by Alex Gray
The Ritz Cafe was on Govan Road, just a stone’s throw from Elder Park and diagonally across from the massive fortress-like buildings that comprised the old Fairfield’s shipyard. The cafe had seen better days, like the yards that must have given it trade in the past, but it was clean enough and as Frances had said, it was quiet. The two women slipped into a booth, sliding along the red leatherette benches.
‘What would you like, ladies?’ Fathy asked.
‘Large decaf latte for me,’ Irvine replied cheerfully as though they were on a wee outing.
‘Cappuccino, please,’ Frances replied. ‘I can pay . .
Fathy shook his head. ‘No need, ma’am. Our treat.’
‘Aye, we’ll get it off expenses, Frances. Nae worries,’ Irvine grinned.
The girl removed her grey linen jacket and pushed it aside wedging it into the angle of the booth.
‘We need to ask you things about Ken,’ Irvine told her quietly. ‘Is that what you called him? Ken?’
Frances nodded.
‘See, thing is, we don’t have an awful lot of information about Ken’s background and we would like to contact any family he might have. You know? Rotten for folk to find out stuff like this from the newspapers,’ she added, appealing to the girl’s sense of fair play.
‘So, what can you tell us about him? Family, friends, his ex wife, that sort of thing.’
Frances Donnelly opened her mouth for a moment as though to speak then closed it again, looking away.
So, something she didn’t want to say? Irvine thought. Interesting.
‘Did he talk much about his ex-wife?’ she ventured again.
The woman opposite heaved a sigh. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I got the impression he still had feelings for her, though. He was . . she bit her lip as though to prevent any adverse comment being aired. It didn’t do to speak ill of the dead, so many Glasgow worthies were apt to say. And it was a habit that had stuck with the younger generation as well. So why did DC Irvine have the distinct impression that this was exactly what was bugging Ken Scott’s girlfriend?
‘I don’t know how to put this,’ Frances continued, ‘but any time he mentioned her he was angry and sad at the same time. Like she’d hurt him but he still couldn’t get her off his mind.’
‘Who brought the subject up. You or him?’
‘Funny you asking that,’ Frances said, ‘it was always Ken who began talking about her. He’d see a woman in the street, maybe, and say, she’s like Marianne. Then he’d go dead quiet. I don’t think he wanted to talk about her but somehow I felt that he couldn’t stop thinking about her either.’ ‘A bit obsessed, was he?’ Irvine laughed as though to make a light-hearted joke about it though the words were in fact completely serious.
The redhead nodded. ‘I think so. In fact,’ she frowned suddenly, ‘I sometimes wondered if he was still seeing her.’ ‘Oh, what gave you that idea?’ ‘Things he said,’ Frances shrugged. ‘It wasn’t anything you could put a finger on, know what I mean? It was just . . ‘Your feelings?’
‘Aye. I mean he was a dead nice guy and we got on well, but it wasn’t a relationship that was going to go anywhere. I wasn’t jealous of his ex.’ She shrugged again. “Spose that shows I wasn’t all that stuck on him, doesn’t it?’
‘Not a crime to have a casual boyfriend,’ Irvine countered. ‘Anyhow, here’s coffee. Thanks, Omar. Ooh, biccies as well. My this is a treat!’ she said, raising her eyebrows as Fathy handed out glasses of coffee and a handful of Amaretti biscuits individually wrapped in coloured tissue.
‘Frances was just telling me that Mr Scott was maybe still seeing his ex. Funny how we don’t seem to be able to trace her, isn’t it?’ Irvine told Fathy.
‘But surely there’s an address or a phone number? He was always saying things about her as if he’d been with her.’ Frances frowned, puzzled.
‘She went off to do a pre-uni course at Anniesland College. But there’s no trace of her at Glasgow Uni or any other university for
that matter,’ Irvine said, blowing on her coffee to cool it down. ‘Maybe she changed back to her maiden name?’ Fathy offered. ‘Brogan? Nah, we looked into that. No sign of a Brogan either.’ ‘But she might have given herself any name at all. You can do that,’ Frances said slowly, looking at DC Fathy. ‘I remember Ken
told me. He said you could change your name legally under Scottish law without having to go through the registry office.’
‘True,’ Irvine nodded. ‘And we have to look into that possibility. Police work involves loads of paperwork, you know,’ she told the girl. ‘Trawling through files and registry office databases. So long as we find her to let her know,’ Irvine made a face as if to say this wasn’t really such a big deal. But inwardly she was experiencing a frisson of excitement: Ken Scott’s wife might have tried to do a disappearing act. Why? And did this tell them anything about her husband? Change the subject, she told herself. Keep cool. ‘Any idea where he was on his week’s leave?’
Frances shook her head slowly. ‘Said he might go up north. That’s all I know, I’m afraid. Sorry.’
Irvine wondered at that. Why keep his plans secret from the girlfriend? Had Scott been hiding something?
‘Tell me what he was like, Frances. Nice guy? Well liked by his pals?’
‘Ken was quite ordinary. Nothing special, but he was nice. He had good manners,’ she blushed again, looking involuntarily at Omar Fathy. ‘That’s always a plus, isn’t it?’
‘What about other family?’ the Egyptian detective asked.
Frances shook her head. ‘Nobody. His parents were both dead and he was an only child. Never spoke about aunties or cousins or that.’
‘What did he do at Christmas, then? That’s a time for family gatherings.’
‘I don’t know. He was vague about that,’ the girl said, her eyes narrowing as she tried to remember. ‘Mind you, that was just after we got together. Too soon to ask him to join my family, you know?’ she looked at the two officers guiltily then put her hand to her mouth as though to stifle a sob. ‘I still can’t believe . .
‘Hey, it’s okay,’ Irvine put a comforting arm around the girl’s shoulder. ‘Isn’t it better to remember good stuff about him? Eh?’ ‘I know,’ Frances sniffed, pulling a hankie from her cardigan pocket. ‘And it’s not as if we were dead serious or anything. It’s just such a terrible thing to have happened. First he loses his wife then…’ she shook her head, not trusting herself to continue.
Annie Irvine’s eyes narrowed. Loses his wife. An odd expression to use, surely. The ex-wife wasn’t dead after all. But splitting up from her must have been a big deal. There was something more to all of this, she was sure. And if Frances Donnelly couldn’t supply the missing pieces, then who could?
CHAPTER 7
Billy Brogan’s flat was two floors up in an old Victorian tenement that had seen better days. As he dodged the crumpled
chip papers and discarded beer cans that littered the entrance the man’s trainers made no sound, stealth being a habit he practised nowadays without thinking. Getting in had been easier than he’d expected; the outer door had been left ajar for some reason and a young Asian boy had emerged just as he had been about to press the buzzer for Brogan’s flat. The lad had scarcely looked at him. What would he see? A fellow in nondescript jeans and jacket, a baseball cap pulled down to hide his face, he resembled lots of other blokes in lots of other cities. Should anyone attempt to describe him, they would struggle to find any distinguishing features. Not that he had none, but so long as he was on a job his tattooed arms were kept out of sight.
Brogan’s flat had a pair of old-fashioned storm doors that were pulled back, revealing a half glazed front door. A light was on in the hall but, as the gunman raised the flap of letterbox he could hear not a single sound coming from within. He stood, blinking for a moment, wondering what to do. The element of surprise was essential, after all.
He turned the ancient wooden doorknob and the door opened
&
nbsp; with a sigh. Stepping inside, he closed it carefully, making certain there was no sound of a click to alert listening ears.
A few steps further into the flat showed him that his caution had been completely unnecessary.
The place was trashed.
In the main lounge tables were overturned, cupboards broken and lying on their backs, their contents strewn all over the floor. A damp patch of something sticky lay underneath a pile of papers. He took a step back then bent down to investigate a bit more. Eventually one gloved hand rolled over an empty bottle of Ribena that had been deliberately spilled on the dusty carpet.
Everywhere was the same; curtains slashed to ribbons in the back bedroom, dishes smashed on the kitchen floor, a jar of coffee emptied over the mess. His boots crunched the dark grains as he tried to step around the shambles.
The gunman’s eyes narrowed; someone else with a grudge had got here before him. So where the hell was Brogan? And where the hell was his money?
Doctor Rosie Fergusson waddled around the stainless steel operating table, her eyes never leaving the naked cadaver. Apart from the obvious hole in the middle of his forehead, he looked perfectly fine. There had been no nasty toxins in his blood to suggest the victim might have been a dabbler in illegal substances, nor even a trace of alcohol.
In death, Kenneth Scott appeared to be a nice looking chap, the muscles in his limbs had been well toned, his fingernails and toenails were trimmed and not ragged like so many blokes’ tended to be, and his white, even teeth showed evidence of regular dental checks. In life? Rosie tended not to think too much about what a victim had been like in life. Her task was to find out
what had caused the cessation of that final heartbeat and to record it all as carefully as she possibly could. In this case it was fairly straightforward. The preliminary X-rays had shown the bullet lodged inside the brain after it had penetrated the skull, so this would be a delicate piece of surgery. She glanced up at the viewing window where the ballistics officer stood, waiting for her to retrieve the bullet. ‘Okay, Em, open him up,’ she instructed her technician. Emma came forward, scalpel in her gloved hand, bent over the cadaver and opened his scalp from ear to ear, reflecting it back so that the interior was visible. She was good at this, Rosie thought, and she needed to be. One false slip with that metal instrument and the rifling on the bullet might become damaged if it were close to the surface.
Rosie lifted up a pair of plastic forceps, ready to delve into the mass of tissues whenever the technician had finished her part of the job. The sound of the saw filled the room with its metallic buzz as the skull was opened for surgery. The pathologist stepped forward and paused. Forceps or fingers? It was a tricky bit of the procedure now to remove the object. Rosie decided on forceps. Carefully, carefully she reached into the wound, dipping her instrument into the exposed tissues. Then her steady hand drew out the bit of metal that had killed the man on her operating table.
Rosie let the bullet fall into the kidney-shaped dish, hearing it clatter. The man at the viewing window above would take possession of it, Rosie signing the production bag before he took it away. Every step of this long process of determining the man’s death and finding his killer needed to be executed following all the rules of bagging and recording evidence. One slip and a later court case could come tumbling down with serious repercussions for the professional involved.
‘Need to keep the brain and fix it for neuropathology so we can determine the precise track of it with regard to its direction,’ Rosie said aloud. It was important that the ballistics officer could not only see what was going on but could hear everything the pathologist said through the sound system in the postmortem room. ‘We also need to determine what structures are damaged,’ she added.
Rosie kept some thoughts to herself, though. It was a professional job, all right. She’d seen enough of them to say that with a high degree of certainty should she be asked in her capacity as an expert witness. He’d probably used a silencer. They all did, the pros. Her glance fell on the waxen body. He probably hadn’t even seen it coming.
There was no mystery being found out in this postmortem. It was a routine job, like so many others. The only mystery was who had killed him and why. And that was something for Lorimer and his team to discover.
‘Couldn’t it be a case of mistaken identity?’
Lorimer looked up sharply. ‘What makes you say that?’
Detective Sergeant Niall Cameron drew in his breath before replying. ‘He seems to have been such an innocuous sort of person, sir. No previous. No toxins in his bloodstream. Place of employment giving him a glowing character.’ Cameron shrugged a narrow shoulder as if to reinforce his argument.
‘A man opens his door in the middle of the night. He’s shot at point-blank range, killed instantly. Nobody can make sense of that at the best of times, can they?’ Lorimer replied. Tut I see your point, Niall. Scott had no known association with the criminal world. As far as we know he hadn’t hacked anyone off enough to deserve this.’
‘Not a football referee, then?’ DS Alistair Wilson joked. A ripple of laughter ran through the officers assembled in the muster room. Wilson’s remark harked back to a case they’d had involving a Glasgow football club, where a referee had been shot dead on his own doorstep.
‘That’s actually not a bad point to make,’ Lorimer told them. ‘We had no idea at the time about the referee’s entire background. He looked as squeaky clean as this victim,’ he turned to tap the photograph behind him. All eyes followed his glance. Kenneth Scott’s blown-up photograph stared back at them, the black circle in his forehead looking for all the world as if some wag had drawn it there with marker pen.
‘We need an awful lot more on this man’s background before we can put it down to a case of mistaken identity. No matter what his chum thinks,’ he added.
‘Sir,’ DC Irvine spoke up. ‘There’s something worrying me about the wife. I mean, the ex-wife. His girlfriend gave me the impression that he might still have been seeing her. And,’ she paused for a beat, ‘if he was, why haven’t we found any address or phone number for her at his house?’
There was a murmur amongst the other officers at this.
Lorimer raised his hand to quieten them. ‘Okay. This is just what I mean. You need to look for anything that’s unusual or unexpected in this man’s life. Sometimes it’s the things that are missing that we need to consider,’ he nodded at Irvine who reddened with pleasure at her boss’s approval, ‘And right now it’s an ex-wife. What do we know about her so far, Annie?’
‘Marianne Brogan, born 28th May 1977. Married Kenneth Scott on January 1st 2000.’ She looked up, making a face, ‘Like thousands of other couples all over the world. Anyway, they were divorced more than two years ago. No children. She worked as an
admin assistant in local government out at Cowglen before she was married but according to the Department for Work and Pensions she didn’t appear to have had a job at all after the marriage.’ Irvine looked around her to see how her colleagues would react to this snippet of information. DI Jo Grant met her glance and raised her eyebrows.
‘How many women nowadays just give up working once they’re married?’ Irvine persisted. ‘And with no kids to look after? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Anyway after the divorce she registered for a course at Anniesland College.’
‘In her own name?’ DI Grant wanted to know.
‘That’s the funny thing,’ Irvine replied. ‘She registered as Mrs Marianne Scott. But there was never an application made to the university in that name.’
‘Most divorced women would surely revert to their maiden name,’ Cameron remarked.
‘You’d think so,’ countered Irvine. ‘But somehow we’ve lost her in the paperwork.’
She looked up at Lorimer. ‘It’s almost as if she wanted to become someone else, isn’t it?’
‘How about DWP? Was she ever a claimant before or after her marriage broke up?’ Grant asked.
Irvine shook
her head. Not a Scooby there either. And her last bank details were just after her admission to Anniesland College when she withdrew all of her funds and closed the account.’
‘So she could be anywhere? Abroad, even?’ Jo Grant persisted.
‘Well, we’ve no reason to think of her as a murder suspect, have we?’ DS Wilson broke in. ‘And if she’s started a new life for herself we can hardly ask Interpol to trace her just so’s we can let her know her ex-hubby’s dead, can we?’
‘Okay. We keep looking for her, but not as a top priority. Maybe
the girlfriend’s intuition is wrong,’ Lorimer said. ‘Maybe Scott hadn’t seen his ex-wife for a long time. It would certainly explain why a house he’s been living in for the last eighteen months shows no sign of her.’
‘Wanted to give himself a fresh start, probably,’ Cameron chipped in.
‘We still have several of Scott’s associates at work to interview. See if any information about Mrs Scott emerges, okay? And find out what he was doing on his week off. Ask the neighbours if he was about. Talk to the postman. You know the score, Annie.’
DC Irvine tried not to grimace as she nodded. It would be a case of grinding through family members (of whom there appeared to be none) and his workmates.
‘And you’ll continue having DC Fathy to help you,’ Lorimer added.
Annie Irvine’s mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile as if she were keeping her pleasure to herself.
Lorimer glanced at her, eyes twinkling for just a second, but it was enough to let her know he could see right through her.
Now, soldier, you’re going to have to make something of this,’ the hit man whispered to himself. He was sitting on an armchair that he had turned right way up, gazing at the debris littered around the room. If there was anything of value, then he was going to have it, but better than that, he might be able to find some address book or other that would give him a clue to Brogan’s whereabouts.
Outside the bay window he could hear the noise of traffic mingling with the thud of some heavy machinery from a nearby building site. It had been a while since he’d visited this godforsaken city full of mad Jocks and the hit man realised that it had
