Double Mortice

by Bill Daly

  ‘Perhaps he killed her somewhere else,’ Kay suggested, ‘then took her body to the Gleniffer Braes?’

  ‘That doesn’t stack up with Gibson leaving his office at six-thirty and phoning me from the caretaker’s flat in Dalgleish Tower at five past seven.’

  ‘In which case, Jack McFarlane, or someone else, might have killed her and taken her body to the Gleniffer Braes.’

  ‘So how could Michael Gibson describe the corpse so accurately?’ Charlie put down his pencil, pushed his chair back and swung both feet up onto the kitchen table. He closed his eyes. ‘I’m missing something, Kay. I’m missing something.’

  Charlie walked up the crazy-paving path, lined with wilting daffodils, towards the modern apartment block. He pressed the bell push of the ground floor flat. There was no response. When he sounded the bell again, Sheila Thompson came hurrying to the door. Keeping the security chain in place, she eased the door ajar.

  ‘Who is it?’ She peered through the gap. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s Inspector Anderson, Miss Thompson. Sorry to disturb you on a Saturday morning. Could I possibly have a few minutes of your time?’

  Sheila closed the door while she unhooked the chain, then opened it wide. ‘Sorry about the unwelcoming reception. I didn’t recognise you, Inspector. Come on in.’

  ‘No need to apologise. A very sensible precaution. I only wish more people would do that.’ Charlie stepped into the hall. ‘How’s your mother keeping? I heard she wasn’t well.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing serious. A touch of flu, that’s all. She’s over the worst of it.’ Sheila ushered Charlie towards the lounge. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Are you aware that Mr Gibson’s wife has been found murdered?’

  ‘Yes. It’s in the morning paper. It’s a terrible business.’

  ‘What you don’t know is that there was another murder yesterday. Gordon Parker, Paul Gibson’s best friend, was also killed. I’d like you to keep this information to yourself, but we suspect the killer’s intended victim may have been Paul.’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘Did you know that Mr Gibson has disappeared?’

  Sheila looked incredulous. ‘Disappeared? What do you mean?’

  ‘He absconded from the Marriott Hotel on Thursday afternoon and hasn’t been seen since.’ Sheila shook her head in confusion. ‘When did you last see him?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘On Tuesday. He came into the office on Tuesday. I remember that clearly because it was the first time I’d seen him since his wife had… had… gone missing.’ Sheila’s voice tailed off.

  ‘Was he in the office all day?’

  Sheila stopped to think. ‘Most of the day, apart from an hour or so in the afternoon.’

  Alarm bells started ringing inside Charlie’s head but his outward demeanour gave no indication of surprise. ‘When, exactly, did he go out? Think carefully. It may be important.’

  ‘He arrived around nine o’clock and busied himself with his backlog of paperwork. He didn’t go out for lunch – he had a sandwich in the office. About four o’clock he told me he’d had enough and said he was going home. I reminded him that Peter Davies had scheduled a promotion review in his agenda at five-thirty. Mr Gibson didn’t want to defer that again – it had already been rescheduled several times – so he went out around four o’clock and returned around five-thirty for his meeting with Mr Davies. He left for home straight after that meeting.’

  ‘Do you know where he went between four and five-thirty?’

  ‘I didn’t ask – and he didn’t volunteer the information.’

  ‘Did he behave any differently when he returned to the office?’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Did he seem anxious, flustered, agitated?’

  ‘He was certainly on edge. But he’d been like that all day.’

  ‘Have you seen or heard from him since Tuesday?’ Sheila shook her head. ‘Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.’

  Sheila closed the front door behind Charlie and slipped the security chain back in place. She stood leaning with her back to the door, her heart pounding. ‘You can come out now. He’s gone.’

  Michael Gibson appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was unshaven and his eyes were red from lack of sleep. ‘Why did you tell Anderson that?’ he roared, thumping both his fists against the wall. ‘Why did you tell him I left the office at four o’clock on Tuesday?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth. That’s why. Why shouldn’t I tell the police the truth? What lies have you been telling them? How can you expect me to cover up for you if you don’t tell me what lies you’ve been telling?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go off the handle.’ He ran his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘I need to work out what to do now.’ Going into the lounge, he poured himself a stiff drink.

  ‘Whisky’s not the answer, Michael.’

  ‘It helps me think.’ He took a long swallow, screwing up his face when the neat spirit hit the back of his throat. ‘What can I do?’ he muttered. ‘Now my alibi’s blown.’

  Sheila looked at him in astonishment. ‘What alibi?’

  ‘I told Anderson I was in the office all day on Tuesday and that I didn’t leave until six-thirty. That would’ve meant it was it impossible for me to drive to Paisley and get back to Dalgleish Tower by seven. But now he knows I was out of the office between four and five-thirty, that changes everything.’

  ‘Where did you go? I need to know the truth. Did you drive to Paisley?’

  ‘Good God, no.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went to see Pippa.’

  ‘You did what? I thought it was all over between you and her? Why did you go to see her?’

  ‘I needed to talk to her. She’d been avoiding me. She hadn’t returned my phone calls or answered any of my texts. I called her office on Tuesday morning, but I couldn’t reach her. Her secretary told me she was with a client. I scheduled a meeting with her at four-thirty under a fictitious name, then I got her phone number from her secretary on the pretext that I wanted to leave a confidential message on her answering machine concerning the meeting. I did leave a message – imploring her to meet me at her flat at four-thirty.’

  ‘Michael… You… You do know –?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That Philippa’s involved with someone else.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘She’s seeing Jonathan Sharp.’

  ‘She can’t be! I don’t believe you.’

  The realisation hit Michael like a blow from a sledgehammer. Was that all their relationship had ever meant to Philippa? The life style? The status of being with ‘the boss’?

  ‘Didn’t she tell you that – when you went to see her?’

  ‘I didn’t see her,’ Michael spluttered. ‘She didn’t turn up. I rang her door bell, but she wasn’t there. I waited in the car outside her apartment block for an hour but she didn’t show up. Finally I gave up and went back to the office.’

  ‘Why did you lie to the police?’

  ‘I panicked. I didn’t want to give them the impression that I was running back to my mistress as soon as my wife had gone missing. I didn’t want Anderson to think I’d anything to do with Anne’s disappearance.’

  ‘You’ve got to tell him the truth. He knows now that you lied about the time you left the office. You’ll only make things worse if you don’t give yourself up.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got to find McFarlane. He murdered Anne. And you heard what Anderson just said – he tried to murder Paul. If I don’t get to him first, he’ll kill me. I know he will.’

  ‘Stop talking like that! You’re no match for McFarlane. Even if you did find him, what would you do?’

  ‘I will find him.’ Michael’s eyes hardened. ‘And I’ll kill him.’

  ‘This is crazy talk. Stop it at once. Go to the police. They’ll give you protection until they find McFarlane.’

  ‘The same way they prote
cted Anne? The same way they protected the poor sod who got killed in place of Paul? And let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that they do catch him. What then? Will they be able to convict him? Even if they do – what’ll happen to him? Another stretch in jail; a life sentence for him – and a lifetime of nightmares for me, living in dread of the day he gets out.

  ‘I’ve lived with it for the past twelve years – waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering where and when he’s going to strike. There’s no way I’m going to go through all that again. I’m going to finish it once and for all.’

  Michael picked up the bottle and poured neat whisky down his throat until he felt his eye sockets burn. ‘I’ve got to go. Thanks for not giving me away to Anderson.’ Crossing to the front door, he unhooked the security chain and opened the door a few inches, looking and listening, then slipped outside and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Sheila sank down on the settee with her head in her hands.

  Charlie climbed to the top of the spiral staircase in ‘The Ubiquitous Chip’ and looked around the crowded bar. When Susan Trayner half-rose, raising her hand tentatively in recognition, Charlie crossed to her table.

  She looked to be in her mid-forties, her straggly, prematurely greying hair piled on top of her head and held in place by a wooden clasp.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Charlie asked. His first impression was that her strong features were forbidding, but her hazel eyes were soft and friendly and she had an engaging smile.

  ‘Nothing, thanks. I’ve got a mineral water,’ she said, holding up her glass.

  ‘Would you not like something to eat?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  Charlie crossed to the bar to order a coffee. While waiting to be served, he glanced back over his shoulder and studied Susan’s profile; skin-tight jeans and a clinging polo-neck sweater which showed off her still youthful figure to advantage.

  Charlie carried across his coffee and sat down on the bench seat beside her. ‘It’s good of you to see me on a Saturday. I’ll be as brief as I can. The reason I wanted to talk to you is that I’m hoping you might be able to straighten out a few things in my mind.’ Charlie paused while he stirred several spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. ‘We’re talking purely hypothetically, you understand.’ Susan nodded her assent. ‘If I were to take the case of, for example, an advocate who felt he’d let down a client. Do you think that would be enough to induce a nervous breakdown?’

  ‘Probably not in itself, though it could be a contributory factor.’

  ‘What else might it take?’

  ‘Perhaps personal problems – family problems – that sort of thing.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Susan hesitated. ‘How important is this?’ She spoke tersely. ‘I’m not in the habit of going into such details.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be asking if lives weren’t at stake. It is that critical.’

  She took a sip of mineral water. ‘Very well. As long as it’s clearly understood that we’re talking in complete confidence.’ Charlie nodded. ‘Let me paint a scenario for you. Imagine that our hypothetical advocate’s wife has gone away for the weekend to a bridge congress and he’s arranged an assignation with an old girlfriend, who happens to be his wife’s sister.’

  ‘Her sister!’

  Susan nodded. ‘He gives his nine year-old son extra pocket money to go to the cinema with his pal. However, the boy forgets his money and when he runs back home to get it, he hears a noise coming from his parents’ bedroom. He walks in unannounced and finds them together.’

  ‘Actually sees his father screwing his aunt?’

  ‘Maybe he sees something even more traumatic. Something a bit kinky.’ Charlie raised an eyebrow. ‘The girl, naked, spread-eagled, tied to the bed.’

  The coffee spoon fell from Charlie’s grasp.

  ‘Nothing aggressive or violent, you understand. She’s an old flame from his university days – a more than willing participant, enjoying every minute of it. In fact the bondage game was initially her idea, but he finds it incredibly exciting. The feeling of power and domination turns him on enormously. When the son bursts into the bedroom he sees his father lying naked on the bed, fondling his aunt’s breasts. The boy stands frozen, wide-eyed in the doorway, his gaze locked onto his father’s erect penis, already encased in a condom.

  ‘The boy screams: ‘Stop it, Daddy! Stop it! Don’t hurt Aunt Carole!’ He rushes off to his room and locks himself inside. It takes the father the best part of two hours to coax him out. He tries to explain to the child that he hadn’t been hurting Carole – that they’d only been playing a game.

  ‘But it’s when he tries to make the boy promise never to mention this game to his mother that he realises he’s lost his son. A wedge has been driven between them. The child used to hero worship his father, but his respect for him crumbles and disintegrates. The sparkle of unquestioning trust dies in the boy’s eyes as he sits, tight-lipped, steadfastly refusing to make the promise.

  ‘His aunt becomes hysterical. She pleads with him to promise not to say anything to his mother. She even gets down on her knees and begs him. The boy starts wailing. Eventually, he makes the promise, then runs out of the house in floods of tears.

  ‘Over the next few days, the child doesn’t say a word to his father. The father tries to bribe his way back into his son’s affections by buying him the expensive baseball bat he’d been hankering after for months, but when he takes it to him the boy won’t even acknowledge the gift. The father leaves the bat on top of his son’s bookcase. Weeks go by and the boy still won’t go anywhere near it. He doesn’t even unwrap it from its polythene sleeve. Every time the father goes into the child’s bedroom, the bat is lying in exactly the same position. The permanent reminder – the rejected thirty pieces of silver – the phallic symbol of an engorged penis wrapped in a sheath.

  ‘The incident has a traumatic effect on the father. His work suffers dramatically – he loses his power of concentration. He spends every waking minute fretting about whether the son will tell his mother about the incident, but his wife never gives any indication of having found out. He’s torn in two. He consults a psychiatrist who recommends him to confess everything to his wife in order to have a basis for re-establishing credibility with his son. Objectively, he agrees with the advice, but he can’t bring himself to tell her what happened.

  ‘Having previously tried to interest his wife in mild bondage games to enliven their sex life, he knows how much the very idea disgusts her. He shudders to think how she would react if she ever found out he had allowed their son to witness him indulging his fantasies with her sister. In the event, he does nothing – never broaches the subject again – neither with his wife nor his son. Time doesn’t heal. In the months that follow the mental anguish builds up. The boy becomes introverted and withdrawn. From being good at sports and a high achiever at school, he loses interest in everything and falls behind his peers. The wife’s sister is totally traumatised by what happened – to the extent that she applies for a teaching job in Canada because she can’t handle the way her godson looks at her every time he sees her.

  ‘The mother becomes concerned about her son’s welfare and she wants to consult a psychiatrist to try to find out what’s wrong with him, but the father dismisses the idea, telling her the boy’s just going through a normal, adolescent phase – while all the time he’s living in constant dread that his son might blurt out what had happened to his mother in a fit of pique over some unrelated, trivial incident.

  ‘That, Inspector, is the kind of pressure that might induce a breakdown.’

  Charlie drained his coffee cup. ‘Jesus wept!’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As soon as Charlie got back to the office he summoned O’Sullivan and Renton. He noticed Sullivan was frowning.

  ‘Let me bring you up to date,’ Charlie began. ‘This morning I was convinced McFarlane was our man. It was only a matter of smoking him out and gathering the ev
idence. Now I’m not so sure. It seems that Gibson has been stringing us along with a pack of lies. His secretary told me he was out of his office between four and five-thirty last Tuesday. Ample time to drive to Paisley and back – and commit a murder.

  ‘You had the clue staring you in the face, Colin,’ Charlie said, turning to Renton. ‘But you missed it. You scoffed at Peter Davies telling you his meeting with Gibson had started at 5.37. Did you not ask him why?’ Renton looked puzzled. ‘Nobody schedules a meeting to start at 5.37,’ Charlie said. ‘It had to be scheduled for 5.30, so why did it start at 5.37?’

  ‘Davies might’ve turned up late?’ Renton suggested.

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Totally out of character for such a precise man.’

  ‘Gibson’s previous meeting overran?’

  ‘He didn’t have any other meetings that afternoon.’

  ‘Gibson got caught short in the bog?’

  Charlie laughed. ‘Nice try. Possible, but too much of a coincidence. Never trust coincidences. Facts and probabilities are our only friends. If you’d followed through and asked Davies why the meeting had started late, he’d almost certainly have volunteered the information that Gibson had been out of the office. But on the other hand,’ Charlie said, rubbing his chin. ‘If Gibson did murder his wife, what the hell was McFarlane doing taking a taxi to Dalgleish Tower? There are too many loose ends, boys. I don’t like it.

  ‘You’re not looking happy,’ Charlie said, eyeing O’Sullivan’s worried expression. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I just had a phone call from PC Chadwick in Partick. He told me that Mrs Donnelly – she’s the mother of Maureen, Gordon Parker’s girlfriend, had been to see him. She was in a right tizz. It seems that Maureen’s gone missing.’

  ‘Missing?’

  ‘I went across to the Western yesterday to break the news to her about her boyfriend’s murder. I spoke to her just as she was coming off shift. She insisted on knowing how Parker had been killed, so I told her. She was distraught – verging on hysterical. I offered to give her a lift home, but she said she wanted to walk. She only lives half a mile from the hospital. I watched her go off down the road towards her house, but apparently she never arrived.’