Alex Gray - Pitch Black

‘I wis there when the man wis shot,’ McIntyre stated. ‘He fell right down, crashed his heid aff the pavement, so he did.’

‘Did you see him before he was shot?’

‘Aye. Ah wis jist coming alang the road when ah hear this bang then seen this flash.’

Cameron frowned. None of the other witnesses had mentioned this before.

‘Could you describe it for me?’

‘It wis like someone shinin stuff intae yer eyes. Like when somethin’s reflected.’ He paused, looking distractedly around him as if for inspiration. ‘See when ye’re drivin an ye cannae see fur the sun comin’ aff the puddles?’

Cameron nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘Well it wis like that. Jist wan great flash and then anither bang.’

Cameron nodded again. They already had statements that two shots had rung out and the SOCOs were still trying to locate the missing bullet from the first shot that must have missed Jimmy Greer.

‘What direction did this flash come from?’

‘Ower there, right by the bowling green.’ McIntyre pointed to a spot in the wall as though he could actually see through it. ‘See where the railings end?’

Cameron couldn’t, but he’d check it out later, so he just nodded encouragement again and let the man go on with his story.

‘There’s a wee lane that goes frae Woodlands Road up the hill. The flash came from there.’

‘And did you see anyone in the lane?’ Cameron asked, regarding McIntyre carefully.

The big man looked even more solemn as he nodded his head. ‘Aye. There was a man. He wis running away.’

‘And did you see him carrying anything?’

A grim sort of smile spread across Donald McIntyre’s face. ‘Aye, something long and thin and it wisnae a fishin rod. Know whit ah’m sayin?’

Detective Constable Cameron knew exactly what he was saying and his heart beat that little bit faster as he pressed the witness for a description of the man who had killed Jimmy Greer.

DCI Lorimer watched dispassionately as the mortuary attendant rolled out the remains of Jimmy Greer from the refrigerated wall of corpses. In death, the journalist appeared older than his forty-eight years. His wispy grey hair was matted with blood from the single gunshot wound to his forehead. Lorimer’s jaw tightened: that blackened hole, right in the centre of his brow, made it look typical of an execution killing. The man’s mouth was open, showing a set of stained and broken teeth. Had he been a stranger, Lorimer would have doubted anyone could have identified him from dental records: these discoloured teeth looked as though they’d never been seen by a dentist. Lorimer was used to seeing dead bodies and knew how a corpse’s features could collapse, but, staring at Greer, he saw an old wizened man, bits of skin sagging from his stubbled cheeks. The journalist had made life difficult for him at times but he felt no recrimination now, just a kind of pity for a life cut short.

‘Aye, that’s him,’ he told her, then he held his hand up. ‘See if you could do something for me?’ he began as she lifted a sheet to cover up the body.

The girl looked at him questioningly.

‘Could you take a set of his fingerprints? He was meant to come in to have them taken, but … well, looks like he got distracted, doesn’t it?’

The girl grinned back at him. They were used to graveyard humour here, it was part of the atmosphere, though all of them were well trained to treat the actual bodies with dignity and respect. ‘Sure. I’ll make up a set myself and have them sent over to you later today.’

Lorimer’s last sight of Greer was that gaping maw and a pair of yellowing upturned toes. As he turned away he muttered to himself, ‘Who did this to you, eh, Jimmy?’ Unbidden, some words of Burns came to him: ‘Wi’ usquebae, we’ll face the Devil!’ What devil had Jimmy Greer faced? And was it the same one that had already taken two men’s lives in this city?

The papers were full of it. Every headline screamed the journalist’s untimely death and several of his rivals in the reporting fraternity had already composed an obituary, much of which had been written with creativity rather than an eye for the unvarnished truth. So the columns that Janis Faulkner was scanning told her of the man to whom she had spoken but had never seen. He appeared to have been a friendly sort of fellow and a more than adequate journalist. His early career even spoke of an award he had received for investigative work into a drugs ring.

Janis looked hard at the photograph. The dark hair was slicked back in an old-fashioned style so she supposed it had been taken some years ago, but these narrow eyes grinning at her looked full of fun. Fun? No, she decided, more like mischief. With a sigh, she put down the newspaper. Had Jimmy Greer made mischief or merely enjoyed it? Janis bit her lip. She had given him a description of Nicko’s body, whispered over the telephone. And she knew, contrary to what she had told DCI Lorimer, that the journalist was perfectly aware just what the murder weapon had been.

The news reports all suggested that the journalist had been gunned down, execution-style, for his inside knowledge of the Kelvin Killings, as they were calling them. Janis shivered. Greer had promised the footballer’s widow a chance to tell her side of the story once she was out on bail. But that had never happened. And now he was dead.

Janis felt a trickle as the first tear coursed down her cheek. She brushed it away angrily, knowing that she was not weeping for the passing of a man she had never met but for herself, yet still the tears kept coming.

‘Oh, it’s great to see you!’ Maggie’s lip trembled and she dashed away a tear as she looked down at Rosie.

‘It’s great to see you too,’ Rosie Fergusson replied.

Maggie opened her mouth to exclaim at the weak, wee voice that spoke these words, then thought better of it. Rosie had been through a hell of a lot and although she was out of any danger she was still a sick woman.

‘Oh, Rosie,’ she said instead then bent down and planted a sudden kiss upon her friend’s brow. ‘There now, kissed it all better,’ she declared.

Rosie smiled at her. Maggie Lorimer would have made a brilliant mother. Some things just weren’t fair.

In the hours that had passed since she had woken up, Rosie had been told different versions of what had actually happened to her. She’d had the dispassionate one from the consultant, doctor-to-doctor, about her condition and its prognosis. Thankfully there was no long-term damage but she would be off work for up to three months recovering from the delicate surgery that had saved her life. In her present weakened state, Rosie was pretty sanguine about that, but she knew it would become harder to stay at home as she regained her strength. Solly could postpone his return to work until the end of September and the flat was in easy walking distance from the University, anyway. She wouldn’t be lonely, but she might be bored. Solly’s own version of events began with a police visit to the flat and went on to give only short descriptions of how she had appeared, punctuated with frequent repetitions of how terrified he had been at the thought of losing her. Bit by bit, Rosie had pieced all the events together so that she was now aware of how the crash had happened and what the physical consequences had been thereafter.

‘How’s the football case getting on? That husband of yours got anyone in the frame yet?’ Rosie asked.

‘He said I wasn’t to talk to you about it. Said you needed to think of nicer things.’

‘Aye?’ Rosie said drily. ‘Like pink fluffy bunnies? Come off it, Mags, I never was a pink-fluffy-bunny type of girl!’

Both women laughed aloud, then Maggie’s face changed as Rosie began to cough.