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  ‘We can’t go into all the details of why you’re here, Kyle. The law says you must be in the presence of an adult member of your family before we talk to you.’

  ‘So why’s he no here now?’ Kyle shot out.

  Lorimer shrugged and smiled, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands behind his head. ‘Och, this is just a wee informal blether. Thought I’d keep you company while we’re waiting for your dad to arrive.’

  Lorimer’s smile seemed to be working. The boy lifted the water to his lips, taking his eyes off the policeman for a moment. In truth Weir could have picked up old man Kerrigan and brought him in with Kyle. It would have saved time and manpower but Lorimer had wanted these few minutes alone with the boy. It might be important to see what he was like without a drunken father shouting the odds.

  ‘School’s started again, hasn’t it?’ Lorimer began.

  ‘Aye.’ Kyle made a face.

  ‘Och, the summer holidays aren’t long enough,’ Lorimer went on. ‘See, over in the USA, they have three whole months off.’

  ‘S’that right?’

  ‘Aye. Don’t start back till September, most of them. No bad, eh?’ The DCI let his accent thicken: it was a mark of Glaswegian solidarity and might help to gain the boy’s trust.

  Kyle grunted his reply and Lorimer stifled a grin. He was boring the pants off the lad, but that was a good ploy to use if he were to become more relaxed.

  ‘All these summer schools and activities. Don’t you have these in Muirpark?’

  Kyle shrugged and looked down at his hands, seeing something far more to his interest than this policeman whose line of small talk was becoming irritating.

  ‘Thought Dave Savage took some of his lot up to Fort William on trips. Or am I getting that mixed up?’ Lorimer put his forefinger to his chin as if he was trying to remember something.

  ‘How d’you know Dave?’ The boy’s head was up again, suspicion in his eyes.

  ‘Friend of a friend used to box with Dave. Kept in touch.’ Lorimer smiled as though he’d said nothing out of the ordinary. In truth he’d heard about Dave Savage from Maggie’s stories about Keith Manson’s boxing days; the head teacher was a supporter of Savage’s boxing club.

  ‘Oh.’ Kyle’s face lost some of its hostility. ‘Right. Aye, we went up there last summer.’ The boy’s expression changed at once, memories softening his mouth, a smile just teetering on the edge of his lips. ‘It was great,’ he added.

  ‘I bet,’ Lorimer enthused. ‘I love it up that way myself. Tell us about it,’ he said with a wee shrug that was meant to let Kyle know they were just passing the time.

  ‘We did loads of stuff, canoes an everything.’ Kyle had sat forward and he betrayed an excitement that lit up his whole face.

  In that moment Lorimer found himself warming to this boy.

  But before he could continue there was the sound of loud voices outside the door and then DS Wilson came in with Kyle’s father.

  The change in the boy made Lorimer’s mouth contract into a grim line. Kyle suddenly seemed smaller, cowering into himself, his eyes darting towards the door and Lorimer could read the fear in them. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to see that this boy had probably been abused by his father. The man belched suddenly as if showing his contempt for his surroundings and the reek of alcohol wafted around him like a poisonous cloud. Swallowing his distaste, the SIO stood up, conscious of towering over Kerrigan.

  ‘Thank you for coming in.’ Lorimer had grasped the man’s hand and ushered him into a seat before he could say a word. ‘Now that you’re here we can ask Kyle some questions that may help us in a case we’re investigating,’ Lorimer told Kerrigan, his best bland expression allaying any opposition from the man. ‘Tea?’ he added as though Kerrigan was a special visitor who must be catered for. The DCI’s disarming manner seemed to do the trick and he had the satisfaction of seeing Kyle’s father lean back in his chair, a tentative grin on his wasted face.

  ‘Aye, milk and two sugars, hen,’ Kerrigan called after the WPC as she left the room. ‘Aw right, wee man?’ he added, turning to Kyle. ‘Whit’s he done?’ he asked Lorimer. ‘Hey, dae ah know you?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Lorimer,’ he replied, smoothly, watching the doubt cross Kerrigan’s features. The older man shook his head. ‘Mibbe. Cannae mind.’

  From the corner of his eye he could see Kyle’s mouth opening as he made the connection. Lorimer. His teacher’s husband.

  ‘We need you to be present when we talk to Kyle,’ Lorimer reminded him. ‘As he’s a minor.’

  ‘Aye, okay.’ Kerrigan nodded. ‘Oh, ta, hen.’ He looked over his shoulder as a paper cup was placed before him.

  ‘Kyle,’ DS Wilson began, ‘we have reason to believe that you met Julie Donaldson in the city centre yesterday afternoon.’

  The blush that spread over Kyle’s neck told them what they had wanted to know before he could reply. ‘Aye.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Aye, I just ran into her.’

  ‘You didn’t have any plans to meet up, then?’ Wilson did not try to disguise the surprise in his voice.

  ‘No. No. We just ran intae one another. In Buchanan Street. That was all.’

  Wilson raised a sceptical pair of eyebrows at him. ‘Not quite all, Kyle. We’ve got CCTV footage that shows you having a fight with Julie in Royal Exchange Square.’

  Kyle made a face. ‘Aye, well. She had it comin, didn’t she? She’d made up some daft story about one of the teachers in our school. I asked her about it and she got mad.’

  ‘Did you follow her? See her later on yesterday evening?’

  Kyle frowned. ‘No. See her? No. Julie doesnae stay round our bit. She’s from Crow Road.’

  ‘Where did you go after your altercation with Julie?’

  ‘My . . . oh, when we fell out, d’you mean? Och, she stomped off. Didn’t see her after that. I just mooched about then went home.’

  ‘You spent the evening in your own home?’

  Kyle glanced nervously at his father. ‘Aye. Aye, I did.’

  ‘Presumably your father can vouch for that?’ Lorimer interjected.

  The pause lasted just a fraction too long before Kerrigan nodded. ‘Aye, aye o course I can. Was watchin telly wi me a night. ’N’t that right, son?’

  Kyle sat frozen, staring at his father as if the man were some sort of alien species. What had his father been watching? Which teams had been playing last night? ‘Went tae bed early,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sure you didn’t go up to meet Julie Donaldson in Dawsholm Woods?’ DS Wilson snapped open the jaws of the trap, inviting Kyle to walk in if he wanted to.

  Kyle’s face paled and he fidgeted with the edge of his jumper. ‘Julie? No. I don’t go down there wi lassies . . .’ Then the boy reddened at his own lie as a sneer appeared across his father’s face.

  ‘Better wi lassies than always up at thon boxing club. Mair natural,’ he spat out, the contempt on his expression clear for everyone to see.

  ‘If we could ask you not to interrupt, please, Mr Kerrigan,’ Wilson told him severely. But it was too late for Kyle.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be a boxer? Better than being a drunken bum or a druggie like Tam!’

  Lorimer jumped up just in time to prevent Kerrigan lunging across the table at his son.

  ‘Drunken bum? Whit sort of wey’s that tae speak tae yer faither?’ Kerrigan struggled against Lorimer who held his arms close to his sides. ‘Wee toerag! After me standin up fer ye! Ah didnae see him at a last night!’ he blurted out, eyes wild as he glared at Kyle. ‘He could’ve been out a night as far as I know!’

  ‘But I wasn’t,’ Kyle stammered, ‘I was at home, in bed. Honest,’ he added, his eyes pleading with each of the officers in turn. ‘Whit’s all this about, any road? Has something happened to Julie?’ Kyle’s hands were on the edge of the table now, his father totally ignored, fear making the boy’s eyes widen.

  ‘The body of Julie Donaldson was found today in Dawsholm Woods. We ha
ve reason to believe she was murdered,’ Lorimer told him.

  In the silence that followed his words Lorimer could hear Kerrigan’s heavy breathing and the whimper that escaped from Kyle’s throat. He watched as the boy swallowed back his tears, his Adam’s apple rising and falling.

  ‘If we could take a mouth swab from Kyle, for elimination purposes.’ Lorimer had let Kerrigan go and the man nodded, bewildered at this latest turn of events.

  ‘She said it was true,’ Kyle whispered at last. ‘And I didn’t believe her . . .’

  ‘What’s that?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘She said Chalmers done it to her. But I told her she was making it up. That’s why she got so mad at me.’

  Lorimer looked the boy up and down. Here was a strong young man, a boxer, who was perfectly capable of strangling a girl as slightly built as Julie. And his father wasn’t covering for him after all. Why?

  ‘I think you’d better tell us the whole story, Kyle,’ Lorimer suggested, crossing his arms and leaning back into his seat as though preparing for a long night ahead.

  CHAPTER 23

  Kyle stared up at the ceiling, his eyes tracing the delicate hairline cracks in the paintwork. They had just appeared one day, for no apparent reason. This house had simply aged, that was all. The process of decay happened to things as well as to people. Death, that was just a word, wasn’t it? And what did it signify: the end, the finish, a label to stick onto that transition between a flicker in the brain and eternal nothingness. Julie was dead. Finished. The wee girl who’d played with him in primary school, argued with him, sent him daft text messages: that person was gone for ever. Snuffed out.

  He imagined Mrs Donaldson crying every night. That was okay. She should cry. It was right to grieve for the stepdaughter she’d loved. Kyle had kept his tears to himself and now he lay, dry-eyed, wondering about the mysteries he’d never thought about before. Something had piqued his curiosity and in a rash moment he’d gone into the school library, scouring the shelves for some philosophical wisdom. That’s where he’d found it, Sartre’s great work Being and Nothingness. A lot of it was hard going but Kyle had ploughed on, seeking something, anything, that would give him some kind of an answer.

  Now Kyle imagined the scene: policemen with dogs scouring Dawsholm Woods. He remembered the sunlight on the summer leaves, the walks with her, the squirrels scampering across the woodland floor, the perfect quietness when he’d returned there alone.

  Julie was nothing now. Her spark of being had been extinguished and the terrible storms of weeping by her friends and family were for who she had been and for their own loss, not that empty body in the mortuary. Kyle’s interest was aroused once more. What exactly had they done to her? How did they actually open her up? What did they look for? And was their examination quite dispassionate? Suddenly a wave of longing came over him and he wanted to be there, white-coated, scalpel in hand, seeking answers to difficult questions; not about life and death but about facts that the tissues and organs might reveal to one who was trained to see and understand. Pathology might make some people shudder, but it held a fascination for him that he couldn’t quite explain.

  Maybe it was because the dead couldn’t hurt you, Kyle told himself. Only the living posed a threat.

  Three in the morning was the dead hour. Lorimer turned the ignition key, cutting off the engine’s noise, and sank back. He needed these few minutes before he could open the door, haul himself out of the driver’s seat and walk towards his front door. It was something that was happening to him more and more these days; the later he returned, the longer he wanted simply to sit there and let his body relax against the leather that had moulded itself to his shape over the years.

  They’d let Kyle go back home with his father after their time had run out. Six long hours he’d spent, trying to prise open the boy’s defences. Six hours of battling against the father’s outbursts, working to regain the boy’s confidence only to see it disappear like grains of sand trickling through an hourglass. And where had it got them? He’d certainly obtained a clearer picture of the relationship between the boy and his father; Kyle’s cowed manner and the old man’s belligerence told the two police officers plenty. The boy’s grandmother seemed to be the only stable force in Kyle’s life. So why had he gone back to live in Drumchapel when he could have stayed with the old lady in Partick instead? That was something Lorimer had tried to ask, in an oblique way, but Kyle had clammed up completely on the subject.

  Julie’s death seemed to have come as a shock to the boy. Nothing that he had seen earlier on had told the SIO that this boy was hiding a guilty secret of such proportions. But he might well have been the last friend the girl had spoken to, face to face. And there had been something in his manner when they’d mentioned Dawsholm Park that had made Lorimer raise a mental eyebrow; Kyle had not been entirely truthful. The youngest Kerrigan had seemed relieved when they had called a halt, but the way he had walked out to the police car taking them home, three paces behind his father, gave Lorimer serious misgivings.

  Now he sat with the window rolled down to feel the cool of the night air against his face, as if it might awaken something in him. There was insufficient evidence to hold Kyle Kerrigan and Eric Chalmers, though when the results of both swabs were reported things could change dramatically. If either of their DNA matched the samples obtained from Julie’s body or the scene of crime then an arrest could be made. And Kyle was a boxer, a strong lad, Lorimer reminded himself; it was quite possible for him to have strangled the girl.

  Lorimer shivered then gave the ignition key a half-turn and let the electric windows close. It was time to catch a few hours’ sleep. Somewhere out in the darkness was there a killer lying awake, pondering the nature of his crime? Or had the act been conceived by a mind that could slough off any feelings of guilt and remorse? And if so, was there a danger that the killer might strike again?

  He remembered the kiss. Her lips had been warm and unyielding, parted after that final muffled cry. If he closed his eyes he could feel it all over again. His body quivered with a longing to be there touching her face, stroking her hair, whispering words to which she could never respond. ‘Juliet,’ he’d crooned, taking her shoulders in his hands, pulling himself on top of her. ‘My Juliet.’

  Suddenly a voice echoed in the darkness and his eyes flew open in a panic. The word trembled in the still air of the room. Juliet. Had he spoken her name aloud?

  Wiping the sweat from his neck, his hand travelled downwards, fingers searching. His cock felt soft as he touched it, a wrinkled, unresponsive slug. Turning on his side he bunched his legs up, curling into himself, fist in his mouth to prevent the howl of despair escaping from his soul.

  CHAPTER 24

  Frank Donaldson hadn’t slept a wink. Lying beside Mary, listening to her softly snoring, he envied her and cursed himself for his male pride. Take pills? Not him. Yet, now with morning showing through the gap in the curtains, Frank wished he had been able to obliterate the last few hours and the questions going round and round in his head.

  It had to be Chalmers. There was no other explanation. The man had gulled their Julie into joining his wretched club, taken her away on that trip of his with smiles and a fanfare of jollity that Frank saw now as false and sickening. Chalmers had groomed her, wasn’t that the word they used? He’d seen something he wanted and he had taken it, simple as that. And when Julie had had the sense to tell them what had happened, well, he must have panicked. And he’d been suspended, hadn’t he? Frank had seen to that, at any rate, he told himself with grim satisfaction. But being out of school, maybe that had given him the opportunity to see her, lure her away from her home and . . . Frank stopped, his imagination refusing to go any further.

  If Chalmers had been charged with her murder, they’d know soon enough, wouldn’t they? Waiting, that’s all he seemed to have been doing for days. Waiting for Julie to come home, waiting to find out where she was and now waiting to hear if the police had caught her killer. />
  Frank slipped out of bed, his feet finding the cold laminate floor and, putting on his dressing gown, he headed along the corridor to the bathroom. As he pissed into the porcelain bowl, he thought back to the time when he and Jeanette had been trying for a baby. He looked down at his penis, his manhood. It had served to transform their lives, hadn’t it? Had helped to create Julie, their only child. Jeanette had been overjoyed when the baby had been born. Frank shook the remaining droplets into the pan before hugging the dressing gown around his body. Pity she’d never survived long enough to see the lovely girl Julie had become . . .

  He tried to stop the sound, his fists covering his mouth, but it was hopeless and he sank to his knees, the howl resonating off the bathroom walls.

  ‘I don’t want anything.’ Frank pushed his plate away, hands across his eyes. Then he heard the scrape of a chair and Mary was close to him, arms around him, holding him tightly as if she never wanted to let him go. They stayed like that, neither of them speaking, giving in to their mutual need for comfort, until a noise outside made Mary break away from her husband.

  ‘It’ll be the paper,’ she said, rising to fetch it from the hall.

  Frank looked up, wanting to say, Just leave it, stay here with me, but the words remained in his head, unspoken.

  ‘Oh, Frank!’ Mary came into the kitchen, one hand against her mouth, holding the Gazette a little away from her, fearfully.

  ‘What is it?’

  Instinct told Frank what he was about to see before he even read the headline.

  SCHOOLGIRL MURDERED:

  POLICE QUESTION MEN

  A pupil from Muirpark Secondary School was found brutally murdered near Dawsholm Park yesterday. Julie Donaldson, aged fifteen, had been missing from school and home on the day of the murder. Sources close to the teenager say that she was upset following allegations that one of her teachers had sexually assaulted her during a school camp holiday. The teacher in question, Mr Eric Chalmers, has already been suspended on full pay pending an inquiry. Police have questioned two men overnight, both of whom have been released. It is believed that Mr Chalmers had been asked to accompany police officers to their divisional headquarters immediately after a preliminary investigation by the education authorities into his conduct but left some time later.