He sighed, his mouth a tense hard line. Eva had used him, used them all, like playthings. He’d sat listening to the service on Sunday, wondering why he bothered to be there at all, listening to the priest talk about forgiveness. Had he forgiven her?
He should feel bitter, but all he could think about as he crouched on the narrow bunk, notebook in his hands, was about the terrible waste of her young life.
Colin looked down, seeing the words blur through his sudden tears. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands tightly together.
He had wanted to stop believing, to tell himself that there was no God up there, no master of the universe. But now all he wanted was to pray in the hope that someone was listening.
‘Hello?’ Kirsty’s voice sounded tinny and remote over the intercom as Lorimer stood outside 24 Merryfield Avenue.
‘It’s Lorimer. I need to come up.’
As reply, the buzzer sounded and Lorimer pushed open the heavy green door. Behind him were Wilson, Grant and two uniformed officers, their squad car parked several yards along the snow-covered street.
‘What’s happening?’ Kirsty Wilson stood on the landing, peering down at the figures ascending the stone staircase, Lorimer leading them towards her. ‘What’s wrong?’
Lorimer was at the top of the stairs now and had turned towards the flat next door.
‘Go inside, Kirsty. We’ll see you later,’ he told her, merely nodding at the girl’s puzzled expression.
He heard the door click shut but no footsteps disappearing along the hall. She would be standing there, behind the glass door, curious yet disappointed, no doubt, wanting to be part of whatever was unfolding.
The doorbell to Derek McCubbin’s flat rang out as Lorimer pressed the old-fashioned bell, the long sound drilling through the empty hall. Behind him, Wilson and Grant exchanged glances.
Lorimer hunkered down, eyes level with the shabby brass letterbox, but all he could see was the interior glass door, no shadow moving beyond.
‘He’s not here,’ Wilson said, making to move back down the stairs, but he stopped as Lorimer stood up and knocked sharply on the storm doors.
Still there was no answer.
‘Right.’ Lorimer turned to the two uniformed officers. ‘You know what to do.’
The booming sound reverberated in the chill air of the close as they battered Derek McCubbin’s solid door. A splintering noise made them stop, the red battering ram swaying between them.
‘Okay, do the other one.’
Shards of glass tinkled to the ground as they burst a hole beside the lock.
Lorimer reached inside with his gloved hand.
It was there. He caught hold of the key between his thumb and forefinger then turned, wondering who had locked this door, fearful of what might lie within.
Not a word was spoken as they entered the house, only the crunch of glass below several pairs of boots alerting anyone inside to their intrusion.
Lorimer flicked a switch inside the doorway, illuminating the long hall. He could see the walls were half timbered, the doors along the corridor a dark varnish, yellowing wallpaper testifying to years of neglect. An old man’s house, he thought. Ancient mahogany bookcases and side tables cluttered with trinkets lined the walls, brass-framed prints of sailing ships above them, making the place seem narrower than it really was. All the doors along the passage were shut, except for the one farthest away, a lozenge of light drawing them towards the end of the hall.
The big kitchen was a mirror image of the one next door, even down to the roof beams suspended from the kitchen ceiling.
The body swayed slightly, the draught catching it as Lorimer pushed the door wide. Sightless eyes stared down at them, the old man’s neck twisted to one side as though he had struggled at the end, his mouth agape.
Had he wanted to change his mind? Or was it the body’s natural instinct to resist the onset of death? Lorimer could imagine that throttling cough as the rope bit into the old man’s throat, feet scrabbling for a surface that was no longer there.
A bentwood chair lay tumbled where Derek McCubbin had kicked it aside, the wooden stick halfway across the kitchen floor.
‘Leave it,’ Lorimer said shortly as one of the police officers went to pick it up. ‘Don’t touch a thing until Forensics arrive.’
Nobody spoke again for a few moments, the officers looking at the body swinging gently on its rope.
‘We should look for a note.’ Jo Grant touched Lorimer’s sleeve. ‘If you think he’ll have left one.’
Lorimer nodded. ‘I hope to God he has.’
It was all he needed to say for the four officers to begin their search, leaving the detective superintendent gazing at the body hanging there. His eyes wandered over the kitchen, noting the cup and saucer placed upside down on the draining board, a teapot laid to one side. He imagined the old man sitting drinking that last cup of tea, hand shaking as he thought ahead to that final act. What had gone through his mind? Remorse? Guilt? Who could tell?
‘We’ve found it, sir.’ Alistair Wilson stood by his side turning a sheet of pale blue notepaper in one gloved hand. ‘Pretty much says it all,’ he added.
Lorimer glanced down at the crabbed handwriting that filled almost both sides of the note. He would read it eventually, see if it confirmed what Corinne Kennedy had already told him and hope to understand finally what had happened on that fateful December night.
Lorimer read the photocopied letter once again. The original was sealed within a sheet of plastic, the final production in a case that had taken so many weeks out of Colin Young’s life.
I couldn’t let them keep the boy inside. It wasn’t right. He had nothing to do with it.
I’d seen her looking at me whenever I passed them, laughing at me, sniggering behind her hand, thinking I didn’t know she was making a fool of me. Thought she was better than them all, oh, I could see that. I used to hear them on the stairs, calling out. Noisy wee beggars. This was never meant to be a place for students. Grace would have hated all that uproar, Grace, my dear friend. I miss her so much.
That Swedish girl, she was screaming at the man outside the door. Terrible things. I’d just got home, still had my coat and gloves on so I came out to give her a telling-off. The man had gone and she was leaning over the banister, saying something in Swedish that I couldn’t understand. Be quiet, I told her. Stop all this racket. But she just turned on me with that false wee smile of hers. Told me to get lost. That was when I tried to grab her but she dodged into the flat and I followed her down the hall, taking my stick with me.
‘He didn’t mean to hit her,’ Corinne Kennedy had told him, sobbing. ‘He said it just sort of happened. One minute the girl had been shouting at him to get out of her house, Grace’s old house, then she was on the floor.’
I can’t remember much, just that anger swelling up inside as I took hold of her throat. Then she was so still. She just lay on the carpet, not breathing any more. I knew I’d killed her. I was frightened then, didn’t know what to do. Just wanted to get away.
‘And did he tell you what happened then?’ Lorimer had asked Derek’s daughter.
‘He was halfway along the hall when he heard someone at the door,’ Corinne had sniffed. ‘Slipped into the bathroom, didn’t he? Waited till she’d gone into her room. Then got out of the place as quick as he could and came to me.’
I couldn’t stay there. Took a taxi to Corinne’s and told her there had been an accident. Later, when she heard about the girl’s death, she looked at me funny. But she didn’t let on to the police, not even when they came to her house to see me.