The Photographer

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The Photographer Page 13

by Craig Robertson


  It was where William Broome’s company had their offices.

  CHAPTER 25

  She ran back to her car and pulled out into traffic with a U-turn that caused three cars to stand on their brakes. Horns beeped and drivers screamed at her but she didn’t care. The Templeton building at Binnie Place was six miles across town, and she wanted to get there as quickly as she could. The trail was already a day old and she didn’t want to let it get any colder.

  What the hell had Leah been doing?

  Her last words to her pal Shaz came back to Narey. I’m not taking this shit any more.

  Successive lights kept her stuck on red for an age and she could feel the tension rising like a kettle on the boil. Come on, change.

  A light turned on her again but she pushed on through, attracting the loud censure of the hypocrites who’d have done the same if they had the chance. She floored it, through Finnieston, south across the river, through Laurieston and the Gorbals and back across the Clyde again at Glasgow Green.

  She threw the car into a space at Binnie Place, seeing the vast frontage of the old Templeton’s building loom large in front of her. It was an incongruous but beautiful blot on the city landscape.

  At one time, it was the largest carpet factory in the world, all housed in a massive and flamboyant glazed-brick, red-brick and terracotta building that was modelled on the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Now, in the Glasgow way of things, it was a brewery and a bar.

  It had housing now too, new additions to the sides in terracotta and glass-fronted extensions, plus office space on the upper floors. One of those was the site of Broome’s lair, the home for his HardWire company. Leah had come here the afternoon before but, if her phone signal was to be believed, had gone no further.

  Narey walked across the lawn to the front of the building, the feeling of dread deepening. The ridiculous, striking facade leaned towards her, all turrets, spirals and mosaics, mocking her in its grandeur and its secrets. It was a medieval castle, a palace of dungeons and hidden rooms, somewhere to be imprisoned or lost.

  It was four o’clock and almost dark, the light fading even faster under thick, leaden skies that threatened snow. Lights were on in the belly of the beast, the WEST bar lit up like Christmas. Up above, dotted offices shone white through the palace’s windows.

  She stared up where she thought HardWire’s offices were but saw nothing other than glass staring back down at her. Standing on the grass, she tried to picture Leah. Angry, desperate, irrational. Taking no more shit. Here for what?

  Leah would have stood where Narey was now, the easiest way to view Broome’s offices. Had she hoped to see him or to be seen? Was it a gesture of defiance, a last box she had to tick before disappearing? And what had it cost her?

  Narey followed the wall down the slope of the lawn and around the corner, her hand tracing its way round the red brick. She’d walked just a few feet, Broome’s offices still high above, when she saw it. It was a dull scrawl against the red and she had to use the torch on her phone to be able to make sure what it said.

  RAPIST

  Three feet high in thick, black spray-painted letters. RAPIST.

  She started at it for an age, wishing it away, wishing it something else, before taking her phone out and photographing it. She checked the image then called Rico Giannandrea. The DS answered immediately.

  ‘Rico, I need you to get some bodies together for me. I’m at the Templeton Building on Glasgow Green. Possible crime scene.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He knew she wasn’t. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Whatever and whoever you can get at short notice. I’ll take whoever’s available because I want this done now. Get a hold of Baxter and have him get a forensic team down here. A couple of constables and however many detectives you can sneak out without anyone noticing. You too if you’re free.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Someone you don’t want knowing about this, boss?’

  ‘The chief, the deputy, Addison. Anyone, basically.’

  ‘Is this about Broome?’ Giannandrea never missed much. ‘Hang on, his offices are in the Templeton. Are you sure you should be—’

  ‘Just get them over here, Rico. Let me worry about the rest of it.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. On their way.’

  ‘Oh, and Rico? Get a hold of whatever CCTV covers the building and find me Leah Watt arriving at the building yesterday. And please find me some tape of her leaving safely not long after that.’

  Campbell ‘Two Soups’ Baxter, the crime scene manager, led the funereal charge of the white-suited forensic brigade. His heavily jowled face, magnified by bushy grey whiskers, was set in its habitual mode of grumpy old git. For a man who loved his job, he seemed to take little pleasure from it.

  He made a show of looking round before turning to face her, arms wide, palms upturned in mock confusion.

  ‘Inspector, I was led to believe there was some urgency to this call. I abandoned a very late and much-needed lunch to rush over here and I don’t see a body or signs of a break-in. Are you sure this is actually a crime scene?’

  Narey could see he hadn’t abandoned his meal entirely. Flecks of food clung defiantly to his beard like gannets to a rock face.

  ‘It is, Mr Baxter. And it is because I say it is. Have the area cordoned off – I want an inch by inch search.’

  He harrumphed loudly. ‘Can you at least tell me what I’m looking for?’

  ‘Any signs of a woman named Leah Watt having been here and any indication of what might have happened to her.’

  Baxter’s face lost some of its glower. ‘Your rape case victim? I heard she’d gone missing.’

  He was a curmudgeonly old sod but not completely bereft of compassion.

  ‘This is the place she was last known to be. And the offices up to our left belong to one William Broome. You’ll want to start with the graffiti she left just round that corner.’

  ‘I’m on it.’

  Narey got on the phone to Addison. She knew full well that the DCI would much rather she’d made the call before bringing in forensics but this would count as better late than never. Hopefully.

  ‘You’re where?’

  She had to move the phone from her ear as he bellowed down the other end. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t taken the news too well.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

  ‘Just following the evidence, sir. Leah Watt’s phone was last used at this position. It would be negligent of me not to have the site picked over.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss, Rachel. You’re still talking to me, not preparing for a disciplinary panel. And how do you know that’s where she last used her phone? Or do I not want to know?’

  ‘Not want, I’d say.’

  ‘Great. Fucking great. Rachel, you do not go to speak to Broome. You do not bring him in for questioning. You hear me?’

  She was expecting it. ‘I can justify questioning people in all the neighbouring offices on the grounds of them being potential witnesses.’

  ‘No chance! Rachel, you can’t go anywhere near him. You know what McInally said. You go to Broome and you’d be as well diving head first into a giant vat of shit because that’s how deep in it you’re going to be. And you know this or else you’d have already gone to see him rather than phoning me first.’

  ‘But we know she was here. Outside his place.’

  ‘Not legally we don’t. You’ve pulled some fast one without authorisation and we sure as hell aren’t going to be explaining that to McInally. We cannot go after Broome with what we’ve got. And you definitely can’t. He’ll crucify you.’

  The thought of her crucifixion made her look up again at the office windows above her. The figure was framed by the light against the darkening building. William Broome stood there watching her impassively.

  She’d made sure she’d put on enough of a show for it not to be missed. White-suited forensics, police tape, uniformed offi
cers. Word of that spreads quickly through an office.

  There was a calmness about him that bothered her. He just stared, face expressionless.

  ‘Rachel? Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m just wondering if you think it’s a coincidence her being at Templeton’s. That maybe you think it’s got nothing to do with Broome?’

  ‘Oh, give me fucking peace. Why are you booting my balls over this? Of course it’s not a shitting coincidence. I know how bad this looks and how you’re feeling but that’s not the point and you know it. It’s what we do about it and what I’m telling you is we do not go charging in there half-arsed. I don’t want Broome on the phone to McInally screaming about harassment.’

  She stifled a sigh on seeing Broome take his phone from his pocket and making an obvious display of bringing it to his mouth. Right on cue.

  ‘None of us want that, sir. I won’t speak to him. Maybe he won’t notice we’re here.’

  She heard footsteps squishing across the grass and turned to see Giannandrea striding towards her. In the moment it took for her to look over her shoulder then back, Broome had gone.

  The sergeant stood next to her, following her gaze to the old carpet factory.

  ‘Some building.’

  ‘It’s something all right,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve looked at it a hundred times during the day but not sure I’ve seen it up close at night. It’s giving me a very different feeling.’

  ‘Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder. Certain old houses demand to be haunted.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Robert Louis Stevenson, I think.’

  ‘You got anything for me, Rico?’

  ‘I just had a call to say they’ve got Leah on CCTV. Having the precise time meant we could go right to it. She came down London Road, onto Binnie Place and then she’s seen going to the front of the building. She walks on the grass, around the corner, then she’s not seen again. They’ve only just started looking, though, so they can still find her leaving.’

  ‘If she left.’

  ‘You don’t think she did?’

  She stared at the window where Broome had been, daring him to come back, willing Leah to appear. Surprise. Fooled you.

  ‘I’ve got to hope she left, Rico. I’ve got all these things telling me one thing. Instinct, fear, experience, lack of evidence to the contrary, what we know of Broome. They’re all telling me she didn’t walk away from here. Hope is the only thing telling me she did.’

  They looked across the dank garden to the old house and made silent prayers that Stevenson didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Baxter waddled over to them ten minutes later, his hangdog expression low enough to gather dew from the lawn.

  ‘We’re done, Inspector. There’s a couple of things you might want to see. First of all, there are indentations, footprints, immediately in front of where that message was sprayed. They have been partly trampled over by another set which I am assuming are yours and we’ll need to take prints to exclude them. It is unfortunate, as they are the only useful set we have – the ground’s firm, so has only been marked where the person has stood in one place for long enough to write the word on the wall.’

  Two Soups was scolding her, but by his standards it was a toothless mauling and she was grateful to enjoy one of his rare lapses into humanity.

  He led her and Giannandrea in a wide arc around the area where the message was painted and to a spot a couple of yards beyond it. Shining a powerful torch onto the wall, he highlighted two areas about eighteen inches apart, about four feet up from the grass.

  ‘There is also this. You said Miss Watt was wearing a dark-green sweater when she was last seen.’

  Narey nodded and Baxter waved a hand to one of the SOCOs, who handed him a camera.

  ‘I don’t want you going any closer, so this will let you see what’s up there.’

  The picture in the frame was well-lit and pin-sharp. Two tufts of dark green wool snared on the rough-hewn surface.

  ‘It is not my practice to speculate,’ Baxter offered reluctantly, ‘but given that Miss Watt was said to be wearing a coat, something she’s unlikely to have removed, given the weather, then I’d suggest this would indicate her making contact with the wall face first. If indeed this is from her sweater.’

  Narey nodded, mouth tight, only just resisting the urge to go back and look for Broome at his office window.

  ‘Can we get some analysis on it? See if it’s hers?’

  Baxter sighed. ‘That, I’m afraid, is a very imprecise science and unless Miss Watt has bought two of that sweater and we can find the other one in her wardrobe then it’s of little use. But,’ he relented, ‘we will try.’

  As the SOCOs finished their work, bagging the wool fibres and removing the crime scene tape, Narey and Giannandrea walked back to the front of the building, skirting the area where the graffiti was and heading for their cars.

  She glanced up as they crossed the green, seeing lights still burning in Broome’s offices, stark against what was now a pitch-black sky. She got as far as halfway to her car, Addison’s warning ringing in her ears, when she stopped in her tracks and turned.

  ‘Fuck it.’

  ‘Boss? Boss!’

  ‘Stay here, Rico. There’s no point in both of us getting into trouble.’

  ‘Boss!’

  She was gone, marching across the lawn and heading for the entrance to Templeton on the Green, where she could access the upper floors of the Doges. Anger took her through the lobby and into a tiny lift without any thought of consequence. It opened on the top floor and she pushed through a set of glass doors and past an enquiring secretary at a desk inside.

  The room was vast and open plan, propped up on a series of slim white pillars in two rows of eight, left over from its carpet factory days. The office was high on tech and low on personnel, just a handful of occupied desks but banks of computer screens, yards of cabling snaking from one station to the next.

  The little wall space between the windows looking down on the green and out onto London Road were adorned with printed messages of intended inspiration. All greatness is precarious. Win or learn, never lose. The creative adult is the child who survived. Only dead fish go with the flow.

  Heads lifted at her approach, alarm on the faces of one or two who recognised her. The largest desk in the room was at the far end and that was where she was headed. She could see he had his head down but the clack of her heels on the uncarpeted floor raised the alarm.

  Broome was on his feet instantly, outraged at her unheralded arrival. His eyes darkened and mouth twisted. He looked around accusingly, an unspoken demand to know why no one had stopped her walking in. A young, dark-haired woman was the nearest to him and she took the brunt of the blast. Narey didn’t miss the woman’s obvious anxiety at Broome’s anger.

  ‘If this is more harassment then I think you might find yourself handing out parking tickets or looking for a new job altogether, Inspector. You better have a warrant to be in here.’

  She wasn’t going to be cowed though. No chance.

  ‘A warrant? You need to get yourself better acquainted with the law, Mr Broome. I don’t need a warrant when all I’m doing is seeking witnesses in a missing persons investigation. The person I’m looking for was last seen at this location and I’m looking for anyone who might help us with our enquiries.’

  She turned and addressed the slim, raven-haired woman directly. ‘How about you, Miss? You must have been aware of the activity outside. We’re seeking information on the last-known whereabouts of a woman named Leah Watt. Have you seen her?’

  The woman’s eyes shifted nervously between Narey and Broome.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘How do you know? I haven’t shown you what she looks like yet.’

  ‘Claudia has already given you an answer,’ Broome interrupted. ‘We’ve all been working and we haven’t seen anyone outside of this office all afternoon.’


  Narey’s phone was ringing in her coat pocket but she ignored it. ‘It wasn’t this afternoon I was referring to. Leah was here yesterday. Did you see her, Mr Broome?’

  ‘Your superiors have warned you against harassing me, Inspector. Haven’t you suffered enough embarrassment over your incompetence?’

  The phone was insistent, demanding to be answered. She knew who it would be. She needed a read on Broome though, needed to see it in his eyes.

  ‘Did you see Leah Watt yesterday, Mr Broome?’

  He said nothing. Just stared back. Her mobile kept ringing. She snatched it from her pocket, saw Addison’s name and hit ‘answer’ without speaking.

  ‘Are you in his office? Rachel, I fucking told you not to go anywhere near him. Get out of there now.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘In or getting the fuck out?

  ‘In.’

  ‘Then get out! That shite called his lawyer who called McInally who called me. Get the fuck out of his office.’

  She forced a wide smile. ‘That’s great, sir. Thanks for letting me know. Oh, I’m sure Mr Broome will be completely cooperative.’

  ‘What? Don’t piss me about, Rachel.’

  ‘Absolutely, sir. I’ll wait for the warrant to search the premises. I’m leaving now. Thanks again.’

  ‘Rachel!’

  She hung up on him. The phrase ‘search the premises’ had annoyed Broome, but had it worried him? Although if all it did was piss him off then it had been worthwhile.

  ‘It’s nearly closing time, so I’m leaving it for the day. If any of you’ – she turned her head to take in the whole staff – ‘remember anything, then please call your local station. Anything at all. Your call will be treated with the strictest confidence.’

  Still nothing from Broome other than controlled anger. She began walking out but slowed at the desk of the woman Broome had called Claudia. She was shaking.

  ‘You should look for another job.’

  CHAPTER 26

  The phone had rung, the line had been silent and the click had echoed through the room. The clock showed 1.04.

  It hadn’t woken them, as neither had been able to sleep. They were staring into separate darknesses, consumed with interlocking fears and worries. They knew the other was awake, the way that people used to each other do. Different breathing, more movement or a lack of it.

 

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