‘Aye, well, let’s see how long this takes me. I’ll give you a ring when I’m through. Love you,’ she added, dropping a kiss on Solly’s dark curls before heading out of the flat. He watched at the window, giving her a final wave as she emerged from the front door. Rosie looked up at him grinning in girlish glee as she brandished her car keys. There her new car waited, its pale blue paintwork still gleaming in showroom condition. The pathologist had finally chosen a Saab to replace her written-off BMW, a sporty convertible with a dark navy soft top. Solly smiled indulgently, still watching from the window as his wife drove off. Despite her almost-fatal accident she was still a keen driver; it hadn’t put her off wanting to buy another car.
The psychologist stood gazing over the park and the familiar Glasgow skyline. He had a day to himself now, something he hadn’t planned. He could always work on the book, of course, delving deeper into the psyches of female serial killers. There were some interesting theories he wanted to propound, but they were still at the thinking stage, gestating in his brain. Perhaps he’d take a look at Lorimer’s case instead.
The detective had kept him abreast of events as they had unfolded down in K Division. It seemed as though there might be a little more evidence forthcoming from overseas regarding the victim’s financial affairs. Solly shook his head. It was a lot closer to home than that, he told himself. Someone who had easy access to the house and who knew the layout intimately had taken the trouble to shift that key in the lock. But who? And why? Those were questions that Solly considered even as he contemplated the nature of a fire-raiser. Careful planning had been carried out and the crime was therefore premeditated. Somebody had intended both of these victims to die. And their killer had wanted it to look like an accident. Fires often destroyed evidence that forensic scientists might otherwise find useful. And those who began a blaze would bank on that. He cast his mind back a few years to the case when he had first assisted Strathclyde Police. That was when he had met DCI William Lorimer. A fire had taken place then, too, the perpetrator hoping to destroy every trace of his crime. But even that extensive conflagration had left some traces to tell a story and now that killer was under lock and key.
Solly sat before his laptop and opened up the file on the Jackson case. He had no official remit here, he knew, but even an academic exercise might throw a little light on his friend’s case. Besides, it was a case that had begun to intrigue him and Solly had asked himself whether or not it might be linked to the murder of these elderly women. A cyclist had been seen haring away from the fire at Kilmacolm and a cyclist had stalked one of the Port Glasgow victims, leaving a tyre track at the third locus. Tenuous it might be, but the psychologist had a feeling that this was a line of thought worth pursuing.
The cycle race for charity was to take place next weekend and there would be hundreds of cyclists from all over the country descending on the city. It was one of the most popular sports in Scotland and, from his place in the passenger seat of other people’s cars, Solly regularly saw hordes of cyclists racing along country roads. They always looked so fit and lean, these nylon leggings and sleek, body-hugging tops making their bodies seem so androgynous. Curved backs and helmets that looked like the beak of a strange bird gave the men and women the appearance of a slightly different species altogether. He scrolled up, seeing Kate Clark’s report from the gentleman in Kilmacolm. The cyclist who had sped past them from the drive of the Jackson’s home had been dressed in black, possibly wearing a hood. The cycle had not been lit and there had been no reflective strips on the person’s clothing. Another sign of careful preparation, Solly thought to himself. But if that taxi had struck the cyclist, then all his planning would have been for nought. It had been a moment in the darkness, a fleeting sight of a cyclist racing away from the scene, but perhaps sufficient to give him an idea of the person in black.
This was a person who liked to take risks. A person who desperately wanted to rid himself of Pauline and Ian Jackson. And, if it was the same person who had killed these elderly women, he realised that it must be a person who had very little remorse of conscience. A psychopathic personality, in fact, Solly told himself. A killer with an endless capacity for killing. Someone, he reminded himself grimly, who had to be stopped at any cost before they were allowed to strike once more.
‘Let’s look at it all over again,’ he murmured aloud. ‘See if we can find out what makes you tick.’
Maggie switched on the kettle, turning with a smile as she heard her mother’s exclamation of delight. The ‘bedroom’ had been made up in the dining area and she’d added a bowl of fruit and put vases of flowers where her mother could enjoy them. Bill was still taking the luggage from the car after helping Mum into their comfy recliner, showing her the lever to raise the foot rest.
‘I don’t think I’ll want to go home,’ Alice exclaimed then, as Maggie caught her mother’s eye, she saw the glint of mischief and knew that she was being teased. ‘Och, you know you can stay here as long as you want to, Mum,’ she replied. ‘Earl Grey or ordinary? ’ she added.
‘Earl Grey please, dear,’ Alice said. ‘And I’ll not put you and Bill out a mo-ment more than I need to. I prom-ise,’ she said, her words coming out slowly but with a firmness that Maggie recognised as belonging to the Mum she had known before that awful stroke.
‘Hey, Chancer, looks who’s here,’ Maggie told the cat as he flopped through the cat flap on the back door and strolled through the kitchen.
‘Here, puss,’ Alice told him, patting the rug across her lap. The ginger cat eyed her for a moment then sat back on his haunches and began to wash a front paw assiduously. He’d come when he was ready, the gesture seemed to say. Alice smiled indulgently at the cat and waited. Sure enough it was only a matter of minutes before he leapt, purring, on to her knees, a grin appearing below his whiskers as he felt the fur on his head being caressed.
Maggie felt her whole body relax as she watched the pair of them. How easily Mum had settled in and how right it felt having her here. As Lorimer entered the room with Alice’s bags she met his eyes, gave a nod and smiled. She saw his blue gaze taking in the woman and the cat and he returned her grin. It was going to be all right, after all. Everything would work out just fine.
CHAPTER 30
The smell hit me as soon as I opened the door. She must have thrown up after I’d left her on that narrow bed, and the stink of vomit mingling with urine pervaded the room. I’d made sure all the windows were tightly shut, of course, just in case she had done a Houdini and managed to escape from her bonds. Trying not to gag, I slid against the wall, feeling the embossed paper under my gloved hands. Even with that noxious smell filling my nostrils I found myself wrinkling my nose at the touch of that wallpaper: horrid cheap stuff. I passed by the sleeping figure, turned the blind rod a fraction and looked out of the window.
The room was at the back of the house, facing a row of lock-ups. Even in the dark I could make out the shapes of their metal doors side by side, glinting under an adjacent street lamp.
A groan from the bed made me freeze. If I stood very still, the woman on the bed might not realise that I was there. I waited, holding my breath, until I saw her head slump sideways again. She looked so vulnerable lying there, hair spread out on that white pillow. My fingers twitched as a thought prompted desire. It would take only a few seconds for me to put a second pillow over her face and cut off that foul-smelling breath forever.
I would give her a chance of life, though, not just because her situation amused me.
She was still under the influence of the drug. Despite the vomiting she hadn’t managed to combat its effects and it would be some time before she would awake to find what I had done to her.