Solly thought of his conversation with Lorimer. He’d thought of apologising and saying (truthfully) that he was too busy with work to manage any extra commitments. But, listening to the man he knew so well, the psychologist had made his decision. Lorimer needed help and he could tell from the inflection in his voice that the detective was under considerable strain. Maggie’s mum was never mentioned but she was there all the same, an anxiety hovering in the background.
The frown furrowing his brow made the psychologist suddenly sombre. Three elderly ladies had come to grief on their own back doorsteps. Doorsteps that began at the top of a steep flight of stairs above a concrete patio. Pushed to their death. By whom? He would visit the scenes of the crimes with a uniformed officer from Greenock, he had told Lorimer. Then he’d just have to see what came of it after that. It wasn’t that he was being deliberately vague, Solly told himself, remembering the acerbic tone in his friend’s voice after a lengthy pause in their conversation. But he had to have ideas of the locations in his head before he could begin to see the picture of the crimes as a whole.
There were no lectures this afternoon so he would take a train from Central Station down to Greenock, a journey he had rarely made since his arrival in Glasgow so many years before. It was a terminal for ocean-going liners and car ferries, Rosie had told him; one of the older towns strung like beads along the Clyde coast.
Terminal. It was a word that meant the end of things, wasn’t it? But, perhaps in this case, it might also signify a beginning.
After the train had pulled out of Saint James’s station, the urban landscape began to give way to green fields and the hint of a countryside that was emerging from its long winter’s sleep. As Solly let his gaze sweep across the view from the window he saw flocks of wood pigeons, a few ducks in a stream and even caught a glimpse of a pair of hinds feeding quietly. Bishopton was the first rural village on the line, then Langbank where the view suddenly changed and the Clyde was there and Dumbarton Castle on the far side, its massive rock towering above. He could see the hills and mountains but what their names were he didn’t know. Was that Ben Lomond with snow still on its peak? Solly wasn’t certain about the geography of this area and resolved to look up a map on his return home.
Maps meant a great deal to the psychologist and it was one of the integral parts of his job as occasional criminal profiler. Mapping murder had been seen as a vital part of the search for serial killers by Professor David Canter from the University of Liverpool and now every behavioural psychologist worth their salt took a serious look at the pathways and routes surrounding crime scenes. The three deaths in Port Glasgow were fairly close together but that didn’t mean he would ignore the way they were grouped on a map of the area. On the contrary, Solly expected their location to give him some insight into the mindset of the killer.
If Dr Solomon Brightman was surprised to be met by a uniformed officer instead of DI Martin he didn’t show it.
‘PC Reid.’ The man nodded towards the psychologist and led the way to a waiting police car. ‘I’ve to take you to the houses, sir,’ the officer added, opening the back door for Solly as though he were a passenger in a taxi or, worse, a felon being taken into custody.
‘I’ll sit up front, if that’s all right, officer,’ Solly murmured, wishing for a moment that he had not agreed so readily to Lorimer’s request.
At last the car left the main thoroughfare and headed uphill away from the coast.
‘Take a wee look down there, sir. Grand view, eh?’ the officer said and Solly could hear the hint of pride in his voice.
It was indeed a grand view, the hilltop affording a vista of the widening river below and the hills beyond. He would return here one day with Rosie, once she had bought another car. In summer, perhaps, when that expanse of blue might be dotted with small boats seeking a wind to fill their sails.
Then it was gone, the road turning away from the view and curving into a street that led to a mass of houses clinging to the hillside. Upper Port Glasgow was a twentieth-century attempt to create a dormitory town in the windy spaces above the conglomerations of Gourock, Greenock and Port Glasgow, towns running together along the coastline. It seemed, to Solly, as if some giant hand had plucked the estates straight from one of the Glasgow housing schemes and thrust it down here. It was like a last urban outpost before the wilderness of field and moor staked its claim on the land.
‘Here we are, sir. DI Martin asked me to take you to each of the locations in order,’ Reid told him, drawing the car up in a small parking bay in a cul de sac surrounded by modest rows of terraced houses. Solly nodded, his mind already on the residents of this place. These women had lived here for decades, raising families, making lives for themselves. According to his notes, they had all lived in substantial houses, big enough for the average family. Old age and the strictures of living on pensions hadn’t deterred them from wanting to keep their homes. So there was something about the area that made them want to remain. Good neighbours, perhaps? A settled feeling with all the attendant memories that meant home to them, maybe? Or had this become a little village on its own over the years? Those, and other questions, were to the forefront of Solly’s mind as the police officer led him to the first house.
It was a plain pebble-dashed grey, fairly featureless to Solly’s eye, with the look of a property that had been abandoned.
‘She died on Boxing Day,’ Reid informed him.
Solly’s lips parted but no words came. How could he begin to tell this policeman that he had spent the happiest hours of his entire life on the selfsame day that an old lady had been murdered? Clenching then unclenching his fists, the psychologist followed the officer towards the high fence surrounding the terraced houses.
Solly stopped just outside the back gate. It was the end of a row of four identical homes, though he supposed that the small patches of garden and different curtains at the windows did disturb the dreary uniformity. He turned to look at the path around the house. Easy access from the main road to this end terrace and a blank gable wall from the house opposite made the psychologist nod his head as if to agree with some earlier supposition. If he was correct, then the killer had chosen the location as much as the victim herself.
Standing on the paving stones below the back door, Solly could all too easily imagine the body that had plummeted to the ground. The stairs were set at an angle to the rear entrance so that someone coming out of the house would have had to take a couple of paces forwards on to the large top step and turn around before making their descent. The metal handrail followed the line of the stairs, Solly noticed, and there was a white grab rail outside the door. A faltering pensioner might well be unsteady on their legs for a moment or two until their hand reached out, clutching. And the stairs were certainly wide enough for more than one person. Had she known her assailant, then? Whoever had pushed the old woman down that flight of stairs must have come right up to the top; and used considerable force to shake the poor old soul’s hand away from her rail. Solly shook his head, wondering. The viciousness of that act alarmed him. A woman might have done something like that, he’d told Rosie, but standing here, the wind blowing scraps of dead leaves around his feet, Solly was no longer certain of the theory he had so glibly suggested.
By the time they had reached Freda Gilmour’s home, Solly had formed a few ideas about the person who had carried out these acts. All three of the houses were situated at the end of a row of terraces. The houses ran in blocks of four, separated by small lanes running between them. But the homes of the victims had not simply been on one of these corners, but at the very end of the rows. There was no street lighting right outside the main doors or back doors, nor did any of the neighbouring houses look directly into the gardens. It had been, Solly realised, the subject of careful planning on the part of someone who either knew the area very well indeed (and possibly lived in the estate) or who had carried out a detailed reconnaissance whilst under the guise of someone who would not be noticed, like a regular delivery man.