The Riverman lab-4

by Alex Gray

  The toxicology tests were still to be done and so they’d know more in a few days, if she chased the results. Maybe the poor sod had simply had one over the eight and stumbled at the river’s edge. They’d seen drownings like this before where little struggle had been the result of intoxication.

  Rosie washed her arms under the tap. Pity. She’d like to have something more to tell Lorimer, but he’d just have to wait.

  *

  The Crowne Plaza Hotel sat on the banks of the river Clyde, its glass walls a shimmering reflection of sky and water. On one side of the hotel lay the humped back of the Armadillo, one of the city’s most popular concert venues, with the newly built Clyde Arc (the ‘Squinty Bridge’, as it was fondly known by Glaswegians) angled across the river to Pacific Quay. On the other side was Bell’s Bridge, the footpath that had spanned the Clyde since the Glasgow Garden Festival of the eighties. Behind the gleaming block of mirrored glass stood the ‘Big Red Shed’ or Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, to give it its full title. Everyone who was anyone had stayed at the Crowne Plaza, from pop stars to members of the royal family. Functions were booked up months and sometimes even years in advance, the huge ballroom a perennial favourite for gatherings such as Burns’ suppers and New Year’s Eve celebrations.

  Lorimer bumped the car gently over the speed humps, slowing almost to a standstill to allow a white van to pass him by. The barrier to the hotel car park lifted and he drove in, making a mental note to find two pounds in change for the way out. The DCI sat for a moment and glanced at the names in his notebook. All five of the Forbes Macgregor partners had been there the night of Duncan Forbes’ death, along with many of the staff. He was here to talk to the duty manager but first he wanted to wander along the path that ran beside the river.

  Lorimer leaned against the white painted railings that overlooked the Clyde. They were just above waist height, not difficult for someone to vault over if they’d a mind to do it. Looking down, he could see the yellow tops of safety ladders spaced along the river wall; on the water’s black oily surface were numerous bits of detritus including a Drambuie bottle and an upturned blue plastic basin. There was no sense of depth to the murkiness below him. It would certainly be a shock to fall in water like that, he thought. And it was still icy cold. Lorimer turned towards the Millennium Bridge that spanned the Clyde. From here he could see the hotel and the walk-way more clearly. There was a considerable amount of tree cover and shrubbery screening the walkway from the hotel itself, probably designed to give a modicum of privacy to the guests. But had it also served to hide the manner of Duncan Forbes’ death?

  He walked further along, noting the buds on the lime trees. Not so much cover here, then. And these white globes on the streetlights would have illuminated the entire path. Or almost, he told himself, walking round a curve that opened up into a quiet area hidden from view. Here the shrubbery was thicker, a mixture of rhododendrons and berberis, and the bare lime trees had given way to a stand of scrubby pines. There were several benches constructed from black metal mesh, their surfaces spray-painted with white graffiti. Above him towered the immense height of the famous Finnieston crane, the last relic of Glasgow’s shipbuilding past, the words CLYDE BUILT etched clearly on its side. The path narrowed at this point and the wall dropped directly into the river with hardly any ledge to the other side of the railing. Lorimer tapped his fingernail against his teeth. Could Forbes have fallen in at this spot? George Parsonage had warned him of the river’s notoriously unpredictable currents. The tides had certainly taken the body upriver.

  The DCI turned on his heel and walked away from the spot just as a cyclist free-wheeled off Bell’s Bridge towards the city centre. It made him look up and across to the farther bank, to where the Scottish Criminal Record Office stood on Pacific Quay: a square of dull green glass whose windows looked directly towards the walkway. Beside it, the BBC’s new premises rubbed shoulders with the Scottish Media Group. CCTV cameras were dotted round the whole area, but they were like those at the Crowne Plaza: fixed heads looking inwards to protect their own. Still, it would do no harm to ask if anyone had seen an incident late at night. Security guards, perhaps? Lorimer gave a sigh. It was all so bloody nebulous, this inquiry into a fatal accident that might turn out to be no more than that. If that caller hadn’t given them all the idea that Forbes had been deliberately killed, he’d be doing something a bit more useful than sniffing around the Clyde on a cold April morning.

  The black words printed along the walkway railings made Lorimer grin suddenly. He’d been thinking it was just for pedestrians but the words ‘cycle path’ immediately made him think of all the old psychopath jokes.

  He shivered suddenly in spite of himself. Was that a premonition of some sort or just a cold gust of wind coming up from the slithering waters?

  Inside the hotel, Lorimer approached the reception desk and held up his warrant card.

  ‘DCI Lorimer to see Mr Wotherspoon,’ he told the blonde receptionist. She smiled brightly at him and lifted the telephone at her side. Lorimer could hear her ask the duty manager to come to reception.

  ‘Just take a seat over there. He won’t be a second.’ She smiled again, indicating a row of squashy seats opposite the main door. Lorimer nodded and gave a sigh. A second in her language would more likely be ten minutes, he thought, sinking into the soft leather. But he was wrong. He’d hardly time to stretch out his long legs when a youngish man in a tweed suit approached.

  ‘Andrew Wotherspoon,’ the duty manager announced, hand outstretched. ‘Good to meet you, sir,’ he addressed Lorimer. ‘Perhaps you’d care to come through to the office,’ he added. Lorimer nodded, rose to his feet and followed Wotherspoon across the foyer and into a side room.

  ‘Terrible business, this,’ Wotherspoon began. ‘Have you any idea how it happened?’

  ‘It’s being investigated,’ Lorimer remarked blandly. ‘We hope to learn a bit more once we know Mr Forbes’ movements on the night he died.’

  ‘Of course. What can I tell you?’

  ‘Where he was, for a start.’

  ‘Actually,’ Wotherspoon nodded, ‘I can do better than that. I can show you, if you like. The Forbes Macgregor party was held in one of our meeting rooms on the mezzanine. Staffa, I think it was,’ he added, checking a paper on his desk. ‘Yes, it was. Staffa. These rooms are all named after Scottish islands,’ he explained. ‘Like Staffa, Barra, Jura and so on. The whole hotel has a nautical theme running throughout. Perhaps you’d noticed that?’ he asked eagerly, hoping for some reaction from the detective chief inspector.

  But Lorimer had already risen to his feet.

  ‘This meeting room?’

  Wotherspoon walked him back across the foyer and up a narrow staircase that led to a mustard-yellow corridor. Lorimer glanced absently at the decor, wondering if the decorator had eventually tired of sea blues.

  ‘Here we are,’ Wotherspoon announced. ‘All the rooms are identical actually, and of course they all look out onto the river.’

  Lorimer strode across to the window. Below him the hotel’s conservatory jutted out, its wall of windows stretching up, parallel to the mezzanine.

  Seeing him look down, Wotherspoon explained, ‘The conservatory’s for the business delegates or guests using our meeting rooms. They can wander down for a coffee whenever they like.’

  ‘Or a fag break?’

  ‘Well, not really,’ Wotherspoon frowned. ‘They have to go outside for that, but there’s a side entrance to the conservatory where most of the smokers tend to gather.’ As the duty manager brushed an invisible speck from his trousers, Lorimer grinned.

  He’d bet Wotherspoon would have been happier with a total ban on smoking even outside the hotel.

  ‘Can you give me a list of everybody who was here last night?’

  ‘Of course. There were only about thirty in the Forbes Macgregor party-’

  ‘No,’ Lorimer interrupted him. ‘I mean everybody. All the guests in each of th
e meeting rooms, downstairs in that conservatory bit, anywhere you have a record of someone, in fact.’

  ‘Oh, but-’ Wotherspoon began.

  ‘Someone might have seen Mr Forbes from up here,’ Lorimer insisted. ‘Look. You can see the cycle path for quite a distance on either side. Almost as far as the Squinty Bridge. If he did walk that way …?’ Lorimer shrugged, leaving the question hanging in the air.

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Right, I’ll try to find lists of names for you, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘I particularly want you to ask for anyone whose room had a clear view looking down towards the Finnieston crane. Okay?’

  Wotherspoon jotted down the DCI’s request on a thin hotel notepad then looked back solemnly at Lorimer.

  ‘And your CCTV tapes. We’ll need to see them too, of course.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘What areas do they cover? I only spotted the ones at the car park and at reception.’

  ‘We have all the entrances covered,’ Wotherspoon told him, ‘including the delivery entrances. The tapes are changed on a daily basis.’

  ‘Exactly when are they changed over?’

  ‘At midnight. By the security staff. We have seven twenty-four hour tapes that are then recycled for the following week.’

  ‘So if I wanted to see what happened a week ago last night …?’

  ‘You couldn’t, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Okay.’ Lorimer turned away from the window. ‘I think that’s all I need to see up here for now, Mr Wotherspoon. Once we have the particulars of your delegates we can begin to ask some more questions. Nobody on the night staff mentioned anything untoward happening last night?’

  Wotherspoon shook his head. ‘First we knew about it was your officers turning up here this morning. Bit of a shock. Not the first drowning there’s been near the hotel, mind you, but it’s hardly an everyday occurrence.’

  ‘Had one recently then?’ Lorimer asked as they left the room and walked to the far end of the yellow corridor.

  ‘No.’ Wotherspoon grimaced. ‘There was a young boy who fell in a few years ago. Not one of our guests,’ he hastened to add. ‘Chief Inspector,’ Wotherspoon hesitated, ‘may I ask what exactly this is all about? We didn’t expect an officer of your rank to be making inquiries about an accidental drowning.’ The duty manager’s face was turned up questioningly to Lorimer’s, but there was no trace of indulging his human curiosity. The man was justified in asking something that impinged on the business of his establishment.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on that just yet, sir,’ Lorimer replied. ‘And I’d be grateful if any speculation were to be kept away from the press’ He looked at Wotherspoon who nodded gravely. He’d trust the duty manager but it would be impossible to prevent the rest of the staff from whispering among themselves if the inquiry gained momentum.

  ‘We’ll walk down this way, just to let you see the other stairs,’ Wotherspoon said.

  Lorimer passed the lift and pointed at it enquiringly.

  ‘For disabled guests,’ Wotherspoon said briefly, making his way round the end of the corridor and down a carpeted flight of steps. The stairway turned onto a half-landing and Lorimer stopped suddenly, struck by the view. From here he could see the entrance to that lonely spot with its empty black benches. Had anyone wandered down this way last night? Duncan Forbes, maybe? Well, the CCTV footage would surely tell some of that story.

  The DCI hardly heard Andrew Wotherspoon as he rattled on about the famous mural that covered a whole wall of the hotel. It depicted the Clyde’s heyday with scenes from celebrated launches and three generations of royalty, as well as the men who had laboured to produce the world-famous Queens who’d taken their names. His eyes flicked over the mock art deco Mariner Restaurant to the bar with its tent-like canopy, a visual simile for sails, no doubt. But Lorimer’s inner eye was trying to see beyond all that, to a darker scene altogether where a man had crossed to the railings and then fallen to his death in the waters below.

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘Right, an afternoon at the movies.’ DS Alastair Wilson leaned back, hands behind his head and winked at his colleague. DC Cameron sat up straight in his chair, arms folded, an expression of annoyance across his face. It seemed an inordinate waste of time to spend on a drowned man who’d simply fallen into the Clyde, all because some hysterical woman had called the station. They’d listened to the recording of her voice a few times now, at Lorimer’s insistence.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. It’s Duncan Forbes. He’s been killed. I mean he’s drowned but I didn’t mean it to happen. Truly I didn’t.’ There was a pause, then a sound like a smothered sob. ‘He’s over by the Finnieston crane. Near the Crowne Plaza. Oh God … There’s something you should know about-’ Then the line had gone dead. As if another hand had cut off her voice, Lorimer had observed.

  Cameron screwed up his face as the CCTV footage showed black and white figures coming and going from the hotel’s main entrance. It was the obvious tape to begin with, Wilson had told him. The next one in the pile would be the tape covering the mezzanine corridor. Cameron yawned and tried to concentrate. It was a tedious but important part of the initial investigation. Should anything criminal come to light, they’d both be up in court giving any evidence these tapes might reveal.

  There were several photographs of the deceased on the table in front of them. But it would be a darned sight easier if they had someone here who’d actually known the guy. Wilson grinned at the younger officer as he tried to stifle another yawn. They were in for a long session in front of the video screen.

  Lorimer switched off the ignition and gave a sigh.

  ‘Hellish, isn’t it?’ WPC Annie Irvine shook her head. Meeting the relatives of the deceased was never easy, no matter how often you’d done it before. She’d made countless pots of tea in her years in the force. Annie Irvine liked to think it was her sympathetic manner that made her the usual choice for these jobs, but it was more likely that everyone else seemed to disappear into the woodwork whenever Lorimer was looking for a female officer to accompany him.

  Lorimer didn’t reply. That was par for the course, Irvine knew. Yet he would open up to his officers whenever there was something to say. You just had to be a bit patient with DCI Lorimer; that usually reaped rewards.

  As they stood together on the doorstep of Mansewood, Irvine glanced around. They had parked next to a sweeping lawn that lay opposite the wide driveway with shrubberies that screened the property from prying eyes. The owners probably paid a fortune for a gardener to keep it so neat and tidy. All the gardens they had driven past in this part of Bearsden looked well tended. The policewoman’s eyebrows were raised in admiration. It took Irvine all her time to remember to water the plants on her windowsill.

  In answer to the shrill note of the doorbell they heard footsteps thudding down the stairs. The door opened and a young woman stood looking at them uncertainly. Her brown hair was scraped back into a ponytail and she was wearing a baggy shirt over a grubby pair of jeans.

  ‘You’re the police?’ she asked, glancing at the WPC’s uniform, her sharp question delivered in a refined accent.

  Lorimer held out his warrant card. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer. WPC Irvine. We’ve come to see Mrs Forbes. She’s expecting us.’

  ‘You’d better come in,’ the girl said, holding open the door reluctantly. ‘Mum’s not feeling too great and I’m not letting anyone visit. But I suppose you people are different.’ Her face showed a defiance that Lorimer recognized as a mask to hide emotions that were not too far below the surface.

  ‘Thank you, Miss …?’

  ‘Mrs,’ she replied shortly. ‘Mrs Collins. Jane Collins.’ The girl saw Lorimer look pointedly at the space where a wedding ring should be and the faintest of smiles appeared on her face. ‘Can’t wear it just yet. Haven’t lost the post-baby flab.’ Jane Collins turned and led them through to the back of the house and into a pretty drawing room that looked over gardens that rose
in a gentle slope ending in a row of leafless beech trees.

  Elizabeth Forbes did not rise as they came into the room. She was seated on a cream-coloured recliner chair, her legs crossed on the footrest. A beige fleecy rug was wrapped around her body.

  ‘Mum, this is Chief Inspector Lorimer to see you.’ The girl had dropped to her knees and was stroking her mother’s hand.

  Elizabeth Forbes raised her eyes to the strangers in her drawing room and nodded. Eyes puffy from hours of weeping looked blankly at Lorimer and Irvine. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then turned her head towards her daughter.

  ‘If it’s too much for you …’ Lorimer tailed off.

  ‘No.’ The word came out hoarsely. ‘No. It’s all right. Please sit down.’ She lifted a weak hand towards the easy chairs opposite.

  ‘Tea?’ Jane Collins asked, rising to her feet. Lorimer nodded. It would be better if the girl was occupied with something while he spoke to her mother.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed as the sound of an infant crying came from another part of the house. ‘Looks like I’m needed upstairs.’ As the girl headed for the door, all thoughts of tea forgotten, Elizabeth Forbes caught Lorimer’s eye.

  ‘First baby,’ she confided in hushed tones, then gave a smile. ‘You know what it’s like, Chief Inspector.’

  Lorimer returned the smile politely. He didn’t know and never would know what parenthood was like. If Elizabeth Forbes wanted to assume he understood about babies that was fine by him. The grandmotherly pride in the new infant had at least brought some colour to her ashen face.

  ‘We wanted to talk to you about your husband,’ Lorimer began.

  The smile disappeared like a cloud obscuring the winter sun as Elizabeth Forbes dropped her gaze.

  ‘The sooner we can piece together Mr Forbes’ last movements, the more we’ll make sense of just what happened to him,’ he explained gently.

  The woman nodded her understanding but still looked down at her hands, one fingernail working away at another. Lorimer’s eyes followed her small action, noting the well-trimmed, capable fingers devoid of any nail enamel. These were hands used to manual work he realized, and was surprised at the observation.