The accountant Ian Bryce worked for a charity named Meal Angels. Narey and Wells waited for him outside the warehouse on Dunn Street in Dalmarnock as he arrived to deliver meals to the elderly.
The man denied knowing the name Matthew Marr, and initially denied even being in Carstairs. He got angry and defensive, insisting that he hadn’t been a patient there, that he’d only been there for ‘unnecessary tests’.
They pushed him on knowing Marr. Bryce got increasingly anxious and angry but maintained he’d never heard of him.
Giannandrea traced John Paul Kepple from a rented flat above a shop on Kirkintilloch Road in Bishopbriggs to a forwarding address in Rosevale Street in Partick. The young woman who lived there had been in the flat for three years and didn’t know who’d been there before her. The landlords said they’d no record of a John Paul Kepple ever renting one of their properties.
Kepple had gone off the grid.
Martin Geir, the cat killer, had seemingly disappeared too. He wasn’t on the electoral roll, wasn’t receiving any benefits and wasn’t paying tax. Narey put in a call to a reporter on the East End Echo, a weekly local paper, and prayed he’d be able to help. Gerry Grady said Geir had moved from Bridgeton to Dennistoun but had to get out of Dodge one more time when people found out who he was. That time, he did a bunk in the middle of the night and no one knew where he’d gone. Grady promised to do his best to find out on the half promise of getting a story.
Derek Solomon and Colin McPake turned out to be the easiest of the six profiles to track down and eliminate from their enquiries. Solomon was in Barlinnie and had been for the past six months. McPake was also in the Bar-L, halfway through an eighteen-month sentence for aggravated assault.
There was no sign of Fraser Anderson. Nothing on the electoral roll, no council tax listing, and no mention of him on the local crime system or the Criminal History System since his release from Carstairs. Like Kepple, like many other people with severe mental health problems, he seemed to have dropped off the grid.
His ex-wife, Erin, now lived in Paisley. She was pencil-thin with short blonde hair and gave off a nervous anger. When Narey and Giannandrea said who they were, the woman had no doubt who they wanted to talk about.
‘What’s he done?’
‘We don’t know that he’s done anything,’ Narey told her. ‘We are just anxious to find him, and as quickly as possible.’
‘I can’t help you. If I could, I would, believe me. If you find him you could maybe tell Child Maintenance. They’ve supposedly been looking for the bastard for three years. Although I don’t think they’ve tried very hard.’
‘You haven’t heard from him?’
Her face twisted. ‘The kids get a Christmas card. That’s if I don’t recognise the handwriting and rip the thing up before they can open it.’
‘Do you know where the cards are sent from? From the postmark?’
‘Glasgow. They’ve always been sent from Glasgow. But I know he’s here. People have seen him. Every few months someone will say “Oh, I saw Fraser on Buchanan Street”, or “You’ll never guess who I saw on the subway”. It’s mostly been city centre so I’ve no idea if he’s West End, south side, wherever. I’m told he looks shit though, so that’s good news.’
‘When was the last time he was seen?’
Erin reached for a packet of cigarettes and fumbled one out. ‘My cousin Eleanor was in Glasgow, in the Buchanan Galleries, maybe six weeks ago. She was going up one of the escalators and he was going down the opposite one. He saw her but just looked at her, no hello, no expression, nothing.’
‘Would that be usual for him? Just blanking people like that?’
‘It would depend on which Fraser he was being that day. He might wake up being Mr Nice Guy, he might be a miserable bastard, he might be one thing to one person and something completely different to another. You never knew.’
‘Is there anyone who might know where he is? Old friends of his, or family?’
‘No, I doubt it. He never had many close friends to start with and he lost those after what he did. He doesn’t have much in the way of family and never had anything to do with them anyway.’
They were getting nowhere. A last throw of the dice.
‘Does the name Matthew Marr mean anything to you?’
She gave the name some thought but shook her head. ‘No, doesn’t mean a thing. Listen, Inspector, I don’t want anyone like Fraser anywhere near my kids. So, if you do find him, get him to pay the money he owes us, then lose him again. We’re better off without him.’
*
Derek Solomon and Colin McPake were ruled out, Martin Grenier too. Kepple, Geir, Anderson and Devlin were still places unknown. Bryce and Fairley had given nothing away. And the clock ticked.
Narey needed something and, right on cue, her mobile rang. The screen showed it was Gerry Grady.
‘Hey, Gerry. You got something for me?’
‘Inspector, I’ve got a hit on our cat killer. I know where Martin Geir is.’
‘Gerry, I knew I could count on you. Where is he?’
‘Well, before I tell you, I was thinking that I’ve been doing all the back scratching in this deal and was looking for a bit coming back my way. What’s the story here, Rachel?’
‘Christ, Gerry. You’re really going to try to play hard-ball with me at this stage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, let me tell you something. Don’t. I have a major investigation where the shit is not so much hitting the fan as battering it to death. I have zero time for getting dicked around and I am currently considering charging you with obstructing a police investigation. You will subsequently get nothing from me and nothing from anyone else in Police Scotland but might find your car checked for bald tyres on a regular basis. Do you understand me?’
‘Can’t blame a man for trying, Inspector.’
‘I don’t have time to blame or not blame. Just fucking tell me.’
‘Martin Geir is dead.’
‘Shit. You’re sure?’
‘Pushing up daisies somewhere in the Motorway Triangle is what I’m told. He’d been driving an unlicensed taxi in Toryglen, cash in hand, calling himself Michael Johns. The firm he drove for is a front for Alec Kirkwood, the gangster. It seems that one of Kirkwood’s daughters heard about Michael Johns and his backstory. The daughter is a cat lover and went mental at Kirkwood about having this guy on the books. She wanted him out, but she also wanted him sorted. The same way he’d sorted the cats. This was three months ago, Inspector. Whatever you want him for, Geir isn’t your man.’
*
Narey had Lee Fairley watched around the clock, making sure the patrol car that made regular trips down his street was as visible as possible. If that made him nervous, then so much the better.
The neighbours had been questioned about security and seeing anything odd in the area, leading of course to questions about Fairley.
Quite a few said there had been arguments about noise late at night, about bins being overflowing, his car being parked where it shouldn’t. None of that was unusual but a few spoke about the ferocity of the man’s temper.
He’d left his flat for one quick walk to a local shop, a drive to a flat in King’s Park where he stayed for just twenty minutes before leaving, and a longer drive over the river to Kelvingrove where he sat parked outside a block of flats for over an hour.
That was enough to have Giannandrea and Wells on his tail when he next drove down Langside Road. When he indicated right at the last moment and turned into Earlspark Avenue, they were tight enough that they had to take the next turning then wheel back round. Even so, they were pretty sure he’d clocked them. When they parked up behind Fairley’s Honda, they saw that it was empty and there was no sign of him. He’d got out before they got there and probably legged it around the corner to Langside station, where he was doubtless on a train bound for the city centre.
Giannandrea was less worried that they’d lost him than the certain feeling that Fairley had done it just to show that he could.