paedophiles were usually, though not always, people seeking a mixture of power and affection. Some of them delighted in bizarre acts of violence. No, Solomon wasn’t surprised at all.
A white man in his early thirties, reasonably articulate, almost certainly employed in a profession, maybe self-employed. A man who would appear decent and normal to his work colleagues, no doubt. Someone who even convinced himself in one half of his sick mind that he was an upright citizen. The phonetic analysis of the accent pointed to a local person. Someone on his home territory. And the mutilation? Even here the deliberate signature gave something away, like a footprint on the path as the hunter knelt to leave his false spoor. Solomon believed that there had been some trauma in his past to do with a woman. His taking of the scalps was not such an unusual way for killers to behave if they were subconsciously destroying someone. Perhaps a mother who had damaged them in some way? In fact, there was a possibility that the man they sought had a physical as well as an emotional scar. Solomon could read and understand the pattern of behaviour without in any way condoning it.
Now, as he typed in a few more details to the profile, he had a sudden thought. The missing back-up disk included this file. He sat back, colour draining from his face. If his intruder was indeed the killer, was he now in a position to double-bluff them? Or would the fact that so much of his personality was revealed tip him over the edge? Solomon switched on the printer, his fingers shaking. He realised for the first time why he had not been killed that night. The hunter wanted him alive. He needed Solomon to be there, to have someone skilled in appreciating this game of … what was it? Hide and seek?
But what if he tired of the game and was never caught? Solomon had a fleeting vision of Rosie Fergusson, her bright hair tied back from her laughing face.
It might indeed have been his corpse on her slab.
CHAPTER 29
Lorimer had asked Solomon to come with them. Normally two of his experienced officers would have made the visit but Lorimer wanted to see Solomon’s reaction to the Yarwood family.
A lot hinged on this visit. So far they had drawn a blank about the missing pictures in the dead woman’s flat. He’d been a fool to think it would be so easy. Questioning her colleagues at the Postgraduate Centre had only revealed what a recluse the woman had been. Not exactly friendless but nobody had ever been in her flat. Lorimer was sure that that had not applied to Lucy Haining. But Lucy was dead. The neighbours had seen Janet coming and going but that was all. There had been no socialising there, either, and certainly no visits to the flat.
The School of Art’s director had been marvellous, putting up with the disruption of officers questioning so many students. It had to be done, he realised, but the man’s calm acceptance of the situation had impressed Lorimer. Nobody had recognised the person behind the photofit, though.
These thoughts flitted through Lorimer’s mind as his blue eyes stared over the hedgerows skimming past them. Annie Irvine was driving to the house that Mrs Yarwood shared with her daughter. Her only daughter, now.
The car had swept into the countryside leaving the Glasgow suburbs behind and now they were slowing down through the conservation village of Eaglesham.
Lorimer craned his neck to see if they were still there. Yes. The playing fields where he’d played the occasional game of football stretched to his left. It had been a terrible pitch, all lumps and tussocks, even for a rugby player like himself.
They were through the village now. Lorimer glanced behind at their passenger. The psychologist’s eyes seemed glued to the passing countryside, his customary smile playing around his lips. What is he really seeing, though? the Chief Inspector wondered.
‘That’s it up there, sir.’
Annie Irvine nodded in the direction of a cottage set against the hillside, then turned the car into a narrow track.
‘The Yarwoods?’ Solomon leaned forward as far as his seat belt would allow.
‘Believe in keeping themselves to themselves.’ Lorimer remarked as the car came to a halt.
The cottage was old. Deep-set windows told of thick walls built more than a century before. The dull grey roughcast was made even gloomier by the deep overhang of the slate roof. There was no garden to speak of, just a flat area of rough grass on two sides and a few gnarled oaks behind the house.
‘Well, there’s a washing out, anyway,’ said Annie Irvine, pointing to a row of sheets billowing on the line to the side of the cottage.
‘They’ll be in all right. They know to expect us.’
Lorimer knocked on the cottage door, noting that it was painted in the same drab grey as the walls. The door opened a fraction and Lorimer could see the security chain in place.
‘DCI Lorimer. Mrs Yarwood?’
He was aware of a thin face and a pair of gimlet eyes staring hard at them.
‘Show me your identification.’
Lorimer had in fact held out his warrant card but now he and Annie passed them to the woman. Her out-stretched claw drew them in and he could see her bent head in the shadows scrutinising them. They were thrust back suddenly and the chain fell with a dull clunk. As the door opened wider, Lorimer raised his hand to indicate his bearded companion.
‘Dr Brightman from Glasgow University. He is working with us.’
As the woman stared at him the psychologist was sharply reminded of Janet Yarwood. It was the same face, grim and unsmiling.
They were ushered into a dingy room which, from the look of it, was seldom used. Lorimer wondered if young Annie had come across the old-fashioned habit of keeping a ‘front room’ for visitors. He doubted it.
‘Take a seat.’
Mrs Yarwood motioned Lorimer towards a dark mauve armchair. A thin layer of dust arose as he sat on the moquette. The whole place smelled of dust and damp. Even the creamy anti-macassars were spotted with rust marks. Solomon seated himself on an upright chair by the window, facing the parlour door. Annie stood beside him, glancing at Lorimer.
‘She’ll be down in a minute.’
The woman sat upright on the edge of the settee, hands clasped in her lap. Her wispy white hair was pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head, accentuating the thin, sharp features. The door opened and both men rose to their feet as Janet Yarwood’s sister strode in. Solomon tried not to reveal his astonishment as he quickly glanced from the young woman to the detective. Lorimer’s face gave nothing away.
‘Miss Yarwood? DCI Lorimer.’
The hand was taken and pumped up and down vigorously. It was hard to assess her age, thought Lorimer. She was a thick-set female with bright red hair tied back in a single plait. Her black dress covered a bulky figure that was utterly lacking in femininity.
As she grinned at them all, her expression was that of a greedy
child rather than a grown woman. The detective caught himself wondering about her provenance. Was Mr Yarwood a large red-haired man?
‘I understand Mr Yarwood is not at home?’ Lorimer asked.
‘No. Mister Yarwood doesn’t live here any longer!’
Mrs Yarwood spat the words out as if the mention of her husband’s name caused a bad taste. Janet’s sister had sat next to her mother, a crafty smile on her childish face.
‘Daddy was bad. He went away!’
‘That’s enough, Norma.’
Mrs Yarwood’s rebuke failed to change her daughter’s expression.
‘I can give you his address,’ the woman offered reluctantly.
‘Yes. Thank you. We will need to talk to him.’
‘Did he do her in?’
The girl bounced up and down eagerly.
‘Norma, be quiet, or you’ll go to your room.’ Mrs Yarwood turned to Lorimer. ‘I’m sorry. Norma’s not quite herself these days.’
‘Do you mind answering some questions about Janet?’ the detective asked.
‘Not at all.’
The woman’s indifference struck them all. She might have been discussing the weather.
‘When did you last visit your daughter?’
The ramrod back didn’t budge although Lorimer noticed a tightening of her jaw.
‘We were only there twice. Once when she had just moved away.’
‘And the other?’
‘She was ill.’ Mrs Yarwood’s stiff lips began to tremble. ‘I made her some soup.’ Her mouth closed in a tight line and Lorimer could see the struggle to suppress any emotion.
‘Didn’t you want to see your daughter more often?’
‘This is a Godly house, Chief Inspector. I wasn’t going to take Norma into a place like that!’
‘A place like what, Mrs Yarwood?’ Lorimer’s question was smooth as steel.
‘A den of iniquity! All these terrible pictures everywhere! All the terrible goings on in that — Art School! And see where it all led to? I told her. I told her she’d come to a bad end!’