Alex Gray - Pitch Black

‘Yes,’ the voice returned, the vaguest hint of a question lingering in its assent.

Annie sighed inwardly. ‘DCI Lorimer would like to speak to you, sir. May I put him through?’

‘Certainly,’ Dr Brightman replied, his tone simply courteous now, no overtone of curiosity provoking the policewoman’s imagination.

‘All right, I’ll connect you,’ Annie said, no longer trying to conceal her sigh.

‘Lorimer.’

‘Ah, it’s you.’

‘Solly, are you busy?’ There was a silence at the other end of the line and Lorimer wondered just how long it might take the psychologist to decide whether he was or was not otherwise engaged. In normal conversation with him, the DCI was used to these lengthy pauses. Sometimes they aggravated him, but now, when he was anxious to have his friend’s full attention, he was prepared to be patient.

‘No, not really, that is-’

‘Good,’ Lorimer replied briskly before Solly could think up an excuse. ‘Then you won’t mind coming down to see if you can lend your weight on this one, will you?’

‘Ah, it’s the football murders.’

‘That’s right. I suppose Rosie filled you in on what’s been going on?’ Not waiting for an answer, Lorimer plunged on, ‘We want you to come up with a profile for us. See what manner of nutter — sorry, I mean psychologically challenged person — we have out there.’

In the silence that followed, Lorimer could almost see the grin above that bushy beard. Solly would be shaking his head at Lorimer’s political incorrectness. Never mind, it would be good to have him on board again. ‘Can you make it down here this afternoon? Say about two o’clock?’

Lorimer put the phone down, staring thoughtfully at it for a bit. Dr Solomon Brightman had come into his life some years back when he’d been Senior Investigating Officer in a murky case involving the deaths of three young women. His expertise had been helpful then and the University of Glasgow’s psychology senior lecturer had proved useful several times since. And now the Detective Superintendent had given his permission to use Solly once again. Lorimer drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk. This Faulkner case looked cut and dried in all but one respect. And it was that element that Solly would inevitably bring up. Were the three murders linked? Had the same hand that had pulled the trigger on two occasions also wielded a kitchen knife? Okay, the MO wasn’t the same, Lorimer argued with himself, imagining Solly’s objections and trying to counter them first. But even if a different weapon had been used first time around, the locus was similar: Nicko Faulkner and Norman Cartwright had both been killed at their own homes. Admittedly the referee’s shooting had taken place outside his front door but, hey, that didn’t mean all that much, did it?

The Detective Chief Inspector gave himself a mental shake. What was he trying to do? Prove to himself or to everyone else that Janis Faulkner was no killer? And for what? To show his superintendent that he’d been too hasty in his judgement? No. It was more than that, if he was to be totally honest with himself. He really and truly did not want to see that woman go down for a lengthy sentence.

And it was more to do with the way she had looked at him that day on Mull, a look that had gone straight to his heart.

Dr Solomon Brightman sat quietly, hands folded, his dark brown eyes taking in the face before him. Lorimer was in persuasive mode today, and the psychologist wasn’t surprised.

‘Take a look at the whole picture, Solly. Here’s a Scottish First Division club with a glowing history, no sectarian issues, just a good old-fashioned family club. Now all of a sudden there are three men dead: two of their newest signings and a well-known referee. Now, call me a simple soul, but that can’t just be coincidence, can it?’

Solly smiled and looked away. There was so much earnestness in the DCI’s tone. It would be a pity to burst his hopeful bubble. Still, Lorimer was used to having his pet theories questioned, Solly thought. And maybe that was really what he wanted, after all — a fresh perspective in a case where he might have lost a sense of objectivity.

‘The modus operandi-’ he began.

‘Right. I knew you’d ask about that. Frankly I can’t see why a gunman can’t also be a knife-man. There are plenty of both in this city,’ Lorimer grumbled.

‘The MO,’ Solly continued, unabashed by Lorimer’s interruption, ‘is quite different. On the one hand you have a crime committed within the victim’s own home-’

‘A rented place that Kelvin had sorted out for them until they’d bought somewhere permanent,’ Lorimer interjected once more.

‘And on the other there are two killings that look as if the victims have been stalked. One happened at night in the street after the victim had been in a nightclub; the other at the victim’s own doorstep. Each of these strikes me as calculated. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Maybe someone calculated when Nicko Faulkner would be at home, too,’ Lorimer argued.

‘But it has all the hallmarks of a crime of passion,’ Solly reasoned. ‘The kitchen knife came from their own set of knives, the injuries suggest a suddenness that is concomitant with this scenario and we now know that the widow was an abused woman. So you have it all, really: means, method and opportunity, not to say motive.’ Solly sat back and folded his arms.

‘Well, let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re wrong. Jason White and Nicko Faulkner had a lot in common. They’d both been new signings, they’d come up from clubs south of the border and they were expected to make a difference to Kelvin’s prospects.’

‘And the referee? Where does he fit into this picture? Anyone who had a grudge against the club would have welcomed Mr Cartwright’s decisions, surely?’

Lorimer bit his lip. Solly was right. And he’d asked himself that very question over and over again. ‘What if …’ he tailed off, reluctant to voice a theory that had been gnawing away at him ever since the discovery of Jason White’s body. ‘What if we have someone who has no axe to grind with the club itself? What if this is a class-A lunatic? Someone who has killed these people in a fit of genuine madness.’

‘You mean a multiple killer who has experienced some sort of trigger that sets him off?’

‘Well, perhaps…’

‘There doesn’t appear to be anything to link these deaths at all, does there?’ Solly began, his gaze wandering out to the parts of the city he could see from Lorimer’s window. ‘Still, it might be interesting to look at the geography of it all,’ he murmured to himself.

‘I can give you a map of the murders right now.’ Lorimer handed over a sheet of paper with a photocopied area of the city of Glasgow on which circles had been drawn in red ink. The DCI came round the desk and leaned over the map as Solly took it from him.

‘There’s where the Faulkners were living, there’s Norman Cartwright’s house and that’s the street where White was gunned down. All within ten minutes’ drive of Kelvin Park.’ He pointed at a green dot on the map.

‘How would somebody know where to find this referee?’ Solly asked.

‘Telephone book. Or by asking one of the club officials.’

‘And did anybody do that? Ask them, I mean.’ Solly turned up his face to see Lorimer frowning.

‘No, we thought of that and no one can recall anybody asking where Norman Cartwright lived. Anyway, they’re careful about giving out that sort of information.’

‘So, we might want to begin looking at the personnel within the football club itself,’ Solly mused. ‘At those people who did have access to the victim’s home address, perhaps.’