‘How should I know? They’re a pair of mad druggies!’
‘That’s not sufficient reason to target and kill these women,’ Lorimer replied. ‘This was a triple murder, carefully planned and carried out. Don’t forget Jean Wilson’s diary entries about the stalker.’
‘How do you know about those?’ Martin challenged him.
Now it was Lorimer’s turn to give a disarming shrug. Station gossip, the gesture seemed to say. But he was not going to let on that Kate Clark was his particular source for that.
‘Let’s say for the moment that Monahan and McGroary are guilty. You can only charge them with possession of drugs, right? Do they present a real threat to the public if they’re released from custody? That’s what the Procurator Fiscal’s office will say. Surely they aren’t going to push any other old folk off their steps now, are they?’
DI Martin scowled at Lorimer, hating to admit that he was right. ‘Well, if they didn’t do it, who was it?’
Lorimer seemed to ponder the question for a moment or two. ‘Look, I’ve got a friend at Glasgow Uni. Lecturer in behavioural psychology. He’s helped me a lot in the past with cases of multiple murder.’
Martin gave a derisive snort. ‘Behavioural psychologist? That wouldn’t be Dr Brightman by any chance, would it? I can’t see us having permission to chuck any of our budget his way!’
‘Hold on,’ Lorimer said. ‘We might not need to pay a bean. Solly’s a friend. I’m sure he would give us some insight into this if I asked him.’
She bit back a sudden retort. ‘I am the SIO on this one, Sir.’
‘I’m just trying to help,’ he began, but Martin’s green eyes were narrowing like an angry cat’s.
For a moment Lorimer thought the woman was going to turn on her heel and stalk away from him but her fury seemed to subside as suddenly as it had appeared.
‘All right then, Sir. I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm if Dr Brightman came down here to have a look at the crime scenes. Give him copies of the case notes, too, if you like. But I’d rather it wasn’t made official. Sir.’
For a moment their eyes met and Lorimer could have sworn that Rhoda Martin was challenging him in some way.
‘Okay,’ he agreed, ‘I’ll ask him.’ And I’m sure he’ll say yes, he wanted to add.
‘Traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage,’ Rosie told him, holding the phone to her ear as she consulted the notes on her desk. ‘Your DI down there has my emailed report,’ she added. ‘Poor old soul struck her head against the concrete and from quite a drop. Twelve stairs down. Think about the impact,’ she added.
Lorimer thought about it and grimaced. The laws of physics being what they were, the woman’s injuries had to be all the more severe given the distance she had fallen. He remembered something a senior officer had told him about the suicides who decided to make the Erskine Bridge their departure point from this world. Did they imagine that their bodies would splash softly into the dark waters below? From that height it was like landing on concrete. Just like these poor old ladies.
‘Pity I couldn’t see the other ones,’ Rosie sighed.
‘No, but Dr Bennie might be able to let you have a look at their medical records, surely?’
‘Aye, that’s true,’ Rosie agreed. The women’s GP had been most helpfuclass="underline" concerned, no doubt that he had missed the similarity in the deaths of his first two patients.
‘Right, have to go. I’m still following up something from the Jackson case,’ Lorimer told her.
‘Report from forensics, boss.’ Kate Clark waddled into his room, a sheaf of papers in her hand. ‘Thought you’d like to see it, so I ran off a copy. They’ve analysed the different soil types around the track. Mostly just garden dirt, but there’s one item that’s a wee tad different. Some mulch stuff that the old lady must have been using for her flower bed. A blood and bone mixture. Looked as if a cat had been digging it up,’ she giggled. ‘There was cat poo in amongst it as well. Who’d be a forensic chemist, eh?’ She turned a page of the documents. ‘Aye and it says that…’ she read on then shrugged, obviously deciding to paraphrase the technical language in the report. ‘Well, it seems that the tyre track isn’t a brilliant match for McGroary’s bike. They took a cast and tried to see if there were any wee bits that might have given an indication of a scar or tear on the rubber, but McGroary’s bike doesn’t have any and the cast does.’
‘What about the make?’
‘Oh, it’s a similar make all right, Sir,’ Kate told him, coming round to his side of the desk and pointing out the relevant paragraph.
‘Racing cycle. Dead expensive make. Wonder where he nicked it from. That’s his serial number from the bike frame,’ she added. ‘It’s the same sort of tyre that loads of folk use for that kind of bike,’ she sighed.
‘So you’re no further forward?’
‘Not really. Unless we can turn up a suspect that has a bike like that with a tyre that’s got a wee nick in it, we’re scuppered.’
Lorimer ran his fingers through his dark hair. Was this line of inquiry simply going to lead to another dead end? They had a tenuous sort of evidence now but nothing against which to match it. A sighting of a cyclist near the scene of the fire; a cyclist that had stalked an old lady; and a tyre track that might have come from any one of hundreds.
Perhaps it was time to look at things from a different perspective. Why had these crimes against elderly women been committed? Why had someone set fire to the mansion house in Kilmacolm? Would Solly be able to figure any of this out?
‘Okay, Kate. Are you all right?’ he added, standing up as the police officer gave a sharp yelp of pain.
‘Ooh, it’s nothing, Probably just a wee elbow. Oh, son, that was a sore one,’ she said, rubbing her bump with a frown.
Lorimer watched as she left the room. It wouldn’t be long till Kate was off on maternity leave and he still hadn’t come to any good conclusions in this review case. Losing an officer from his team would make it even harder. With a sigh of resignation, he reached for the heap of files that he’d read and re-read. Surely there must be something more significant that had been overlooked? A witness statement or a part of the forensic report following the fire investigation, perhaps? He would spend the rest of the day going through them all again then leave here at a decent time to accompany Maggie to the hospital.
It was the end of another working day and there was still some light in the evening sky above the western hills, dark and bright as only crepuscular blue can be. The rush hour traffic played its start-stop game at every set of traffic lights, each outside lane casting off like a row in some Scottish country dance. Lorimer’s Lexus was ready to take off as soon as the green light blinked its signal, the drivers behind him watching the traffic lights just as impatiently. He was a careful driver, though he allowed his big car its head often enough, taking the outside lane as soon as he reached the dual carriageway. As he headed for Langbank he was unaware of a nondescript black Golf GTI that had picked him up somewhere on the road leading out of Greenock, cleverly allowing two other cars between them to mask its presence. And he was easy for the driver in the black Golf to follow: a driver who was equally used to fast cars.
It simply required patience to keep just that little bit behind, follow his lead as any driver might do, and see where the journey would end. It was almost forty minutes after picking up Lorimer’s tail near the Greenock Police HQ that the Golf finally turned off the motorway and headed into the suburban jungles in Glasgow’s south side. The lack of daylight was helpful, the black car being less easily spotted as it drove sedately in and out of the narrow avenues of houses.
When the Lexus finally swung into a driveway, it was simple enough for the Golf to keep going along the road, its driver taking a good look at the frontage of the house, noting its distinguishing features and continuing until the end of the street joined another, larger road again. Nobody would notice the sporty little car cruising around for a while before coming back to Lorimer’s street.