There were four cars parked: two were BMWs with this year’s registration and one was a classic Jaguar, its racing green bodywork sleek and polished. Dentistry was paying well in this part of the world, if appearances were to be believed, Solly smiled to himself. The fourth car was a Vauxhall, K656 BLS. He made a note of all their numbers, telling himself that Lorimer’s team had probably covered just such details already. He was aware of the need to tread carefully. There was no reason to fracture the relationship between the DCI and himself. What really interested him, though, was how the cars had come into the parking area. Sure enough there was a double wooden gate that had been fixed into the high stone walls. No moss was clinging to the stone posts either side of the gate, unlike the furred surface along the older section of the wall, suggesting that the entrance had been constructed in recent years. On closer inspection Solly could see trails of purple toadflax growing out of the crevices between the pitted stonework. The gate itself was a solid affair of thick timber, dark with creosote that had not yet weathered. He gave the latch a push and found himself in a cobbled lane running down the length of the street.
Solly shut the gate behind him. There was no sign of a padlock although there was a hasp attached to the left gate. He fingered the metal loop, checking for fresh scratches that might show if a padlock had been taken off recently. There were none that he could see. Did that suggest a laxity in the dentists’ security? Or was this a fairly low risk area? Solomon decided to walk back down the lane rather than retrace his steps through the grounds of the surgery.
Looking up and down he could see the black shapes of wheelie bins all along one side of the lane. A bin lorry could manoeuvre its way up here, then. The lane wasn’t as narrow as it seemed. Solomon looked again at the wooden gates. Had the killer opened them and simply parked his car in the empty driveway, leaving quietly from the back lane? Was that a possibility Lorimer had considered? The wall ran all the way back down to the main road so Solomon headed towards the last building on the street.
At one time it may have resembled its neighbour but now several ramshackle extensions had transformed the house into a mock Tudor pub. The roof still had the same grey Welsh slate but there the similarity ended, the building having spawned a series of flat-topped, concrete extensions that almost reached the perimeter wall. Here, too, there was a back entrance, but this was a high narrow green door. Solomon tried turning the round handle but it was locked fast. There was no other exit that he could see. With a small sigh, he headed back to the surgery gate and slipped into the grounds. There was nothing to be gained from walking all the way back down the lane and up the road again.
As he made for the front gate, the door to the surgery opened and a woman appeared, buttoning her raincoat as she emerged. Solomon gave her his usual benign smile but she merely stared for a moment at him before crossing the road to the Grange. He watched her walk up the driveway until she was hidden from sight by the rhododendron bushes.
Solomon stood for a few minutes just outside the gate. From here the upper windows of the clinic were visible. Anyone standing at those windows could see into the grounds of the dental surgery, Solomon’s logical voice reasoned. It was time to have a look around the Grange itself. He rubbed his hands together. The residents might prove to be quite fascinating.
Rosie washed her hands, noting where the sweat from her surgical gloves had left pink tinges along the palms. She dried them thoroughly on the paper towel then pressed the lever on the industrial-sized hand cream dispenser that sat over the basin. It was a routine she followed religiously after a PM. Your hands are your primary tools, she often told her students. The girls were the ones who usually followed her advice. It wasn’t a very macho thing for the boys to rub hand cream into their fingers. Body-piercing, dreadlocks, they were quite the thing, but hand cream?
Rosie smiled as she thought of her conversation with Solly on the subject. He’d made her laugh with his acute perception of their attention-grabbing strategies, showing her, even as he gently mocked their outward appearances, how sensitive he was to the students’ underlying vulnerability. At the time Rosie had found herself thinking what a great father Solomon Brightman would make. She had been immediately appalled at herself for the thought. Was she becoming broody or what?
Solomon was going to see the people at the Grange today, he’d told her. She’d likely see him in the staff club just around teatime. Sometimes she’d have a quick orange juice as she scanned the room for her dark, bearded friend. Other times he’d be there ahead of her reading the papers in what had become their favourite corner. Funny how he was a creature of habit in some ways when he was so unpredictable most of the time. They’d discussed the two murders, Rosie offering her professional opinion but sparing him the grislier pathological details when she remembered. Solly had a delicate stomach for such things. The pathologist usually delighted in tormenting lay people with the finer points of her post-mortems but she’d made an exception with Solly.
Lorimer had teased her about their relationship. She was fairly sure Solly found her attractive. He had invited her down to London for his sister’s wedding, hadn’t he? They’d had a great time. He’d been so attentive, showing her all the traditions surrounding a Jewish wedding to make her feel at ease. And afterwards they’d danced and laughed all night. Lorimer was no fool. She fancied Solly like crazy. It had taken all her powers of concentration to keep her hands on the steering wheel as they’d driven back up north. But Solly? Just how did he really feel about her?
Rosie looked in the mirror above the basin. She pushed her fingers through her blonde hair. There were a few wee laughter lines around the eyes but it wasn’t a bad face, she told herself. No need for the Botox just yet. Maggie Lorimer always joked that Rosie was the other woman in her husband’s life. That was just Maggie’s way, though. The older woman was given to flattery. Rosie stuck out her tongue at the face in the mirror and turned away. Poor Maggie. She didn’t have much fun with Lorimer working all the hours that his job demanded. Maybe she could suggest a night out. A foursome. Cheered by the idea, Rosie whistled to herself as she came out into the corridor of the mortuary. A shelf full of white skulls grinned down from above as if sharing in her good humour.
Alice paused from cleaning the bathroom windows as she looked down on the figure below. From her vantage point high above the grounds of the clinic she could see him wandering slowly towards the back of the building as if he was looking for something. She gave the window a push outwards so that her cloth could reach the fixed pane in the middle. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the stranger.
‘Hey, Nellie,’ she called back into the room. ‘C’mere an’ see this. This one doesnae look like polis, does he?’ she asked as a thickset woman in green overalls pushed her way towards the open bathroom window. Together they stared at the figure below them. As if sensing he was being watched, the man turned and looked up at the two cleaners.
‘Naw, he isnae polis,’ Nellie decided. ‘Looks mair like a foreigner tae me, hen.’
‘Whit’s he doin’ moochin aroon’ here, well?’