Alex Gray - Glasgow Kiss

‘She flirted with you?’

Kenny snorted. ‘Mrs Lorimer, surely you knew how Julie was? She flirted with everything in trousers. Oh.’ His face fell suddenly. ‘I shouldn’t be talking about her like that, should I? Not now she’s dead.’

‘I think it’s more important to tell the truth about Julie than to mouth mere platitudes, don’t you, Kenny?’

‘Suppose so. Truth is, I really fancied her. Loads of the boys did.’

‘But did any of them act on their feelings, d’you know?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Not so far as I know. None of the ones in Scripture Union did, anyway, or at least not that I could see. And I was around her most of the time at SU camp. I’d have noticed something.’

Maggie took a deep breath before asking her next question. ‘And Mr Chalmers? How did he behave around Julie?’

Kenny Turner sat up a little straighter at that, his hands suddenly clasped firmly together. ‘He didn’t do anything to Jules,’ the boy replied, his face losing any trace of his usual jaunty smile. ‘How can anyone say a bad word against him?’ Then a frown appeared on his brow as another thought dawned on the boy and he looked straight at his teacher as he asked, ‘Do the police think he hurt Julie?’

Maggie winced then, before she had time to respond, Kenny’s eyes narrowed.

‘Anyway, that’s all a load of crap what she said about Mr Chalmers. Julie was going out with a guy from her own year, wasn’t she?’

‘She was?’

Kenny looked at her pityingly. ‘Didn’t you know, then? And you’re their Year teacher as well.’ He paused as Maggie looked at him expectantly.

‘Julie was going out with Kyle Kerrigan.’

Maggie watched as the door to her classroom closed behind Kenny. His parting remark was still making her heart thump uncomfortably within her chest. Earlier, her chat with Samantha had meant a lot of listening as the girl spilled out her feelings between bouts of crying. She’d not believed her best pal at first and now she was racked with remorse, for surely Mr Chalmers must have had something to do with Julie’s death? She’d lifted a tear-stained face to Mrs Lorimer, expecting some kind of reassurance on that score, but Maggie had given her none, except to say that Sam would come to terms with things in time and that it was important to let the process of law take its course. She’d been surprised at the venom in the girl’s voice, though, as she’d countered that particular remark.

‘It won’t bring her back though, will it? She’s dead and whoever killed her will rot in jail if they find him, but they won’t take his life away, will they?’

Remembering the girl’s white face and how she’d had to hold on to Maggie’s desk for support as she stood up to go, gave the Detective Chief Inspector’s wife serious misgivings about what she was doing. And what had she found out? Nothing much that she hadn’t known before, except the fact that Julie and Kyle had been an item. How could she have missed that? Sitting back in her chair, Maggie Lorimer wondered if there was something else she ought to know about Julie Donaldson that wasn’t immediately obvious. Both Sam and Kenny had reminded her that the girl was a bit of a fantasist. Well, as her English teacher for the past three years, Maggie Lorimer had come to know that. Julie’s work was full of the kind of daydreaming quality shared by few of the other girls. But had it been more than that? Was there some sort of Walter Mitty aspect to the girl’s actual character? Did she really live in a fantasy world where she believed in her own daydreams? Maggie sat very still for a moment, considering this. If so, then Julie Donaldson had got herself and Eric into some very serious trouble for nothing more than a teenage delusion.

But what sort of daydreams had led the girl to Dawsholm Woods and into the arms of a killer?

DCI Lorimer listened to the voice on the line from Pitt Street. The email report would be coming in as soon as possible, he was being told, but they wanted him to have the forensic results right away.

He let the swivel chair rock him back and forwards for a few seconds as he contemplated this new piece of information. Traces of DNA matching the samples taken from both Kyle Kerrigan and Eric Chalmers had been found on Julie Donaldson’s clothing. But what did that really prove? The CCTV footage showed Kyle grappling with her, clutching the victim’s arm, so of course there would be traces. It had been a hot sunny day and the boy would have been sweating more than usual; his anger might also have increased the amount of perspiration on his own body. But Eric Chalmers? Why would he have left a trace on his pupil? Teachers weren’t supposed to touch their pupils. At all. Even grasping hold of them in anger could have the kids shouting ‘assault’. These days every last one of them seemed to know their human rights and sought to push them into the faces of anyone in authority. As a police officer who was also married to a schoolteacher, Lorimer was well aware of the repercussions of the least action from a teacher against a pupil. But had Chalmers seen Julie after his suspension? And if so, had he somehow left his DNA on her clothing?

Lorimer was left with the feeling that, despite this positive result, he was still unsure whether there was sufficient evidence to charge the RE teacher with murder.

‘Yes!’ John Weir punched the air as Lorimer read out the results of the DNA testing, his young face clearly delighted at the prospect of an immediate arrest.

‘We are still waiting for results from Chalmers’ car,’ Lorimer pointed out. ‘If these should come back negative we may have to rethink the man’s involvement.’

‘But he’s guilty!’ The words were out before the detective constable had time to stop himself.

‘And who decides that?’ Lorimer asked quietly. ‘A room full of tired officers or a jury of fifteen men and women?’ He was gratified to see the DC staring at him open-mouthed, an expression of disbelief in his eyes.

‘We mustn’t make any mistakes here,’ he added. ‘There’s a huge possibility that these killings have been done by the same person. And if that’s Eric Chalmers, I want evidence to link him to all three of them. Understood? We do a complete search of his house, interview his friends, his family and, yes, his church. I want everything to do with the man turned inside out and I won’t be satisfied with anything less than concrete evidence to show that he’s a killer. Recently, too many of our prime suspects have got away on a technicality involving DNA profiling, remember,’ he growled. ‘I don’t want that happening in this case.’

‘What about your profile, Dr Brightman?’ a voice asked. ‘Any joy there yet?’

Lorimer frowned. Solly was sitting in on this now, as part of the team, but the casual way this question had been asked annoyed the SIO. Some of them still felt that the psychologist’s presence was superfluous to their handling of the murder case, a belief Lorimer himself had once shared. But that was before he had come to value Dr Solomon Brightman’s insight into the minds of brutal killers.

‘If you are asking me whether I think Mr Chalmers fits the profile, then all I can say at this stage is that there are some inconsistencies with his personality and that of a murderer who has carefully thought out his method of killing and disposing of his victims. Not that Mr Chalmers lacks an organised mind,’ he continued, nodding his head so that his dark beard wagged sagely. ‘There may very well be a case for thinking that this man, whoever he is, has acted upon a trigger that sets off his actions. And since we do not yet have enough information about the schoolteacher’s mental state, it’s a bit difficult to completely rule him out.’