by Alex Gray
‘Ah.’ The door to the room was opened and the woman stood aside. ‘Better come in then, DC Wilson.’
There was an air of tension in the room, explained by several officers who were gathered around a glass wall at one end.
‘Want to see where he is right now?’ The woman smiled and gestured for Kirsty to sit next to the others.
The wall was slightly above the room where Lorimer sat across a table from the figure Kirsty recognised as Shirley Finnegan, the officers able to see through the glass partition wall but not be seen. Lorimer’s back was towards them but Kirsty could see the big woman’s face.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked quietly but hands flapping and shushing noises from the assembled officers made her turn towards the scene instead.
*
Below them, apparently oblivious to the watching eyes and listening ears of his team, Lorimer stared hard at the woman opposite.
Shirley Finnegan bore no traces of similarity to her dead sister whatsoever, the grey permed hair and puffy face quite at odds with photographs of Dorothy Guilford. There was something hugely unattractive about her bloated body; some fat women were motherly types whose large laps were made for small children to snuggle into, others made a constant joke about being overweight, as if shaking with laughter like a wobbly jelly was part of their fun. But this woman simply looked malevolent: her piggy eyes were sunk into folds of flesh, swollen arms folded under enormous bosoms, the chair she sat on plainly too small for her spreading frame. How had she become so obese? He’d wondered this as they’d left her home and travelled back here an hour ago. Had it been comfort eating? Food a substitute for an affection she craved?
And how had Shirley Finnegan felt when her son had returned, no doubt demanding that she help him? These, and other questions, had been on Solly’s lips before they had confronted her in her own home.
The preliminary questions had been asked, date and time noted for the video recording, and now Lorimer was shuffling some paperwork at an angle so that only he could see what was written there.
‘Max was pretty successful in his career, wasn’t he?’ he murmured, as though the documents before him contained information about Shirley’s son.
‘So?’ The woman edged one fat shoulder forward dismissively but there was no mistaking the toss of her head, a fleeting look of pride in those eyes.
‘His reconstructive surgery seemed to go well enough, too,’ Lorimer continued, still examining the notes almost as if he was speaking to himself.
Shirley Finnegan frowned and sat back, folding her doughy arms with a sniff as though this tall police officer was simply wasting time with inane comments.
‘A lot of people have been killed,’ Lorimer went on, suddenly changing tack as he extracted several photographs from the folder, placing them on the table so that the woman could see them.
Each picture showed the victim at a scene of crime, the grim details clear to see. The Slovakian men whose bodies had been found in Aberdeen had now been identified but the Glasgow murder victim was still without a name. The paramedic and the pair of prison officers . . . Cynthia Drollinger . . . He pushed each picture towards her slowly, willing her to look at each one in turn.
‘Max was responsible for this,’ Lorimer said, in a tone of voice that neither condemned nor condoned the murders. It was something those listening had heard before: talking to a suspect in a neutral tone was simply to disarm them. Shouting could make them clam up, cajoling make them sneery.
‘The people-trafficking business was lucrative,’ he continued. ‘So I don’t understand why you are still living in such conditions, Shirley. Didn’t Max give you enough money for your help?’ He glanced up but the woman sat silent, a mulish expression on her face.
‘Not what one would expect from a wealthy son, is it? I mean, most kids like to repay their parents for all the good things they experienced during their childhood. Wouldn’t you agree?’
A shrug was his only answer, Shirley Finnegan’s eyes drawn from time to time to the lurid photographs like a voyeur transfixed by pornographic images.
‘Just became his laundry woman. A washerwoman, some call it. Not very kind, is it, Shirley? But, perhaps you were expecting more? Is that it? Had Max promised you something, maybe?’
The woman glanced up and Lorimer caught something in her eyes, a flicker, just for a split second, but he was certain that she had revealed something with that knowing look. He’d hit a nerve, that was for sure, but it could wait for now. He’d come back to that later, by a different route.
‘Dorothy’s home was once yours. Am I correct?’
‘Yes,’ Shirley sighed. ‘You know fine it was.’
‘And you still had a set of keys for the property?’
She shifted a little in her seat, but gave no reply.
‘Do you or do you not have keys to the house?’
‘S’pose I do,’ she replied. ‘What of it?’
‘So you could access your sister’s home any time you liked?’
‘I could but I didn’t,’ she sneered.
‘Or you could have given them to someone else, couldn’t you?’
The woman’s mouth closed tightly as though she were afraid to utter another word.
‘Let me set a proposition before you, Shirley,’ Lorimer began, leaning back in his seat and putting one hand over the folder. ‘Let’s say that you lent your door key to a certain person who wanted access to your sister’s home. Let’s say that person entered and was disturbed by Dorothy. A scuffle breaks out and in the heat of a moment Dorothy is killed.’
‘I didn’t—’
Lorimer put up one hand to silence her. ‘Let me continue. I haven’t finished the story yet,’ he said mildly. ‘Now. The person to whom you gave your key panics, leaves and locks the door behind him.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘See what I did there, Shirley? I gave you a clue. Him,’ he repeated. ‘Now, let’s give him a name, shall we? Let’s call him Max.’
‘I never gave him my key,’ Shirley snapped. ‘This is all a load of tosh. How can you say that? He wasn’t even in Glasgow when—’
‘So you knew whereabouts he was, is that what you’re telling me, Shirley?’
Her eyes flicked to one side where the duty solicitor sat, impassive, giving no hint to what his latest client ought to say.
‘Don’t know anything,’ she muttered, gazing down at her clasped hands then fidgeting as if suddenly fascinated by the state of her fingernails.
‘You don’t know or you won’t say? Fair enough. You are his mother, after all, and it is understandable that you want to protect him. Did he hope that Dorothy would leave something to him in her will?’
The sudden change of question made Shirley Finnegan’s head snap up and she opened her mouth as though to protest.
‘Have you seen Dorothy’s will?’ Lorimer asked, shuffling his papers again and glancing downwards as though he had the details there in front of him.
‘She left everything to Peter,’ Shirley blurted out. Then, as if she had made a mistake in speaking, she shrank back, frantically looking from the tall policeman to her solicitor who was leaning back in his chair, arms folded, refusing to meet her gaze.
‘And nothing to poor Max?’
‘She hardly knew him. Why would she leave anything to a nephew she’d never seen in years?’
‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,’ Lorimer corrected her, his tone like that of a teacher keen to assist a reluctant pupil. ‘You see, Max used to visit Dorothy every time he came home on leave. Didn’t he tell you?’
Shirley Finnegan’s eyes darkened but she did not rise to Lorimer’s bait.
‘Please.’ Kirsty stood up and turned to the other officers watching the interrogation. She lifted the plastic bag full of letters. ‘I’ve got something here he needs to see. Something that is crucial to what’s going on right now!’
It was several minutes later that the officers upstairs saw the interview room door opening and one of
the team beckoning Lorimer out.
‘What is it?’ Lorimer loomed over them, a dark look in his eyes.
‘Sir, DC Wilson wanted to give you this,’ the officer explained, handing him the sealed production bag.
‘Kirsty? Where is she?’
‘Here, sir,’ Kirsty said, making Lorimer whirl around to see his young friend appear from around the corner of the corridor. ‘It’s Dorothy’s letters from Max,’ she told him. ‘I think you really need to read them before you talk to his mother any more,’ she said.
There was a sharp intake of breath from the other officer, as if this young DC advising the detective superintendent was sheer effrontery.
But Lorimer did not react as expected, simply took the packet and examined it. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘Dorothy’s bedside cabinet, sir. It’s been with the other productions since DS Geary and I found the dead woman’s will. I just read them for the first time today,’ she explained. ‘And it’s pretty enlightening stuff.’ She raised her eyebrows and gave Lorimer a grin.
*
Shirley Finnegan sat beside the solicitor, mouth shut tight. Had she already said too much? Surely they couldn’t hold her here? After all, what wrong had she done? There was absolutely nothing that they could arrest her for. Unless . . . She thought back to the moment when Frank Dawson had called her with the news about Dorothy’s death. She had felt an enormous sense of release then, hadn’t she? And, with Dorothy out of the picture, it had been easy enough to persuade those that mattered to see just how to capitalise on that event.
But what if they actually thought that she had murdered her own sister? Was all of this storytelling nonsense a sort of double bluff? Did this Lorimer fellow think that she was capable of killing Dorothy? Those other cops had asked about an alibi for the time of Dorothy’s death, hadn’t they? And, Shirley realised with a feeling of nausea swelling in her stomach, she had none to give them.
The clock on the wall ticked on, its hands recording one hour then two as Shirley Finnegan sweated under the artificial lights of this small room. Tactics, she told herself. Deliberately leaving me here to make me talk. She shifted her glance at the solicitor who was tapping away at his smart phone. Well, she’d show them. Keeping silent was maybe her best defence right now. And, besides, wouldn’t it annoy that good-looking detective who’d spoken to her as if they were discussing her bank overdraft and not a matter of several murders?
‘It’s hard to believe,’ Lorimer said at last. ‘The woman must have been out of her mind.’
‘He was feeding her ideas,’ Kirsty agreed. ‘See that last one?’ She pointed to the final letter from Max Warnock to his aunt.
Dear Aunt Dorothy,
Yes, I think about death a lot too. Coming back from the dead was not what I had expected. The pain, especially the pain, was the worst thing. So, if death is what you really crave, death by your own hand and not his, make certain that you do it properly.
Lorimer nodded, reading on to the end.
One thrust to the heart, like the soldiers of old, falling on their swords. A mark of glory and a way to stop your endless torment for good. No one can cheat death but you can cheat HIM out of anything he’s got planned for you.
‘That says it all, doesn’t it?’ He heaved a sigh. ‘That poor impressionable woman, caught between a brute like Guilford and a villain like the nephew she adored.’
‘She wasn’t in her right mind by then, surely?’ Kirsty ventured.
Lorimer shook his head. ‘No, the Fiscal’s verdict on this will probably be suicide while of an unsound mind.’ He left his thought unspoken for now that Max Warnock had one more death to answer for. ‘Well, Rosie’s going to be off on maternity leave feeling one hell of a lot better about the future now, isn’t she?’
Kirsty grinned. ‘Can I tell her, sir?’
‘Not just yet, DC Wilson,’ he replied. ‘We need to present this to Mrs Finnegan first, see what she might tell us. Besides, I have a notion that Rosie might appreciate hearing it from somebody else.’
Kirsty looked crestfallen but she nodded in agreement.
‘It ought to be DI McCauley who tells her, don’t you think?’ Lorimer said. ‘After all, he was the SIO in the case.’
There was something fitting about Lorimer’s idea, she agreed. Alan McCauley would be instructed by the detective superintendent from the MIT and the Fiscal would then decide what was to happen to Peter Guilford. If he survived, Kirsty thought. She had been taken into Lorimer’s confidence about that, as would DI McCauley, partly because it impinged on the trafficking case and the MIT’s dual operation with the Slovakian authorities. The need to keep the truth about the man was paramount. Any leaks to the press would find their way back to the DI, she thought.
There was a sense of anticlimax as Kirsty drove slowly out of the car park and headed towards the Clyde Tunnel. Her part in all of this appeared to be over now, even bringing the news about Dorothy Guilford and those airmail letters was denied to her. What next? she wondered as the traffic slowed down, the two lanes in front of the tunnel entrance crammed with commuters crossing the city.
James would be waiting for her. Waiting to know what decision she had come to. And suddenly, with a clarity that surprised her, Detective Constable Kirsty Wilson knew exactly what her future was going to hold.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
She had been permitted to go to the lavatory, escorted by a female officer, then back to the claustrophobic interview room where cups of tea had been offered. But no biscuits, a fact that had made her simmer with resentment.
Shirley looked up as the door opened again. At long last the tall police officer had deigned to return. Part of her wanted to ask what had kept him, but her warier self simply watched as he seated himself opposite once more.
There was no apology for keeping her waiting. Nothing. She gritted her teeth as he flicked through the same damned folder, unable to see what he was reading but keeping her eyes fixed on the pages nonetheless.
‘Max Warnock was in regular contact with your sister,’ he began, glancing across at her then back at some pages in his hands. ‘From the time he entered the forces right up till she died, in fact.’ He looked across and met her eyes with his own. Shirley felt them staring at her, like a hypnotic force field, a blue gaze that refused to let her go.
‘You didn’t know that, did you, Shirley?’
She said nothing. The question was rhetorical, after all. And he was correct. Of course she hadn’t known this. Bile rose in her throat, the old fury against the sister who had beguiled Shirley Finnegan’s only son. She tried hard not to speak while the policeman’s fingers flicked through a pile of blue airmail papers.
‘Max appears to have had quite an intimate relationship with his aunt. He gave her advice, wanted to help her with her illness . . . actually told her how she might find release from her predicament . . . ’
Shirley frowned. Illness? What illness? Dorothy had pretended to be unwell all through their childhood. She remembered it so clearly: a pile of comics and a hot water bottle given to the sickly little sister whenever she wanted a day off school . . . the cuts to her arms bandaged up . . . that triumphant look in her eyes that had been reserved for Shirley alone. A look that said, See the power I have over them and you don’t!
‘Was she really ill this time?’ Shirley blurted out the words then immediately regretted them.
‘It was an illness of sorts, I suppose,’ the man agreed, his tone so neutral that Shirley decided that Dorothy didn’t really interest him at all. It was Max they were after. ‘And Max, your son, Max, was the one who helped take care of her.’
‘How?’ Shirley demanded, the bitter pain of betrayal making her throw caution to the wind. ‘How did he help her? He wasn’t even there . . . ’
‘No, he wasn’t there, was he, Shirley? Not in person. But, yes, he helped your sister all right.’ He leaned forwards and for the first time Shirley could see the tightened jaw, the changed look
in those blue eyes as he lifted one of the airmail letters in his hand, waving it slowly in the air between them.
‘You see, Shirley, he showed your sister how to take her own life.’
*
After that, the woman had crumpled and the whole story had come out. How Max had promised to get the big house back for his mother, the family inheritance coming to Shirley once both Dorothy and Peter were dead.
Only she had not reckoned on Peter Guilford being charged with his wife’s murder. That had thrown a safety net around the man: he was safe from Max’s murderous intentions, safe in prison. But the choice of Barlinnie had been to their advantage as Michael Raynor was already working there following his discharge from HM forces. The plotters had lured Raynor into their net, Max’s guile working its old bewitchment on the man who had saved his life.
In due course Lorimer had turned the interview to the trafficking and watched as Shirley had shrugged it off. Max was just doing a job, she’d told him, as though operating a trade in human misery was something to be admired. It brought in lots of money, she had told him, and Lorimer had squirmed at the unmistakable glint of pride in Shirley Finnegan’s greedy little eyes.
But she had sat back, arms folded, refusing to meet his eyes, refusing to say another single word as Lorimer had asked that final question.
‘Where is he now?’
They could hold her for a while longer, charged with conspiracy, of being part of this international trafficking gang, though Frank Dawson had protested about that. What are you going to charge her with? Washing dirty laundry? he had scoffed.
The solicitor’s remark had got Lorimer thinking, though.
‘Who collects the laundry?’ he wondered aloud as he sat in the DCI’s room with Niall Cameron. ‘Certainly wouldn’t be her son. More likely to be one of his minions.’
And then he sat up. ‘Do you think that Shirley would cooperate with us if we say she is going to be allowed out on bail?’