The Man with No Face

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Four million pounds minimum.’

  ‘And the premise that the furniture which went up in the Cernach Antiques blaze was junk, hardwood junk, but junk nonetheless, is reinforced by the fact that the items of good furniture known to have been in Cernach’s just before the blaze, seem to have trickled back on to the market, one item every few months, for the four something years since the blaze, all being sold on behalf of a woman called Margaret Mooney?’

  ‘Again, sir, correct.’

  ‘And it was the feeling of our colleagues in Edinburgh that the outfit who abducted “Annie” Oakley was a gang of three with a possible gofer?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Right, Fabian, within these four walls, just you, me and Heathcliff, nothing recorded on the file. Stick your neck out. What do you think has happened?’

  ‘Well, I was impressed by Tom Stamp in Edinburgh. He seemed to me to be on the ball and he made a case for the felons being a gang of three plus at least one gofer. I believe the gang of three are Mary Carberrie, Margaret Mooney and Gary Westwater and their gofer was Ronald Grenn. I don’t know what relationships exist between them or how they met, but I believe that that is the profile and the identities that we are looking for.’

  ‘All right.’ Findlater glanced at Heathcliff and then back to Donoghue.

  ‘I believe the insurance scam was planned years earlier. I believe Westwater planned to rob his own insurance company. And the method he chose was a fire job, and, being a senior director, he’d be in a position to force the honouring of the insurance policy. If he couldn’t push it past the board, then he still had his assets, even if the company had to declare bankruptcy.’

  ‘Nothing to lose.’

  ‘Except the money he put into Cernach’s. That in my view was raised by abducting “Annie” Oakley some years earlier.’

  Three or four years?’

  ‘Long-term planning, sir. I believe it took them that long to launder the ransom money and to establish Cernach’s as a stable company.’

  ‘A little here, a little there. Yes, that can’t be done in a weekend.’

  Then they put the money, drawn from many bank and building society accounts, in Cernach’s. Bought the property, fitted it with very nice antiques, and oils and jewellery, but didn’t appear to sell a great deal. After allowing it to appear as though it was thriving for a period of a few years, they then removed all the valuables and replaced it with junk, emptied the jewellery from the boxes and the trays. They then set four seats of fire, after first possibly setting fire to a warehouse south of the water to draw off all the fire brigade appliances. So the appliances that did attend the Cernach blaze had to come from outside the area, and by the time they arrived, there was nothing left to save. The building was a burned-out shell. We found jewellery containers in Bath Street with Cernach’s name on them covered in Ronnie Grenn’s prints. He’s well known to us because of a series of petty offences and so we pull him. He doesn’t cough to anything so he won’t talk about anything. Like he’s sticking to a script. He’s found guilty of theft and wilful fire-raising and is sent down. And we close the case like we were expected to do.’

  Findlater groaned. ‘Who was the investigating officer, Fabian?’

  ‘Ray Sussock, sir.’ Donoghue paused. ‘He’s close on his own retirement. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained

  ‘Yes…yes…yes…’ Findlater rested his forehead in his palms. ‘Go on, painful as this is. Go on.’

  ‘Well, at the High Court in Glasgow some weeks later, the Lord whoever clearly believes that Ronnie Grenn is a willing patsy, handed to the police so as to buy off a more thorough investigation and thereby allowing the culprits to go free. And when press and other observers are expecting a sentence of life or detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure, such being the gravity attached to wilful fire-raising, especially incidents resulting in huge loss, in the centre of the city, possibly wasting fire brigade time to a huge degree, and most important, alarming the lieges by endangering life and other property, said Lord brings forth gasps of astonishment by handing down a sentence of just seven years. Four years actual with remission. It was a slap on the wrist.’

  ‘A slap on the wrist for Ronnie Grenn, which in fairness was probably no more than he deserved. He probably never set foot inside Cernach’s. He would have been given the jewellery containers to handle a day or two before the blaze. But the sentence was a body blow to the police. As you say, the only interpretation there was that His Lordship was passing a comment about the police investigation. Fabian, I want the earth to swallow me up.’

  ‘Yes. It feels like that for me.’

  ‘When Ray Sussock pulled Ronnie Grenn he must have visited his home. Didn’t he notice the newspaper cuttings about “Annie” Oakley’s abduction?’

  ‘You’ll have to put that question to Ray, sir, but in fairness the last thing that would have caught his eye would have been newspaper cuttings.’

  ‘Stop defending him, Fabian. I like to think they would have caught my eye, and I know they would have caught your eye. In a box, all about the same story and no other, a map with a building circled…you know, blunder just is not the word here.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But it would have been too late to help “Annie” Oakley and it looks as though we’re closing in on the culprits now anyway. I don’t know what to do about Ray Sussock…let me sleep on it. So then…?’

  ‘Well, Ronnie Grenn kept his part of the bargain. He served his time, he kept his mouth zipped. He went to collect. They refused to pay, he threatened to squeal, he got his brains blown out.’

  ‘Greed, eh?’

  That’s the word, sir.’

  ‘If you’re right, and if they had paid him what they agreed to pay him, he’d have gone home happy and spent the rest of his days digging his allotment, we’d have put him down as a burnt-out ned and left him alone, and none of this would have come out. So what’s for action?’

  ‘Well, sir, I think we find out if the Mary Carberrie that our collator has dug up for Richard King is the same Mary Carberrie that visited Ronnie Grenn in Traquair Brae, and if so, why did she? What is their relationship? I’ll put Richard King on that, I think. I’d like to know more about Mr Westwater. I’d want to know why he pushed through what on the face of it looks like a ruinous decision to settle an insurance claim which clearly stank like two-day-old fish. I’d like to know who Margaret Mooney is, find out where she fits in this equation. That’s something for Montgomerie and Abernethy. It’s my guess that those three and Ronnie Grenn were the four people seen at Oak Cottage the week that “Annie” Oakley was abducted. And I’d like a look at Oak Cottage.’

  ‘I’d be inclined to make that your priority task, Fabian. You know you’re going to find “Annie” Oakley’s body there, don’t you? In a pit at the bottom of the garden which Ronnie Grenn dug like he was told to dig, and in which he burnt rubbish like he was told to burn rubbish so as to give the impression that the pit had no sinister purpose at all?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Donoghue stood. ‘I know all that. I think you’re right. I think Oak Cottage is priority one.’

  It was Wednesday, 17.30 hrs.

  THURSDAY

  16.30—22.10 hrs

  Montgomerie thought the word for what he was feeling must be ‘poignant’. Poignant, poignancy…whatever, here, standing by this hole in the ground which had been excavated, carefully so, by constables in white coveralls, on this blustery day when the wind swept off the Campsies, causing the blue-and-white police tape to flap angrily, causing the collar of his jacket to tug and strike his cheekbone, causing the oak in the garden to sway, on this blustery day when grey clouds scudded southwards, threatening rain any minute, in this silence borne out of reverence among the police officers present, the only word was poignant. Or poignancy. For here in a hole was a human skull, upturned, mockingly grinning. It was the skull of the young woman whom Montgomerie had last seen when he was an undergraduate in Edinb
urgh. Then, in those heady summer days, the woman was often to be seen driving her little white Japanese off-the-road, soft top, up and down Princes Street. Hood down, lemon hair flowing behind her, one hand on the wheel, the other invariably holding a mobile phone to her ear. One side were fine impressive buildings, the Waverley Hotel, Jenner’s, on the other the Scott Monument, Princes Street Gardens, the Castle. And she, streaming between them, up one side of Princes Street and down the other, turning at Haymarket and repeating the journey, eighteen years old and life was fine and fun and frolicsome.

  Then she was murdered. For money.

  Chopped in her prime.

  Filled in while still on the threshold of life.

  Filthy, filthy, filthy lucre.

  That, thought Montgomerie was bad enough. Sufficient to motivate him as a police officer, but it was worse, worse in a way, he felt, for in this hole, skeletal, curled up in a foetal position ‘Annie’ Oakley seemed to occupy a larger hole than the hole she had been allowed to occupy in life.

  Another word was ‘menacing’. He had from his vantage point by the hole in the ground that had been ‘Annie’ Oakley’s resting place, been able to ponder the rear aspect of Oak Cottage. Its small windows, its dull grey pebble dash, the meanly narrow door from which many years earlier some panels appeared to have been kicked out to be replaced by a sheet of corrugated iron, now thin and rusty as if, thought Montgomerie, as a result of some incident of domestic violence which had occurred long, long before Ronnie Grenn and his captive took up their incumbency. And what of the previous occupants, the woman and her son, the latter of whom left not just the cottage at Kilsyth and Scotland, but left these shores completely and went as far as he could remove himself on this planet? And once there, had clearly done what he could to remain isolated and uncontactable, caring not for his mother in her decline, nor about any property that might be his to inherit. What had gone on under that roof in that squat little house of unimaginative design all those years ago to make a man do that? Oak Cottage, even from the outside, had a chill about it, it looked menacing, as if it had had a dreadful history. Behind Montgomerie, in the field, a chestnut mare whinnied and reared; the shrill sound pierced the stillness and solemnity of the group of officers in the garden at Oak Cottage.

  ‘Montgomerie!’

  ‘Sir?’ Montgomerie turned to Donoghue, over whose shoulder in her cottage in the middle distance he could clearly see Mrs Test and another woman peering keenly at the spectacle he and his colleagues presented.

  ‘I think you and I had better have a shufti inside the house.’

  To Montgomerie’s relief, they found little of evident relevancy inside Oak Cottage. Anything that ‘Annie’ Oakley’s kidnappers might have left as trace evidence had clearly been smothered by years of occupancy of the building by down-and-outs, who left empty tins which had once contained the brass polish they had turned to when methylated spirits began to be manufactured in such a way that it was rendered undrinkable. It was smothered by solidified glue in screwed-up crisp packets which lay strewn about the floor, and by empty bottles of 20/20, newly introduced and popular among the youth of the west of Scotland. The floor contained a number of used condoms which, Donoghue pondered, proves if nothing else that people are wrong about kids today: they do listen. Clearly the youth hereabouts, thought Donoghue, believe that the best way out of Kilsyth is to find a partner and then claw your brains out with solvents and very cheap, very fortified wine. The walls contained graffiti, illustrating the sexual obsession of youth; oddly, observed Donoghue, the sectarian hatred that motivated graffiti artists in Glasgow housing schemes was absent in Kilsyth. But he did learn for possible future reference that Hamill is devoid of sanity, McCourt a police informer and evil Anne a sexual walkover, should any lad of the town feel so inclined. That aside, neither officer could find or was able to observe any item which linked ‘Annie’ Oakley or Ronnie Grenn or Gary Westwater, or Mary Carberrie or Margaret Mooney to Oak Cottage. Even the charred remains in the fire grate didn’t contain anything more than two years old, going by sell-by dates and dates of newsprint. In one of the two rooms at the back of the house, on the far side of the house from Mrs Test’s cottage, Donoghue said, ‘She was kept in here.’

  Montgomerie glanced out of the window at the back garden where a screen was being erected around the hole that had been dug by two officers in white coveralls, and dug ironically, or perhaps appropriately, Montgomerie had reflected, as a grave is dug, keeping the sides perfectly vertical and the floor perfectly level, all the time working down, more of a layer-by-layer peeling than a dig, not at all like a navvy might dig a hole. He turned and looked at Donoghue. ‘In here, sir?’

  ‘It’s where I would keep her. Back of the house, back window looks on to the garden and the field and then the woodland and the hills, the side window, open ground and more woodland.’

  ‘Couldn’t argue with that, sir.’

  ‘But I don’t think that there’s anything for us here. We’re too late, about eight years too late.’ Donoghue turned and walked towards the front door and the open air. It was then that Montgomerie felt palpable relief. Oak Cottage had an atmosphere that made his scalp crawl, and intuitively, he still felt that it was nothing to do with ‘Annie’ Oakley very likely having been murdered here, it was older than that somehow, more entrenched, more established.

  In the garden, Donoghue turned to Montgomerie and said, ‘I’d like you to get back to the city. King’s out beavering, Abernethy will have returned and signed off the morning shift by now. We need somebody in the CID corridor.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ll remain here.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Montgomerie drove back to what he always felt to be the welcoming warmth of the city of Glasgow. He entered the city on Springburn Road, Sighthill Cemetery to his right, the old Cowlairs Railway Works buildings to his left, giving to the Galloway Street flats striding across the skyline. He turned on to the M8 and left at the Charing Cross exit. He glanced at his watch. The digital display told him it was 17.17, glowing clear and confident like a year in the history of Western Europe rather than the time of day. It wouldn’t be a good time, but no time is a good time. It never is, not for what he had in mind, not for what he had to do. He turned right at the exit to Charing Cross, past the frontage of P Division Police Station, to St George’s and turned left up Great Western Road, which drove confidently, strongly, straight as a die, lined with prestigious tenements, trendy shops, solemn churches, it was the road to the Western Isles and Montgomerie’s most loved thoroughfare of his native city, and he had in the past walked its length from St George’s Cross to the Anniesland lights. West of Anniesland lights the road held no fascination for him. But on this day, this windy Thursday afternoon of early gathering dark, of constant threat of rain, he was in no mood to appreciate the ambience of the road and its landmarks, like the second thinnest church steeple in Scotland. He crossed Kelvinbridge and turned right into Hamilton Park Avenue and considered himself lucky to find a parking space. He went to her front door and rang the bell, her bell, topmost bell of four owner-occupied conversions. She had the topmost flat, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, a living room with a balcony for summer days and a bottle of chilled Frascati, and twee occasional room. It was a starter flat, it changed hands every two or three years, its youthful owners selling up to move one more rung up the housing ladder. He rang the bell again. No response.

  He turned from the imposing front door, went down the stone steps and walked to the corner of Great Western Road, turned left by the Homeless Persons’ Hostel and walked into the Long Bar. The Long Bar was, as its name implied, a single gantry leading deep into the tenemental building at ninety degrees to the road. It had one entrance/exit at street level, and, at the rear, a fire exit as was dictated by regulations. Being the bohemian West End of Glasgow, the patrons comprised a social mix and it was Montgomerie’s constant observation that patrons who were of the unemployed, if not unem
ployable, the frail of mental health, the drug-addicted, the petty criminal, would, as in all such bars of similar layout in the West End, sit near the door so that upon entering such bars one has often to walk past the hum of unwashed bodies. The patrons of middle-class tastes and conduct, professional people with career aspirations, choose seats deeper in the bar. She sat on a stool towards the end of the bar chatting to a girlfriend. She saw him approach and smiled. He remained stone-faced and her smile turned into a frown. Montgomerie asked if he could have a word outside. She turned to her friend and he heard her say, ‘I know what this means.’

  Outside on the pavement, in front of a small newsagent owned by an Asian family, he waited until an orange-coloured double-decker bus of the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive roared past, just catching the amber lights at the junction, and he said, ‘Look, there isn’t an easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it.’

  ‘It’s over.’ She held his stare. ‘I’ll say it for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Look, the situation is that you caught me on the rebound. The person I was rebounding from has, well, re-rebounded. We’re an item again. We did it once, you and me, you didn’t damage me, I didn’t damage you, but that’s it. As you say, it’s over.’

  She nodded. Black hair, brown eyes, blue jersey, denims. Five foot two. A neat young woman, he thought. ‘OK. Thanks for being honest. It’s not the end, it’s a new beginning. For both of us.’

  ‘That’s the right attitude.’

  She turned and went back into the Long Bar. He thought that if she was concealing any emotion she was doing it very well. Very well indeed.

  At 14.00 Richard King signed in for the back shift. It was to prove to be a very busy shift. Very busy indeed.

  He went first to the public library at the Cadder. It was a small branch library, a squat building in a low-rise scheme. People come in to read the newspapers, sit in the warmth with a magazine, escaping the damp at home. Few borrowed books.