The smell of cannabis was even stronger in the kitchen, he decided, but at least it was warm.
‘What d’you call yourself when you’re signing on, son?’ Wilson asked the man as he leaned against the door jamb.
‘Rab Green,’ he replied, taking a dingy-looking kettle jug and filling it at the sink.
‘Well, Rab, maybe you’d be good enough to give us a few details about Mr Haggarty.’
The man turned and set the kettle back on its plinth. ‘Och, Kevin’s no’ well. Hasnae been great since Caitlin died. Ah mean, how wid ye feel, eh? Wakin’ up alongside a deid body?’
‘When did this happen?’ Jo asked.
Green twisted his mouth as he thought. ‘Cannae right mind. The funeral wis aboot the middle o’ December.’ He stood, a vacant expression in his eyes. ‘Naw, she musta died aboot the end of November or that. Sorry, cannae mind. Ah’m not very good wi’ dates anat.’ He grinned at them apologetically, showing uneven and discoloured teeth.
Green fished behind a bread bin where a pile of leaflets and letters were stashed, drawing out a leaflet.
‘Here,’ he said, holding it out for them to see.
It was an order of service for a funeral, the picture of a young smiling woman on the front page.
‘That’s her there. Caitlin. Least that’s how she musta looked at wan time.’ He sniggered. ‘Wasnae like that when she lived here, poor wee cow. Junkies don’t look that pretty after a while.’ He laughed again, but there was no real mirth in his eyes as he gazed over Wilson’s shoulder at the picture of Caitlin Alice Muir.
Alistair Wilson stared at the photocopied picture and swallowed hard.
The dead woman looking back at them bore an uncanny resemblance to both Fiona Travers and Lesley Crawford.
‘What now?’ Wilson asked as he fastened his seat belt.
‘Find Kevin Haggarty,’ Jo replied. ‘Dr Lockhart says she can’t predict what might happen once he stops taking his medication but he has shown erratic behaviour before when that happened.’
‘You think the girlfriend’s death has triggered something?’
Jo sighed. ‘Who knows? You know what Prof Brightman thinks about that one. And did you see that photograph?’ She glanced at Wilson. ‘Something weird going on.’
Alistair Wilson looked back at the DI who was biting her lip. She doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions this time, he thought. And who could blame her? But there was more than just a suspicion that they were after the right man this time.
‘Aye,’ he nodded, put the Astra into gear and pulled away from the pavement, glad to be leaving the dingy street behind him.
Then, as they turned away from the shadowy tenements and headed back towards the city, Alistair Wilson felt a sudden surge of gratitude for his own ordered life with a wife and home that awaited him at the end of every day.
‘This is the one.’ Corinne unbuckled her safety belt and turned to the old man beside her. ‘Look, Dad, see how nice it is, and look at the view we’ll have!’
The small white bungalow sat at an angle facing the sea, its bay windows glittering in the midday light. Derek McCubbin saw the FOR SALE sign leaning drunkenly behind a privet hedge, a victim no doubt of the recent winter storms, then his eyes strayed to a smart silver saloon car parked at the kerb.
‘C’mon, Dad, estate agent’s here already.’
‘It’s cold,’ Derek complained, struggling out of the black Volkswagen Golf. His daughter had persuaded him to buy the car and after several arguments about the cost he had relented, seeing the sense in having some transport of their own. The old man sighed. It wasn’t as if he was short of funds, she had wheedled, and besides, wouldn’t it be nice to take him on wee jaunts once the weather was better?
Derek had continued to grumble a little but only because he couldn’t bear to give in without some sort of protest.
The rain had been lashing against the windscreen as they left the city but now soft white clouds scudded across a pale blue sky, the sun glinting on the water below them.
‘Come on, Dad, let’s get inside,’ Corinne urged him, offering him her arm.
Derek shook her off. ‘Got my stick,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t need you to help me to walk along a road.’
Corinne shook her head, rolling her eyes to heaven. ‘Suit yourself. I’m dying to see what it looks like inside.’ And with that, she walked briskly down the path towards the front door, leaving her father to look around him.
Derek McCubbin blinked as the sunlight met his eyes. He had spent more years at sea than he cared to remember and now, looking out at the expanse of water beyond the shore, he realised that his latter years could be properly indulged with memories, memories that might take away the darkness and despair gnawing at his soul. Yet the wrench he had felt after Grace’s death had not gone away, his errant daughter a poor substitute for a beloved neighbour.
They would live here together, he thought, Corinne becoming bossier as he became older and weaker. Already he was beginning to see what sort of existence they would have — the balance of power shifting from an ageing father to a daughter who was becoming bolder day by day. Corinne was already entering the open doorway, talking to the young girl from the estate agency who had arrived before them.
Derek’s mouth trembled for a moment then he closed his eyes against the treacherous tears as Corinne’s voice summoned him.
‘CCTV footage shows a man fitting the description of Kevin Haggarty,’ Jo told the officers assembled in the muster room.
All eyes were on the screen at the back of the room, the projected images sent through from Cowcaddens.
‘Sir!’ Jo stopped suddenly, looking up, and all eyes turned to see the detective superintendent enter the room.
‘Carry on, DI Grant,’ Lorimer said. ‘I’m interested to hear all about this.’
Jo took them through the footage and there was complete silence from all of the officers as they watched the hooded figure of a man slip across the main road and into the darkened path beside the River Kelvin. There was no sound from the cameras but each officer imagined the sough of wind that blew the hood from the man’s dark head, a flurry of leaves scattering upwards as he pulled it back up. It was a split second moment, but sufficient to let them see the man’s face. And, as Jo played the image over again and again, there were nods and glances as each police officer saw the likeness between the man caught on camera and the artist’s image that Lesley Crawford had described.
‘I think we need to make this public,’ Jo said, looking past the assembled officers to where Lorimer was standing, arms folded.
‘Perhaps,’ Lorimer said. ‘I agree that this man presents a real danger to the public now but we need to be aware that Haggarty could slip out of our grasp if we alert him to what we know. It’s a case of balancing the two risks.’
‘What do you suggest, sir?’
Lorimer stepped forward and joined his DI at the front of the room. ‘I’m more than happy to throw every resource we have at this one. Issue as many officers as possible with this information and comb the streets till we find him. Put a twenty-four-hour surveillance on the Govan flat. He has to come back there some time,’ he suggested. ‘Tell Dr Lockhart and the care worker to let us know the moment he appears, though I got the impression from your message that Haggarty has chosen to ignore the people who would normally help him.’
‘Does Professor Brightman have any idea about Haggarty?’ someone asked.
Jo Grant nodded. ‘It was Professor Brightman who gave us the profile of a mentally disturbed man. He talked about a trigger, something like a shock that made him begin to attack young blonde women.’
‘And that shock could be his girlfriend’s death from a drug overdose,’ DS Wilson offered.
There were murmurs from the officers; then, as Lorimer stepped forward, all talking ceased, all eyes focused on the man standing before them.
‘Right, we go with this one. Find Haggarty. That’s everyone’s top priority. And if he’s not in custody in twenty-four hours I’m prepared to let DI Grant throw this to the media,’ he told them.