by Alex Gray
Julie opened her eyes and sneaked a look at the Gazette’s front page, scanning the first few lines. They hadn’t found that wee girl yet, then. She sighed deeply, the news making her feel even worse. Julie swallowed hard. She couldn’t let her emotions show in such a public place. Here she was thinking about real tragedies that made her own situation seem tawdry by comparison. Taking a sip of the hot coffee steadied her and she leaned back, wondering how the people round about her could just go on with their daily business as if nothing really mattered. Maybe that was the secret of being grown up: looking cool and pretending not to feel anything at all.
She saw herself reflected in the plate-glass window, a slim figure in black, newly washed hair gleaming in the morning sunshine. Nobody would take her for a school kid. Would they? Her black skirt and high-heeled shoes could just as easily be the garb of any of the students working in the last weeks of their summer holidays. Maybe she could be mistaken for a new student looking for a place to stay? Her mind took her to the tobacconist’s shop further down Byres Road where a mosaic of postcards gave out details of rooms to let, flats to share. If only she could be that person, eager to begin afresh, away from the restrictions of school and home . . .
She looked at the bottom of the cup in surprise, realising she’d hardly tasted any of it. Too late now, and she wasn’t going to be like one of these naff women who scraped the dregs of their cappuccinos with the metal teaspoon. With no plan as to where she was going next, the girl rose from the table, knocking against it and making the cup clatter in its saucer. Awoken from her reverie by her own childish gaucheness, Julie turned abruptly towards the corner, seeing with some relief that the light had just changed to green.
As she fled across the junction she took no notice of the other pedestrians who came in her wake, nor was she aware of one particular man whose eyes followed her along the street all the way to Hillhead Underground station.
He had seen her coming, bright as a summer angel, and known at once that she was the one. It was as simple as that and he’d smiled to himself as his feet took him after her, watching her progress along the street. When she’d finally stopped at the coffee bar he had waited patiently, reading a paper just inside the doorway, out of her line of vision. The moment she had crossed the street he had ambled after her, his long legs easily keeping pace a few yards behind. Even the Underground had posed no particular problems. They had waited together among the other people standing silently on the platform. She was so close that he might have reached out and touched the back of her thin white blouse. His fingertips tingled at the thought.
The sooty smell from the tunnel and the whoosh of air as the train approached caused a fluttering in his stomach and he remembered what it was like to be a small child again, full of anticipation for a treat to come. The carriage was half-empty so he let her sit down before selecting a place several seats away; she could see him only if she turned around and stared at all the other passengers. But instinctively he knew she was too sophisticated to do that; she would be like everyone else and keep herself closed and contained, wrapped in a mystery.
The train rocked back and forth as it sped through the darkened tunnel, his lip curling in distaste at the nearness of all those other bodies crammed up next to him. Making human contact was an avoidable transgression if you could sway with the motion.
The train slowed down at Kelvinbridge and he watched to see if she’d stand up and get out, but when she remained seated he guessed she would be going all the way into town. Buchanan Street, probably; three more stops. As he let his eyes gloat over her, he noticed her fingers rummaging in that black leather shoulder bag, then saw a small movement across her lips as she drew out the mobile phone. Sitting back as the train began gathering momentum on its shrieking journey, she fiddled with it, an expression of concentration on her soft, young features. Texting, he realised. It was far too noisy to try to actually talk to anyone. Biting his lip, he thought about this. He should have reckoned on a mobile phone. They were like bodily appendages on the young; well, he would just have to perform some delicate type of surgery to remove it from her. Smiling at the metaphor he set his mind to the task ahead.
Julie looked at her watch, trying to remember what class she would have been in. It was still too early in the term to have memorised her timetable and it was past morning interval so she’d missed a chance to speak to Sam. She’d just have to text her instead, reassure her that she was fine and just dogging it for a laugh. They’d gone up to Buchanan Galleries loads of times during the holidays, dawdling at all the clothes shops, trying stuff on and screaming with laughter whenever they’d found something utterly bizarre. That was their current catchphrase, utterly bizarre, and they spoke it in a pseudo-posh voice, collapsing into helpless giggles and clutching one another. Julie’s mouth twitched into a tiny smile at the memory. Even when Sam had been in a mood, they’d still gone into town, mooching around the stores from Buchanan Street down to Argyle Street and the St Enoch Centre. Sam liked to sit in Princes Square, watching all the people, whereas Julie was always itching to be on the move, to see what was in the shops, coaxing Sam to try things on.
In town, she texted Sam, c u later. XXX. That would do for now, she thought, snapping the mobile shut and slipping it back into the wee pocket inside her bag. She’d call her at lunchbreak. Julie frowned suddenly. Was this the one day of the week when Sam had a different break from her? Muirpark had such a huge pupil population that there was a staggered lunchtime, half of the pupils timetabled for an earlier lunch. It had been okay last year but now they were in Fourth Year it didn’t always work out. Was this the day? Julie simply couldn’t remember. She’d try anyway and hope to catch Sam between classes if necessary. Now she would sit and anticipate a stroll around the town.
Catching sight of herself in the darkened glass, she saw a school leaver all ready and eager to begin university. She would be going in to buy all the stuff she needed for her course, wouldn’t she? Great big lined-notepads for lectures like the ones Mary used for her night-school class. And clothes. New stuff that made a statement, saying that here was someone out for a good time. She wouldn’t think about school. About him. She was past all of that now and there were things to do today, places that a new university student would want to see. A sudden thought struck her. Maybe she could actually go up to Strathclyde? Check it out before the official university term began? The other Julie stared back at her – older, more knowing – and she suppressed the self-satisfied smile, forcing herself to feign the nonchalance that an older girl would certainly feel.
Julie-the-student-to-be let the carriage rock her back and forward in a hypnotic rhythm, quite unaware of the eyes that were trying to translate every phrase of her body language.
CHAPTER 13
‘We won’t give up until Nancy is found,’ Lorimer insisted.
‘D’you think she’s dead?’
DCI William Lorimer swallowed back the angry response he wanted to make to the question. What an insensitive little bitch! He glowered at the journalist, seeing her red mouth turned upwards in what was meant to be a smile but was more like a sneer. How could any woman, reporter or not, form a question like that when the child’s mother was sitting in front of them, nervously twisting her hands and throwing glances his way as if begging him to make it all stop. Well, that was just what he bloody well would do. He’d had quite enough of the national press for one morning.
‘That’s all, ladies and gentlemen,’ Lorimer replied, the merest hint of stress on the word ladies. Barbara Cassidy was no lady, just a nasty little hack grubbing for dirt. His gimlet stare at the reporter made others turn and look her way. Cassidy, he was glad to see as he ushered Nancy’s mother away, had the grace at least to blush. Or perhaps those twin spots of colour were simply temper at being so publicly thwarted?
‘You did well,’ Lorimer told Kim Fraser as they left the room where a backdrop of larger-than-life-sized photographs of Nancy had gazed down at the reporters. �
��A public appeal like that can only help to push things forward.’
‘But the newspaper people . . . ?’ Kim trailed off, unwilling to voice any allusion to that last crass question. She wanted to ask him. Of course she did. Any young mother would be desperate for the reassurance that the Senior Investigating Officer could provide. Especially if he thought her daughter was alive. But that was something Lorimer simply couldn’t give her.
‘We’ve got teams out right now scouring the city, Kim,’ he said gently. ‘There are door-to-door inquiries as well as officers looking in more remote places where Nancy might have been left.’
‘D’you think she’s—?’
‘There’s no point in speculating one way or the other. Kiddies have gone missing and been found several days later, alive and well. You just have to keep on hoping.’
Lorimer heard himself speaking and hated the sound of such platitudes, but knew fine that was exactly what Kim Fraser wanted to hear. He couldn’t very well quote the other statistics about children whose wee corpses had been turned up after as little as forty-eight hours.
‘You will find her, won’t you, Mr Lorimer?’ Kim was looking at him as though he were the only person who could make a difference to her world, eyes full of trust for the man who was organising the search for her daughter.
‘We’re doing everything we can, I promise you,’ he replied, steering Kim in the direction of the Family Liaison room where she would be given a cup of tea before someone took her home. An older woman was waiting for them, her bleached-blonde hair swept back into a ponytail, huge gold hoops dangling from her ears. Kim’s mother, Lorimer realised, noticing the resemblance between the two women.
‘Aw right, hen?’ Mrs Fraser asked, taking a tentative step towards them, eyes flicking over Lorimer, unsure of this tall policeman and his serious expression. He saw Kim let herself be folded into her mother’s swift embrace, then she was standing looking back at him, lip trembling.
‘You’ll let us know when you have any news?’ The young woman looked at him, her eyes wide with an appeal that let Lorimer see how young and defenceless she really was. Under that brave exterior, Kim Fraser was just a wee Glasgow lassie herself, still needing her mammy.
‘Of course,’ he replied, forcing his face to create a reassuring smile. Then, with a nod to both women, he turned and briskly walked away as though to show them that he was eager to be back at work on the job of finding little Nancy Fraser.
It was a hellish job whenever something like this happened. Triple murders and pub riots were a dawdle compared to the anguish of seeing a mum squeeze her emotions dry over a missing child. So far they’d not found very much but what little there was had been offered up for public consumption. Nancy’s wee friend had been helpful enough in giving them the lead of a white car, and the laborious task of visiting each and every potential owner of the vehicle was still ongoing. They’d had her in a second time and even shown photographs of types of Mazdas whose red-haired female driver might have snatched the girl. And yes, Sally had agreed – her little face screwed up in a frown of concentration – she thought that the lady did have hair that colour as she pointed to a picture showing a woman with henna-dyed hair.
The task of hunting down known paedophiles had begun the day after Nancy’s disappearance, a discreet line of inquiry that was being kept strictly under wraps for now. Lorimer and his team had to walk that fine line between observing civil liberties and making visits to the men on their register. All known sex offenders in their area had been contacted; their DNA profiles were all held on the national database. It was a painstaking job made even harder by keeping it from the papers. Sadie, the wee dragon in the police canteen, had her answer for them all: ‘Castrate the bastards! That’s whit ah’d dae tae the lot o them!’ she’d growled when the news of Nancy Fraser’s abduction had filtered down to her domain. But the reality was a lot more delicate than Sadie’s politically incorrect suggestion. Just one smart-mouthed officer could provoke a convicted paedophile to run to the Gazette in the wake of a vigilante attack, screaming that his human rights were being trampled underfoot.
The possibility that Nancy had been snatched by a recently bereaved parent was harder to investigate but that was what Lorimer was working on, now that the appeal had been broadcast on national television. Back in his own room, Lorimer drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk, thinking about the sort of person who might take a child away from its own home and leave her mother worried to distraction. What sort of personality . . . ? Just as the thought was beginning to form, Lorimer picked up the telephone and dialled a number that he knew off by heart. It rang out twice then he heard a familiar voice, which made him smile for the first time since he’d left home that morning.
‘Rosie? How are you? Still keeping your feet up and reading all these novels Maggie gave you?’ Lorimer leaned back in his chair, swaying slightly from side to side as he heard the woman’s chatty reply. Doctor Rosie Fergusson was currently on sick leave from her job as a consultant forensic pathologist at the University of Glasgow, a job that had brought her into close contact with Lorimer on many occasions. They had a good working relationship, the pathologist always ready to supply what information she could whenever a particularly difficult case of suspicious death arose. But it was not Rosie that he had wanted to call, despite the pleasure that listening to her voice always gave him. She was so lucky to be here and everyone was grateful that the feisty little blonde was going to be back at her work before the year was out.
‘Is Solly around?’ he asked.
‘Ah, I see. After my other half, are you?’ The note of amusement came across and Lorimer could hear her calling, ‘Solly! Phone for you!’ as she turned away from the telephone.
‘Hello?’
‘Solly. How are things?’
‘Lorimer,’ the voice on the other end of the line sounded relieved, ‘thought it might have been one of my postgraduate students. Some of them are particularly needy at this stage in their work,’ he sighed.
‘Well, sorry to disillusion you but I wanted to pick your extensive brains just as badly.’
There was a silent pause while Dr Solomon Brightman considered this. The DCI was well used to Solly’s long pauses, although they could still irritate him whenever he was looking for a particular response.
Dr Solomon Brightman had come into Lorimer’s life one spring day when he had been at a loss to solve the murder of three young women whose bodies had been dumped in a Glasgow park. From being resentful of an expertise that he’d not fully understood, Lorimer had come to admire the behavioural psychologist whose skills had been useful in helping to solve those multiple murders. And the forensic side of Dr Brightman’s work was not simply a tool that Lorimer lifted and laid without thought for the man himself. Solly was a Londoner who had embraced the city of Glasgow as his permanent home and had become as much a friend as a colleague. Not only had the psychologist’s initial involvement brought him into close contact with Strathclyde Police, but it had introduced him to Rosie.
‘The Nancy Fraser case?’ Solly ventured at last.
‘Got it in one.’
‘Not the happiest sort of investigation for you,’ Solly remarked.
‘You can say that again. I’ve just been with the mother making a public television appeal. Grim,’ Lorimer heard himself sigh. ‘Anyway, we’re following several lines of inquiry, one of which is to investigate the possibility that the girl’s been taken by someone who may recently have lost their own child. We’ve got a few documented cases from way back though I have to be honest they were all babies, not kids as old as Nancy. I wanted to run that idea past you to see if you would come up with any aspects of that sort of female behaviour that could give us something to go on.’
The silence at the other end might make anyone else wonder if the line had been cut off, but Lorimer knew that Solly was taking his usual ponderous time before replying.
‘I could certainly give you some case studies on the
subject,’ the psychologist replied at last. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Lorimer ran a hand through his hair. At this point what he wanted was for someone to come forward and tell them where Nancy Fraser was. But any pointer in the right direction would help.
‘Okay. Thanks. But if you wanted to have a wee chat about the case, I’d be happy to see you. Unofficially, of course,’ Lorimer added. The costs of this case were already spiralling and his superintendent was making noises about financial effectiveness. Paying for the services of a forensic psychologist just wasn’t on unless events dictated otherwise.
‘Can you spare some time this evening? Bring Maggie up?’ Solly suggested. ‘I’m sure Rosie would be delighted to see you both.’
‘See what I can do. Call you later. Thanks,’ Lorimer replied, hanging up as a familiar figure entered his room.
Detective Superintendent Mark Mitchison shot a questioning look at his DCI then let his eyes flick over Lorimer as though inspecting his appearance. Whatever he’d hoped to find (and possibly criticise) just wasn’t there. Lorimer had taken extra care with his formal suit and had worn a sober tie that was the right side of funereal.
‘This morning’s appeal. No problems?’ the Detective Superintendent asked in a tone that suggested that his confidence in Lorimer handling the media was less than complete. It was true that certain journalists had rubbed Lorimer up the wrong way in the past and he’d had his own way of sorting them out, but an occasion like a public appeal for a missing child would never be one of them. A meeting with the Assistant Chief Constable was the only thing that had prevented Mitchison from doing the appeal with Kim Fraser himself. He wasn’t averse to pulling rank in a case even when the DCI was Senior Investigating Officer.
‘None whatsoever,’ Lorimer replied smoothly, swinging in his chair in a manner deliberately calculated to annoy. There was no love lost between the two men and many officers still grumbled about the decision that had promoted Mitchison over Lorimer. Still, a decent working relationship was usually maintained by Lorimer’s strategy of avoiding his senior officer whenever humanly possible.