Five ways to kill a man lab-7 Read online

  There was something unsavoury about this, Lorimer thought, tapping his front teeth with a pencil. Why tell DCI Ray not to look among Jackson’s associates? Was there something Isherwood knew? And if so, was it worth him risking asking questions at that level?

  He was acting Detective Superintendent, a role that would probably lead to a permanent promotion if he were to succeed in this review.

  A thought suddenly came to Lorimer. Was that why he had been seconded to the job in the first place? There were surely a few other Detective Superintendents who could have been posted to Greenock’s HQ to tackle this one. And of course it had to be someone higher than a DCI, Colin Ray’s own rank. Lorimer bit his lower lip as this new idea took hold. Did they think that his temporary promotion would make him all the more eager to toe the line? Was he simply being used to keep the lid on things? A can of worms, Colin Ray had suggested. Aye, well, maybe it was. Giving a sigh, Lorimer knew that, despite his wife’s delight at the thought of his promotion, he’d be ready to risk that to get a result in this case. Maggie Lorimer might well live to be disappointed but he wasn’t going to let anyone, Chief Constable or otherwise, stand in the way of doing his job.

  The tannoy sounded loudly in his ear, breaking the chain of thought. Someone was looking for DI Martin at the front desk. Lorimer frowned. This review didn’t take priority over any new crimes being committed for the officers in Greenock and he could easily lose some of his personnel if something major cropped up.

  There was a knock at his door and the cheery face of DC Kate Clark appeared. She tugged ineffectually at the smock top covering her swelling body as she approached Lorimer’s desk.

  ‘Been a murder, gov,’ she said in her best Taggart voice, mimicking the phrase associated with the long-running TV police drama. Then, sitting down on a chair without being invited, Kate gave a groan. ‘This wee blighter’s been playing football in there all morning.’

  Lorimer smiled at her. It was refreshing to have someone like Kate around: for others it might mean the nuisance of the woman being off on maternity leave fairly soon, but it gave Lorimer a sense of normality. Birth and new life was a wholesome contrast to the sort of work they did, often involving violent deaths.

  ‘Does that mean I’m to lose all of my best officers for today?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘DI Martin’s away to the scene just now. An old lady’s been mugged at her own home; or so her neighbour seems to think.’

  The woman’s tone gave no indication that she felt anything for the victim. But in this job an officer had to maintain a detachment from the tragedies that occurred each day. Start feeling sore at every crime that came along and you’d end up a basket case, Lorimer remembered one of his lecturers at Tulliallan saying. And it was true. But it hadn’t stopped him having feelings for the victims in his own cases. Feelings of outrage, sometimes; feelings of pity for a life cut short. And shouldn’t there be some heartache for an old person too? Especially one who had been brutally attacked.

  Lorimer’s thoughts turned to Maggie’s mum. How would they feel if it had been her?

  DI Martin saw that the blood had not been completely washed away by the thunderstorm, though some of it had been watered down by the driving rain.

  ‘Jean Wilson’s her name, Ma’am,’ the uniform offered. ‘Her son’s on his way over here from his work now.’

  ‘Okay. Get family liaison on to it, will you,’ Rhoda ordered. ‘And see if the doctor wants a pathologist over here as well.’

  There was a small group of people gathered at the foot of the stairs, surrounding the body. Attempts had been made to conserve the scene of the crime and treads had been placed from the entrance of the house through the hallway and kitchen out into the back garden where the victim lay on the concrete slabs. Rhoda Martin seethed inwardly. The Detective Sergeant who was usually the scene of crime manager (and responsible for keeping everything as intact as possible for forensics) was at a funeral, leaving her in charge. It was demeaning, she told herself. She should be the SIO in the case, not the crime scene manager. It was all Lorimer’s fault, taking staff away from them, she decided pettishly. Still, she’d put her name on this one if nobody more senior turned up. And delegate all this stuff to the DS when he came back from the crematorium.

  A neighbour had called the police. A woman putting out rubbish in her bin had caught sight of the old lady lying there on the patio. She was back inside her own home now, having tea poured into her by one of the uniforms. Rhoda would have a word with her as soon as she was free here. A large tarpaulin tent was being erected now around the body, the gusting wind threatening to blow the whole thing sideways. Further along the rows of back gardens she could see one or two figures standing, watching the process. Nosy beggars, she thought to herself, wanting to go across and shout at them to mind their own bloody business. They’d be door-stepped soon enough, their fascination with this crime scene tempered by the routine questioning from police officers. At the top of one set of back steps two white-haired women stood, huddling together, their faces turned towards the scene three houses along from them. The gardens were separated by low wooden fences, easily stepped over by neighbours seeking a short cut to visit. Or by someone hoping for a quick getaway, Rhoda thought.

  ‘Did she fall or was she pushed?’ A voice behind her made Rhoda turn to see DS Wainwright.

  ‘The pathologist’ll let us know in due course, if we’re to call one out, but it looks to me as if it could just be an accident.’

  ‘Any reason to think otherwise?’

  ‘Och, the woman who rang us up said her neighbour had been mugged. The sight of all that blood must’ve made her panic.’

  ‘Right. But you’re obviously not taking any chances, are you?’ Wainwright’s eyes found Rhoda’s own and she gave him a little smile. They all knew she’d taken too many chances when DCI Ray had been in charge and now it was time to exert a little more caution, especially with Lorimer in the background.

  Gary Wilson sat slumped in the chair of his mother’s sitting room. Someone had switched on the electric fire and its artificial coals were glowing in the hearth but even that couldn’t stop the trembling. His hands were round a mug of hot sweet tea and he’d drunk most of it without realising. Now he held onto it as if it were the most precious thing in the whole room. A uniformed policeman had spoken to him on his arrival and later there was this older woman, talking quietly to him and giving him some of the facts of his mother’s sudden death. He’d cried when he’d seen her body; face down on the patio, her legs splayed at an awkward angle, rain soaking through her skirt and tights.

  The questions were still coming at him and he only nodded or shook his head, not trusting his voice to speak. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever experienced before. Dad’s death had been a call in the night from the hospital and a quiet bedside farewell with whispering nurses hovering around him, painless and sanitised, not like this.

  For a moment the female police officer excused herself and Gary’s eyes wandered over the room. Mum’s coffee table with its lace cover, a new pile of library books, her laptop over there on the desk with some papers to one side. Gary set down the mug on the carpet, his fingers brushing against a hard, leather-covered book. Bending over, he saw what it was. Mum’s diary. It was almost a standing joke that Mum could tell you what the weather had been like years back, since she’d kept her diary for as long as he could remember. Carefully, almost reverently, Gary Wilson lifted the little book and opened it.

  There was no entry for February fourteenth. Saint Valentine’s Day, Gary thought with a pang. What a day to die! Now it would be forever associated with Mum’s passing. Drawing the diary towards him, Gary began reading the last entry. Then the one before that. Leaning forward, he skimmed over the pages, his eyes widening as he read his mother’s words.

  The family liaison officer came into the sitting room, another mug of tea in her hand. Gary Wilson looked up at her and held the diary aloft.

  ‘I think som
eone better have a look at this,’ he told her.

  ‘She wasn’t a frail old lady,’ Gary Wilson insisted. ‘Ask anyone. She was old, aye, and had rheumatism, but she got around just fine. I don’t think this was an accident,’ he said, his mouth closing in a firm line.

  DI Martin sat beside the man, his mother’s diary in her hand. She’d read the entries but she’d also seen other books lying on top of the coffee table. The old lady was into crime, it seemed. The made-up sort. And she was a member of a writers’ workshop. So did these diary entries bear any resemblance to facts or were they, too, a bit of fanciful fiction?

  As if reading Rhoda’s thoughts, Gary Wilson turned sideways in his chair to face her. ‘Mum’s diaries were totally factual,’ he said. ‘We always knew what had happened on a day-to-day basis. You could depend on her diary.’ He smiled a little, his eyes looking into the distance as if remembering. ‘If you wanted to know what happened on any given day a couple of years back, Mum’s diaries would tell you. She even kept a note of what we had for Christmas dinner.’

  ‘So this cyclist…?’

  ‘Was real,’ Gary told her, his fist thumping the arm of the chair. ‘She made stuff up for the writers’ group, but it was mostly articles she wrote. And sold,’ he added, the tinge of pride unmistakable in his voice. ‘She wouldn’t invent this man, whoever he was.’

  DI Martin nodded. It did look as if the old lady had been stalked. The mentions of the cyclist and the old lady’s additional observations were pretty clear. A hooded man, riding so slowly I thought he might fall off that fancy bike of his, Jean Wilson had written. Back again, today, she’d put in another entry. Is he following me??? In all, the cyclist had been mentioned five times, too many for it to have been a mere coincidence, a fact that the victim had also been shrewd enough to set down in her final entry.

  ‘We’ll certainly follow this up, Mr Wilson,’ DI Martin assured him. ‘But we also have to wait for other evidence like the pathologist’s report and the forensic reports.’

  ‘They take time to come through, you see,’ the family liaison officer added as gently as she could.

  Gary Wilson looked from one woman to the other. Did they believe him when he’d insisted that this was no accident? Or was it just a bit convenient that Mum had been an old lady of eighty-one out on her back steps in a thunderstorm? He shook his head, a cynical expression hardening around his eyes. They weren’t going to bother, were they? All this talk of forensics was just to placate him. Wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER 16

  Maggie Lorimer sank into her favourite armchair. A wee cup of coffee and a bit of caramel shortcake from the school charity’s tuckshop and she’d be as right as rain. With a purr, Chancer, her orange cat, jumped lightly on to her knee. Maggie stroked his fur, noting how wet his tail was. Had he been caught out in the storm too? The walk to the staff car park had soaked her almost to the bone, the wind whipping the hailstones against her as she’d struggled to her car, opening the back door and shoving in her bags full of Higher prelim papers. With a wry smile Maggie recalled one head teacher she’d taught with years ago who had opened his car door on a windy day and let loose all the department’s Fifth year exam papers to a west coast gale. Every one of her colleagues had suspected the man had done it deliberately, his wide smile showing only glee that he hadn’t marked them before they’d taken off towards the Arran hills.

  She’d have to find time later on to mark these, though. Once she’d seen how Mum was today. It was Valentine’s Day and the First years had had a great time with versifying. (Maggie couldn’t bring herself to call it poetry.) The whole school had been tingling with an atmosphere of excitement, her Fourth years gossiping and giggling behind their hands. And tomorrow would be just as bad once they’d gone home to see what their postmen had delivered. She’d neither written a card nor expected to receive one. She and Bill weren’t like that, though he’d given her red roses on the occasions when he remembered their wedding anniversary.

  Kicking off her damp shoes, Maggie curled up on the chair, disturbing Chancer who protested by pushing his claws into her lap. This was the time of day she valued most. A little respite from the noise of the kids and the ringing of interminable bells before she set about making an evening meal was as welcome to Maggie Lorimer as the whisky nightcap her husband often enjoyed at the end of his day. It was funny, she thought, how this secondment had given her more of his time. Away down the coast in Greenock, he seemed to be keeping regular hours instead of the endless working days that solving crimes often demanded. Lorimer hadn’t said much about this job and Maggie was sensible enough not to push it, but he didn’t seem altogether contented about being in this promoted post.

  ‘Not a happy lad, is he, Chancer?’ Maggie said, stroking the cat’s fur. Possibly it was because of Colin Ray’s bereavement. And he had hinted that nobody really enjoyed a new face from a different division telling them they’d got a case all wrong. Still, there was that nice girl, Kate something, who’d remembered him from way back. Married now and pregnant, Maggie told herself, recalling her husband’s words. Lucky woman, she thought. Her own future didn’t include the patter of tiny feet and she was probably destined to be one of those teachers who became more and more out of touch with the kids, simply because she had none of her own to tell her what was hip and what wasn’t. God knows, it wasn’t from choice, or from trying, that they had no children. Suffering several miscarriages had proved that, all right. But they were resigned to the fact that she couldn’t carry a child to full term and Maggie had learned to be reasonably content with their lot.

  ‘You’re my baby, aren’t you, Chancer?’ she crooned, smiling at herself for being so daft. The cat purred under the motion of her fingers and Maggie sighed again. Och, it wasn’t too bad. And anyway, if she’d had kids how would she have coped right now with Mum in hospital?

  Maggie remembered her mother’s expression on that half-frozen face, appealing and sad at the same time; she was the responsible adult now and her mum was the vulnerable one. Thank God she’d managed to get her out of that awful ward and into a nicer one. ‘If you don’t ask, you won’t get,’ she’d told her Mum. It was a mantra she seemed to be using a lot these days. And it had been working. The hospital staff really did seem to have taken her mother’s care to heart. Maggie believed she could see a real improvement in her condition. That was good news, of course, but what was going to happen next? Would the hospital expect Maggie and Bill to take Mum home and care for her here? Part of her longed for the chance to show her filial duty, but another part dreaded the very idea. Perhaps they’d been on their own too long, used to one another’s ways and maintaining a sort of independence within their marriage. If so, would her mother’s arrival change all of that? Hating herself for the thought, Maggie finished her coffee, brushed crumbs from her jumper and swept the cat off her knee. Mum was welcome here any time, she told herself. They’d just need to make adjustments; that was all.

  Kate Clark flopped on to her side. It had been a good day, the baby kicking strongly, reminding her of his imminent arrival. A wee boy, they’d seen him at the time of her scan. Not sure what to call him yet, but Gregor was at the top of her own list of favourites. Funny case today, though, she mused, remembering DI Martin’s report to them all. It seemed that the old lady had slipped down a flight of steps at her back door. Killed instantly when her head struck the concrete, so the doctor reckoned. But Kate Clark wasn’t so sure. It reminded her far too much of that other accident a couple of months back, just along the road in Port Glasgow. Wee woman who’d been killed on Boxing Day. At her back door. Down a flight of steps. Coincidence? Or not? Kate rolled on to her back. She remembered something that Lorimer had said way back in her training days about coincidences. He didn’t believe in them. Said they were one of the first signs of a pattern, or something like that. Kate yawned. He was right enough. Just look at the HOLMES database. They were forever trawling through that to look for precedents in cases of serious crime.
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  What had that other old lady’s name been? Kate couldn’t remember. And she wasn’t going to task her brain with this right now when she’d been sent upstairs by her husband for a rest. His way of celebrating Valentine’s Day had been to give Kate a break from making dinner. She’d sleep on it. Tomorrow she’d look up the old case file and see if Lorimer was right. About not believing in coincidences.

  ‘It’s so nearly the same MO,’ Kate insisted. ‘Look at it. Almost in the same street as Mary MacKintyre as well.’

  DI Martin rolled her eyes. ‘It’s only an MO if there’s any reason to believe the women were deliberately murdered,’ she told Kate.

  Aye but, Lorimer… Kate had almost said the words aloud when she bit them back. There was a feeling of tension between the DI and the review Detective Super that she had sensed. Whenever she spoke Lorimer’s name in front of Rhoda Martin it was like she was walking on eggshells.

  ‘I just think it’s too much of a coincidence, that’s all,’ Kate said mulishly. ‘And the son is so sure about his mum’s death, isn’t he?’ she continued.

  ‘Okay, I’ll have a look at the other death. See if there had been a mysterious cyclist following that old lady.’ DI Martin’s voice came out as a sneer and Kate stepped back, face red.

  But at least the DI was taking it kind of seriously, Kate told herself, wasn’t she? For two pins she would have walked into Lorimer’s room and run it past him, but a sense of loyalty to her fellow officers stopped her. Handing him the odd cuppa was one thing but seeking out his opinion on an ongoing case that had nothing to do with him was surely not on. No, if there was really any link between the deaths of these old ladies, Kate Clark might well have to dig around to find it for herself.