‘We’ll certainly follow this up, Mr Wilson,’ DI Martin assured him. ‘But we also have to wait for other evidence like the pathologist’s report and the forensic reports.’
‘They take time to come through, you see,’ the family liaison officer added as gently as she could.
Gary Wilson looked from one woman to the other. Did they believe him when he’d insisted that this was no accident? Or was it just a bit convenient that Mum had been an old lady of eighty-one out on her back steps in a thunderstorm? He shook his head, a cynical expression hardening around his eyes. They weren’t going to bother, were they? All this talk of forensics was just to placate him. Wasn’t it?
CHAPTER 16
Maggie Lorimer sank into her favourite armchair. A wee cup of coffee and a bit of caramel shortcake from the school charity’s tuckshop and she’d be as right as rain. With a purr, Chancer, her orange cat, jumped lightly on to her knee. Maggie stroked his fur, noting how wet his tail was. Had he been caught out in the storm too? The walk to the staff car park had soaked her almost to the bone, the wind whipping the hailstones against her as she’d struggled to her car, opening the back door and shoving in her bags full of Higher prelim papers. With a wry smile Maggie recalled one head teacher she’d taught with years ago who had opened his car door on a windy day and let loose all the department’s Fifth year exam papers to a west coast gale. Every one of her colleagues had suspected the man had done it deliberately, his wide smile showing only glee that he hadn’t marked them before they’d taken off towards the Arran hills.
She’d have to find time later on to mark these, though. Once she’d seen how Mum was today. It was Valentine’s Day and the First years had had a great time with versifying. (Maggie couldn’t bring herself to call it poetry.) The whole school had been tingling with an atmosphere of excitement, her Fourth years gossiping and giggling behind their hands. And tomorrow would be just as bad once they’d gone home to see what their postmen had delivered. She’d neither written a card nor expected to receive one. She and Bill weren’t like that, though he’d given her red roses on the occasions when he remembered their wedding anniversary.
Kicking off her damp shoes, Maggie curled up on the chair, disturbing Chancer who protested by pushing his claws into her lap. This was the time of day she valued most. A little respite from the noise of the kids and the ringing of interminable bells before she set about making an evening meal was as welcome to Maggie Lorimer as the whisky nightcap her husband often enjoyed at the end of his day. It was funny, she thought, how this secondment had given her more of his time. Away down the coast in Greenock, he seemed to be keeping regular hours instead of the endless working days that solving crimes often demanded. Lorimer hadn’t said much about this job and Maggie was sensible enough not to push it, but he didn’t seem altogether contented about being in this promoted post.
‘Not a happy lad, is he, Chancer?’ Maggie said, stroking the cat’s fur. Possibly it was because of Colin Ray’s bereavement. And he had hinted that nobody really enjoyed a new face from a different division telling them they’d got a case all wrong. Still, there was that nice girl, Kate something, who’d remembered him from way back. Married now and pregnant, Maggie told herself, recalling her husband’s words. Lucky woman, she thought. Her own future didn’t include the patter of tiny feet and she was probably destined to be one of those teachers who became more and more out of touch with the kids, simply because she had none of her own to tell her what was hip and what wasn’t. God knows, it wasn’t from choice, or from trying, that they had no children. Suffering several miscarriages had proved that, all right. But they were resigned to the fact that she couldn’t carry a child to full term and Maggie had learned to be reasonably content with their lot.
‘You’re my baby, aren’t you, Chancer?’ she crooned, smiling at herself for being so daft. The cat purred under the motion of her fingers and Maggie sighed again. Och, it wasn’t too bad. And anyway, if she’d had kids how would she have coped right now with Mum in hospital?
Maggie remembered her mother’s expression on that half-frozen face, appealing and sad at the same time; she was the responsible adult now and her mum was the vulnerable one. Thank God she’d managed to get her out of that awful ward and into a nicer one. ‘If you don’t ask, you won’t get,’ she’d told her Mum. It was a mantra she seemed to be using a lot these days. And it had been working. The hospital staff really did seem to have taken her mother’s care to heart. Maggie believed she could see a real improvement in her condition. That was good news, of course, but what was going to happen next? Would the hospital expect Maggie and Bill to take Mum home and care for her here? Part of her longed for the chance to show her filial duty, but another part dreaded the very idea. Perhaps they’d been on their own too long, used to one another’s ways and maintaining a sort of independence within their marriage. If so, would her mother’s arrival change all of that? Hating herself for the thought, Maggie finished her coffee, brushed crumbs from her jumper and swept the cat off her knee. Mum was welcome here any time, she told herself. They’d just need to make adjustments; that was all.
Kate Clark flopped on to her side. It had been a good day, the baby kicking strongly, reminding her of his imminent arrival. A wee boy, they’d seen him at the time of her scan. Not sure what to call him yet, but Gregor was at the top of her own list of favourites. Funny case today, though, she mused, remembering DI Martin’s report to them all. It seemed that the old lady had slipped down a flight of steps at her back door. Killed instantly when her head struck the concrete, so the doctor reckoned. But Kate Clark wasn’t so sure. It reminded her far too much of that other accident a couple of months back, just along the road in Port Glasgow. Wee woman who’d been killed on Boxing Day. At her back door. Down a flight of steps. Coincidence? Or not? Kate rolled on to her back. She remembered something that Lorimer had said way back in her training days about coincidences. He didn’t believe in them. Said they were one of the first signs of a pattern, or something like that. Kate yawned. He was right enough. Just look at the HOLMES database. They were forever trawling through that to look for precedents in cases of serious crime.
What had that other old lady’s name been? Kate couldn’t remember. And she wasn’t going to task her brain with this right now when she’d been sent upstairs by her husband for a rest. His way of celebrating Valentine’s Day had been to give Kate a break from making dinner. She’d sleep on it. Tomorrow she’d look up the old case file and see if Lorimer was right. About not believing in coincidences.
‘It’s so nearly the same MO,’ Kate insisted. ‘Look at it. Almost in the same street as Mary MacKintyre as well.’
DI Martin rolled her eyes. ‘It’s only an MO if there’s any reason to believe the women were deliberately murdered,’ she told Kate.
Aye but, Lorimer… Kate had almost said the words aloud when she bit them back. There was a feeling of tension between the DI and the review Detective Super that she had sensed. Whenever she spoke Lorimer’s name in front of Rhoda Martin it was like she was walking on eggshells.
‘I just think it’s too much of a coincidence, that’s all,’ Kate said mulishly. ‘And the son is so sure about his mum’s death, isn’t he?’ she continued.
‘Okay, I’ll have a look at the other death. See if there had been a mysterious cyclist following that old lady.’ DI Martin’s voice came out as a sneer and Kate stepped back, face red.
But at least the DI was taking it kind of seriously, Kate told herself, wasn’t she? For two pins she would have walked into Lorimer’s room and run it past him, but a sense of loyalty to her fellow officers stopped her. Handing him the odd cuppa was one thing but seeking out his opinion on an ongoing case that had nothing to do with him was surely not on. No, if there was really any link between the deaths of these old ladies, Kate Clark might well have to dig around to find it for herself.