Mary MacKintyre’s death had taken place on the night of Boxing Day last year. Eighty-seven years old and not in the best of health, she’d fallen down her back steps and been killed instantly. There had been no reason whatsoever to suspect anything malicious about the death. But now, with another elderly woman falling to her death just two streets away, Kate was beginning to have doubts. The houses were almost identical, too. They’d been built in the seventies by a housing association that had won awards for good architectural design. Rows of nice split-level terraced houses overlooking woods on one side and the older council houses of Upper Port Glasgow on the other, they’d been popular with families wishing to rent. Now most of that housing stock had been bought up and only a few residents still paid their rent to the Housing Association.
Both of these two elderly ladies had been living there from the time the first houses had been let, probably much fitter then to cope with the steep steps down to their neat patches of garden. And they had chosen to remain in a three-bedroom house after each of their families had left the nest. Kate’s mouth gave a twist. Her own granny was in a great wee sheltered place down in Greenock where a warden looked in every day to see that her charges were okay. Mind you, she remembered her mum and dad having to do a lot of sweet talking to get her in there. But now she loved it. Perhaps these old ladies had been the same: reluctant to leave their homes.
DC Clark sat back, a sudden kick in her abdomen taking her breath away. A new wee life was in there, demanding her attention. But somehow she felt strongly drawn to the notion of death; those two old ladies who had perished just yards from their own back doors seemed suddenly more real to her than her unborn son. Lorimer had suggested a friendly drink. Maybe it was time to take him up on that. It couldn’t do any harm to tell him what she was thinking once they were off duty, could it?
Sir Ian Jackson and Lady Pauline were two intriguing characters, Lorimer thought, tapping his foot absently against the side of the desk. He’d been a boy from the Port, she an upper class lassie from Kilmacolm — that much he knew through the station gossip. Wonder how they met? he asked himself softly. It was one of those mysteries that would probably never come to light. Not his business. But it was his business to make sense of how they had died and sometimes it paid dividends to find out how a victim had lived. Especially if their deaths had any whiff of violence or malice. Why would anyone torch that big house and leave its occupants to burn? Sir Ian had been the poor boy who’d done good, as the ungrammatical saying went. And it was apt, wasn’t it? The man had lacked his wife’s polish but had made up for it with his apparent skills in making money. Lots and lots of money. The beginnings of Jackson’s career were a bit hazy and that was where he’d gained his reputation as a wheeler-dealer. But the man had no police record. Good at ducking and diving, some might say. But was that cynicism and Schadenfreude speaking? It was an unattractive Scottish trait of envious longing that sought to bring a successful and wealthy person down to disgrace and serve them right anyway. And sometimes it muddied the waters when a true opinion was sought about folk way up the social scale. Like now.
Maybe Sir Ian had been as pure as the driven snow. A good man who’d worked hard to achieve his millions. Multi-millions, a wee voice corrected Lorimer. But if that had been the case, who’d have wanted him dead? Years of experience had taught the Detective Superintendent that certain victims were never completely innocent when it came to a deliberate killing. There was always a something, as his old man had been fond of saying. And right now Lorimer was keen to find out what that something was. DI Martin might supply a little background knowledge, but then, if she really knew the family well, surely she would have made some sort of contribution before now? Okay, she’d been at that private school with the children, but ‘moving in the same social circles’ hadn’t exactly rung true. Rhoda Martin had merely been trying to impress him that she’d come from a similar wealthy background, Lorimer told himself, that was all. Had she been a real friend of Serena and Daniel she would have had to put such information into a written report.
Like many men of vast wealth, Jackson had donated generously to charity, hence his knighthood. And that had certainly gained him respect. The few personal testimonials contained within the file were all warm in their praise of the man. But, Lorimer told himself with a bitter twist to his mouth, wasn’t that the norm after someone had been killed? Nobody wanted to bad-mouth a victim. It was just too much like stepping across an unseen boundary between right and wrong, tempting a primeval sense of fate. No, to find out the truth about Ian Jackson, he’d have to ask those who had known him well and who weren’t afraid to give a real portrait, warts and all. And who better than his own children?
The knock and the smile as Kate Clark waddled into his room made Lorimer lose the thread of his thoughts.
‘Any chance of a wee dram after work?’ she asked, head to one side as if she were pretending to flirt and wanted him to share the joke. But it was a harmless sort of flirtation, friend to friend, quite unlike the DI who had made a fool of herself in this very room.
‘Aye, why not,’ he answered. Then bit his lip as he remembered Maggie’s mum in hospital. ‘Might have to be a quick one, though,’ he added. Kate Clark wouldn’t have come in to ask that question, couched as it was in a light-hearted tone of voice, unless… Unless she had something on her mind that needed to be shared with him. In private. ‘And I’m sure I can afford a double lemonade,’ he teased, nodding at her bump.
‘Och, see when this wee yin’s here, I’ll be ready for a double of anything so long as it’s alcoholic!’ Kate sighed, rolling her eyes theatrically. ‘See you down in the Harbour lounge bar at five-ish, then?’
‘Okay. Mind you both leave a seat for me, won’t you?’ Lorimer grinned, waved a hand in the direction of her abdomen and was rewarded by Kate sticking out her tongue at him. He might be the senior officer around here but they were old pals and it did his heart good to be reminded of that right now.
The Harbour was not the usual police howff since there was a bar dedicated to officers from K Division just on their doorstep. But perhaps Kate had wanted a bit more privacy, Lorimer told himself, carrying their drinks back from the bar; she might not want to be seen to be fraternising with the enemy. That’s maybe how some of the others saw him, he thought grimly.
It was happy hour here and he had to push his way through a press of bodies to get back to the table where DC Clark was sitting. She’d chosen a corner by the open fire, a secluded spot in the noisy bar where they might talk in peace and not be overheard.
‘So, when’s the baby due?’ Lorimer asked, putting down his half-pint.
‘End of March,’ Kate replied. ‘Six weeks and five days if he’s on time,’ she grumbled. ‘Hope it’s earlier, though. I cannae be bothered with this much longer.’
The woman shifted, obviously uncomfortable even with a padded tapestry cushion between her and the wooden seat.
‘Are you going to take some maternity leave early before he arrives?’
‘No chance. I’m staying put right till the last minute. My blood pressure’s fine. I’ve no reason to go home and rest and, besides, I want as much time off afterwards as I can manage.’ Kate grinned. ‘Slainte,’ she added, raising the tumbler of lemonade to her lips.
Lorimer nodded in reply as he lifted his glass. He’d allowed himself a half-pint of lager. He was driving and, besides, he had to watch his time if he were to reach the Southern General for visiting hour. But after the first swallow, he wished he’d made it a pint. He could do with a good drink right now — like the punters milling around the bar, their cares forgotten for this interlude between work and home.