Only the Dead Can Tell

by Alex Gray

  ‘Tell Mr Whitehead I’ll see him now,’ Lorimer decided.

  Martin Whitehead was the oldest of the group, an experienced prison officer whose duties had seen him working in several of the male prisons over the years, including HMP Shotts, his previous posting.

  He had had little to do with Peter Guilford, and, like Brian Thomson, preferred to deal with the newer prisoners on remand, those who had not experienced prison life before and needed a little more help in orienting themselves to its regime. The man was smaller than the others, too, possibly not someone that would have been able to inflict the injuries that Guilford had sustained. Still, you never could tell. The few questions that the man answered had the ring of truth about them and Lorimer was happy to eliminate this man from being Guilford’s attacker.

  It was with a heavy heart that Lorimer left the prison car park, wound his way through the Riddrie streets and headed back along the motorway. It was imperative that he find Raynor once again, see if Grimshaw’s claim to have known Dorothy Guilford was true or not. The man hadn’t struck him as a fantasist, more a disciplined ex-soldier who needed the authority of someone above him to carry out orders. But, if he had known Dorothy Guilford, was he the person who had set upon her husband in a mad moment of revenge?

  There was no response from the flat in Maryhill that Raynor had given as an address. Lorimer gritted his teeth and was on the point of heading downstairs again when a door on the opposite side of the landing opened, an elderly man peering out from behind the security chain. The sound of a horse race could be heard in the background, the television probably turned up high.

  ‘He’s no’ here,’ the man said, his bony finger pointing across at Raynor’s front door. ‘No’ bin here fur weeks.’

  ‘Are you talking about Mr Raynor?’ Lorimer approached the old man and held out his warrant card. ‘He’s been helping us with our enquiries,’ he added blandly.

  ‘Oh, aye? Well ye’re no’ like tae see him here. Buggered aff ages ago. Nae idea where he is noo,’ he said with a cackle that became a cough.

  ‘Would he have left a forwarding address with the landlord? The factor?’ Lorimer asked, wondering if these flats were owner-occupied or rented, perhaps a mixture of both.

  ‘Aye, mibbe. Sees a wee minute an’ ah’ll get ye a number,’ the man agreed, shutting the door and leaving Lorimer standing outside. A few minutes later the door opened again and Lorimer was handed a scrap of paper with a name scrawled in the old man’s shaky block capitals and a telephone number beneath.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr . . . ’ he glanced at the plastic nameplate on the door jamb, ‘Mr McPherson.’

  ‘Aye, well, cannae help ye ony mair, son. Ta-ta the noo.’ The old man grinned and shut the door once again, no doubt eager to get back to watching the horse racing.

  ‘We need to find him,’ Lorimer told the members of the team who were gathered in his office. ‘Where did he go after he’d spoken to me? And why didn’t the prison have his current address? He’s not been with the service all that long so you would think they would have had his details up to date.’

  ‘Unless he’s got something to hide,’ DCI Niall Cameron suggested.

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Lorimer replied gloomily. ‘Find out where he’d been stationed in the army, what next of kin he had, anything that might tie him in with the Guilfords.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  He sat hunched over the edge of the bunk, eyes tightly closed, hands clasped, lips barely moving as he prayed. ‘Lord, please let them find her,’ he asked, the awful images returning inside the old man’s head. ‘Please, dear Lord.’

  ‘Won’t do you any good, pal.’ A voice nearby made Pavol’s eyes fly open, the prayer interrupted.

  His cellmate stood over him, a look of pity in his expression.

  ‘Naebody’s listening,’ the man declared. ‘An’, if thir is a Goad, how’s he no’ came doon an’ sorted a’ this mess oot, tell us that?’

  Pavol looked at the younger man. He was a weasel-faced fellow, not much more than a boy, really, but already hardened against life.

  ‘He did come,’ Pavol said slowly. ‘They nail him on a cross.’

  ‘So what? He was deid, right? How come he nivver goat aff that cross and wiped the flair wi’ them? Eh?’

  Pavol reached out and took the young man’s hand, drawing him to sit on the bunk beside him.

  ‘Jimmy,’ Pavol began, the effort of finding the words in English strangely less than usual, the mission woman in his village and her teaching coming back to his mind. ‘Not part of his plan,’ he began. ‘He had to die.’

  ‘How come?’ Jimmy asked, a frown shadowing his thin face.

  Pavol felt something stirring inside, a warmth as if hands had been laid upon him and a burden lifted. When he spoke again the words seemed to come from somewhere else as though he were merely a conduit for another’s voice.

  ‘A sacrifice. By God. To give his only son.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The men of those times.’ Pavol shrugged. ‘Was what they did, made sacrifices to . . . ’ he struggled for a moment, wanting the word, ‘atone,’ he said, a glint of triumph in his watery eyes.

  Then the words came tumbling from his lips as he told of the death and resurrection of God’s only son and how anyone could ask for forgiveness.

  ‘Like the thief next to him?’ Jimmy asked. ‘I ’member that bit.’ He laughed and it was a hollow sound, more despair than self-praise for a distant memory about the crucifixion story.

  ‘“Today you will be with me in Paradise,”’ Pavol quoted, memories of the Easter story told so often at the Mission back home.

  ‘An you think he’s gonnae hear you when you ask him for stuff, eh? You’re aff yer heid, auld yin,’ Jimmy told him, getting up from the bunk and pacing up and down the narrow cell. Then he stopped and stared for a moment, slack-jawed. ‘Here, how come ye’re suddenly talking like this?’ He looked a little scared as he shook his head, wondering at the change in the old man. It was as if a light shone on him, but, turning, Jimmy could see nothing that accounted for it. He shivered then muttered, ‘Thocht your lot couldnae speak a loat o’ English. Hiv ye bin kiddin’ us all oan, like?’

  Pavol watched his face, seeing the flicker of doubt that had been planted there. Jimmy, who had been so sure a few minutes ago, was now beginning to ask himself some rather big questions. And, if he noticed that his cellmate’s command of English was better than he had pretended, he might wonder why Pavol had chosen to use it in this way.

  The old man smiled quietly. ‘He hears me’ – he nodded, the certainty in his voice making Jimmy turn, open-mouthed – ‘and he will answer.’

  ‘No answer. It’s ringing out but nobody’s at home.’ The big man turned, mobile in hand, and looked at Gid, the driver.

  ‘Well, what are you going to do with her? We cannae leave her here till we know what Max wants done. An’ how come he’s no’ answering his phone? Don’t like that, so I don’t. An’ how come I huvenae been paid the second bit yet?’

  Raynor ignored him, turning instead towards the closed door of the old deserted farmhouse, Gid scurrying at his heels. Nobody had been there for months and the flyblown windows were thick with cobwebs, one particularly large spider crawling speedily across the glass.

  ‘She’s no’ makin’ any more noise, anyhow,’ Gid said.

  Raynor grunted. It was just as well. He’d have slapped her around a bit more to make her shut up if she hadn’t gone quiet. But Max had ordered that the girl be kept safe, or at least alive. What was the difference? Why keep this one in particular? They’d found her in Hope Street, heading for the nail bar. Just in time, apparently. She’d screamed blue murder, insisting that she had a job interview, that she was expected there by ‘the other woman’, whoever that might be.

  ‘I’ll try him again.’ Raynor sighed, turning away and walking out of earshot until he came to a strip of cracked and broken concrete beside a disused outho
use. Gid was beginning to annoy him, harping on about when he was going to be paid, and Raynor wanted to talk to the boss without the driver hanging on his every word. At least there was a signal in this back of beyond place, he thought, clutching the telephone in his hand as he waited for the ring tone to stop. Outside, the shadows were lengthening and soon darkness would cover his steps. He sighed a long sigh, tapping his booted foot impatiently on the flagstones.

  Then, at last, a familiar voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me. We’ve got the girl. Do you still want her where we planned?’

  ‘Yes, make sure she cannot see anything before you take her inside. Understand?’

  ‘Sure. Oh, and the driver wants his money. Said I’d mention that.’

  There was silence at the other end and for a moment Raynor wondered if he had lost the connection. He thrust his hand into his trouser pocket, fingering the rolls of banknotes he had discovered in the girl’s backpack. Finders, keepers, he had told himself at the time. Max could cough up for Gid’s wages himself, no question.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘Right, well there’s something else. It’s the cops. They’ve been asking too many questions. I stayed away from the flat like you said but it’s too risky to keep doin’ the bed and breakfast lark. Too damned easy for them to trace me an’ all so, the bottom line is, I need a place to crash.’

  There was a pause and the man turned away from the sight of the driver who was looking his way.

  ‘You can’t come here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s just a matter of time before they find out about us.’

  ‘So?’

  There was another pause then a sigh. ‘You want us to have that money or don’t you?’

  ‘Think you already know the answer to that,’ Raynor scoffed.

  ‘Well, then,’ came the reply. ‘Here’s what I suggest you do.’

  Michael Raynor strolled back along the weed-infested path towards the parked car and jerked his head towards Gid Patterson.

  ‘He says to take her inside,’ he told the man. ‘Then we head back to the city.’

  ‘And just leave her there?’

  ‘Max knows what he’s doing,’ Raynor replied. ‘He wants her kept alive, remember.’

  ‘She must be worth something,’ Gid said at last. ‘Max wouldn’t want her unless she had money. Or something.’ He leered and gave a dirty laugh.

  Raynor did not reply. Juliana Ferenc was worth more than this thick fellow would ever realise. He’d ingratiated himself with the two Slovaks, asked questions about their plight, feigning a sympathy that he did not feel. And it had worked a charm: the old Slovak dropping the ‘no-Engleesh’ act and opening up to the kindly prison officer. And little by little the old man had told him, haltingly, about his niece. Juliana. She was meant to meet them in the railway station, Pavol had explained. Then he had looked crafty and tapped the side of his nose. I not tell the policeman. He’d grinned. But I tell you.

  The prison officer recalled how his sleeve had been caught as the old Slovak had poured out his story: the trip from his homeland (thieving here and there as necessity demanded), facing difficulties at the border crossings as they headed north. And then, the final episode of meeting up with other Slovaks in Aberdeen where they had at last found the girl.

  My jewel, Pavol had murmured, tears in his eyes.

  ‘Well, she must be worth something,’ Raynor murmured, echoing the driver. ‘Max wouldn’t make such a fuss otherwise.’

  Juliana lay on her side on the dusty floor, only a ragged blanket between her body and the bare boards. She ached all over, the manhandling then the beating covering her with bruises. She’d heard the men whispering as they’d taken her away from the city to this place that smelled faintly of animals. Max had been mentioned and she’d shivered on hearing his name. Was that to be her fate, to face him once again? And was she to be punished for escaping? A special punishment that might be long and drawn out, as the gangmaster had promised?

  There was no kindness in those men outside this room, but she was still alive and for that she must be grateful. She looked up at the window, set high against the sloping roof, and wondered what was outside. The sky was blue, the colour of speedwells before the wild hyacinths spread their purplish haze across the meadows and over the forest floor outside her village.

  Juliana gave a shuddering sob. She wanted to go home. But it was so very far away.

  The girl bit her lip to stop from crying but the tears fell silently.

  Would she ever see the flowers there again?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Could there be something linking the attack on Guilford and the traffickers? Solly pondered as he sipped the pale green tea and looked out across the park. Glasgow in all its glory, he told himself, his eyes lifting to the city, its landmark buildings and the hills beyond. It hardly seemed any time at all since he had stood here looking at the snow-capped mountains to the west, and now summer was here, the trees partly obscuring that view.

  The psychologist gave a happy sigh. By next winter he would have his family tucked up under this roof, the new baby gurgling in its cot, Rosie singing a song, as she had done when Abby was tiny; all her cares would be over for a time. At least he hoped so. This Dorothy Guilford case bothered him. The woman appeared to have been a strange mixture of spite and fear, a combination that could result in violence, as Solly knew from past experience. And the husband being targeted in prison was just one more marker against him, surely? Unless . . .

  Solly drained the porcelain cup and laid it on the window sill, his eyes no longer seeing the landscape but the pictures he had been shown of the Aberdeen raid. One or two of them had found their way into the national press but most were kept within the confines of the MIT in Govan.

  The faces of these distraught girls refused to leave him now that he had called them to mind once more. Juliana Ferenc had not been among them, her escape made good by the enterprising uncle and young brother who were still being held in Barlinnie Prison. Had the attack been anything to do with them? Was Peter Guilford involved in the trafficking to that extent? According to Kirsty his only sin was to have rented out vans to the traffickers, something the man insisted was completely out of his control.

  ‘How would he know what they were being used for?’ she had asked when they had discussed the case recently.

  ‘He’s the boss, anyway, surely it would be one of his underlings that did the actual renting out?’ James had chipped in. A reasonable enough remark, Solly had agreed, but now he was considering just what the system might be when one wished to rent a large van from a hire company. The officers from the MIT would know this, he told himself, checking his watch to see how long he had before the taxi came to drive him across the city. And perhaps at this next meeting he would be inclined to ask this very question.

  The boardroom was crowded, windows open to allow some air to filter through, though the increased sound of passing traffic was the price they had to pay for this. Solly edged his way along the row of detectives until he found an empty seat and slipped in, hoping that he was not the last to arrive.

  ‘Thanks for joining us, Professor Brightman,’ Lorimer began. ‘We need to take stock of exactly where we are with this case and see what actions are required from this point onwards.’

  All eyes were on the detective superintendent at the centre of the table, his back to the windows. He was filled with a sort of restless energy, Solly thought, noting the man’s body language, his back ever so slightly bent forwards as though he needed to have all of them heed his words, these blue eyes piercing anyone whose gaze met his. And yet, the deep crease between those very eyes betokened nights of sleeplessness, worrying about the apprehension of some killer whose ill intent made his job so difficult. He needed to see these people brought to justice, their victims given whatever peace lay beyond the grave. William Lorimer needed a holiday, he found himse
lf thinking. That was what he would tell Rosie later on. He and Maggie should spend more time up in Mull, away from all of this.

  The detective superintendent was speaking again, outlining the steps being taken to find the Ferenc girl. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he began to tell them about Michael Raynor, the prison officer who had suddenly failed to turn up for his shift following his interview with the detective superintendent.

  The room erupted in a torrent of questions until Lorimer held up his hand for quiet.

  ‘I blame myself for not following him out right away,’ he began. ‘But nobody was to know that he’d done a runner. It was the end of his shift, so there was nothing untoward about him leaving the place.’

  ‘Locker cleared out?’ one voice asked and Lorimer nodded.

  ‘He must have known he’d been suspected. And now, I think one of the first people I need to see is Peter Guilford.’ He looked around at the officers who were nodding in agreement. ‘And this time there is only one picture I’ll be showing that man.’

  The man in the bed turned his head away as soon as Lorimer produced the image, a blown-up head shot of Michael Raynor.

  There was silence between the two men as Lorimer waited, stony-faced, for Guilford to look him in the eye.

  A sigh, a pursing of the lips, then that imperceptible nod.

  ‘You know him, then?’

  Guilford glanced at Lorimer then looked away again, a pained expression in his eyes. ‘I didn’t know it was him when he attacked me,’ he said at last. ‘Couldn’t see him for the shower spray.’

  ‘When did you know?’

  Guilford hesitated for a moment. ‘I think he spoke to me,’ he admitted at last. ‘I recognised his voice.’ He looked up. ‘That English accent.’

  ‘So, when you saw the picture you did know it was him,’ Lorimer stated. ‘Who is he, Peter?’ he asked, his voice softening but his eyes still focused on the man in the bed.