Alex Gray - Sleep like the dead

'True, but let's not abandon this till we've seen the rest of upstairs,' Fathy answered, moving towards the doorway. 'I'm willing to bet that the bathroom and the spare bedroom are equally shipshape, but maybe we should take a minute to see if there's anything else unusual. Like Lorimer said, look for what should be there but isn't.'

'Already looked in the bathroom and guess what I didn't find?'

Fathy looked blank.

'No condoms. No spare toothbrush. Nothing. It's as if the bloke had been a hermit.'

'But he had a relationship with that woman, Frances Donnelly,' Fathy said.

'Aye, but it doesn't look as if he ever brought her back home, does it?'

'Weird,' Fathy said at last. 'Unless she only came round to do a bit of housework?' he added.

'You think the girlfriend would come round and make up his bed after he'd been killed here?' Cameron's tone was sceptical.

'No, suppose not. But it seems odd that anyone would do a thing like that, doesn't it? 1 mean, it doesn't fit with what we know about him.'

'And what's that?' Cameron asked, folding his arms and looking at the younger man with interest. 'What sort of a person do you think he was?'

'Frighteningly tidy, and I'm willing to bet he suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. And he was a very private person,'

Fathy decided. 'Doesn't that make you wonder if there was something he wanted to hide from the outside world?'

Annie Irvine stood outside the high-rise flat, wondering how often she had been in this situation before. Send Irvine, she could hear the voice clearly. Any voice. It didn't really matter who was in authority, they seemed to recognise that here was a woman who would be useful in keeping a veneer of calm whilst distraught relatives gave vent to their emotion. The front door that had once been some shade of red was scuffed from repeated kicks and knocks and there was a faint smell in the corridor that might have been cat pee. The whole place was redolent of despair and neglect, she thought. Lorimer had often ranted about the iniquity of the skyscraper flats, wondering why on earth these planners from the sixties had thought it a good idea to upend streets and leave them hanging in the air like this.

She looked up at DS Alistair Wilson, seeing more than the thinning dark hair and the worn leather jacket. He was a middle-aged cop, a family man whose years in the force had given him a hard bitten edge. But Annie had always known Wilson as a policeman whose humanity lay just under the surface of that outward gruffness.

Too many cops became inured to the suffering of others, but, like Lorimer, Wilson wasn't one of them. `Whityewantini?' A large woman had suddenly appeared in the doorway, eyeing them suspiciously. Her wild shock of grey hair looked as though several birds might have roosted in it overnight and her pink T-shirt hung loosely over a pair of unsupported breasts. Annie stared for a moment then realised that the woman had probably just got out of bed even though it was early in the afternoon.

'Mrs Galbraith?' Wilson was proffering his warrant card for her to examine and, as the woman peered at it short-sightedly, he took a step towards her. 'Detective Sergeant Wilson, Detective Constable Irvine. We're here to see you about your son.'

Three quarters of an hour and two pots of tea later Annie found herself out in the fresh air once more.

'Christ!' Wilson swore as they walked across to the car park.

'How does she do it? One fag after another!' he exclaimed. `Betty'll create tonight when I walk in smelling like this,' he added.

'Never mind how she does it, how can she afford to smoke like that?' Irvine retorted. 'No husband around and existing on benefits,' she exclaimed. 'Still, maybe it's what's keeping her going.

That and tannin.' She grimaced. 'How many teabags d'you reckon were in each pot?'

Wilson took a deep breath, face towards the sky. 'Whew, that's better. My poor lungs were fit to burst in there. Anyway, young lady, what do you think? Reckon we're any further forward after speaking to Gubby's old mum?'

Irvine shook her head as they approached the car. 'No. She obviously didn't see him much. Still hell of a shock to find your boy's been blown away by some mad gunman, isn't it?'

'Aye,' Wilson replied. 'I know some who would say: she'll get over it, her type always do, but here's a thing. She's a mother and mothers never get over losing their kids, no matter how estranged they might have been.'

The Detective Sergeant's words stayed with Annie on the journey to Langside where Fraser Sandiman's father lived. In contrast to the Galbraith home, his was positively middle class. The short terrace of town houses ended in a narrow cul-de-sac, forcing Wilson to manoeuvre the car with some difficulty so that it was facing back out towards Langside Avenue.

The appearance of the houses was deceptive, however, and as they drew closer to the Sandiman house, they could see that many of the properties had been split into flats. Some had annual plants brightening up the patches on either side of the steep front steps but at number eleven it looked as though its residents had lost heart long ago. Here the tiny front gardens were choked with long grass and summer weeds, rose bay willow herb blowing its feathery seeds skywards.

'Wonder what else they're growing down there,' Wilson joked, motioning towards the overgrown plots.

'If it was cannabis they'd be taking a lot more care of it,' Irvine muttered.

There were five names on a list by the security buzzers, Sandiman being the only one properly typed and slotted into its metal plate. The rest were scribbled but legible, possibly evidence that the residents were mostly students who would have shorter tenancies.

In answer to Wilson pressing the buzzer Irvine heard a crackle then a man's voice asking, 'Who is it now?'

There was no mistaking the irritation in that tone and the two officers exchanged a glance before Wilson answered, 'Strathclyde Police.' "Fop floor,' the voice said and they stepped into a darkened hallway as the door clicked open.

Charles Sandiman was waiting for them at his door. Irvine saw a tall man with a military bearing and a small, grizzled moustache.

He looked at them fiercely, eyeing them as though they were officers on parade to be inspected, then stood aside. 'You'd better come in,' he said.

'It's about Fraser,' Irvine told him as they entered a large lounge that overlooked the street. She resisted the impulse to touch the man's arm. Talking about the death of his son was surely going to be as painful for this man as it was for any mother?

It was Annie who made the tea in this home, allowing DS Wilson to fill the father in on how his son had been killed. She left the two of them sitting side by side, the father gazing unseeing out of the window as Wilson tried to engage him in some form of conversation.

From the adjacent kitchen she could then hear the detective sergeant's voice explaining why they had to come, why questions about Fraser's background had to be asked. But until she re-entered the room, bringing a tray with mugs and a plate of digestive biscuits, the man did not say a word.

As she approached, Sandiman stood up, a mark of courtesy that she recognised as belonging to gentlemen of a different generation.

Or class, Annie reminded herself, thinking of Omar. But his stiff-backed stance was probably from years of that military background.

'We're looking for William Brogan, sir,' Wilson said. 'To help us with our enquiries,' he added.

'Never met the man. Knew he was one of ours, though,'

Sandiman said gruffly.

'You were an army officer, sir?' Irvine asked.

'Black Watch,' Sandi tnan replied, adding, 'before they rearranged us into a battalion!' He spat the word out as though it had a bad taste. 'Best regiment there was. Top Brass never get it right, though,' he added bitterly. 'Didn't then and aren't doing so now,' he shook his head angrily.