The Darkest Goodbye

by Alex Gray

  ‘I’ve already been on to all their news desks, sir. The call they got was anonymous.’ He shrugged as if to say nobody’s done it for the money. ‘Could it have been someone connected to the men you’ve arrested?’ he asked doubtfully, obviously keen to find an explanation other than an internal leak.

  ‘What do you think, Jimmy? I take it you’ve read the entire pieces with your usual care?’

  Jimmy Nichol flushed. ‘Yes, sir. They all came in after midnight.’ He paused then turned to the men and women opposite, some standing, others lounging against the wall or a nearby desk. ‘It’s detailed information that these press boys have been given.’ He looked back at Lorimer with an expression of apology. ‘I suppose it can only have come from inside, sir. References to the victims could have come from outsiders but there is just too much in the way of procedural detail for it to have come from anywhere else.’

  Lorimer felt his heart pounding as he clenched then unclenched his fists. Making a scene would do nobody any good, perhaps alienating more of his team. But at that moment he wished he had the person who had leaked this news right in front of him.

  A swift glance showed only troubled faces, their collective dismay tuning with his own. Yet one dissembler amongst them was clever enough to hide their true feelings.

  ‘You know who you are and why you have done this thing.’ Lorimer spoke quietly. ‘And when I find out who it was then I assure you that there will be no place for you in Police Scotland.’

  With a nod to the press officer, Lorimer turned and walked away, the young man scuttling in his wake.

  ‘Why?’ Lorimer slammed his fist on to his desk, making the young man jump. He had read each of the front pages and the inside columns too, several of the papers having editorial comments about end-of-life legislation.

  ‘Who would do something like this?’ he asked Jimmy, shaking his head as if bewildered by the bombshell that had struck his investigation.

  Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, no money changed hands. As far as we know,’ he added, his tone laden with cynicism.

  ‘You think there’s been a fat brown envelope passed to one of my officers?’

  Jimmy began to shrug again but the gesture became more of a squirm under the detective superintendent’s steely blue gaze.

  ‘I really couldn’t say, sir. But we both know it happens,’ Jimmy replied. ‘It could be something else, though.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Some disaffected person who doesn’t want the investigation to come to a satisfactory conclusion.’

  ‘What are you getting at, Jimmy?’

  The young man leaned forwards, his clasped hands moving up and down as though to make a point. ‘It’s my job to know what the papers say, sir, and there’s been a plethora of articles about euthanasia over the past months. Bound to be, given the proposed legislation here in Scotland,’ he continued. ‘What if…’ he cocked his head to one side thoughtfully, ‘… someone on the team is all for it. Euthanasia, I mean. What if they’ve seen a loved one suffer and think that this Quiet Release lot are actually doing society a favour?’

  Lorimer sat very still, gazing at the young man’s earnest expression. It was an idea too awful to contemplate that one of his officers had deliberately wrecked the process of a major investigation like this. And yet there was something in Jimmy Nichol’s words that made sense. He tried to conceal his thoughts from the young man staring at him intently. For there was one officer whose name immediately sprang to mind.

  When Kirsty Wilson entered the room, Lorimer was standing once again with his face to the window but this time he turned and motioned her into a chair opposite his own, the desk between them signalling the formality of the occasion.

  ‘I need to know about Len Murdoch,’ Lorimer began with a sigh. ‘Anything you have picked up from being with him, anything that might indicate whether he had money worries?’ he enquired, then frowned to himself as Kirsty pursed her lips. This was hardly fair, bringing the girl in to grill her about the man who had been her mentor. But then whoever had leaked the information to the press had behaved in a despicable, underhand way and he had to be sure that Kirsty was not hiding anything from him.

  ‘He’s known to like a flutter on the horses,’ Kirsty began. ‘In fact he seemed to be picking up his winnings when we were en route to the Rose Park Nursing Home.’

  ‘Did he do that often? Make a detour to the bookies?’

  ‘No, sir. Just the once as far as I know. But he did make quite a lot of calls on his mobile out of earshot. But then…’ Kirsty tailed off. ‘I think he was in contact with the hospital a good bit before Mrs Murdoch died. You’d need to see his phone to check,’ she continued, then put a hand over her mouth.

  ‘It’s all right, DC Wilson,’ Lorimer said tiredly. ‘That is not out of order to suggest something like that. Hopefully we won’t have to go that far. If DS Murdoch has given information to the newspapers perhaps he might feel aggrieved enough to pack in his career anyway.’

  ‘He doesn’t have that long to go till retirement?’

  Lorimer shook his head. ‘Started not long after your dad,’ he told her. ‘He only has a few more months of service remaining. But he’ll forfeit an awful lot if he is dismissed from the police at this stage of his career.’

  ‘Do you think it was him?’ Kirsty asked in hushed tones.

  ‘I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that,’ Lorimer told her. ‘It could be anyone who feels strongly about this whole debate,’ he sighed. ‘Doesn’t have to be someone with a relative who has gone through a bad time. Could simply be someone with a deeply held conviction.’

  ‘But that’s awful!’ Kirsty exclaimed. ‘How can anyone condone what these people are doing to innocent victims?’

  ‘Easy to ask when you’re young and healthy like you,’ Lorimer smiled faintly. ‘But older officers who’ve seen the worst that humans can do to each other might well have a different take on how to end a person’s life.’

  Kirsty had passed the canteen lady before she realised.

  ‘Hey, wee yin, no stopping tae get a cake from auld Sadie?’

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ Kirsty apologised, rattling her jacket pocket for the change she had left there just for this very occasion.

  ‘What’ll it be today, hen? Something to sweeten you up? Looks like someone’s stole yer scone.’ Sadie chuckled, but her eyes were full of concern despite the joke as it was obvious that something was troubling the young woman.

  ‘Yes, please. A scone,’ Kirsty replied vaguely, not picking up on the Glasgow expression for looking down in the dumps.

  ‘His nibs been giving you a hard time, that what it is?’ Sadie asked shrewdly, cocking her permed head towards Lorimer’s office door.

  ‘No, no, just very busy,’ Kirsty replied with a forced smile. It would not do to gossip with wee Sadie Dunlop, she thought. Surely Sadie wouldn’t have… no, Kirsty dismissed the idea as soon as it had drifted into her mind. Sadie knew better than that. She was well used to the ways of the police and everybody knew what respect she had for Lorimer.

  As Kirsty descended the stairs to her own department she knew that Lorimer had also asked her to see him for a different reason, one that had not been voiced. She would have to keep a close watch on DS Len Murdoch, see if anything untoward happened that might give a clue as to whether the detective sergeant had indeed been the one responsible for today’s newspaper headlines.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The telephones never stopped ringing.

  All over the city, hospital wards and nursing homes were checking their patient records (especially those recently deceased) to see if there had been anything extraordinary to show to the police. And the gentlemen and ladies of the press were having a field day, reporters sent to South Glasgow University Hospital as well as Abbey Nursing Home and Rose Park, the staff in each trying to fend off these unexpected visitors to their doors. It was hopeless, of course, like trying to stem the tide, since
relatives of existing patients as well as those recently bereaved were being doorstepped.

  By the end of the day Detective Superintendent Lorimer was heartily sick of the constant voices on the end of his office phone, the continual complaints giving him a genuine headache. Jimmy Nichol had been instructed to send out a press notice that attempted to repair as much of the peripheral damage as possible but in truth it was too late. That the ‘police were continuing with their inquiries whilst holding two men on suspicion of being involved in unlawful killings’ was no longer newsworthy, but it was all he had to go on right now.

  With a sigh that became a groan as his chair scraped under him, Lorimer reached for his jacket and coat. It was time to head for home where Maggie and Chancer would be waiting, his ex-directory number ensuring that he would at least have a bit of peace from the calls. Slipping his mobile into one pocket, Lorimer was tempted to switch the blessed thing off but his sense of duty was stronger than the desire for some peace and quiet. He closed his eyes, hoping for some relief from the worsening headache. I’ve got the best job in the world, he’d often told people and yet right now the detective superintendent would have gladly walked out of this building and never come back.

  ‘Hi, you.’ Maggie came towards him, arms outstretched. As he held his wife, feeling her beating heart and the warmth from her body, Lorimer felt a sudden sweep of emotion. How grateful he was for this lovely woman!

  ‘Saw the papers,’ Maggie said shortly, looking up at her husband’s face intently. ‘Everyone in the staffroom was talking about it.’

  Lorimer exhaled a sigh. ‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ he murmured. ‘Whoever did this…’ A shake of his weary head was all he could muster.

  ‘Well, I think a large whisky before dinner is called for, don’t you?’ Maggie said, turning to the sideboard and opening the door where several bottles of fine malt were stored. ‘And there’s chicken broth. With fresh parsley.’ She smiled, picking up a bottle of Bunnahabhain, one of her husband’s favourite Islay single malts, and reaching for a crystal whisky glass. ‘And the remains of a lasagne if you’re hungry enough…?’

  Later, replete with the food and whisky, Lorimer sat sprawled on the settee, his long legs stretched out in front of him. They had watched the evening news on television, neither of them uttering a word as the pictures of Abbey Nursing Home flicked across their screen. All over Scotland people would be seeing this debacle, he thought, and making pointed comments about the ineptitude of their police force.

  ‘Ach.’ He made a face as though there was a bad taste in his mouth. ‘I can’t conceive of anyone stooping so low as that.’

  Maggie leaned forward from her place beside him and took his hand in hers.

  ‘For a man who’s seen the worst of human nature that’s a strange thing to say,’ she told him. ‘Think of the conmen who’ve doorstepped old ladies, drug dealers who have no conscience about their customers overdosing, killers who’ve taken the lives of innocent people…’

  ‘Aye, but this is different,’ Lorimer said slowly, sitting up and putting his arm around Maggie’s shoulders. ‘These folk had so little time left to them. Their last precious days were robbed. And what for? So some greedy bastard could pile up wealth for himself? It makes me sick!’ he said, a sudden anger creeping into his tone.

  ‘Or herself,’ Maggie murmured. ‘What has Solly said about it?’

  ‘Oh, the usual,’ Lorimer sighed. ‘Don’t get me wrong, the man’s a genius. He does think that a man is behind this and yes, he is certain that the motivation is money. Think about it, Mags,’ he said, stroking her hair gently. ‘He sets up this organisation online, uses some shady characters to grub around and find out where to obtain drugs and do dirty work.’

  ‘Did either of the men you arrested actually administer the morphine, though?’

  ‘No. That’s somebody else we need to find. The so-called doctor that Mary Milligan identified. But I bet you anything you like that he isn’t the person behind it all.’

  ‘Why?’ Maggie turned her head and looked at him.

  ‘Too risky. There may be hundreds of folk all over this city, all over the country, who have been targeted. Our tech people are still trying to find a lead from the Gardiner girls’ computer.’ He sighed. ‘I think this is bigger than we realise, Maggie. And the few people who have been identified as being unlawfully killed are just the tip of a very large iceberg.’

  Across the city, Solly sat watching as the latest news unfolded. Money, he had declared to Lorimer. That was behind all of this. And yet something lately had been troubling the psychologist. What if the primary motivation had changed into something far more dangerous? What if the person administering these lethal injections had developed a different sort of appetite? Not just for the acquisition of lots of money but simply because he enjoyed the act of killing? Such a person would be very dangerous indeed, someone who would relish being a risk taker, someone who would believe themselves to be invincible.

  The television screen was now showing a map of the British Isles and the gales sweeping in from the Atlantic, but Solomon Brightman was oblivious to the weatherman’s warnings, his thoughts focusing on the profile of the killer they sought.

  Annette Imrie sat in the semi-darkness of her husband’s study. The hand holding the grey plastic mouse trembled as she scrolled down the pages of emails on the new account that had been set up. One by one she deleted the messages then sat back, relieved to see a blank screen once more.

  A noise at her back made the woman jump.

  ‘Patrick! I thought you were asleep!’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Her husband’s voice was tinged with suspicion.

  ‘Nothing, darling. Just surfing the net to see if I can find a decent outfit for poor David’s funeral. Surely it won’t be long now?’ she asked, rising from the chair and coming to stand beside him, pressing her sinuous body against his own.

  ‘Come back to bed, darling,’ she crooned softly. ‘So much to do tomorrow. You need your sleep.’

  Patrick nodded wearily, but, as they left the room, his eyes fell on the bright, blank screen. And he felt a heavy weight like a stone in his heart.

  Lorimer pressed the button on his steering wheel as the mobile began to ring. It was still dark outside, the dawn light only beginning to show on the eastern horizon as he drove into the city.

  ‘Bill?’

  Lorimer frowned. Whose voice was this? And who was calling him by name?

  ‘It’s me, Patrick,’ the man’s voice continued.

  ‘Patrick.’ Lorimer tried not to sigh. ‘I suppose you’ve seen the news?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course we did. But that’s not why I’m calling you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Lorimer knew that he was hearing something grave in the man’s voice. Something like defeat.

  ‘I need to drop something off to you. Where are you right now?’

  The morning light was a flush of lemon across the city skyline as Lorimer drove across the hilly country road. Patrick had mentioned a place between the farm and Lorimer’s office where they should meet, a village not far from a lonely stretch of ground where the detective had once found a burned-out ambulance, the body inside a clue to solving a series of murders. He slowed down at a corner and took another winding road, glancing to his right as if he would still see that scene. But all he saw was a glimpse of white rumps as a pair of hinds grazed peacefully amidst the long autumn grasses.

  The road wound down and around to the village below, then he stopped at the main road, looking carefully for any passing traffic. A minute along this road he saw the grey Land Rover sitting in the lay-by and slowed down, parking the Lexus behind it.

  Patrick Imrie got out and opened the back door.

  ‘I think you should have a look at this,’ he said dully, handing Lorimer a heavy bundle wrapped in a layer of blanket.

  ‘What…?’

  ‘It’s our laptop computer. Annette…’ Patrick broke off, turning away so that Lori
mer could not see his face. ‘She…’ The farmer’s head was bowed now, the tweed cap shading his eyes. ‘I think she was in touch with that organisation,’ he mumbled. ‘Quiet Release.’

  ‘Don’t say anything more,’ Lorimer told him, touching his arm lightly. ‘We’ll speak to you and Annette later if there is anything compromising here.’

  ‘She only wanted things to stay the way they were, I’m sure of that,’ Patrick said slowly, glancing once at Lorimer then looking away again.

  ‘Don’t let her know about this,’ the detective told him. ‘And make sure she doesn’t go on any little excursions too far from home.’

  ‘What will happen?’ The farmer looked directly at Lorimer now, his brow furrowed, the bushy eyebrows drawn down.

  ‘Not for me to decide,’ he replied. ‘And these things take time,’ he said gently. ‘Go home and get on with whatever you need to do on the farm. And try not to dwell on this.’ He tapped the computer under his arm. ‘It’s my responsibility now.’

  The journey back to Glasgow was slower, commuter traffic building up as Lorimer neared the outskirts of the city. Fat drops of rain splashed against the windscreen like unshed tears then, as he slowed down behind a line of vehicles, the heavens opened and the car was dashed with sweeping torrents as the promised storms began.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  ‘We’re going out.’ Murdoch stood beside Kirsty’s desk staring down at her. It was a command, terse and brief, and the detective constable rose immediately from where she had been poring over her laptop to follow the man out of the room.

  ‘Where…?’

  ‘Pub,’ he answered shortly, giving her a sudden grin that made his harsh features a little more likeable. Then he tapped her shoulder. ‘Don’t look so bemused, Wilson. It’s all part of your training.’

  Most after-hours socialising was done in the same city-centre bar when officers would meet to discuss the day’s work over a pint or two before heading home, at least those who, like Kirsty, took public transport. She’d been out on the town several times before, mostly with her father, as different officers sought out Alistair Wilson before the detective inspector retired for good. But Murdoch had never been amongst the crowd and certainly not at this hour of the day.