Daniel Jackson sat, head bowed into his well-manicured hands. ‘I still can’t believe it, Superintendent,’ he said again, then looked up at the man beside him. ‘Why would Serena do something so terrible to Mum and Dad? And all these other things…’ he broke off, his voice ending in a choking sob.
‘We were very much hoping that you could offer some sort of an explanation, sir,’ Lorimer told him, trying to contain his rising anxiety.
It was after midnight now and Serena Jackson had not offered up a single word since her arrest. Neither cajoling nor threatening had made a bit of difference to the woman who had sat impassively staring into space as though her mind was miles away. And maybe it was, Lorimer realised. Maybe she was as mentally deranged as DS Wainwright had suggested when they had brought her in. In the previous hours several wheels had been put into motion throughout Strathclyde Police and beyond: the on-call senior forensic scientist was possibly even now making a match between the tread that Uprichard had examined and the tyre from Serena Jackson’s racing cycle.
‘I need to find out where your sister has taken Alice Finlay,’ Lorimer said.
‘Your mother-in-law?’ Daniel Jackson said.
Lorimer nodded, running a weary hand through his unkempt hair. Time was running out for Alice, wherever she was. If she was even still alive.
‘Why would she take an old lady away-’
‘Look,’ Lorimer snapped. ‘Why she does things is probably a case for a psychiatrist. But right now it’s our priority to find a sick old lady, do you understand!’ he thundered.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jackson’s eyes were full of tears, ‘really I am. What do you want me to say?’
Lorimer gave a sigh that seemed to come from his soul. ‘Can you think of anywhere your sister might have taken her? Somewhere secluded, perhaps? In the city?’
Jackson shook his head. ‘We haven’t any other properties in Glasgow…’ His face changed suddenly. ‘Oh, my God! Yes we have,’ he gabbled. ‘My father bought up these old derelict tenements. In the East End. Wanted to make a killing from them with the injection of finance from the Commonwealth Games fund.’
‘Where? Tell me exactly whereabouts this is,’ Lorimer demanded.
Daniel Jackson suddenly looked stricken. ‘Oh, Lord,’ he said softly, ‘Dad owned several streets worth of these places. It’s not going to be that simple to find her. If she did take her to that part of the city,’ he added with a groan.
The whole area was crawling with uniformed officers by the time Lorimer’s Lexus came to a halt.
‘This is the last close, sir,’ a middle-aged officer told him after glancing at the name on Lorimer’s warrant card. ‘No sign of her yet,’ he added, a look of sympathy in his face.
Lorimer looked up at the building, its windows all boarded with sheets of wood and shuttered with metal from the outside. It was like looking up at a nightmarish version of Colditz. Rags and tatters of cloud raced across the night sky, revealing the ghostly outline of the moon, then it was gone again as the wind whipped scraps of litter around his feet.
‘Okay. Last try, then,’ Lorimer said, pushing aside the sheet of metal that served as a security entrance.
Inside, the close was in darkness, only a thin light from a window on the half-landing showed the steps before them.
‘Here, take this, sir.’ The police officer handed Lorimer his torch and he scanned the doors to their left and right. They lay open, testament to the depredations of the local youth, no doubt. The next two floors were much the same and Lorimer’s hopes that they would find Alice here were rapidly fading.
When they reached the top floor, Lorimer and the police officer exchanged glances. One door was wide open but the other was secured with a bolt and padlock.
‘Has to be,’ the officer whispered. ‘Why else would it be locked?’
Taking a bolt cutter from his pocket, the policeman worried away at the metal hasp until it fell with a clink upon the concrete floor.
‘Alice!’ Lorimer called out, rushing along the narrow hallway, holding the torch aloft.
When he opened the door, he stopped short, unable to believe what he was seeing. Her head had slumped to one side, the torchlight making a halo of her white hair. Everything about her seemed bleached of life: the pallid face, the arms pinioned behind her.
Lorimer was at her side in a few swift strides, untying the bonds, one knee supporting the old woman’s body from falling off the chair. Gently, he lifted Alice in his arms, marvelling at how light she was. Then as he bent to feel her cheek, he winced. She was so cold. So deathly cold.
‘Is she…?’ the officer stood in the doorway, his face grim.
Lorimer nodded. ‘We’re too late,’ he said, hearing the catch in his own voice and holding the old lady closer to his own body as though he could transfer some of his own warmth to her.
Then he heard it. A tiny sigh, but it was enough to make him hope.
‘Here!’ he said, carrying his mother-in-law towards the policeman. ‘Feel her pulse for me.’
The police officer took Alice’s thin wrist in his hand, his thumb searching for any vital signs.
Then he nodded, relief transforming his face. ‘She’s alive,’ he said. ‘But we better get her to a hospital. Quick as we can.’
Maggie wondered if the nightmare that had begun this morning (was it only this morning?) was ever going to come to an end. She’d hoped and prayed that Mum would be brought back home safe and sound but now she was being driven by a police car across the city to the Royal Infirmary. The High Dependency Unit, Bill had said, not telling her much more than that. But she could sense from his voice that it was not hopeful news. Yes, they had found Alice after an extensive police search of some derelict buildings in Glasgow’s East End. That it had been her husband who had eventually found her was some small comfort.
As the car raced through the streets, its blue lights flashing, siren shutting out any other sound, Maggie felt as though she were floating above it all, a disembodied soul observing this chaotic dash to the hospital.
Inside the hospital she was met by a nursing officer and another policeman who whisked her away in a lift, then she was out in a daze of greenish light, being guided along a maze of corridors.
At last she was in the doorway, looking at the familiar figure of her husband sitting by a high bed where a patient was lying under a white sheet, tubes and wires leading to a variety of monitors that bleeped their rhythmic sound into the softness of the night. Maggie’s sigh became a stifled sob as she tried to move forward to the bed and the still figure.
Lorimer stood up, moving slightly to one side allowing Maggie access to her mother. She felt his touch on her arm as she passed him, heard his low voice murmuring words of comfort, but she only had eyes for the woman who lay so quietly upon that white bed.
Alice was asleep, her eyes closed on wrinkled lids. There was no expression of pain on her face, just a slight downturn to her mouth as though she were cross about something. It was a look that Maggie knew well. But she could remember her smiles and her laughter too, she thought, as the tears began to slide down her cheeks. She could remember the good times they had spent together. Taking her mother’s hand in hers, she stroked it softly, bending forwards so that Alice might hear her.
‘Do you remember the time we went to Skye, Mum? The mist was all down when we arrived and you said we’d have been better off staying at home. Then the next day everything was so clear we could see the whole of the Cuillins. And that sunset? D’you remember the sunset? Dad and you made me stay up to see it until the sun had gone right down, even though it was past my bedtime. You were always so good to me, Mum, always. The best Mum in the world.’ Maggie stopped then, unable to speak for the tears pouring down, clasping Alice’s hand as though she would never let it go.
Even when the sounds changed and the thin green line upon the monitor brought nurses into the room, Maggie refused to let go of her mother’s hand. Squeezing it gently in a gesture of farewell, she bent over and kissed the still-warm cheeks.
‘Goodnight, Mum,’ she whispered.
Then Maggie felt her husband’s hands upon her shoulders and she leaned against him, taking her hands away from the bed at last.