On his desk, held open with a paperweight, was an A to Z of Glasgow and its surrounding areas. He glanced at the large green spaces that showed Glennifer Braes Country Park. Hillcrest Avenue was at right angles to a zigzag white line against the green, the road that must have taken that body to the lonely gully where it had been found. Did DS Hazel Cochrane, the third undercover officer to have her career ruined, gaze up at those hills and wonder about the body that had been discovered? It was just a matter of time until the press got hold of this titbit of news. Despite their best intentions, someone would blab, probably one of the family members of those wee lads or, more likely, the boys themselves, unable to keep from boasting about it in the playground.

  And what, he wondered, was DS Cochrane doing right now? Her old job had been torn from her and she was, like her colleague, desk-bound at Mill Street for the foreseeable future. Unlike Hutton, Hazel Cochrane was young, single and, if her photo was anything to go by, a very attractive woman. Would she stay in the force? Lorimer hadn’t thought it likely, Solly reminded himself. And so, would she be eager to try and find out who had shopped them all before she moved on to a completely new career elsewhere?

  Solly closed his eyes, thinking about these strangers whose photographs lay side by side on his desk; strangers who were unaware that he was trying to make sense of what had happened to them, their profession as officers of the law now in shreds.

  But there was another thought that refused to leave him: what if one of them had taken that very law into their own hands?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  If Sylvie Maxwell noticed the man standing opposite her office building, she gave no sign of having seen him. It was a wet day, most pedestrians sheltering beneath umbrellas tilted against a persistent downpour or, like Sylvie, cocooned in a padded raincoat, its hood pulled down across her brow.

  Daniel stood in the doorway opposite garnering a few curious stares from the office staff as they arrived for work. He paid them little apparent heed, years of asserting his authority by his mere presence paying off despite the fact that now he was a stranger in a strange land. Had anyone stopped to take a long hard look at the black man standing there just inside the portico they might have noticed how still he was, intent on gazing out at the street ahead, his eyes fixed on something only he could see. In fact, Daniel Kohi was watching the stairs that led up to the offices he had already visited, examining each and every person whose steps took them into that particular building.

  Nine o’clock came and went but still he stood there, gazing now at the short flight of stairs and wondering why the person he sought had failed to arrive. There was, he reasoned, a fairly simple explanation: the man he had seen twice (once with a bloody knife clutched in his fist) might be in the habit of entering the building from the basement door at the rear of the building. An earlier stroll through the cobbled lane had given him time to see the spaces between the offices that were reserved for a few parked cars. Senior staff members, Daniel had surmised. So now he was ready to walk quietly back, retracing his steps through that lane and making a note of whatever vehicles might be there. He glanced at his watch, realising that he had been standing on this spot for over an hour. Unlike the offices across the road, there was no reception desk on this level, only a trio of lifts that took passengers upwards to their different places of work plus a corridor that snaked around to a door at the rear, giving access to a restaurant-cum-tearoom on two levels that did not open till later in the morning.

  Clutching his coat collar closely around his neck, Daniel slipped quietly down the steps to the pavement and headed to the corner of the street. It was surprisingly busy at this time of day, he thought, as folk bustled alongside him, waiting for the green light to cross at this junction. Christmas shoppers, he guessed, from the large bags that were being carried and the chatter of a nearby pair of women sharing a brolly, their faces animated. He’d spotted poinsettias in the windows of various shops, an instant reminder of the scarlet hedgerows back home, the so-called Christmas plants growing prolifically. He closed his eyes seeing poinsettias, flame lilies, colourful flowers that conjured up an image of what home had been like …

  The insistent beep of the crossing signal made Daniel blink then move swiftly, the moment past. Then he was walking downhill a little, turning sharply into the darkened lane, away from the Christmas lights swinging high above the city street, their bright colours reflected like shards of stained glass on the puddles.

  He passed a bay where cars were cordoned off by chains, a padlock swinging heavily to one side. Looking up, he saw an enamelled sign on the wall indicating that this was not for the occupants of the office he had visited but the one next door. Daniel stopped when he reached the middle bay, his eyes picking out a similar sign. Yes, as he had suspected, this was the designated parking area for senior staff cars allotted to Thomas Bryson. These premises had belonged to that particular firm for some time, Daniel reckoned, staring at the white sign with its dark blue writing, nail holes on each corner rusted over the years. Then his eyes fell on the cars parked there: three side by side facing the wall and one turned side on. It would be difficult, he thought, to access this area with those large vehicles, little space for a turning circle. Last in, first out, he realised, his gaze now on the large black 4×4 that was taking up the bulk of this car park.

  It was an easy enough job to slip under the chain and look at the other cars in turn: the silver Mercedes in the far corner next to a white rain-spattered Audi and a low-slung grey Jaguar. Daniel drew a small notepad from his inside pocket and jotted down each registration number, though in truth he could probably have remembered every one.

  As the chain rattled across his back when he stooped to bend under it, Daniel became aware of another noise above the persistent hum of nearby traffic. The metal door, just feet away, was beginning to open, a scraping sound that grated on his ears.

  In moments he was out of the lane and back in Hope Street, collar turned up to hide his face.

  Daniel stood still, leaning against the corner of the wall, peering through the gloom as a man wearing a high-vis yellow jacket emerged from the basement, pushing a dustbin into the lane. It was only a janitor, he saw, his heartbeat slowing down to normal once more. An older man, his grey hair cropped short as he bent down to pick up a piece of litter that had escaped from the big industrial bin. Daniel heard the lid closing then the man disappeared inside, the metal door clanging shut behind him.

  What now? A huge sigh escaped him as he walked uphill, his steps taking him towards a square of gardens he’d discovered on a previous recce. It was a little oasis within the bustling city, its trees leafless yet alive with birds chattering their own peculiar messages. Daniel stood there, transfixed, as they fluttered from branch to branch, bright red patches beneath their wings. He had no idea what these were, brown birds that might be migrants like himself, seeking sanctuary in this northern city.

  There was no possibility of work, he’d been told. Nothing until he had been resident for much longer, but of course there were opportunities to volunteer, one young woman at the Home Office had told him brightly, as though she were doing him a great favour.

  ‘You were a police officer in Zimbabwe?’ she’d asked, casting a brief glance at the file in front of her.

  ‘A detective,’ Daniel had replied, not adding that he had been Inspector Daniel Kohi, firstly to the people of his township, then to the citizens of Harare where his reputation for honesty had grown in direct proportion to the corruption of too many of his fellow officers.

  The question lingered in his mind now, not just what to do about the man he had seen, and the bloody weapon clutched in his hand, but also how to fill his days in this cold, dark place.

  He looked up, watching the flock of redwings sweep skywards as if in response to some unheard signal. Perhaps that was what he needed, Daniel thought: the fellowship of men like himself, outcasts from places once called home. There were places in Glasgow where he might find them …

  His attention was drawn away from the garden and the empty trees as two uniformed police officers passed him by, a woman and a young man. They looked his way and smiled as Daniel caught their gaze and he nodded, a wave of nostalgia sweeping over him for the times when officers had acknowledged Inspector Kohi, saluting him as they passed by.

  No, he had no desire to seek out those drifters from other lands, Daniel decided. If he were to volunteer in any capacity, surely there was something he could usefully do within the police force here?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lorimer stepped out of the car and stood for a moment, distracted by the sudden movement. A flock of redwings, he decided with a smile, his birdwatcher’s keen eye appreciating their flight towards the treetops in Bellahouston Park, probably arrivals from Iceland, searching for food as they travelled further south. They would stop and strip berry bushes and trees, gorging themselves as the colder months set in. There were three pairs resident in his own garden, an annual occurrence that he and Maggie waited for each winter. They roosted within the branches of an ancient holly, emerging to peck at the ripe red berries, the tell-tale yellow eye stripe and red patch underneath their wings distinguishing them from other passerines.

  His earlier visit to Gartcosh, the Scottish Crime Campus, had not been as successful as he had hoped. Neither of the top brass had taken his concerns about the residences of those undercover officers seriously. Had Solly? he wondered. Today there was a chance that he might be sent the post-mortem results from that burned body, the tests due back from the lab. Any residual tissue could be used to find DNA, something the team was anxious to learn. If the dead man’s DNA was on a database and they could put a name to him, then perhaps this case might move forwards.

  It had taken more than one person to put that body in the hidden gully, for sure. But how many had carried it there and where had they started out on their grim journey? The scene of crime officers had taken tyre prints and other samples from the surrounding area but had anything transpired from these that might tell part of the story?

  Smiles greeted him as he opened the door to the boardroom and he sensed an electric tension in the air: something had come up.

  DCI Niall Cameron stood up and walked towards him as Lorimer shuffled off his coat and tossed it onto a chair by the window.

  ‘We have a result from the PM,’ Cameron said, his tone further emphasising the general atmosphere of anticipation in the room. He handed his boss a piece of paper and watched as Lorimer read the report.

  ‘Well, this is a turn-up and no mistake,’ he remarked, his eyebrows raised as he glanced over the top of the report. If his face registered shock at the name on the paper, he was quick to hide it.

  ‘No enquiries about him being a misper,’ DS Molly Newton put in. ‘Ex-wife lives down south and there were no kids, so … ’ She shrugged.

  ‘Neighbours? Colleagues?’ Lorimer shook his head as if in pity of the situation. It wasn’t the first time in his years as a police officer that he had come across a dead man (or, more rarely, a woman) whose body had lain unidentified in the city’s mortuary unbeknown to their family members. Sometimes it happened because that person had been estranged from them or had been a bit of a loner, but no matter the reason he always felt a wave of sadness: unloved and unmourned, that made even more of a poignant end to someone’s life. ‘What do we know so far?’ He took a seat at the end of the oval table. He had to pretend that he had no prior knowledge of this victim, act as if this was news.

  ‘Apart from what is in the PM report and his police record, we’ve found that Derek Carter was a junior partner in a legal firm in the city,’ Cameron replied. ‘There’s more information here,’ he added, turning his laptop towards Lorimer so that he could read what was on the screen.

  In the hours he’d been in Gartcosh Lorimer saw that the team had uncovered a fair bit about the late Mr Carter. They now knew that he’d been thirty-nine, divorced from his wife, Amanda, a decade ago, he had continued to live in the family home in Ralston, a quiet, respectable suburb off Glasgow Road on the edge of Paisley, close to a well-known golf club. He had only recently joined Thomas Bryson, his previous work having been with another established firm of solicitors whose modern offices dominated the Glasgow skyline, their circular windows overlooking the river and beyond.

  Lorimer swallowed hard. Thomas Bryson! Sylvie Maxwell had been there for several months now but only her most recent report had mentioned the name of Derek Carter. Few were aware of the woman’s current task, to infiltrate the lawyers’ office where intelligence had led them in the search for money being secretly passed from sources overseas and the whereabouts of a terrorist cell in the city.

  ‘Nobody in Bryson’s thought to call us when he didn’t turn up for work?’ he asked, keeping his voice as neutral as possible. None of his team must suspect that he already had a dossier on Carter, but for very different reasons.

  Molly shook her head. ‘I spoke with their HR woman this morning,’ she told him. ‘Seems he had been on a fortnight’s leave, so they had no reason to be anxious about him.’

  Lorimer nodded. Something had happened here, a story where he could only read the ending, but that snippet of information made him wonder where the story had actually begun. Had Carter, an ex-con, been involved in some shady dealings, taking time off from work to carry them out? And, strangest of all, why hadn’t their undercover officer, Sylvie Maxwell, known about this?

  ‘We need to get on to his colleagues as soon as possible,’ he decided. ‘See what he’d been working on, what tale he’d told them about where he was going to spend this leave.’ But do it with kid gloves on, he thought, turning to the tall blonde woman who herself had once been an undercover police officer. She knew what the score was. ‘Molly, see me after this meeting,’ he said, then turned back to DCI Cameron who was scrolling down to show what else had been learned about the man whose body had been found up on those lonely moors.

  ‘Carter was done for dangerous driving,’ Molly told him as they sat together in Lorimer’s office. ‘Did his time and sacrificed his driver’s licence for a year after he came out. Not all he seems to have lost,’ she added.

  Lorimer raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘His wife left him,’ Molly said drily. ‘Here’s the draft of the divorce settlement.’ She handed him a sheet of paper.

  ‘Hmm, she certainly got what she asked for,’ Lorimer remarked, speed reading the document. ‘He was left with the house but also with a hefty mortgage, given that she took her share in cash.’

  ‘Yep.’ Molly gave no indication of what she thought about that. Who knew what sort of relationship had existed prior to the night Derek Carter had taken away the lives of two people through his reckless drink-driving?

  ‘I want to tell you something, but it goes no further than this office, Molly, okay?’ Lorimer shot her a sharp look. ‘There’s an undercover officer in Bryson’s,’ he said slowly. ‘Goes by the current name of Sylvie Maxwell. Do you know her?’ He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and produced a colour photograph.

  Molly gave a smile as she caught sight of the woman’s image then nodded. ‘I think I know who you mean. She worked on the Clarkson case,’ she replied. ‘Back in 2015, I think it was. Long hours of sitting in a car watching a row of windows over in Bellshill. I took over when she went on furlough. We never actually met. I’m guessing she’s changed a bit since then.’ Molly took the photo and examined it more closely.

  Happily, so have you, Lorimer thought to himself, remembering the case that had almost finished the woman’s career.

  ‘I think, DS Newton, it’s time we sent you out to do a bit of undercover work once again.’

  *

  It was a ten-minute journey from the MIT in Helen Street, a straight run along Paisley Road West, past the dark red Lourdes Secondary School and the huddle of four-in-a block homes, then rows of shops before Lorimer slowed down at the corner of Newtyle Road where Derek Carter had lived. He stopped opposite the semi-detached house, wondering just when the man had last been here and if the forensics team might find anything inside that would help to determine what had happened to its last resident. There was a garage at the far end of the driveway. Would they find Carter’s car inside? He held that thought as he and DS Newton crossed the road and strolled past the entrance to the house. A paved driveway with gravel on either side led him to the garage. At his height of six feet four, Lorimer had little need to do more than peer into the cobweb-covered garage window.

  ‘Yep, I can see a vehicle inside,’ he told her. ‘Blue saloon, possibly a Honda from its shape though it’s hard to see it clearly from this angle.’

  Stepping away, they continued around to the back of the house that was sheltered on two sides by a tall hedge of leylandii, a wooden fence dividing the property from its adjoining twin. A square of grass and a few shrubs sufficed for a back garden, a bare-branched maple tree swaying in the corner nearest to the fence, its scattered leaves blown across the lawn like scarlet confetti. Three dustbins stood side by side against the wall of the house next to a row of steps that led to a glazed back door. Lorimer and Newton raised their lids with gloved hands, knowing that any contents would be thoroughly examined by the members of the forensic team in due course.