Carlyle didn’t laugh, which was a relief. He gave her a long level stare, then said, ‘Let’s hear it.’
Allie ran through the story again – Danny’s reaction, his explanation, Roddy Farquhar’s vanishing act. ‘So although we’ve published the initial story now, Torrance must realise we’ll be looking for follow-ups. With Farquhar on the run, it’d be hard to resist the idea of running a story outing his relationship with a Special Branch officer.’
‘You think Torrance would be confident that getting Danny out of the way would protect him? That he’d believe Danny would have kept his secret?’
Allie sighed. ‘I know that might be hard for you to credit, but I think it’s certainly possible. I don’t know anything about their world from personal experience, obviously. But gay men know the risks they’re taking. Sex between men’s still illegal here. You get outed, you don’t just suffer a stigma, you can go to jail. Lose your job. Lose your home. The habit of secrecy, it’s ingrained. Torrance would assume that, by exposing him, Danny would be exposing himself. So yes, I’d say Torrance could feel pretty sure Danny wouldn’t have given him away.’
‘So why get rid of him, if Torrance could rely on Danny keeping his mouth shut?’
Allie paused, marshalling her argument. Finally she said, ‘It’s that old saying, isn’t it? Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.’
Carlyle picked up a pen and fiddled with it. ‘It’s a big jump from a proverb to a murder.’
‘His first reaction might have been to rely on mutually assured destruction. But brooding about it … Remember, Torrance is Gordon Beattie’s source. You know Gordon. He’s incapable of shutting up about all the stories he’s broken in the past. How he’s wormed his way to the truth. Torrance knows what a scoop means to a journalist. We’ll go to any lengths for a revelation we’re passionate about. And Torrance must know the story behind the Paragon story. He must know Danny had already betrayed his own brother. Even though Danny did all he could to protect Joseph, his brother’s still out of a job. Probably out of prospects too. Knowing that, would you – could you – trust Danny to cover your back?’
‘Aye, but you’ve already said – outing Torrance would out Danny himself.’
Allie shook her head. ‘Not necessarily. Danny was smart. He spent his life hiding. He could have covered his back. All he had to do was say that he’d discovered what was going on between Torrance and Farquhar in the course of our investigation, that he followed Farquhar to a gay club where he witnessed the two of them snogging. Or more. And I don’t think Torrance has any hard evidence of Danny’s sexuality. Danny told me he was always careful. Barry Curran’s place in his life speaks to that care, boss. Danny was freaked out at the thought of Torrance revealing his secret to the world, but if he’d had time to think about it, he might have realised he didn’t have much to fear.’
Carlyle sighed and clicked the end of the pen half a dozen times. ‘It’s plausible, Burns. But it’s no more than that. You’ve not got a shred of evidence. Nothing that places Torrance anywhere near Danny’s flat on Saturday night. Nothing but hearsay about any of this. Torrance could argue that Danny was just making up malicious lies to discredit Wee Gordon’s source, to make himself look like the main man on the investigative side of things. You can’t even begin to stand it up.’
Allie had an idea how she might do that. But she wasn’t going to run it past Carlyle and risk ridicule or failure. ‘You think I don’t know that? But the polis aren’t even looking anywhere else now they’ve got Barry What’s-his-name in the frame. Boss, give me two days off the rota. Two days and a pic man.’
‘What do you want a pic man for?’
She found a cheeky smile from somewhere. ‘Taking pictures?’
Carlyle sighed. ‘Let me think about it. Away down to the canteen for an hour.’
Two hours later, Allie was folded on to a makeshift bench in the back of a van that claimed to belong to Plumb-It Services. In reality, Plumb-It Services consisted of a magnetised plastic board stuck to the side of a Hillman Imp van. It held no plumbing supplies, just a low bench, a tin of biscuits and a cardboard box with half a dozen cans of Irn Bru. It also held the van’s owner, Bobby Gibson. One of the reasons Bobby G was Allie’s favourite photographer was the van, evidence of his dedication to getting the snap that counted. It was elderly, shabby and inconspicuous, the sort of tradesman’s white van that nobody would give a second look. But the back windows were one-way glass, meaning Bobby could stake out his targets without being seen.
They were parked at the mouth of Douglas Lane, the rear of the van facing Strathclyde Police HQ. Two cameras on tripods pointed at the entrance to the building. When Carlyle had given Allie the go-ahead, she’d asked him where Torrance was based, knowing that if he was unaware himself, he’d soon find out. But he’d told her immediately that Torrance worked out of the Pitt Street HQ. So now she was playing the waiting game with Bobby G.
‘Do you think he’ll come out for his dinner?’ Bobby asked, not for the first time.
‘We don’t even know for sure if he’s in today.’
‘You could phone and see.’
‘How? If I go off to find a phone box, he could do a naked Highland Fling on the front steps and you wouldn’t know it was him.’
Bobby chuckled. ‘Ever since we did that nudist beach story, you’re obsessed with people running about in the scud.’
Time crawled by. By two o’clock, they both agreed Torrance wasn’t taking a lunch break. Allie tried to teach Bobby to play ‘I’m not Napoleon’, a game she’d learned on long car trips back to Scotland with a couple of fellow Cambridge students. ‘I don’t know anything about anything,’ Bobby had protested after Allie’s first attempt left him in the dust.
‘I probably shouldn’t have gone with Virginia Woolf,’ she conceded.
‘The trouble with you, Burns, is you want to win all the time.’
‘The trouble with me is that I don’t think that’s a problem.’
Three hours trickled past and they were losing the light. ‘I can’t get a decent shot in this,’ Bobby complained. ‘The length of exposure I need, unless your man stands like a statue, all I’ll get is a blur.’
‘I know. But I need you to see him. That way, I don’t have to stick to you like a limpet all day tomorrow. You can sit and scratch your balls in peace.’
Another half hour, then the door opened and three men came out together, talking and laughing. ‘That’s him,’ Allie exclaimed. ‘The man in the middle. That’s Torrance.’
Instinctively Bobby’s finger hit the button and the motor drive fired off a bunch of photographs. ‘Pointless,’ he muttered. ‘Do you want me to follow him?’
‘Is it worth it?’
‘At least it’ll give me an idea which direction he’ll be coming from in the morning.’ As he spoke, he pushed the partition between the rear compartment and the seats out of the way and climbed out, throwing the keys back to Allie. ‘Take it back to the office car park, I’ll catch you there later.’ And he was gone, walking briskly after the trio.
She watched them to the corner, where they stopped. A few words exchanged, then Torrance headed right while the other two went left, towards the city centre. She clambered into the driving seat and set her course for the office, passing both Bobby G and Torrance on the way.
She didn’t have long to wait for Bobby to return. ‘He picked a car up from the parking area under the Kingston Bridge,’ he reported. ‘So tomorrow, I can set up with a better chance of catching him face on. Meet me in the office car park at half past seven.’ Seeing her expression, he grinned. ‘He left early. He might be an early bird.’
Allie was home in time to actually cook a proper meal for once. The only problem was that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone shopping. The fridge was almost bare, save for some elderly potatoes and three onions that were sprouting green shoots. There was however a tin of corned beef in the cupboard, which meant she had all she needed for stovies. You could never go wrong with a plate of stovies, in Allie’s opinion.
As it cooked, she poured herself a beer and wished Danny was there to bounce her ideas off. She’d lost count of the number of times in the past couple of days she’d caught herself on the edge of asking Danny his opinion.
But if it was bad for her, how much worse must it be for his family? Danny had been so determined to prove to his parents that he was doing good in the world but his killer had robbed him of any chance of reconciliation.
On the spur of the moment, Allie called the newsdesk. ‘Have we got a number for Danny Sullivan’s parents?’ she asked the secretary.
‘Sure. I don’t usually give out numbers, but seeing as it’s you, Allie …’ The sound of her flicking through her Rolodex. Then she read out the number. ‘How are you doing yourself?’
‘Just about holding together. Thanks, you’re a pal.’
Allie took a deep breath and dialled. The voice that answered was deep and male and exhausted. ‘Who is this?’ he said.
‘Mr Sullivan? My name’s Allie Burns. We’ve not met, but I worked side by side with Danny these past few weeks. I’m the one—’
‘You’re the one that found him.’ His voice was flat and cold.
‘I can’t tell you how sad and sorry I am about Danny.’
A long pause. Allie willed herself not to gabble.
‘We still can’t take it in. But thanks for phoning.’
She sensed he was about to put the phone down. But she still had important things to say. ‘Don’t go, Mr Sullivan. I wanted to tell you how much Danny loved you all. You were at the heart of everything he did.’
A bitter little laugh. ‘Tell that to his brother. It’s hard to get by the last thing Danny did to this family.’
‘Mr Sullivan, he did everything he could to keep Joseph in the clear. But Danny had too much integrity to turn a blind eye to crime and corruption. He couldn’t ignore something that was staring him in the face. It tore him apart, Mr Sullivan. It tore him apart.’
‘Good. Because that’s what it did to us. And now we’ve lost him and we have no idea why.’
Allie felt herself tearing up. ‘This story we did last week – Danny kept telling me he hoped it would show you and his mum that he was doing good work. Important work. That he was doing the right thing. He was desperate to make you proud of him, Mr Sullivan. Desperate.’ She heard another voice in the background. Higher pitched, questioning in tone, words indistinct. ‘He wanted your forgiveness. He wanted you to understand why—’
‘I can’t do this, lassie.’ His voice cracked. ‘Talk to his mother.’
The scuffling of a handset handover, the muffling of an exchange, then the thin voice of Marie Sullivan filled her ear. ‘Eddie says you’re the one who found my Danny?’
‘That’s right. I’d gone round for my dinner, we were supposed to be celebrating—’
‘Were you his girlfriend?’ his mother interrupted.
Christ, not this again. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. We were friends. We worked together. I really liked Danny but not in that way. I respected him. I admired him. I looked up to him.’
‘Aye, well, a couple of weeks ago I’d have said the same thing. Then you and him, between you, you did for Joseph.’
‘Danny tried to protect Joseph, he really did. He nearly ditched the whole story, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn a blind eye to Paragon, breaking the law, ripping off all of us who pay our taxes. Danny had such strong principles, Mrs Sullivan. You brought him up to be honest, to tell the truth. And he loved you for it.’
A stifled sob. ‘Aye, and it killed him.’
‘We don’t know why Danny was killed, Mrs Sullivan. But one thing I do know is that he hated falling out with you. He was desperate to find a way back into your good graces. That’s why he was so determined to chase stories that really mattered. And I was proud to help him. Because I know how much his family meant to him.’
‘He’s away now, and that’s all that matters to me. And it was thanks to the likes of you encouraging him that he fell out with us in the first place. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to hang up now.’ And she did. So much for trying to ease their pain, Allie thought bitterly. She’d have been better off leaving well alone.
An intense smell from the kitchen alerted her to an imminent danger to her dinner. Automatically, she dished up a steaming plate of stovies, then realised her appetite had vanished. She scraped the food back into the pan, feeling inadequate and stupid. Was there anything she could do to make things better for the Sullivans? Would finding reasons for what had happened give them any ease? She sat staring into space, then at length it occurred to her that she still hadn’t looked at Danny’s notebook. She fetched it from her bag and turned to the last page of notes. It was dated ‘27/1’ in the top right-hand corner. Saturday’s date. Was this something to do with their story?
In the margin, where reporters left asterisks or hash-marks to identify an interviewee, there were two short horizontal dashes near the top of the space between the lines – marks that indicated two Ts. Who else but Thomas Torrance?
Allie frowned at the Teeline script on the page. Danny’s outlines seemed particularly clear and crisp. She flicked back a couple of pages and saw that his normal shorthand was much scrappier. Had he deliberately made this note more legible, as an insurance policy, a final act of revenge if anything were to happen to him?
She scribbled down her interpretation of the symbols: TT cld. Sd 2 kp m ns ot / ls. Sd hd B kpng i on m. Sd 2 frgt RF. Familiar with the contractions the system used, Allie translated it as, ‘Thomas Torrance called. Said to keep my nose out or else. Said he’d be keeping an eye on me. Said to forget RF.’ Who could only be Roddy Farquhar.
It was a note that left more questions than answers. At times like this, Allie missed her flatmates in Newcastle. With them, she could have thrashed it out over the dinner table with a couple of beers. Among them, they’d work out the permutations and agree on the most reasonable option.
She eyed the phone. The only person she had anything like that connection with here was Rona. But she was reluctant to impose on a friendship so new. The last thing she wanted was for Rona to think she was needy and desperate.
On the other hand, there had been nothing feigned about Rona’s interest when Allie had related the events of Sunday to her. And she was a journalist too. How could she not be interested? Putting her reservations aside, she headed for the phone and dialled Rona’s number before she could think twice.
It took her so long to answer that Allie was on the point of hanging up. Rona sounded out of breath when she answered with her number. ‘It’s Marple here. I deduce you just got in,’ Allie said.
‘Some of us have to work for a living. How are you doing?’
Allie brought her up to speed, finishing with her transliteration of Danny’s note. ‘But here’s what isn’t clear to me. When Danny says, “Thomas Torrance called,” does he mean a phone call, or that he called round in person?’
‘You could take it either way, but I think if Torrance had been there in person, Danny would have expressed himself differently. Do you not think he’d have said something like, “Torrance came round”?’
‘Maybe. But even if it was only a phone call, that doesn’t mean Torrance didn’t follow up with a visit in person. Danny’s response might have worried him enough to provoke him into action.’
Rona made an indeterminate noise in the back of her throat. ‘It’s weak,’ she said. ‘You’re going to need a lot more than that before you point the finger at somebody who could make your life hell. Guys like Torrance, they’ve got a long reach. Every petty misdemeanour, you’ll have the polis on your back. Drive a mile over the speed limit, they’ll be on your tail. Take one drink over the limit and drive home, you’ll be busted. And that’s before we even get to the drugs they’ll find in your car when they pull you over. These arseholes stick together, doll.’
‘I know. That’s why I’ve got Bobby G on the stake-out.’
‘How is a picture going to help you, though? Are you going door to door down Danny’s street? Because I’d bet you a pound to a gold clock everybody was tucked up round the telly on Saturday night. It was snowing like buggery, remember?’
‘I’ve got something better than that. I’ve got a secret weapon.’
Rona gave a dark chuckle. ‘Why am I not surprised? I suspect you’ve got a whole bloody arsenal of them. So what’s your secret weapon?’
‘A man called Jimmy.’