Alex Gray - The Riverman

Lorimer sat back and leafed through his notes. Malcolm Adams was still missing and an overnight search had proved fruitless. Alec Barr had cooperated as fully as he could, to Lorimer’s way of thinking. Catherine Devoy had been questioned but, according to Solly, she was keeping something from them.

Solly. The fly in the ointment. As usual the psychologist had given him some disquieting moments. All that stuff about the bags of designer menswear for a charity shop.

Lorimer picked up the other notes lying on his desk. They’d confirmed the fingerprints on both sets of plastic bags belonged to the suspect, and there was something more: several sets of West’s prints had been identified from the ones lifted from Jennifer Hammond’s bedroom. It all looked neat and tidy. West appeared to be in the frame for everything. But what had happened to Adams, and, while he was at it, what was the latest news on their other ‘missing person’, Michael Turner?

For a long moment Lorimer stared into space. That’s when it had all begun: the night of Turner’s going-away party. He looked up suddenly, a new light in his eyes. Maybe he’d been seeing this from the wrong angle all along. That night had been overshadowed by Duncan Forbes’ murder, but perhaps they should have focused on the young man who had been the centre of attention hours before. Turner had flown to New York, leaving behind him a girlfriend who didn’t seem heartbroken by his departure. He’d also left behind the man who had been something of a mentor to him by all accounts, but who was dead before that night had ended. What had they found out about Turner? A young man with lots of partnership potential, Barr had told him. Going places, he’d said. Well he’d gone places, sure enough, but where they were remained a mystery.

What if …? The thoughts rumbled around his brain as Lorimer considered the man who had flown into oblivion. What if he’d been seconded to America for some other reason? Maggie was always banging on about incompetent teachers who ended up in highly paid administration posts away from the chalk face. What if Turner had been sent away? Had that thought occurred to any of them? Lorimer played around with the idea. The more he thought it over, the more it made some sort of sense. They had only Barr’s word for it, after all, that Turner was going to have made an impact on their American counterparts. Duncan Forbes, who had known the young man best of all, was no longer here to confirm that statement. But had they even thought to ask anyone else? Had he made the fatal mistake of deferring to the authority of the Forbes Macgregor partners? Maybe it was time to ask more questions about Michael Turner. And this time he’d be asking people who had no reason to tell him anything other than the truth.

‘Good morning, Chief Inspector.’ Adrian Millhouse shook Lorimer’s hand and the DCI motioned for him to sit down. Millhouse had responded immediately to his call, Lorimer noted with satisfaction.

‘This is just a chat, Mr Millhouse,’ Lorimer began. ‘Confidential. No hidden cameras.’ He grinned, relaxing as the older man smiled at his joke. ‘I’d like to ask you some questions about Michael Turner. Now,’ he lifted a hand to stop Milhouse from uttering any sympathetic platitudes, ‘it’s a warts-and-all picture I want you to give me.’

‘Certainly.’ Millhouse shrugged. ‘Whatever I can do.’

‘First of all, were you surprised at Michael Turner’s promotion?’

Adrian Millhouse stared at Lorimer for a long moment then nodded. ‘No, not at all,’ he replied. ‘It came as no surprise to hear he was going away to Kirkby Russell. We all thought that.’

‘When you say we do you mean all of the staff?’

‘Well, most of the ones I talked to. And being in human resources I get to see plenty of them.’

‘So what was the general opinion of his promotion?’

For a moment Millhouse looked thoughtful. ‘I was surprised he went overseas. It was felt he was good partnership material for the Glasgow office. Duncan had more or less said that Michael would be his successor. Such a waste of talent.’ Millhouse shook his head.

Lorimer nodded silently. That confirmed his own suspicions. There had to be a reason for getting rid of the young accountant. They were still keeping up the idea of Turner’s death even now that NYPD had confirmed the young man had made contact with them. The US police had agreed to complete secrecy over Turner’s existence meantime. Still, it smote his conscience to hear Millhouse speaking in hushed tones.

‘Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but I felt Michael was a bit out of his depth,’ Millhouse went on. ‘With Jennifer, I mean.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, he took it a lot more seriously than she did.’ Millhouse sat back and bit his lip. ‘I hate to say it but Jennifer had done the rounds with plenty of them in the office, if you know what I mean.’

Lorimer nodded. His initial impression of the woman had been of her flirtatiousness. She’d been unable to resist trying out her undoubted charms even on a senior officer from Strathclyde Police. Jennifer Hammond had been a dangerous sort of woman and somehow her death seemed inextricably linked to the men in her life.

‘Who else in Forbes Macgregor had she been seeing?’ Lorimer asked.

Adrian Millhouse sighed deeply, ‘Well now,’ he began and started to count off names on his fingers. Lorimer listened intently.

‘Graham West,’ Lorimer told Solly on the phone. ‘It comes back to him time after time! He’d had an affair with Jennifer Hammond right before she was supposed to be seeing Michael Turner. According to Millhouse, she’d screwed just about every eligible man in the office at one time or another.’

‘What about Duncan Forbes?’

Lorimer frowned. ‘That was the funny thing. Forbes seems to have disliked her. Tried to have her sacked more than once for her behaviour.’

‘So why wasn’t she sent packing?’

‘It was Alec Barr who intervened,’ Lorimer told him. ‘Millhouse reckoned Barr had a soft spot for her.’

In the ensuing silence the DCI could imagine Solly’s eyebrows raised in disbelief. And he’d be right to have doubts about the senior partner’s motives. Had Barr also been one of Jennifer’s paramours? He recalled the woman’s bedroom done up like a high-class tart’s boudoir. But she hadn’t been a stupid woman, far from it. She had known whose telephone call had alerted the police to the body floating in the Clyde. Without that impassioned plea for help there would have been nothing to show that Duncan Forbes’ death was anything other than a sad accident. Yet, for some reason, Jennifer Hammond had chosen not to reveal the caller’s identity. Why? And who had closed her mouth for good? All at once it seemed to be of the utmost importance that they knew the whereabouts of certain key players on each of those nights.

The woman who answered the door looked up at him nervously. Her gnarled hand was on the chain, ready to take it off if Lorimer proved to be the person he claimed to be.

‘Mrs Barr?’

The woman nodded, taking her time to read his warrant card thoroughly. She had every right to be cautious, Lorimer told himself. An older lady like herself was vulnerable to all sorts of conmen who might call during the daytime.

Satisfied that he was indeed DCI William Lorimer, Ella Barr admitted him to her home.

Twenty minutes later Lorimer emerged from Barr’s house, three cups of tea and a piece of homemade fruit loaf inside him. Ella Barr had given him something to think about, though whether she was aware of that fact was highly doubtful. No, Mr Barr had not returned home after the party for the young man. And, no, he had not been at home for those other two nights. Alec had been away on business. He was away on business such a lot, she’d told Lorimer proudly, the handle of her porcelain teacup gripped between bony fingers. Looking at her, Lorimer reckoned the woman must be at least fifteen years Barr’s senior. In stark contrast to the redhead who had led them all such a merry dance, Alec Barr’s wife was every inch the lady with her carefully permed white hair and cashmere crew-neck sweater. Even her pearls looked real. A quick glance around the drawing room while she was fetching them tea had told Lorimer a great deal. The place was an antique dealer’s dream. Collections of ivories vied for pride of place with three Fabergé eggs; every piece of spindly-legged furniture was upholstered in pale silks to match the drapes hanging from the oriole windows and the carved shelves were simply littered with the sort of Chinese artefacts he thought he’d only ever see in the Burrell Museum. The place was not so much a home as a magpie’s repository, a fabulously wealthy magpie, at that. Again, he couldn’t help contrasting the room with the mock-oriental pleasure palace that had been Jennifer Hammond’s bedroom.