Glasgow Kiss lab-6

by Alex Gray

  ‘Sorry,’ he replied at last. ‘I don’t want to talk to the newspapers.’

  That was stupid, Eric cursed himself immediately. She’d put his exact words into tomorrow’s edition, wouldn’t she? Murder suspect refuses to talk to the press. He could already imagine the headlines. But would it have been any easier to say what was in his heart? Wouldn’t they twist it all to suit their own story anyway? One way or another, the RE teacher had a feeling of foreboding.

  And he could almost sense the demarcation lines being drawn up between those who believed him and those who wanted to see him locked up for a very long time.

  The patch of ground was refusing to yield to the edge of the spade, despite the rains that had fallen steadily all night. In disgust he threw the tool away from him, hearing its dull thud as it hit the grass next to the spiked outline of the gorse bushes.

  Everything suddenly seemed to be against him. The girl hadn’t opened her door to him as she should have.

  Wasn’t she his bright angel, waiting for the kiss that would transform them for ever?

  He thumped his fist against the soil where he had tried to dig the new grave, mouth open in a mask of rage.

  She’d seen him. And pointed that bloody camera at him. Somehow he had to get back to her, find her on her own and then bring her here. Only then could he find sleep again.

  CHAPTER 32

  C LUELESS. The front page headline was repeated over and over again in several of the daily papers. It was par for the course at this stage in a missing child case, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to bear, nor was it going to help when he had his meeting with Mitchison. Would a review be suggested yet? Perhaps. The Superintendent liked to keep on the side of the Chief Constable as well as the press boys, liked to be seen to be doing something. Lorimer’s mouth twisted in a spasm of anger: there were officers in this division working all hours to find Nancy Fraser but none of their painstaking efforts were making headline news, were they? And this triple murder inquiry had all of their resources stretched to breaking point. Cases didn’t come neatly one after the other in this job, but in a whole ramshackle disorder that had to be tackled somehow. No sooner were you off chasing one case than another came hard on its heels, demanding equal attention. Life on the force was like that and he’d long ago reconciled himself to being able to perform the delicate balancing act that being SIO required.

  The perennial promise of more manpower never seemed to materialise sufficiently to satisfy their requirements, something he did wish the newspapers would highlight a bit more.

  It was now ten days since the abduction, a timescale destined to be met with a vicious reaction from the redtops who demanded results, as if the police could magically produce the child alive and well like a rabbit from a hat. Lorimer threw down the paper in disgust. The police press team could deal with this: his energies had to be saved for the task of finding what had happened to three dead women. And, anyway, finding little Nancy Fraser was officially Jo Grant’s responsibility now.

  DS Niall Cameron stepped into the room, one hand holding a sheaf of paper, an expression of excitement on his pale features.

  ‘I think we’ve found the car!’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s a white Mazda registered to a Miss Lorna Tulloch,’ Cameron read from the newly printed page. ‘Her last known address is given as Southbrae Drive, Jordanhill. That’s not all that far from Yoker,’ he added, trying to keep the smile off his face.

  ‘Right.’ DI Grant nodded. ‘Take DC Weir with you and bring this woman in for questioning. We’ll need a warrant to search the premises as well.’

  Jo Grant lifted the phone to call Lorimer: he’d want to know they’d had a possible breakthrough.

  ‘You’re sure? That’s excellent. Keep me posted after they bring the woman in, won’t you? Thanks.’

  Lorimer gave a triumphant glance at the newspaper crushed into his wastebin. Maybe these people would be eating their words before the next issue was out.

  Southbrae Drive was in a pretty residential area leading from Crow Road up towards the leafy margins of Jordanhill Teacher Training College. The houses were fronted by well-tended gardens, blazing with colour from the hanging baskets and rows of bedding plants, now full and lush in the late summer sunshine. DS Cameron stopped the car outside the number he’d been given, noting the grey pebbledash walls and the high privet hedge obscuring the front garden. His heart beat just that little bit faster. Could Nancy Fraser have been taken here? He exchanged glances with his colleague whose raised eyebrows told Cameron that DC Weir also seemed to have considered the same possibility. As the younger man slipped on his jacket, Cameron caught a flash of silver cufflink against the snowy white shirt. He refrained from comment, but it looked as if the detective constable was doing his sartorial best to look smart on the job. Or did he have a hot date after work? The Armani label on the jacket seemed to confirm his thoughts. That looked brand-new. Lucky for some, the tall Lewisman thought. But all thoughts of his fellow officer’s rigout quickly vanished as they approached the house.

  The doorbell was an old-fashioned single white button set into the side of the stone wall and it gave a shrill ring as the detective sergeant pressed it. When nothing happened he rang again, leaving his finger on the button for a good few seconds.

  ‘Looks like she’s out,’ Weir remarked, turning to look back at the street. ‘No sign of the car, either.’

  ‘Let’s take a look round the back,’ Cameron said and headed down a side path towards the rear of the house. A line of fencing with a curved gate barred their way.

  ‘Locked!’ Weir exclaimed, jiggling the latch.

  ‘Maybe it’s just bolted from the inside,’ Cameron said. ‘Come on, give us a leg up; can’t have you messing up these new threads.’

  He was right. Peering over the top of the gate, Cameron could see that the owner had bolted the gate shut. Grasping the edge of the wood with both hands, he vaulted over and landed lightly on both feet, knees bent. As he opened the gate he saw DC Weir grinning at him.

  ‘Think you’re in practice for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, then?’ he joked.

  ‘Ach, I’ll be too old by then,’ Cameron replied. ‘Come on, let’s see what’s round here.’

  The rear garden contained a neatly mown lawn and a whirligig that, today, was empty of any washing. Like the front, this part of the grounds was also hidden behind hedging, but this was leylandii at least ten feet in height.

  ‘That would screen the garden from any prying eyes, wouldn’t it?’ Weir remarked.

  Cameron nodded then turned to the glazed kitchen door and window, obscured by Venetian blinds that were firmly shut against the outside world.

  ‘Looks like she’s away,’ Weir remarked, his words receiving only a stony silence from Cameron. Stating the obvious wasn’t massively helpful and they were further frustrated by having to wait until the search warrant came through.

  ‘Hello there,’ a gruff female voice made them both turn around, ‘can I help you?’

  Standing by the gate was a large woman in a florid print dress, an expression of belligerent curiosity on her face.

  Cameron flicked an appraising eye over her: sensible woman not to come too close to two strangers, keeping her escape route handy, and was that a hefty walking stick tucked under one arm?

  ‘DS Cameron, DC Weir, Strathclyde Police,’ he told her, warrant card open for inspection.

  ‘Oh dear, nothing’s happened to Lorna, has it?’ The woman’s face grew suddenly anxious, though the pair of grey eyes staring at them showed a shrewd intelligence.

  ‘We’re just carrying out routine inquiries, Miss. .?’

  ‘Mrs Jones. I live next door.’ She pointed the stick to a direction beyond the expanse of greenery. ‘Saw you arrive in your car and when you didn’t come back to the front of the house, well, what was I to think?’ Her walking stick was now lowered to the ground and she limped heavily forwards, one hand extended.

  ‘Not keeping an
eye on the place, officially, you understand, but we are in a neighbourhood watch scheme, at least we are. Lorna’s a funny sort, keeps herself pretty much to herself, never bothers with community activities,’ she added.

  ‘And do you know where Miss Tulloch is at the moment?’ Cameron asked.

  ‘No idea. Like I said, she keeps herself to herself. Doesn’t work as far as I know. Travels a bit, likes to go up north to that cottage of hers.’

  Cameron tried to keep control of his expression at this last bit of information, asking in the mildest of voices, ‘Whereabouts might that be, do you know?’

  ‘Oh, way off the beaten track. Back of beyond if you ask me. Turn right at Ardrishaig and go along the Kilberry road until you reach some cottage or other. Hamish and I went up once, just out of interest, you know. Had some friends over from the States. Thought we’d show them a bit of the Scottish landscape. Stuff you don’t see in all those tartan-trimmed calendars-’

  ‘So she might have gone there?’ Cameron broke into the woman’s flow of speech before she could digress any further.

  ‘Suppose so. I say, what has she done? Run off with the bank manager?’ A sudden guffaw made the woman’s several chins roll with merriment. ‘Can’t see it myself, somehow. A bit long in the tooth for that sort of malarkey, I’d have thought.’

  ‘As I said, we were hoping that your neighbour could help us with our inquiries,’ Cameron repeated. ‘If you should see her, please let her know we called, will you?’ And handing over his card, he gave a brief old-fashioned nod before ushering them all out of the garden.

  Mrs Jones turned to Cameron and Weir as they made their way towards the pavement. ‘She’s done something, hasn’t she? I can tell,’ she added, tapping the side of her nose in a mocking way.

  ‘She hasn’t had any visitors to stay recently, has she?’ Weir asked.

  ‘No idea. Sorry. Hamish and I have just got back from Tenerife. Haven’t seen Lorna for over a fortnight. Why? Is she harbouring terrorists or something?’

  Cameron shook his head and smiled politely, but he flashed Weir a look that told the younger man to close his mouth, a mouth that was already open to say an awful lot more.

  ‘Crikey! She sounded just like that woman off the telly,’ Weir stated as they fastened their seat belts. ‘Looked like her, too. Whatshername? You know, the one that does the cooking and hunting and all that.’

  ‘Aye, I know who you mean,’ Cameron replied. And although he could remember the celebrity’s name perfectly well, he chose not to enlighten Weir, for the DS’s mind had made an interesting connection: Mrs Jones had exactly the same keen intelligence and awareness that shone out of the eyes of the TV celebrity, Clarrisa Dickson-Wright. And if this neighbour’s estimation of Lorna Tulloch was correct, perhaps they had found the woman who had abducted Nancy Fraser. And it would be only a matter of hours from now that a search warrant would allow the scene of crime officers to search this house in Southbrae Drive, ready to take any traces for analysis. Kim Fraser had supplied plenty of material so Nancy’s DNA profile could be matched. Now, thought Cameron, as they drove back to HQ, it was down to the SOCOs and their painstaking colleagues in forensics to provide evidence that the child had been here.

  CHAPTER 33

  ‘Mrs Lorimer, can I have a word, please?’

  Maggie looked up from the stack of jotters on her desk, trying not to sigh. It was halfway through the third period and her only non-teaching time that day.

  ‘Yes, Jessica, what can I do for you?’ Maggie’s words were out, bland and impersonal, before she realised that the girl was physically trembling. ‘What on earth? Sit down here. Jessica, what’s wrong, dear?’

  It had taken only a little persuasion for the Fourth Year girl to let Maggie telephone the police. ‘It’s not something we can ignore, Jessica,’ she told the girl as they sat together in the guidance room.

  ‘Won’t they think I’m being a bit of a scaredy cat?’ the girl asked, anxiously biting her lip.

  ‘Someone stalking you and making nuisance calls is taken very seriously by the police,’ Maggie assured her. And if he’s the same person who lured Julie Donaldson into Dawsholm Woods, they’ll want to know every last detail, she thought. But Maggie Lorimer was not about to voice that sudden idea, at least not yet.

  ‘I thought it might be Kenny Turner from Sixth Year at first,’ she told Maggie. ‘He’s been hanging around me and Manda since the beginning of term,’ she added. ‘But it wasn’t Kenny, it was an older man.’ The girl shuddered so violently that Maggie automatically reached out a comforting hand and patted her arm.

  ‘It’s okay. And you don’t have to stay on your own till Mum and Dad get back. I’ll have a word with Amanda’s parents if you like.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jessica attempted a tremulous smile. ‘But I’ve already asked Manda and she says I can stay over at her place after school today.’

  Maggie Lorimer keyed in the number on her mobile. It was Bill’s direct line, but even if he wasn’t at his desk there would be someone to help them. And that was an interesting little snippet of information about Kenny Turner. Why, if he’d been so adamant that he’d had no hope of a relationship with Julie Donaldson, had the boy been making overtures to the two best-looking girls in Maggie’s registration class?

  ‘I’m going up there myself,’ Jo Grant told the team of officers assembled in the muster room. ‘A woman with a man walking around the countryside in late summer will appear far less threatening.’

  ‘What about back-up, ma’am?’ someone asked.

  ‘Police from Lochgilphead will be on hand whenever they’re needed, but I don’t anticipate having to call on them until we’ve made an arrest. As far as we know this Tulloch woman is on her own. Unless, of course, the child is actually with her,’ she added. There was a definite sense of optimism now that the SOCOs had found traces of Nancy Fraser in the house at Jordanhill, though the fact that the DI was preparing to drive all the way to this remote part of Argyll did make some of them wonder why she didn’t simply hand it over to the local force. As if reading their thoughts, Jo Grant turned a hard stare on the assembled officers. ‘The press are expecting results on this one and we are not going to let ourselves down after all the work this team has put into finding Nancy,’ she told them.

  Jo cleared her throat before continuing, ‘You may remember these case papers from Dr Brightman relating to child abduction. It seems Miss Lorna Tulloch has never worked due to health problems and we’ve managed to track down her GP who tells us that she has a history of mental illness. Okay, I know it’s a long shot, but there has been an instance of a kid being taken by a delusional woman before.’

  The murmur that arose made her raise a hand. ‘If Lorna Tulloch took Nancy and if she’s suffering from some sort of mental condition, then we need a softly softly approach. We’ll be in radio contact at all times,’ she added, ‘and we will be in constant communication with Lochgilphead as well.’

  The afternoon was bright and clear as they sped down the boulevard towards the West Coast. Soon they were circling the Stoneymolan roundabout with its strange array of studded lumps of wood and ethereal birds on wires, an expensive eyesore that annoyed the Lewisman every time he passed it. Then the vista beyond Loch Lomond opened up and Niall Cameron’s heart rose at the sight of these blue hills beckoning them onwards. It was the first stage of the familiar journey that took him to Skye and beyond to the green hills of Harris and home.

  DI Grant seemed content to watch the countryside go by and Cameron was glad of their companionable silence, enjoying the sweep of Ben Lomond rising majestically to their right, no scrap of mist obscuring its rounded head. There was much to occupy his thoughts as the Detective Sergeant drove his senior colleague through the little town of Arrochar, the famous Cobbler gazing down at them from its craggy heights, the road circling all the way around Loch Long then heading into the depths of the hills. Had the woman brought the child along these mountain roads? Had little Nancy looked
out of a car window at that deep glen with its lonely cottage as they climbed the Rest and Be Thankful? And had she gasped at the thundering torrent of water spilling down the shadowy side of this mountain, a far cry from the city streets of home? All these ideas continued to haunt him as he drove deeper and deeper into the heart of the Argyll countryside.

  In less than an hour they had reached Inverary with its white houses and fairytale castle. ‘Halfway there,’ Jo Grant murmured, looking out over Loch Fyne and the pier where the Arctic Penguin, an old sea-going schooner-turned-tourist attraction, was anchored. Then the car gathered speed once more as Cameron drove along the side of the loch, taking every bend as fast as he dared, one eye always on the road ahead to see if a white Mazda might be among the oncoming traffic. At last they were past Lochgilphead and Ardrishaig, with the Crinan Canal behind them as they drove along the single-track road towards their destination.

  CHAPTER 34

  This summed up everything he hated about the media interfering in a high-profile case, Lorimer thought grimly, reading the Gazette’s feature about religious types who had targeted young girls. Despite the grainy photograph of a long-dead Irish priest, it was a deliberate attack on Eric Chalmers and upon Lorimer himself, though his own name was only mentioned towards the end of the final paragraph as if the journalist had been saving her best ammunition for maximum impact. The feeling of euphoria that had come from Dan Murphy’s telephone call began to evaporate.

  Lorimer read the article again and frowned. How the hell had Cassidy come by these particular pieces of information? He’d have to check with the police press officer, but even as his hand reached for the phone, Lorimer was certain that nobody had given permission for this to be made public. SINS OF THE FATHERS she had called the piece. Lorimer let his eyes linger on some of her phrases: a hidden secret that was only uncovered when one of his former altar boys met him during a religious retreat. . elderly priest taken into custody. . numerous cases of both rape and murder have been committed by so-called religious men, some proved in a court of law but some still in that misty realm of uncertainty and rumour. . scandals have continued to blot the copybooks of both Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations, whether it is, perhaps, a priest fathering a child in his diocese or a Kirk elder having an affair with a married minister. .