Alex Gray - Never Somewhere Else

Less than an hour later the two CID men were on their way back to Divisional Headquarters. DC Cameron risked a glance at his sergeant as they weaved through the afternoon traffic. Grim satisfaction was registered on that usually expressionless face. Cameron smiled and found himself wishing that he could be a fly on the wall when their visit was reported to Chief Inspector Lorimer.

Lorimer’s raised eyebrows were just the reward DS Wilson expected as he narrated the events on Glasgow’s South Side.

‘You were spot on about the VAT,’ Wilson confirmed. ‘When I began to hint about the serious consequences of defrauding Her Majesty’s Inspectors the poor buggar became almost pale.’

A hint of a smile flickered over Wilson’s mouth.

‘So what was the real reason for contacting us when he had a can of worms like that to hide?’

Lorimer clasped his hands tightly together. He could sense an undercurrent of excitement in Wilson’s manner and knew the DS had something to tell.

‘A phone call. Some bright citizen had seen the ambulance in the yard and decided to put the frighteners on our friend Sangha.’

Lorimer inclined his head thoughtfully. Wilson picked up the cue.

‘Reading between the lines it’s probably no more than some idiot mouthing off the usual racial nonsense,’ he went on. ‘Still, it’s been enough to bring Sangha running to us before we came to him.’

‘What about the brother?’ Lorimer rapped out. ‘Ah, yes. Well, he sat there looking at us as if we’d crawled out from under a stone. Didn’t say a word at first but he backed up brother Ravit’s story once the thought of years of missing VAT loosened his tongue.’

‘I can imagine. And then it all came out?’

Wilson nodded. ‘It all came out. They’d paid cash for the ambulance from some rock band or other calling themselves The Flesh Eaters. No vehicle registration document, let alone MOT or insurance.’

‘Still, with a name like that they shouldn’t be hard to find,’ remarked Lorimer.

‘Also we have a description of two of them,’ Wilson added.

‘Fine. So we know where the ambulance came from. Any idea what happened once the Sanghas took possession of it?’

Lorimer’s light tone belied the expression on his face. He was staring at Alistair Wilson. He knew his sergeant’s ways so well.

Wilson paused to watch the effect of his words on Lorimer’s face.

‘Ravit Sangha sold that ambulance to Lucy Haining.’

‘But we don’t need him any more. We can drop the whole investigation of Donna Henderson’s murder, look at Lucy Haining’s case and concentrate on the leads from Crimewatch . What do we need Brightman for?’

George Phillips sighed irritably. ‘I’m reluctant to sever the relationship between the university and ourselves, Bill.’ The Divcom gave a dry cough. ‘I really do think we should allow Dr Brightman continued access to the case.’

Lorimer glared at his superior, not caring to conceal his annoyance.

‘Let him sniff around meantime. I’m sure he’ll have his uses,’ Phillips concluded, shuffling some papers on his desk to indicate that this conversation was terminated.

Lorimer fumed to himself all the way along the corridor. George Phillips had been deliberately vague and his own remonstrations had cut no ice whatsoever. He suspected that there were wheels within wheels that he knew nothing of concerning the Divcom’s desire to use a psychological profiler. Maybe he would read something about it in the Chief Constable’s next annual report, he thought angrily, as he slammed shut the door of his own room, shaking Père Tanguy’s picture.

Lorimer looked up at Van Gogh’s postman. The sitter clearly wanted to be up and off about his business instead of staring at the artist for hours on end. Lorimer took a deep breath. Perhaps that was a bit like Solomon and himself, the one looking at shapes within a framework of his own creation, the other out and about in the world, trying to make sense of the disparate facts that he could find. He ran a hand through his hair.

Solomon Brightman would keep his afternoon appointment after all, despite Lorimer’s attempts to cancel it indefinitely.

‘No, I do not accept that I was wrong. I simply told you that the murderer had killed a targeted victim known to himself, and used the others as camouflage.’

Solomon Brightman spoke in his usual unhurried manner, refusing to show any anger to match that of Chief Inspector Lorimer.

‘We’ve spent far too many man-hours going over the Donna Henderson murder again, and now ordinary detection methods have given us quite a different lead.’

Solomon raised his hands and shrugged in that fatalistic gesture that annoyed Lorimer so much.

‘The Crimewatch programme can hardly be considered ordinary,’ he said reasonably.

Lorimer gritted his teeth. He was stuck with Dr Brightman now and so any further argument would only be counter-productive. Solomon may have been having similar thoughts for he suddenly changed tack.

‘I’d like to look at the place where Lucy Haining was actually killed,’ he said.

‘All right. I’ll arrange for a uniformed officer to pick you up.’

Solomon shook his head. ‘I’d rather just wander around unobtrusively, you know.’

Lorimer resisted a smile, thinking a less unobtrusive-looking character would be hard to find. He then swivelled round from his desk and pointed at the maps pinned to the wall behind him. They were enlargements of specific areas in the city.

‘Here. This is Sauchiehall Street and these are the streets leading up to the Glasgow School of Art. Over the hill just there’ — his finger stopped at a point on the map — ‘you’ll find the waste ground.’

Carefully Solomon made a sketch of the area, writing the names of the intersecting streets and copying the cross which signified the place where the young art student had met her death. Up until now Solomon had concentrated his attention on St Mungo’s Park and its immediate environs. The city locations had suggested no more than places of dark opportunity. Doubtless young Sharon Millen had been killed in just such an area.

Deep down Lorimer knew that they had both been guilty of one simple assumption; that the first killing had been the one to be carefully planned and that the others were simply random slaughters intended to obfuscate the whole picture. Now they were faced with the possibility that the killer had been cold-blooded enough to begin covering his tracks with Donna Henderson’s murder.

‘A practice run?’ Solomon had suggested earlier.

He had not been surprised to read the disgust on Lorimer’s face. Whoever this killer was, his profile was adding up to show a man of Machiavellian cleverness and ruthless disregard for human life.

Martin Enderby put the phone down thoughtfully. So. Not Forensic Pathology after all. Dr Brightman was not only a trained psychologist, but he was researching a book about criminal profiling. Here was a tasty bone for a hungry news-hound indeed. And the book would be a good enough reason to set up an interview. Then … Martin grinned to himself. Then he’d see what else he could find out about the St Mungo’s Murders. He picked up the phone once more.

‘I’m sorry, Dr Brightman has just left.’

‘Oh, just my luck!’ Martin groaned, affecting the tone of an anxious student trying to locate his tutor.

‘Is it urgent?’ The secretary’s voice became concerned.

‘Well, sort of. Do you know whereabouts he might have gone?’

‘He was heading for the Art School, I believe. He should be there within half an hour.’

‘Thanks. I’ll maybe catch up with him there.’