Alex Gray - The Riverman

Cameron nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He wrote something into his notebook then looked up again. ‘He was expected in the office this morning?’

‘Damn right. Had someone waiting down in reception for over half an hour. We could lose an audit client because of this!’ Barr exploded.

So that explained it, Cameron thought. That was why the managing partner was cursing West’s disappearance. He frowned. Dr Brightman had been quite specific on the telephone. Graham West had agreed to see him at nine-thirty this morning.

‘And this appointment was definitely meant to be today?’

‘Yes! West’s secretary had booked a client in for ten o’clock. When nobody had turned up by ten-thirty we tried to call him at home.’

‘And there was no reply,’ Cameron finished for him.

Barr nodded.

‘Have you any idea where Mr West might be?’

Another glare shot across the table, but Niall Cameron was impervious to dark looks and waited patiently for a response. He used Lorimer’s trick and stared at the man as impassively as he could.

‘No. I have no idea at all,’ Barr murmured. ‘He should have been here. Have you looked to see if his car’s still there?’ he added.

‘These matters are all in hand, sir. Perhaps I could speak to some other members of staff, beginning with the other two partners?’

When Alec Barr rose from his chair this time, the detective constable could see small beads of sweat clinging to his upper lip. Whether he wanted to reveal it or not, Alec Barr was showing some genuine anxiety over the disappearance of his partner.

‘Where else did you go?’ Lorimer asked the psychologist.

‘Round the river-side of the building to look up at the front windows, then back here,’ Solly replied slowly, gazing into space as if he were repeating these steps in his mind’s eye. ‘It was the bin bags that gave him away, of course,’ he added.

‘Hm.’ Lorimer sniffed. The three large bin bags had been left outside West’s front door by a pair of ornamental bay trees. But West, or someone who had been in his house, had dumped the black bags right on his doorstep. Lorimer had picked through them with gloved hands, finding a selection of expensive men’s clothing stuffed carelessly into every bag. It had given him something to do until the search warrant had arrived.

Now the two men and one uniform were painstakingly going through Graham West’s luxury penthouse flat, looking for clues as to where he had gone.

Lorimer gazed out of the huge picture windows that looked over the Clyde and beyond to the city. Far below there were cormorants roosting on old mooring posts next to the ancient slime-covered jetty. From his vantage point high above the river, he could easily make out the Glasgow Science Tower and the hills beyond as the river curved westwards. To his right lay the City Inn and the Crowne Plaza Hotel, both dominated by the black silhouette of the Finnieston crane. Below, on the northern bank, lay apartments designed to resemble barges, their paintwork picked out in Cambridge blue. The mossy walls below revealed different shades of greys and greens like geological strata licked by countless tides.

As his eyes roamed over the areas bounded by the river, Lorimer spotted the police helicopter flying down towards the city. Another team was busy at work.

Graham West evidently favoured the minimalist modern look, two leather recliners his only concession to comfort. One wall held a serious-looking stack of hi-fi equipment. A quick recce round the house showed them the whole place had been wired for sound. His collection of compact discs and DVDs were neatly arranged in alphabetical order next to the stainless-steel sound system. The main room was a long rectangle, one end containing a glass and chrome table with matching chrome chairs, a curving panel of pebbled glass squares leading directly to the front door. It didn’t take much imagination to see that the man had kept a tidy house; even the magazines (mostly sports issues) were stacked into a W-shaped metal rack.

A huge painting took up nearly the whole wall to the right of the window. Lorimer exhaled slowly. It was an Alison Watt, an original, not a mere print. Either West had had the good fortune to purchase before the artist’s meteoric rise to fame or he’d been earning some serious money. Lorimer sighed enviously. Who’d want to leave something as beautiful as that behind?

‘Let’s see his bedroom.’ The DCI turned on his heel and made for the upper level. The narrow staircase led him to the top storey of the building, the layout a mirror image of the rooms below. But that was where the similarity ended. By contrast to the pristine lounge, the place was a shambles. Drawers had been turned out, their contents allowed to lie where they’d fallen. The sliding glass doors of the wardrobe in West’s bedroom were pushed to one side, empty hangers testifying to a deliberate escape. This wasn’t a missing person’s job, Lorimer told himself. This was something far more interesting.

‘What d’you reckon?’ he asked as Solly joined him. ‘Has he done a runner?’

The psychologist didn’t answer. He was looking around the man’s bedroom, eyes taking in goodness knows what.

‘Well?’ Lorimer persisted. ‘He was expecting to see you, wasn’t he?’

Solly nodded, still regarding the various items scattered around the room.

‘So if he wanted to make a getaway, and we don’t know this for sure yet, why would he have appointments with you and a client in his office at almost the same time?’

‘He knew he wouldn’t be here, if that’s what you’re getting at,’ Solly murmured. ‘These meetings were only a smoke screen, I suppose.’ He paused, one hand on his beard, stroking it thoughtfully. ‘Wonder when he actually left,’ he went on. Solly walked over to the unmade bed and slid his hand across the rumpled sheet. ‘Cold.’ He nodded to himself. ‘But did he sleep here overnight, I wonder?’

‘Barr seems to have been the last person in his office to have seen him,’ Lorimer continued. ‘We’ll do a door-to-door in the building,’ he added, turning to the uniformed officer who hovered in the doorway. ‘And tell the caretaker to keep his mouth shut meantime. We don’t want him jumping to the wrong conclusions or, worse still, talking to the press.’

‘Right, sir.’ The officer walked back to the lounge and moments later they heard his voice as the order was relayed down the line.

‘West was due to come in and see us today,’ Lorimer said. ‘I wonder if that put the wind up him,’ he mused. ‘And perhaps he wasn’t too keen to meet up with you either.’

‘We can’t assume that’s the reason he left so suddenly,’ Solomon replied. ‘If it was indeed so sudden,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘What’re you thinking?’

‘This mess.’ Solly waved a hand at the chaos around the room. ‘Look at the lounge.’ He walked downstairs, the DCI trailing in his wake. ‘Not a thing out of place.’ He ran a finger over the wooden bookshelves. ‘See?’ Solly held up his hand and Lorimer did see. There was no tell-tale smudge of grey dust.

‘So you think he made a deliberate mess in there? Wanted us to think he’d left in a hurry?’

‘Such a hurry that he had time to bag up his clothes?’ Solly asked, a smile hovering about his lips. ‘My guess is he expected someone to take them away before I arrived. Why would he leave them there for us to find?’

‘Who’d take a pile of his clothes?’ Lorimer frowned.

With a shrug of his shoulders the psychologist continued to smile. ‘That’s one thing you’re going to have to find out, but I’d hazard a guess that he was expecting an earlier visitor. The caretaker, perhaps?’

‘But why bag up stuff in the first place?’ Lorimer asked. ‘And it wasn’t rubbish. Some of these clothes had designer labels.’