‘Ask the office.’ McGregor stood up once more. ‘Looks like you’re good at doing that,’ he snapped.
McGregor was only guilty of churlish behaviour, Lorimer told himself as he walked back across the city. Yet the fear in the lecturer’s eyes had been unmistakable. What had he expected from the policeman’s unheralded visit? And was the presence of a senior police officer in that office some sort of a threat to his safe little world? He had been anxious that his wife knew nothing of his affair with Eva Magnusson, something Lorimer had managed to contain so far but without any promise that such knowledge would not come out in the future. He gritted his teeth: someone would get the sharp end of his tongue for this. Failing to search all of the student databases was just sheer carelessness.
Kirsty would be disappointed: there were two reasonable explanations for the missing students. Yet there was still an unanswered question about Andersson: why had Eva Magnusson kept him a secret from her flatmates and, presumably, from her father?
Colin slipped back into his cell, used now to its confines, sometimes even welcoming the peace and quiet when his cell mate, or ‘co-pilot’ as they called them in here, was away on a work detail.
He had dreamed about Eva last night, a dream from which he had awoken with tears on his cheeks. It had felt so real, hearing her voice, as if she were really there again. He slumped onto his back on the bunk and felt under the mattress for his notebook. He had written The Swedish Girl on the front and in idle moments had decorated the title with lines and curls, the sort of thing that reminded him of doodling on his school jotters.
Pulling the pen from the spiral binding, Colin began to write.
It is her voice I miss as much as her very presence, he began. How can I begin to describe that voice? He paused, hearing the dream in his head once again. She sounded like a lady, he continued. Refined, but not in an English Home Counties sort of way, that was one of the beauties of it. Eva spoke like an actress, as if she had learned to wipe out any trace of an accent. He smiled to himself, remembering how they had all laughed one morning when the girl had come out with a really Glaswegian expression. What had it been? He shook his head, her exact words failing to return, only the memory of how funny it had sounded coming from her lips.
Hers was a soft voice, melodious, the sort of voice that a singer might have had, though we never heard her sing, not even when there was music playing in the flat. He stopped, pen poised, remembering another time, his cheeks flushing as the images flooded back, unbidden. And that husky tone, he wrote, hand shaking slightly, when she had me in bed, urging me on.
Colin stopped writing. He couldn’t go back there, no matter how much the professor wanted him to describe Eva. He simply could not relive any of that night. Yet the girl’s voice was in his head right at this moment in time, like a ghost visiting his brain.
Did the dead hover somewhere up there? Was Eva’s spirit still able to make him feel that anguish and pain? And, he thought, putting both hands over his ears, did he really deserve to suffer like this?
CHAPTER 36
‘A sim card?’ Kirsty’s head turned towards the door of Eva’s room. ‘I could try,’ she said. ‘Okay. I’ll call you back if I find anything.’
Kirsty’s eyes gleamed as she put the phone down on the polished hall table. Now at least there was something positive to look for. Taking a deep breath she turned the key in Eva’s door and stepped in once again.
If I wanted to hide a wee thing like a sim card, where would I put it? she wondered. Somewhere nobody would find it but a place that would be handy if I used it regularly. Late at night. When I was in my bed…
The dead girl’s bed had an ornate white carved headboard that matched the little table to one side. Kneeling down, Kirsty saw the pair of electrical sockets just above the skirting board. The bedside lamp was plugged into one, its wire snaking behind the table. The other, hidden by the sweep of pink silken counterpane, held one of those plastic safety covers that her Aunty Joyce used when her kids were wee.
Kirsty blinked, noticing that one side of the plastic cover protruded just the tiniest bit away from the socket. Would the scene of crime officers have pulled that out to have a look?
She held her breath as her fingernails eased it out.
‘Bingo!’ Kirsty’s smile broadened as she turned the cover over to see the tiny sim card taped carefully to the inside of the socket cover.
‘This is Detective Superintendent Lorimer, Strathclyde Police. Am I speaking to Anders Andersson?’
There was a short pause before a thickly accented voice replied. ‘This is Anders. What do you want?’
‘Mr Andersson, I wanted to ask you some questions about your stay in Glasgow.’
‘You got wrong fellow,’ the man interrupted. ‘This is Anders senior.’
‘It’s your son who was a student at the University of Strathclyde?’
‘That’s right. Young Anders did a… what is it… an exchange, yes?’
‘Yes. Can I speak to him, please? Is he there?’
‘This about the Magnusson girl?’
‘That’s correct, Mr Andersson. We are still investigating the circumstances around her death.’
There was a longer pause before the deep voice proclaimed, ‘Anders is not here any more. Sorry. Can’t help you,’ before the click that let the policeman know the call had been terminated.
Cursing under his breath, Lorimer redialled the number but it was already engaged.
He imagined the father calling his son at that very moment, telling him that the Scottish police were looking for him. Biting his lip, Lorimer had a growing feeling that the elusive Anders might really have something to hide. Well, perhaps there was more than one way to find out. Dialling the mobile number he had copied from Eva’s extra sim card, he wondered if the father was speaking the truth or if he simply didn’t want to become involved.
As the engaged signal rang out from the student’s mobile, Lorimer nodded to himself. He would bet a month’s salary that he was right and at this very moment father and son were discussing what to do about this call from the Scottish police.
‘The initial call to Mr Magnusson was made to his mobile,’ DS Wilson told Lorimer.
‘And the call was logged at what time, exactly?’
Wilson glanced at his notes. ‘It was just after ten a.m. on the Saturday morning, sir. Fiscal had to be informed first.’
Lorimer nodded. ‘I’ve checked out a few things. Magnusson told Dr Fergusson he had to get a domestic flight to Glasgow, but I honestly can’t see why he didn’t simply use his own aircraft.’
‘He has his own plane?’ Alistair Wilson’s eyes widened.
‘Aye,’ Lorimer said. ‘Your Kirsty told us that. And thank God she did. There’s something funny going on and once I’ve spoken to the good people at Glasgow airport we may just find out what that is.’
‘You’re going where?’
‘Stockholm,’ Lorimer told her. ‘Pity it’s not anywhere near half term or you could have come with me. You deserve it after coming up with that idea about Eva’s sim card.’
Maggie Lorimer shook her head. ‘What do the rest of the team think of this?’
‘I haven’t told them all yet,’ Lorimer replied. ‘Anyway, they’re all answerable to me at the moment.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s some consolation being the boss.’
‘And Solly?’
He grinned. ‘Wondered if you’d ask me that. It depends on what cover he can get for his classes. He’ll come with me if he can. He’s still working on the profile though. Reckons it’s no coincidence that these blonde women are so alike.’ He made a face. ‘But he still sticks to his opinion that Eva was killed by someone else.’