Keep The Midnight Out (William Lorimer) (4 page)

‘T
hat’ll be the boys in blue.’ Lorimer attempted a grin as he heard the door being knocked; three determined raps of meaty knuckles against the pebbled glass.

Maggie nodded and walked briskly from the cosy sitting room through to the kitchen.

A brief glance showed the outline of two dark figures standing at the door, one of them the thick-set police sergeant from Craignure, Calum Mhor.

‘Good day, Mrs Lorimer, sir…’ Calum was brushing his boots on the coir mat inside the porch, a few paces away from where Lorimer’s wife was standing, busying herself with cups and plates.

‘Terrible business, just,’ he added with a shake of his head, then followed Lorimer and the younger officer into the main room of the cottage.

Lorimer had put a match to the kindling on the hearth and already the birch logs had caught, giving warmth and light to the room, but he still knelt down, leaning across the red stone fireplace to loosen the wood a little with the poker – a proprietorial gesture, perhaps.
This is our place for now
, that small action might have said,
but come in and
be
welcome
.

‘Tea or coffee?’ Maggie’s dark head came around the door.

‘Oh, tea for us both, thank you,’ Calum replied, giving no opportunity for the younger officer who simply nodded his agreement.

‘Well, now, what can I say?’ Calum Mhor heaved a sigh as he watched Maggie approach with the tray.

‘You can say anything in front of my wife. If you want to stay, that is…?’ he asked Maggie, looking up at her from his place down by the fireside.

‘No, I’d rather not,’ Maggie said stiffly. ‘There’s milk and sugar and a selection of biscuits. Mary Grant’s own shortbread,’ she added with the ghost of a smile.

Lorimer watched as she left the room, closing the door behind her. The swishing sound of her waterproof jacket being removed from its peg and the soft thuds as she put on the necessary rubber boots made him realise that she had decided to set off up the hill, just as she had planned to do before the discovery that had shattered their day.

‘Mrs Lorimer won’t be going near the shore…?’

‘No, Calum, she won’t,’ Lorimer replied, standing up and reaching for the milk jug and sugar bowl.

‘Ah, just so, just so.’ The big police sergeant nodded, his eyes flicking towards the large window that looked out to the bay, alerted by the sound of her feet crunching on the pebbled path as Maggie passed them by, the hood of her jacket pulled forward against the incessant drizzle.

‘It’s a bad business, Mr Lorimer, sir,’ Calum began again, his hand stretched out to take one of the pieces of sugary shortbread.

‘You’re sure it’s the boy from Kilbeg? Dalgleish?’

Calum gave a sigh. ‘Who else could it be, man? The lad goes missing more than forty-eight hours ago and you find the body washed ashore here. Stands to reason it’s him. Same hair colouring an’ all,’ he said with a grunt. ‘We have the description though I never set eyes on the boy myself,’ he added, a note of sadness in his gruff voice.

‘What’s been happening on the island to find him up till now?’ Lorimer asked, deliberately looking at the younger officer from Tobermory. ‘It would come under your jurisdiction, I suppose?’

PC Jamie Kennedy looked up, startled at being asked such a direct question.

‘Well, we checked with MacBraynes to see if he’d bought a ticket to Oban. The staff at the hotel thought he might have just pushed off.’

‘But you didn’t think so?’

‘No, sir. All his belongings were left behind in the wee attic room he had.’

‘Everything? Nothing missing there that you noticed?’

The young man’s cheeks bloomed with sudden colour. ‘Well, just what you’d expect a kid to take with him. So, no mobile phone, no wallet or credit cards, that sort of stuff…’

‘And no trace of him using a card since he was last seen?’

‘Still waiting for an answer to that, sir,’ Kennedy replied, lowering his eyes guiltily.

Lorimer bit off a reply. It was obvious that nothing much had been done to trace any activity on the lad’s credit cards or mobile phone, something that his own officers would have been smart enough to do. He’d done it often enough as a uniformed officer and as a young detective constable; though the technical support that they had nowadays was a whole world away from the days when they’d depended on British Telecom and the credit card companies for help.

Besides, it was none of his business to criticise how these island officers went about their business. Life here went on at a slower pace altogether and crime, never mind murder, was not something most folk thought about.

‘What do you know about him?’ Lorimer asked. ‘The missing lad.’

PC Kennedy sat up a little straighter before replying. He was on safer ground here, Lorimer thought.

‘He is… or he
was
a student. Up here to work at Kilbeg Country House Hotel for his holidays, seemingly.’

‘Anything else?’ Lorimer was surprised. Surely they knew more about the missing student than that?

‘Well,’ Jamie Kennedy began, glancing at the big police sergeant nervously. ‘Some of the staff at the hotel didn’t seem to like him very much,’ he said. ‘Not good to speak ill of the dead…’

‘He hasn’t been officially identified yet, constable, so I think your conscience is clear,’ Lorimer said kindly.

Jamie Kennedy nodded, taking a quick slurp from his tea before continuing.

‘He seems to have been a loud type of bloke; bit of a Hooray Henry, if you know what I mean. Came from a well-off background and wasn’t shy about letting them all know it, too,’ he went on, nodding his head all the time as if he were embarrassed for the lad. ‘His first name was Rory but the girls in the hotel made fun of him. Talked about him as Roary, as in to roar, see?’

‘So he wasn’t a popular lad?’

‘The owners seemed to like him, sir. Said he was an asset to the place. He had the sort of manner that guests like, Mr Forsyth told me. Suppose he meant that he was well spoken, and all that.’

‘What sort of work did he do in the hotel?’

‘Oh, waiting on tables. He knew his silver service all right. Must have worked somewhere else, I suppose, to learn that. And lately he’d been given the job of wine waiter. That was something else that riled the younger members of the staff. He was always showing off his knowledge of the wines of the world, seemingly.’

PC Kennedy sat back, his face flushed from the heat of the fire. ‘That’s all I’ve found out about him so far,’ he mumbled.

‘Well, it’s a start, isn’t it?’ Lorimer said. ‘Your SIO will be glad to have something to go on.’

Jamie Kennedy drew in a deep breath and nodded silently.

Just then Lorimer caught the glimpse of a smile playing around Calum Mhor’s mouth. Maybe this DI Crozier was a stickler for detail and that was why the younger officer seemed so tense.

‘I looked this out for you.’ Lorimer handed over a small red booklet to the detective sergeant. ‘Tide tables,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure about today’s tide,’ he added, a question in his voice.

Calum Mhor flicked through the booklet till he came to the page where the date and times for July tides were given.

‘Aye, a spring tide right enough.’ He nodded, handing the booklet back. ‘Just what I thought.’

Lorimer took the booklet and slipped it into his pocket. The tide had been particularly high this morning. Unnaturally high, he knew, given the conjunction of the sun and moon. And yet… the boy’s body had been on a bank of soft grass about a foot higher than the damp line showing where the tide had turned. Almost as if it had been placed there by other hands…

His thoughts were interrupted by the big policeman.

‘Perhaps we could take that statement from you now, sir?’ Calum Mhor asked, setting down his mug by the fireplace and reaching into his jacket for a black-bound notebook.

‘Of course.’ Lorimer attempted a wry smile. ‘I’ll be as detailed as I can,’ he said with a nod, his eyes flicking over to PC Kennedy and back to McManus. Whatever he said now would be integral to the beginning of this case, an investigation that the DI from the mainland would soon be taking over. His own suspicions and memories of that other unsolved case from so long ago would have to remain unspoken, at least for now.

D
r Rosie Fergusson clicked on the send button, her reply to the police officer winging its way to the DI’s BlackBerry. The team was already on their way to Mull and she hoped to join them within twenty-four hours. It would be Rosie’s job as senior consultant pathologist to carry out the post-mortem. But, before that could happen, the victim’s parents were also heading to the Western Isles. The discovery of a red-haired young man washed up on the beach two days after he had gone missing told its own sorry tale. Rosie shook her head. Something bad had happened up there to allow a senior officer to investigate. Not just an accident, she told herself, not a simple case of drowning, then; not if DI Crozier was involved.

Her husband had raised his dark, bushy eyebrows when Rosie had described the death. Solly was not one to make puerile statements, but one look could say such a lot. His background in behavioural psychology had involved Solly in several cases of multiple murder in the past, many of them with cases headed up by Lorimer.

How bizarre that it should have been Lorimer who had found the body! The Lorimers spent at least two weeks every summer up in their hideaway. It was a release for them both; Maggie from the stresses and strains of teaching and Lorimer from the urban jungle that was Glasgow. Rosie sighed and blinked at the screen. She ought to send Maggie an email. After all, the Lorimers were close friends, godparents to her daughter, Abby, and the four of them had hoped to meet up during Maggie’s summer break. But the pathologist hadn’t reckoned on it happening quite like this.

A holiday in Balamory
, Rosie had suggested, seeing three-year-old Abby’s eyes light up at the idea. The children’s TV programme that was based on the colourful houses around Tobermory had taken the little girl’s fancy and plans had already been made for the Brightmans to head north. Solly had found a place in Tobermory for them to stay and she would have time to fulfil her duties on this new case before taking a short break, Rosie realised. And maybe taking Bill and Maggie away from the scene of a crime would do them both a favour. Abby’s incessant chatter about her favourite characters in
Balamory
could be the perfect antidote to the horrors of finding a body practically on their doorstep.

She would also be able to catch up with her old friend and one-time mentor, she thought, images of a tall, grey-haired lady who now resided in Mull coming to mind. That would be good.

The pathologist’s eyes sought out the pencil icon and she began to type in Maggie’s email address. They had broadband up there, didn’t they? She shook her head, wondering if this email would reach them, letting them know that she, too, was involved in the fate of the boy.

Pamela Dalgleish stood on the deck of the
Isle of Mull
, the big car ferry that ploughed through the seas between Oban and Tobermory, looking out at grey skies and choppy waters. Minke whales had been sighted here, Rory had told them, but somehow she doubted whether she and Douglas would see more than the occasional herring gull on their trip to the island. A long spit of land, dominated by a stark, white lighthouse, loomed out of the mist, the current heaving harder beneath the ship. Lismore. That was the place. Pamela had read about it somewhere, hadn’t she?

If she could only stay here for ever, mesmerised by the waves foaming past the bow… it was a fate she desired more than anything.
Stop all the clocks
, Auden had written, and now she knew how he had felt. If she could make time stand still, keep sailing out to the west, away from landfall, away from the necessity of speaking to people, away from whatever horror lay ahead, then Pamela Dalgleish would choose that here and now.

He found her at the top of the hill under one of the ancient oak trees. Maggie was turned away from him, sitting on a long, low branch that generations of children must have used to bounce up and down. Did she miss them? These phantom children? And had the death of this boy brought back thoughts of what might have been? So many pregnancies, so much hope invested in a family life, all come to naught.

Lorimer came to sit beside her, his weight making the old branch creak.

Maggie was staring out to sea through a gap in the trees, the shore beneath them and the ribbon of road blanked off by the curving hillside from this point. The hill mist was a fine, gentle rain but larger drops fell from the trees, plopping onto their waterproof hoods.

Lorimer took her hand, twining her fingers in his own. ‘You’re frozen,’ he remarked, but she did not answer, simply kept looking at the grey seas and the dark green outline of pine forest across the bay. He reached across and took both her hands in his, gently massaging them to bring some warmth back into the cold flesh. Maggie placed her head against his shoulder then he felt a huge sigh as she nestled into his body.

‘I feel so selfish,’ she said at last, her voice small under the dark hood.

‘Why? You’ve done nothing to feel selfish about.’

Another sigh, then, ‘I was angry,’ she said quietly. ‘
Am
angry. That it happened here. Spoiled this place for ever.’

He put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her closer. ‘That’s not selfish,’ he replied.

‘Isn’t it?’ Her tone was scathing so he said no more, for hadn’t he felt that spurt of betrayal too? That moment on the shore, the feeling that their special place had become tainted with something evil?

‘There’s no getting away from it, is there?’ she continued, a note of bitterness in her voice.

‘What d’you mean? The job?’

‘No,’ Maggie answered, ‘not that. I’m not blaming you for being a policeman.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘I meant, there’s no getting away from the
world
.’

It was Lorimer’s turn to sigh. ‘I suppose not,’ he agreed.

Then, as something caught the corner of his eye, he placed a finger over his lips, nudging Maggie to follow his glance.

A large brown hare had come out of the mist, lolloping across the wet grass and onto the narrow road. They sat still on the branch, watching as it came closer and stopped. For a moment the animal seemed to stare at them, nose twitching, long dark ears erect, then it turned and began to make its way downhill, stopping again, sitting up on its haunches, turning to look back at them.

‘Time to go?’ Lorimer asked, and Maggie nodded.

The branch swung upward as they climbed off, a faint swish and groan as though the oak was tired of bearing its burden.

‘He’s waiting for us,’ Maggie whispered as they stepped onto the tarmac and followed the hare back down towards Leiter Cottage. Sure enough, the hare appeared to be looking at them with its steady, glassy eyes, as if certain the two humans were following his lead, then it turned and began to lollop its way down the road. They walked on, hand in hand, their eyes fixed on the creature. When the white house came into view it stopped once more and turned to watch them, ears twitching. Then, as though satisfied that they were safely home, the hare leapt across the burn and vanished into the bracken.

Lorimer and Maggie walked towards the edge of the road but there was nothing to be seen, not even a green frond disturbed by the animal’s passing.

There was no need for words when they crossed to the gate, hand in hand, the sound of boots crunching on pebbles as they made their way back to the front door. It was a moment that would be hugged to themselves and taken out some other time to be remembered, a moment a poet might have mined for symbolism or meaning. For now all that mattered was that the bold hare had lifted their spirits and restored their delight in this special place.