The Man with No Face Page 7

  Abernethy opened the door and entered Donoghue’s office and smelled the sweet-smelling tobacco he favoured. Donoghue beckoned him to sit in either of the two chairs in front of his desk. Abernethy did so and listened reverentially whilst Donoghue responded to information clearly being provided by the telephone.

  ‘I see…yes…yes…got that…Well, as soon as is convenient, Dr Reynolds. Yes, many thanks…good day.’ He replaced the receiver and let his hand rest on it while he looked at Abernethy and said, That, as you may guess, was Dr Reynolds…he’s tested for poison and indication of suffocation, both tests being negative. No toxins in the body apart from a wee drop of alcohol, which I can accept if our man has just been released from the pokey, and plenty of oxygen in the blood; he was breathing when he was shot. So death is due to gunshot wound to the head.’

  ‘As we suspected, sir.’

  ‘But now we know. Saw you in George Square.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘This lunchtime, I saw you in George Square.’

  ‘Well, yes, sir…my refreshment break…as entitled

  ‘About an hour ago.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The issue, you see, Abernethy, is not that you had lunch outside the office. I did that, in fact. Nor is it that you may have hoped to have lunch discreetly somewhere and then come back to the station, claiming to have worked through lunch and either got off an hour early or claim one hour’s overtime at double time, because I know all the dodges. I have been a detective constable, you have yet to become a detective inspector. I know all the angles.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The issue is that you chose to keep information to yourself. For an hour you sat on the preliminary results of the PM, hoping possibly for an hour’s overtime or free time, to which you were not entitled, when you know fine well the importance of the first twenty-four hours in any murder investigation. I wanted that information as soon as you had it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Consider yourself reprimanded. We’ll leave it unofficial. Next time you do that it’ll be reported.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘There are two cultures in this police station, Abernethy. As in all police stations, in fact.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘There is a culture of cynicism, of grabbing what you can get for minimum effort. I have noticed that the greatest overtime claims are put in by officers who put little else in. There is also a culture of professionalism and dedication. I am gratified to observe that of the two the former is significantly less of a force than the latter, but the former exists and when morale is low its size swells. You’ve won relatively early promotion into the CID, that means that faith has been invested in you. It’s up to you to betray that faith or-not.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’ Abernethy shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘Of those two cultures that I mentioned, try to keep yourself in the latter. People who show professionalism and dedication tend to go further anyway in the long run. Such has been my observation.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Right, we’ll leave the matter there. So let’s kick this about.’ Donoghue placed his pipe in the huge glass ashtray. ‘We have a male victim, ID unknown. Definitely a murder. Not even an attempt to make it look like suicide. What do we know?’

  ‘Well…’ Abernethy felt uncomfortable. He had been reached by Donoghue’s rebuke. ‘He appears to have been recently discharged from HM prisons. Going by his clothing.’

  ‘Yes…that’s been confirmed. Incidentally, Dr Kay phoned just before you knocked on my door. She also said that the deceased may have been standing on a red carpet just before he died, or that part of a patterned carpet which was red. She isolated three strands, each crucial evidence, but we’ve decided to sacrifice one of the strands to attempt to determine it’s manufacturer. Apparently that can be done, but it involves destroying the individual strand.’

  ‘A risk worth taking, sir.’

  ‘I am of that opinion. So he’s released, he has a beer, he goes to a house or similar and gets his head blown open, all within a few hours.

  ‘Tell me about the dumping of the body?’

  ‘Sir…well, it was dumped on a piece of ground in the West End…an area of grassland…’

  ‘Significance?’

  ‘Panic?’ Abernethy thought quickly.

  ‘That’s my opinion also. If the murder had been planned then so would the disposal of the body. I would think it’s fair to assume that the deceased arrived unwanted, or unexpected, rattled a cage or two for some reason and provoked what my father, with his fondness for Westerns, would have called gunplay.

  ‘He had a score to settle, perhaps; somebody grassed him up and he ate a lot of porridge, immediately on discharge he went looking for revenge? Could very well be. But that’s not so important as the messages given to us by the disposal of the body. Firstly, as you say, it’s dumped, so it’s probably not a premeditated murder. And the location of the body…no attempt to hide it, not even waste ground, or in the river…on a piece of grassland opposite houses…in a quiet residential area, and it is no surprise that there was a witness who tells us of a black car, one man with a, what was it?’—Donoghue consulted his file—‘a tall man, rangy walk.’ He closed the file. ‘Two women and a tall man with a rangy walk.’

  ‘Rangy?’

  ‘All arms and legs, flying out as he walks, that’s what I take it to mean.’

  ‘Arrogant,’ Abernethy offered.

  ‘Arrogant?’

  ‘Mm, yes, sir. I mean, if I had dumped a body on a stretch of open ground opposite a row of flats, I’d be scurrying about like a squirrel that had just found out about winter. I’d be in a state of panic to be sure, but this fella can saunter back to his car with his “rangy walk”.’

  ‘Good point. Worth noting.’ Donoghue placed his pipe in the ashtray. ‘What do you think about the locus of the shooting as indicated by the location where the body was found?’

  ‘It’s close. It’s a get-it-out-of-the-house, anywhere-but-do-it-quick sort of response, a pushing away. No thought had gone into it, the disposal of the body, no thought at all, which reinforces my, our, belief that it’s a non-premeditated murder. If you plan a murder you most always plan to dispose of the body, so our man took them by surprise.’

  ‘Possibly. Possibly.’ Donoghue rattled the stem of his pipe against his teeth. As he did so Abernethy saw a glint of gold in the upper left gum. It sat easily with Donoghue’s image, but Abernethy didn’t like him for that. He just never had liked people who had fillings capped with gold. ‘The murder weapon?’

  ‘A firearm, high velocity, large calibre.’

  ‘A military weapon. Fired execution style at point-blank range. Comments.’

  ‘Not a legally held weapon.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not gangland?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that or asking, Abernethy?’

  Abernethy paused. ‘I think I’m suggesting it, sir.’

  ‘In that case I won’t argue. I don’t think it’s gangland either.’ Donoghue glanced out of the window. He noted that it was beginning to cloud over. ‘Gangland have these weapons but they don’t like to use them. If they did, when they do, we rarely find out.’

  ‘Brings us back to the dumping of the body, sir. That’s not gangland.’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘So he was shot late last night, when standing on a red carpet, or the red bit of a patterned carpet. He was shot by an illegally held weapon but not by a gangland member. So he was shot indoors, in a building, not too far from the place where the body was found. He must have known something, sir.’

  ‘He was in a position to do some damage to someone, certainly. Someone was so frightened of the damage he could do that they blew his brains out before thinking through the consequences.’

  ‘Fortunately for us in a sense…I mean it makes our job a wee b
it easier.’

  ‘I won’t argue, Abernethy. All help, whether by accident or design is gratefully received. The truth is that most people are victims of crime in some way at some time in their lives and most crimes are never solved. So all help…’ He tapped out the remnants of the tobacco into the glass ashtray, by this time, mid afternoon, it was a container of a potage of grey and black and the room was a box full of layers of blue smoke. ‘I’ll see the Chief Super this afternoon, apprise him of all that has transpired to date. I’ll wait until Bothwell—’ The phone on his desk rang. ‘Speak of the devil, I hope.’ Donoghue lifted the receiver to his ear. ‘Donoghue…yes…’—Donoghue smiled and nodded at Abernethy—‘…yes…’ He scribbled on his notepad. ‘Got that…yes, send it up for the file which is with me. Many thanks.’

  He replaced the phone and opened the file and, glancing at his watch, he added a small item of recording. He then reached for a felt-tip pen from a drawer in his desk and wrote something on the front of the file. ‘We’ve got a name, Abernethy.’

  ‘We have, sir?’

  ‘We have, sir.’ Donoghue’s enthusiasm at receiving the information seemed to Abernethy to fade and to become replaced by a manner of perplexity. ‘We have…he’s one Ronald Grenn.’

  ‘Ronald Grenn,’ Abernethy repeated, committing the name to memory. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to me.’

  ‘It doesn’t to me, but it does ring bells…you know yon way…something, something, something…something…something is meant by that name. Anyway, Bothwell did the trick, or at least Criminal Records did the trick once Elliot Bothwell had passed the latents to them. They’re sending the file up now. So…a job for the back shift. Who…?’

  ‘Montgomerie, sir.’

  ‘Ah.’ Donoghue glanced at his watch. ‘Ask him to come and see me when you hand over. He’s got some work to do today.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Abernethy stood. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  ‘Yes…yes.’ Donoghue reached for his tobacco pouch. ‘Grenn…’

  It was 13.55 hours.

  13.30-18.52 hrs

  He had never been there before. He had heard of it. But circumstances had never before taken him there. He turned in at the gatehouse and gave his name to the uniformed man and was directed to proceed up the drive to the main house.

  He had slept late that day, even allowing for a back shift start at 14.00 hours, he had slept late. She had left earlier. That, he thought, that had probably accounted for his later than usual rise. They had probably lain in each other’s arms all night, awoke together at about six or six-thirty he judged by the amount of light in the morning sky and the amount of traffic on Highburgh Road, heard not seen. Buses in the main, moving speedily along near-empty roads. Sometime between the dawn and the rush hour this time of year, six, six-thirty. They had gripped each other tighter, fondled, stroked, mouth-to-mouthed, had slumped back to sleep as she, invigorated, had slid from under the duvet and hummed as she showered and scented. He was unaware of her eating breakfast and drinking coffee and closing the door behind her with a loud clunk, breezing, light-stepping down the close to the street door, smiling, beaming; a woman fulfilled. When he opened his eyes again the inexpensive but faultlessly accurate clock on his bedside cabinet showed he had just less than three hours before he had to sign in for the back shift. He levered himself out of the double bed and clawed his way groggily into a full-length, large-size, blue towelling bathrobe and padded into the bathroom and drew a long bath, savouring his muscular image in the mirror before the condensation covered the surface. He had an angular face of chiselled features, blue eyes above a black, down-turned moustache and rich black hair, expensively cut. He checked the mail box behind the door. A gas bill told him that that morning’s post had been delivered. The bill itself was blue. He tore it up without opening it and contemptuously tossed it into the wastebin in the kitchen. He did not pay bills unless they were red. He made himself a coffee and poured it into a huge round mug which he found he could hold in one fist, but was more comfortable if held in both palms to drink from as if it were a bowl, biblical style. He carried the mug into the bathroom and slid into the bath. A shower he held was for getting clean quickly and efficiently, but a bath, a bath was a sybaritic experience to be savoured. It calms the soul, it relaxes utterly, it allows one to start one’s day on one’s own terms. Anybody, he thought, anybody who adopts the quick dip attitude is just plain missing the point. He lay back, sipping the coffee, holding the large round mug in both hands, and adjusted the hot-water tap with his big toe. Yes, he thought, just plain missing the point.

  He lunched in his pine-clad kitchen overlooking the swing park between Highburgh Road and Havelock Street, a safe railinged place for the weans to play, surrounded on three sides by caring, watchful tenements and a main road on the fourth side. As he ate he listened to the lunchtime news. Little nationally or internationally held his interest but he groaned when he heard the regional news, the item about the body found in open ground in suspicious circumstances. He knew what he was going in to do, there’d be something to be addressed on that one. He glanced at his watch. If the news was correct and if the information hadn’t been massaged by the press officer to assist the police enquiry, then they were still well within the first twenty-four hours, the ‘drop everything and look at this one’ twenty-four hours.

  At 13.30 he left his flat and went down the clean, scrubbed stone stairs of the tenement, the gleaming porcelain tiles from floor to waist height of cream mainly, but red and dark blue here and there proclaiming his stair to be a much prized ‘wally’ close. The West Enders, the G12 dwellers, love their tiles. Not for them the plain plaster walls of the closes in the East End. Here be ‘wally’ closes. The afternoon, he noted, was fresh, dry, a heavy cloud cover. But not bad, he thought, not at all bad for October. He drove his ageing VW into the town, along the narrow, dark canyon that is Argyle Street, feeling fully rested, and then realized the reason, the clocks last night on the back shift, he’d put his watch back when the clocks in the police station were put back and all the back shift officers had stopped what they were doing and with only restrained complaint, had changed 00.00 to 23.00 and had then recommenced work. What that explained to him is why he should feel so rested. His watch may well read 13.30, but his body was saying 14.30. He had not just fallen back to sleep when Claire had left for her work, he had in effect slept for another hour on top of that.

  He turned into the car park at the rear of P Division. He entered the low two-storey, interwar concrete-and-glass building by the rear ‘staff only’ entrance and signed in as PC Elka Willems was handing over the uniform bar to the back-shift officer. He went up the stairs to the CID corridor and went to the detective constables’ room. Abemethy stood at his desk, cream-coloured padded rally jacket on his shoulders, ready to get off, anxiously, it seemed.

  ‘Fabian wants to see you,’ Abernethy said. ‘Soon as you get in.’

  ‘About the body that was found? Has to be. I heard it on the news. Can’t be anything else given that I’m rejoicing with a clear conscience at the moment. Unusual state of affairs but quite enjoyable.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ Abernethy zipped up his jacket. ‘But yes, it’s about that.’ He picked up his copy of the Glasgow Herald.

  ‘Cream’s the wrong colour for a jacket like that,’ said he of down-turned moustache. ‘Shows up the dirt.’ He peeled off his own darker-coloured waterproof jacket and went back into the corridor and walked to the office of DI Donoghue and tapped reverently on the door.

  ‘Come.’ The command was clear, imperious and given as usual only after a pause.

  He had opened the door and stepped into the office. Donoghue looked at him, remained stone-faced and had indicated a chair. ‘Yes, Montgomerie, I’ve a job for you. Take a seat, I’ll put you in the picture.’

  And Malcolm Montgomerie had taken a seat and had listened politely, attentively, as Donoghue, pulling and blowing lovingly on his pipe and consulting a still fairly th
in file and also consulting a thicker, older file, had put him in the picture. He listened as he was told about the body found on the expanse of grass at Winton Drive, of the gunshot wound to the head, of the supposition that the crime was committed at about the time the clocks were going back, not gangland, and close to where the body was discovered. The deceased subsequently identified as one Ronald Grenn, aged forty-five. ‘Some track,’ he said to Montgomerie putting down Ronald Grenn’s file. ‘Petty ned, went down for seven years for burglary and wilful fire-raising.’

  ‘Seven years?’

  Donoghue had nodded. ‘Yes, I thought it was a short stretch but it was the Cernach Antique’s job…’

  ‘That one!’

  ‘That one. Never did feel right. A lot of expensive gems, none traced, he had to have had accomplices. He wouldn’t cooperate, kept his lips sealed and took his secrets to the slammer with him. Upon release he was at liberty for forty-eight hours, less in fact, before he gets his brains blown out somewhere in the West End.’

  ‘Came out wanting his share, got told he couldn’t have it, threatened to cough and was filled in?’

  ‘It’s happened before. At the moment he’s our only lead. We have a house address in Easterhouse and his last prison…’ Donoghue had paused. ‘Don’t know which to go to first. Just you and King on the CID back shift?’

  ‘For our sins, sir.’

  ‘Yes…’ Donoghue took his pipe from his mouth and held it like a pen, by the stem with his fingers. ‘The question is, which one to go to first? We informed Mrs Grenn of the identity of the deceased only an hour or two ago…We have to be sensitive…all right, we’ll allow the lady her grief before we start firing questions at her…so, off to his last slammer if you will, Montgomerie.’

  ‘Which was, sir?’

  ‘Traquair Brae. Nice drive out for you. It’s down by Selkirk way. Glance at his file before you go. Talk to the staff, talk to any of the cons who’ll talk to you. See what you can dig up. Anything he might have said, contacts outside, any visitors, you know the sort of thing.’