Alex Gray - Glasgow Kiss

Kyle Kerrigan was crossing the playground from the PE block when the dark blue Lexus drove through the gates and curved up towards the staff car park. Following it with his eyes, the boy watched as a familiar figure emerged and closed the car door. He was supposed to be taking a message for Finnegan, but curiosity mingled with an idea that he’d been harbouring for days now made Kyle turn on his heel and follow the Detective Chief Inspector to the main entrance.

‘You’ve got to buzz them if you don’t know the right numbers to press. The teachers have all got cards that let them in, see?’

Lorimer looked down at the boy who had suddenly emerged by his side. That was Kyle Kerrigan, wasn’t it? The policeman tried to conceal his shock but it was too late.

‘Bit of a mess, eh?’ Kyle attempted a lopsided grin as he fingered his swollen face.

‘Not something that happened inside the boxing ring, I suppose?’ Lorimer remarked grimly, his hand falling to his side. ‘Who did this to you, Kyle? Your old man?’

‘Aye, well, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that, Mr Lorimer. See-’ The boy reddened suddenly and stopped.

‘What is it, Kyle? If there’s anything I can do to help. .’

‘See, at the police station? Remember I had that swab? Well, is there any chance you could see if my father,’ Kyle swallowed hard, ‘is really my father?’ The boy dropped his head and continued in a mutter, ‘Because he says he isn’t.’

Lorimer had glimpsed the appeal in those grey eyes despite the fact that they were almost closed against bruised, puffy lids. This mattered to the boy, it mattered a lot.

‘If we have his DNA on record it wouldn’t be too difficult to make a comparison, Kyle. But I’m afraid it’s out of the question for me to give you that sort of information.’

‘Oh.’ The boy dropped his gaze, looking so suddenly forlorn that Lorimer wished he could give this boy what he was asking.

‘If you had your birth certificate. .’ he began.

‘Yes,’ the boy said simply. ‘That’s what my big brother said I should look for. I just thought something coming from the police would make him leave me alone, you see.’

Lorimer nodded. ‘Good luck, then.’

‘Oh, and it’s 1066 you press.’ Kyle nodded towards the door once more. ‘Battle of Hastings. I’m no supposed to know that, but I do,’ he said, trying to drop a wink but grimacing instead.

Lorimer watched him walk away. What was life like for all the Kyle Kerrigans of this world, brutalised by the very person who was supposed to provide care and affection? Barbara Cassidy would do well to make a feature out of that, rather than creating a media frenzy over a man who had yet to be accused of murder.

And that was something else he’d have to find time to do: begin an internal inquiry into how certain information had come to be leaked to the press in the first place.

Muirpark Secondary was like every other school in the country; any visitor had to report first to the reception desk and be given a security pass, never mind if he was a top police officer or not. As Lorimer clipped the plastic badge to his lapel, Keith Manson emerged from his office, a worried frown upon his fleshy face.

‘Jessica’s with your wife in the guidance office,’ Manson told him. ‘Come with me.’ Lorimer followed him, matching the shorter man’s eager stride along the blue-walled corridor.

Jessica King looked up as they entered the room. Lorimer could see that she’d been crying but the pale face appeared composed and had lost none of the haunting quality of ethereal beauty that Maggie had earlier tried to describe.

‘She’s stunning,’ his wife had told him. ‘But entirely unaware of her own effect on people. Men especially,’ she’d added.

But after a few questions it was clear that the Detective Chief Inspector was keen to concentrate not on the girl’s ordeal but upon the one thing that might make a difference — some of the photographs taken as the car had slowed down outside Jessica King’s home.

‘Thanks. We’ll be able to check this against anyone known to us,’ he told the girl. ‘And don’t worry. If he’s in our system, he won’t be bothering you again.’

‘Nice,’ Jo Grant remarked, turning her head as they passed a lone buzzard observing the world from its perch on top of a fence post. ‘Haven’t been in this part of the world before.’

‘Thought you were an Argyll lass,’ Cameron remarked.

‘Well, my mother lived in Tobermory, but she came to the city before I was born,’ Jo explained. ‘I’m not a real islander like yourself.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ Cameron murmured, the lilt in his voice more marked than usual, as if being closer to home heightened his Lewis accent.

‘Right, maybe we’ll be able to see it today,’ Cameron said shyly, glancing sideways at Jo Grant as he slowed the car down into a lay-by at the top of a hill. He stopped, let the windows roll down, then, reaching into the glove compartment, he drew out a small pair of powerful binoculars and trained them on the glittering seas below. For a moment neither of them spoke, then, ‘Yes, have a look at that.’ Cameron offered his companion the binoculars and Jo Grant obediently looked out to the shapes of islands beyond the water.

‘Ireland,’ he said. ‘Not often you can make it out but on a clear day like this. . Jura, Ghigha and Islay, do you see it?’

Jo Grant murmured that she did, before settling the glasses on her lap. Then the magic moment was over and the car was making its way carefully downhill to the lush, wooded region where the small village lay.

Even as they parked at Kilberry Inn, they could see the cottage on the other side of the road, a white car sitting on a patch of gravel under a stand of pine trees.

Niall Cameron looked across at DI Grant, watching her expression intently. ‘D’you think?’

‘Well, we’re about to find out, aren’t we?’ she replied, pulling the binoculars over her head in an attempt to appear just like a normal tourist out birdwatching.

Walking down the short slope towards the whitewashed cottage, Cameron felt the late afternoon sun warming his back and suddenly he understood why this woman had chosen the remote Argyll village as her bolthole. A sense of peace pervaded the area with the sound of water trickling in the burn that separated the cottage from the adjoining field, the scent of meadowsweet wafting from its mossy banks and the cloud of midges dancing under the shadow of the pines. If he closed his eyes for a moment he could be back home.

It was the child that they heard first, their feet suddenly immobile on the edge of the road. A glance between them and a nod was all that was needed. Cameron would remain here at the front door by the car, the same white Mazda that little Sally MacIlwraith had spotted back in Glasgow, while DI Grant followed that sound of childish laughter.

As she approached the back of the house, Jo saw that it contained a square patch of grass bordered on three sides by a flagstone path. There, in the middle of the garden, a little girl was being pushed on a green plastic swing by an older woman who could easily have been taken for her grandmother. She’d seen countless pictures of the missing child yet DI Grant still screwed up her eyes against the sunlight to be sure that it really was Nancy Fraser. The woman’s henna-red hair lifted in the breeze, revealing a weathered face covered in a tracery of broken veins, the skin of her neck sagging as she bent forwards.

‘Hello.’ Jo smiled as she walked towards them, noting the older woman’s back suddenly stiffening and the way her hands clutched the two chains of the swing to bring it to an abrupt halt. ‘Can you help me, please? I was looking for someone but I’ve kind of lost my way,’ she continued, still stepping towards the woman and the little girl who was now looking uncertainly from one grown-up to the other. Jo grinned at her then hunkered down to the child’s level. ‘Hello, you’re a lovely wee lass, what’s your name?’ she asked before the woman had time to intervene.