Alex Gray - The Riverman

‘We don’t know for certain how Jennifer Hammond died, though, do we?’

‘The lab reports should be in fairly soon. The tox. tests will show if she’s ingested the drug,’ Lorimer replied. ‘One thing we do know though, is that no fingerprints were found on that pill box.’

Mitchison raised his eyebrows. ‘Someone cleaned them off? Hm. That would seem to rule out a self-induced dosage, then.’ He frowned and sighed. ‘Have you come up with any new information about Michael Turner yet?’

Lorimer bristled inwardly. What on earth did the man expect with faxes flying to and fro across the Atlantic; a sudden miracle? But he kept his cool as he replied ‘No. Maybe once NYPD identify the victim we can put more of the pieces together. He was expected to join Kirkby Russell nearly two weeks ago. There must be some reason why he failed to show up there. We do know he entered the States, but after JFK airport there’s been not a trace of him.’

‘Except for those credit cards.’ Mitchison steepled his fingers thoughtfully. ‘Do you think he’s dead?’

‘I think there’s a strong chance of that. It wouldn’t astonish me to hear that New York police find another body out in their backwoods.’

‘And meantime?’

‘Meantime, as the senior investigating officer in this case, I don’t want any of Forbes Macgregor’s personnel knowing that Michael Turner might still be alive. We can slap a D notice on the press, too. There’s something distinctly odd about the whole thing. It smells bad. And until we know a bit more I’d rather leave these Glasgow accountants thinking he’s dead.’ Lorimer fixed his blue gaze on the superintendent. ‘There was no trace of the man’s records when Wilson and Cameron went to their office. It was almost as if somebody had expected him to be eliminated,’ he said, unconsciously echoing his detective constable’s words.

Mitchison’s eyes widened and he nodded. ‘All right. But it’ll be your responsibility to keep the lid on the New York end of things. I don’t want anybody pointing the finger at us for misleading them.’ He picked up a stack of papers and tapped them sharply on his desktop as if to intimate that the meeting between them was over, but his DCI remained seated.

‘Was there something else, Lorimer?’ Mitchison tilted his head in an imperious gesture. For a moment Lorimer was tempted to report on the dead woman’s last call but that could wait until a more auspicious moment. For now, he was more concerned about pushing this case forward and it was just possible that he knew how that might be achieved.

‘Yes,’ he replied, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back, ‘I want to use the expertise of Doctor Solomon Brightman.’

*

‘Told you so!’ Rosie crowed triumphantly. ‘Now it’s official, you can put your mind to solving Lorimer’s case!’

Solly passed a hand over his eyes. A loyal fiancée was one thing but even Rosie’s faith in him couldn’t produce magical results just like that. Still, now that he’d been officially asked, the psychologist found himself interested in the deaths of those people from Forbes Macgregor. Apart from Michael Turner, the two Glasgow deaths had similarities, not least in their locations. Solly was big on locations. It made sense to look at the areas in which victims had been found, to trace a pattern. So often the perpetrator of multiple killings could be hiding somewhere in the circle of a map, especially if its radius was not too wide. And here, he told himself, the river impinged on the locations. Even the accountancy firm itself was situated by the banks of the Clyde, in the elegant Georgian buildings of Carlton Place.

But two deaths, related or not, were going to be insufficient for any sort of geographical profile. Still, other factors could be brought into the equation like those sources supplying the drug. The Glasgow bridges had long had an unsavoury reputation as meeting places for pushers, addicts and, of course, the homeless who could sometimes be counted in the latter category. Yes, there were other areas he could look at. However he would need to ask a lot of questions about the victims and about any previous crimes involving GHB before he could be confident that some pattern might emerge.

Rosie smiled fondly. The room was silent but it was a busy silence, as she knew from past experience. The cogs would be whirring in that clever brain of Solly’s and he’d be immersed in this case before bedtime, she was sure. Fixing her reading glasses onto the bridge of her nose, the pathologist returned to the paper she was reading. It would need a few tweaks here and there but the essence of her lecture was pretty sound. Still smiling, Rosie sank down into the armchair by the fire. To the outside world theirs might seem an unusual relationship: the pocket-blonde pathologist whose outgoing manner contrasted with Solly’s quiet seriousness. How odd that fate should have thrown them together. And yet, was it really so strange? After all, weren’t they both involved in probing deeply within the hidden recesses of death? Rosie gave herself a little shake. It was good to have her lover involved with a case again. If anyone could come up with an idea about these two GHB deaths then surely it was Dr Solomon Brightman.

George Parsonage drew up a chair nearer the fire. ‘Tea or coffee, Dr Brightman?’ The man opposite smiled back at him, his dark eyes twinkling under their luxuriant lashes. ‘That would be lovely, thanks.’

The riverman shook his head slightly. He’d make tea, then. This chap seemed so vague that he probably wouldn’t notice what he was drinking. Another glance at the man took in the full beard and pale complexion that gave him a slightly exotic appearance but George was a shrewd enough observer of humankind to notice the intelligence shining at him from behind those horn-rimmed spectacles.

Solly had carefully considered the deaths of Duncan Forbes and Jennifer Hammond; he had been asked to give any rationale as to whether their deaths were related. He had decided to start with this man who was known to Glasgow folk as the riverman. Lorimer’s report was full enough in its own way, but here was a man to whom the tides and currents of the Clyde were an everyday language and Solly had an urge to see where the man’s expertise might take him. There was something about the river Clyde that gnawed away at the edges of his mind. If its water could tell tales …

It was almost two hours later that the psychologist walked through Glasgow Green. It was the first time Solly had been in this part of the city and he looked around at the large expanse of grass, trying to imagine what it had been like in centuries gone by. Women from all over had brought their laundry to dry here, George had told him. On a windy day it must have been like the sails of ships blowing madly across the green, he supposed, a picture forming of a place full of people, full of bustle.

His mind shifted to all the other stories the Humane Society officer had spun around the Clyde, some tragic and others spiked with undeniable humour. But Solly had gleaned what he had wanted: a picture of the river’s ebbing and flowing and its gathering of one man’s body into its cold arms. George had photocopied charts of the tides and times as well as his own report of the day that he’d pulled Duncan Forbes from the river, and these were now stowed safely in Solly’s battered briefcase for further perusal. The background report on the dead man suggested that there was no good reason for him to have deliberately ingested the drug, nor was he a typical suicidal case. What Solly wanted now was a picture in his own mind of what might have taken place after the man had disappeared from the range of that CCTV camera.