The estate itself was built into the hillside and several of the terraces were designed as split-level homes, their back gardens running steeply downwards to the ribbons of pathways. All three victims had lived in such homes, the stairs from their back doors ending in a few concrete slabs masquerading as patios.
‘Do you mind if I walk around here a bit on my own? Less conspicuous, perhaps?’ He smiled at the officer who merely shrugged and stepped back into the warmth of his patrol car. If this bearded, rather exotic-looking psychologist thought he was inconspicuous then he was daft, the gesture seemed to say.
Solly wanted to walk around the areas away from the victims’ houses in order to see what differences there might be. He noticed that many of the terraces were on flatter ground, paths pitted by years of wear and tear, plastic bags like pale white bats clinging to the hedgerows. Some of these paths were as accessible to a cyclist as the others, but with the difference that there were no steep flights of stairs descending to the gardens below.
Solly stopped abruptly. What were the chances of there being other similar locations on this estate? There was a sudden churning in his stomach. He had to know. Had to stop it happening again.
‘Can you drive around all the streets, please, officer?’ Solly asked, opening the car door and stepping into the patrol vehicle once more.
PC Reid stifled a sigh. His orders were to accommodate this odd chap from Glasgow University, this beardy weirdy as his wife would have called him, so that’s what he would do, even if he thought privately that it was a bloody waste of police time.
DI Rhoda Martin had quite a different opinion of Doctor Solomon Brightman as she ushered him into the small room reserved for visitors. His quiet air of authority might have impressed the detective, but her thoughts on the psychologist had come from personal experience.
‘I don’t suppose you remember me,’ she began, sitting down opposite Solly. ‘I took your class in my first year at uni.’
Solly smiled and shook his head. ‘Sorry.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘There are so many students. And my memory’s awful,’ he added with a twinkle that made Rhoda Martin doubt the truth of this last statement. Still, perhaps it was better not to be remembered as an average student who should have performed so much better than she had. A lower second had been okay but hadn’t set the heather on fire, nor had it been something about which her parents could boast to all their friends at the golf club.
‘This case,’ she began, twisting her fingers together on her lap, ‘do you really think you might be able to shed some light on it?’
Solly nodded, looking intently at the officer. His eyes seemed to bore straight through the blonde detective and she found herself blushing. There was a silence between them that she found a little uncomfortable; those kind brown eyes and that smile that seemed to tell her that he knew her very thoughts. Rhoda shivered. If he did..?
‘The person who perpetrated these awful acts must be stopped, Inspector,’ Solly said at last.
Rhoda frowned. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean just that. Someone has killed three elderly ladies for a reason unknown to us, but from what I have seen I am afraid…’ he tailed off, making a gesture with his hands in the air as if Rhoda should be able to finish his sentence for him, but her frown was rapidly becoming a scowl.
‘You see,’ he went on after another long pause, ‘the method of killing was rather simple once your killer had done his homework.’ It was Solly’s turn to frown now. ‘I say his advisedly, of course. It may well have been carried out by a woman. My current line of study is into acts of violence by what we call the fairer sex.’ The hands spread again as if he were apologising for such a statement.
Rhoda was beginning to remember such gestures and also how much they had irritated her throughout her undergraduate year of studying psychology. But this man was giving up his time to help them so she should at least show some polite interest.
‘So, any ideas?’
Solly nodded, his face becoming quite grave. ‘Sadly, yes. I think you have a very dangerous type of person in your area, Inspector Martin. Very dangerous indeed. In fact,’ the psychologist bit his lip as if to prevent the words coming out, ‘I would go so far as to say that, unless there was something material to be gained by killing these women, this person has killed simply because he could.’
Rhoda’s eyes widened. ‘You’re telling me there’s a psychopath on the loose?’
Solly neither nodded nor shook his head but continued to gaze into the detective’s eyes so that she looked away.
‘I can’t believe that,’ she said. ‘There must be something that links these three deaths,’ she continued, almost to herself. ‘Surely?’ she added, turning to face the psychologist again.
‘That’s for the police to investigate, of course.’ Solly nodded. ‘But I believe that whoever did this had selected these homes on the basis of their accessibility as well as for the frailty of their occupants.’
‘You mean he didn’t even know who the women were?’ Martin’s response failed to hide the scornful tone in her voice.
‘Oh, he would know them after a while. At least in terms of their day-to-day habits and when he might find them in alone at night.’
‘So,’ she spoke more carefully again, not wishing to appear discourteous, ‘he stalked them for a while before deciding to push them off the steps to their deaths?’
‘I imagine that will have been his procedure, yes,’ Solomon answered a trifle stiffly. ‘But I must warn you, Inspector, this might still be part of an ongoing pattern.’
Rhoda Martin frowned, head to one side, considering the psychologist’s line of thought.
‘You see, I have looked all around the area and there are still some houses that resemble those of the victims.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rhoda looked puzzled.
‘I mean,’ Solly said with the sort of sigh one might reserve for a small child who has failed to grasp something elementary, ‘that the conditions the killer would be looking for still exist on that estate. And if certain houses are inhabited by vulnerable elderly folk, then.. who knows?’
Rhoda Martin gave a wintry smile. Yes, her expression seemed to say, she’d be polite to this man, the lecturer whom she had once held in such high regard. But now she was the authority figure and he was simply a civilian whose theories, she was sure, would be laughed at in a court of law.
‘Well, thank you for all of that, Dr Brightman. It was very good of you to take the time to come down and help us,’ she said in the sweet tones she usually reserved for men that she fancied. ‘Can I offer you some coffee before your journey back to Glasgow?’
Solomon Brightman was not the type of man to harbour any animosity. In fact the detective’s attitude amused rather than insulted him. He’d done a favour for Lorimer and now that favour meant he could face his friend and give him his opinion on the case. That DI Martin was in charge of it was neither here nor there. Lorimer was down at Greenock and surely he could bring some influence to bear on the triple killing? Sitting on the train, watching flocks of white gulls bobbing past on the currents of the river, Solly smiled to himself. He was enough of a psychologist to understand what had happened back there. A specialist being paid a hefty fee would have attracted much more respect and probably had his views taken a lot more seriously. It was human nature, after all, to value what you had paid for. Still, he hoped the idea he had planted into that young woman’s head would result in the housing estate being included in any routine police patrol.