Alex Gray: Never Somewhere Else

Solly nodded, remembering the last time Lorimer had waited for a warrant to search that flat in Garnethill. There was always a Fiscal and a Sheriff on duty through the night. Crime didn’t keep office hours.

There’s not much point going back to George’s bash, now. Anyway,’ he added, ‘Maggie’d kill me. She was really looking forward to an uninterrupted night out.’

Solly thought of the woman’s face as they had hustled off from the hotel. Sheer disbelief might well turn to disappointed anger. Would Rosie be like that? he wondered. Rosie Fergusson, who spent her working life, scalpel in hand, out in the wilds of Rwanda or Glasgow parks. What might it be like being married to her? Solly’s mind wandered over the prospect. Her laughing smile and that deliciously short white dress chased his thoughts from the squeamish side of her profession to how he might have spent the rest of the night. His sympathies went out to Maggie Lorimer.

The phone never seemed to be out of Lorimer’s hand for the next hour as the team was rallied yet again for the search to come. St Mungo’s Heights had, of course, been tried. There was nobody at the other end of the phones. That disembodied voice on the tape was not going to make itself heard again.

‘Pity,’ Lorimer remarked. ‘The voice match would have made helpful evidence. Mind you, it took fifteen months of painstaking work to analyse the voice of the Yorkshire Ripper tape. And at the end of the day it wasn’t him at all.’

The Gazette security man was sorry, he couldn’t help. Nobody was left in the building. Where was Enderby?

‘Diane McArthur?’

‘Could be. Have we got a number?’

Solomon blushed and produced her card from his wallet.

‘Of course, your book interview.’

Lorimer didn’t glance at the psychologist but the sarcasm cut like a knife.

The phone rang on and on. Just as Lorimer was about to hang up, the ringing tone stopped and he waited for the ubiquitous answering machine to roll out its message. He was wrong.

‘Please, who is it?’ A girl’s voice whispered. Lorimer stiffened. This wasn’t a woman disturbed from slumber. She sounded ill.

‘Chief Inspector Lorimer. Miss McArthur?’

‘Oh, please help me. Please, somebody help me.’

‘Is Martin Enderby …?’

‘He’s gone.’

There was a pause and Lorimer heard the weak sobs as the girl tried to control herself.

‘What happened?’

‘He … I think he’s hurt … the knife …’ There was another pause and Lorimer could hear a choked sob. ‘Please, could somebody help me?’

‘Miss McArthur, I’m sending officers over right away. Just stay there. Can you open the door when they arrive?’ Lorimer’s voice was gentle and reassuring.

‘I think so. I don’t know.’

The voice faltered again and Lorimer immediately imagined blood loss of some kind weakening the girl.

‘Help’s on its way. Won’t be long. I’m going to ring off now but if you need to talk to me ring this number.’

There was a lengthy interval during which Lorimer gave Diane his number and she, in her weakened state, found pen and paper and took it down. He then took only a split second to kill the phone and redial. Solly listened as Lorimer barked orders. Diane McArthur wouldn’t be alone for long.

At last the warrant arrived at HQ and the two men bundled out to the waiting Rover. The radio would keep them in contact with the woman DC who had been mustered to assist the young journalist.

Diane McArthur was being helped into an ambulance as Lorimer and the psychologist approached her West End maisonette. Her head and shoulders were covered by a blanket and a WPC had her arms round her.

‘Chief Inspector,’ the WPC began.

Lorimer stepped up into the ambulance with the two women.

‘Just a couple of minutes.’

He sat opposite Diane while Solomon stood outside. Diane McArthur raised her white face and slowly pulled off the blanket. Her long dark hair had been hacked off leaving a jagged, spiky mess and there was a deep wound running down one side of her neck.

‘Martin Enderby?’ Lorimer enquired.

Diane’s eyes widened in horror and she jerked her head up painfully.

‘No! Martin tried to stop him. He just went berserk.’

‘Then who?’

‘Davey.’

‘Where are they now?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know. They went in Martin’s car. He had that knife.’ Her voice tailed off into gasping sobs.

‘When was this?’

‘About half an hour before you phoned, I think.’

Lorimer made a swift calculation. That call had been made nearly an hour ago. They could be anywhere in the city by now. Or out of it.

‘Where have they gone, Diane? Think. Where could they be?’

Her sobs were apparently ignored by Lorimer who leaned over the girl, persistent in obtaining this information from her. She swallowed hard.

‘I don’t know. I told your policewoman. He, he told Martin to put his bag in the car.’

‘What bag?’

‘His cameras and stuff.’ She paused tearfully. ‘He never went anywhere without them.’

‘Then what? Try to remember exactly what he said.’

The girl’s face worked for a few moments then she shook her head.

‘All I can remember is Martin telling him to leave me alone, then he was being forced out of the house. I don’t remember. Honestly. I think I must have passed out.’

Lorimer nodded. It made sense. The girl had sounded ghastly when he had made that call. She’d surely have made it to a phone sooner if she’d been able to.

In a flash he was out of the ambulance and motioning to the attendant that he was free to go to the hospital. Solomon followed him back to the Rover where orders were given over the radio.

Lorimer looked around him into the darkness. It was now well after three in the morning, that barren time when the soul is at its lowest ebb, the streets deserted save for the police presence. It was a respectable neighbourhood, this. The row of yuppie maisonettes faced a red sandstone church built in the Victorian tradition of mock Gothic vaults and slender spires. Beside him, Solomon shivered. They hadn’t stopped to take their coats from George Phillips’s party. The warmth and fun of the Superintendent’s big night seemed days rather than hours ago.

‘Are you going in?’ Solomon indicated Diane’s house.

‘No. Let the boys do it. No need for me there. Besides, looks like we’ll have other fish to fry.’ He frowned, seeing Solly shiver again. ‘You want to go on home? I could get you a squad car.’

Solomon shook his head. Lorimer knew that many of his questions and theories had been answered but the psychologist might still feel an overwhelming need to confront the man whose shadow had fallen over so many lives.

He had a warrant in his pocket. A warrant he’d been going to use to search Enderby’s flat once more. He’d just have to bend the rules a little.

The car swept up to the black tower that was St Mungo’s Heights. Lorimer was suddenly aware of his incongruous evening clothes as uniformed officers swarmed over the place.

Davey Baird’s room was exactly as Solomon had said it would be. To the casual, untrained eye, it was the epitome of minimalist chic. The floor was a bare sweep of pale, polished beech, the only warm colour in the room. Metal lamps hung in rows from the grey ceiling. A steel music system dominated one corner. The sofa was black leather with a silken throw the colour of pewter draped over the back, the shades of white and grey echoing the black and white photographs on the wall in their clip frames. He caught Solomon looking at the pictures, then at Lorimer. They were studies of redskin warriors.

Lorimer’s eyes widened and saw the psychologist give a fleeting smile of satisfaction. He continued his examination. The room appeared to be waiting for a long-absent presence to return. There were no signs of the usual clutter of everyday living: no papers lying on the dark ash table, only a lump of porous rock and a white porcelain bowl that gleamed like a ghost in the subdued lamplight.