‘Well, as nice as all this is, hadn’t you better tell me what’s on your mind? Other than the future of the Clark dynasty?’ Lorimer asked.
‘Ah, you sussed me out, then,’ Kate joked. ‘Aye, and you’re right. There is something I wanted to talk to you about. And I think it involves the case we had yesterday.’
Lorimer listened as Kate took him through her thoughts about Mary MacIntyre, Jean Wilson and their two very similar deaths.
‘You always said you didn’t believe in coincidences and I’ve just got this horrible feeling…’ She broke off, grinning. ‘Woman’s intuition. And don’t give me any of that stuff about a preggie bird’s hormones, eh?’ she warned.
Lorimer smiled. It was refreshing to have a junior officer like Kate who apparently didn’t give a toss about acknowledging his rank. Perhaps her pregnancy made the woman feel that there were more important things in her world than the hierarchy of the police. Whatever, it felt good to be sitting here listening to her theories.
‘Intuition should never be discounted. A friend of mine says that it can point to the subconscious working things out logically after you’ve obtained all the disparate facts,’ Lorimer told her. ‘And if you have seen similarities in two deaths then of course there’s justification for digging deeper. Though whether there’s enough evidence to suggest the deaths are suspicious is a matter for the Procurator Fiscal to decide. But DI Martin’s said she’ll look into it,’ he added.
‘Aye.’ Kate sighed as if she wasn’t quite sure that Rhoda Martin was going to do as she’d promised. ‘But…’ she tailed off, looking into the middle distance. Lorimer could tell she was struggling with something else. A lack of trust in her colleague?
‘See, if I was in charge of this,’ Kate began again, ‘I’d want to make inquiries about that cyclist. See if anyone had seen him around the area. How would we go about that?’
Lorimer raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, if it were a category A we could use Crimewatch. But there’s not enough evidence to suggest we have a serial killer after old ladies on our patch, is there?’
‘So what do we do?’ Kate asked, her eyes suddenly turned to his own, a challenge flaring in them.
Lorimer put down his glass again. ‘ We? As in the investigation team? Or did you have something else in mind?’
Kate squirmed uncomfortably, a movement that Lorimer instinctively knew had nothing to do with her burgeoning shape. ‘I thought… well, that is, I wondered. Och, hell’s teeth, Lorimer can we no’ just sniff around and see what comes up?’
‘You have something in mind DC Clark?’ Lorimer asked, his face deadpan.
For a moment the woman hesitated, the use of her rank and his expression giving her pause.
‘Aye,’ she replied at last. ‘I have. How about putting feelers out among the local snouts? I’ve got a couple of lads in mind. One’s a taxi driver. Ex-con but a reliable sort,’ she told him.
There was a silence between them as Lorimer digested this; a silence that Kate Clark must have interpreted as his disapproval, for she sighed heavily.
‘Should’ve realised it was a bit much to ask,’ she muttered, beginning to gather up her coat and bag.
‘Wait on a bit,’ Lorimer said, raising a hand. ‘I don’t think you should give up that easily. DI Martin hasn’t warned you off this case, has she?’ And as Kate shook her head he added, ‘Well, then. Go with your gut feeling. See this informant and you never know. He might come up with something. But you know I can’t interfere in something like this.’
‘Okay.’ Kate gave him a half smile. ‘But it doesn’t feel like I’m doing very much.’
‘And you really believe these two old dears were murdered?’
‘Well, Jean Wilson’s son certainly believes his mum was killed. And I have a feeling he’s not going to let us sweep anything under the table.’
‘I have to go,’ Lorimer said, suddenly, looking at his watch. ‘Hospital visit. But keep me in the loop with this one, will you?’
‘Sure. And thanks for the lemonade,’ Kate replied, grinning at him as they stood up and he helped her on with her coat.
As Lorimer drove along the M8, thoughts of Kate Clark kept coming back to him. She’d wanted to talk to him and he felt flattered by her confidence. But it disturbed him too that she couldn’t put the same trust in a senior officer like Rhoda Martin. He was an outsider, only there to tidy up a particular case, not one of their own colleagues. And yet Kate had wanted his advice. He had to be careful. Feeling gratified about the woman’s faith in him could obscure the more important matter of what had gone wrong within the team under Colin Ray’s command.
Two old women were dead, though. What if it had been Maggie’s mum? How would he have reacted? As ever, Lorimer tried to put himself in someone else’s shoes. Maybe Gary Wilson had every right to protest that his old mother had been stalked and possibly murdered. Maybe, though, he was clutching at anything that would give him an answer to why it had to be his mum who’d died. Maybe he couldn’t accept that accidents happened. Lorimer could see why DI Martin might not want to take this case any further. But Kate Clark’s sharp mind had brought the other old lady’s death into the equation now and Lorimer knew that he would be happy to encourage the DC, even at the risk of making himself even more unpopular.
CHAPTER 17
ON YER BIKE. The words above the picture of two cyclists racing downhill caught Lorimer’s eye as he entered the hospital foyer. It was the same poster they had pinned up at the public entrance in Greenock HQ. But for some reason he stopped now and read it properly. The race in aid of a cancer charity was to take place in just a couple of weeks and he’d already been asked to sponsor one of their own officers. It was a typical Glaswegian phrase, he thought, grinning to himself; the sort of throwaway line a lassie would give an unwelcome suitor. But somehow its slightly aggressive tone worked in this context of encouraging folk to sign up for the cycle race or at least to sponsor a willing participant. Bikes had never been one of Lorimer’s hobbies, though many of his fellow officers belonged to the police cycling club.
The light-hearted feeling that the poster had engendered disappeared the moment Lorimer set foot inside his mother-in-law’s ward, Maggie’s look of sheer gratitude at seeing him making him hurry to her side.
‘How is she?’ he asked, lowering his voice. Mrs Finlay was asleep, her head turned to one side of the pillow, mouth open and snoring quietly. For a long moment he simply gazed at the woman lying there. She’d become a real pal over the years, although she had been a formidable presence to the young man courting her precious daughter. And Mrs Finlay had given Lorimer plenty of well-intended advice concerning his future. He’d dropped out of university, a move that had not endeared him to his future mum-in-law. But his rapid rise within the police force had mellowed her attitude towards him and they’d developed a special bond. She was proud of her son-in-law and fiercely protective of any criticism that came his way, as it sometimes did in a high-profile case. And she’d been such a rock for them both during the sad trail of failed pregnancies. She’d never be Granny Finlay now, he thought, biting his lip as he watched the rise and fall of her breath.
‘She was asleep when I arrived,’ Maggie whispered. ‘I wanted to wait till you were here to speak to the duty nurse. See how she’s been today. If only I could see her during the day…’ she added wistfully; but they both knew that with Maggie’s full timetable at school that wasn’t going to happen except at weekends.