Pitch Black lab-5 Page 14

  The house seemed too quiet. There was no sound from outside, no children shouting, no strimmers buzzing their way around neighbouring lawns, nothing to disturb the silence of her home, just the muffled purring of her cat. But today Maggie would have welcomed some reminder of human existence. Her immediate pals were all away, Mum was off on a senior citizens’ bus run and she couldn’t think of anyone to phone for a chat. Maggie tried to imagine what her friends might be doing on holiday. With their families. Playing by the fringes of continental beaches, perhaps, or exploring the delights of art galleries and museums? If she’d had that first child, it would be twelve years old by now, she mused. But there had been no first baby or second, or third. In the early days they’d always said three kids would be great. But none had survived the early stages of pregnancy and now there would never be any wee faces to look at and see whose features they’d inherited.

  The art galleries aren’t just for families, she thought suddenly. And it will be cool in there, away from this blistering heat. Chancer made a meow of protest as she stood up and let him slip from her knees. That’s what she’d do, Maggie decided. She’d go and see some other old friends, ones she’d neglected for far too long: the Monets and Rembrandts, for instance. It would also take her mind off Rosie Fergusson. And that was what she really wanted, wasn’t it? The idea of Rosie lying there between life and death was simply too horrible to bear.

  *

  Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum had undergone a transformation in recent years with a new educational facility and basement restaurant, not to mention the revamped exhibition areas. Maggie had been one of the first to visit it after its reopening, a day full of families with excited children pointing at Sir Roger the huge stuffed elephant and the cheetah and the penguins, as well as the Spitfire suspended from the gallery’s ceiling.

  Today it was quieter. Several mothers with wee ones in buggies were in evidence but for the most part it seemed as if Kelvingrove was playing host to visitors from overseas. A gaggle of Asian tourists with their cameras slung around their necks passed Maggie as she made her way along the corridor towards the Dali. It was good to have it back home, she thought. St Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art had given it a glorious place of honour for a few years but Christ of St John of the Cross belonged here, within the sanctuary of the city’s famous old galleries.

  Maggie Lorimer gave a sigh. It was easy to lose oneself inside that painting; the shores of the Sea of Galilee looked so cool, and inviting, the Christ’s eyes on the land below, arms stretched out to encompass his little world. You didn’t feel the pain, Maggie thought. It wasn’t like those paintings designed to horrify with an emaciated figure hanging like a bloodless corpse, with ashen-faced women mooning around. No, this was different. It spoke of a triumph over death, the cross almost floating away to heaven as you gazed and gazed.

  ‘You wouldn’t think that such a death could have been so beautiful,’ a voice remarked.

  Maggie turned, startled at the words. She’d been so lost in her contemplation of the painting that she’d failed to notice another person step up beside her. A man of around her own age was looking at the Dali, not at her. And what was that accent? Canadian, she decided. Maggie nodded, unsure of how she was expected to reply, for it was beautiful, the landscape a masterpiece, the Christ figure utterly compelling.

  ‘First time you’ve seen it too, huh?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘No. I’ve known this painting all of my life,’ she said.

  ‘That so? You’re one lucky lady, then. It’s taken me a pretty long time to make my way to this place.’

  Maggie smiled. ‘Worth waiting for?’

  ‘You bet!’ the Canadian replied, turning his gaze away from the painting to appraise the woman who stood by his side.

  What were those green eyes seeing, Maggie wondered: a Scottish woman, well past her youth but still with a girlish figure, her dark unruly tresses falling below her shoulders? Or did he see the faint lines around her eyes and mouth, that yearning look that she sometimes glimpsed when she caught sight of herself in a mirror? Whatever it was, his expression seemed to tell her that he liked what he saw and Maggie experienced an unexpected thrill of pleasure.

  ‘This might be a little forward,’ the Canadian began, ‘but would you let me buy you a coffee? I’d love to hear what you think of our friend here.’ He nodded back towards the picture. Maggie thought about it for a moment. Did he mean to begin a discourse on Christ? Was he a religious nut of some kind? But no, surely he meant the painting, Dali’s fabulous masterpiece, rather than its subject? Besides, it was only a coffee and the man’s voice suggested a cultured background that might be fun to explore.

  ‘Yes, thank you. Coffee would be fine,’ she replied at last, her eyes meeting his, noting how they crinkled in delighted satisfaction.

  Maggie grinned back, suddenly, half-shocked at herself. Was she being picked up? Never go away with strange men, she thought to herself, laughingly. And surely a policeman’s wife should know better!

  ‘There’s a place on the ground floor,’ the Canadian began.

  ‘The basement will be quieter,’ Maggie told him firmly. ‘And cooler,’ she added. He stopped and half-turned towards her, hand outstretched. ‘Forgetting my manners,’ he began. ‘Alan Osborne.’

  Maggie returned the handshake, feeling his fingers strong and warm. ‘Mrs Lorimer,’ she said, immediately adding ‘Maggie’, aware of how formal she sounded — like being back in the classroom.

  ‘Well, Maggie Lorimer. What can you tell me about Salvador Dali’s painting?’

  Alan Osborne was sitting opposite her, stirring his coffee (black, no sugar, Maggie noticed), his eyes twinkling again, leaving her unsure about where his interest really lay. They’d indulged in a bout of small talk while waiting for their coffees and Maggie had found out that he was a professor of logic and semantics at McGill University. Her teaching career seemed to interest him, though, especially her sojourn in Florida schools. But now the Canadian was back to where they had started, with the Dali.

  ‘Well, it’s been about a bit over the years. It was slashed by a fanatic a long time ago, then repaired.’ She frowned. ‘I remember being told about it but I think the damage was done before I was born.’ And I’m not telling you how old I am, she thought swiftly. ‘Then it was here for years and years before being moved to another museum in town. Have you been on a Glasgow tour bus?’

  ‘Sure have. Found out a heap of things from a very interesting tour guide.’

  ‘Do you remember Glasgow Cathedral and St Mungo’s Museum? That was where the Christ of St John of the Cross went for a while. Now it’s back here,’ she said fondly.

  ‘Okay.’ Alan Osborne sipped his coffee. ‘But what does it mean to you, apart from being a bit of your city’s history?’

  Maggie cocked her head to one side as if unsure of his drift.

  ‘I saw that look on your face. That’s what stopped me in my tracks. I said to myself, Here’s someone who can see into this painting.’

  ‘What sort of look?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Like … supplication, I suppose you’d call it. Like you were asking that figure for a big favour.’

  Maggie shivered suddenly, remembering the pact she’d made with God that morning.

  ‘Cold?’ Alan Osborne put out his hand and brushed her fingers gently.

  She shook her head, drawing her hands back under the table. ‘No, just a bit surprised. I wasn’t aware of letting my feelings show back there,’ she began. ‘A friend of mine had an accident — a bad car smash — she’s not in a good shape.’ Maggie bit her lip, astonished at the powerful emotion welling up inside her.

  ‘That’s too bad,’ the Canadian murmured. ‘Hard on you, too. Not being able to do anything for her, I guess.’

  Maggie nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘Know what it says to me?’ the man continued, his voice low and gentle. ‘That painting tells me that death isn’t as bad as it’s m
ade out to be. And maybe there’s more good stuff still to come …’ He paused.

  ‘Do you have any experience of beautiful deaths, then?’ Maggie asked, trying to keep her tone light.

  ‘As a matter of fact I have, Mrs Lorimer. My wife died in my arms three years ago. A beautiful experience I’ll never forget. Brain tumour,’ he added.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Maggie mumbled.

  ‘Don’t be. We had some great times together and memories that’ll never die. Not unless I succumb to old-timer’s disease,’ he joked.

  ‘My husband has a lot of experience of death too,’ Maggie said suddenly.

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He’s a policeman, Mr Osborne. He solves murder cases,’ Maggie replied, looking her companion straight in the eye. ‘And none of them ever seem to be beautiful at all.’

  CHAPTER 23

  ‘Would you look at this.’ Lorimer moved to one side, enabling his colleague to see the computer screen. ‘We’ve got a reply.’

  Alistair Wilson pulled at the knot on his tie. The DCI’s room was a bit cooler than his own; a desk fan ruffled a pile of papers that were kept from flying away by a bit of quartz-crazed pink rock that Lorimer had brought back from his holiday.

  ‘So it was a nutter, then?’ Wilson murmured, looking at the response to the purported killer.

  Have you absolutely no respect? Idiots like you should be barred from Kelvin.

  ‘There’s more,’ added Lorimer.

  Do you not think that Mr Kennedy has enough to think about without fools like you making stupid threats? Get a life, will you! From: A real Kelvin fan.

  ‘He’s saying exactly what we think, isn’t he? Some daft kid’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. There’s no way we can trace a sender. Looks like our irate fan will nip that nonsense in the bud, though, doesn’t it?’ Lorimer replied.

  ‘Why d’you think their manager was so upset by it, though?’

  Lorimer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows? I got the impression Ron Clark was a bit tense when I met him. Not surprising, under the circumstances. Losing two key players like that …’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I will say this, though, he seemed to have a bit of a guilty conscience about the referee.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Nothing sinister, at least I doubt it. Just a case of wishing he’d left certain things unsaid after the match. My guess is he had a real go at Cartwright then felt bad about it after the man’s death.’

  ‘Aye, who wouldn’t,’ agreed Wilson. ‘Well, where do we go from here?’

  ‘Any luck yet in tracing the person Tam Baillie called?’

  ‘Nope. He’d received an email from someone who was definitely not Pat Kennedy, instructing him to call when Jason White turned up at the club. Why he hadn’t spotted that it wasn’t Kennedy’s usual email address, God alone knows. Technical support reckons it was probably sent from an internet cafe. And the number he was asked to phone has drawn a blank.’

  Lorimer leaned back, still gazing towards the computer screen as if somehow he could draw inspiration from it. Where do we go from here? Wilson’s words seemed to ring in Lorimer’s ears. That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? He felt uneasy about using a psychological profiler that he didn’t know and trust, especially after working so closely with Solly Brightman. They were just going to have to tackle this case with all the other means at their disposal. Had it been a case of multiple killings with the same MO there might have been some sense in having the case screened on Crimewatch. They got results from time to time, after all. But this case was so full of twists, he just couldn’t see his way forward.

  ‘How’s Dr Fergusson?’ Wilson ventured.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Lorimer answered shortly. He had to keep thoughts of Rosie from his mind. Concentrating on three murders was all he could cope with right now.

  Wilson nodded. The closed face staring ahead of him could have suggested a hard, unfeeling officer to anyone who didn’t know him. There was real suffering under that grim exterior. For a moment the Detective Sergeant was tempted to place a hand on his boss’s shoulder, but he resisted. They had to pretend a strength they might not feel — it was par for the course in this job, sometimes.

  Fingers tapped on the relevant keys to enter Kelvin FC’s unofficial website then rested limply against the edge of the table while words formed upon the screen. Idiot, the fan had written. Fool. Well, perhaps it was best that way. The fingers came together in a handclasp, thumbs tapping together, considering. If everyone else, including the police, thought this was the work of a crank then Patrick Kennedy would have lost any chance of protection, wouldn’t he? The hands unclasped slowly then one formed the shape of a gun, two fingers pointing towards the screen.

  ‘Bang!’ said a voice, then the mock barrel was raised, and fingertips blown gently from lips that curled into a smile.

  CHAPTER 24

  He was coming after her again. This time the knife was in his hand and he turned it this way and that, to make her see the overhead light glancing off the blade. He was smiling, eyes bright with malice, sandy hair flopping over his forehead, that white sports top accentuating his golden tan. Janis thought she’d never seen him look so good, but it was a dispassionate appraisal: there was no flicker of desire, no bits tingling. That was something she’d stopped feeling long ago.

  The sound of a key turning in the lock made her eyes open. For one panic-stricken moment Janis imagined he was back, coming in to get her, then she lay back on her narrow bed, relieved to remember where she was. It was all right. She was safe in Cornton Vale, though for how much longer?

  A patch of brightness shone opposite the window, heralding yet another sunny day. It wasn’t so bad, Janis thought. She’d imagined being incarcerated within a tiny cell all day, every day, but the reality was quite different. In some ways it was like being back at school with a timetable to follow, educational classes to attend and a decent gymnasium. The women were even split into different houses and placed on work teams like laundry or kitchen duties. It wasn’t all hard graft. Already she’d been to beauty therapy and hair-dressing sessions run by the inmates themselves.

  ‘No whit ye’re used tae, hen,’ the woman who combed out Janis’s wet hair had remarked. But there had been nothing bitchy in her tone and Janis had just smiled and shrugged.

  ‘See when ah git oot o’ here, ah’m gonnae open ma ain salon,’ the hairdresser had told her. Janis had made some innocuous reply but later she’d been surprised to learn that it was true. The woman was being given a prison grant to start up her own hairdressing business.

  There had been lots to wonder at in this place. Many of the girls were self-confessed junkies, repeat offenders who were glad of the chance to get clean in the sanctuary of Cornton Vale prison. Their life outside was what really trapped them, not this institution. A lot of them looked like wee lassies and Janis was appalled to find that some had been mothers three times over. She’d blanked out her feelings whenever they went on about the weans; her miscarriages were out in the public domain now that the papers had a hold of her story. But the women seemed sensitive enough not to pry. They might find out what you were in for, but it was an unspoken rule not to ask questions. Some of them were just poor souls who were caught in a spiral of theft or prostitution to feed their drug habit and pay their dealer. Funnily enough, they were the easiest ones to talk to, once they’d come out of their self-enforced lock-up.

  Janis was allowed out into the grounds every day now. The gardens were extensive and well maintained by the women themselves. At first she had been wary of these hard-faced women with their hoes and spades but none of them ever brandished their tools as weapons as she’d imagined they might. She walked past them each day, keeping her eyes close to the gravel pathway before finding sanctuary in what was called the family centre. In reality this was a chapel where services were conducted by a friendly priest, Father Joe, but behind the main hall that doubled
as a spare classroom was a series of smaller rooms that were kept especially for family visits. Mums would have time to see their children in these bright, toy-filled rooms and for a time it would seem almost like a church crèche. They put on a brave face, these mothers, but once the visits were over Janis had seen them suffer inconsolable storms of weeping. More than once Janis had felt a strong compulsion to reach out and give them a hug, but she’d controlled these urges, fearing the consequences of what a physical touch might bring.

  There were other surprises, too. The idea of prison brought with it an image of stern guards who could mete out punishments at random. She’d been frightened of them at first, these officers in black, chained to bunches of jangling keys, but gradually Janis had come to recognise their humanity. Most had a sense of humour and could josh with the girls just as easily as they might restrain them. The members of the medical staff were far and away the best, perhaps because of their different uniforms and the fact that they were there to make the women feel better. Janis had been amused by one nurse who had a predilection for brightly coloured tunics with cartoon animals. It seemed to work, though, and the younger women were more relaxed with her than any other health official.

  She lay looking at the light shift around the room. In some ways this was the best part of the day, a quiet respite before the clatter of washing and breakfast. It gave her a bit of peace, a chance to reflect. But that dream had disturbed her and she could still see Nicko’s laughing face coming at her.

  All she could think of now was what had happened and, more to the point, what was to come. She recalled Marion Peters’ words: ‘It would be an admission of guilt if I didn’t try to have you granted bail, Janis.’ It was the available evidence that was crucial, the lawyer had explained. Once there was deemed sufficient evidence to link all three murders, the words hammered a rhythm in her brain, she’d be let out, granted bail. That word was spoken in here like something religious. Since Marion Peters’ last visit they’d been watching her, the prison officers, watching and wondering. Why? Were they in cahoots with the police? Did they report back to them for any reason?