These two CID officers, the nice girl Annie Irvine and that handsome young Egyptian, hadn't been terribly forthcoming about the woman they were seeking. She had been hiding away from someone or something, managing to have her details erased from the data banks in registry. He would have to find out more.
Had he been part of the team… but he wasn't wanted by Strathclyde Police right now, SoIly reminded himself. Still, he mused, stroking his beard thoughtfully, that didn't preclude him from carrying out some investigations of his own, did it?
CHAPTER 35
DCI Lorimer and his fellow officers walked into the studio accompanied by a tiny girl who had assured them that she was indeed the producer's assistant even though she looked about fourteen. I'm getting old, Lorimer reminded himself yet again, looking around him. All of these runners and gofers looked as though they had been let out of school on a work experience project.
Take this young lady, who was struggling to keep up with the policeman's stride; she was wearing a pair of thick black tights under a pair of dark grey denim shorts and a too-tight black knitted tank top over a white blouse with little puff sleeves. Her face seemed devoid of make-up and her dyed red hair was tied into a spiky ponytail with an elastic band. A wee lassie, Lorimer told himself. But the girl's appearance had been belied by her detailed knowledge of the programme that was to take place. She had to have a mature personality for something like this.
Lorimer grinned suddenly. Wasn't that what he was always telling his own officers to avoid doing? Judging someone on their appearance? His smile faded as he spotted the blown-up photograph of Marianne Scott nйe Brogan that would be going out on national television that evening. Glancing around, Lorimer saw other images being thrown up on a screen one after the other, a series of mug shots of men wanted for various criminal offences.
Most of them were dark skinned and this alone made the tall policeman purse his lips and wonder why.
Had Britain been seen as the land of milk and honey for many of these fellows from overseas? And had they turned to lives of crime in their disillusionment? Who knew the answer to that one? He thought of DC Fathy and the young Egyptian's privileged background.
Frowning to himself, Lorimer began to wonder if the man had been targeted not for the colour of his skin at all but because he came from a wealthy family, unlike most of the officers who joined the police force. It was an angle worth considering, he told himself, mentally filing that thought away for future consideration.
'Detective Chief Inspector, how nice to meet you,' a slim blonde woman approached him. Lorimer took in the sleepy eyes that regarded him from under her long lashes and that curving smile. Kirsty Young put out her hand and he took it, noting the firm handshake and the way she looked so steadily at him as though they were quite alone and not surrounded by technicians, cameramen and youngsters passing in and out of the dark walled area. His first thought was what a great police officer this woman might make. There was something about her that reminded him of a quotation from King Lear: 'you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master. What's that? Authority.' Yes, Kirsty Young had such a quality, Lorimer thought, following her as she led them out of the studio into a corridor leading to a large room where rows of chairs had been set out.
'We haven't had the pleasure of working together before,'
Kirsty said, her husky voice still holding a trace of her Scottish roots. 'But I believe you did a programme when Nick was here?
And of course you know Alex Loughran,' she added as the programme's editor passed with a wave of her hand.
'l'hat's right,' Lorimer replied, taking a seat beside her as she motioned towards the end of a row.
'A couple of soft drinks, Pamela,' the presenter asked the tiny girl with the bright scarlet hair. 'That all right with you, Chief Inspector?'
'Fine,' Lorimer replied. 'We had a series of young girls found strangled and left in a Glasgow park,' he went on, picking up the thread of their conversation. 'Your programme was hugely instrumental in finding the killer,' he said approvingly.
'But this is quite a different sort of case, isn't it?' Kirsty asked, crossing one leg over the other, her navy linen trousers draping in loose folds as she clasped her hands over her knees.
'You're right. This is altogether trickier. We want to see if we can locate a woman, Marianne Scott. Her brother, Billy Brogan, is somewhere overseas and we have reason to believe he's involved somehow in the murder of Marianne's former husband.' Lorimer stopped, biting his lip. 'It's a bit complicated. Brogan was thought to be a small-time drug dealer but our current intelligence suggests that he was involved in the drug scene in a much deeper way altogether.'
'Go on,' Kirsty nodded, her eyes still holding his own, showing that she was genuinely interested.
'We think the ex-husband, Kenneth Scott, had been stalking his former wife. He was found shot in his own home, he's got no record nor has he any known association with criminals other than the fact that Brogan was his brother-in-law.' Lorimer took a deep breath. 'Then a couple of other Glasgow dealers are found shot dead in Brogan's home and we get the nod that Brogan has skipped to Spain.'
'You think Brogan killed all three men?' Kirsty asked.
Lorimer gave a mirthless laugh. 'That's just it. We did at first, but we don't think that now. Timing for the second two is all wrong and we've got ballistics evidence to suggest that all three were killed by the same weapon.'
Kirsty re-crossed her legs and frowned at him. 'So why are you putting out an appeal for the sister? I don't quite understand.'
'She's deliberately gone into hiding. Even made sure her name was taken off Glasgow University's registry database while she was a student there. Something's wrong,' he said, leaning forward. She may even be dead, he almost told her, but stopped himself in time. Had Marianne Scott been tatgeted by the same hit man? This was a question that Lorimer did not yet want to utter aloud, his mind full of so many doubts and possibilities. But what if she were still alive? 'If we can find her and question her, or anyone who knows her or has seen her, we may be able to locate the brother.'
'How will that help to find the killer, though?'
'Brogan owed a lot of money to some very dangerous people.
And only he can give us their names. That isn't the whole story, though, I'm afraid,' he continued. 'A man called Sahid Jaffrey was brutally killed on the south side of the city recently.'
Lorimer looked hard at the woman across the table. 'He was the police informant who let us know that Brogan was in Spain.'
'This gets more and more complicated,' Kirsty said. 'How do you suggest we put such a lot of information across to our viewers?'
'We don't,' said Lorimer shortly. 'What I want to do is to appeal for information for any sighting of this woman whose ex-husband was found dead. If we can slant the appeal to that sort of angle, suggest without actually saying that she may be a suspect, then perhaps we will have some response.'
'And you don't think she actually had anything to do with these killings?' Kirsty asked, slowly.
'They were done by a professional,' Lorimer replied. 'Brogan's ex-army and we thought at first it might have been him.'
'But the timings were wrong,' Kirsty said, echoing Lorimer's earlier statement. `So what do you actually know about this woman, Marianne Scott?'
'She was a mature student at the University of Glasgow. That's why we asked the editors to have footage of the campus as part of the appeal,' he said. 'Anyone who knew her in that context might want to give us a ring.'
'How odd that she was able to have her name taken off the registry,'
Kirsty remarked.
'Aye,' Lorimer replied. 'We're looking into that as well. And we'll find out just how she managed it, believe me.'
