Alex Gray - The Riverman

Lorimer continued to look at the contents of the room, trying to see past the lavish furnishings for the more mundane things that might give him a clue to what had happened that evening. The bedside cabinet, a queer, carved affair on spindly legs, had only one drawer. Lorimer opened it carefully with gloved hands. Inside there was the usual detritus of female existence; a packet of contraceptive pills, a black-handled hairbrush with red hairs entwined in its bristles, a calf-skin address book, a Filofax and two pens bearing the name of Forbes Macgregor. A half-empty jar of Clinique night cream and a small wooden pill box completed the drawer’s contents. Lorimer unscrewed the box but the white pills could have been anything. That was a job for the lab. On top of the table was a pseudo-antique telephone, enamelled with flowers in shades of pink and red and finished in gilt.

For a second, Lorimer could imagine the dead woman lying there in splendid opulence, the satin sheets drawn up around her pale skin, telephone in one hand, smiling coquettishly as she flirted with her latest admirer. He experienced a sudden feeling of loss that the woman’s vivaciousness had been snuffed out in such a sordid manner. Lorimer sighed. He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t written that earlier report about his visit to the flat. Maybe Superintendent Mitchison’s paper trails had some uses after all. And a sudden death in the midst of a murder inquiry was reason enough for the DCI to impose his authority.

Maggie sank gratefully into the armchair. It had been a long day and being all alone this evening had made it longer. Ah, well. Some things never changed, she thought wistfully, wondering what it was that had kept her husband late tonight. The demons of doubt began to whisper in her ear. Was he seeing someone else? That blonde DI who had been an undercover officer was part of her husband’s team. Maggie recalled the girl from a party they’d been at. She’d been there with Mark Mitchison, as she remembered. A pretty girl, DI Josephine Grant, smart too. Maggie forced down the picture in her mind of her husband with another woman. An overactive imagination, that was what was wrong with her, she scolded herself. Think of something else.

Maybe she’d give Mum a quick ring; see what she’d been up to today. Her hand idled over the arm of the chair to where the telephone lay on the floor. She wriggled sideways then caught sight of the red flashing light. Damn! The buzzer had gone again on the answering machine. How many missed calls this time, she wondered? There was just one from Bill, telling her he’d be late. There was nothing unusual about that, Maggie told herself, so why was she unable to banish these treacherous thoughts about a certain blonde DI who might also be working overtime?

On the other side of the Atlantic, Officer Biegel stared at the medical report and then looked again at the most recent fax from Glasgow. He frowned and read them both again. That didn’t make sense. He shook his head as if trying to shake off an irritating blowfly, then gave a sigh. It might be more trouble than it was worth, but his own curiosity as well as the knowledge that he ought to dig a bit deeper stopped him binning the fax. The NYPD officer swivelled around in his chair.

‘Hey, Curt! Take a look at this.’ Biegel waved the papers in the air. ‘Think we’ve got a problem.’ He waited until the other man loped across to his desk and read the two papers studiously.

‘Surely they’ve made some mistake?’

‘How do we tell? Want me to ask them to double-check their records?’

‘S’pose.’ Curt yawned and strolled away. It had been a long enough day and if eager Biegel wanted to correspond with Strathclyde CID at some ungodly hour of a Scottish morning that was up to him. He had a wife and kids to go home to.

Jeff Biegel considered the two documents then nodded. ‘Yeah. Why not?’ He glanced at his watch. It was way out of office hours, but maybe there’d be someone who’d be able to check this out for him. The policeman lifted the telephone and dialled the number at the foot of the page. There was no answer, which wasn’t totally surprising, then, just as he was about to hang up a voice stated ‘Strathclyde CID.’

A few minutes later the New York policeman was out of the building and weaving his way between the mass of humanity that coursed along the streets. The Glasgow cops had his cell phone number. And it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been woken from sleep in this job of his.

Suzanne put down the telephone. How strange for Strathclyde Police to ask for another copy of that man’s records. She’d already photocopied one set and sent them off by next-day delivery. What on earth could they want with another lot? She’d see to it during her coffee break and maybe mention the call to Mr Lynch whenever he came out of surgery. That police officer must really want them in a hurry, insisting on picking the records up later this morning. Odd, Suzanne thought, then dismissed the incident as the door buzzed to admit the next patient for their nine-thirty appointment. She would never know that several thousand miles away Officer Jeff Biegel was catching a few hours’ sleep while he waited for the young receptionist to carry out this one simple request.

The police officer scratched his head wearily. It was true, then. This second fax had supported the first one. There was no mistake about these dental records after all. No cock-up by the Brits. He screwed up his face. If what he was reading was true, then there had been a total mix-up on this side of the puddle.

That body in the woods was not Michael Turner. And now they had the additional problem of a missing person on their hands.

‘Who was she, Bill?’

Lorimer did not reply for a moment, his mind on the vivacious redhead whose life had been so suddenly snuffed out. He remembered her green eyes and that come-hither look she’d given him the first time they had met.

‘Her name was Jennifer Hammond. She’s dead,’ he replied.

Maggie realized now why his face was so white and drawn. It wasn’t just lack of sleep, then.

‘She was the human resources manager at Forbes Macgregor. Michael Turner’s girlfriend.’

‘The one who was killed in New York?’

Lorimer nodded, his mouth a thin hard line.

‘And she tried to contact you?’

Lorimer looked across to see another question in his wife’s eyes. ‘I gave her my card. Hoped she’d see sense and tell us who made that anonymous phone call.’ He sighed heavily. ‘They reckon she was trying to call me just before she died.’

‘But why?’

Lorimer slumped back on the pillow and shook his head. ‘My guess is whoever was with her made sure she would never reveal their identity. Now we’ll never know,’ he added bitterly.

Maggie took her husband’s arm and squeezed it lightly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Me too,’ he replied, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly against him. ‘Me too.’

‘I don’t want to tell them,’ Lorimer said in a tone that made Superintendent Mitchison raise his eyebrows.

‘And why not?’

Lorimer pulled his chair a little closer to his senior officer’s desk and leaned towards him. ‘We have two suspicious deaths on our hands and one case of mistaken identity, all beginning the night of Michael Turner’s going-away party. Duncan Forbes is found dead, drowned, but with enough gamma-hydroxybutrate to make us suspect that his death was deliberate. Plus we have a hysterical caller that simply adds credence to this line of inquiry. Then Turner’s girlfriend dies in her own flat with a pack of GHB tablets in her bedside table. Aren’t these reasons enough? Who knows what’s happened to Turner, but he’s certainly not going to get rid of his own credit cards for no good reason, is he?’