Five ways to kill a man lab-7 Read online

  She had loads to do for him, hadn’t she? So better make sure it was done efficiently. Not like the last time.

  The road from Greenock ran steeply upwards, away from the coastline below them: Clune Brae seemed to teeter on a cliff edge before turning back inland to the gentler greener slopes of Upper Port Glasgow. Up here the morning mist had given way to a steady drizzle and, as they rounded a corner, a sharp blast of wind struck the car as if to remind them this Scottish winter was by no means spent.

  ‘You’d been coming in from this direction, on Port Glasgow Road?’

  Dodgson nodded. ‘We’d been answering a call when I spotted the smoke. The trees thin out about here… see the gap? That’s where the cemetery is. The Jacksons’ house is about a quarter of a mile from the road. You can see — sorry, you used to be able to see the turrets through the trees in winter. Up here,’ he added indicating the two white posts to their left.

  Masses of rhododendrons screened everything from their view as Lorimer drove towards the scene of the crime. It was a peaceful-looking place, made all the quieter by the dark bushes and stands of larches on either side of the drive, their needles soft fringes of pale gold on the damp ground.

  When they rounded a bend Lorimer slowed down and stopped. The photographs of the crime scene didn’t do justice to this magnificent wreckage. He’d asked to see an original picture of the house but so far nobody had provided one. Still, he could imagine something of what it must have been like. The area in front of the mansion was a curving sweep of rabbit-nibbled lawn, the tarmac driveway running all the way around in a huge arc. What might have been a stable block or garaging for a fleet of cars lay to the right of the house, now a mere outline of walls and broken rafters. But it was the main building that drew the eye: a mass of grey rubble heaped below the remaining structure, its twin towers shattered and broken. It was, Lorimer told Maggie later, as if some petulant giant had taken a mallet and knocked the whole thing down. It looked so old already, he thought. Only a few weeks ago this had been a house, a home filled with the sound of human voices, and now all that was left was this mess of stones and blackened timbers. The enormity of the crime swept over Lorimer, suddenly making him feel a sense of outrage against whoever had decided to light that flame.

  ‘Show me,’ he told the young police constable, opening the car door at last.

  The scene-of-crime tape was still in place despite a vagabond wind that threatened to take it skyward. Pushing it aside, Dodgson pointed to a heap of broken stones overflowing on to the dead grass. ‘That’s where the front door was,’ he told Lorimer. ‘When we got here the place was in flames but the upper floors were still okay. I mean, they hadn’t collapsed at that stage. The door was open and I tried to go in but it was impossible.’ He looked ruefully at Lorimer as if the senior officer might berate him for failing to enact a hopeless rescue.

  ‘You’re sure it was open?’

  Dodgson nodded. ‘Later on the men from the fire service told us it could have been the heat that made the door burst open. Anyway, that was where the smoke seemed thickest.’

  ‘And from where you took that fume sample.’

  ‘Aye.’ Dodgson heaved a sigh. ‘We couldn’t do a thing so we just called the fire crew as well as our own HQ. We were told to keep back from the house in case anything collapsed. So that’s what we did.’

  ‘Not everyone can be a hero,’ Lorimer remarked mildly. ‘And you may already have done more than could have been expected of you.’

  ‘But the people!’ Dodgson blurted out. ‘They burned to death in there!’

  Lorimer glanced briefly at the young officer; Dodgson had tears in his eyes that were nothing to do with this bitter February wind. Were they tears of remorse for being unable to do anything about the Jacksons? Or tears of rage at whoever had committed this crime? Suddenly Lorimer knew that this police constable shared his sense of outrage and was heartened by the knowledge that this was why they were both here, to push this investigation to its limits and bring someone to justice.

  ‘Can you spare a minute, sir?’

  Lorimer looked up from the management policy file opened on his desk. DI Rhoda Martin had come into the room and, without waiting for a response, picked up a chair and set it down at an angle from him. As she crossed them, the DI revealed a pair of shapely legs in a skirt that would normally have been considered too short for a senior officer.

  ‘DI Martin, what may I do for you?’ Lorimer asked and immediately regretted his turn of phrase as he saw the salacious grin spreading across the woman’s face. It was then that he noticed the low-cut shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a froth of lacy bra and the hint of cleavage between her breasts.

  Taking his glance as approval, Martin began to swing one leg up and down in a deliberately provocative manner.

  ‘It’s what I can do for you, Superintendent,’ she said.

  Lorimer blinked, not willing to believe what his eyes were telling him. DI Rhoda Martin was coming on to him? How often had she done this to other senior officers? And, he thought cynically, was she quite practised in doing this to get what she wanted?

  As his eyes narrowed into a frown, Martin quickly uncrossed her legs. ‘I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to you about my personal knowledge of the Jackson case,’ she said, wriggling in her seat and pulling aimlessly at the hem of her skirt. Her tone, he noticed, had immediately become businesslike.

  Lorimer merely looked at her, his fingers tapping impatiently on the file as if to indicate that he had other important matters in hand. Let her become uncomfortable, he thought, allowing the silence between them to speak volumes; it’s no more than she deserves. But he was cursing the woman inwardly for adding more problems to their working relationship, even as she rattled on to cover her embarrassment.

  ‘I was at school with the two Jackson children,’ she told him. ‘I know Serena quite well and,’ she hesitated, ‘let’s just say that we all moved in the same social circles.’

  Lorimer gave a brief nod. DI Martin’s background might prove relevant; then again, it might not. ‘What’s your point, Detective Inspector?’ he asked.

  ‘Well.’ The woman seemed at a sudden loss for words and Lorimer could see her thinking fast. She’d tried to come on to him and singularly failed. Now she was dreaming up a real excuse for sailing uninvited into his room.

  ‘I suppose I wanted to let you know that I could be of help,’ she said lamely, her cheeks suddenly pink with what might have been embarrassment or even anger.

  ‘There’s no mention of this in any previous report,’ Lorimer told her coldly. ‘Perhaps if you had seen fit to offer help to your previous SIO then he might have been grateful for some inside knowledge.’

  There was no mistaking the rage in the woman’s expression now as she began to rise. ‘Well…’ she began, but Lorimer did not allow her to finish.

  ‘Put the chair back where you found it, if you don’t mind,’ he said, in a voice devoid of any expression whatsoever then, indicating the door, he looked back at the file in front of him.

  There was no sound of the door slamming behind her as she left and Lorimer gave a wry smile: at least DI Martin was capable of some self-control. But his smile disappeared at once as he realised that the gulf between him and this officer would only have widened. The little incident might have been fuel for a good story in the pub from any other officer. But Lorimer didn’t need the sort of macho boasting that sometimes went on among his male colleagues.

  He let out a sigh, relieved to remember that he was only down here in Greenock for a limited time. Any awkwardness would have to be endured. Or simply ignored.

  Rhoda Martin looked at herself in the mirror, hands gripping the edge of the basin. Errant tears coursed down her cheeks and she rubbed furiously with a paper hanky, smudging the carefully-applied mascara. Her green eyes narrowed into malevolent slits.

  ‘Damn you to hell, Lorimer,’ she muttered, throwing the tissue accurately into the waste basket. ‘I’l
l get you for this,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Then you’ll wish you’d never been born.’

  CHAPTER 15

  Rosie drew one fingernail across the envelope, a smile hovering around her mouth. It was typical of Solly to have sent her the card at work, she thought, taking it out and turning it over. Yes, red roses on a highly embossed surface, the sort of extravagantly romantic Valentine’s card she’d never received from any of her former boyfriends. Inside she read the equally flowery words. She should have laughed at their message as over-the-top sentimentality, but somehow she couldn’t. Hand on her cheek, Rosie smiled properly now, thinking about the man who had won her heart. They’d met in such inauspicious circumstances; the scene of a crime where a young woman had been brutally murdered. She might have despised this strange man whose weak stomach contrasted so much with her own hardened professionalism. But that hadn’t happened. Somehow she’d found herself driving him home that night and hoping against hope that he would ask to see her again.

  Now they were husband and wife. An odd couple, some might say, but their very differences seemed to suit them both. Rosie had left her card for Solly on the bedside table, hoping he’d find it after she’d left for work. February fourteenth or not, the consultant pathologist had to be in early at the office before her first appointment of the day. Being an expert witness for the Crown meant that Rosie often had to give evidence in high profile cases and today was one such. A son had murdered his mother in a fit of drunken rage. Photographs of the stab wounds were part of the evidence that would be presented to the jury of fifteen men and women in the High Court but Dr Rosie Fergusson’s verbal testimony would also be crucial in affecting the outcome. She was used to them but Rosie still took her court appearances very seriously indeed, knowing that shades of meaning might be derived from any answers she gave.

  With a sigh, she placed the Valentine’s card on top of the filing cabinet where she would be sure to see it the moment she returned from court.

  No Valentine’s cards for me today. Not that I expected any. Once there had been a little flurry of them and that had been amusing for a time. This omission wasn’t something to worry me, though. My mind was occupied with far loftier things than teenage fantasies. School kids might be biting their nails, anxiously waiting for the bell to ring so they could rush home and see what the postman had left. In my day the mail had arrived before breakfast. Now it could be delivered at any old time at all; another thing that irked me about this changing world where outside forces determined parts of my existence.

  That was why I could breathe easily in the knowledge that what I was going to put into motion would never rebound upon me. I would have it planned to the last detail just as I had planned every one of the other deaths. Nothing would be left to chance.

  And, besides, who was going to suspect someone like me?

  Jean Wilson loved crime. It was her favourite section in the local library and the assistant always gave her the nod whenever a new title came in. Not real-life crime, though she had dipped a tentative toe into those murky waters. No, for Jean the crime stories of folk like Ian Rankin and Val McDermid were her abiding passion. She was on her way to the library now. The writers’ group had focused on romance today, of course, since it was February fourteenth. She’d tried to pen a wee thing to read out, but had given up and crumpled it into her bin. Others had managed fine: lovely poems that made Jean sigh. Such talent among her friends down at the community centre! Every week she walked from her home to the writing group, nodding a greeting to the old folk who were downstairs at the elderly forum, a club where the seniors of the district could be entertained by visiting singers and other folk. The old folk, she called them, but most were in fact a deal younger than herself. At eighty-one, Jean was the oldest member of the writing group that met upstairs in the community education room but nobody knew that little fact since she chose to keep her age to herself.

  It was a windy day today and the clouds were racing across a sky whose weak winter sun managed only a faint appearance from time to time behind a mass of leaden grey cumulus. Jean paused for a moment before she crossed the road. She needed more second-class stamps to send off the articles she had finished for those magazines. Looking left and right, she crossed over to the post office, noticing as she did so the now-familiar figure of the hooded cyclist.

  Jean grinned to herself. She’d seen him every week and had woven him into a story in her imagination. Not that she’d actually written it yet but it was there, percolating away inside her head. He had managed to find his way into her diary, however. Jean always wrote a few sentences last thing at night, just to record the day’s events and, given that most were fairly humdrum, she added details of anything that seemed unusual just to spice things up. So the mysterious cyclist had been given some lines already.

  The rain had begun to spit and there was a rumble of thunder as Jean came back out of the post office. She struggled with her black umbrella, the wind catching it and threatening to turn it inside out. As she made her way along to the corner of the street and the library, Jean saw him again. He was standing across the road and she could swear that he was watching her from under that dark hood of his. Shivering, the old woman hauled herself up the steps, glad of the automatic doors swinging outward to welcome her. Once inside the warmth of the library, Jean left all thoughts of the cyclist behind. Overactive imagination, she told herself, her eyes already feasting on the rows of novels under the heading CRIME.

  Once out in the rain again, the old lady was buffeted along by the driving wind, holding on to her bag and umbrella so hard that she was unable to see the dark figure following her from a distance. Nor did she hear the swish of bicycle tyres on the wet road as the traffic splashed puddles of rainwater towards the pavements and the thunder grew louder. A flash of lightning made her hurry along the street; it wouldn’t do to be caught out with her brolly held aloft. You heard such awful things about men being struck by lightning on the golf course and places like that.

  It was a relief to be home again. Jean shut the door and pulled the chain across, glad to shut out the miserable afternoon. She took off her wet coat, hanging it on the hook on the wall, deciding to change her shoes later. First she needed warmth and light. She’d switch on the lamps in the sitting room, plug in her electric fire then make a nice cup of tea before settling down with that new writer they’d recommended at the library. Jean groaned, the aches in her body a potent reminder of her eighty-one-year-old bones.

  The old lady was filling her kettle when she heard the scuffling sound at her back door. Was it some animal? Jean stopped and listened. The scuffling sound continued and she set the kettle down beside the sink and headed towards the source of the noise.

  The door was whipped out of her grasp as soon as she opened it and for an instant she thought it must be the wind.

  Then she saw the figure standing there, an arm raised above its head.

  Jean’s scream was lost in the sudden crash of thunder and, as the ground came up to meet her, she knew with a certainty that she was going to die.

  Acting Detective Superintendent Lorimer frowned as he pored over the witness statements. At first glance the file was fine, nothing to worry anybody. But it was the lack of detailed information missing from these pages that gave him pause for thought. Dodgson’s own report had triggered off the initial visits to nearby properties (Lorimer noted the word properties: not neighbours or even neighbouring houses. Kilmacolm was famous for its huge mansions that, even during the years of financial uncertainty, had commanded millions on the open market.) It had been during the night that the fire had been started and the pattern of statements from those living within a mile or so of the Jacksons had been depressingly predictable. Nobody had seen anything that could have helped the police. Not until the fire service had made its noisy way along the drive had anyone even awoken to hear what was going on. Then, Lorimer read, the fire could be seen over the treetops, an open window giving the sounds of crackli
ng mixed with the sirens screaming to a rescue that never happened. No dog walkers wandering past the drive, no night-time shift workers passing by, no sign of a car full of carousing louts fleeing the scene.

  Yet that was exactly what had been suggested: the fire had been started by a bad crowd from down the hill in Port Glasgow. Okay, there had been a spate of burglaries a year or so previously and a local lad had been nabbed for them. So what? Fire-raising hadn’t been in that thief’s case history. It was simply the old story of guilt by association. Someone from the port had been sentenced for crimes against the good decent folk of Kilmacolm and so the finger was pointed at them (whoever they were, and why don’t the police investigate them?) He could almost hear the indignation in the voices of the outraged neighbours. And who could blame them? After all, the tragedy must have shocked local people. But these witness statements (if he could deign to call them that) were hardly more than a collection of opinions based on nothing more than anger and fear. The local crime prevention lads had been particularly busy in the week following the fire, Lorimer knew. And he would bet that the sale of electric gates and other security devices had rocketed in the wake of the Jacksons’ deaths.

  And the Chief Constable had taken this line as well. Look at the low-life in Port Glasgow, he’d told Colin Ray. Lorimer’s jaw hardened. There were bad elements in every town, though statistically Kilmacolm could expect its own share to be very low indeed. Especially when the head of Strathclyde’s police force lived there himself. And yet, the Chief Constable, David Isherwood, had issued orders for Colin to come up to see him in Pitt Street rather than ask him to visit him at home. Why? Wouldn’t he want to keep it unofficial if there was anything dodgy about his request? Lorimer mused. And if there was, Isherwood wouldn’t want his own name contained within the pages of this file, would he?