‘Well, Inspector, how’s the murder on that estate looking?’
Detective Inspector Murdo Campbell looked at the DCI and said, calmly, ‘Not good, quite frankly. The deceased is a man called Drew Lennox, known as “Wee Drew”.’ He paused. ‘That wasn’t ironic – he was small, about five four. Anyway, he was known to us as a small-time dealer. He’d been in trouble for assault, possession, nothing serious. So, his wife called in the attack at three p.m. on Monday. He was dead on the living-room floor…’
Mechanically he filled in the details: the head injury, the three stab wounds. The head wound had probably killed him outright, some kind of blunt instrument, probably a baseball bat, hazarded Campbell. The stab wounds were deep; the knife had been driven in with great force.
‘And who did it?’
‘Well, his wife says that three masked men burst in and did it, Glasgow accents. She was too frightened to do anything. They wore gloves.’
‘Do you believe her?’
Murdo shook his head and said, ‘Well, no, mainly because it’s not true. There is CCTV in that tower, it just so happened that there was a “malfunction” just before the incident took place, but two more cameras that cover the access road to the estate show a black BMW 4 x 4 registered to a Ray Downie.’
‘And who’s he?’ The DCI had recently transferred from the Borders, you could tell. Just about any policeman in this part of Glasgow would know Ray Downie. Or certainly someone from his extended family.
‘Ray is Graeme Millar’s main lieutenant, sir,’ Campbell explained.
‘Ah.’ No need to explain who Graeme Millar was.
‘Exactly, sir, Calla Lennox, the widow, is hardly going to testify that Millar killed her husband.’ He shook his head. ‘Nobody on that estate is going to have seen them. The janitor of the block isn’t going to say that he blocked the camera.’
The DCI sighed. ‘What a nuisance… You think Millar did it personally?’
‘Yes, sir, I do.’ He thought back to what the lab had told him. The wounds had been inflicted with incredible force – ‘ferocious’ was the word used. ‘The ferocity of the attack, the force with which he was stabbed, it’s the kind of thing Millar does. It’s almost trademark – he’s extremely violent. Ray Downie is from a crime family. The Downies are fairly notorious. If he had killed Lennox it would have been efficient and low-key. He wouldn’t have gone to town.’
‘So Millar’s a headcase.’
‘That he is, sir,’ Campbell confirmed.
‘Hmm.’ The DCI scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Do you think the press are going to be all over this one, Murdo?’
Campbell shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The media are wary of Millar. He was linked to the death of a journalist a couple of years ago. I doubt if this killing will get too much media coverage – everyone’s scared of him. Even the press.’ He added, hesitantly, ‘Mrs Lennox has a three-month-old daughter…’
The DCI’s eyes automatically turned to the family group in the photos on the filing cabinet.
‘He wouldn’t, would he?’
Campbell nodded. ‘He would.’
The DCI said, ‘What an animal…’ He sighed. ‘What a world we live in. So, we know who, how about why? Did Lennox try and rip him off? Surely he wouldn’t be that stupid?’
Campbell said, ‘No, he was working for Millar. When I say that, I mean indirectly. Lennox’s supplier was one of Millar’s men. He wouldn’t dare.’ He paused. ‘There is one thing – Calla Lennox has a brother, James McDonald. He did seven years for GBH, lucky to have the charge reduced from attempted murder. A fight in a nightclub in Hamilton. I don’t know if that has anything to do with things. I personally suspect it has.’
The DCI said, ‘Well, we’ll keep it as an ongoing investigation. I suppose no one’s going to be busting our balls over it. We should be grateful for small mercies. Locate James McDonald, see if he can throw any light on this.’
‘I’ll do that. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.’
‘And have a word with Downie, not that it’ll do much good, I suspect.’
‘Very good, sir.’
The DCI stood up, as did Campbell; the meeting was over.
‘Keep me informed.’
‘I will, sir.’
He sighed and walked down the corridor, looking at his watch. Nearly six p.m. He thought of Hanlon; he wondered how she was getting on in Edinburgh. Better than he was here in Glasgow, almost certainly. Nobody would ever dare testify against Millar. He had spoken to the caretaker himself; he was shit-scared of Millar, as was everyone in this case.
He went back to his desk and started work on finding McDonald. First port of call, his probation officer.