Dark as Night (11 page)

              ‘Could this be Tony Lomond?’ DCI Bevan pressed. ‘You’ve seen the man more often than the rest of us.’

              Alice shook her fine bob of light brown hair. ‘There’s a resemblance, but I really couldn’t say for certain. Maybe we could get Lomond back in to do a line up – see if this Paul Black can pick him out?’

              ‘I’ve not got enough evidence for that. Even if Lomond spent an entire evening having a tête a tête with Nathan three weeks ago, it doesn’t put him directly in the frame for the murder. We already knew they met on the pub circuit.’

              ‘But Paul Black’s account makes their liaison sound like it was more than friendship. Lomond has always denied that. It shows he was lying.’

              ‘
If
we’re talking about the same man.’

              Alice looked apologetic. ‘I can’t give you a definite answer from this picture. If anything, I’d say this likeness was of someone older. A man in his mid to late thirties, perhaps?’

              Dani smiled sadly. ‘That was Paul Black’s assessment too. He thought the man who was chatting Nathan up was mid-thirties, at the very least.’ Bevan took back the print-out. ‘Well, it’s going into the bulletin this afternoon and I may get a slot on the six o’clock news. DCS Nicholson is looking into it.’

              ‘Great, that should generate a decent response from the public. We
are
getting somewhere with this, Ma’am. I can feel it.’

Chapter 20

B
evan had been required to deliver a lot of bad news in her career, but this particular conversation she was absolutely dreading. They’d received a call from the East Renfrewshire Constabulary late that afternoon. Only a handful of officers were left on their floor at headquarters. The DC she spoke to then e-mailed over a series of photographs. Bevan had printed them off and was carrying them in her briefcase right now.

              Dani approached the building and pressed on the buzzer. It was Carol’s voice that crackled over the intercom.

              ‘It’s DCI Bevan, may I come up?’

              The external door clicked open. Dani pushed through and mounted the stairs. When she reached the top, the door to the Calders’ flat was already ajar. Bevan hoped to God that Andy was in there. The DCI wasn’t sure she could face Carol alone, not knowing what she did about her husband.

              It was Andy who was standing in the doorway waiting for her. He looked strange, his expression distant. ‘Has there been a development in the case, Ma’am?’

              ‘Yes,’ Dani answered, following her colleague into the kitchen.

              Andy automatically poured her out a glass of wine. He reached for his own half-drunk beer and sat at the table opposite Bevan. ‘Have you had a response to the E-fit?’

              ‘Not yet. But the bobbies from East Renfrewshire have found something, out at Balgray Park.’

              ‘I didn’t know they had any teams still searching for evidence over there.’ Andy’s posture visibly stiffened.

              ‘They don’t. But some keen young DC decided to act on her own initiative. Whilst off duty, she took her dog for a walk down to the weir. The DC knew there was a piece of wire mesh stretched across the water that stopped unwanted debris from getting caught in the mechanism of the dam. It’s a quarter of a mile downstream from the place where McLaren’s body was dumped. She had a hunch there might be something caught in there.’

              ‘What did she find?’ Andy’s face was unreadable.

              ‘There was another bin bag, snagged in the mesh. The team at Barrhead took photographs of the items inside it before they were sent off to forensics. Jenny McLaren has already confirmed that the wallet, phone and keys in the bag were Nathan’s. But there’s other stuff too - things that Jenny couldn’t identify. I’m sorry, but I need to ask if you recognise anything.’ Dani took a sip of wine. ‘Of course, you don’t need to look. I can take the pictures over to Mae Mortimer and show them to her instead. I just knew you’d want to be informed first.’

              Andy lowered his gaze. ‘Thanks. I’m glad you came to me. I’ll do it.’ He sipped reluctantly from his glass, as if to fortify himself for the ordeal that was to come but realising he couldn’t stomach it.

              Dani brought the Perspex folder out of her briefcase. She spread the photographs on the table between them.

              Carol had come to stand in the doorway. She said nothing, seeming to understand what was going on without having to be told. Andy spent several minutes eyeing the high resolution images. Each one showed tables laid out with various battered objects, some obviously older than others. His vision lingered on one of the shots. With an enormous effort of willpower, Andy pulled it towards him.

              ‘That’s Donny’s ring.’ He tapped the picture with a shaky finger. ‘He wore it as a kind of joke, really. Don bought it at a Twisted Sister gig in New York. It’s got a skull worked into the silver band. If the techies look closely, they should see the date and venue of the gig engraved onto the back. It was some time in the mid-eighties, at the Apollo, I think.’

              Dani nodded, saying nothing. She began to gather the photos back into a pile.

              ‘What does this mean?’ Andy looked at her with wide, pleading eyes.

              The DCI addressed him as she would any other frightened, bewildered relative. ‘It means that whoever killed Nathan McLaren was very likely involved in the disappearance of your uncle ten years ago. That’s all we can say for certain at this stage.’

              ‘I want you to search the reservoir for more bodies.’ Andy looked resolute, defiant.

              ‘Of course,’ Dani replied. ‘I will get onto the DCS first thing in the morning.’

*

The team were gathered before her. They were quieter and more solemn than usual. Calder was in a discussion with DCS Nicholson upstairs, so Dani could speak freely.

              ‘East Renfrewshire have sent the items from the black bag they found in the weir away for analysis. We’re hoping to be able to extract DNA from some of the items. There’s a watch, for example, which may have hairs caught in the strap.’              

              ‘Do we have any idea how old the items are?’ Phil Boag asked.

              ‘Well, we know that Donald Calder’s ring has been missing for ten years. But I’d suggest that a couple of the other items in that bag were even older than that.’

              Alice Mann put up her hand. ‘If we believe that the person who killed McLaren was also involved in the disappearance of Andy’s uncle, that puts Tony Lomond out of the frame, surely? He would have only been twenty years old back then and he studied for his first degree in Aberdeen.’

              Dani nodded. ‘This discovery changes the whole complexion of the McLaren case, I’d agree.’

              Phil furrowed his brow. ‘Both men went missing on the last Saturday in July. That’s a holiday for all schools and universities. Lomond would surely have been back at home with his parents in the Glasgow area on that date in 2005.’

              ‘It’s something we’ll have to check out. For the time being, the focus is on what the divers discover at the bottom of the Balgray Reservoir.’

              Dan Clifton visibly shuddered. ‘My running club use the Balgray Country Park. It’s pretty unsettling to know it could be a dump site for a serial killer.’

              ‘We don’t know if that’s what we’re dealing with yet,’ Bevan said sternly. ‘Until we can ascertain that Donald Calder is actually dead, we continue to consider him a missing person. None of this gets out to the press, okay?’

              The officers nodded, Bevan tried to make eye contact with them all, to be sure of their cooperation. ‘We have a date which connects these two men – Donny Calder and Nathan McLaren. What was it about the Glasgow Fair Saturday that precipitated their disappearance?
This
factor is what we concentrate on. I want lists of all the stall holders, ice-cream salesmen and fairground operators who were on Glasgow Green this year
and
back in 2005.’

              Alice rolled her eyes at the vast nature of the task.

              ‘I know it won’t be easy. But this is the key to finding our man. I’m certain of it.’

Chapter 21

D
CI Bevan and DS Phil Boag pressed the doorbell of a grand Victorian villa situated in the heart of a quiet suburb of Paisley.

              Mae Mortimer answered quickly, as if she’d been waiting for them to arrive. The woman led the officers through the house to a light, airy kitchen. She put on the kettle as if on autopilot.

              Dani intercepted her tea-making routine by placing a hand on her arm, guiding Mae towards one of the dining chairs. ‘Is your husband at home?’

              Mae shook her head. ‘Gavin’s at work.’

              ‘Okay. Would you like us to call him home before we explain things to you?’

              ‘No. It’s got nothing to do with my husband, not really. It’s the kids who should be here to find out what happened to their dad.’

              ‘I was thinking more of having someone around who could provide you with moral support.’

              ‘I’m fine.’ She leant forward, her eyes wide and pleading. ‘Just tell me,
please
. I’ve waited so long for news.’

              Dani took a deep breath. ‘The divers searching the Balgray Reservoir found another body. It had been wrapped in polythene sheeting and weighted down with rocks and other debris.’

              ‘Is it him?’ Mae gripped Dani’s arm.

              ‘All that remains is the skeleton and some fragments of clothing. It’s going to take a little time, but our pathologist believes he’ll be able to provide us with this person’s height, sex and build. Possibly even their age. We
will
be able to confirm one way or the other if this is Donald. There will be closure, Mrs Mortimer, I promise.’

              The woman gasped, throwing her head back and allowing the tears to roll unchecked down her cheeks. ‘We can bury him at last. You don’t know how that feels, DCI Bevan.’

              ‘No, but I can imagine.’

              Phil brought a cup of sweet tea over to the table and placed it in front of her. ‘We have the transcripts of the original interviews that you gave the police ten years ago, but would you be prepared to answer a few more questions for us now?’

              Mae turned her gaze towards him, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. ‘What do you want to know?’

              Phil took a seat and cleared his throat. ‘Were you and your husband getting on well at the time of his disappearance?’

              ‘What’s this?’ Mae snapped. ‘A re-run of the original, pathetic excuse for an investigation? Isn’t it finally clear that Don didn’t run off with some other woman?’

              ‘Yes, it is clear,’ Dani continued. ‘But now it is also plain that whoever murdered Nathan McLaren also murdered your husband. It is our firm belief that Nathan was targeted as a victim because of his homosexuality.’

              Bevan had expected Mae to look shocked, angry even, at hearing this statement. Instead, her body seemed to crumple with relief. ‘I didn’t ever know if that was a factor in his disappearance, that’s why I never said anything. It would have destroyed Don’s family and deeply upset the kids if it had come out.’

              Dani waited for her to continue.

              ‘When we first got together, Don told me he was bisexual. He’d never kept that side of his sexuality a secret from me. But his own family were a different matter. They’re not exactly very tolerant of that kind of thing.’

              Dani thought about Andy and immediately recognised what she was talking about.  

              ‘He’d had a couple of boyfriends in his early twenties. I knew one of them quite well. But Don always said he
loved
me, that I was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. We were happy for a long time, certainly when the kids came along and they were little. But about a year before he went missing, Don had become withdrawn and depressed. I never knew if it had anything to do with his feelings towards men, I was too frightened to ask. By the July of 2005, Don and I were barely having sex at all. I suppose it was always crazy for me to have believed he’d be able to give up that side of his life and then expect him to be happy about it.’

              ‘You loved each other, what else were you supposed to do?’

              Mae nodded, sensing that the detective understood. ‘A part of me thought that Andy’s dad was right and Don had got drunk that night and thrown himself into the river. But there was always that niggling doubt in my mind. Don would never have deliberately left Lizzie and John, you see – not without saying goodbye in some way. He would have left a note at least.’

              ‘Could Don have been meeting somebody that evening – a man he’d come into contact with at the Fair?’

              Mae shrugged. ‘It’s possible. I’ve re-run that whole day in my head thousands of times. No one was behaving out of the ordinary. As far as I was concerned, Don may have been battling with his urges towards men, but he’d never acted on them.’

              Dani reached out and laid her hand on Mae’s shoulder. ‘Thank you. That’s all the questions we have for now. I’ll let you know about any information we receive with regards to the identification of the remains we’ve found.’

              Mae stood up awkwardly as the officers made to leave. ‘Will DC Andy Calder be working on the case?’