Alex Gray was born and educated in Glasgow. After studying English and Philosophy at the University of Strathclyde, she worked as a visiting officer for the DHSS, a time she looks upon as postgraduate education since it proved a rich source of character studies. She then trained as a secondary school teacher of English.

  Alex began writing professionally in 1993 and had immediate success with short stories, articles and commissions for BBC radio programmes. She has been awarded the Scottish Association of Writers’ Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her crime writing. A regular on the Scottish bestseller lists, her previous novels include Five Ways to Kill a Man, Glasgow Kiss, Pitch Black, The Riverman, Never Somewhere Else, The Swedish Girl and Keep the Midnight Out. She is the co-founder of the international Scottish crime writing festival, Bloody Scotland, which had its inaugural year in 2012.

  ALSO BY ALEX GRAY

  Never Somewhere Else

  A Small Weeping

  Shadows of Sounds

  The Riverman

  Pitch Black

  Glasgow Kiss

  Five Ways to Kill a Man

  Sleep Like the Dead

  A Pound of Flesh

  The Swedish Girl

  The Bird That Did Not Sing

  Keep the Midnight Out

  The Darkest Goodbye

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Sphere

  978-0-7515-6441-9

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Alex Gray 2017

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  SPHERE

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Still Dark

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Alex Gray

  COPYRIGHT

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  This book is dedicated to John, Suzy and Chris, with love

  … and he looked for judgement, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

  Isaiah 5:7

  Faith is the Bird that Sings to the Dawn while it is still dark

  Kabir

  PROLOGUE

  New Year’s Eve

  ‘Put down the gun, Thomas.’

  Lorimer kept his eyes fixed on the man who was standing at the other side of the bedroom, arms clutched around the whimpering child, the gun pressed against her pale blonde curls.

  Thomas Blackburn’s eyes were red-rimmed, devil’s eyes, staring at the tall police officer who had dared to enter the house where bodies already lay sprawled and bloody.

  ‘She’s your little girl, Thomas,’ Lorimer said softly, willing himself not to shift his gaze and succumb to the temptation of glancing at the toddler caught in the man’s vice-like grip. ‘It’s Lauren. You don’t want to hurt her, do you?’ Lorimer’s voice sounded steady as he spoke, though it belied his true feelings. Inside, his stomach was churning, the smell of blood filling his nostrils.

  It was imperative that Blackburn heard the voice of reason, the policeman’s calm reassuring words posing no threat to the wild-eyed gunman. The sound of his voice had lulled many a criminal into a false sense of security over the years though nothing in Lorimer’s experience had truly prepared him for a moment quite like this.

  ‘Stay back!’ Thomas Blackburn lifted the pistol away from the side of Lauren’s head and waved it towards the detective superintendent. ‘Stay back or I’ll shoot you as well,’ he cried.

  Was that a note of desperation Lorimer could hear? The voice beginning to crack under the strain of what he had done? Was this the moment when a deranged husband and father would suddenly break down and weep?

  It was a split-second decision, an instinct telling the detective to defy the gunman’s command.

  Despite the body armour, Blackburn could easily kill him with one shot to his face. If this gamble all went horribly wrong, Lorimer could be making a widow of his beloved wife.

  Thoughts of Maggie were brushed aside as Lorimer shifted his weight, preparing to step forward and put out his hand, ready to accept the gun.

  The child wailed as Blackburn gripped her harder, a shrill piercing cry.

  Then, as Lorimer took one step forward, the world exploded in a mass of red as the girl’s screams were silenced by the blast.

  He watched in horror, unable to move, as Blackburn put the gun into his own mouth and fired, the air filled with noise and gore, spattering the policeman as he stood helpless and trembling.

  ‘Your baby,’ he cried, dropping to his knees and reaching out his hands to touch the child’s body. ‘Your baby…’

  He stared at the place where the man had been, now an empty space filled with the acrid smell of gun smoke.

  Lorimer was only vaguely aware of the sound of running feet entering the room and the feeling of hands under his arms lifting him up, tears blurring his vision, the moment already replaying in his head.

  CHAPTER ONE

  This city was all his, Gallagher told himself, swinging round to face the huge window overlooking the rooftops of central Glasgow. St Vincent Street swept upwards past the busy shopping thoroughfare to the graceful old office buildings where rows of well-tended window boxes were displayed from early springtime right through till the first frosts of winter. Even today, on this cold February morning, he could see traces of greenery and a few ornamental cabbages brightening up the grey walls as he looked down at street level. It was a part of Glasgow that had not seen too many changes, the business district still housing the premises of lawyers, accountants and insurance companies, those who could afford the high rents that these smart four-storey blocks commanded. The façades had remained the same for several generations although in many cases the interiors had been drastically altered to reflect the changing tastes of those whose money could buy these sorts of surroundings, as well as to accommodate so many new technologies.

  The man swivelled in his captain’s chair to gaze appraisingly around his spacious office, admiring the pictures in their gilt frames hanging on the walls. Several Glasgow artists owed their success to the businessmen and women who had bought up their paintings to furnish spacious boardrooms and reception areas, the displaying of such artworks testament to the standing of those buyers who could afford them. His own interest had begun with the sort of clever craftsmen who could fake any sort of thing he wanted. For a price. But he’d discovered that it was not just some of their under-the-counter work that had interested him.

  Jack Gallagher stood up, coming closer to stare at a particular painting. It had caught his eye one day as he’d hurried down Blythswood Street, pausing at a gallery whose double-fronted windows always showed the best of contemporary art.

  The picture had made him stop for a moment, its swirling autumn colours reminding Jack of the days long before he was rich, when a day tramping over the hills with his father had seemed the best thing that life could offer the young boy. Gallagher was far from being a sentimental man but the painting had d
rawn him into the gallery, the desire to own the piece for itself stronger than the knowledge that it was by a renowned artist whose work commanded a hefty price tag.

  Now it was his and he could look at it whenever he felt inclined, though somehow he had never quite recaptured that first sensation of being back on the hills again, his own innocent youth lost for ever. Still, he enjoyed the landscape and took pleasure in knowing that he had made a good investment.

  And Jack Gallagher knew what was value for money. His drug dealers got what they paid for, mostly over the market value, but then he refused to have anything to do with the shoddier goods that had flooded Glasgow recently, stuff that was cut with no end of rubbish. His clientele appreciated that, Gallagher knew, and paid accordingly. His thoughts turned to his first visitor of the day, the man who always came early in the morning before the city was properly awake. Like all of his clients, Charles Graham paid in cash. Not shabby used notes but sleek bundles of fifties wrapped in clear plastic bags as if he was averse to dirtying his hands with the money. Graham was a careful type; all he had ever given was a PO box for an address, something that tickled Gallagher’s curiosity but he grudgingly admired. If Jack Gallagher knew your real home address that was tantamount to having a hold over you as long as you chose to live there. It would not be the first time by a long way that a couple of his thugs had paid a visit to one or other of the boss’s dealers who had been tardy with their payments. But he knew instinctively that Graham was higher up the food chain than those shadowy types on his payroll. And today Gallagher was particularly interested in the man’s visit and not just because Graham paid a little over the odds for quality product. He’d done the man a couple of good turns since they’d met and now it was time to call in those favours. Blackburn’s death and the media circus that had surrounded it had created problems, one of which he hoped could be solved by his early-morning client.

  Gallagher looked at his watch, the Rolex fastened to his wrist just another symbol of his success, another object that he took for granted nowadays and, like the painting, it too had lost that first thrill of ownership. The man should be here at any moment. He frowned. Jack Gallagher wasn’t a man that you kept waiting. Punctuality is a mark of good manners, he remembered his father telling him. Gallagher’s frown deepened into a scowl. Had the memories conjured up by that painting come back to haunt him? His mouth turned up in a grimace that was almost a smile. Nobody would ever make him go back to these old days when he was a ragged boy plodding after his father. Other memories came flooding back; the cramped space in the Gorbals tenement, the stink of his own unwashed body as he’d sat amongst the other kids at school, the rapping on the door as the rent man came to demand his money, children all kept quiet and fearful behind their mothers’ skirts as the banging got louder. No, he’d never go back there again. He’d made his money, ruthlessly trampling on the dreams of his impoverished parents as he’d taken the road that led to this fine office high above the city streets.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lorimer groaned as he turned in the bed, feeling the weight of the duvet across his ankles.

  Waking up was the worst moment of the day.

  For a few brief seconds he would simply be aware of the physical things, the warmth of the bed, the hazy light coming from the space between the curtains, his gummed up eyelids…

  Then the images kicked in, reminding Lorimer why he was here, unshaven and alone in bed, long after his wife had left for work.

  Details flooded back, small things that had seemed so insignificant at the time. Lauren Blackburn’s grubby toy rabbit, clutched in the child’s small hand; the way the flower-patterned curtains had sagged against a broken rail; the paint stains on the gunman’s jeans… the bodies of the woman and her two boys, blood seeping out of their gunshot wounds; then the explosive noise as the child was killed just feet away from his face…

  It has been recommended that you take extended leave, the deputy chief constable had told him as they had sat together in the Scottish Crime Campus out at Gartcosh. There had been a look in the man’s eye that brooked no discussion but by then Lorimer had almost welcomed the thought of turning his back on the job that had led him into that house.

  The briefing meeting in the days that had followed was a mere blur now, the trauma risk assessor talking quietly, gathering the facts about the incident, the forms to fill in a necessary reminder of why he was off on the sick.

  He closed his eyes but it was no use. The scene of carnage returned, the sounds of the child’s cries louder than ever, as if begging him to save her from the madness of her distraught father. Night after night he had woken to the scream that was his own voice and the arms that had enfolded his shaking, sweat-drenched body, Maggie soothing him like the child she had never held.

  He’d been lucky, they had told him, those serious-faced colleagues who had taken him out from that place. Blackburn could easily have blown him away before turning the gun on himself.

  Lucky was the last thing the detective superintendent felt right now, a groan escaping his dry lips. His body felt heavy, his head aching as though he were coming down with a virus. Lethargy. Inertia, he’d tried to explain to the doctor when she had asked him to describe how he felt. It was as if he had been whacked senseless by these intangible forces, words that had hitherto been absent from the vocabulary of who he was. The woman had nodded her understanding. It was normal to feel like that, she’d told him. It would pass, given time and treatment, she’d promised.

  He closed his eyes then opened them again, terrified that the images would return if he allowed himself to fall asleep.

  The familiar hrrrum then a thump on the duvet signalled Chancer’s arrival. Lorimer put out a grateful hand, feeling the cat’s soft fur under his fingers, reverberating purrs a reward for caressing his ears, tickling that special place under his chin. He leaned back, his body relaxing for a moment as the world was filled with softness, the pillow behind his head cool against his damp hair. It was fanciful to imagine that the animal could sense his anxiety and had come to offer comfort; Chancer was simply taking advantage of a warm body to snuggle into, that was all. The big orange cat would turn around and around until he was comfortable then lick his fur and settle down with a sigh to sleep. It was a routine that had become established ever since Lorimer had been at home, the cat happily accepting the change to their domestic arrangements.

  Lorimer yawned, acknowledging the drowsiness that was making him sink back into the comfort of his warm bed, resigned to the sleep that drew him down once more.