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 crackling 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?
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.’