McGuigan cursed, and showing some restraint, refrained from flinging his mobile against his office wall. It didn’t stop him from pounding his fist on the office desk. He stood, marched into the main hub.
“Okay, people, we have a development!” The general noise reduced to a low buzz. McGuigan clenched his teeth in frustration. His patience was being tested. “Shut the fuck up. Please!” The noise stopped. He had their attention. He noted Kenny Dawson was in the room, presumably returned from the hospital.
“I have a name. Gabriel Lamont. A person of interest. Get me as much information as you can on that name. Anything at all. I don’t care how insignificant. This is our new focus.”
He looked about. Lots of puzzled expressions, but no one argued. He was in no mood to be crossed, and they knew it. He went over to Dawson.
“We’re going on a visit.”
He had an address for Winnifred Marshall. The search instigated in the offices of SJPS had allowed the police to get details of each member of staff, including the partners. Dawson called it up, logged it into the satnav.
22 Lillybank Oval, Bothwell. A plush village on the outskirts of Glasgow – where hundred-year-old houses jostled with sprawling new-builds. A haven for footballers and medical consultants. And lawyers.
Bothwell was thirteen miles from the station. The quickest route was via the motorway, and, with light traffic, could take less than fifteen minutes. The car was unmarked. McGuigan stuck a siren on the roof, and told Dawson to press his foot hard on the pedal.
“I want speed of light,” he said. “Faster, if possible.”
“And why are we doing this, sir?”
McGuigan’s response was curt. “I’m trying to save lives.” He would explain later. His mind whirled. He was functioning on adrenaline. He was anxious and unsure. Perhaps the whole theory was wrong. But it didn’t sound wrong. Mother and son. Son killing young women to resurrect the memory of his murdered sister. Mother condoning and enabling her psychopathic son in his quest. And if the theory was right, and if Jonathan Stark had an address, what then? Stark was heading to his doom. He sat in silence, as the world rushed by. He was in no mood to explain, because what had happened in the last few hours was beyond explanation.
They arrived at Winnifred’s house – a detached bungalow of red brick, enclosed by a low sandstone wall, upon which hung wicker baskets bright with flowers. In the driveway, a black BMW 3 Series.
“Looks like someone’s home,” remarked Dawson.
McGuigan said nothing. They got out. McGuigan rang the doorbell. The front door was solid wood, impossible to determine activity from the interior. He rang again. Nothing.
“Dead end,” said Dawson.
“Really?”
McGuigan turned the handle, pushed. The door opened. “There’s a surprise,” he muttered.
Dawson’s long solemn face suddenly blinked with startlement.
“Sir, we don’t have a warrant.”
“Very true, Kenny. You can see I’m concerned. Either you’re coming, or you’re staying.”
The bemusement didn’t leave Dawson’s face, as he followed his boss into the house.
The hall was bright and spacious. Clean white walls. High ceiling. The floor oak hardwood. Impossible to mask the sound of footsteps. McGuigan wasn’t trying, because he didn’t care. Glass doors on either side. McGuigan went through into a large living room, stretching from the front of the house to the back. It was tidy and furnished to an almost clinical precision. On one wall, in a gilded silver frame, a large portrait of a young woman. The same woman killed by Archie Willow during his rampage of murder five years ago. Cynthia Lamont.
Sitting on a leather sofa, smoking, dressed in a simple black dress, was Winnifred Marshall. Dressed for mourning, thought McGuigan. On the coffee table before her was an open packet of cigarettes, a circular stone ashtray, an empty glass and an empty plastic bottle.
She regarded the two men, face pale as marble, devoid of expression.
McGuigan sat on a chair opposite. Dawson stood to one side.
“It’s a hard habit to kick,” he said.
Her mouth quirked into a sardonic smile. “I’ve smoked since I was sixteen. I have no intention of stopping now. Why should I stop something I enjoy, Chief Inspector.”
He switched his attention to the picture on the wall.
“Your daughter?”
She took a deep draw, smoke streaming back out through her nostrils, coiling round her like serpents’ tails.
She looked at the picture.
“It’s not perfect. But we’ll get there.”
“We?”
“My daughter was murdered, Chief Inspector. When I had to identify her, half her face was missing. In a second, her life was taken, her beauty destroyed. Death and destruction. The two fundamental elements of evil, yes?”
He felt a small tingle of victory. The first part of the theory had proved correct. Mother, daughter. He was almost tempted to ask for a cigarette, such was the sudden intensity of his craving. He pushed it to one side.
“Perhaps,” he said. He gave her a level stare. “There’s insanity. A man can do a bad thing, which, to his mind, isn’t bad at all, because his mind is unbalanced. Wouldn’t you agree?” He paused, said, “Your son needs help.”
Another deep drag. She tilted her head back, gave him a heavy-lidded stare. There, thought McGuigan, sits the real monster.
“Bad?” she replied. “What’s bad? There are different versions of bad. My son isn’t evil.” She held his gaze. “Nor is he insane. He is… gifted. Gifted people are always shunned and misunderstood, in the beginning. But then their light shines through, and people, in time, start to understand. He is an angel, Chief Inspector.”
“An angel?” he said softly. “Some might disagree. Where is your son now, Winnifred?”
She didn’t respond.
He nodded, slowly. “It started with Bronson Chapel. Things began to tear at the seams when he saw your son leaving the house of Evelyn Stephens. But then, when we produced the photofit to the media, how you must have wondered. Did you think you were lucky, that we should get it so wrong? Did it give your son’s great scheme the endorsement it needed? Perhaps he thought, truly, it was a task he was chosen to do. That maybe God, in his strange fashion, had spoken. Or maybe it got you more worried. That trouble loomed on the horizon.”
“You don’t know anything. You insult me with your inane chattering.”
“The plot twisted again, when Bronson Chapel tried to blackmail Patricia Shawbridge. You told me yourself. She arranged a meeting with you and the other partners, Hutchison and Hill. She was in a fury at Bronson and what he had done. She told you he had a picture of a man on his phone that he claimed was The Surgeon. It looked like her son, for sure. But of course it wasn’t. It could only be your son, if Bronson’s claims were true. What then, Winnifred?”
“Leave now. Your presence offends me.”
“Bronson had to be dealt with. Quickly. You knew he had a second home. You had a suspicion he would be there. His boat house. You had to act. You had to get his phone. So you took a gamble. You knew the address – a simple matter of checking with admin – and you issued the command. You arranged for your son to pay him a visit. Bronson was killed. Plus two others. That must have come as a shock for him. But, in his efficient way, he took care of matters. Five years of practice made him skilled at killing. And that should have been the end of it. But yet here we are, having our little chat.”
“Here we are,” she said. “It’s over. I am in mourning. Can’t you see? I wish to spend these last moments alone. Leave now. I’m tired.”
McGuigan leaned forward, his voice low and urgent.
“There’s more, isn’t there.”
She gave him a small sly smile. “You know nothing.”
“Where is your son? We can save an innocent life. Tell us, please.” His voice cracked. “Please!”
“This will be his greatest work,” she said. “His final, wondrous coup de grâce. Why should I spoil his moment? Leave now. Already I feel light-headed. The world begins to spin. I cannot tell whether this is real, or in my mind.
McGuigan stood, stretched over, picked up the empty bottle.
“What was in this?”
“Enough to make it permanent.”
She stubbed the cigarette on the ashtray, seemed to shudder, sat back. Her eyes were distant, her mouth drooped. Her head lolled forward, as if she were drifting to sleep.
McGuigan seized her, shook her shoulders. “Where is your son!” Her head flopped from side to side, her body was limp. She gave a loose smiling response. Her voice was slurred.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
Her mouth frothed, her eyes rolled back, and she slipped into unconsciousness.
The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later. McGuigan and Dawson watched on, as paramedics fought to resuscitate Winnifred Marshall. She had fallen into a coma, her vital signs weak, the chances of recovery slim. She was laid carefully on a stretcher, and carried into the ambulance. It sped off, all noise and lights.
During the process, neither McGuigan nor Dawson had spoken. McGuigan experienced mixed emotions. A roiling anger at his inadequacy, a deep dread for the young man Jonathan Stark, and his sister. So close! He needed an address. His need had not been answered. The conversation with Winnifred Marshall had served to heighten his fears. He knew with certainty that feeding the name Gabriel Lamont into the computer base would yield nothing. Such a man would live an invisible existence. And to get the information from the records of SJPS would require a warrant, and then a further trawl through their files. A long and complex affair.
Dawson faced his superior – “What happened in there?”
McGuigan looked up, into the sky. It was not yet afternoon. How so much can happen in a single morning, and yet nothing at all. The clouds had broken, allowing crisp shards of sunlight.
“You saw,” he answered, his voice bleak. “She knew we were coming. She was prepared.”
“Prepared?”
“Which brings us back to the riddle of Bronson Chapel, and the manner of his death.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
McGuigan gave a weary sigh.
“Three men were shot at the boat house. Two of them – Billy Watson and Frank Fitzsimmons – struggled to the end, judging by their final postures. Even at the last, they attempted to evade death. Fitzsimmons was in the kitchen, probably in an effort to escape. Watson was prostrate across the living-room floor, as if caught while leaping from the couch. They knew they were going to die, and survival instinct kicked in. Bronson however…”
“…was sitting in a chair, no sign of surprise, relaxed,” finished Dawson. “He knew his killer.”
“It’s not over,” muttered McGuigan. “There’s another angle to this. A missing piece in the jigsaw.”
“The man you mentioned at the station – Gabriel Lamont. He’s the son of Winnifred Marshall? He’s The Surgeon?”
McGuigan hunched himself in his coat. He felt cold. Probably through lack of sleep.
“Sister, brother, mother,” he said softly to himself. “He’s walking into a trap. And there’s nothing I can do.”