Alex Gray: Never Somewhere Else

‘Nothing doing, Bill.’

George Phillips’s tone was resigned. Lorimer declined to answer. Rain-soaked trees lined the road to the gateway and their car swished out into the main road leading back to town.

At the first set of red lights George Phillips turned to Lorimer.

‘We’ll be sending that psychologist fellow up to see you later today. Can’t do any harm, and could do some good. Question is, do we let the Press in on it at this stage or not? Could make it look as though we’re up to something.’

On the other hand it might be seen as clutching at straws. Lorimer stared straight ahead. He was not opposed to this development, just resentful that it had come to this in a case where he had failed to find anything significant himself.

‘Fellow by the name of Solomon Brightman,’ continued the Divcom. ‘Funny names most of these psychologist types have. Ah well, perhaps he’ll cast a little light on the case.’

Lorimer refused to acknowledge Phillips’s feeble attempt at a joke. Within himself he hoped fervently that the psychologist would do just that. And it was no laughing matter.

The main building of the university was old and chilly. Stone steps and balustrades, marble-tiled floors and old creaking wooden doors gave the place a Gothic atmosphere. Lecture theatres and labs gave off from one side of a wide corridor whilst offices lay on the other. ‘Doctor S. Brightman’ proclaimed a small plastic plaque. Underneath, picked out in gold, was the word ‘Psychology’.

On the other side of the door was a surprisingly modern office with the normal accoutrements of grey steel filing cabinets, pale pine desk and chair and several shelves of books. Solly Brightman sat behind the desk, a large ordnance survey map before him. He was a young man of thirty-two, rather foreign in appearance, due to his thick black beard, black-rimmed spectacles and handsome Semitic features. His large brown eyes were fringed with the sort of luxuriant lashes most women would have given a month’s salary for. These eyes were pondering an area on the map. A green circle showed St Mungo’s Park and its immediate residential environs. Solly had ideas about these environs.

The telephone rang. He picked it up casually, without taking his eyes off the map for one moment.

‘Yes, Chief Inspector. Certainly. Yes, I will. No. That’s all right. I’ll see you then. Goodbye.’

Solly spoke smoothly, as if the words had been rehearsed for a part he was playing, then put down the telephone. His preoccupation with the map before him made the conversation with Chief Inspector Lorimer seem quite incidental, almost irrelevant, instead of the one for which he had been waiting most of the day. Solly could see more in the map before him than simple areas of green parkland and networks of suburban streets. He saw opportunity. He saw escape routes. And he saw the emergence of a possible personality.

Outside the closed gates of St Mungo’s Park, PC Matt Boyd stood waiting for his neighbour. He shivered beneath the police-issue raincoat. What a foul night to be on duty. Guard duty.

His shiver had expressed a disgust for the murders perpetrated within the darkened park as well as a thrill of fear that the murderer could return to the scene of the crime. His hands felt the radio in his top pocket then went to his baton concealed below the coat. Heavy footsteps told him that Henry was coming back from the chippy. Sure enough, the younger constable strode smartly around the curve of the park’s railings, his breath clouding the cold night air.

‘Lord, this is a miserable duty,’ he spat out, turning on his heel to face the road, his back, like Matt’s, to the gates behind him. He passed over the newspaper-wrapped packet.

‘Ta, mate,’ Matt said, unwrapping the vinegary chips and beginning to devour them greedily.

‘Keep one for Rover,’ laughed Henry.

Rover was the nickname for the dog-handler rather than the dog, whose name was Ajax. Handler and Alsatian were patrolling the perimeter of the park constantly that night, passing Matt and Henry at the main gates about every forty-five minutes. They were due to make an appearance in less than ten minutes if their tour of the park had proved uneventful. Matt chuckled again. Rover would be lucky to see any of his chips. Still, he might give one to the dog.

The sound of the rain was a soft drilling on the pavement and a gurgle of water trickling down the drains. His footsteps were muffled by the wetness, each print illumined for an instant in the streetlight, then gone, melting into shadows. His head turned slowly from street to park, past trees and open grassland, past swishing cars and buildings shuttered against the night.

Ajax’s breath came out in a faint misty cloud as he loped along, mouth slightly open showing strong white teeth. The railings took on a long curve, foliage thick and high above them as the hill banked steeply. Suddenly the dog stopped, stiff and alert. His head strained and his nose probed the air. The handler made a movement to unleash him if need be, while above them the rhododendron bushes swayed madly. Then a splintering crash revealed a white face glaring through the leaves. The handler slipped the leash and reached for his two-way radio.

In a moment there was a flurry of leaping dog and a cry as the face disappeared, falling backwards through the bushes.

Henry’s radio crackled into life.

‘Tango Two, this is control. Ajax has a prowler inside the park. Assistance requested. Car on its way. Over.’

‘Roger, Control. Wilco.’

Henry’s eyes were shining, all boredom gone. He and Matt broke into a jog along the wet pavements, ears straining for Ajax’s growls. Matt paused briefly by a bin to toss away their scrunched up chip packets. A different kind of hunger was taking over.

They came around the corner to see Ajax crouching by his handler. A man leaned flat against the inside of the park railings, obviously terrified of the dog. As Matt began to climb the railings he could hear him yabbering, ‘Get ’im off. Don’t let ’im touch me!’

Ajax was trained to look as though he would spring at a suspect. He had full control over the man.

‘Car’s coming,’ Henry quietly told the handler.

Matt was now standing alongside the dog, shining his torch on the man against the railings. The torchlight gave his eyes a sunken, staring look. He was a small man, probably in his sixties, thin on top with wrinkled cadaverous flesh which hung in slack, unshaven jowls. His threadbare grey coat was tied round the waist with rope. Matt felt a sinking disappointment. He was only a derelict. Still, he would be taken in for questioning. The park was out of bounds after all, and notices had been put up to that effect. Closed circuit television cameras with infrared devices were secreted in and around the park, mainly panning the area where the bodies had been found. Yet all this technology had failed to detect what one well-trained dog had found.

Matt was annoyed. For a few minutes the activity had given the impression of a breakthrough. He had been rehearsing what he would say if Chief Inspector Lorimer were to ask for a résumé of their night’s duty. In his imagination he had anticipated the Chief’s nod of approval and his own resulting glow.

A white escort pulled up and the tramp was hoisted clumsily over the railings and handed into the back of the car. Ajax and his handler watched them drive off round the curve of the park.

‘Ah, well, back to the gate,’ grumbled Matt. He set off, slightly ahead of Henry and the handler. Ajax walked obediently by their side, alert yet calm as ever, pleased by the recent excitement.

Solly sat in a corner of the interview room. He had not demurred when Chief Inspector Lorimer invited him to sit in as an observer.