The Darkest Goodbye

by Alex Gray

  The lawyer who had been summoned to Stewart Street at Jerry Cunningham’s request was well known to Lorimer.

  ‘Pauline.’ He smiled and put out his hand. A wintry smile and a cursory handshake were his only reward. ‘Nice to see you again. How are things?’

  Pauline Dick sighed and shook her head. ‘They’d be a damned sight better if I didn’t keep getting folk like Jerry Cunningham calling me up,’ she growled, a fifty-a-day habit making the woman’s voice low and gruff. ‘Finishing a case on at the High Court this afternoon so I could do without this.’

  ‘Well that’s where he’ll be heading eventually, I reckon,’ Lorimer replied. ‘Meantime he’s all yours this fine morning.’

  When he opened the door and stood back to allow Pauline Dick to enter the room, Lorimer could see Jerry Cunningham sitting in the chair, back ramrod straight, arms folded in a gesture of defiance. What would it take, Lorimer wondered, to see those arms fall by the scar-faced man’s side?

  ‘Good morning, Mr Cunningham,’ he began. ‘You know Mrs Dick, of course?’

  ‘Ms Dick,’ Pauline butted in, drawing off her leather gloves and stuffing them in her briefcase.

  Lorimer glanced at the lawyer’s left hand, now bare of any wedding rings. Ah, well, he thought. She’ll be in no mood for any nonsense after her acrimonious divorce.

  He switched on the tape and sat back. ‘Detective Superintendent William Lorimer,’ he began, then gave the time and date.

  ‘Jerome Thomas Cunningham, you have been charged with the following. Abduction of a female person, holding said female at knifepoint, breaking property and being an accessory to the murder of David Imrie.’ Lorimer intoned the words as though he were a bookie reading out a list of runners for the three-forty at Cheltenham.

  ‘No comment,’ Cunningham replied, staring defiantly at Lorimer and completely ignoring the woman who sat at his side.

  ‘You were outside Abbey Nursing Home last night,’ Lorimer continued. ‘Like to tell me why?’

  ‘No comment,’ Cunningham said again, a trace of a sneer in his voice.

  So, it was going to be like that, was it? The smarmy bastard wanted to play this old game, did he? Lorimer thought.

  ‘We’ll be taking a DNA sample from you shortly, Mr Cunningham,’ he announced. ‘I’m sure it will match the traces on the little pile of cigarette butts we retrieved from where your car was parked.’

  There was a slight tremor down one side of the man’s face, the livid scar tightening. He’d hit home. Or had he?

  Cunningham glanced at Pauline Dick then shrugged in a parody of nonchalance.

  ‘We also have a mobile telephone in our possession,’ Lorimer said slowly. ‘Records from which will match the conversations you had with the same female whom you threatened on three separate occasions.’

  Cunningham’s shoulders lifted a little, a sure sign of tension. But that chin still jutted upwards and those dark eyes looked at the tall detective then away.

  ‘What have you got to say about that?’ Lorimer asked.

  ‘No comment,’ Cunningham repeated then gave an exaggerated yawn and began to examine his fingernails as though they were of greater interest than the man sitting opposite or the words being recorded on to tape.

  But the gesture was not lost on Lorimer. The arms were no longer tightly folded and the signs of uncertainty were there for anyone who cared to read them.

  ‘We’ve taken on Professor Brightman to help us in our investigation,’ Lorimer said. ‘You know him, don’t you, Jerry?’

  Cunningham stopped picking at his fingernails and stared at the detective, lips parted slightly.

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ he asked truculently.

  ‘We normally don’t invite the estimable professor to help us unless it is in cases of multiple murder. Cases which he is really rather good at helping to conclude.’ He smiled, catching Pauline Dick’s eye. The woman sighed deeply and looked at her watch. He could see that Cunningham’s refusal to cooperate was beginning to annoy her.

  ‘Multiple murder?’ Pauline Dick asked suddenly, her dark eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lorimer continued, his tone laconic, sitting back with hands behind his head as though he were enjoying the performance. ‘We have reason to believe that Mr Cunningham here has been an accessory to several murders in the city. And,’ he unclasped his hands and leaned forward suddenly, making Jerry Cunningham flinch. ‘We have forensic evidence to back this up.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything to anyone,’ Cunningham bleated, turning to Pauline Dick, his hands now falling by his side. ‘It wasn’t me!’

  ‘If I could have a few minutes alone with my client?’ Pauline Dick sighed.

  ‘Interview being paused at nine fifty-three,’ Lorimer said, flicking the switch, an expression of calm satisfaction creasing his face.

  It had been a long night. After the arrest out in the Stirlingshire countryside, Lorimer had returned to the nursing home to check that Sarah Wilding was safe.

  The main door had been opened by a pleasant-faced nurse who ushered him into Nancy Livingstone’s office where the nursing home manager was waiting for him.

  ‘I sent her home,’ Nancy explained. ‘We covered the rest of her shift between us.’ Then, looking at Lorimer, she clasped her hands and brought them to touch her lips. ‘What will happen to her?’ she had asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lorimer admitted. ‘That’s for the Fiscal to decide. But I will be stressing how Sarah Wilding was forced into an action against her will, and against her better judgement. We can only hope that there will be no charge brought.’

  ‘If she hadn’t copied those details your relative would still be alive,’ Nancy Livingstone said quietly.

  ‘Aye, there is that. But I think they’d still have found a way to access the records. We’ve got a team trawling every nursing home in Glasgow that deals with patients like yours. Some hospital wards too. We think that there’s a whole outfit targeting vulnerable patients and their relatives. And there may be more nurses like Sarah who have been unwitting pawns in their sordid game.’

  ‘I see.’ Nancy Livingstone had shivered as though the idea disgusted her sensibilities. ‘Who could do such things…?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of an organisation calling itself Quiet Release?’ he’d asked. ‘Any of your patients’ relatives mention it to you?’

  But the woman had shaken her head, her unblinking response showing that not only had she never heard of them but that she could not conceive of such wickedness impinging on her world.

  He had driven back to the city through the dawn light, the pale yellow sunrise a bright contrast to the charcoal outline of Glasgow’s familiar skyline.

  Lorimer rubbed his eyes, thinking of Rob Dolan and the doctor who had smeared some ointment on the drug addict’s eyelids before taking a mouth swab. What he would give for the chance to go home and lay his head on the pillow of his own bed! Preferably with Maggie by his side. He gave a sigh. Cases like this took him away from his wife for long spells. But she was used to it, he hoped, gnawing at his fingernail as he remembered Pauline Dick’s bare left hand.

  Dolan had spilled the beans at any rate, put Jerry Cunningham right into it. They’d communicated by phone, Dolan had said at last, wee cheap mobiles that they’d been instructed to discard from time to time. But Dolan had taken it on himself to keep them, he’d admitted, taking them to his dealer in exchange for a fix.

  Now it remained to be seen whether Cunningham would persist with his ‘no comment’ routine or try to dig himself out of a hole that looked deeper and deeper with every bit of his partner’s confession.

  ‘Interview resumed at ten twenty-eight,’ he intoned, not even bothering to catch Cunningham’s eye as the man sat down beside his lawyer.

  ‘Mr Cunningham wishes to make a statement,’ Pauline Dick declared, nudging the man by her side. ‘Tell Detective Superintendent Lorimer what you told me, Jerry,’ she sig
hed.

  The scar-faced man scowled, first at the woman then at Lorimer.

  ‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know,’ he began. ‘It was all done by telephone.’

  ‘What was all done by telephone, Mr Cunningham? Please explain for the tape,’ Lorimer said.

  ‘Well, folk don’t want to see their relatives suffer a lingering, painful death,’ Cunningham continued, sounding as though he had memorised a familiar script. ‘So this guy starts up his business to help them. Right?’ Quiet Release, Lorimer thought. But would Cunningham name it and the people behind it?

  ‘I have no idea who he is, honest,’ he gulped, looking swiftly from Pauline Dick to the tall detective. ‘But I can tell you who gave us our instructions.’

  Lorimer tried to keep his face poker straight as the prisoner continued.

  ‘I know this guy,’ Cunningham said. ‘From way back. Brogan his name is. Done time with him in the Bar-L.’

  ‘Billy Brogan?’

  ‘Same fella,’ Cunningham agreed. ‘He contacts me and asks if I want to make a bit of dough. Course I agreed. Who doesn’t need to make a living?’ he asked, shifting his chair forwards as his apparent confidence grew.

  ‘Go on,’ Lorimer murmured.

  ‘We were told where to go and find these poor souls,’ Cunningham said, looking up at Pauline Dick as though to check that the version of his tale was what they had agreed. ‘Report back to Brogan and then move on to another place.’

  ‘And how did Sarah Wilding fit into this?’

  Cunningham shifted uncomfortably. ‘I knew Pete back before he took that overdose,’ he admitted. ‘Knew his sister had been done for theft and supplying.’ He bit his lip and looked at Pauline Dick again but she refused to meet his eyes.

  ‘I told Brogan about her and he got back to me with all the information about her, release date and everything. Don’t know how he got that.’ He shrugged.

  Lorimer did not respond. Some woman in Cornton Vale had no doubt supplied that information, not something he might ever be able to prove, however.

  ‘I was to follow her and find out where she was staying. Brogan says that the boss wanted to see if she’d be talked into helping us. Doing the needle bit. For money, of course.’ Cunningham shrugged again, as if that sort of transaction was normal in his world, which of course it was. ‘But then I discovered she had a job in that nursing home and it seemed that the boss had a change of plan.’

  Who is he? Lorimer wanted to seize Jerry Cunningham by the throat and shake the answer out of him but the detective superintendent remained as impassive as before, knowing that such an action would be counterproductive.

  ‘Tell me what you were instructed to do,’ he said instead.

  ‘Aw, we just sort of…’ Cunningham visibly squirmed in his chair then, at a nudge from Pauline Dick’s elbow, he continued. ‘Well, all right, we lifted her after her shift. Gave her a wee frightener. Told her to copy the patient records on to a phone.’

  ‘This phone?’ Lorimer held up a clear plastic production bag, the mobile phone that Sarah Wilding had been given inside.

  Cunningham frowned and narrowed his eyes. ‘Think so,’ he replied.

  ‘And you also smashed a window in the house where Sarah Wilding was lodging,’ Lorimer stated.

  Cunningham nodded.

  ‘Please speak for the tape.’

  ‘Aye, Dolan and me. We just wanted to give her a scare. Remind her that we had something on her. I suppose that wee nyaff’s told you already?’ he grumbled but Lorimer did not respond to his question.

  ‘You came to Abbey Nursing Home a second time with the intention of harming Sarah Wilding,’ Lorimer said flatly.

  ‘It was just a bit of fun,’ Cunningham protested.

  ‘Explain why you called her last night during her working shift and demanded that she come out, threatening her into the bargain,’ Lorimer said coldly, holding up the phone once more to show that they had all the evidence they needed to prove the man’s guilt.

  ‘All right,’ Cunningham snapped. ‘The boss thought that Sarah might still come in handy. Wanted to see if she’d raid the drug cupboard in the place where she worked.’

  ‘What sorts of drugs?’

  ‘The usual. Morphine.’ Cunningham shrugged as though the answer was obvious.

  ‘But he didn’t know that none of the patients at Abbey Nursing Home require such a drug,’ Lorimer told him, watching as Cunningham’s eyes widened. ‘So, tell me, Jerry. Who is this boss you seem to think so highly of?’

  ‘Do you believe him?’ Solly asked as they sat in the professor’s spacious office off University Avenue.

  ‘Aye,’ Lorimer sighed volubly. ‘More’s the pity. Cunningham and Dolan were lured into this. They don’t know the identity of the person or persons behind Quiet Release and, to be honest, I don’t think they even wanted to know.’

  ‘Safer for them not to,’ Solly agreed. ‘What about your old friend Billy Brogan?’

  ‘Billy doesn’t have the brains to dream up something like this but I bet he could supply the muscle power that it required.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  Lorimer shrugged. ‘Not in Barlinnie any more. Served his time for that case we were both involved in. Last known address was with Frankie Bissett in Byres Road. We’ve been looking for Billy ever since they found Frankie’s body in that bathroom. Now we have to wonder if poor wee Frankie was somehow involved in all of this.’

  ‘Do you think he’s still in Glasgow?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Lorimer gave a yawn and stretched his arms above his head. ‘Don’t think he’s done a bunk to Mallorca like he did last time.’ He gave a rueful grin, the memory of Brogan’s escapade making him chuckle. ‘Intelligence suggests he’s gone to ground somewhere in the city.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll have any notion who is behind Quiet Release?’

  Lorimer shook his head. ‘No, Brogan wouldn’t be given that sort of information. Our best bet is working with the phones and the laptops to see if anything can be traced. Our technical boys and girls are probably the ones who’ll solve this one, Solly.’

  The professor walked towards the large bay window, his hands clasped behind his back, a thoughtful expression in his dark eyes.

  ‘And meantime, innocent people are still being put to death,’ he murmured, gazing down at the street at the gathering dusk where leaves were blowing in the chill October wind.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Murdoch was back.

  The first Kirsty saw of the detective sergeant was the leather jacket slung on the back of a chair, his grey head bent over a pile of folders.

  She approached him cautiously, uncertain now of the relationship between them. Was he to continue being her mentor? Or would she still be under the guidance of the man who had inspired her to join up in the first place?

  He didn’t see her right away, so Kirsty had a few moments to look at the detective sergeant’s face as he pored over some documents. His cheeks were pale, as though he had spent too much time indoors, and there were tiny nicks along the jawline where he had cut himself shaving. Murdoch’s tie was already loosened and she could see the line of grease along the edge of his shirt collar. When had he last had help at home? She was just imagining the man’s domestic situation when he looked up at her.

  ‘Wilson.’

  ‘You’re back, sir,’ Kirsty said, realising as she spoke how hollow her words were. But Murdoch’s demeanour was a barrier to any form of sympathy.

  ‘Aye. And see they’ve given over our case to Nottingham,’ he replied with disgust. ‘You’ve been busy, though,’ he added with a curl of his lip. ‘And keeping company with upstairs.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Kirsty bit back any further explanation. Was that a trace of jealousy in Murdoch’s voice?

  ‘Better having him as a mentor, d’you think?’ Murdoch growled, confirming her suspicions.

  ‘Don’t really know, sir. But the current case is pretty complicated. It’s
been keeping us all busy at any rate,’ she replied.

  ‘Aye, so I see.’ Murdoch swung his laptop around so that Kirsty could look at what he had been doing. Rows and rows of nursing homes and their addresses had been printed out and she assumed that the DS had been given authority to investigate them all.

  Are you sure you want to do this? she almost cried out. What must it be like investigating these sorts of nursing homes? And how many of the patients would be MS sufferers like his late wife?

  ‘Nearly put Irene in one of them,’ he said, glancing at Kirsty as though he could read her mind. ‘But we decided to keep her at home for as long as we could.’ He shrugged. ‘Same difference in the end, though. Pneumonia usually gets them.’

  Was that right? Had poor Mrs Murdoch died of pneumonia after all? And had Mary Milligan been wrong about Murdoch’s involvement? Kirsty frowned for a moment, glancing at the thin line of Murdoch’s mouth as he undoubtedly struggled to keep his emotions in check.

  ‘Better get on, sir. So much paperwork,’ she ventured.

  ‘Aye, you’ll be chained to that desk for a while, I reckon,’ he replied. ‘No point in taking you to any more scenes of crime while this one lasts.’

  Kirsty hesitated. There was no sign of regret in the man’s voice and he had already turned away, one hand on the computer mouse.

  It took a matter of minutes to find what she was looking for.

  Multiple sclerosis was so different for its victims but many of them did indeed end their lives due to pneumonia. She read on, not fully understanding every technical term that described the disease. Did pneumonia set in as a result of those wasting muscles? Kirsty just wasn’t sure. She glanced across at the detective sergeant who was engrossed in something on his computer screen. He’d looked grief-stricken that day at the hospital. But after the long years of Irene Murdoch’s horrible illness, wouldn’t there have been a modicum of relief as well?

  Kirsty gave herself a mental shake. It was stupid to think that Irene Murdoch had been one of the patients targeted by that end-of-life group. The patients in her ward were dreadfully ill people, almost expected to pass away, like that lady next door to Murdoch’s wife who had died in the night. And surely the woman’s nurse was simply being fanciful about her patient’s demise? It gets to you, she remembered her father saying one night at the dinner table. Sometimes it seems like the whole world is full of criminal intent. Was that what was happening to her? Was her world now being coloured by every case she dealt with? She thought of Jean Fairlie for a moment. Was she destined to become like the hard-bitten older woman? Seeing life as a trek through crime and grime?