by Alex Gray
‘Motive, means and opportunity,’ Solly said suddenly, making the detective turn away from the window. ‘Isn’t that what you try to look for in a case like this?’
Lorimer blew out a sigh. ‘Usually, yes, but this is what makes it so difficult. The only motive anyone could come up with right now would be that she inherits his estate. His considerable estate,’ he added grimly. ‘As for means, well, the residue in those phials is being tested right now. If they should match the contents of Gilmartin’s stomach, well…’ He gave a meaningful shrug. ‘It’s the opportunity that baffles me, though. I was with Vivien Gilmartin for several hours that night and there were witnesses who could testify that she spent the best part of the day and the entire evening at the school.’
‘She came back to the flat to change her clothes?’
‘According to her statement.’
‘And the time of death is reckoned to be around nine or ten in the evening?’
Lorimer nodded.
‘I don’t normally turn in at that time on a Friday, do you?’ Solly asked, his bushy eyebrows rising as he posed the question.
‘No, but there was no reason why the man might not have felt tired…’ Lorimer tilted his head to one side, trying to see where Solly was going with this.
‘But sometimes, after Abby is asleep, we might go to bed…’ Solly’s eyes twinkled and his shy smile ended with a laugh. ‘You know…’
‘You think Gilmartin had bedded someone mid evening? While Vivien was out at the school reunion?’
‘Or had he gone to bed with his wife earlier? When she had come home to change her clothes? She would be taking off her day clothes, having a shower perhaps, then going back into that bedroom to slip into her good frock,’ Solly said, nodding as his eyes took on a distant look.
Lorimer listened to his friend, knowing that he was imagining the events in his mind as they might have unfolded.
‘And Gilmartin takes her to bed before she dresses, stays there after she’s gone.’
‘Vivien says he was out when she returned to the flat,’ Lorimer said slowly.
‘And the CCTV images from the nearest camera tell you that nobody walked away from the area around the flats.’
‘There is a back door. He could have left that way. Vivien says she went out that door to meet her taxi.’
‘Why would he use the back door?’ Solly shrugged. ‘It’s a short walk to the Citizens Theatre and back. No need for a cab. As far as we know, there is no reason for Gilmartin being clandestine about his movements. She may be lying about her husband being out when she returned to get changed.’
‘But if he were expecting someone that he didn’t want his wife to know about, they might arrive around the back of the building,’ Lorimer mused.
There was a silence as each man considered the possible scenario.
‘Why did she bury those bottles in your garden?’ Solly asked suddenly, fixing Lorimer with a stare.
‘You really think Vivien killed her own husband?’ Lorimer shook his head. ‘But it’s impossible. I was with her all through the evening.’
‘That seems to be the case,’ Solly replied slowly. ‘But nothing is ever as it seems when it comes to the taking of another person’s life. Pity about the bedclothes.’
‘What?’
‘The bedclothes,’ Solly repeated. ‘If that well-meaning policewoman hadn’t shoved them into the washer, then there might have been some trace evidence to show if Gilmartin had had sex that evening. And with whom. He wasn’t wearing pyjamas, was he?’
Lorimer shook his head. ‘Not everyone does,’ he demurred. ‘I don’t.’
‘Ah, you hardy Scot!’ Solly joked. ‘I wonder if you would find any nightwear for Mr Gilmartin in among his belongings. Too late now, I suppose?’
‘Yes,’ Lorimer said slowly. ‘Everything was packed away and taken back down to London.’ He blinked, remembering the funeral and the crowd of people on that hilltop overlooking the city. ‘But I could still find out,’ he said.
‘By asking his wife?’ Solly’s eyebrows rose above his horn-rimmed spectacles.
‘No, actually. I was thinking of someone else,’ Lorimer replied. ‘Someone who would know about things like that.’
Alistair Wilson leaned across the desk. ‘Are you seriously thinking that your old girlfriend might have murdered her own husband?’
‘Apart from the impossibility of her actually administering the poison at the time when he was supposed to have died, yes, I have been considering that.’
‘Why would she?’ Wilson asked. ‘Didn’t she seem grief-stricken to you?’
Lorimer did not reply. That word again. Seem. How had she seemed? So many times they had seen outpourings of anguish in the wake of a domestic dispute that had ended in tragedy. Often the emotion was regret for a crime committed during a moment of passion or drunkenness; sometimes the tears expressed self-pity at being found out and charged with a capital offence. Had Foxy’s tears been real?
‘Perhaps,’ he said at last. ‘She is a trained actress, remember.’
Wilson nodded, then heaved a sigh.
‘What now?’ he asked at last.
‘Here’s what I want you to do,’ Lorimer told him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Odunlami Okonjo had expected to be taken from the cell in Stewart Street by van to some place like Her Majesty’s Barlinnie Prison, not bundled into the back of a sleek Mercedes with blacked-out windows. None of the men sitting beside him or up front had spoken a single word to him since the moment the cell doors had swung open and a uniformed officer had stood aside to let him leave. It had been done in the dark of night with nobody to see him being led away, hands still cuffed, out of the rear of the building where the car was waiting, its engine note barely discernible, a cat purring into the cold air.
It had been hours now since the car had taken the road south, and the miles of motorway had slipped easily under its tyres. The silence was beginning to unnerve the Nigerian, something that he guessed was designed to do just that. Still, he resisted the temptation to utter any words aloud. Let them tell him what was going on, he had snarled in his mind, flexing his strong hands as though reminding the muscles of what they were capable, given the chance.
This was not about McAlpin’s flats in Glasgow where he had set up several illegal immigrant girls. Nor was it about the bodies he and Boro had dumped out in that marshy pond at Cathkin. The Nigerian cursed McAlpin for choosing that particular place. He should have known better than to let his two different worlds collide; the big man had boasted about his legitimate involvement with the 2014 Games allowing him to see all the venues around the country, including the remote mountain-biking trail and the hidden valley with its nature reserve tucked out of sight. It was the perfect place to dispose of the bodies, he had told them.
Of course the police would have been keeping an eye on the area after finding that bitch Celia! But how the hell could anyone have known they’d found her body? McAlpin had assured them that there had been nothing in the papers about it so that Okonjo had felt totally safe taking the new girl’s body there.
For a moment he saw the corpse hanging in that room again and cursed her silently. The sight must have freaked Shereen and the caretaker had fled, taking Asa with her. Well, that lucrative part of their lives was over now, he thought gloomily.
No, he decided, being here with these silent men was not about the trafficking of girls. It had to be something else, something that the big tattooed man had kept hidden even from the two Nigerians.
‘We’ve got a match for you!’ Rosie Fergusson’s eyes glinted in triumph as the detective superintendent entered her office. The Department of Forensic Medicine was tucked away between the end of the Western Infirmary and the lane that led on to University Avenue. Rosie’s office did not appear to be very special, certainly not a place that held the mysteries of life and death, mysteries that sometimes revealed secrets about the way a person had been dispatched into the hereafter.
> ‘Yes?’
‘The DNA from the swab you took from the Nigerian, Okonjo, matches the foetus from the African girl,’ Rosie told him.
‘You’re kidding?’
‘Nope. Clear as day.’ She bent her head and gave him a quizzical look. ‘Something you’re not telling me?’
Lorimer looked back at his friend, her open countenance waiting for his reply. Rosie was as accustomed to the machinations of the human condition as any of his professional colleagues, and he longed to be able to tell her about why this man had been released into the custody of the MI6 officers.
‘It’s complicated,’ he began, then bit his lip, considering what to say. ‘There is a question of national security involved,’ he went on. ‘Nothing to do with the dead girls,’ he added, raising his hand as Rosie was about to break in. ‘At least not as far as we know.’
‘Are you trying to tell me you haven’t apprehended a suspect in the girl’s murder?’
Lorimer sighed. ‘No. I mean, yes, there is a suspect. Hell! You’ve got his DNA!’ He banged the table with his fist. ‘Oh Rosie, I wish I could tell you what was happening, but I can’t.’
‘A matter of national security.’ Rosie nodded. ‘The spooks are involved, then, I suppose. Does this mean that they’re taking over the investigation into human trafficking?’ Her voice was bitter. ‘Find them and deport them, I suppose?’
‘It’s not like that, Rosie.’ Lorimer leaned across the table. ‘And I’m still determined to find out all about the trafficking if I possibly can. This is much bigger. Much bigger.’ He leaned back, shaking his head. ‘Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you all about it one day. Make it into a story for wee Abby.’ He gave the ghost of a smile.
‘And meantime? What do we do about these girls’ bodies?’
Lorimer shook his head. ‘That’s a matter for the Fiscal,’ he said. ‘But I think even Iain MacIntosh is taking orders from higher up the chain of command these days.’
Asa watched the buses passing by on the street below. Sometimes they stopped to allow passengers to get on and off and she craned her neck to follow the alighting figures to see what they looked like, wondering where they were heading in this city with all its noise and glamour. They were people with lives full of purpose, Asa had decided, people with places to go, other folk to meet. Sometimes a woman struggled off with a baby buggy; often a fellow passenger would stop to lend a hand, then go their own way, a small kindness freely given. Once she had watched as a tall black woman had strolled away from the bus stop, her slim figure swaying gracefully as though she carried a burden on top of her elegant head. The pain of longing for home had swept through the girl then, a pain that was worse than the ache in her broken arm under the weight of its plaster.
Shereen was afraid, she could tell. The older woman had hardly smiled once since they had taken refuge here in this pleasant room with its comfortable beds and pictures of gardens on the pale pink walls. Asa was not to leave; it had been made very clear to her in both words and gestures that it was not safe outside the hotel. Someone might be looking for them. To her credit, Shereen was trying hard to increase the paltry stock of English words and phrases that the Nigerian girl had amassed. And Asa was grateful for the lessons; it helped to pass the time here, waiting and wondering where they would go next. She had tried to ask that very question but had been met by a shrug that had made her shiver.
For the caretaker to be at a loss was not good. She was safe with Shereen, she had learned to trust her again, but there was a new anxiety gnawing at Asa’s heart when she realised that the big woman did not have all the answers to her many questions.
‘Where is the castle?’ Joanne asked the young man who was striding across the street beside her husband, making it hard for her to keep up. The cobbled stones on this road were difficult to negotiate and the Australian was glad that she had worn a comfortable pair of sneakers this morning.
‘That’s it right above us,’ he replied as they ascended the steep incline and turned a corner.
Joanne MacGregor peered past a high wall flanking the buildings to their left, and then there it was: Stirling Castle, its ancient stones rearing high above them. A flag near the entrance fluttered in the wind and Joanne pulled up her shirt collar against the sudden stream of cold air.
‘I’ve got your tickets,’ the young man assured them, patting his top pocket. The fleece jacket with its Commonwealth Games logo looked brand new, like the blue lanyard slung around his neck. But then Mr Gregson had been brought in to replace their original host, Joanne reminded herself. He looked so young, she thought; probably a student, one of the many volunteers involved in this year’s Games. And yet as she listened to him telling them of the castle’s history and Scotland’s bloody past, she heard an enthusiasm that endeared him to her. There was a glint in his eye as he spoke that surely showed a passionate love for his country. Joanne watched him intently as he retold the story of Scotland’s rise and fall against their English neighbours.
Of course this was the year of the famous referendum, she remembered; by the time they were ready to set off for home, Scotland might well have voted to become an independent nation once more. She gave a silent shrug. It was no skin off their noses whatever happened, but she would be sorry if it meant they were no longer a sovereign nation. She liked the royal family, especially the Queen. And to think that they might be sitting close to Her Majesty at the opening ceremony!
The young man’s words were lost to her as Joanne daydreamed about the big event to come, never once guessing just what part she and her husband were meant to play in the disaster that was planned, nor that one of its architects was standing only feet away, the morning sun shining on his eager face.
The flat was situated in the East End of the city, on a quiet street that ran parallel to Alexandra Parade. It was, Lorimer estimated, only a five-minute drive away from HM Barlinnie Prison, home to some of the more notorious criminals that he had helped put away during his time on the force. Until today, the detective superintendent had been unable to gain access to the upper flat, the SOCOs having been hand-picked by Drummond and his cohorts. It had been a definite case of stay away until we’re finished our job, something Lorimer found irksome, to say the least. And yet if they had been searching for something to do with the terrorist cell, who could blame them? But so far nothing had turned up, and the latest from Drummond was that Boro and Okonjo had still not said anything about McAlpin’s part in a plot to disrupt the Games.
Now, at least, the detective superintendent could begin to piece together what had taken place in this flat since the body of the first Nigerian girl had been discovered. They knew about the missing girl who had been given a tattoo – Asa, the one who had attended the Royal Infirmary to have her broken arm set – and the third girl who had only just arrived in Glasgow was in the city mortuary, hanged by her own volition, according to Boro and Okonjo. Neither of the men knew how he had watched them as they left this flat, carrying the bundle that contained the body of the young girl. The surveillance that was meant to shadow McAlpin for his possible part in a terrorist plot had produced something quite different in the end. A coincidence, they would no doubt tell him later, once the operation was complete and the Games had ended. Possibly, but then the criminal mind was a fertile source for all sorts of activities, and it was not really a surprise to find that the big ginger-haired man with the garish tattoos all over his body was responsible for human trafficking in the city. It was rife, Professor Brightman had told him solemnly. Solly’s psychiatrist friend in the detention centre had hinted at the rumours: gang masters running brothels full of foreign girls, Vietnamese and Nigerian. And some of these gang masters were from foreign parts themselves, she had heard, Albanians amongst them. Their discovery was only the tip of the iceberg, Solly had said with a sigh when Lorimer had revealed the latest activity out at Cathkin Country Park.
Lorimer turned the key in the door of the flat, wondering about the people who had been liv
ing here. There was no echo of the despairing cries that the imprisoned girls might have uttered, nor did he hear a sepulchral moan from any dark ghost lingering in this place. And yet his imagination could recreate some of what had happened here as he entered the flat and stood in the long hallway. The carpet was slightly rucked, possibly from the girl’s body being dragged along in that tarpaulin sheet.
His gloved hand pushed open a door to his right. This was where the girl had been found suspended from the ceiling. Or so the two Nigerians had insisted. Lorimer stood on the threshold, taking in the room. It was small and poorly lit, overshadowed by tenements in the neighbouring street. There was a single bed, a dresser, and a small chest of drawers, but as he opened and closed each one, Lorimer could see that they were empty. A clothes rail stood against one wall; had they meant to bring her some things to wear? There was no sign whatsoever that anyone had prepared for the African girl’s arrival. It was as if she had simply been thrust into this room and left alone without so much as a spare pair of knickers.
Looking up, he saw the end of an electric flex, cut close to the ceiling. The lampshade still lay on its side, rolled across the floor. She must have stood here on this dresser, Lorimer thought, imagining the girl’s bare feet on its empty surface, tying the flex around her neck, willing herself to make that leap into the darkness. How had she felt? The utter despair that had led the unnamed African girl to take her own life rather than be subjected to the horrors of a ravished body was something he tried to contemplate. But all he could think about was the complete blackness in her mind.
She would have felt that it was the only way to gain her freedom, Solly had suggested. And perhaps he was right. But the very idea was so grim that the tall man standing alone in the room wanted to weep.
The kitchen and the other two bedrooms were a shambles: cupboards still open, their contents ransacked. The SOCOs were not responsible for that, he had been assured; this was how they had found the flat and they had at least endeavoured to leave it the way it had been on the night of Okonjo and Boro’s arrest. Someone had left in a hurry, that was plain, Lorimer thought as he wandered from room to room. Across from the bathroom was a small room with locks on the outside of the door, like the one where the girl had been hanged. But whoever had been imprisoned here had been luckier. The opened drawers revealed some skimpy nighties and several flimsy pairs of underwear in garish colours: tarts’ knickers, purchased no doubt as a turn-on for the girl’s numerous clients.
