Alex Gray - Glasgow Kiss

‘Nancy,’ the child replied, one finger going into her mouth as a shy smile dimpled her cheeks.

‘What do you want?’ The woman was towering over Jo now, a look of fear in her eyes. ‘Come away into the house, Nancy. Granny’s got your milk and biscuits all ready,’ she scolded, one hand out to take the child off the swing.

But in a swift movement Jo had scooped Nancy up in her arms while that tall shadow lingering out of sight transformed itself into the familiar figure of DS Niall Cameron.

‘Miss Lorna Tulloch? DI Grant, Strathclyde Police. We’d like you to come with us, please.’

Later, Cameron would tell them about how strange that return journey had been. Nancy Fraser had been placed behind him next to DI Grant, the child’s car seat transferred from the ancient Mazda while Lorna Tulloch followed them in the police car behind, accompanied by the officers from Lochgilphead. They’d stopped at Inverary to let the child and her abductor use the toilet and it had been ‘Granny this’ and ‘Granny that’; the little girl seemed to have accepted the older woman quite naturally. Only when Jo Grant had reminded Nancy that she was going home to see Mummy did Lorna Tulloch’s gentle expression harden into something remote and unseeing, and Cameron had been filled with a strange sort of pity for the child’s abductor. Thereafter she had been silent, letting Jo and the child chatter to one another as they were led back to the cars taking them back towards Glasgow. There was no sense of triumph as they’d made that two-hour journey back in the early evening sunlight, he’d tell his colleagues. Simply a feeling of immense relief and an overwhelming anticipation to see mother and child reunited. They’d called Lorimer with the news so it wouldn’t only be Kim Fraser at HQ waiting for their arrival.

As he saw their cars swing through the gates of the police car park, Lorimer wondered what fate awaited the elderly woman. Just what was her story? That was something he’d want to know, despite the matter being pretty much out of their hands after today. Other people’s stories went on and what became of them could affect choices he might make in other cases in years to come. Lorna Tulloch was seriously delusional — of that there was absolutely no doubt — but, from what he’d been able to glean from Cameron, she’d taken good care of Nancy and the child had even seemed quite fond of this stranger who had claimed to be her grandmother.

There were more officers than usual lining the corridor where Kim Fraser waited to see her child, their eyes filled with the sort of emotion most people didn’t associate with hardened cops.

‘Nancy!’

‘Mummy!’

Lorimer saw DS Cameron and Jo Grant stop at the doorway, Miss Tulloch between them. He could see the woman’s thin arms hanging by her side, thin and old and brittle. A childless woman, drained of the sap of youth, she seemed shrunken and shrivelled into herself, her dark red gypsy hair curiously at odds with her pallid complexion. He’d shaken his head as Jo had produced the cuffs; there was no need to restrain her now.

As Kim Fraser hugged her child to her, crying, smoothing her hair and saying, Nancy, Nancy over and over again, she glanced up at Lorimer who was standing there, one hand on the older woman’s arm.

‘Is that?’ Kim left the question unfinished as she stared at the person who had caused her so much anguish over these past ten days. There was a sudden silence as the two women faced one another. Then Jo Grant nodded to a pair of uniformed officers to lead the prisoner away, and the moment was past.

‘You did it.’ Kim Fraser looked up at the DCI. ‘I knew you would, Mr Lorimer!’ The girl’s face was covered in tears but a huge smile shone through them as she hugged Nancy to her.

‘Not me, Kim. DI Grant, here, has been in charge of the case lately,’ he said. ‘And it was down to a whole team of people, I promise you,’ Lorimer assured her. ‘As well as a lot of good old-fashioned police work.’

Kim shook her head. ‘See if they newspaper folk ask me, I’m going to tell them. Youse didn’t give up on me, Mr Lorimer. Not once. And I cannae thank you all enough for bringing her back.’ The girl’s glance took in Jo, Cameron and the others who lingered still in the corridor.

Lorimer swallowed as Kim Fraser burst into a fresh bout of weeping.

Then Nancy piped up, ‘What’s wrong, Mammy? Are ye no pleased tae see me?’ Everyone laughed at the child’s innocent remark and Lorimer could see one or two of his officers wipe away a sudden tear.

‘It’s hard to believe.’ Lorimer shook his head, putting down the two case files with a thump.

Solly shrugged his shoulders; the vagaries of human nature came his way so often that very little seemed to surprise the psychologist. But it was one of those quirks of fate that the very case file he had originally shown the Detective Chief Inspector should be replicated by the woman from Jordanhill.

‘Never had any children of her own,’ Lorimer said, his voice betraying the sympathy he could not help but feel for Lorna Tulloch.

‘Nor have you and Maggie but that doesn’t make you want to go out and steal someone else’s child,’ Solly reasoned. ‘Normal, healthy people may fantasise about what having a child may be like but only a very few will act on that fantasy. She did believe that she was the child’s grandmother while they were together. But whether she is suffering from severe delusions or not is a matter for the clinical psychologists to decide.’

‘What do you think?’ Lorimer shot him a look.

‘I only saw her for a short while after your people brought her in. She was certainly withdrawn. Hard to tell if she was feeling guilt at her actions or pain at being bereft of the child with whom she had so obviously bonded.’

‘And what will happen to her now?’

‘Well, there are the charges of child abduction to deal with but she will be undergoing rigorous assessment prior to that. To see first of all if she is actually fit to plead.’

‘And is she?’

Solly shook his dark curls. ‘I doubt it. Her previous psychiatric history suggests a personality that simply cannot cope with certain aspects of reality.’

‘But she could drive a car, look after two homes, plan a child abduction!’ Lorimer protested.

‘Yes,’ Solly agreed. ‘And once she had the child she was perfectly happy, taking care of her, playing with her as a real grandmother would have done. In fact,’ he mused, ‘she may have given that little girl a nice break from city life.’

‘How can you say that! The poor wee thing must have been distraught at being taken away and parted from her mother. I know Kim Fraser was beside herself with anxiety.’

‘Small children adapt far more quickly than you might imagine,’ Solly told him mildly. ‘And your DI did say that the child seemed to be well cared for and not fearful in any way.’

It was true, Lorimer thought. The woman might have committed a terrible crime by snatching Nancy Fraser, but she had shown genuine affection for the little girl and there were no signs that she had harmed her in any way. What had it been like for Nancy the day she had been abducted, though? Had she screamed and cried out? Had she sobbed herself to sleep on the first night, missing her own mummy? That was something they might never know.

Solly smiled at him. ‘Nancy’s fit and well. There are no little bodies buried in the woods. And Lorna Tulloch will be taken care of by those who know what is best for her future.’

Despite the benign expression on Solly’s face, Lorimer shuddered. It had been a case where his expectations had been to find the child dead somewhere, the victim of child molesters, perhaps. Or worse, not finding her at all, leaving that young mother in the never-ending hell of uncertainty.