Alex Gray - Pitch Black

Kennedy gave a huge sigh and then shook his head. ‘No. You’ve done enough.’ He bit his lip as if to stop any more words issuing from his mouth, a gesture that made Lorimer curious. What else had he been about to say?

‘The press are having a field day,’ Lorimer remarked as they stood to go inside. ‘Are you going to restrict entry to the press box for this Saturday’s game?’

‘No. Let them come. We’re going to show them a good football match this week. And I want everyone to see us out there. Ron Clark’s doing a magnificent job bolstering the boys’ morale. We’ve got a great chance against the Pars. Let them see that nothing’s going to stop us playing our best. And winning,’ he added, shooting a defiant look at Lorimer.

The DCI simply nodded as they walked back down the steps. This was more like the Kennedy he’d come to know: a strong, determined bear of a man. He glanced behind him as if the other Kennedy, the one he’d glimpsed back there on the shadowy terracing, might still be sitting, head in hands, fearful of what lay ahead.

‘So? What happened after that?’ Maggie snuggled closer to her husband’s shoulder, luxuriating in the feel of his skin against her breasts.

‘It was a bit shambolic, really. Trying to round up everyone for fingerprinting. Can you imagine it? There are loads of staff employed in that place. Anyway, we got it over with and telephoned the players who weren’t at the club.’

‘Oh? Anyone suspicious?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. There are a few lads who live way out of the area. They’d already gone home.’

‘When will you get a result on the prints?’

‘When the Scottish Criminal Record Office boys and girls see fit to tell us. That’s a huge assignment for them.’ Lorimer rolled over and sighed. ‘Just one print that’s different from all of the ones we’ve done today. That’s all it takes. And the rest can be eliminated. At least that’s what we’re telling them.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, I thought my work was done for the day, woman.’

Maggie giggled as his hand slid under her thigh, touching a ticklish spot. Then the laughter turned to an indrawn breath as he began to kiss her neck. A shiver ran through her and she drew the sheet over them, clutching it tightly in one damp fist. Thoughts of footballers and fingerprints dissolved into nothingness as she closed her eyes, letting her other senses take control.

It was that time between light and darkness when the sky becomes a deep shade of electric blue, the invisible sun sending vivid echoes of colour above the earth’s black rim. A few stars winked blearily from their long daylight sleep, waiting for the dark to uncover their naked brightness. Sitting alone on the topmost row of the East stand a figure sat, staring at the horizon, breathing in the cool air like draughts of wine. The sight of every spire and rooftop was comforting in its familiarity, like coming home after an enforced exile.

That’s what it had been like, he thought. Those years away had been an exile from his true love, this football club. No woman would ever understand just what that meant to him. He belonged here and the place belonged to him. It was as simple as that. Nobody was going to take that away. He stroked the bulge under the thin material of his jacket, feeling the solid shape of the gun. A small sigh escaped him. But it was a sigh of pleasure and a smile creased his face. Everything would be all right now.

‘There’s one thing that makes it different,’ Lorimer told the assembled team. ‘Faulkner was stabbed in the chest, and here,’ he pointed to the image on the screen, ‘is a faked dead body with a knife stuck into its back. Okay, maybe the idea was to highlight the number eight, Donnie Douglas’s number, but that difference in the MO tells me this was not done by the same hand that killed Faulkner.’

‘I thought the wife was pretty well in the frame for that,’ a voice commented from the back of the room.

Lorimer looked up. DI Jo Grant was looking at him quizzically, her arms folded across her chest. Jo was a tough cookie and Lorimer had a lot of respect for an officer whose CV included undercover work. He nodded slowly as he replied. ‘It all points to her, certainly. If we had a wee bit of forensic evidence then we could wrap that up happily enough. Changing her story has probably weakened her defence.’

‘Why doesn’t she confess, then? Her sentence would be all the shorter for a guilty plea,’ Jo grumbled. A small murmur of agreement rippled among the team.

‘And a confession would make all our lives easier, right?’ Lorimer replied, but his tone had that edge of quiet anger that they all knew so well and Jo Grant simply shrugged and kept silent. ‘I’ve seen her,’ Lorimer continued, ‘I’ve tried to persuade her to come clean but she persists in maintaining her innocence. But so have hundreds of guilty killers before her. We must remember that. And, besides, her defence lawyer will insist on the burden of proof being demonstrated by the prosecution.’

‘But someone knew about the weapon,’ Niall Cameron piped up. ‘That’s not coincidence, surely?’

Lorimer gritted his teeth. This was a factor that had kept him awake long after Maggie’s breathing had become heavy and shallow, her head nestled against his chest. ‘Janis Faulkner may have told somebody. She says she didn’t. But she denied being in the house with her husband’s dead body and then changed that story. So why should we believe her over this?’

‘Jimmy Greer.’ DS Wilson nodded his head as he uttered the name. ‘That’s who she’s told. Bet you any money you like that wee toerag’s got a hold of her story. We know he telephoned her several times at Cornton Vale, thanks to our ever-efficient prison officers. Who’s to say he didn’t weasel that little titbit out of her?’

Lorimer was silent for a moment. The image of Janis Faulkner came to him: her fair hair over that child-like face, her vulnerability almost tangible. For a hardened hack such as Greer to have succeeded where he himself had failed left a sour taste in his mouth. But then, he reasoned, Greer represented the media and all its power to sway public opinion; DCI Lorimer and all those officers standing before him represented the forces of the law. And if the footballer’s wife had really crossed that deadly line then maybe she had found it easier to throw in her lot with a sleazy journalist who promised her some form of redemption.

‘Aye, you could be spot on, Wilson. Want to see what Greer’s been up to lately?’

When the doorbell rang, Jimmy Greer rolled over on to his side with a groan. His eyes opened to the sight of an empty bottle of whisky on the table. Hell, surely he hadn’t fallen asleep? The bell persisted in drilling a hole into his skull and he tried to sit upright on the settee. If he ignored it they’d go away. But the sound continued as if the person behind the door had put his finger on the bell push and wasn’t going to let up.

‘Aw, shut yer face!’ Greer called as he shambled down the hallway. He yanked the door open, a belligerent scowl pasted on his thin features, ready to blast whoever had woken him up. But his expression changed in an instant when he saw the policemen standing on his doormat.

‘DS Wilson, DC Cameron,’ they told him, waving their warrant cards at his bloodshot eyes. Greer stood aside automatically, letting the CID officers into his flat.

The journalist followed them into the wreck of his living room. The smell of whisky mingled with the remains of a curry that lay in a foil container on the floor beside the television. Greer looked at it stupidly. Had he eaten that last night? He couldn’t even remember going into his local Asian takeaway.