Pitch Black Read online

  ‘Any idea of time of death?’

  ‘Well, he’s been dead less than six hours. Probably less than three, actually. No rigor and before you ask, I haven’t taken his temperature yet.’

  ‘Okay, let me know when you have. We know he left Kelvin Park around five-forty this afternoon.’

  ‘At the game, was he?’ Rosie asked. ‘Wearing the wrong colours, maybe?’

  ‘Worse than that,’ Lorimer told her darkly. ‘Norman Cartwright was the referee. He made some controversial decisions during the game. Okay, folk were crying for his blood, but that’s just fans letting off steam. Didn’t merit something like this.’ Lorimer jerked a thumb at the scene inside the tent.

  ‘Why? What happened?’ Rosie asked suddenly and Lorimer gave her a quick precis of the match.

  ‘So,’ she said, straightening up and looking from the body to the DCI, ‘your problem is several thousand disaffected Kelvin fans might have wanted to kill the ref. But how many of them would have had access to a sawn-off shotgun?’

  Sunday mornings on call were not Rosie’s favourite days. Yet she had parked her car beside her colleague Dan’s in the mortuary car park aware of a quickening sense of interest in today’s post-mortem. Two doctors were required by Scottish law so Dan would record all of the findings they made while Rosie conducted the more physical part of the business. It wasn’t every day that they had to extract shotgun pellets from a murder victim, despite all that the press reports and the TV police dramas might lead the public to believe. Much of her work dealt with suspicious deaths, often due to the knife culture in the city, though she had had an interesting spell overseas in Rwanda. That was a time she remembered with sadness as well as satisfaction for a job well done. People who didn’t know Rosie too well had been heard commenting on the pathologist’s slim, slight figure, even wondering aloud what such a pretty young woman was doing in a job like hers. But looks, however fragile, were only skin deep and Rosie Fergusson was made from tougher stuff than most.

  Norman Cartwright’s body was waiting for them in the refrigerated wall adjoining the post-mortem room. Two of the mortuary technicians slid it out, placing it carefully on to a stainless-steel table. First they would examine the victim fully clothed, noting anything that might be required later. Giving evidence as an expert witness was never far from their minds as the pathologists performed their surgical work: everything would be noted and recorded with some degree of caution. Most probably, most likely, usually preceding any attempt to say exactly what had happened to a person whose death might be the subject of speculation.

  Some time later, though, Rosie and Dan were pretty convinced by their findings. Their report would go straight to the Procurator Fiscal, of course, along with detailed ballistics analysis, but DCI Lorimer had a right to know just what sort of weapon had made an end of the football referee.

  CHAPTER 9

  WHO SHOT THE MAN IN BLACK?

  A man shot dead in his car has been confirmed as football referee Norman Cartwright. Witnesses heard a single shot being fired, though none of them admit to having seen the gunman. ‘It was like a car backfiring, but really loud,’ Joseph Tierney, a neighbour of the victim, stated. Mr Cartwright, who had been refereeing the match between Kelvin FC and Queen of the South on the afternoon of his death, was in his own driveway when the shooting took place. Police have already conducted a house-to-house inquiry following the incident and a report has been sent to the Procurator Fiscal. In a recent BBC documentary, the plight of football referees was highlighted when it was shown that death threats against referees and damage to property had frequently occurred at every level of the sport. There had been ugly scenes at Kelvin Park that afternoon following a controversial decision by Mr Cartwright during the game. Whether this has any bearing on his subsequent killing is something the police must surely take into account.

  Lorimer read the byline with a sigh. Jimmy Greer! There was nothing malicious about the piece, nor anything to suggest that Greer was hinting at police incompetence. But it was early days and the DCI knew only too well that the journalist from the Gazette would muck-rake as soon as he had the opportunity. The friction that existed between Greer and the DCI had its origin in a previous case when the man from the press had stepped out of line during a murder inquiry. Lorimer hadn’t missed him and hit the wall, as his mother-in-law was fond of saying. Now Greer sought to make life difficult for the DCI whenever he could. It was a hassle he could well do without.

  It had been a long weekend and now, in the early light of Monday morning, there was more work to be done. Cartwright’s house had been locked up after a preliminary examination to see what next of kin the man had. A divorcee with no children, his elderly mother in a nursing home, Cartwright had lived alone. He’d not even had a cat to keep him company, thought Lorimer, catching sight of Chancer’s golden coat as the animal padded from the kitchen, an imploring expression on his face. Feed me, it said.

  As he scraped the contents of a foil bag into the animal’s saucer, he recalled the moment when they had entered Norman Cartwright’s home. The dust motes had swirled thickly through a dark, narrow hallway that led to the sitting room and adjacent kitchen. Dirty pots and crockery were stacked up, half-submerged in a basin of scum-covered water. One fly had buzzed languidly against the window pane, others lay dead on the chipped wooden sill. The picture of neglect alone had rendered the dead man deserving of pity. Lorimer recalled the days he’d spent on his own after Maggie had gone to America to work; had he been as bad as that? He didn’t think so. There was a sense of defeat about Cartwright’s house, he thought.

  It might be a good idea to go back with another officer in tow, just to see what else they could find out about the referee. The scene-of-crime officers had all the forensic material they seemed to require, but as the man had been shot outside his home, there had been little need to do a full-scale search of the premises. Normally Lorimer would leave a task like this to one of his more junior officers, but his visit today had a twofold purpose: he wanted to give Niall Cameron the benefit of his own experience – the lad had promise and could go far – and he felt an urge to satisfy his own curiosity. What might he find at number eight, Willow Grove? Some answers about the personality of the man who had been so mercilessly killed, he hoped. And, if he was really lucky, a reason to show why he had been gunned down in the first place.

  It was only a short drive to the crime scene from the centre of the city. Great Western Road swept all the way out of Glasgow, through Anniesland Cross and Knightswood towards the Clyde and eventually Loch Lomond. In springtime the dual carriageway was intersected by a dazzling swathe of daffodils and row upon row of cherry trees, their pink and white blossoms scattered across the ground. Once, when they had been students, he’d taken Maggie down to Luss, a pretty little village right on the loch, after an all night party. It had been dark when they’d left the city and he could still see the daffodils in his mind’s eye, pale and ghostly, sweeping along for mile after mile. Now he and Cameron were driving by the stately grey-stone terraces that marched all the way up towards One Devonshire Gardens, the city’s most prestigious hotel. Lorimer gave it a cursory glance as they drove past. He’d taken Maggie there once, on their tenth wedding anniversary, and the memory of that special occasion lingered still. At night the trees outside sparkled with white lights but in daytime it might simply be mistaken for one more grand residence along this elegant row of Victorian buildings.

  Norman Cartwright had lived in a pleasant, leafy suburb of the city, the sort of place where nothing much ever happens outside of school jumble sales and community coffee mornings. On this particular Monday the quiet of Willow Grove was disturbed by a small crowd of reporters and photographers anxious to catch up with the latest developments. As Lorimer pulled up to the kerb, he could see the next-door neighbours holding court at their front door. The DCI remembered them as Mr and Mrs Murphy who lived at number six, through the wall from the late Norman Cartwright. They had not b
een at home at the time of the incident, but that did not seem to be deterring them from putting in their tuppence worth. His mouth twisted in a grimace of distaste. Some people simply revelled in the chance to associate themselves with notoriety, especially when they could maintain a safe distance from its darker aspects.

  ‘Okay,’ he sighed, turning to his detective constable, Niall Cameron. ‘Let’s go in and hope we don’t have them all knocking at the door.’

  The two men walked briskly up the gravel path, ignoring the heads that suddenly turned their way.

  Lorimer stood back to allow the DC space to unlock the front door, then they entered the stuffy hallway and closed the door behind them.

  ‘What’re we looking for, sir?’ Niall Cameron asked, his eyes roaming around the dusty corridor.

  ‘Nothing and everything,’ Lorimer answered him. ‘Just a feel for the place. See how he lived, what he was like. A person’s home can tell you all sorts of things about them.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, what’s your pad like? No, let me guess. Neat and tidy, everything in its place, right?’

  The tall Lewisman flushed under his white collar, letting Lorimer know he’d hit the mark. ‘Well, I do keep my bike in the hallway, near the front door, but only because there’s nowhere else to put it …’ he trailed off.

  ‘An organised mind.’ Lorimer chuckled. ‘Dr Brightman would tell you that straight off,’ he added, referring to Solly Brightman, the University of Glasgow psychologist. ‘Seriously, you can learn quite a lot from how a person lived,’ Lorimer told him, moving out of the hall.

  Norman Cartwright’s bedroom reminded Lorimer of an old student flat, filled as it was with heavy furniture that had gone out of fashion decades ago. The matching mahogany wardrobe and dressing table had definitely seen better days; scratches and nicks around their bases told of years of abuse by some careless vacuum cleaner. Had he done his own housework? Or had there been a daily woman? No. It didn’t look as if a woman’s touch had been used here for a very long time. The carpet below his feet was stained and there were bits of dark fluff that could have come from the referee’s socks. The beige cotton duvet had been pulled hastily into shape, one end hanging lower than the other as if Norman Cartwright had left for his match in a hurry. There was nobody to see his sorry attempts at making his bed, or so he’d have thought.

  ‘No woman in his life,’ Lorimer told the empty room. ‘Nobody to care whether your bed’s tidy or the place even smells nice.’ Had his home been like that during Maggie’s absence? he wondered, guiltily. Life without Maggie had certainly made him negligent about keeping house. But he’d been rescued by Jean, his gem of a cleaning lady. This place looked as if Cartwright had given up bothering about what his place looked like. Saturday’s Gazette lay on one side of the bed. Lorimer picked it up. The referee had been reading the sports section then dropped it on the floor, meaning to pick it up later, he thought. An empty mug sat on his bedside cabinet, one more ring to add to the others staining the varnished wood, beside it a digital clock and a thin brass lamp, its shade an indeterminate brown. He switched it on but the colour was no better, an orangey wash illuminating that side of the bed. A paperback book lay behind the lamp and Lorimer turned it over to see what author the man had enjoyed. It was an American thriller by a writer he’d never heard of, its cover a lurid representation of a man being chased down some dark alley. He flicked the pages and saw that it was a library discard. So, there was no woman in his life but Norman Cartwright had had a penchant for fiction. Maybe he’d preferred the people of his imagination to those in reality. But, then, he was a sportsman who kept himself busy at weekends, not some recluse. So why did Lorimer have the feeling that this man had been a bit of a loner? Lorimer glanced around. No pictures on the walls, not here at any rate. Maybe the other rooms would yield more clues to the personality of a man who had been gunned down a few feet from his own front door.

  Lorimer heard the doorbell ringing. ‘Just ignore them and hope they’ll go away,’ he called to Cameron. ‘What have you found?’ he asked, entering a lounge that was depressingly similar to Cartwright’s bedroom, all shades of browns and beiges.

  ‘Wasn’t a very tidy chap, was he?’ Cameron observed, holding a sock between two fingers. ‘Found this down the side of the settee.’

  ‘Anything else of interest?’ Lorimer asked, though from a quick look around this room there was nothing that stood out.

  ‘I’d say it was quite the opposite; he wasn’t interested in his home. Maybe he didn’t spend much time here. Especially if he was a referee at weekends and worked full-time during the week,’ Cameron said. ‘Kitchen’s not very clean either.’

  Lorimer nodded, pleased to note how the DC’s observations chimed with his own. Norman Cartwright seemed to have been a person who’d had no great desire to surround himself with the finer things in life. In fact, Lorimer doubted if this visit had yielded anything much at all except to enhance his pity for the victim.

  ‘Think we’re more likely to find out about him from the football people,’ Cameron went on.

  ‘Aye, his fellow referees, maybe,’ Lorimer said. ‘Nobody at Kelvin Park’s going to give an unbiased view of the ref, now are they?’

  They were waiting for the two policemen on Norman Cartwright’s doorstep: a gaggle of journalists all talking at once. Had he any idea who had killed the referee? Had they been looking for the murder weapon? What about the game at Kelvin Park? The questions followed them all the way out into the street, Lorimer ignoring their shrill voices demanding answers. As he drove away, a silent Niall Cameron beside him, Lorimer suddenly felt a strange sort of kinship with Janis Faulkner. Had she ever been hounded by the press? Was that the reason behind her putting down the portcullis and retreating back into the safety of her inner sanctum? Something told him that he had to breach that particular fortress if he were ever to understand the truth behind Nicko Faulkner’s murder. But, for now, this new case must take precedence in his thoughts and any sympathy he felt should be for this last victim and his family.

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘You’re a fool!’

  Pat Kennedy clenched his fists by his sides, to stop himself from lashing out at the man before him. Jason White tilted his chin upwards, a defiant and insolent expression on his handsome face. The footballer was silent but his demeanour said it all: that sneering, supercilious look that had Kennedy’s fingertips itching.

  ‘We’ve docked money from wages you’ve yet to earn! What the hell did you think you were playing at?’ Kennedy raged. The man lounging by his desk raised one shoulder in an indolent shrug. ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but it matters to the club!’ Kennedy continued to fume. ‘Just don’t you dare get into anything like that before a match again. What you do in your own time is not just your own affair. We expect you to be available for every match. Understood?’

  The man looked away from Kennedy and sniffed. ‘Can I go now?’ he asked, no attempt to disguise the boredom in his tone.

  ‘Yes,’ Kennedy replied, then as Jason White strolled into the corridor he followed him out, a feeling of suppressed rage bubbling to the surface. ‘And don’t think you’ve got off lightly! Remember, White, nobody’s indispensable in this game, and that includes you!’ Kennedy’s voice roared out after the footballer who walked away, pretending not to hear. He slammed the door of his office leaving a quiver of unease behind him.

  ‘Big man’s upset, isn’t he?’ Bert, the groundsman, remarked to Marie McPhail. The woman shook her head and laid a finger to her lips.

  ‘Shh! Pat can hear every word you say, Bert. You know these partition walls are paper-thin. Anyway, who can blame him? After all that’s happened …’ She trailed off, the death of Norman Cartwright remaining unspoken between them. Marie shook her head as if unable to believe Kelvin FC had been associated with the death of two men. Many of the staff wore the same tight expression of shock whenever the subject arose: nothing prepared you for s
omething as horrible as this. ‘Anyway,’ she continued briskly, ‘Jason was totally out of order. Pat should have had his guts for garters.’

  ‘Don’t know why they had to buy him in the first place,’ Bert grumbled. ‘Or that wanker, Faulkner.’

  ‘Bert! You mustn’t say that. It’s bad to speak ill of the dead!’ Marie hissed.

  ‘Och, who’s gonnae hear me? S’not as if he was really a team player anyway. Not like our friend downstairs in the boot room.’

  Marie McPhail raised a smile. It suddenly illuminated her thin, hard face. ‘Has anyone ever actually seen Kelvin’s resident ghost, then?’

  ‘Well, one o’ the young lads said he saw a shadow last winter. He’d jist aboot finished cleaning the boots when it loomed up at him. So he said.’ Bert tilted his head enigmatically then lifted up his mug of tea and drained it. ‘Thanks for the cuppa, lass. Back to work now, see you later.’

  ‘Aye, not if I see you first,’ Marie muttered under her breath. Wee Bert was a right doom and gloom merchant, never saying a positive word about anyone. Marie often suspected he was happiest when Kelvin got thrashed on a Saturday afternoon, it justified his morose predictions that the club would never again climb out of the First Division into the Premier League where they had once belonged. Still, he was right about one thing: Kelvin’s glory days were truly epitomised by legends like Ronnie Rankin, the fleet-footed player who had won a place in Keelie hearts over four consecutive seasons before being blown up at Ypres. Rankin’s picture hung in the boardroom, a sepia-coloured image that was pointed out to guests on match days. And legend had it that his spirit still hung around in the boot room downstairs.