Keep The Midnight Out (William Lorimer) (15 page)

‘Maybe in families like theirs,’ Lorimer replied quietly. ‘They’ve got a much stronger sense of obedience than most British teenagers. Dad or Mum tells them to do something and they do it, simple as that.’

Winters raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him but said nothing more as they approached the close mouth of the tenement. The sunlight on this side of the road warmed his back as Lorimer walked up the hill, a sudden memory returning of the many mornings when he had left the subway in Byres Road and cut through Ashton Lane, climbing the steps up past Lilybank Gardens to his various university classes. It all seemed so long ago, not merely the handful of years he had spent as an officer with Strathclyde Police. And he remembered the intense Asian students from his own time; hard-working lads and lasses who lived at home, respecting the strictures of their families. No, there was something odd about this missing boy and Lorimer felt a sense of foreboding as PC Winters rang the buzzer next to the neatly typed name at the top of the list.

‘Why’s it always the top floor?’ she grumbled, tucking a stray lock of hair under her hat. Then she yawned and blinked, making the detective constable wonder how much sleep baby Winters had allowed his mother the previous night.

‘He-llo?’ The sound of a woman’s voice scratched over the intercom.

‘DC Lorimer and PC Winters, Strathclyde Police,’ Lorimer spoke clearly, his face close to the grille.

‘Come up. Top right,’ the voice said and then the buzzer let out a long note, releasing the lock on the heavy front door.

The close was chilly after the sunshine outside and they climbed the three flights in silence, their footsteps echoing down the stone stairwell.

The woman was waiting for them on her doorstep, a yellow and brown sari draped over one shoulder. Even before she spoke, Lorimer could see the anxiety etched on her face, making her seem much older than the mother of a teenage boy.

‘DC Lorimer.’ He held out his warrant card for her to inspect but Mrs Singh barely glanced at it, opening the door wider to admit them to her home.

‘He’s never stayed out like this before. Never,’ she repeated as she led them into the front room, a large bay-windowed lounge furnished with heavy pieces of dark wood furniture, brightened by red and blue patterned cotton throws spread across the settee and chairs.

‘Can you tell us when you last saw your son?’ Lorimer asked, aware of the police constable sitting down next to the woman, Winters’ chubby, sympathetic face turned towards Mrs Singh, her only aim right now to be a comforting presence to this distraught mother.

The questions began to draw out a picture of Desi Singh:
he was a
good boy
, his mother assured them,
just a bit slow at school, not university material like his older brothers and sisters
, the anxiety in her tone tinged with regret and disappointment.

And all the while, Lorimer kept glancing at the framed photograph in the woman’s hands, measuring it against his recent memory of the dead boy by the side of the river.

None of them spoke during the journey across Glasgow to the mortuary, the silence only broken by Mrs Singh’s occasional sniffling into a handkerchief as she sat in the back seat beside PC Winters. How must it feel to anticipate the fact of your own child’s death? Lorimer wondered. What did this woman really know about Desi that she wasn’t telling them? The good boy, the one who’d been slow at school? Had he been bullied? Was he the sort of lad who was easily led astray by stronger personalities than his own? Had he ever been in trouble? She had shaken her head, refusing to admit to any more than she had already told them. Desi had been the one who helped his mother take care of the rental properties, the legacy of his late father, she had explained, trying to inject a note of latent pride into her voice and failing miserably.

And, if this boy lying in the mortuary should prove to be her son, what then? Would that open the floodgates to a different sort of story?

Later, after the screams and the tears, Lorimer managed to find the address for the eldest son, Desi Singh’s brother; the mother had been unable to answer any further questions, too distraught at the sight of her dead son lying on a mortuary table.

Albert Road in Pollokshields was a mere ten minute drive from his own home on the south of the city and as he drew up at the flat, Lorimer recognised the area as a place where he and Maggie had attended a couple of plays in the new Tramway Theatre. He grinned ruefully; when the baby arrived such excursions would become all too rare.

Then, looking up at the windows of the top flat, the policeman’s smile faded; they were here to tell a man that his brother had been murdered and to pose some difficult questions. As he turned to press the entry buzzer, Lorimer noticed that the sun had disappeared behind a bank of white cloud, the day far gone now, shadows lengthening along the grey streets.

‘Mr Singh? This is Detective Constable Lorimer and PC Winters. May we come up, please?’

There was a pause then a non-committal grunt as the buzzer allowed him entry, making Lorimer wonder just how accustomed Desi Singh’s brother might be to visits from Strathclyde Police.

A tall Asian man of about thirty stood on the landing outside the front door as Lorimer and his companion climbed the last of the stairs. His arms were folded across his chest, the detective constable noticed, a defensive stance that was confirmed by the mulish expression around the man’s mouth, his large dark eyes hard and glittering as he watched the officers’ approach.

‘DC Lorimer.’ He put out his hand but the other man ignored the gesture, his arms remaining folded as he stood, legs apart, in front of his door.

‘The baby’s just got to sleep and I’m not about to disturb my wife for whatever that stupid brother of mine’s been up to now,’ the man sneered. ‘So just tell me why you’re here and then go about your business.’

Lorimer hesitated, taken aback by the older Singh brother’s words. Had young Desi brought shame on this family before? There was a wearied look about the brother’s face that had nothing to do with babies or sleepless nights, more about the tedium of having to hear about his youngest brother’s escapades.

‘He’s dead,’ Lorimer blurted out. ‘I’ve just been to the mortuary with your mother.’

The change in the man’s demeanour was dramatic; the arms fell to his sides and his mouth opened in a silent O of disbelief.

‘I think it might be better if we came in,’ Lorimer said. ‘We won’t make a noise, I promise,’ he added, taking a step forward and patting the man’s shoulder.

The young man nodded dumbly, opening the door wider, staring at the tall detective and the uniformed officer as though unable to process the news.

Lorimer and Winters entered the flat, squeezing past an empty pram that was sitting in the hallway. It was one of the big, old-fashioned kinds with huge wheels and excellent suspension, ideal for rocking a fractious infant to sleep, or so Maggie’s mother had tried to tell them when she had brought a catalogue for the prospective parents to see.

‘In here.’ The man ushered them into a large dining kitchen and slumped into the nearest chair, covering his face with his hands as though to blot out the world.

Lorimer sat down opposite, glancing around. The smell of something spicy was coming from a pot simmering on the stove, reminding him that it was dinnertime and Maggie would be expecting him at home. All over the city couples and families would be sitting down to their evening meal, discussing the day’s events and relating whatever little new things had occurred.

‘Raheem?’

Lorimer looked up to see a young woman in a pale pink sari standing in the doorway, a baby asleep in her arms.

Both men were on their feet in an instant.

‘Go back into the room, Sarra. Please,’ her husband entreated. ‘I will explain later.’ There was a note of desperation in his voice.

‘Something’s happened,’ the woman stated, looking from one man to the other.

‘Go back,’ Singh repeated, this time more firmly.

She nodded reluctantly. Once the kitchen door had closed behind her, Singh sat down in his chair once more.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything.’

There were darker clouds gathering on the horizon as Lorimer drove the last few miles towards his own home, his thoughts full of the interview with Raheem Singh. That his youngest brother was dead seemed to be a complete shock, the man repeating over and over that
Desi wasn’t a bad lad
. It was as though he had needed to persuade this stranger in his home of the dead boy’s decent background. All of Lorimer’s questions had been met with answers. Yes, Desi had run with a bad crowd, no, he didn’t know any of their names, well, maybe one or two… yes, they knew he had been missing from home but they hadn’t thought to call the police. Desi wasn’t wild exactly, just a bit wayward, easily led.

And so a hazy picture had emerged of the young man whose life had been cut short, a picture as yet incomplete and needing a lot more to give the detective some clues as to why Desi Singh had been murdered and dumped in the River Clyde.

There were no smells of cooking wafting from the open-plan kitchen when Lorimer opened the door. The place was strangely silent as if nobody had been there for hours. Had Maggie gone to her mum’s? He looked round for a note then spotted his wife’s handbag hooked onto the back of a chair. A sigh of relief made him retrace his steps out to the hall and begin to creep quietly upstairs.

She was lying in bed, curled onto her side, sleeping silently, a couple of pillows banked under her growing bump. It had been a rough night, he remembered now; Maggie getting up to go to the toilet several times, pacing the floor as the baby wriggled and kicked inside her, denying its mother any rest. She looked so young, he thought with a pang, dark curls framing her face, cheeks flushed pink against the pillow. They were both so young, so inexperienced in this business of becoming parents. Would they cope? he wondered, thinking of the Singh family with their fractious baby. Police hours could be brutal during a high profile case and he suddenly felt a pang of guilt that this lovely young wife of his might be left to take the brunt of caring for their child.

It was late, Lorimer thought, glancing at his watch, and she might have been sleeping here for hours. The least he could do was to go downstairs and prepare some supper for them both.

Perhaps it was the memory of the exotic scents in that other kitchen, but Lorimer was suddenly taken with a notion for a curry. It had been ages since they’d had any Asian food, Maggie’s heartburn making it impossible for her to eat spicy meals. With a sigh he opened the fridge and examined its contents. He could rustle up a mushroom omelette when she awoke, put some salad on the side, but the unsatisfying thought of such bland fare made him close the door again with a disgruntled
humph
. It wouldn’t take long to drive to the nearest takeaway for a chicken mushroom breast, his favourite choice. No sooner was the thought in the young policeman’s head than he had picked up the car keys and was heading out of the door once again.

Asian Fusion was open seven evenings a week, a fact that had endeared the place to the Lorimers once they’d moved to their home on the south side of the city.

‘Good evening, my friend.’ Mr Gill, the proprietor, flashed a toothy smile at Lorimer as he entered the shop.

‘Hi, Sardar, how’s it going?’ Lorimer nodded to the grinning man who was standing behind the counter.

They had struck up a companionable friendship over the past few months and Lorimer had learned that Sardar Gill, a second-generation Pakistani whose parents had come over from Lahore, shared the Glaswegian passion for football. He and Lorimer had enjoyed many a post-match discussion on a Saturday evening after a Kelvin FC game when their favoured team had been beaten, Sardar’s strong Glasgow accent expressing his disgust at the run of play.

‘Ah, no’ so busy the night. Too warm for curries maybe?’

‘Not for me,’ Lorimer declared. ‘Chicken mushroom breast and a portion of fried rice, please.’

‘Just the one?’

‘Aye, my wife is expecting our first baby.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Not partial to curries right now, I’m afraid. But I’ve been getting withdrawal symptoms.’

Sardar Gill chuckled. ‘Thought I hadn’t seen you for a while.’

He took the order and disappeared through a narrow door that led to a kitchen, leaving the fragrant scent of spiced onions in his wake.

There was a television set at an angle on the wall for customers waiting for their food orders and Lorimer glanced up, interested to see a new feature at the foot of the screen: the slow unfolding stream of news from around the world as it was bounced off a distant satellite.

It seemed no time at all till Mr Gill was back, a neatly wrapped parcel tucked into a blue polythene bag.

‘Great thing, that,’ Lorimer said, pointing at the newsreel.

‘Ach, it tells you what you want to know, I suppose,’ the man agreed. ‘But it doesnae do the local news.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘Some terrible things going on in this city, so there are. The wife’s nephew…’ He drew a hand across his eyes. ‘Terrible, just terrible. Found in the river. Just a boy…’

‘Desi Singh?’ The words were out before Lorimer could stop himself.

Gill took a step back, the parcel still in his hands. ‘How do
you
know…? Oh, of course, you’re a polis, aren’t you?’

He leaned forward, the bag clasped to his chest. ‘Well, maybe you can explain how a nice wee boy from a good family comes to a sad end like that?’

‘I shouldn’t really be talking about the case,’ Lorimer apologised. ‘My boss would have my guts for garters.’

‘See young Desi?’ Gill shook his head as though remembering. ‘He was an okay wee boy. No’ very many brains, know what I mean? But a harmless wee fella.’

‘Ran about with the wrong crowd, I hear,’ Lorimer said, trying not to show his sudden interest.

‘Aye, I blame that school he went to.’ Gill made a face. ‘Nae idea how tae keep control of thae kids. Wee Desi was beat up wan time too many, if ye want tae know the truth.’