It was perhaps a little cruel to leave the man worried and wondering after Lorimer’s earlier supposition had reduced him to tears, but it was a police matter and one that had to remain as confidential as possible. What he had seen in that photograph gave Lorimer renewed energy to tackle this case.
For, behind the seated woman smiling into the camera’s lens, was a bedroom door with a key in the lock.
But it was on the outside of the room.
So some other hand must have turned that key, deliberately locking the couple in and leaving them to their fate.
CHAPTER 28
‘ Yes!’ Lorimer gazed at the telephone on his desk as if it had conjured up some magic. Somehow the detailed information in this initial forensic report had not filtered through to Ray’s investigative team. He ground his teeth, reminding himself exactly why he was here doing this review. The forensic scientist at Gartcosh had confirmed exactly what Lorimer had wanted to know. The brass door fittings had been intact after the fire had done its worst and now he knew what he had only previously suspected: the key was still in the lock, its mechanism clearly showing that it had been used to secure the bedroom door. And that photograph on the landing told him it had been turned from the outside.
This put a whole new complexion on things: now Lorimer wanted to examine the case from each and every perspective. What reason could anyone possibly have had for killing these two people? And who had easy access not only to sprinkle accelerant around the house but to ensure that the key had been put into the keyhole on the landing side? It was not, he reasoned, something that anyone would have noticed. He doubted whether either of the Jacksons would have been in the habit of locking their own bedroom door when there were only two of them at home. And he doubted very much whether Pauline Jackson had risked having her lover there. Tannock had insisted that their liaison had been discreet. But not discreet enough for the Betty MacPhersons of this world, he told himself.
No, someone had set that fire deliberately to kill Ian and Pauline Jackson.
He considered Serena and Daniel. They stood to inherit vast wealth in the form of the company shares, and money was all too often a motivator in murder. But they had struck Lorimer as already having plenty of the world’s goods. And there had been nothing acrimonious between the children and parents. No, he thought, that didn’t fit. He couldn’t see Daniel killing anybody. The young man had enormous prospects within the firm. And, as for Serena, well, hadn’t she been completely traumatised by the loss of her parents?
The offshore business had intrigued him and it was an area that he had still to investigate thoroughly. Some feelers had already been out in the UK but perhaps it was time to cast the net further afield.
‘DI Martin, could I have a word, please?’ Lorimer poked his head around the door where the DI and several other members of the team were sitting.
Rhoda Martin stood up, brushed invisible fluff off her dark skirt and sashayed out of the room after Lorimer.
‘Take a seat, will you? This won’t take long and I know you’re up to your ears with the Port Glasgow case.’
Martin sat opposite the senior detective, crossed her legs and waited, hands folded neatly on her lap.
‘It’s the Jackson murder. We’ve had a real breakthrough,’ Lorimer told her. ‘Look.’ He handed her the forensic report with his own appended notes clipped on one corner. Martin read the paper, her eyes widening.
‘Bloody hell!’ she said at last. ‘You surely don’t think that it’s one of the family?’
‘That’s what I wanted to ask you. Daniel and Serena Jackson are your friends. Right?’
‘We…’ Martin began, ‘we all went to school together. Serena and I have stayed in touch.’ Matter of fact I’m seeing her tomorrow, she almost told him. She stopped herself, frowning. ‘Daniel is a great guy. Total sporting star, clever, always had the girls following him about. If he’d gone through the US school system they’d have called him a jock. But the nicest type you could want to meet,’ she insisted.
Lorimer nodded. ‘I liked him too,’ he said. ‘And I can’t think of any reason why he would want to commit such a terrible act.’
‘Nor would Serena,’ Martin retorted quickly. ‘Okay, she was a bit daft at school. Played around with all the troublemakers, didn’t work very hard at her subjects. But that was just Serena. She was high spirited in those days,’ Martin added thoughtfully.
‘What happened to make her change?’ Lorimer asked. This description of the young woman he had met certainly did not tally with DI Martin’s account of her friend.
‘She’s a lot quieter nowadays, I’ll grant you that, Sir,’ Martin admitted. ‘But don’t we all grow up eventually? She wanted to make her career as a model, but the lifestyle was all a bit too much for her, I guess. Nice to have the family business to fall back on, though. And she never wanted for a thing. The Jacksons were the most generous of parents. Her twenty-first birthday party was the talk of the village for months afterwards.’
‘Okay, so there’s no apparent motive from either of the children,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘And to be truthful it didn’t seem likely. Did it? No,’ he continued. ‘If it wasn’t an insider, then perhaps it was someone known to the family who had easy access to the house.’
‘You mean like staff? Cleaners and whatever? Or are we back to Davie McGroary?’
Lorimer ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed. ‘I didn’t think McGroary had it in him. But someone had access to that house. Someone who knew where the Jacksons’ bedroom was, and who put that key on the other side of the door several days before the fire.’
‘McGroary wouldn’t be likely to have admission to the house, though, would he?’
Lorimer shook his head. ‘No. So who else is there? Cleaners? Housekeeping staff?’
‘They didn’t have anyone resident. We did ask that at the time, Sir,’ Martin pointed out. ‘They used a firm of cleaners on a regular basis. We’ve got all the details on file already.’
Lorimer nodded. It had been one area that Colin Ray’s original team had covered.
‘Maybe we should be looking at some of these offshore businesses of Jackson’s? Perhaps he wasn’t as solvent as Hugh Tannock makes out.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Martin replied slowly, savouring the thought. ‘What with the credit crunch, there might well be stuff hidden away that we know nothing about. And you said that Daniel spoke about these odd foreign types who visited.’
‘Yes,’ Lorimer said. ‘I think we want to dig into that a bit more. So,’ he clapped his hands together then gave them a rub as if to suggest immediate action, ‘let’s get on to this shall we?’
‘You mean right now, Sir?’ Martin asked, glancing at her wrist-watch. ‘I was hoping to be off duty in a couple of hours. Big weekend coming up.’ She grinned, pulling a face.
‘Oh?’ Lorimer asked with a smile.
‘Serena Jackson’s house warming party, actually,’ Martin admitted, uncrossing her legs and sitting further forward as though she were anxious to leave. ‘She’s decided to throw it at last. It’s probably a good thing. Have friends around, and all that. Cheer her up a bit. Don’t worry, I’ll be there as an old chum, not a police officer. ’
There was a moment’s silence between them while Lorimer wondered if he should comment on the inappropriateness of his DI’s social life clashing with the case. But perhaps he should keep his own counsel meantime. Plus it might sound pretty small-minded to object to this pretty girl’s partying.
‘Wish my weekend was going to be such fun,’ Lorimer admitted, then wished he hadn’t spoken the words aloud.
‘Ah, the invalid comes home again? Well, good luck with that, Sir,’ Martin replied, standing up. ‘And maybe if we make the right sort of noises we’ll have some response from overseas by Monday morning.’
‘Well, let’s see what we can achieve with what’s left of our Friday afternoon, shall we?’ Then, standing up, Lorimer walked over to the door and opened it for the DI.