by Alex Gray
Peter Guilford shot her a dark look. What was good about that? He was already heavily guarded by police officers in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and would continue to be as he was transferred to Low Moss Prison.
Here in hospital he had experienced the only real sense of freedom he’d known since that DI had arrested him for Dorothy’s murder, the nurses and doctors treating him like an ordinary human being.
It was madness. Nothing had turned out the way he had wanted it, her death cheating him of everything he had planned . . . The nurse was prattling on, reassuring Peter that he would be missed and congratulating him on such a good recovery.
‘Now,’ she said at last, pulling the trolley away from his bedside, ‘that’s you all set for your visitor.’ The woman beamed and tilted her head towards the glass door.
Peter followed her gaze where a familiar figure stood. Cynthia! For a moment Peter felt the old surge of delight at seeing his mistress then his face fell. She would not be seeing so much of him any more once he was taken to Low Moss prison. Once a month, if they were lucky.
He waited until the room was quiet, noting that the uniformed officer outside in the corridor was drinking tea and chatting to one of the nurses before nodding in her direction.
‘Thought I told you not to come back,’ he began as she approached his chair, but his face had creased into a smile, his expression belying the words.
‘I had to see you, Peter,’ Cynthia whispered. ‘It’s important. Someone came to see me . . . ’
‘Shh, keep your voice down,’ Peter scolded. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’ he asked, conscious of the eager look on the woman’s face.
‘They’re going to get you out,’ she whispered. ‘You won’t be spending the rest of your life in prison, not if they can help it.’
‘How?’ Peter shook his head, stunned at her words. ‘What are they planning to do?’
She glanced behind to ensure that nobody was within earshot, then, taking his hand in hers she bent towards him, her voice low, her gestures aimed to appear like a woman making assurances to her lover.
Peter Guilford kept his face close to hers but his expression changed as Cynthia told him of what the stranger who’d visited her had planned, a smile of satisfaction softening his features. At last she finished and looked up at him.
‘Thank you, my love,’ he said, taking her hand to his lips and kissing her fingertips. ‘We’ll make a fresh start, you and me, just wait and see.’
CHAPTER FORTY
She blinked, rubbed her eyes and read the report once again. The results from the post-mortem of the man found in that quarry had not given him a name but had turned up some surprising information instead.
‘Well, well, well,’ Rosie murmured, reaching for her phone. Lorimer needed to know about this right away. Forensics had thrown up DNA evidence from that crime scene that matched material taken from Michael Raynor’s flat. Whoever had stayed there most recently (and she supposed it must have been the prison officer himself) was now in the frame for the brutal murder of their latest victim.
Rosie screwed up her face as she heard the recorded message. She hesitated for a moment then spoke a few words to let Lorimer know the basic facts. Jacqui White might be taking over that particular case but it now looked as if there was a link to Dorothy Guilford.
Solly had filled her in after the meeting at Helen Street and she had listened as he had passed on the information about Raynor and his visits years before to the big house in St Andrew’s Drive. He’d been seeking revenge for Dorothy’s murder, they thought. But, Rosie reasoned, how could that prison officer be so certain that it really was murder? She heaved a sigh. Ought she to give in now, let them pass judgement on Peter Guilford? He’d been a wife beater, for sure. But had he actually killed Dorothy in a moment of rage? Surely his intention had been to grasp all of that lucrative insurance policy? And if so, wouldn’t he have taken pains to cover his tracks, not simply lash out at his defenceless wife?
No, she thought, that old stubborn streak coming to the surface. She would not give up on her own position of seeing Dorothy Guilford’s death in terms of suicide. There were still too many unanswered questions and Alan McCauley didn’t yet have a monopoly on the right answers.
It all came back to Dorothy. And, she supposed, it should really be her husband digging deeper for the truth about the woman’s death. After all, he was the man who could sometimes give answers to the questions beginning with ‘why’.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the dark-haired pathologist entered the room.
‘Rosie,’ Jacqui began, a strange, eager look on her face that was overshadowed by a frown. ‘Something you need to see.’
A pot of tea accompanied by some reassuring, if inane, words then Jacqui White was gone, leaving Rosie still trembling with emotion. McCauley had pushed for a second post-mortem on Dorothy Guilford and the Crown had advised that Dr White would undertake this if she were willing.
Willing? Rosie clenched her teeth as she thought of the expression on Jacqui’s face. She was dying to do it; that was something even a good actress like Jacqui couldn’t fail to hide. And, if her findings contradicted Rosie’s? What then? Jacqui had been quite matter-of-fact on the surface, but Rosie was not fooled for one minute that the other pathologist might see this as her chance to shine.
She recalled a conversation they had had together recently, Jacqui wondering if Rosie had ever considered being a stay-at-home mum. Was that something she hoped would happen? Two wee children and a career break? And Jacqui White taking over not just as a locum but as a permanent member of the department, possibly setting her sights on the top job, Rosie’s job.
It was more important than ever to find out the truth behind Dorothy Guilford’s death. And, Rosie told herself, looking down at her swollen belly, she had to make sure that happened before this baby entered the world.
‘You all right, boss?’ The sing-song Aussie accent told Rosie at once that Daisy had entered the room. ‘Hey, something’s upset you. C’mon, what’s up?’
Whether it was the kindness in the younger woman’s voice or the arm slung about her shoulder, Rosie would never know, but she found herself pouring out her troubles to the Australian doctor as they sat together in her office.
‘So, you think she might shaft you? That what you’re saying? Hey, can’t let that happen. Look. How about I keep an eye on things while you’re gone? Make sure that nothing goes on that you don’t know about?’ Daisy grinned. ‘I’ll be your eyes and ears. How about it? Got the feeling I’d rather work for you long term than Miss TV personality out there.’
Rosie smiled up at her. ‘Golly,’ she laughed. ‘What a lot of intrigue!’
‘Yeah, but sometimes you need to be one step ahead of the ones who are looking to overtake you,’ Daisy claimed. ‘I saw it happening back home once or twice. Guys taking advantage of a woman on maternity leave. She comes back and finds herself out of a job. Told to do part time or job share, know what I’m saying? Jeez, this glass ceiling, won’t it ever crash down on them?’
‘Well, this is a bit different here,’ Rosie reminded her. ‘We’re not talking about gender issues.’
‘No, that’s true enough. Scotland doesn’t seem as bad for that as back home. Why I want to stay, partly,’ she admitted.
‘The issue here is one of trust,’ Rosie said gravely. ‘And I’m not at all sure I can trust this colleague any more.’
‘Don’t you worry, Dr Fergusson,’ Daisy soothed. ‘I’ll keep a watch on her every move.’
Rosie sighed as Daisy left the room, closing the door behind her. Why did this have to happen? She was a shrewd enough judge of character to suspect that Jacqui was planning things behind her back whilst making a show of being her friend. Yet her instinct told her to let Daisy, a young woman she hardly knew, be her spy in the department both now and later when her maternity leave began. Did Daisy Abercromby have a hidden agenda? Was she making sure that her own future was
secure by keeping in with the head of department? Perhaps, but Rosie felt a whole lot better right now knowing that the Australian was on her side.
She gasped suddenly as a pain shot across her abdomen. The baby. She must remember the baby. Probably nothing, she told herself, just one of those muscular spasms that happened from time to time. Nothing to worry about. Anxiety induced, more than likely.
Still, Rosie glanced at her watch to take note of the time that this particular pain had hit her. Just in case.
‘We’re getting there,’ Lorimer muttered to DCI Cameron as he entered the room. Then he turned his back on the man, intent on adding the message from Rosie onto the whiteboard at the far end of the room, a blue pen line now linking the names of Michael Raynor and the victim whom they had called ‘Quarryman’ meantime until his identity could be established. Dark haired and swarthy, Lorimer suspected that the dead man was in fact a Slovakian national and they had sent as much information as possible to their counterparts in Bratislava.
It was late in the day now and yet he and the team would remain here for hours more, working through the documentation about these traffickers, looking constantly for intelligence that might bring some news about Molly Newton and the missing girl.
His phone rang and he put it to his ear.
‘Lorimer.’
Watching the detective superintendent, Niall Cameron noticed the clenched jaw and the slight nod of his head as Lorimer listened to the caller.
‘That was the governor of Low Moss,’ Lorimer told him. ‘Guilford’s being released into their custody tonight.’
Cameron breathed out a long sigh. ‘One less for us to worry over then,’ he observed. ‘And lets us have our officers back.’
Lorimer nodded slowly. There were so many pressures, so much to think about, not least the ever-present worry over manpower and where best to deploy it.
He glanced out of the window at the summer evening sky. What he would give to be home in the garden with Maggie! And yet, that pleasure would be denied him for a while longer. Time was against them to find their undercover officer and the Ferenc girl, precious time that needed his presence here.
Was Molly Newton somewhere looking at that same pale blue sky? Was she even alive?
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
‘But we haven’t had any word . . . ’ The nurse backed off as the two prison officers stood at the desk, their papers offered for her to see.
‘Oh,’ she said, reading the official letters that concerned her patient. ‘I see. Well, this is unexpected. And in the middle of the night!’
‘Security,’ one of them muttered. ‘We need to make sure that nobody is outside watching his transfer. Press boys would love to get hold of this.’
‘Aye.’ The other shrugged. ‘And see there, your consultant Mr Ahasan has countersigned the permission.’
The nurse nodded as she turned the page and saw the familiar scrawl. It was all in order. ‘All right, then, I suppose you will have a police escort?’
‘Oh, yes, there are officers waiting downstairs with the ambulance,’ he assured her.
‘Okay, just wait over there,’ she said, turning away and fingering the pocket of her uniform.
One quick call; that was what she had promised the woman, remembering her stricken face as she had begged for this favour.
Slipping into an empty side room, she dialled the number and waited.
‘They’ve come for our friend,’ she said then cut the call. A wee favour, the woman had begged. And surely that couldn’t do anyone any harm? Yet she shivered as though that thought was a premonition of something bad.
Too many nights, she told herself briskly, shaking off the sudden feeling of gloom. It would be better once she’d had a break and was back on day shift. Then, summoning up her professional self once more, she walked towards the room where Peter Guilford lay sleeping.
‘Peter,’ she said, folding back a corner of the bedclothes and tapping the man’s shoulder, ‘wake up.’
Peter Guilford looked about him. The lights everywhere were dimmed at this time of night, the silence only broken by the sound of a trolley being wheeled along the corridor. He trembled a little as the porter came towards his bed. Had they forgotten him after all? Was this a ploy from HMP to effect his transfer to Low Moss without a chance for him to escape? Or was it all an elaborate plan by those people who had spoken to Cynthia?
The porter did not make eye contact with him as he helped Peter from his bed to the hospital trolley. Was this a genuine hospital employee? Or one of the people Cynthia had said would help him get away? He pulled the cotton waffle blanket around his shoulders as they headed along a corridor, round a corner and stopped at a bank of lifts.
From out of the corner of his eyes Peter could see the shadowy figures of the prison escorts and the officer whose shift had kept him outside his room that night. Three burly men plus the porter against . . . how many out there to help him get away?
As they entered the lift and he felt it begin its descent, Peter wondered what awaited him at the end of this short journey to the ground.
He tried to sit up as they left the lift and crossed the huge concourse that led to the main entrance but firm hands pushed him down again and he lay back, watching the upper floors disappear as they walked him steadily past shuttered shops and coffee bars.
A swish of doors then he felt it; a fresh blast of air, warm enough to breathe in deeply, the night sky above pierced with lights from the buildings around. He heard the wheels of the trolley trundle over tarmac, felt the difference from the smooth floor to this harder ground beneath his body and glanced across at the waiting ambulance.
There were mere yards now between him and the vehicle and his heart sank in despair. Cynthia had been played for a fool! There was no plan to spring him after all, or else it had all gone awry.
A pair of green-jacketed paramedics came and shifted Peter yet again from the hospital trolley onto their own gurney, strapping him in securely.
‘Worried I’ll run away,’ he muttered as one of them bent to buckle the straps.
‘Standard procedure, mate,’ the paramedic told him. ‘We do it for all our patients. Just like you’d strap on a safety belt in a car, see?’
Peter did not reply but let himself be hoisted up on the stretcher and carried into the waiting ambulance. The interior was full of equipment on each side, high-tech-looking stuff, a blue covered seat below.
‘Right, pal, that’s you,’ the man said as he made sure that the gurney was comfortably in place.
Any moment now these doors will close, Peter thought, gazing out at the hospital building. And the next thing I see will be the inside of another prison.
But, before anyone could come and slam the doors shut, a shot rang out and he heard a scream.
‘Man down! Man Down. Get—’ someone shouted, then another volley of gunfire rang out, bullets pinging off the metal side of the vehicle.
‘What the . . . ?’ the paramedic began, crouching down beside his patient, mouth open in shock.
Peter sat up. They were coming to set him free! Just as Cynthia had promised!
His fingers fumbled the straps loose in his desperation to be rid of the restraints. Then, throwing the bedcover aside, Peter Guilford stood up.
He could hear the sound of feet thumping across the ground outside and more screams as people fled the scene.
Crouching low to avoid detection, he headed for the doorway and freedom.
Somewhere in the distance he could hear police sirens. There wasn’t much time now, he had to get away!
He clutched the door of the vehicle and leaned forward, preparing to jump down, when another shot rang out.
At once he was thrown backwards, pain searing his shoulder.
Bright lights flashed before him, only to be suddenly extinguished as he fell into total darkness.
Lorimer had been woken by the telephone and in minutes he was dressed and gunning the Lexus away from his house towards th
e Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
As he approached it from the motorway his mouth grew grim. In the darkness he could see just why Glasgow folk had nick-named it the Death Star, its resemblance to the mighty edifice in the skies uncanny. Yet this night would surely reinforce that moniker? Three, maybe four dead, he’d been told and even now he was hearing reports through his earpiece.
What the hell had happened?
He was soon to find out as he parked the car behind a line of police vehicles and strode over to the officer in charge who quickly updated him on the situation. Lorimer listened, his face grave.
By the time the police reinforcements had arrived there were three bodies lying on the tarmac, he was informed; one of the paramedics and two prison officers. Lorimer walked carefully across to the scene where white-suited figures were already at work. Guilford lay sprawled and bloody, across the steps of the ambulance, the blue light beating across his face. Up above he could see faces peering from scores of windows, no doubt wondering at the tumult beneath them. He imagined nurses chivvying patients back into their beds, whilst trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening on the ground below, the curiosity of human nature at work. All too soon word would spread and the newspapers would have people here asking questions.
Officers in high visibility vests streamed across the tarmac, some of them already armed. Of the gunmen who had carried out this atrocity there was no sign though Lorimer knew well that every CCTV camera in the area was already being closely monitored.
He watched as the bodies of the victims and those who were injured were removed and taken inside the hospital, several figures in blue scrubs accompanying them. But it was to the ambulance where Guilford lay, a doctor now kneeling by his side, that Lorimer focused his attention.
Someone had wanted that man dead. Wanted it badly enough to cause this carnage. But why? What was so important about the man who had simply hired out his vehicles to these ruthless people? Looking down at Guilford, Lorimer shook his head. Well, it looked as if they’d succeeded at any rate.