‘ Well, what of it?’ The tall, blonde policewoman looked down at DC Kate Clark, one hand on her hip.
‘I thought you’d be able to help!’ Kate protested. ‘You have got some inside knowledge about that sort of stuff,’ she raged, adding, ‘Ma’am,’ as Rhoda Martin’s eyebrow rose menacingly. It didn’t do to forget who was boss around here when Lorimer wasn’t around, the DI’s expression seemed to be reminding her.
‘So?’ Rhoda Martin countered. ‘Everyone knows I’m a cyclist. I just don’t see what being in the cycle club has to do with the investigation. After all, the only thing our witness can tell us is that it was a bloke riding without any lights on.’
‘He thought the cycle was silver,’ Kate mumbled.
‘Ha! If I had a pound for every silver cycle in the district I’d be retiring next week!’ Martin snorted. ‘Come on, Kate. I mean, there’s not a shred of evidence to go on, is there?’
The DI’s derisive tone made Kate Clark seethe inwardly. Lorimer doesn’t think that, she wanted to tell the woman but mentioning the Super’s name was like a red rag to a bull these days. Kate was ready to bet that Rhoda Martin hadn’t managed to charm the pants off this particular officer. Lorimer had more sense than to fall for the DI’s usual tricks, she thought, remembering his keen blue eyes appraising each one of them during recent meetings.
‘What about the other folk in your cycle club? Would any of them have been up there at that time of night?’
For a moment DI Martin’s face became thoughtful. Kate waited, wondering what her colleague was going to say. But then the woman shook her head and gave a shrug as if to dismiss whatever idea had occurred to her.
‘Is the son still bothering you?’ she asked instead.
‘You mean Gary Wilson? The man whose old mum died?’
Martin nodded. ‘Yes. All that stuff about a stalker seems a bit like clutching at straws to me. Okay, you have to feel for the guy, but don’t let yourself get too involved. It’s a matter for family liaison to deal with, DC Clark. It’s not your job to mop up Mr Wilson’s tears. Besides, I’d have thought you had other more pressing things on your mind these days,’ she smirked, her green eyes flashing with mirth as she pointed to Kate’s belly.
Kate gave a half-smile in return, her hand moving instinctively to the swelling bump as she felt the baby kick. The DI was right enough, she supposed. Becoming too involved with the victim’s family was a bad idea. And she didn’t have all that long to go now until her maternity leave. Maybe this cyclist thing was just a bizarre coincidence. Loads of people rode bikes, after all, and maybe the bloke in Kilmacolm had simply forgotten to switch on his lights that night.
But as she walked back to her desk, something was niggling at the back of her mind. What had Rhoda Martin been thinking about just then? It was typical of the woman not to share her ideas with the rest of them. DI Martin was the type who would work on her own if she could, just to show them all what a great cop she was. Maybe that private school education had instilled the competitive spirit into her, Kate thought. Then the telephone rang, dispelling any further consideration of the incident.
Tommy Rankin stopped by his gate, puffing as he heaved the last of the bags of groceries on to the path. He was getting too old for this. But his pride wouldn’t let him ask that son-in-law of theirs for help. So long as he could walk across to the shops, he’d continue to bring home all the things on Maureen’s list. The old man pushed the gate, fiddling with the catch to make sure it was secure. Maureen had kept him awake half the night moaning about the gate banging in the wind. He was sure he’d closed it last night. Maybe it was Freda-next-door’s? He was about to pick up the bags of groceries when his eye was caught by a bundle of rubbish left at the foot of his neighbour’s steps. What on earth had Freda left out?
But as he bent to retrieve the bulging plastic bags, Tommy Rankin froze. A gust of wind had caught the edge of the heap lying on his neighbour’s path, revealing the sole of a small black shoe.
For a moment Tommy’s mind refused to recognise what his eyes were telling him.
Then he heard a thin cry coming from his own throat as the bundle of rags was transformed into the shape of a woman’s body.
‘Three? That’s not a coincidence then, is it?’ Detective Sergeant Wainwright asked, his eyes gleaming with expectation. ‘We’ve got a serial killer on our patch,’ he added, folding his arms and glaring around as if daring to any of his fellow officers to defy him. ‘Someone’s bumping off poor old ladies. And with the SOCOs having found the tyre tracks, we’ll have to look again at Gary Wilson’s statement, won’t we?’
Rhoda Martin had the grace to keep quiet and Kate Clark noticed that the DI was deliberately avoiding her eye. It was typical, though, that all this had blown up on a day when Lorimer wasn’t around. A meeting with the Chief Constable took precedence over the day-to-day business of policing, she told herself huffily, then immediately felt cross at herself for such cynicism. Most of that morning and early afternoon, officers had been busy at the locus; now that the body had been taken away to the mortuary they were back at HQ for the initial meeting with the scene of crime manager and DI Martin who had been appointed SIO.
‘Ma’am, the doctor who issued the death certificate for Mrs Wilson and Mrs MacKintyre wants to come in and make a statement, ’ PC Dodgson piped up. ‘It’s a Doctor Bennie. He attended the latest death. Seems all three of them were his patients.’
‘Okay.’ DI Martin sighed and looked at the papers attached to her clipboard. ‘That’s something to go on for the time being. Right, what else have we got? Last night’s workload includes the fracas down at the harbour. A couple of local gangs knocking bits out of one another.’ She looked up to the area beyond the incident room as though she could envisage the prisoners. ‘So that’s most of the cells full. And we’ve already had one report of a mugging and another incident that might end up being an attempted rape.’
‘Can they not at least have the decency to wait till it’s dark?’ Wainwright asked, receiving a few guffaws in reply.
But DI Martin refused to rise to the bait as she continued, ‘So with what remains of this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, just for some extra light entertainment,’ she said, sweeping a green glare over DS Wainwright, ‘we appear to have a serial killer out there. It’s what you’ve all been hoping for, after all, isn’t it?’
Kate Clark winced. Rhoda Martin was one hard bitch, but she’d never heard such a tone of bitterness in her voice before. Even Wainwright looked surprised, and he’d been around long enough to take sarcasm in his stride. Something was biting the DI today and Kate was curious to know just what that was. Could it be the menace from an unknown killer who was systematically murdering old ladies? She shivered suddenly. None of them had encountered anything like this before and perhaps DI Martin’s words were simply covering up her own fear of tackling a case this big.
As DI Martin was issuing the various actions to her colleagues, the man who occupied her thoughts was driving back down the M8 from Glasgow.
Lorimer wondered if his words to Isherwood at Pitt Street today had found their target. He thought so, remembering the man’s turkey-red jowls and his explosive reaction. Whatever the final outcome, he knew his card was marked now and it would be highly unlikely that there would be any promotion to Superintendent in the near future for DCI William Lorimer if the Chief Constable had anything to say about it.
His hands grasped the steering wheel tightly. There were other things that might count against him as well: being out of his own office meant that he was well behind with all the staff appraisals waiting for him back in Glasgow. Their annual MOTs had to be done and he had to find time to do them but, what with the hospital visits and this review case, he felt as though things were slipping away from him. With these thoughts in mind Lorimer had taken the opportunity of being back in Glasgow to call in at his own HQ and pick up some of the paperwork, hoping he might have a chance to see to some of it over the weekend. If he could just tie up this case in Greenock then perhaps he’d be able to return to a semblance of normality.
As he turned off the dual carriageway and headed towards Port Glasgow, Lorimer smiled a bitter little smile to himself. When had his life last been normal? Surely the life of a police officer was by definition anything but normal. And that was the choice he had made for himself, a long time ago. He recalled the day that he had been summoned from his vacation job in the bank. A simple request to take part in a line up following a series of bank robberies had resulted in the young William Lorimer asking questions about the work of a police officer. And what he had learned had intrigued him enough to drop out of his course at university and join the Force.
What had made Rhoda Martin become a police officer? Lorimer wondered. She was a fast-track graduate who was obviously intent on becoming more than a mere detective inspector, he reckoned — even if she had to sleep her way into promotion, a bad little voice whispered in his ear. In the course of the review, the first thing Lorimer had done was look at all of the information about the individuals in DCI Ray’s team. He’d seen DI Martin’s personnel file as a matter of course, noted the private education, the glowing commendations from past teachers and tutors at university and the terse comment ‘ this one will go far ’ from Tulliallan Police College. But, having seen her at work, he felt that there was something that didn’t fit about the woman. Perhaps it was that upper-class voice or the way she moved around her female colleagues as if she believed they were her inferiors. Lorimer shook his head, irritably. He shouldn’t even be thinking of the dratted woman when there were other more important matters on his mind.
He turned into the filter lane leading to the stark grey building, with its chequered stripe that proclaimed to the world that this was Greenock Police Headquarters. Maggie had stared at it when they’d passed by in the car before last Christmas, musing in that whimsical way she had. What was it she’d said? ‘If that building could talk, it would say “Nae messin”.’ He’d laughed, then, completely unaware that in a matter of weeks he would be coming up and down from Glasgow to Greenock HQ on a daily basis.
As he pointed the key to lock the car, Lorimer’s thoughts were already considering the next step in his review of the Jackson case. He wanted to talk to the sort of people who would welcome a chat about their departed friends, Ian and Pauline Jackson: people who had known them outside of Jackson Tannock.
And he thought he knew just where he might obtain such information.
The HOLMES room had been set up as an incident room, given that Lorimer had appropriated the only other available space. He stood at the doorway, arms folded, listening to the DI as she directed questions from her colleagues. Something was up, that was clear, and it didn’t sound as if it had anything whatsoever to do with the Jackson case.
‘Right, I want everyone back for a meeting at eighteen hundred hours. DS Wainwright’s your crime scene manager so if I’m not here for any reason you make sure your reports are with him. Understood?’
Lorimer listened to the woman’s voice. It was hard and clear, like brittle glass, but the way she stood there, tall and commanding, looked anything but fragile. And he could see that every eye was upon her. Not one of them had noticed his presence, lurking in the shadows. She was good; Lorimer had to grant her that. And with her sort of authoritative manner, yes, she would go far.
Before the meeting broke up, Lorimer came further into the room and stood to one side, waiting for the opportunity to speak with the DI. One or two of the officers gave him a half-smile as they passed him but there was a sense of urgency in the way they hurried out that made his eyebrows rise in curiosity.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, stepping forward as soon as the DI had finished speaking to Robert Wainwright.
Rhoda Martin turned and for a moment her mouth fell open in surprise at seeing him there. Then the green glint was back in her eyes, the blonde head raised in a defiant manner.
‘Another killing,’ she began shortly. ‘A third old lady. Same MO. Same district.’
‘Upper Port Glasgow?’
She gave a bitter smile. ‘Yes. Not down in the main drag where you might expect a few CCTVs to help us. A housing estate. There are a lot of old folk living in that part of the area now.’
‘Dying too, by the looks of it,’ Wainwright put in, his grin cut short by the glacial look Martin shot at him.
‘Anything to go on?’
Martin seemed distracted, avoiding his eye as if she wanted to look around the room for something she had forgotten. ‘Cycle tracks, if you must know. Forensics are on to it and the elderly neighbour next door claims to have seen kids hanging around on their bikes a couple of nights ago.’ She shrugged then turned back to face him. ‘So if you don’t mind I’ve got a lot to do. I’m the SIO on this one. All right, sir?’
She marched past him without waiting for an answer and he caught a whiff of her expensive perfume. It was one that he recognised; Maggie wore it whenever they were going out somewhere. DS Wainwright gave him a nod as he followed the woman out of the incident room. Lorimer stood back, letting them past.
Being the Detective Superintendent on hand did not mean that by rights this case should have come to him, he reminded himself. He was only here on sufferance: just a review officer seeing to a case that had been botched. That was all. And if things carried on the way they had been, he might end up back in Glasgow as a DCI quicker than he would like. Okay, he decided. They were all intent on this new case and it was imperative that they found out as much as possible as quickly as they could to maximise their chances of apprehending this killer. He looked at the spot where Rhoda Martin had stood moments ago. He had a lot of experience in dealing with murder cases and she knew it. So why not ask him for help? Because she wants to prove she can do this one herself, a little voice told him. And if the Detective Inspector did manage to catch this killer then she’d see it as a chance for promotion, satisfying that ambitious streak he’d seen in her.
Meantime he would take a trip up the country to Kilmacolm. That trail might be colder now, but perhaps he could rake around and see what he could find. There was something missing. Many things had been lost in that fire but memories of the dead might still be fresh in people’s minds. And it might help the case to bring those memories alive once more.