Alex Gray - Pitch Black

‘It’s okay,’ she gasped, ‘just a bit fragile in the old thoracic department. Don’t worry,’ she said, seeing her friend look down at her anxiously. ‘Now, if you want me to shut up and not cough, you’d better do all the talking. Starting with a résumé of the case,’ she added, a glint in her eye.

Maggie Lorimer knew when she was beaten, so she leaned forward and began to tell the pathologist everything that had happened at Kelvin Park since the afternoon of Rosie’s accident.

The DCI’s wife had been a lot more forthcoming than Solly, who had point-blank refused to discuss the murder case with his fiancée. The fact that Rosie had conducted the post-mortems of Faulkner, Cartwright and White made absolutely no difference to Solly. She could sigh all she liked, he told her, there were better things to talk about. He’d been so sweet, even bringing her some wedding magazines to look at. They still planned a Christmastime wedding and by then, Rosie knew, she’d be back to her old self. So it had fallen to Maggie Lorimer to fill her in on the latest murder and the deceased’s part in the affair. Rosie’s eyes had widened as she learned about Greer’s death. Another shooting? She wondered who had done the man’s post-mortem and what type of bullet had been removed from his skull.

Rosie closed her eyes. Maggie’s visit had been good but now she was tired. Thinking made her head hurt and she welcomed the sensation of sleepiness that overwhelmed her.

‘Well, we know who it was now,’ Lorimer exclaimed, waving the sheet of prints in the air. ‘Jimmy Greer was at Kelvin Park and had somehow gained access into the grounds. His prints match up with those found on the dummy, so I think we can conclude our erstwhile reporter had set up the entire thing himself.’

‘As a hoax?’ someone asked.

‘As a way to sell newspapers, more like,’ Alistair Wilson responded drily. ‘What’s his editor saying?’

‘Claims to know nothing about it. Surprise, surprise.’

‘Somebody must have let him into the grounds.’

‘And to the boot room. Wasn’t it supposed to be kept locked?’

‘Maybe it was the ghost.’

Lorimer held up his hand again to silence the suggestions that were beginning to fly around the room. ‘We’ll stick to facts, if you don’t mind. Now, I know it’s a bit late in the day, but do I have any volunteers to interview Jim Christie and Albert Little? They are the only ones we know of that have keys to the boot room. Oh, and somebody better see the apprentice who found the dummy.’

Several hands went up. Lorimer calculated the amount of legwork that had been done on this case already. Niall Cameron deserved to benefit from this. He had a good chance of making Detective Sergeant, Lorimer reckoned, and he wanted to encourage him.

‘Right — Grant, you and Weir see the young lad, Wilson and Cameron can find out Christie’s and Little’s home addresses and see them. I’ll expect a full report by the morning.’

They’d drawn a blank at Albert Little’s flat but Jim Christie, the kitman, answered the door of his terraced cottage to the two CID officers. Christie was a small man of about fifty, his tonsure of white hair around a shining bald pate making him seem more like a priest than a man who looked after football kit. His benign smile added to this impression as DS Wilson made the introductions.

‘Come in, gentlemen,’ he said, opening the door wide. ‘Mary, we’ve got visitors,’ he called out to someone behind him. A small middle-aged woman appeared by his side, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

‘This is my wife, Mary,’ Christie said. ‘Mary, these gentlemen are from the police. Investigating the murders,’ he added in a studied stage whisper as though his wife were not quite up to speed with the latest events. She darted a nervous look at her husband then gestured the police officers through to the back of the house. ‘It’s cooler in the dining room,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

Without waiting for a reply, Mrs Christie left them to find seats around the table.

‘Mr Christie, we just wanted to clear up the matter of the dummy in the boot room,’ DS Wilson began. ‘We have reason to believe that somebody let Jimmy Greer into Kelvin’s grounds that day and that he gained access to the boot room.’

‘The journalist who was killed?’ Christie’s mild manner changed to one of affront.

‘Yes. You see, we know he had been inside the boot room.’

‘Oh, heavens! Then maybe it was all my fault!’ The kitman looked aghast. ‘You see, I let Mr Greer into the boot room when he was researching his story.’

‘When exactly was this?’ Wilson asked.

Christie chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘It might have been the day before young Willie found that thing,’ he said. ‘There were journalists all over the place, every day. Most of them never got past the main door,’ he added with a nod to show what his opinion had been of the crowd of reporters.

‘But Jimmy Greer did,’ DC Cameron suggested quietly.

Christie nodded again. ‘He had permission from the gaffer. He was doing a feature on the Ronnie Rankin story.’

‘The ghost in the boot room?’ Wilson asked with a laugh. ‘You don’t believe in all that tosh, do you?’

Jim Christie’s face grew solemn as he shook his head. ‘Don’t ever mock the shade of Ronnie Rankin, Mr Wilson.’ Then he turned to Niall Cameron who had been staring intently at the kitman. ‘I’ve seen him several times over the years. I didn’t doubt that one of the young boys had seen him recently. And I’ll tell you this,’ he added, wagging an admonitory finger at them both, ‘that latest incident was a pure insult to his memory. If that journalist desecrated the boot room then I’m not surprised at what happened to him.’

Wilson and Cameron exchanged a glance. The kitman was absolutely serious.

‘And you helped Greer with his … research?’ Wilson said at last, struggling to keep any vestige of a smile from his face.

Christie nodded. ‘I told him everything: all the stories going back over my time at Kelvin and the ones that have been handed down over the generations. I even told him he should write a book about it,’ he added, shaking his head as if at his own foolishness.

‘So, how was it your fault that Greer had access to the boot room at a later date, Mr Christie?’ Cameron asked,

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Christie said. ‘He must have found my spare key.’

‘Did you mention this missing key to any of the officers who came to take statements after the boot room had been found all messed up?’ Wilson asked.

‘Aye, I did. But I didn’t think that the reporter might have taken it. No,’ he said, with a heavy sigh, ‘I didn’t think about him at all.’

‘Well, that clears up one mystery,’ Cameron declared as they drove off from the Christies’ home. ‘We know Jimmy Greer had easy access to the boot room. He was writing about Rankin’s ghost. So he said. And his prints were on that dummy so he must have staged this. But why?’

‘A stunt to sell more papers,’ Wilson spat out in disgust. ‘Greer was a number one chancer but I didn’t think he’d go as far as making a threat against Pat Kennedy.’

‘D’you think that was him too?’ Cameron asked. ‘Should we maybe be looking for traces of red paint back at Greer’s place to confirm that?’

Alistair Wilson nodded. ‘Aye. Then we can wrap up one bit of this case.’

Jimmy Greer had not kept the tidiest of flats. There had been no problem obtaining a warrant to search the place the following morning and now Cameron and Wilson were turning over piles of discarded newspapers and piles of books in an attempt to find what they were looking for. Greer’s car had already been searched and there was not a sign of any paint, red or otherwise.