Still Dark

Book 14: DSI William Lorimer

by Alex Gray

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

'Brings Glasgow to life in the same way Ian Rankin evokes Edinburgh' Daily Mail

New Year's Eve should be a time for celebrating. A chance to spend time with loved ones and look forward to the year ahead. For DSI William Lorimer, however, this New Year's Eve will be one that he will never forget. Called to a house after gunshots are reported, the carnage he finds there will have a powerful impact on his life - leaving him questioning his future with Police Scotland.

Meanwhile, the man who eluded police capture during Lorimer's last investigation - the Quiet Release case involving the euthanasia of vulnerable patients - is back, and this time he's aligned with a powerful gangster from Glasgow's underworld.

As Lorimer struggles to return to duty and stop this mystery killer once and for all, he discovers that there are forces high up within Police Scotland that are protecting the gangster that holds the key to finding the man they are looking for. Can Lorimer and his team get a killer off the streets for good before more innocent people die?

Release date: March 23, 2017

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

‘Put down the gun, Thomas.’

Lorimer kept his eyes fixed on the man who was standing at the other side of the bedroom, arms clutched around the whimpering child, the gun pressed against her pale blonde curls.

Thomas Blackburn’s eyes were red-rimmed, devil’s eyes, staring at the tall police officer who had dared to enter the house where bodies already lay sprawled and bloody.

‘She’s your little girl, Thomas,’ Lorimer said softly, willing himself not to shift his gaze and succumb to the temptation of glancing at the toddler caught in the man’s vice-like grip. ‘It’s Lauren. You don’t want to hurt her, do you?’ Lorimer’s voice sounded steady as he spoke, though it belied his true feelings. Inside, his stomach was churning, the smell of blood filling his nostrils.

It was imperative that Blackburn heard the voice of reason, the policeman’s calm reassuring words posing no threat to the wild-eyed gunman. The sound of his voice had lulled many a criminal into a false sense of security over the years though nothing in Lorimer’s experience had truly prepared him for a moment quite like this.

‘Stay back!’ Thomas Blackburn lifted the pistol away from the side of Lauren’s head and waved it towards the detective superintendent. ‘Stay back or I’ll shoot you as well,’ he cried.

Was that a note of desperation Lorimer could hear? The voice beginning to crack under the strain of what he had done? Was this the moment when a deranged husband and father would suddenly break down and weep?

It was a split-second decision, an instinct telling the detective to defy the gunman’s command.

Despite the body armour, Blackburn could easily kill him with one shot to his face. If this gamble all went horribly wrong, Lorimer could be making a widow of his beloved wife.

Thoughts of Maggie were brushed aside as Lorimer shifted his weight, preparing to step forward and put out his hand, ready to accept the gun.

The child wailed as Blackburn gripped her harder, a shrill piercing cry.

Then, as Lorimer took one step forward, the world exploded in a mass of red as the girl’s screams were silenced by the blast.

He watched in horror, unable to move, as Blackburn put the gun into his own mouth and fired, the air filled with noise and gore, spattering the policeman as he stood helpless and trembling.

‘Your baby,’ he cried, dropping to his knees and reaching out his hands to touch the child’s body. ‘Your baby…’

He stared at the place where the man had been, now an empty space filled with the acrid smell of gun smoke.

Lorimer was only vaguely aware of the sound of running feet entering the room and the feeling of hands under his arms lifting him up, tears blurring his vision, the moment already replaying in his head.

This city was all his, Gallagher told himself, swinging round to face the huge window overlooking the rooftops of central Glasgow. St Vincent Street swept upwards past the busy shopping thoroughfare to the graceful old office buildings where rows of well-tended window boxes were displayed from early springtime right through till the first frosts of winter. Even today, on this cold February morning, he could see traces of greenery and a few ornamental cabbages brightening up the grey walls as he looked down at street level. It was a part of Glasgow that had not seen too many changes, the business district still housing the premises of lawyers, accountants and insurance companies, those who could afford the high rents that these smart four-storey blocks commanded. The façades had remained the same for several generations although in many cases the interiors had been drastically altered to reflect the changing tastes of those whose money could buy these sorts of surroundings, as well as to accommodate so many new technologies.

The man swivelled in his captain’s chair to gaze appraisingly around his spacious office, admiring the pictures in their gilt frames hanging on the walls. Several Glasgow artists owed their success to the businessmen and women who had bought up their paintings to furnish spacious boardrooms and reception areas, the displaying of such artworks testament to the standing of those buyers who could afford them. His own interest had begun with the sort of clever craftsmen who could fake any sort of thing he wanted. For a price. But he’d discovered that it was not just some of their under-the-counter work that had interested him.

Jack Gallagher stood up, coming closer to stare at a particular painting. It had caught his eye one day as he’d hurried down Blythswood Street, pausing at a gallery whose double-fronted windows always showed the best of contemporary art.

The picture had made him stop for a moment, its swirling autumn colours reminding Jack of the days long before he was rich, when a day tramping over the hills with his father had seemed the best thing that life could offer the young boy. Gallagher was far from being a sentimental man but the painting had drawn him into the gallery, the desire to own the piece for itself stronger than the knowledge that it was by a renowned artist whose work commanded a hefty price tag.

Now it was his and he could look at it whenever he felt inclined, though somehow he had never quite recaptured that first sensation of being back on the hills again, his own innocent youth lost for ever. Still, he enjoyed the landscape and took pleasure in knowing that he had made a good investment.

And Jack Gallagher knew what was value for money. His drug dealers got what they paid for, mostly over the market value, but then he refused to have anything to do with the shoddier goods that had flooded Glasgow recently, stuff that was cut with no end of rubbish. His clientele appreciated that, Gallagher knew, and paid accordingly. His thoughts turned to his first visitor of the day, the man who always came early in the morning before the city was properly awake. Like all of his clients, Charles Graham paid in cash. Not shabby used notes but sleek bundles of fifties wrapped in clear plastic bags as if he was averse to dirtying his hands with the money. Graham was a careful type; all he had ever given was a PO box for an address, something that tickled Gallagher’s curiosity but he grudgingly admired. If Jack Gallagher knew your real home address that was tantamount to having a hold over you as long as you chose to live there. It would not be the first time by a long way that a couple of his thugs had paid a visit to one or other of the boss’s dealers who had been tardy with their payments. But he knew instinctively that Graham was higher up the food chain than those shadowy types on his payroll. And today Gallagher was particularly interested in the man’s visit and not just because Graham paid a little over the odds for quality product. He’d done the man a couple of good turns since they’d met and now it was time to call in those favours. Blackburn’s death and the media circus that had surrounded it had created problems, one of which he hoped could be solved by his early-morning client.

Gallagher looked at his watch, the Rolex fastened to his wrist just another symbol of his success, another object that he took for granted nowadays and, like the painting, it too had lost that first thrill of ownership. The man should be here at any moment. He frowned. Jack Gallagher wasn’t a man that you kept waiting. Punctuality is a mark of good manners, he remembered his father telling him. Gallagher’s frown deepened into a scowl. Had the memories conjured up by that painting come back to haunt him? His mouth turned up in a grimace that was almost a smile. Nobody would ever make him go back to these old days when he was a ragged boy plodding after his father. Other memories came flooding back; the cramped space in the Gorbals tenement, the stink of his own unwashed body as he’d sat amongst the other kids at school, the rapping on the door as the rent man came to demand his money, children all kept quiet and fearful behind their mothers’ skirts as the banging got louder. No, he’d never go back there again. He’d made his money, ruthlessly trampling on the dreams of his impoverished parents as he’d taken the road that led to this fine office high above the city streets.

Lorimer groaned as he turned in the bed, feeling the weight of the duvet across his ankles.

Waking up was the worst moment of the day.

For a few brief seconds he would simply be aware of the physical things, the warmth of the bed, the hazy light coming from the space between the curtains, his gummed up eyelids…

Then the images kicked in, reminding Lorimer why he was here, unshaven and alone in bed, long after his wife had left for work.

Details flooded back, small things that had seemed so insignificant at the time. Lauren Blackburn’s grubby toy rabbit, clutched in the child’s small hand; the way the flower-patterned curtains had sagged against a broken rail; the paint stains on the gunman’s jeans… the bodies of the woman and her two boys, blood seeping out of their gunshot wounds; then the explosive noise as the child was killed just feet away from his face…

It has been recommended that you take extended leave, the deputy chief constable had told him as they had sat together in the Scottish Crime Campus out at Gartcosh. There had been a look in the man’s eye that brooked no discussion but by then Lorimer had almost welcomed the thought of turning his back on the job that had led him into that house.

The briefing meeting in the days that had followed was a mere blur now, the trauma risk assessor talking quietly, gathering the facts about the incident, the forms to fill in a necessary reminder of why he was off on the sick.

He closed his eyes but it was no use. The scene of carnage returned, the sounds of the child’s cries louder than ever, as if begging him to save her from the madness of her distraught father. Night after night he had woken to the scream that was his own voice and the arms that had enfolded his shaking, sweat-drenched body, Maggie soothing him like the child she had never held.

He’d been lucky, they had told him, those serious-faced colleagues who had taken him out from that place. Blackburn could easily have blown him away before turning the gun on himself.

Lucky was the last thing the detective superintendent felt right now, a groan escaping his dry lips. His body felt heavy, his head aching as though he were coming down with a virus. Lethargy. Inertia, he’d tried to explain to the doctor when she had asked him to describe how he felt. It was as if he had been whacked senseless by these intangible forces, words that had hitherto been absent from the vocabulary of who he was. The woman had nodded her understanding. It was normal to feel like that, she’d told him. It would pass, given time and treatment, she’d promised.

He closed his eyes then opened them again, terrified that the images would return if he allowed himself to fall asleep.

The familiar hrrrum then a thump on the duvet signalled Chancer’s arrival. Lorimer put out a grateful hand, feeling the cat’s soft fur under his fingers, reverberating purrs a reward for caressing his ears, tickling that special place under his chin. He leaned back, his body relaxing for a moment as the world was filled with softness, the pillow behind his head cool against his damp hair. It was fanciful to imagine that the animal could sense his anxiety and had come to offer comfort; Chancer was simply taking advantage of a warm body to snuggle into, that was all. The big orange cat would turn around and around until he was comfortable then lick his fur and settle down with a sigh to sleep. It was a routine that had become established ever since Lorimer had been at home, the cat happily accepting the change to their domestic arrangements.

Lorimer yawned, acknowledging the drowsiness that was making him sink back into the comfort of his warm bed, resigned to the sleep that drew him down once more.

 

It had been a quiet New Year’s Eve to begin with. The city streets were crammed with shoppers bagging their final December bargains, the post-Christmas retail frenzy at its height, women of all ages desperate to find the perfect outfit to wear on this special night of the year. Later, of course, the police would have the usual drunks to contend with and the violence that too often followed. That was only to be expected in this city where an inflammatory remark about a rival football team could result in a knife between the ribs. By the time the bells had heralded the new year, the officers who were on duty would be looking at the declining spaces in their cells, wondering what to do when yet more offenders were brought in off the streets.

Detective Superintendent William Lorimer did not expect to be part of this, however. His day was meant to end mid afternoon when he would meet Maggie at her favourite coffee bar over in the West End where they would enjoy a relaxing hour or so before heading home. He had been congratulating himself on managing to finish a pile of paperwork that had been bothering him for weeks; the sense of satisfaction at having completed this task on 31 December had made the detective arrange the stack of papers neatly together then lean back with a sigh, a smile playing about his mouth. A glance at the clock on the wall opposite his desk reassured him that there were less than two hours before he could make good his escape and join his schoolteacher wife. They had enjoyed a couple of days with each other over Christmas but the New Year’s break would see them together right up until Maggie had to return to work.

The smile on his face faded with the peremptory ring of the telephone.

‘Lorimer,’ he answered at once, his brows darkening as he listened. ‘On my way,’ he said shortly, gathering up his jacket and heading out of the office.

The haste of his passing caused the top sheets of paper to rise in a sudden draught, spilling across the detective’s desk and landing upon the floor where they would lie in disarray until other hands came to pick them up.

 

Down at ground level the detective superintendent was handed the body armour, a bulky Kevlar vest that he strapped on as soon as he was inside the police van. Uniformed officers who were trained for this sort of incident sat in two rows behind him, weapons by their sides, all faces solemn, no words spoken amongst them.

Intelligence had it that gunshots had been heard coming from a family home, the gunman identified by neighbours as Thomas Blackburn, the father of a young family of three kids. The houses on either side of the Blackburns’ terraced house had already been evacuated and the area cordoned off to await this armed response unit.

A serious look from the chief firearms officer was all that was required for Lorimer to understand the gravity of the situation that lay ahead of them all. It would not be the first time that Lorimer had been asked to confront a gunman and perhaps his reputation for keeping a cool head in dangerous situations was the reason he was here now, sitting beside the driver as the van lurched around the city streets towards its destination.

The road had been deserted as they had arrived, armed officers spilling out and ranging themselves around the property at various vantage points. None of them wanted to end the year having taken aim and fired at another human being; each and every one would be pinning their hopes on the man who strode towards the front door and pushed it open, disappearing inside. All eyes were trained on the windows above, from where the sounds of gunfire had come.

Lorimer had called up the stairs first. ‘Thomas? Are you there? This is Detective Superintendent Lorimer speaking.’ His voice had fallen woodenly in the confined space but he had the sensation that someone was listening.

‘Thomas, I’m coming up the stairs now,’ he called out, then, grasping the handrail, he stepped carefully up, hearing the creak of the wood under the worn carpet. There had been only time to ascertain the layout of the house: two bedrooms upstairs with a small bathroom facing the top of the stairs, the living room nearest to the front door, access via the kitchen from the back door that led to a garden. Lorimer stood two steps below the landing, the bathroom door slightly ajar in front of him. Was the gunman there? Watching and waiting?

‘Thomas, it’s time to come out. There’s no place to hide any more,’ Lorimer said, his voice deliberately sympathetic as if he could relate to how this crazed man was feeling.

The silence was broken by the sound of a child whimpering. Lorimer took the last steps to the landing, turning his head to the left to see the bedroom door ajar, the body lying where it had fallen.

There was no movement from the woman who was face down on the carpet, a red stain pooling from a wound around her head. Lorimer glanced at the dark hair shiny with blood. Whoever she was, he knew that this woman would never see another new year again.

A quick glance behind him gave Lorimer time to read the names on the other bedroom door: Brian, Michael and Lauren, plastic nameplates that had been stuck one above the other, the girl’s name the lowest of the three. That door too was partly open and Lorimer took three quick paces towards it, pushing it open with his gloved hand.

The boys were lying across the bed, the arms of their bloodied corpses spread out as if in supplication to the rescuers who had come too late to save them. Lorimer turned away, sick at the sight of these two wee boys, their lives cut so short. By their own father?

His feet retraced their path to the other room where the cries of the little girl were growing louder.

It was either an act of complete bravery or utter stupidity to push open that door.

Thomas Blackburn stood with his back to a cupboard, one hand encircling his baby daughter’s shoulders, the other holding a gun to her head. For a brief moment the two men stared at one another. Blackburn’s eyes were frantic as he gazed at Lorimer. Crazed with drink? Appalled at what he had already done? Or simply astonished to see the audacity of the tall man who had entered the room?

‘Put down the gun, Thomas.’

Charles Graham stepped into the street and smiled. He had listened to Gallagher’s proposal carefully, frowning occasionally to hide the rising excitement that threatened to show in his face. It would have come sooner or later, he’d told himself. Jack Gallagher wasn’t the kind to give with one hand and forget to take back with the other. Give him his due, Gallagher had handed over the faked paperwork without question, for a considerable sum it was true, but that was to be expected from the man at the top of Glasgow’s drug hierarchy. The old woman was becoming a liability, the big man had told him. And could Mr Graham see his way to doing something to help him out? His smile widened. Mr Graham certainly could. They’d shaken hands on it, two businessmen who had reached an understanding of one another’s value.

Supply and demand, that was the mantra that had been dinned into him by his economist stepfather from an early age. There will always be a need for doctors, his mother had agreed and so the years of grinding study had begun as soon as her only child was at secondary school. These had been painful years, his poor reports resulting in rows at home then long hours of private tuition that had allowed the boy to gain sufficient passes to study medicine at university. A sacrifice, he’d been constantly reminded, the money poured into his education bleeding out of the household, denying him things that other children took for granted: a new bicycle at Christmas, school trips abroad, fresh uniforms each new session instead of the ill-fitting trousers (that had to last) constantly shaming him.

His grin twisted as he crossed the city street. Not all of those years had been wasted, though, had they? The student who had been kicked out of his medical course after failing everything in his first year was now a success if his bank account were anything to go by. That was how everyone measured success nowadays. It didn’t matter a toss if you had a string of letters after your name so long as you had the trappings of wealth, he told himself, thinking of the spacious modern apartment that he now owned outright. No mortgage, no money worries.

His grin widened. Aye, the old man had taught him about supply and demand all right. He had found a way to supply those folk who wanted to ease their suffering relatives into the next world. He chuckled as he tried to imagine what his mother and stepfather would say if they’d still been alive to see the way his life had turned out.

Because, as his visit to Gallagher had proved, the demand for putting people to sleep just got bigger all the time.

 

Gallagher swung on his high-backed chair, rereading the latest letter. Stupid bitch, he thought to himself, fingers ready to crush the papers into a ball. She’d threatened to go to the papers; kiss and tell, she’d written, as though he had been in a clandestine relationship with the old biddy; the very thought of it made Gallagher feel sick. But Ellen Blackburn’s threats were dangerous and her removal would not come a moment too soon. Getting rid of the old bag should have been easy enough but Gallagher had needed something that looked more natural than a bullet in the middle of her forehead. Her son, Thomas, had been useful in that regard, a hired thug who never flinched when it came to brute violence. Gallagher sighed. Nobody would have been surprised when he took a gun to the wife but to kill all three of the weans… that was bad even by his own standards. It was little wonder that the auld yin had gone off the rails a bit but to come crawling back again and again to Blackburn’s boss as if it was somehow his fault that the family had been blown away… ach, it was a pain in the tonsils.

Jack Gallagher looked again at the note in his hand, the badly spelled letter threatening to go to the papers unless more cash was put into her hands. On a regular basis. Who the hell did she think she was?

There were other ways to deal with a nuisance like this, he told himself. Nothing that would leave a mark on her ageing body, of course: he wasn’t that daft. A small trace of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as Gallagher looked at the file on his desk. Charles Graham was an unlikely executioner but the services he had outlined at their meeting had impressed Gallagher. He’d even dropped a hint to the effect that he wasn’t above carrying them out himself. He liked the way that Graham had set out the scheme, evading the law and keeping his identity a secret. Gallagher had already guessed that Charles Graham was not his real name. After all, hadn’t he provided some fake papers for him in other names? Besides, the young man didn’t look like a Charles, far less a Charlie, but he doubted if he would ever discover the man’s true identity.

His smile broadened as he thought once again of the idea they had discussed, its simplicity very pleasing.

It would serve two useful purposes: to test Graham’s resolve and to shut the old woman up for good.

He clutched the letter and squeezed it into a ball then tossed it towards the waste-paper basket. It hit the rim and fell noiselessly onto the carpet. Gallagher frowned then pursed his lips. He wouldn’t miss her and hit the wall, that was for sure. And the beauty of it all was that she’d never see it coming.

The man stared out across the city, wondering if there were other ways to stem the tide of interest into his business affairs. Perhaps it was time to put a little pressure on another man who had become his ally.

January had heralded the usual spell of wet and blustery weather, sudden gales dislodging slates from countless roofs, blowing down trees across roads and railway tracks, keeping ships in harbour while the seas boiled with an angry rage against these island shores. William Lorimer had become aware of every change in the temperature, his frequent glances into the grey skies confirming what the weather girl on the screen of his television had predicted. He hadn’t become addicted to the TV soaps, as Maggie had hinted with a forced smile. Nor had he watched the more serious programmes, like the reruns of all the David Attenborough nature documentaries. Other people’s fictional daily dramas failed to capture his interest and he baulked at seeing yet another cheetah or lion tear its prey to bits across a dry and arid landscape. Instead he sat flicking from one channel to another, sometimes keeping his gaze fixed to a game of rugby or football but mostly absorbing the items of news across the globe, filling his mind with images of folk far worse off than himself: the immigrants who had left their homes behind and travelled with nothing but that final shred of hope in their tired eyes; the streets of foreign cities bombed to bits, smoke rising from unnamed buildings where bodies of the dead were no doubt concealed; and then the relief as a smiling man or woman stood by a map explaining what was really happening in his own little part of the world and what sort of weather the viewer might expect.

He had tried to explain this to the woman from TRIM, the trauma risk management assessor, who had given him a sympathetic smile as she had nodded. ‘Your own world has been turned upside down,’ she’d explained. ‘It’s little wonder that you have a desire to cling to something that is predictable, like a meteorological report.’

He didn’t tell her how he sat in the armchair staring at the screen for hours on end, unshaven, too weary to be bothered getting dressed, the dressing gown that Maggie had bought him for Christmas now grubby and stained.

Today was the same as every other day since Detective Superintendent Lorimer had been sent home on sick leave from his job in Glasgow. He had slept fitfully, waking several times with those dreadful images as strong as ever, his body crying out for sleep. Then, as daylight filtered through the curtains he had woken at last, groggy from the medication that was meant to give him some hours of rest: Maggie already gone, the school day begun.

The mug of tea slopped over onto the tray, making a liquid beige puddle as he staggered towards his armchair. He glanced at it in a moment of self-disgust then sighed, slumping down and reaching for the remote control. Between bites of toast and marmalade he flicked from one channel to another until a newscaster appeared on the screen, the view of Westminster behind him. Lorimer tuned out the discussion between the TV journalist and the politician, gazing instead at the skies above the river Thames, marvelling at the sun shining through a cloudless blue. Outside his own sitting room on the south side of Glasgow the rain beat down relentlessly, battering the glass of the window as if demanding to be let in. He hadn’t seen so much as a shred of blue sky in weeks, not even enough to mend a sailor’s trousers, as his granny used to say. The memory of her voice made him smile for a fleeting moment. Then it was gone, like all his family had gone. His father when he’d been a boy, his mum, suddenly, during his final year at high school then all of those little babies…

Why, why why? he’d cried out so often in anguish.

It was a question that Dr Rosie Fergusson had partly answered once the post-mortems on all five family members had been carried out, DNA tests taken. The little girl wasn’t Blackburn’s, she’d told Lorimer. Maybe that was a reason for tipping him over the edge? A jealous husband, a wife who’d cheated and (as the neighbours told police officers afterwards) had been about to walk out on him and take the kids. It was such a sad, familiar story, but one that gave Lorimer no relief.

He felt the tears begin to fill his eyes and brushed them away with an impatient hand. Self-pity was not part of who he was. Or at any rate, it had not been part of the man he used to be. Nowadays the slightest thing could make him well up, a rush of emotion making him shake and sweat as though a fever had entered his bones. It will pass, the doctor had reassured him. It just takes time. And he had clung to these words, memories of himself as he had once been flickering across his mind like the images on his TV screen. One day soon he would be the commanding, purposeful person that he had always been, the doctor had promised. Yet, as he sat huddled into the armchair, eyes fixed on the television, Lorimer began to doubt that he would ever be fit to resume his. . .