Dark as Night (16 page)

              Ben shook his head sadly. ‘We weren’t as close by then as we’d once been. I only wish he had. When Don was living the hetero family dream, it would have been awkward to have me popping round every five minutes. Although, I did receive a phone call from him, maybe a month before the Glasgow Fair.’

              ‘What did he say?’ Andy shifted up with interest.

              Ben sighed. ‘It was a melancholy conversation. Don was a bit tipsy and reminiscing about the past. We’d had some great times together. He was certainly very sad about something. He talked about discovering that people you’d once respected were just pawns of the system, out for profit and their own ends. It was the kind of stuff Don would have railed on about when we were still young. It made me sure that Don had taken his own life when he disappeared.’

              ‘But he didn’t. Someone killed him.’ Andy finished his wine. ‘If Don was tempted to start seeing men again, how would he go about it? Were there any particular bars or clubs you used to frequent?’

              His host looked thoughtful. ‘I can give you a list of a few. It’s amazing how many of these places are still going strong and are quite unchanged from how they were twenty five years ago.’ He smiled, ‘which is more than can be said for the clientele.’

              Andy glanced around him. ‘Are you married now?’

              ‘To a man, you mean? No. I had a partner for a long time but he died last year. I don’t expect there will be anyone else for me.’

              ‘I’m very sorry.’

              Ben nodded in recognition. Then he tilted his head to one side. ‘You aren’t at all like Don described you.’

              ‘How do you mean?’ Andy felt his stomach flip over.

              ‘Well, it was you and your father that had kept Donny in the closet for all those years. He thought the Calders would disown him if they ever knew. Yet here you are, casually asking me if I’m married to another man.’

              Andy shrugged his shoulders. ‘People change, they have to.’

              ‘What about your father, has he changed his opinions too?’

              Calder didn’t answer, but the sad expression on his face told Ben Price all he needed to know.

*

Andy left Price’s flat with plenty of time to drop into a few of the bars on the list. Carol knew he might be home late. On this occasion, Andy hadn’t needed to lie to her.

              Calder was required to shrug off his prejudices and stroll confidently through the area of the west-end where the gay establishments proliferated. The places that Ben and Don used to frequent were less glitzy than many of the others. Andy felt they were just like any other trendy pub, except the clientele were predominantly male. He bought a bottle of lager at a place called the Lime Tree and positioned himself on a stool at the bar.

              The evening cabaret was about to start. It constituted a half decent rock band performing their set in full make-up and wigs. Calder thought it was very reminiscent of 70s glam rock. He’d found the music pretty good. Andy also noted how he’d been propped up at the bar for an hour at least and not one man had approached him. This fact shattered another myth that most straight men held about drinking in a gay bar. These guys weren’t interested in him at all.

             
Andy wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing here, after all these years had passed. There wasn’t going to be anyone still hanging around who remembered Don from the day he went missing. He supposed it was more like he was trying to get into the head of his uncle. Andy had needed to completely shift the perception he’d had of a man he’d loved most of his life. This trip was part of the process.

              He was about to move onto the next establishment on the list when Andy noticed a lad standing with a group at the other side of the bar. He was in his twenties, wearing a tightly fitting bright green t-shirt and with his blond hair gelled into a messy, bed-head type of style. Sensing someone staring at him, the young man looked over, his face freezing in shock when he recognised Calder.

              Andy raised his hand in a friendly gesture. He made his way slowly through the crowd, intent upon buying DC Dan Clifton a drink.

Chapter 32

‘W
hat are you doing here? If you don’t mind me asking.’ Dan had broken away from his pals and led Andy towards a quieter table by the window.

              ‘I’ve found out that my uncle Don spent quite a bit of his time in here, when he was a younger man. I suppose I thought it might give me some kind of insight into his state of mind.’

              ‘What it’s like to be gay, you mean?’ Dan sipped from a tumbler filled with an orange coloured concoction.

              ‘Yeah, that’s probably what I mean.’

              ‘This is one aspect of the lifestyle, sure. But we don’t get many guys in here over forty.’

              Andy’s face crinkled in a grin. ‘Point taken.’

              ‘Look,’ Dan fiddled with the beer mat. ‘I’m not out at work. I kinda want to keep it that way.’

              ‘I’m not going to say anything. But can I ask why? Things are different these days. DCI Bevan would never hold it against you for a start.’

              ‘Oh, it’s not her. Alice and Phil would be cool, too.’ Dan looked suddenly uneasy. ‘It’s the other guys – the uniforms and the DCs. You’ve heard the brand of jokes they tell. Not in front of Bevan, sure. But you and I know exactly what their opinions are.’

              ‘I’ve told some of those sorts of jokes myself.’ Andy sipped his beer, feeling awkward.

              ‘Yeah and I never expected in a million years to see you in a place like this. I don’t think there’s anyone at Pitt Street who’s more overtly hetero than you are. If a lassie possesses anything less than a 34’’ chest she’s not even on your radar.’

              ‘Is that really how I come across?’ Andy cradled the ice cold bottle in his hands.

              Dan chuckled. ‘Yes, it is. But the DCI loves you down to your un-PC little toes. So that’s okay.’

              Andy felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t easy being presented so starkly with how the rest of the world viewed you.

              ‘Don’t look so worried, man. It’s only really Alice and me who see things that way. The rest of the division think you’re a standard bearer for common sense on the force. It just depends which side of the fence you’re on.’

              ‘What if my position is starting to shift?’

              Dan leant forward and patted him on the back, emboldened by the lethal cocktail he’d been merrily supping for the past hour. ‘Well, if that’s really the case DC Calder, it would amount to a sodding revolution.’

*

DC Clifton was dressed more formally as he attended DCI Bevan’s briefing the following morning, his hangover carefully masked by a hot shower and a decent moisturiser. Alice and Caitlin were presenting the evidence they’d gathered. Dan could sense some of the older men stiffening at the sight of all these women steering the course of the investigation. No one would say anything of course, it was just a feeling he got.

              ‘We’ve got a set of names from ScotRide,’ Alice continued, handing out sheets to the group. ‘They all need to be checked out. Caitlin and I have already started. We’re trying to create a background profile on them all.’

              ‘So, we want to ascertain if any of the men working the Glasgow Fair this year have a link to the now defunct ‘Coco’s’ operation which provided the amusements ten years ago,’ Bevan clarified. 

              Clifton put up his hand. ‘I’ve been looking into the Donny Calder case, Ma’am. I had a conversation with an ex-boyfriend of his who’s given me a list of their old haunts. Maybe Calder visited one of them on the day he went missing. If he was feeling nostalgic about his past life before he was married, he may just have decided to take a trip down memory lane.’ It wasn’t Dan’s idea to take the credit for this. Andy had insisted that the information was investigated properly, making the young DC promise he’d put it forward.

              Bevan looked surprised. ‘Well done. Get someone else on board and look into it further, would you?’

              Dan nodded.

             
The DCI turned to address the room. ‘We’ve got plenty to do. I realise we’ve not got many red-hot leads, but it’s going to be solid, plodding police work that gets this guy caught. I really don’t want us to have another murder on our hands before we can stop him in his tracks.’

Chapter 33

H
e’d never spotted the guy in the Lime Tree before. He was certainly good-looking, in a rugged, care-worn kind of way. But what he’d noticed immediately was the wedding ring. These days, you couldn’t be too sure if it represented one of those civil partnership things. In the case of this guy, the gold band was too well-worn, fitted too neatly into the folds of skin which enveloped it. This man had got hitched at least a decade ago. Which meant his partner must be a woman.

              After an hour, he approached a younger man by the bar. He bought him a drink and led him off to a private table, away from the crowds. But they didn’t go home together. The older guy left the place first. It was easy enough to follow him. He caught the bus from Cowcaddens and got off along the Great Western Road, entering the door of a low rise block of flats. The address was quickly noted before the observer put his head down and his hood up, proceeding back to the main road, where he would easily be able get a bus home himself.

*

Phil Boag approached his boss’s office, knocking urgently, an optimistic look on his face.

              ‘What is it?’ Bevan shifted up in her seat.

              ‘We’ve had a call in response to the Crime Scotland piece we did, someone who claims to have recognised that ring. Not Donny Calder’s one but that little gold signet.’

              Dani jumped to her feet. ‘Are they still on the line?’

              ‘No, he had to go. Palmer took a name and address, but not until he jotted down the man’s story.’

              ‘Brilliant. Let’s pay him a visit.’

              ‘Err, that might be tricky. He lives in Vancouver. The guy only just watched the Crime Scotland programme on the BBC satellite channel. That’s why it’s taken him so long to respond to the appeal.’

              Bevan sat down again with a bump. ‘Right. Get me the number. I’ll give him a call.’

Spencer McAuliffe had been based in Canada for eight years. He worked for an international bank. He told Bevan how he returned to Glasgow every few years, but since having children, they made the journey less often. McAuliffe was now in his mid-thirties but back in the 90s he’d attended a private school near to his parents’ home in Wemyss Bay.

              Spencer was convinced that the signet ring he saw nestled amongst the other items on Crime Scotland was once owned by an old science master at his school. He claimed to remember it because the teacher had often used it as a part of his experiments, dangling the ring on the end of a piece of string and that sort of thing. He had recalled Mr Ross so clearly because of what had become of him.

              Douglas Ross had been swept into the sea during a coastal walk in 1997. McAuliffe described how the entire school were in mourning for weeks. He had been a much loved teacher and assistant housemaster. Spencer had been a sixth-former back then so it was very strongly imprinted upon his memory. He speculated as to whether the ring had got washed up onto a shore somewhere and somebody had found it, the item then turning up all these decades later amongst the random detritus in that plastic bag.

              Bevan thanked McAuliffe very much for his information, promising to keep him updated on any results. As she set down the receiver, the DCI felt sure that this tip off was a sound one. Bevan had learnt early on in her career that sometimes it just took one person who observed the minutiae of life more than the average to provide that elusive connection which cracked a case. The timing of Spencer’s account certainly seemed to fit. The wrist watch was dated by their experts as having originated from the early nineties, when the model was widely available throughout the UK. Dani wondered if the watch had been Ross’s too. She tried to contain her excitement. This was a fresh lead. They had a new name to work from. The DCI swiftly called together her team. They didn’t have a moment to lose.

Chapter 34

D
ouglas Ross was 46 years old in 1997. He had a wife and two children, both of them of university age at the time he disappeared. His wife passed away less than a decade after her husband was pronounced missing, presumed dead. She was only in her early fifties.

              Ross had been a senior schoolmaster at Wemyss College for the majority of his career. The witnesses who spoke at the inquest into his death paid tribute to his dedication as a teacher to the many boys he’d come into contact with over the years.

             
It was during the spring break of 1997 when Ross informed his wife that he was going to spend the day searching for fossils and precious stones down on the shore at Wemyss Bay. Ross was an amateur geologist in his spare time. He often scoured the beaches for the garnets and amethysts which were thrown up by the ancient Highland Fault line and then washed up on the banks of the Clyde.

              A witness had seen him descending the coastal path at Wemyss Bay in the late morning. Then a dog-walker was sure she’d spotted a man matching Ross’s description on the beach itself, to the north of the Pier. They exchanged pleasantries before the woman returned to the town.