by Gray, Alex
When the three men rounded the corner of the corridor and came towards him, Lorimer looked up then looked away almost immediately, not recognising the prisoner being escorted between the two officers. When he glanced up again it was to see the thin face of Jock Maloney staring at him intently. Head bare, his grey locks thinning and with stubbled chin and cheeks, the man looked years older than the cheerful garage mechanic he remembered from Tobermory. For an instant Lorimer tried to imagine the jaunty panama hat that had been Maloney’s trademark, the easy banter that they had once enjoyed whenever his car had been at the Ledaig workshop.
‘In here.’ One of the officers led Jock into the room and motioned him to sit at a small table that was fixed to the floor, a necessary precaution lest a prisoner become violent and decide to begin throwing furniture around the room or, worse, at any visitor.
‘I’ll be fine, now, thanks.’ Lorimer looked each of the prison officers in the eye, his tone brooking no opposition.
‘We’ll be right outside, sir,’ one of them said, nodding at Lorimer then giving a quick glance towards the prisoner. But Jock was staring down below the table at his hands as if he wanted to blot out everything that was happening around him.
As soon as the door was closed, however, he looked up and met Lorimer’s steady blue gaze.
‘Aye,’ Jock Maloney began. ‘It’s yourself.’
‘Jock.’ Lorimer nodded and reached out to shake the man’s hand. Jock leaned across the table, extending his right hand, the courtesy returned. It was cold and clammy to the touch but still firm; the man might have lost some of his spirit but there was still strength in these hands. Had they, Lorimer wondered fleetingly, been the hands that had stopped the lives of two innocent victims?
‘You didn’t request a solicitor,’ Lorimer began.
‘No need,’ Maloney replied tersely. ‘We know one another well enough.’
Lorimer studied the unkempt face of the man before him. It was every prisoner’s right to have a solicitor present at meetings such as these. But, no, it was to be a private discussion between the two men and that in itself gave the detective superintendent pause for thought. He cast his gaze over the man from Mull, seeing changes that even a short time in prison had wrought: the dark circles under his eyes, accentuated by an unfamiliar pallor.
‘How are you, Jock?’
There was a faint smile then Maloney shook his head. ‘Aye, they’re all right in here. Doing their job, I suppose.’
‘Nothing to complain about then?’
Jock gave a short laugh. ‘I could do with a fish supper at times.’ He bit his lip as it began to tremble. ‘Preferably one from the old pier.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and let out a long sigh of despair.
‘I went to see Richard,’ Lorimer told him.
The man’s head came up, his tear-filled eyes looking at the detective superintendent.
‘How is he?’
‘Well, his shoulder’s been operated on, they took the bullet out but it will take a long time for it to heal. The bone was pretty well shattered.’
There was silence between the two men for a moment as Jock shook his head, still biting his lip to prevent himself uttering a sob.
‘What actually happened, Jock? Did you try to shoot Richard? Or was it an accident? I think it would help him to know.’
For a fleeting second there was a light in the man’s eyes that flickered and died as though some unspoken decision had been made.
Then a sigh that made the man’s whole body slump back on the moulded plastic seat. ‘I didnae intend to hurt him,’ Maloney began, then looked away from the detective superintendent as though trying to blot out the memory.
Lorimer nodded. ‘Our team is looking at the site in the forest,’ he said. ‘See if forensics backs that up.’
Maloney nodded silently, raising one arm to his face and wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
‘They tell me he’ll be in hospital for a wee while yet before he can travel back home,’ Lorimer continued. ‘Keith’s been in to see him, though.’
Jock lifted his head once more at the mention of his elder son.
‘But no’ his mother?’
Lorimer shook his head. She had been informed of what had happened but had stated that she did not wish to become involved. Strange, he mused. How could a woman abandon her sons like that? For a moment his thoughts turned to Pamela Dalgleish and the anguish in that mother’s face as she had left the hospital at Craignure, the certainty of never seeing her youngest child again filling her with such terrible grief.
‘I believe Keith is going to take some leave from work to drive Richard back once he’s fit enough to be moved,’ he said gently.
There was the slightest movement from the man’s head as he stared past Lorimer. What was he thinking? How badly had the break-up with his ex-wife affected him? Or were Maloney’s thoughts directed at more recent events? And was there something in that face to tell the detective the real story? Why Jock Maloney had ended up here after confessing to the murders?
‘I didn’t know you had a boat, Jock,’ Lorimer said, his conversational tone and change of topic designed to disarm the prisoner. It was a tactic he was used to employing; something that could provoke a suspect into letting down their guard.
Jock frowned. ‘No, you got that wrong,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never had a boat.’
‘Oh, is it Richard who sails, then?’
‘Who’s been filling your head with rubbish? We’ve never had boats, man! It’s cars in our family.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Fact is, none of us even learned to swim and we live on an island.’
‘I’m thinking you didn’t like the relationship between Richard and Rory Dalgleish, Jock?’ Lorimer’s tone had not altered, another sudden change of question thrown casually to see the other man’s reaction.
‘Shouldn’t have…!’ Maloney blustered then stopped.
‘Shouldn’t have what, Jock? Richard shouldn’t have begun a relationship with the lad? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
Jock Maloney covered his face with both hands and began to rock back and forward in his chair, a small sound of distress escaping into the room.
‘Jean Erskine saw you quarrelling with Rory, didn’t she, Jock?’ Lorimer went on. ‘Perhaps she had even seen the way those two boys behaved towards one another.’
Jock shook his head, a whimpering noise coming from behind his hands.
‘You were ashamed, weren’t you? Didn’t want folk to be talking about Richard. Your son. You had to get away from all of their gossip, didn’t you?’
‘Bloody place!’ Jock had taken his hands from his face, the tears visibly streaming down the man’s cheeks. ‘Couldn’t walk the length of the street but someone would spin a lie about you!’
‘But it wasn’t a lie, was it, Jock?’ Lorimer insisted. ‘Richard is gay. But it was you who couldn’t face that particular truth.’
Jock opened his mouth to protest but Lorimer slammed his fist down onto the table between them, making the prisoner jump.
‘You never touched a hair of Rory’s head!’ he growled. ‘Or of poor old Jean Erskine. Did you, Jock?’
‘I…’
‘Your confession is nothing more than an attempt to protect your son, right?’
Jock gave another groan and leaned forwards, putting his grizzled head in his hands.
‘See, here’s what I think happened, Jock.’ Lorimer sat back and swung one leg across the other, his mild tone back once more. ‘You fled Tobermory, supposing Richard to have committed a terrible thing. Homosexual behaviour is something you don’t understand, is it? Something you don’t want to understand. You could not conceive of it being anything gentle or loving, could you? To your mind it was associated with violence, something disgusting and unnatural, am I right?’
The moan from that lowered head was enough to make the detective continue.
‘Perhaps you thought it would be better if Richard were to be shot
like a dying dog than face whatever prison could do to him,’ Lorimer said softly. ‘Was that what you thought as you raised that rifle, Jock?’
A sniff came from the man opposite.
‘But you couldn’t do it. You couldn’t kill your wee boy, could you?’ Lorimer went on. ‘Maybe you thought you were capable of an act like that but at the last minute you changed your mind and the gun went off, injuring Richard.’
‘He cannae come into a place like this,’ Jock whispered. ‘He just cannae.’
‘Listen to me, Jock.’ Lorimer uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his eyes searching out the other man’s face. ‘Richard had nothing to do with Rory’s death. And from your initial reaction I could tell that neither of you had an inkling about what had happened to Jean Erskine.’
‘Are you… sure?’ Jock raised his head, his brown eyes fixed on the man on the other side of the table.
‘I need evidence to show that it was impossible for Richard to have carried out such a thing,’ Lorimer admitted. ‘But one thing I am sure of is that whoever killed Rory Dalgleish needed a boat to dispose of his body. Now. Listen to me, Jock, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.’
Stevie Crozier lifted her coffee cup and sipped the dark liquid. Nothing had ever tasted quite so good, she thought. And it was just the two of them there in the deputy chief constable’s office, women who had succeeded in their respective careers, while Lorimer was off on a fool’s errand to speak to the prisoner.
‘I have to commend you on the way you appear to have carried out this case to a satisfactory conclusion, Detective Inspector.’ Joyce Rogers raised a porcelain teacup in a salute to the blonde woman seated opposite.
Stevie Crozier felt her cheeks burn in response to the compliment. It was hard to imagine a better outcome; a man banged up for these dreadful crimes and now the woman she admired being so generous with her praise.
‘It can’t have been easy having Lorimer there in the background,’ Rogers commented, a twinkle in her eye.
‘He didn’t interfere, ma’am,’ Crozier said, realising as she spoke that this was quite true. Lorimer had kept in the background as far as the process of investigation had been concerned, only coming to join the team as and when he had been required to do so. Stevie brushed aside the memory of his attempt to connect the young boy’s death with a twenty-year-old cold case. Everyone had failures in their past, she acknowledged, even the great William Lorimer.
As though summoned by the mention of his name they heard a brief knock on the door and there he was, his tall figure looming over the two women, an inscrutable expression on his face.
‘Lorimer, we were just discussing you!’ Rogers said mischievously. ‘Join us for a celebratory cup of tea?’ The deputy chief constable waved her cup aloft.
‘No thank you, ma’am, DI Crozier.’ Lorimer turned to give the other woman a courteous nod. ‘I don’t think celebrations are quite in order. Yet.’
‘What do you mean?’ Crozier looked up, startled.
‘He’s retracted his confession,’ Lorimer said, his hands on the back of Crozier’s chair.
‘What on earth…?’ Crozier began but a warning hand from Rogers stopped her.
‘Tell us,’ Rogers commanded. ‘Sit down right now and tell us everything that happened at Low Moss.’
‘So,’ Joyce Rogers sighed as the detective superintendent finished describing the meeting that had taken place between Maloney and himself. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Find the real killer,’ Lorimer said bluntly.
‘But, Maloney —’ Crozier seemed too full of pent-up emotion to continue, or else that look from the deputy chief constable cut her short.
Lorimer looked at the blonde woman; she had seemed so full of life as he had entered the room but now the figure seated beside him appeared diminished, somehow; her face had crumpled as he had given details of the reason behind Jock Maloney’s confession and the new evidence that Richard claimed of hearing his father asleep as he’d crept out to find Rory Dalgleish.
‘It hardly bears thinking about, that sort of attitude, but we see it all the time, don’t we?’ Joyce Rogers commented. ‘An old-fashioned homophobia. Refusal to admit that your boy is different from the way you want him to be… although actually wanting to have him die rather than be locked up with hardened criminals is very extreme.’ Her sigh and shake of the head expressed the sadness that Rogers genuinely felt. The cups lay abandoned on the low table between the three police officers, their contents now cold.
‘What do you want me to do now, ma’am?’ Stevie Crozier’s miserable tone made Lorimer want to put a consoling arm around the younger woman’s shoulder; the DI was obviously crushed by his revelations. How must she be feeling? One minute she was a successful SIO and now her entire case had crumbled around her ears.
‘Go back to Mull,’ Rogers said briskly. ‘And take this fellow with you.’ She smiled up at Lorimer. ‘He can be quite useful at times.’ She raised playful eyebrows at the detective superintendent.
‘And who is to be in charge of the case?’ Crozier muttered.
‘Why, you are, DI Crozier. Detective Superintendent Lorimer is still officially on leave but I think I can arrange that he be seconded as your special adviser. If that’s what you want?’ She looked from one to the other quizzically. ‘I’m sure you two have already established a good working relationship? Yes? That’s fine, then,’ she continued without waiting for a reply from either of them.
‘We will see where the matter of Maloney’s imprisonment stands,’ she added. ‘There will be the usual delay until the fiscal and Maloney’s lawyers decide what is to be done. He is still charged with several other matters, don’t forget,’ she warned Lorimer. ‘Attempted murder of his own son being just one of them. So I hope you haven’t promised him an instant release from Low Moss Prison.’
The man from Tobermory was becoming used to the prison routine, his day punctuated by mealtimes when he could relax for a few minutes with the other prisoners. He rubbed the back of his neck as they were shepherded into the dining hall by the prison officers, feeling the tension that had been there ever since Lorimer had confronted him, his eyes roving over the tables, seeking out a friendly face.
Jock sat down opposite Eddie, the boy who had smiled at him from his first day in this part of the prison. Ah’m Eddie, he’d told Jock. Ah may be gay but ah’m nae trying tae be ither than jist friendly, awright? No fear of me comin’ oan tae ye, big man, he’d chuckled.
It was hard to believe that this youngster was actually a thirty-four-year-old man. See bein’ in here? It either ages ye or keeps ye lookin’ young, Eddie had told him when Jock had voiced his surprise.
‘Aye,’ Jock began by way of a greeting now. ‘You’re still here then?’
‘Ah’m oot o’ here the morra,’ the boy agreed, his smile revealing teeth that had been treated by several different prison dentists over the past two decades. ‘Cannae wait.’ Eddie jigged up and down in his seat at the dining table. ‘A’ these things that’ve changed since ah wis banged up, like. ’Sno’ the same as it wis afore.’ He shrugged. ‘See back then? Couldnae get ma heid roon bein’ gay, could ah? ’Swhat done it fur me.’ He looked down and away, the memory of killing another human being a burden he would always have to bear. ‘Huv tae say, if it hadnae been fur the officers and the medical staff I’d’ve topped maself lang since. Came tae terms wi’ ma ain sexuality, so ah did. Ma mammy’s okay aboot it and so’s ma old man.’ He shrugged and smiled.
‘You’re not worried about what people think, then?’ The words were out of Jock’s mouth before he realised. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean…’
‘Ach, ye’re all right, big man. See, ah’ve got it all sussed out noo.’ Eddie leaned forward and held Jock’s gaze. ‘Love’s love,’ he said softly. ‘It’s that simple.’
Jock sat back and stared at the meal the passman put down in front of him.
He had tried to protect Richard, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that out of
love?
Tears stung his eyes as he thought of his son. What he would give to hug him right now, tell him that he was sorry.
Jock glanced at Eddie who was tucking into his helping of shepherd’s pie. Tomorrow this young man would be free to join the outside world and free to be himself in every way. Surely that was what any loving father would wish for his son.
It was as though the artist had painted it for him, the image burning in the young man’s brain as he stood staring at it.
The Bloody Tryst had captured both their imaginations as they had strolled around together, ever mindful of the need not to stand too closely if one of the uniformed security guards happened to look their way. At other times, an illicit handclasp, a silent brushing of lips against the other’s cheek brought a familiar warmth to his loins that was always the forerunner of something sweeter to come.
But that was gone now, for ever, the image before him like an accusation. Had theirs been a fated love affair? Was it something that was destined to end in violence and tears? As he looked at the painting, the body of the lover lying sprawled on the ground, the man remembered only the dead eyes of the red-haired boy, not the passion that had gone before.
Why had he returned to the city? And what had drawn him back to this place where so many secrets remained? It was as though the spires of the art galleries had beckoned him like a hand as he had stood outside the university, looking down past the gardens, couples sprawled on the summer grass, to that place where he had found something that he had thought to be love. Of course he had made discreet enquiries about the boy, asking after him by name. No, he wouldn’t be back to finish his course, he had told his tutors up at Glasgow School of Art. Yes, he wanted to take all his folio work away, thanks. Were they still running the life classes on Saturday mornings? Was Gary going to sit for them again? No? Just didn’t turn up one day. Odd, wasn’t it? And, no, they couldn’t tell him anything about the red-haired model. They came and went, these fey types who sat for the art students, the woman’s smile seemed to say as she left him with a careless shrug.
