Craig Robertson - Random

He didn’t stop to think what it meant, that someone else had been murdered, that another innocent life had been snatched away. Nor did he pause to worry about the moral quicksand he was swimming in. Imrie knew who I was. No one could have been capable of giving him that information other than the killer. The real killer.

He made it far too easy for me.

Alec Kirkwood was different. He had all sorts of questions that I wouldn’t answer. He demanded to know who I was and how I knew what I was telling him. He swore and he threatened. He wanted to know why the timing was so important. Said he’d be there when it suited him not me. I made it clear though. If he wanted the man who had killed Spud Tierney and the others then he had to be at the address I gave him at the time I gave him. No argument. It had to be then or he wouldn’t get him. Did he want him? He did.

The people who answered the hotline in Lewington’s incident room wanted him too. Wanted him enough not to ask too many questions other than the pertinent ones. The where and the when. They didn’t ask the why. I was told my call would be treated in the strictest confidence and that I may be eligible for a reward. My voice was muffled and disguised when I called all three of them. They all got what they wanted.

Of course I thought about calling Narey, giving the prize to her rather than Lewington. But Rachel was too smart. She would have given a gift horse a dental examination and an X-ray. If she was to have been there when Lewington got Kirkwood got Imrie then it had to have been at Lewington’s invitation.

The party was arranged. The invitations had been sent. Jelly and ice cream for all.

Irony. I’d been an uninvited guest in Imrie’s flat in Observatory Road for nearly three years. I knew his shifts, knew his patterns, his movements. I knew the layout of that flat like I knew my own house. I could find my way round his flat in total darkness, taking no more than a few minutes to get used to the lack of light and being able to navigate by the streetlight alone.

I had followed him and watched him just as I had tracked the others. I knew Keith Imrie better than he knew himself. It had taken two months before I got my chance. So many pubs, so many restaurants and cafes, cinemas and theatres. I followed that shallow, morally bankrupt bastard from east to west, north to south. Finally one Saturday afternoon in Tennent’s Bar on Byres Road, the opportunity was there.

The pub was packed, loud and jumping with football fans, crazy with simmering hatred. Imrie was off his face drunk and so were the people he was with. I was near enough to stone cold sober to make no difference. It was the easiest thing in the world to take his key from his jacket pocket. Goal to Rangers and an open goal for me.

I was out of the pub, in and out of the key-cutting bar and back into Tennent’s before he knew it had gone. I slipped the key back into his jacket and finished my pint. I watched Imrie for a while, burning my eyes into him, resisting the urge to punch his head in. It would wait. It would be better.

After that I could get into his flat when it suited me. I waited another month before I first went there, until I was sure he hadn’t realized his key had been taken, sure that he’d be working and not coming home any time soon. His work made it all too easy. Imrie could be relied upon to be out of his flat when everyone else was asleep or otherwise occupied. That was handy.

He wasn’t too bright either. You’d think if you were going to have a flat in the west end you would get an alarm fitted. You really couldn’t be too careful. Some very dodgy people about.

I didn’t go there often. Just when I needed or when it suited. Maybe just five times in all. To take stuff and to leave stuff. He was too stupid to even notice I had been. But then I’d always known he was stupid. Stupid and arrogant and cold and heartless and mercenary and deceitful and dishonest.

When he wrote those words about my Sarah I wanted to kill him. There and then I wanted to strangle him to death with my bare hands. I wanted to cut off his fingers and rip out his throat. Wanted to destroy the liar and the tools of his lying.

How could he do that?

I wanted him to suffer like I had. Wanted him to know what it was like. He couldn’t have written what he did if he had known my pain. He couldn’t have written those words if he was a decent human being.

‘ Erratic behaviour ’.

‘ Mucking around ’.

‘ Unfortunate accident ’.

Maybe another person wouldn’t have reacted the way I did. But they are not me and I am not them. When Keith Imrie wrote that article he may as well have signed his own death warrant.

Of course I couldn’t have been sure what would happen to Imrie when I set out to frame him but there was no regret. Kirkwood’s unwelcome appearance in my plans gave me opportunity. I already had all the motive I needed.

How could he do that?

Her fault. He as good as said so. That hideous interview with Wallace Ogilvie’s wife. Defending the indefensible.

It was much later that I learned of Imrie’s motives, the grubby motives of a grubby little man. He didn’t know Ogilvie but knew someone that knew him very well. A contact of Imrie’s inside the council was a friend and close business associate of Ogilvie’s. This contact fed Imrie tip-offs, told him about contracts up for grabs and who was doing what to get them. Told him about the movers and shakers and what they were up to. Who was shagging who, who was bribing who, who owed who and why. Supplied him with enough information to allow a struggling hack to get out of the court and council circuit and onto the front page.

Such information always comes at a price though. A favour owed, a debt due, a soul sold. That is how Wallace Ogilvie drunken murderer became painted as a pillar of the community, a man who did so much for charity and made one small error of judgement, paying a terrible price for the actions of a wayward girl. Daily Record. Thursday, 7 February 2004. Page 7.

Wife defends convicted fundraiser

By Keith Imrie, Chief Reporter THE WIFE of Wallace Ogilvie, the prominent businessman facing jail for his involvement in a tragic accident which claimed the life of a young girl, has spoken out in defence of her husband. Marjorie Ogilvie has told of her husband’s anguish after he was found guilty of being over the legal blood alcohol limit when his car struck 11-year-old pedestrian Sarah Reynolds in August last year. Mr Ogilvie was also found guilty of death by dangerous driving. Sheriff Robert Burke has deferred sentence awaiting background reports. ‘My husband is most definitely not the type to drink and drive,’ she said. ‘Wallace frequently attends business lunches so some measure of entertainment is inevitable but he is not irresponsible. He might have a glass of wine or perhaps a whisky to be sociable. It is part of his job. But he wouldn’t have more than that. I think someone must have spiked his drink or perhaps the barman poured the wrong measure by mistake. ‘My husband is an important member of this community and does substantial work for charity. It is very unfair that he is being prosecuted, I would go as far as to say persecuted, over this unfortunate accident. ‘My heart goes out to the family of this young girl but I do have to wonder why they are so insistent on this being dragged through the courts. I feel that it is probably a feeling of guilt on their part that is making them do it. ‘We are parents too and we know that you cannot watch them 24 hours a day. However we would certainly not have let ours run wild and unsupervised at that age. Perhaps her parents are wondering whether their daughter would still be alive if she had been brought up better and taught the simple rules of road safety.’ It is understood that Mr Ogilvie, who had held a clean driving licence for 27 years, had little chance to avoid hitting the girl who was in the middle of the road. The Daily Record spoke to a witness to the accident who preferred to remain anonymous. ‘It was a terrible thing. The girl ran into the road and the car didn’t have a chance to stop. I think she was mucking around with her friends. Some of the kids round here are a bit wild. The girl was killed right away. The poor guy driving the car was distraught but he couldn’t have done anything about it.’ Ronald Cooke, spokesman for the Motorist’s Association, said that drivers were increasingly paying a heavy price for the ‘erratic behaviour’ of pedestrians. ‘Clearly we cannot condone drink driving,’ he said. ‘But there is also a responsibility on other road users to avoid accidents. Motorists have a right to expect pedestrians to obey the laws of the road. ‘We have seen incidents where children and young adults have blatantly put their own lives at risk with their erratic behaviour. They are also endangering the lives of drivers and putting them in positions where accidents cannot be avoided.’ Mrs Ogilvie said that her husband was anxious to avoid a jail sentence, as it would seriously hinder his charity work. ‘Wallace does so much good work for local children’s charities and it would break his heart not to be able to continue with that. He is not worried about prison for his own sake but he has projects which are at a vital stage and he is so worried that they will fail without him. There is so much money at stake and it would be terrible if the children missed out. ‘We are hopeful that the judge will use common sense and impose perhaps a community service order. That would allow Wallace to devote even more time to helping people and surely that would be of more benefit to everyone.’ The family of Sarah Reynolds were unavailable for comment.