in the muster room. Wilson's remark harked back to a case they'd had involving a Glasgow football club, where a referee had been shot dead on his own doorstep.
'That's actually not a bad point to make,' Lorimer told them.
'We had no idea at the time about the referee's entire background.
He looked as squeaky clean as this victim,' he turned to tap the photograph behind him. All eyes followed his glance. Kenneth Scott's blown-up photograph stared back at them, the black circle in his forehead looking for all the world as if some wag had drawn it there with marker pen.
'We need an awful lot more on this man's background before we can put it down to a case of mistaken identity. No matter what his chum thinks,' he added.
'Sir,' DC Irvine spoke up. 'There's something worrying me about the wife. I mean, the ex-wife. His girlfriend gave me the impression that he might still have been seeing her. And,' she paused for a beat, 'if he was, why haven't we found any address or phone number for her at his house?'
There was a murmur amongst the other officers at this.
Lorimer raised his hand to quieten them. 'Okay. This is just what I mean. You need to look for anything that's unusual or unexpected in this man's life. Sometimes it's the things that are missing that we need to consider,' he nodded at Irvine who reddened with pleasure at her boss's approval, 'And right now it's an ex-wife. What do we know about her so far, Annie?'
'Marianne Brogan, born 28th May 1977. Married Kenneth Scott on January 1st 2000.' She looked up, making a face, 'Like thousands of other couples all over the world. Anyway, they were divorced more than two years ago. No children. She worked as an admin assistant in local government out at Cowglen before she was married but according to the Department for Work and Pensions she didn't appear to have had a job at all after the marriage.'
Irvine looked around her to see how her colleagues would react to this snippet of information. DI Jo Grant met her glance and raised her eyebrows.
'How many women nowadays just give up working once they're married?' Irvine persisted. 'And with no kids to look after?
Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Anyway after the divorce she registered for a course at Anniesland College.'
'In her own name?' DI Grant wanted to know.
'That's the funny thing,' Irvine replied. 'She registered as Mrs Marianne Scott. But there was never an application made to the university in that name.'
'Most divorced women would surely revert to their maiden name,' Cameron remarked.
'You'd think so,' countered Irvine. 'But somehow we've lost her in the paperwork.'
She looked up at Lorimer. 'It's almost as if she wanted to become someone else, isn't it?'
'How about DWP? Was she ever a claimant before or after her marriage broke up?' Grant asked.
Irvine shook her head. Not a Scooby there either. And her last bank details were just after her admission to Anniesland College when she withdrew all of her funds and closed the account.'
'So she could be anywhere? Abroad, even?' Jo Grant persisted.
'Well, we've no reason to think of her as a murder suspect, have we?' DS Wilson broke in. 'And if she's started a new life for herself we can hardly ask Interpol to trace her just so's we can let her know her ex-hubby's dead, can we?'
'Okay. We keep looking for her, but not as a top priority. Maybe the girlfriend's intuition is wrong,' Lorimer said. 'Maybe Scott hadn't seen his ex-wife for a long time. It would certainly explain why a house he's been living in for the last eighteen months shows no sign of her.'
'Wanted to give himself a fresh start, probably,' Cameron chipped in.
'We still have several of Scott's associates at work to interview.
See if any information about Mrs Scott emerges, okay? And find out what he was doing on his week off. Ask the neighbours if he was about. Talk to the postman. You know the score, Annie.'
DC Irvine tried not to grimace as she nodded. It would be a case of grinding through family members (of whom there appeared to be none) and his workmates.
'And you'll continue having DC Fathy to help you,' Lorimer added.
Annie Irvine's mouth twisted into the semblance of a smile as if she were keeping her pleasure to herself.
Lorimer glanced at her, eyes twinkling for just a second, but it was enough to let her know he could see right through her.
Now, soldier, you're going to have to make something of this,' the hit man whispered to himself. He was sitting on an armchair that he had turned right way up, gazing at the debris littered around the room. If there was anything of value, then he was going to have it, but better than that, he might be able to find some address book or other that would give him a clue to Brogan's whereabouts.
Outside the bay window he could hear the noise of traffic mingling with the thud of some heavy machinery from a nearby building site. It had been a while since he'd visited this godforsaken city full of mad Jocks and the hit man realised that it had changed a lot. He'd noticed new blocks of flats that had sprung up around the riverside and more bridges spanning the Clyde's oily waters. Across on the south bank he had glimpsed the BBC and STV buildings, their roofs sporting a mass of satellite dishes. The whole area seemed to be on the up, he thought. Maybe Brogan's place was worth a bit of money these days.
'Right,' he sighed, easing himself out of the chair. 'Let's see what you've got hidden away, Billy boy.'
The bedroom was the obvious place to begin. But whoever had been here before him had well and truly gone through every drawer and cabinet, emptying the contents onto the manky carpet.
The hit man wrinkled his nose. The whole place reeked of cannabis. He stopped for a minute, considering. There was no finesse in the search that had happened before his arrival. Just an angry rampage through the place, as though whoever had been here had scattered the stuff around in a furious temper. A drug fuelled temper, perhaps? Brogan was now a weaselly little Glasgow dealer, that much he knew from his enquiries about the man he remembered from the old days. And he'd obviously made himself some enemies. 'There's someone here who'll do more than throw your stuff, around, Billy Boy,' he promised the silent room.
Wearing these thick leather gloves to rake through all of this mess was a nuisance, but he did not dare leave his prints anywhere.
The hit man hunkered down and patiently sifted through every piece of discarded paper, turning each bit over and reading it as he made a neat pile on the space beside the overturned bedside cabinet.
There was a reporter's notebook, some pages ripped out and the rest blank, a plastic wallet full of old bank statements that made the man's eyebrows rise in surprise at the last paltry amount in credit. Still, the bloke was a dealer and dealers invariably used cash in their business transactions. Somewhere, Brogan was out there with ten grand of his, he reminded himself.
He'd given up finding anything of value when his hand slipped on the last few papers, making him lose his balance and fall sideways against the bed. It was then that he saw it: a small, black bound book lying amongst filthy clumps of dust under the top end of the bed.
Flattening his hand, the hit man reached for it, but the space was too narrow. Swearing softly to himself, he drew off the left hand glove and tried again. This time his fingertips reached the edge of the notebook and he felt its grainy surface under his fingernails.
Slowly and carefully he drew it out then sat up, resting his back on the side of Brogan's bed.
It was an old diary from a year back. The hit man flicked through it from front to back until he came to the section for addresses. None of the names meant a thing to him, but there were a few with telephone numbers against them so at least that would be a start.
What to do now? If he were to check into another hotel and Brogan came back, he might miss his chance of nailing the little bastard. On the other hand, if the dealer had had to scarper in a hurry, perhaps he had simply been unable to keep to the agreed rendezvous?
The man closed his eyes as he considered his options. He'd been in worse places. A flash of white hot desert came to mind, the heat beating down, sweat gluing his hair to his helmet. He opened his eyes again, seeing the dust motes thick in the air as a shaft of sunlight crept into the room, smelling the rank odour of spent joints. Aye, he'd been in hellholes worse than this crummy little pad that Brogan called home.
