Hour Of Darkness

Fifty-One

I hadn’t expected Jim Glossop to get back to me before the following Monday afternoon, at the earliest, but I’ve always underestimated his skill and his tenacity. I was on the point of leaving the office for a weekend with my family, when Sandra buzzed me to say that he had called.

I was ever so slightly vexed. On the basis of Father Donnelly’s firm assurance, in my mind I had downgraded the search for the missing Mackenzies from a potential murder hunt to a domestic situation that had got way out of hand and for which there would be hell to pay when eventually they turned up.

Monday would have suited me fine; at that moment my mind was fixed on Gullane’s Number Three golf course and the evening round that I had promised James Andrew, my younger son, who shows significant promise for his age. (Mark, his older brother, is a whiz at the computer version of the game. He can find no serious console opposition in our house, but sadly he has no aptitude on grass.)

I took the call nonetheless; I could have asked Sandra to lie and say I’d just left, but that would have been churlish. She might also have refused, and that would have been awkward. On top of all that, Jim was a mate, doing me a good turn.

‘Jim,’ I said, making myself sound as enthusiastic as I could. ‘You need more information?’

‘Not at all. It was dead easy really. There’s no twists and turns in your subject’s recent history. He was born exactly when you said, in Houston, Renfrewshire. His parents were Alastair Gourlay Allan and Wilma Maxwell Allan, maiden name Adams, both schoolteachers, married in Glasgow University Chapel on the thirty-first of August, nineteen forty-three. One sibling, Jonathan Allan, born on the second of February nineteen forty-four, no comment.’ He paused for a chuckle.

‘Maxwell Allan married Julie Austin,’ he continued, ‘on the seventh of April, nineteen seventy-seven, in High Blantyre Parish Church. They listed their occupations as police officer, and physiotherapist. They had two children, a son called Gourlay and a daughter called Rosina, but she died in infancy. How’s that then?’

‘A sad ending, but bloody brilliant as always.’ I hadn’t known about Max’s lost child; but some things are too painful to mention, so that didn’t shock me.

I’d been scribbling as he spoke, and had all the salient details noted down. From the list of names, one was familiar. ‘Hold on, Jim,’ I said, as I delved back into Mackenzie’s file. I was looking for confirmation and I found it.

‘That’s great,’ I said, ‘but I need one more thing. . well, two more actually. Can you find out whether Julie Austin has, or had, a brother called Magnus, and whether he had any kids?’