by Alex Gray
If he could find the girl, talk to her about her journey from home to Scotland and the eventual rescue by her brother and uncle . . . Solly frowned. Why on earth had she escaped when the two men had been taken by police? Surely they would have wanted to accompany her away from the tenement brothel? See that she was safe? Something didn’t make sense and for the first time he began to wonder if Juliana Ferenc really had escaped the clutches of the gangmaster.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They’d given her money, rolls of banknotes fastened with rubber bands, that she had pulled apart with fumbling hands, terrified to lose any of it, knowing that she had to part with enough to get her to Glasgow.
Juliana’s memory of Scotland’s biggest city was of being pulled out of the back of a van into dark streets then hastily shoved into a minibus with the others. At the time she had been excited, eyes wide as she looked out of the window at the Christmas lights around the huge square, its statues looming out of the darkness. A glimpse of golden stars, a net against the night sky, rows of offices, alleyways, twisting and turning through the city streets. Then the vehicle had gathered speed and the motorway lay like a magic carpet carrying them away to the north where she hoped to make her fortune.
They had all been well-treated back then, not questioning the need for their passports to be taken from them, eager to begin their work in the beauty salons, a real step up from the less glamorous work in fish processing plants. The little she had seen of the city was just a distant memory and now, as the coach drew into a huge parking bay, the girl wondered where she should go next.
There was already a queue of travellers waiting to board the bus as she climbed down, grasping the handrail to steady herself and looking for the exit. Following the signs, she came to sliding glass doors that led onto a wide paved area. Juliana blinked as her eyes fell on a strange piece of modern art, metal legs running under a clock face. What was it meant to signify? That time was running out? She shuddered, hoping that this was not a bad omen. Then, looking across the street, she saw a huge building that was surely a department store.
What few possessions she had were still in that place in Aberdeen, so it was important that she find somewhere to buy new clothes. Stopping only to look for an opening in the traffic, she hurried across and entered the store.
It was important not to look conspicuous, so her first purchase was a backpack in which to store her subsequent needs. She wandered from one area to the next, fingering the soft cotton fabrics, looking at price tags that meant nothing to her except if she could afford to part with more of these folded up banknotes.
It was less than two hours later, bag bulging, that Juliana sat in the ground floor café eating a cheese toastie, her first meal of the day. Her head was spinning from the array of goods in John Lewis’s store, floor after floor of dresses, shoes and cosmetics, all so tempting to try on. Back home there had never been shopping expeditions like this, money too scarce for anything new, hand-me-downs gladly accepted, some of her older cousins’ frocks coveted for years until they’d been outgrown and ready to pass on to little Juliana. The girl smoothed down the creases in the new jeans, relieved to be wearing fresh underwear, her old things stuffed into a bin in John Lewis’s toilets.
She swallowed the final piece of crust, savouring the taste of melted cheese, watching the people coming and going, strangers all.
‘Anyone sittin’ here, doll?’ A man loomed over her, indicating the bucket chair opposite, and Juliana started in surprise.
He carried a small tray with a mug of something and a plate with a couple of pastries, and, she realised with a tightening in her chest, he was regarding her with more than a passing interest.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Just going,’ she murmured, bending down to retrieve her bag and avoiding his stare. All men tended to look at her like that, she thought bitterly, leaping hurriedly to her feet and making for the exit, not looking back to see if he was following her with those hungry eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was not the first time that William Lorimer had dealt with illegal immigrants nor, he suspected with a degree of resignation, would it be his last. Memories of a young Nigerian girl waving them farewell as their Land Rover drove along a dusty African track made him smile for a moment; one story that had ended well, at least. The world was a seething place of change, displaced people streaming across it in search of somewhere new to call home, refugees in their millions lost for ever to the lands of their birth. In his grandfather’s day there had been the unspeakable cruelty of the Holocaust, millions of Jews exterminated on the orders of a madman who had created terror across Europe and beyond. Brave men and women had resisted that wave of anti-Semitism, helping some to escape the tyranny and find safe refuge. Solly might not be here today had it not been for folk like that, he mused. Even now there were other threats to the safety of ordinary folk, their race or faith marking them out as targets for murder.
He sighed as he sat at his desk in Helen Street. How lucky he was to have been born and raised in a small country where nothing much had changed in centuries; certainly no civil wars or threats to eliminate sections of society. Recently he and Maggie had attended a church service where one of her colleagues had married an Afghan refugee, a Christian woman who had fled her homeland and settled here, finding work as a teacher. Lorimer recalled the pastor’s words as he had delivered a short homily after the marriage ceremony: ‘Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.’
The word had stuck with him then. Sojourner, a traveller passing through or a person trying to find a place to call home? Surely these Slovakian men were sojourners of a sort? Languishing now in prison but hopefully soon making their way back home once more.
His thoughts were cut short by a knock on the door.
‘Come in!’ he called out, then the door opened and DC Kirsty Wilson stood, smiling at him.
‘Kirsty, come on in, take a seat,’ he told her, standing up and coming around so that the desk was not between them. ‘Any news?’
She shook her head. ‘Not about Mr Guilford,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Still asleep. Strange that he should’ve woken up just that once when I was there, though. Maybe I frightened him back into a coma?’ she joked.
‘But you do have some news for me?’ Lorimer saw the gleam in the young woman’s eyes that told him she was eager to share some new information.
‘Yes.’ Kirsty drew her chair a little closer to the man whom she’d known since childhood, her father’s boss for so many years. ‘We went to visit the office and I spoke to his secretary, Cynthia Drollinger,’ she began. ‘The secretary,’ she repeated with a thoughtful look. ‘I think she’s more than that, though. Her reaction to the news about her boss was . . . well, I’d say it was personal.’ Kirsty looked up at Lorimer.
‘You think she and Guilford . . . ?’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Bit of a cliché, the boss and his secretary, isn’t it? But DS Geary and I got that sort of impression, you know? She was defensive about him, absolutely adamant that he hadn’t killed his wife. Not very complimentary about Dorothy Guilford either, come to that.’
‘Any way of finding out if they’d been having an affair?’
‘It would certainly give some grounds for disposing of a wife that was in the way. Is that what you’re thinking?’
‘A bit extreme, don’t you think, in this day and age of quickie divorces?’ Lorimer countered. ‘Though her death would mean that the entire business became Guilford’s. Plus that sweet million from the insurance policy. And he’d be free to remarry, of course.’
‘Well, she was very much on Guilford’s side,’ Kirsty repeated. ‘And she mentioned a sister. Dorothy’s sister. Something about Dorothy having self-harmed as a child. A bit weird, but maybe Dr Fergusson is on the right track after all?’
‘I wouldn’t express that opinion to DI McCauley,’ Lorimer told her. ‘And I have to say that so far the evidence suggests th
at Peter Guilford did take that knife and stab his wife.’
‘A moment of madness,’ Kirsty murmured.
Lorimer did not reply. Who could really tell what had happened that night? Was Guilford guilty of murder? The alternative was bizarre to say the least. But, in his dealings with human beings, William Lorimer had come across many strange things that defied belief.
He was floating high above the city, arms outstretched, the cold wind making him want to sneeze.
Maggie paused as she reread her words and picked up the warm cinnamon muffin, munching it absently, thinking about the suspension of disbelief. Would small children believe in her young ghost, making his midnight way across the skies? She did, at any rate. Gibby had become a character she wanted to write about more and more even though it was hard to know just how a small ghost would really feel, but she had allowed her imagination to take her on a journey with him.
The idea for her story had come from a dream, as so many of her ideas did these days, and gradually the fragments had taken shape and become Gibby, the Ghost of Glen Darnel. There was no such place in Scotland, as far as she knew, she’d simply made it up thinking that it sounded authentic enough to pass for real in the eyes of a child. Gibby, though, was a little person in Maggie Lorimer’s mind, a child himself whose life had been cut short in a way that need not be mentioned in any of her stories. Keep the mystery, her agent had advised and Maggie was happy with that as it chimed with her own instincts.
She had not examined too closely the reason for creating a ghost rather than a small boy with whom children could identify. No doubt Solomon Brightman would have told her that it originated from a desire to bring back to life at least one of her lost children, possibly David, the son she had cradled in her arms for oh such a short time. But Maggie pushed any such thoughts to the furthest recesses of her mind, concentrating instead on her little ghost, the boy floating above the city of Edinburgh, and wondering how she might describe the view of the castle from way up there. Her book was almost finished now, with just a few things left to change before her agent declared herself satisfied with the story.
Maggie looked down as a soft paw tapped her bare ankle.
‘Oh, Chancer, did I forget to give you some dinner?’ Maggie stood up, brushed the crumbs from her skirt and walked across the open-plan room to the kitchen area where the ginger cat’s bowl lay empty. The big cat watched as she opened the cupboard where his food was stored, eyes fixed on the sachet as it was emptied into his dish.
A quick glance at the clock told her that it was well past her own dinner-time and that her husband might walk through the door at any moment.
‘Here you go, pet.’ She stroked Chancer’s fur as he gulped down the cat food and then walked back to her desk by the bay window, ready to close down her file for the day. Gibby would still be there in the morning, she thought to herself. That was one of the advantages of creating a ghost for a lead character: he was immortal, unchanging, and ever ready for new adventures with his creator.
There was something radiant about her tonight, Lorimer thought as he finished stacking the dishes and closed the dishwasher. Summer, he supposed, and the approaching holiday when Maggie Lorimer would put school behind her for a few weeks and enjoy her garden and the long balmy evenings out of doors. Just need to finish this job, he told himself, compressing his lips together as he realised how often he had made that same observation, work coming before his own holidays. But perhaps he could delegate matters to others in the team. DCI Niall Cameron was easily capable enough when it came to heading up the MIT in his absence and besides, he knew it was better to have a decent break away from it all and come back refreshed, ready to see it all with a keener eye.
‘Let’s go outside,’ he called. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Why not,’ Maggie agreed. ‘So long as we can burn some citronella candles. The midges are awful now that the weather’s so warm. And, d’you know what,’ she came closer to look into his tired eyes, ‘it might relax you a bit after dealing with that case. Slave trade, that’s what it is,’ she added bitterly. ‘A modern slave trade.’
Maggie caught her husband’s eye, as if trying to divine his thoughts. This was not an evening for talking about such things, however important they were. Sometimes, she told herself, they needed to stop and put aside their workaday lives.
She smiled as he selected a bottle from the fridge. The dusk was settling over the treetops, a haze of apricot light melting into the burnished skies. They would sit companionably together until the first star sparked, fingers touching lightly, knowing the value of such precious evenings. She pulled a cardigan across her shoulders as she settled down on the garden bench, eyes gazing upwards as a thrush trilled its liquid notes. Live in the moment, she thought, breathing in the sweetness that wafted from the night-scented stocks.
Who knew what tomorrow might bring?
Rosie laid down her glass of sparkling water and looked around the room where people were chatting before the formal part of the evening began. She had made her little speech, told the necessary jokes and now she could relax for a while in the company of her peers. The annual dinner for the Scottish Medico-Legal Society was one she normally enjoyed but this evening baby was being particularly active, pressing on her bladder, necessitating frequent trips to the hotel’s bathroom.
‘Excuse me,’ she murmured to the man on her left, a high court judge whose easy charm and ability to make her laugh had made the evening far more pleasant than it might otherwise have been.
The ladies’ lavatory was cooler than the banqueting suite and Rosie was glad to spend a little time touching up her lipstick before heading back. She rummaged in her beaded evening bag and found a small bottle of perfume.
Just as she turned her head, the fine mist touching her bare neck, Rosie caught sight of another woman’s reflection in the large gilt mirror, staring at her curiously.
‘Dr Fergusson?’
‘Yes?’ Rosie smiled at a woman, wondering who she was. Wife of one of the lawyers, perhaps? Her first impression as she turned around was of a smartly dressed woman about her own age with an enviable figure. At last someone who wasn’t afraid to wear red, she thought, admiring the slim-fitting gown and the attractive dark-haired woman wearing it. So many women stuck to black, as if the costume for their day jobs had spilled over into a night out.
‘Jane Loughman,’ the woman said, holding out her hand.
‘A pleasure to meet you,’ Rosie said politely, taking the other woman’s hand for a moment. ‘Are you enjoying the evening?’
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ the woman said abruptly, moving slightly towards Rosie as if to block her way out of the powder room.
‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’ Rosie frowned. Her mind was playing so many tricks on her these days.
‘Dr Jane Loughman,’ the woman said then waited as though Rosie ought to be responding to the name.
In the silence that followed Rosie watched as the woman’s hazel eyes regarded her thoughtfully.
‘You really don’t know who I am?’
‘Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met . . . ’ Rosie bit her lip, watching the half-amused expression on the woman’s face. The name was vaguely familiar. As current chair of SMLS, Rosie had read the list of attendees earlier that evening. But was there something else she was meant to remember about this stranger?
‘I was Dorothy Guilford’s GP,’ Jane Loughman told her. ‘I think we need to talk.’
The after-dinner speech was a mere blur as Rosie sat impatiently, wishing that it was over. All around her men and women in evening dress were laughing at the jokes, looking intently at the after-dinner speaker who held their attention. But Rosie’s eyes strayed instead to the table across the candlelit room for a glimpse of a red frock, the neat dark head turned sideways, attentive to their celebrity speaker.
More than once she thought that Jane Loughman had glanced away, searching the room to catch her eye, but it was hard to be sure under the f
lickering candelabras.
At last it was over, the applause and hoots of approbation filling the room, the speaker making his bow and the SMLS secretary coming forward to present him with a very good bottle of twenty-five-year-old malt whisky.
There she was, her red skirt swishing as she walked across the room, evening bag clutched in one hand.
‘We have to go,’ Jane apologised. ‘But perhaps you could call me tomorrow?’ She thrust a card into Rosie’s hands. ‘I know you will have read her medical file but there’s so much I want to tell you about Dorothy Guilford. Nobody’s approached me personally . . . ’ she glanced around at the crowded room where medical folk mingled with the cream of Scottish law, as well as representatives from Police Scotland, ‘yet,’ she added meaningfully. ‘So, the sooner we talk the better.’
Then she was gone, leaving Rosie to look at the retreating figure in that elegant red dress. As she turned the GP’s card over in her fingers Rosie knew she was unlikely to sleep through the coming hours, already wondering about what the morning would bring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Life at Helen Street was different from any other job that William Lorimer had ever done inasmuch as he was solely in charge of the operations, answerable to nobody when a sudden decision had to be made. His previous divisional headquarters at Stewart Street in the city centre had given him several years of experience dealing with major crimes, but all the time he had been aware of the need to refer to someone more senior than himself. Not that he could carry out everything with impunity here in Govan, Lorimer told himself, flicking down the list of emails that had come from the Deputy Chief Constable, Caroline Flint. There would always be more senior officers on whom he could rely but at this point in Lorimer’s career he felt a freedom that he had not enjoyed in any other situation. With that freedom came responsibilities, of course, and those did weigh heavily upon his shoulders at times.