by Alex Gray
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 . . .
But when a man commits the murder of a young person who is in his pastoral care, then it is more than eyebrows that should be raised. Questions must be asked about what sort of persons are being trained to look after our young folk within the sanctuary of the church or any organised type of religion today . . .
Lorimer wanted to crush the paper in his hands, but he forced himself to reread the final paragraphs.
But now we have a case where the authorities seem to be shielding another religious figure from prosecution rather than taking him into custody. The Religious Education teacher, Eric Chalmers, who is at the centre of the Julie Donaldson murder, had his house completely searched by a squad of Scene of Crime officers from Strathclyde Police earlier today. So far no arrests have been made, though a person close to the investigation has informed the Gazette that Mr Chalmers has been under close scrutiny from the Senior Investigating Officer in the case. Repeated visits have been made to Chalmers’ home and his car is currently being taken apart by forensic experts to see if any traces can be found to link him with this case.
Why his arrest has not been made by DCI Lorimer, the investigating officer in charge of the case, is a matter of public speculation, but the Gazette has discovered that the police officer’s wife is not only a colleague of the RE teacher at Muirpark Secondary, but that Mrs Lorimer is a personal friend of the Chalmers family. In other walks of life a conflict of interests would immediately be noticed so why is Lorimer still in charge of this case and, perhaps more importantly, why is Eric Chalmers not yet in custody?
‘You’re off the case!’ Mitchison glowered at his Detective Chief Inspector. ‘We’ll just have to bring the review team in sooner than we wanted to,’ he said, his nasal whine directed at Lorimer. ‘This is a complete disaster. For one of my officers to have been named and shamed like this . . . well, I don’t know what the Chief Constable is going to say about it, really I don’t!’ Mitchison did not deign to look again at his DCI, but examined his perfectly shaped fingernails as if Lorimer were somehow beneath his contempt.
It wasn’t in his nature to grovel and the very thought of humbling himself to a man whom he truly despised made Lorimer grit his teeth, but it would have to be done.
‘If I could just have a few more days, sir? We have just had some new information that might help to identify one of the victims.’ The words were out and his tone was suitably beseeching. Lorimer held his breath as he caught a triumphant glitter in Mitchison’s eye as the man sighed theatrically. He hadn’t wanted to reveal the latest report from the pathologist yet or relate how keen Dan Murphy had been to let him know what the forensic odontology had suggested.
‘Oh, well, I suppose we can give you, say, forty-eight hours. But we need a result. And I am expecting to have the news of an arrest as soon as possible. Do I make myself clear?’
When the telephone rang and he heard Maggie’s voice, Lorimer’s first thought was that she too had read Cassidy’s piece and was calling to convey her own horror. But as he listened, the story about Jessica King and her stalker changed the tense expression on his face.
‘Look, I’m coming over to Muirpark. Has the girl got her camera with her? Right. Stay with her. And tell Manson I want to talk to him as well.’
Kyle Kerrigan was crossing the playground from the PE block when the dark blue Lexus drove through the gates and curved up towards the staff car park. Following it with his eyes, the boy watched as a familiar figure emerged and closed the car door. He was supposed to be taking a message for Finnegan, but curiosity mingled with an idea that he’d been harbouring for days now made Kyle turn on his heel and follow the Detective Chief Inspector to the main entrance.
‘You’ve got to buzz them if you don’t know the right numbers to press. The teachers have all got cards that let them in, see?’
Lorimer looked down at the boy who had suddenly emerged by his side. That was Kyle Kerrigan, wasn’t it? The policeman tried to conceal his shock but it was too late.
‘Bit of a mess, eh?’ Kyle attempted a lopsided grin as he fingered his swollen face.
‘Not something that happened inside the boxing ring, I suppose?’ Lorimer remarked grimly, his hand falling to his side. ‘Who did this to you, Kyle? Your old man?’
‘Aye, well, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that, Mr Lorimer. See—’ The boy reddened suddenly and stopped.
‘What is it, Kyle? If there’s anything I can do to help . . .’
‘See, at the police station? Remember I had that swab? Well, is there any chance you could see if my father,’ Kyle swallowed hard, ‘is really my father?’ The boy dropped his head and continued in a mutter, ‘Because he says he isn’t.’
Lorimer had glimpsed the appeal in those grey eyes despite the fact that they were almost closed against bruised, puffy lids. This mattered to the boy, it mattered a lot.
‘If we have his DNA on record it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a comparison, Kyle. But I’m afraid it’s out of the question for me to give you that sort of information.’
‘Oh.’ The boy dropped his gaze, looking so suddenly forlorn that Lorimer wished he could give this boy what he was asking.
‘If you had your birth certificate . . .’ he began.
‘Yes,’ the boy said simply. ‘That’s what my big brother said I should look for. I just thought something coming from the police would make him leave me alone, you see.’
Lorimer nodded. ‘Good luck, then.’
‘Oh, and it’s 1066 you press.’ Kyle nodded towards the door once more. ‘Battle of Hastings. I’m no supposed to know that, but I do,’ he said, trying to drop a wink but grimacing instead.
Lorimer watched him walk away. What was life like for all the Kyle Kerrigans of this world, brutalised by the very person who was supposed to provide care and affection? Barbara Cassidy would do well to make a feature out of that, rather than creating a media frenzy over a man who had yet to be accused of murder.
And that was something else he’d have to find time to do: begin an internal inquiry into how certain information had come to be leaked to the press in the first place.
Muirpark Secondary was like every other school in the country; any visitor had to report first to the reception desk and be given a security pass, never mind if he was a top police officer or not. As Lorimer clipped the plastic badge to his lapel, Keith Manson emerged from his office, a worried frown upon his fleshy face.
‘Jessica’s with your wife in the guidance office,’ Manson told him. ‘Come with me.’ Lorimer followed him, matching the shorter man’s eager stri
de along the blue-walled corridor.
Jessica King looked up as they entered the room. Lorimer could see that she’d been crying but the pale face appeared composed and had lost none of the haunting quality of ethereal beauty that Maggie had earlier tried to describe.
‘She’s stunning,’ his wife had told him. ‘But entirely unaware of her own effect on people. Men especially,’ she’d added.
But after a few questions it was clear that the Detective Chief Inspector was keen to concentrate not on the girl’s ordeal but upon the one thing that might make a difference – some of the photographs taken as the car had slowed down outside Jessica King’s home.
‘Thanks. We’ll be able to check this against anyone known to us,’ he told the girl. ‘And don’t worry. If he’s in our system, he won’t be bothering you again.’
CHAPTER 35
‘Nice,’ Jo Grant remarked, turning her head as they passed a lone buzzard observing the world from its perch on top of a fence post. ‘Haven’t been in this part of the world before.’
‘Thought you were an Argyll lass,’ Cameron remarked.
‘Well, my mother lived in Tobermory, but she came to the city before I was born,’ Jo explained. ‘I’m not a real islander like yourself.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Cameron murmured, the lilt in his voice more marked than usual, as if being closer to home heightened his Lewis accent.
‘Right, maybe we’ll be able to see it today,’ Cameron said shyly, glancing sideways at Jo Grant as he slowed the car down into a lay-by at the top of a hill. He stopped, let the windows roll down, then, reaching into the glove compartment, he drew out a small pair of powerful binoculars and trained them on the glittering seas below. For a moment neither of them spoke, then, ‘Yes, have a look at that.’ Cameron offered his companion the binoculars and Jo Grant obediently looked out to the shapes of islands beyond the water.
‘Ireland,’ he said. ‘Not often you can make it out but on a clear day like this . . . Jura, Ghigha and Islay, do you see it?’
Jo Grant murmured that she did, before settling the glasses on her lap. Then the magic moment was over and the car was making its way carefully downhill to the lush, wooded region where the small village lay.
Even as they parked at Kilberry Inn, they could see the cottage on the other side of the road, a white car sitting on a patch of gravel under a stand of pine trees.
Niall Cameron looked across at DI Grant, watching her expression intently. ‘D’you think?’
‘Well, we’re about to find out, aren’t we?’ she replied, pulling the binoculars over her head in an attempt to appear just like a normal tourist out birdwatching.
Walking down the short slope towards the whitewashed cottage, Cameron felt the late afternoon sun warming his back and suddenly he understood why this woman had chosen the remote Argyll village as her bolthole. A sense of peace pervaded the area with the sound of water trickling in the burn that separated the cottage from the adjoining field, the scent of meadowsweet wafting from its mossy banks and the cloud of midges dancing under the shadow of the pines. If he closed his eyes for a moment he could be back home.
It was the child that they heard first, their feet suddenly immobile on the edge of the road. A glance between them and a nod was all that was needed. Cameron would remain here at the front door by the car, the same white Mazda that little Sally MacIlwraith had spotted back in Glasgow, while DI Grant followed that sound of childish laughter.
As she approached the back of the house, Jo saw that it contained a square patch of grass bordered on three sides by a flagstone path. There, in the middle of the garden, a little girl was being pushed on a green plastic swing by an older woman who could easily have been taken for her grandmother. She’d seen countless pictures of the missing child yet DI Grant still screwed up her eyes against the sunlight to be sure that it really was Nancy Fraser. The woman’s henna-red hair lifted in the breeze, revealing a weathered face covered in a tracery of broken veins, the skin of her neck sagging as she bent forwards.
‘Hello.’ Jo smiled as she walked towards them, noting the older woman’s back suddenly stiffening and the way her hands clutched the two chains of the swing to bring it to an abrupt halt. ‘Can you help me, please? I was looking for someone but I’ve kind of lost my way,’ she continued, still stepping towards the woman and the little girl who was now looking uncertainly from one grown-up to the other. Jo grinned at her then hunkered down to the child’s level. ‘Hello, you’re a lovely wee lass, what’s your name?’ she asked before the woman had time to intervene.
‘Nancy,’ the child replied, one finger going into her mouth as a shy smile dimpled her cheeks.
‘What do you want?’ The woman was towering over Jo now, a look of fear in her eyes. ‘Come away into the house, Nancy. Granny’s got your milk and biscuits all ready,’ she scolded, one hand out to take the child off the swing.
But in a swift movement Jo had scooped Nancy up in her arms while that tall shadow lingering out of sight transformed itself into the familiar figure of DS Niall Cameron.
‘Miss Lorna Tulloch? DI Grant, Strathclyde Police. We’d like you to come with us, please.’
Later, Cameron would tell them about how strange that return journey had been. Nancy Fraser had been placed behind him next to DI Grant, the child’s car seat transferred from the ancient Mazda while Lorna Tulloch followed them in the police car behind, accompanied by the officers from Lochgilphead. They’d stopped at Inverary to let the child and her abductor use the toilet and it had been ‘Granny this’ and ‘Granny that’; the little girl seemed to have accepted the older woman quite naturally. Only when Jo Grant had reminded Nancy that she was going home to see Mummy did Lorna Tulloch’s gentle expression harden into something remote and unseeing, and Cameron had been filled with a strange sort of pity for the child’s abductor. Thereafter she had been silent, letting Jo and the child chatter to one another as they were led back to the cars taking them back towards Glasgow. There was no sense of triumph as they’d made that two-hour journey back in the early evening sunlight, he’d tell his colleagues. Simply a feeling of immense relief and an overwhelming anticipation to see mother and child reunited. They’d called Lorimer with the news so it wouldn’t only be Kim Fraser at HQ waiting for their arrival.
As he saw their cars swing through the gates of the police car park, Lorimer wondered what fate awaited the elderly woman. Just what was her story? That was something he’d want to know, despite the matter being pretty much out of their hands after today. Other people’s stories went on and what became of them could affect choices he might make in other cases in years to come. Lorna Tulloch was seriously delusional – of that there was absolutely no doubt – but, from what he’d been able to glean from Cameron, she’d taken good care of Nancy and the child had even seemed quite fond of this stranger who had claimed to be her grandmother.
There were more officers than usual lining the corridor where Kim Fraser waited to see her child, their eyes filled with the sort of emotion most people didn’t associate with hardened cops.
‘Nancy!’
‘Mummy!’
Lorimer saw DS Cameron and Jo Grant stop at the doorway, Miss Tulloch between them. He could see the woman’s thin arms hanging by her side, thin and old and brittle. A childless woman, drained of the sap of youth, she seemed shrunken and shrivelled into herself, her dark red gypsy hair curiously at odds with her pallid complexion. He’d shaken his head as Jo had produced the cuffs; there was no need to restrain her now.
As Kim Fraser hugged her child to her, crying, smoothing her hair and saying, Nancy, Nancy over and over again, she glanced up at Lorimer who was standing there, one hand on the older woman’s arm.
‘Is that?’ Kim left the question unfinished as she stared at the person who had caused her so much anguish over these past ten days. There was a sudden silence as the two women faced one another. Then Jo Grant nodded to a pair of uniformed officers to lead the prisoner away, and the
moment was past.
‘You did it.’ Kim Fraser looked up at the DCI. ‘I knew you would, Mr Lorimer!’ The girl’s face was covered in tears but a huge smile shone through them as she hugged Nancy to her.
‘Not me, Kim. DI Grant, here, has been in charge of the case lately,’ he said. ‘And it was down to a whole team of people, I promise you,’ Lorimer assured her. ‘As well as a lot of good old-fashioned police work.’
Kim shook her head. ‘See if they newspaper folk ask me, I’m going to tell them. Youse didn’t give up on me, Mr Lorimer. Not once. And I cannae thank you all enough for bringing her back.’ The girl’s glance took in Jo, Cameron and the others who lingered still in the corridor.
Lorimer swallowed as Kim Fraser burst into a fresh bout of weeping.
Then Nancy piped up, ‘What’s wrong, Mammy? Are ye no pleased tae see me?’ Everyone laughed at the child’s innocent remark and Lorimer could see one or two of his officers wipe away a sudden tear.
‘It’s hard to believe.’ Lorimer shook his head, putting down the two case files with a thump.
Solly shrugged his shoulders; the vagaries of human nature came his way so often that very little seemed to surprise the psychologist. But it was one of those quirks of fate that the very case file he had originally shown the Detective Chief Inspector should be replicated by the woman from Jordanhill.
‘Never had any children of her own,’ Lorimer said, his voice betraying the sympathy he could not help but feel for Lorna Tulloch.
‘Nor have you and Maggie but that doesn’t make you want to go out and steal someone else’s child,’ Solly reasoned. ‘Normal, healthy people may fantasise about what having a child may be like but only a very few will act on that fantasy. She did believe that she was the child’s grandmother while they were together. But whether she is suffering from severe delusions or not is a matter for the clinical psychologists to decide.’
‘What do you think?’ Lorimer shot him a look.