Lorimer and Brightman - 08 - Sleep Like the Dead. By Alex Gray (12 page)

‘Elm, the sort of look that means your exotic brain’s about to churn up something interesting that the rest of us mere mortals have missed,’ she replied, smiling in spite of herself. ‘Well,’ Fathy began, ‘what if she didn’t register for her exams in her married name. Or her maiden name, come to that.’

‘You mean she used an alias? How would that work?’

‘You know as well as I do that under Scottish law you can call yourself anything you like. See,’ he swung round in his chair to face her, ‘I had this pal at school, foreign bloke like myself, his surname was Lo. L-0,’ he added with a wave of his hand. ‘Sort of gave away his different ethnic origin — except his mum was Scottish. Never got on very well with his father. So when he went up to university he decided to change his name to Lowe. L-O-W-E, see?’

Tut didn’t everyone think it was the first spelling, I mean when they looked at him?’ ‘That was just it,’ Fathy explained eagerly. ‘James didn’t look all that Chinese, really. Dark haired and all, but much more like his mother,’ he mused, gazing beyond Irvine as if to conjure up the woman.

‘Okay, so what’s your point?’

‘James could have changed his name by deed poll but he didn’t. He simply began using the other spelling for all his legal documents: driving licence, bank details, you name it. .

‘So you think Marianne Scott, née Brogan, might have done the same sort of thing?’

‘Well, we could check with the SEE exam board to see what names come up for the year before she was meant to begin university.’

‘If she ever did,’ Irvine replied gloomily. `I’m beginning to think she’s not in Scotland at all.’

‘Worth a try, though, isn’t it?’ he persisted.

‘Aye, suppose so. Lorimer’ll want no stone unturned.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘There is another possibility, though. D’you remember that case of the medical student who faked his school exam results?’

Fathy shook his head.

`Och, it was ages ago. The bloke had been knocked back to study at Glasgow Uni so he forged a load of stuff and began attending lectures, doing exams, the lot. Pretended he was just a young guy when he was … oh I can’t remember, thirty-something I think. Nearly got away with it an’ all.’

‘Would have to have been a good forgery,’ Fathy pointed out. ‘Aye, so it would,’ Irvine answered. ‘And I wonder just who would be doing stuff like that in Glasgow nowadays.’

Marianne lay with her eyes closed, willing sleep to come. The nights were beginning to darken earlier now so there was no reason why she should find it difficult to rest and relax. Everything had been so carefully worked out, hadn’t it? But now all of her plans seemed to be unravelling at the seams. Where was Billy? And who was the man with the seductive voice who wanted to see him? An old army pal? Or was he something else? These thoughts chased themselves around her brain like hamsters on a wheel.

And now there was so much more to worry about. Two men had been found dead in Billy’s flat, Amit had said. Known drug dealers. The newspaper item hadn’t even made the front page of the redtop she’d bought. Just a couple of column inches tucked away at the foot of a page dominated by the shenanigans of a blonde celebrity. Fraser Sandiman and Andrew Galbraith, the paper had written. The names didn’t mean anything to Marianne, but then she had deliberately steered clear of her brother Billy’s mates. Only saw him when she needed to. And then, only on her own terms. In fact, she thought, she had never once set foot in that particular flat over in Argyle Street. He had always come to her.

‘Where the hell are you, Billy?’ she whispered into the gathering darkness.

Dreams came at last, not the old nightmares of suffocating pain, but of Amit waving to her, laughing as he ran across the bridge over the Clyde. He’s going to catch hold of my hand then pull me into a hug, she thought, panicking … choking me like Ken used to do …

Then everything changed. And he was falling, falling in slow motion before disappearing below the oily waters. Marianne heard a voice screaming aloud as she knelt on the bridge, desperate to see the man who had been about to embrace her.

The sound of her own voice emitting a hoarse croak made her sit up suddenly, awake and sweating.

It was only a dream, wasn’t it? But then she frowned. Was it something that Doctor Brightman had said? Or something she had read? Symbolism, she thought, savouring the word as much as the concept. Was she afraid of losing Amit? Or was this a dream signifying something much more sinister?

0

mar waved his hand as the policewoman said goodnight. She might raise her eyebrows at his staying on late, but he didn’t care. This was something that he had to do. The university registry officer had given him a list of all last year’s new students as well as those who were just waiting for freshers’ week. The woman for whom they were searching might have gained enough points for entry but delayed enrolling for a year, he had told the registry officer. Even so, the list of every girl and woman in those categories whose first name was Marianne was surprisingly long. If Lorimer okayed it, he and Irvine might be in a position to visit and interview every one of the forty-seven Mariannes on record. He thought about James Lo. He had kept his first name all through the changes, hadn’t he? But what if this woman had completely changed her name? Biting his lip in a moment of self-doubt, Omar wondered at the zeal that had kept him at this task all afternoon. What was he trying to prove? That he was a better officer than all of the rest of the team? Or that it was his endeavours, not the colour of his skin, that was of any significance?

Lorimer had taken away the photo of that red-haired woman he’d

found in Brogan’s flat. Could this be the sister? He’d let all of the

members of the investigation team have a good look at it and then they had compared it with recent images of Brogan. There was not a shred of familial likeness and most of them had gone along with DS Wilson’s suggestion: probably Brogan’s bird.

Now he looked at the photograph on his desk. It wasn’t evidence as such, so there had been no requirement to send it down as a production. The woman gazed out of the picture, that smile on her lips directed towards whoever had been behind the camera. Say cheese, his dad had always told him as a little lad whenever he had wanted another snap for the family album. And women liked nice photos of themselves so invariably they put on their prettiest smiles for the camera. There was nothing provocative about her, he thought. That bare shoulder was probably on show simply because it was a sunny day. No smouldering looks for a lover. And just because the picture had been in his flat did not mean that Brogan had taken it himself. So was this lady Brogan’s girlfriend or not? Maybe he had a better snap of her secreted in his wallet, Lorimer thought, absently touching the pocket where he kept his own photograph of Maggie. Perhaps the drug dealer was at this very moment with this woman somewhere.

It’s what’s not there as much as what is, that we have to focus upon, Lorimer had insisted earlier that day. And apart from Brogan himself, there was a fair amount missing: passport, bank details, address books, all sorts of personal stuff. And Kenneth Scott’s home lacked some of these things too, the DCI had reminded them.

Now, sitting at his desk, he wondered. Each of these killings had the same signature about them as far as the ballistics were concerned and had probably been undertaken by a trained marksman. But now there were more links between the two cases. He closed his left fist and stuck his thumb upwards, counting.

Marianne Scott was Brogan’s sister; paperwork that one might expect to find in a home being used by its occupant was missing. He raised his index finger then paused. Was that all? His hand relaxed on to the desk as he thought hard about each of the killings. Maybe they ought to look at the differences too. Scott’s home hadn’t been ransacked; he wasn’t a known drug dealer (or user come to that); nobody in Scott’s neighbourhood had heard or seen a thing. And one of the two men had been carrying a shotgun. Was that significant? Had the more recent killings happened in a chaotic situation? Where Scott’s death bore the hallmarks of a planned attack, Galbraith and Sandiman’s killer seemed to have stumbled upon them. Or was it the other way around? Had they come across the killer after they’d entered the flat? Traces of DNA in other rooms would help to establish an answer to that particular question.

Lorimer sighed. He’d asked for Marianne Brogan to be found as a matter of priority but was that really such a good idea? The woman had no police record of any sort and the very little he did know about her seemed to indicate that she had been an ordinary housewife before her marriage had broken up. DC Irvine had been adamant that it was weird for a woman to stop work like that after a wedding and most of the officers had agreed. Nowadays it usually took the combined salaries of a husband and wife to pay for the mortgage. And Scott hadn’t exactly been rolling in money. See what you can find out from the GP she was registered with, he had suggested. She may not have been fit to work for health reasons. If so, then there might be a trail of benefits paid in her name that they could source. And that would be another bit of the jigsaw that took time to find. He sighed again. Try as they might to make progress in a case as quickly as they could, there were always elements that demanded patience; lab reports, ballistics,

pathology results … things that had to wait for their slot in another professional person’s busy schedule. The DCI stood up and stretched. It was time to go home. Maggie had so few days of her holidays left and he suspected she had begun to do some work for school, having given up on the thought of them both enjoying a break away. At least their evenings could be spent together.

‘Sir?’ DC Fathy whirled round as the DCI entered the room. ‘Working a bit of overtime, Fathy?’

‘It’s the sister, sir,’ Fathy shrugged as he glanced back at his computer screen. ‘Just can’t stop thinking about where she might be, so . .

‘So?’ Lorimer cocked his head to one side, interested suddenly.

‘Well, I thought if we looked at all the students from last year’s intake and next year’s new ones to come whose forenames were Marianne, we might find something.’

‘And have you?’

Fathy shook his head. ‘No, sir, but I did wonder . .

‘Yes?’

‘Well, what if we called on these women and asked about their backgrounds? Asked to see ID like birth and marriage certificates?’

Lorimer took a step backwards and laughed. ‘Any idea how many man hours that might take? And can you see Superintendent Mitchison agreeing to extra bodies for an action like that?’ The DCI frowned suddenly as he uttered Mitchison’s name. There was no love lost between the two senior officers but that wasn’t something that young Fathy needed to know.

‘No, sir,’ Fathy hung his head for a moment and looked so disappointed that Lorimer gave in to his natural impulse, reached out and patted the young man on the shoulder.

‘Look, it’s not a bad idea and in ideal circumstances we might even go that far. But until we have evidence that Marianne Scott is still in the country we’d be in danger of wasting taxpayers’ money’ `So that’s still to be determined, sir?’

Lorimer nodded. ‘Aye. There’s no trace of the woman having worked, paid stamps or anything in the last year so chances are she’s somewhere overseas.’ His mouth pursed in a sudden thought. ‘Or working at some occupation that doesn’t require official papers,’ he said with a sigh.

Fathy nodded. He knew what the DCI meant. ‘You think the woman might have slipped off our radar because she was involved in criminal activity or maybe was on the game?’ ‘She has to have supported herself somehow since her marriage broke up,’ Lorimer reasoned. ‘And it might even give us a clue as to why that happened.’

‘You mean she could be an addict?’ Fathy asked. ‘Who knows?’ Lorimer replied tiredly. ‘Brother Billy mixed with plenty of them. Wouldn’t be the first time a lassie got hooked then had to resort to selling herself to fund her habit.’ ‘Do we have anyone looking in that direction, sir? Maybe checking the usual drop-in centres used by local prostitutes?’ Not as yet,’ Lorimer continued, mentally adding that to his tally, wondering if Fathy was about to offer to take on that task.

‘Why not pack up for the night and come back tomorrow with a fresh mind, eh? It’s still a lovely evening out there,’ Lorimer added, nodding at the pale blue space above the city skyline. ‘Right, sir. And thanks,’ Fathy smiled a little uncertainly. There was a momentary pause and Lorimer stopped, waiting for the DC to continue.

‘Good night, then,’ the young man said at last. ‘See you tomorrow, sir.’

Lorimer was still frowning as he reached the foot of the stairs. Had Fathy something else on his mind? But as he reached the car park his thoughts were already heading homewards, all notions of what the newest member of his team had or had not been about to share already forgotten.

As he turned the car into the driveway, Lorimer slowed down. Maggie was on her hands and knees, weeding the flowerbed under the dining room window. She looked up at the sound of the car and the way her face lit up as she caught sight of him made his heart turn over.

`Hiya, you,’ she said, straightening up and rubbing the small of her back as he stepped out of the car. ‘Mm, hiya yourself. You smell lovely,’ he added, sinking his face into her hair as he bent to kiss her cheek.

‘Already showered twice today. This heat! Weather forecast says we’re in for thunder before the night’s out.’ Maggie broke away from him, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked up at a pale sky already flecked with pinkish clouds.

‘Red sky at night…’ Lorimer began.

‘Is a load of …’

‘Mrs Lorimer!’ He gasped in mock horror. ‘Sorry,’ she grinned. ‘It’s what the kids at school say. Think we can’t hear them half the time and the other half they know fine well we can.’

‘Itching to get back are you?’ Maggie made a face as they entered the house together. Not yet. Wish we could have had a bit of a holiday first,’ she mumbled. ‘Sorry about that.’ Lorimer sighed. ‘Maybe we could take off to Mull for the September weekend, though.’