by Alex Gray
‘I’ll fetch you some water,’ Maggie murmured, shaken by the other woman’s sudden faint.
It had been too much for her to call that man in London, she thought angrily. Couldn’t the police have done it instead? Surely voicing the news that your husband had killed himself would tip anyone over the edge?
‘Here,’ she said, hunkering down beside Vivien and handing her a glass of cold water. ‘Take a few sips. It’ll make you feel better.’
Maggie Lorimer was no stranger to young girls fainting at school, and although it was not always within her remit, she had sometimes taken the trouble to give them the immediate care that was required. A glass of water usually revived them long enough for someone to escort them to the school nurse.
A long exhalation of breath came from beneath that mass of red hair, then, slowly, the woman sat up again, sinking back against the cushions, still clutching the glass.
‘Okay?’
Vivien nodded.
‘Right.’ Maggie rose to her feet, patting the other woman’s arm. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’ And something to eat, she told herself. Vivien had refused breakfast and her blood sugar was probably far too low. One of Maggie’s home-made scones with butter and last year’s plum jam should sort her out.
Soon they were sitting together, Maggie perched on the settee at right angles to her guest. The scones had disappeared, Vivien agreeing that she ought to eat something, and Maggie had poured them each a second cup of tea.
‘Maggie,’ Vivien began. ‘What would you think if it was Bill?’
Maggie leaned back, surprised at the question. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied slowly. ‘I can’t imagine that he would ever do anything like that.’
The red-haired woman nodded. ‘That’s exactly how I feel. There’s no reason . . . there was no reason . . . for Charles to do it.’ She placed her mug carefully on a coaster. ‘He had everything to live for,’ she said quietly. ‘No worries of any kind. Not that I know of anyway.’
Maggie Lorimer heard the tinge of bitterness in Vivien’s voice. Had there been some distance between the couple, then? A lack of sharing?
As if reading her mind, Vivien went on. ‘Here I was, too wrapped up in that blasted school reunion to notice if anything was wrong!’
‘But you were together every day. And you had taken all that trouble to rent the apartment. You mustn’t blame yourself, Vivien,’ Maggie said, trying to find words of consolation.
The red hair was tossed back in a gesture of defiance. ‘I must have missed something,’ she growled in a throaty voice. ‘Mustn’t I?’
Maggie tried to catch her eye, but the woman was staring into the distance, her cheeks flushed faintly now. Even stricken with the worst kind of sorrow, Vivien Gilmartin was still quite lovely, Maggie thought, looking at her. And she could so easily understand the deep attraction that her husband had once felt.
The flats by the riverside were accessed by a wide gateway allowing traffic to enter at the stated speed of no more than twenty miles per hour. In addition there were speed bumps to slow down any vehicle attempting to rush into the complex. It was odd, Lorimer thought, that he had not remembered any of this during the dark hours when he had been hastened to the place by Vivien’s hysterical phone call. Now, in daylight, he could see that the buildings that had seemed mere uniform blocks of pale brick were actually quite attractive, their bases softened by borders of shrubbery and clumps of yellow daffodils nodding in the afternoon breeze. It was largely privately owned, the factor had told him when he had called to enquire, but there were several landlords who had bought to let and the Gilmartins’ flat was one of them.
He parked the Lexus in an empty bay and strode towards the main door. A memory of ushering Vivien out, his arm supporting her, flashed through his brain. She had been distraught to the point of collapse, thinking that her husband had suffered a sudden heart attack in his sleep. There had surely been a crumb of comfort thinking that Gilmartin had died quietly, peacefully. Now even that possibility had been torn away from her and he tried not to imagine what must be going through his friend’s mind.
The hallway was cast in shadow, the sun favouring the far side of the building, as Lorimer waited for the lift. Looking around, he could see signs of care: potted geraniums, pink and scarlet, thrived at the doorways of the ground-floor flats, and there was a table where a pile of circulars had been neatly stacked. It was a decent-looking place, not one where he would expect to see murder rear its ugly head.
Soon he was rising upwards, his thoughts already on what he might find. The detective took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket, drawing them on before venturing into the flat, ever careful not to contaminate a crime scene, if indeed that was what it proved to be.
It felt cold as he entered the apartment, the heating probably on a timer. Vivien had told him that she and Charles had spent most of their waking hours away from the place, arranging the theatre project and the reunion, only using the flat as somewhere to sleep and eat breakfast. Still, it was a sharp contrast to the warm sunshine outside his own home where Lorimer had left his wife and former girlfriend.
He chose to go into Gilmartin’s bedroom first, his eyes seeking out the bedside table next to where the man’s body had lain. He stared at the plain, unvarnished cabinet for a moment, then peered closely to see if there were any marks on its surface, rings from a coffee mug, anything that might show what had been laid there. But there was nothing, only the thinnest layer of dust. He straightened up, pondering the facts before him, trying to recall what else that female officer might have done when she had elected to strip the bed. Had there really been no glass or cup lying by the dead man’s bed?
As if retracing the other officer’s steps, Lorimer walked through the lounge, where three half-empty mugs still sat on a tray, and into a galley kitchen. The bed linen was still inside the washer dryer and Lorimer left it there, his eyes turning to the cabinets fixed to the wall. His gloved hands opened them one after the other until he came to shelves containing glasses and crockery. With one finger he counted each stack of dishes and plates. As he’d expected, there was six of everything, plain white stuff that could easily be replaced if broken; three clean mugs plus the ones they had used for tea after Vivien’s call. It was the same with the glasses; six of every size sat neatly side by side. Turning to look at the sink and the drainer beside it, Lorimer saw a plastic bowl on its side, a folded dishcloth laid on top, now dried by the sun shining through the window. There was nothing on the draining board, no single cup or mug from the last evening of Gilmartin’s life. And this fact alone was creating a sense of disquiet in the detective’s mind.
‘There should have been an empty glass,’ he said aloud.
And as though the spoken words had broken a spell, the detective superintendent turned on his heel and left the flat as quickly as he could.
‘Tell me again,’ he said, listening for a reply. He was in the Lexus now, heading back towards the mortuary.
‘Aconitum,’ Rosie replied. ‘Sometimes called monkshood. It was used in ancient times on an island called Ceos where they practised euthanasia. Anyone who wasn’t essential to the state or was too old to be useful was given the poison and put to death.’
‘And it should have produced vomiting and diarrhoea?’
‘With muscular spasms, paralysis of the respiratory system, convulsions . . .’
‘But it didn’t?’
‘Well, there was quite a cocktail of stuff in the poor fellow’s stomach. Anti-spasmodic drugs, for starters. Though the level of aconitum was enough to have killed him before convulsions began. All mixed up with ginger wine. Looks like he knew what he was doing all right.’
Lorimer listened, a grave expression on his face. If Charles Gilmartin had wanted to take his own life, the toxins that Rosie had found were easily sufficient to have acted swiftly and with no horrific side effects.
His mind flew back to the bedside table, where there had been no empty glass, no dregs f
or testing in the laboratory. And the dark colour of ginger wine, with its sweet syrupy taste, would have disguised the tincture mixed into it.
‘He couldn’t possibly have got up and washed the glass then put it away again?’
Rosie’s snort of derision was all he needed to hear. ‘No way. He’d have been dead in seconds. Perfect suicide,’ she added.
Lorimer bit his lip. Unless he found that the female officer had washed up that glass and replaced it in the cupboard in a desire to be helpful, he would have to inform Iain MacIntosh that this was not a case of suicide at all.
‘No, sir, I’m sure.’ The woman’s voice was firm. ‘There was nothing at all on his bedside table. Actually,’ she went on, ‘I remember looking to see if there was an alarm clock. Thought it was a bit bleak, you know, being so bare.’
‘And nothing in the kitchen. No glass, mug, anything he might have drunk from?’
‘As I said,’ the officer continued, her voice becoming increasingly frosty, ‘nothing like that at all. I’m sure Dr Calder can confirm that. And no, I didn’t wash anything up.’
‘Thank you, PC Morgan. That is most helpful. And do bear in mind that you may be called on to testify to these facts in due course.’
There was a pause before she answered with a solemn ‘Yes, sir.’
Lorimer exhaled a long breath as he considered the next stage in the investigation. He should hand this over to one of his fellow officers, but he felt uneasy at the thought of Vivien being grilled by a stranger. He was, he reminded himself, a potential witness should it transpire that Gilmartin had been murdered. And perhaps a conflict of interest might not go down well with a court of law. Sighing again, he resolved to wait and see what the Fiscal decided.
Meantime, there was still the huge task of finding out the identity of the black girl. DNA was being taken from her unborn child so at least there would be a slim chance of finding a paternal match. Otherwise, the girl’s body might lie in the mortuary for months until it was decided no further investigation was possible. Then she would lie in an unmarked grave, a stranger deep within the green places of this city.
Chapter Nineteen
It was hard to know what to say, Lorimer thought, closing the front door behind him. Your husband was killed by person or persons unknown was a bit brutal, though these were the words written on the report.
Iain MacIntosh had been unequivocal in his decision. The investigation would be carried out by another officer in Stewart Street due to Lorimer’s personal involvement with the widow of the deceased. He had winced at that, but the Fiscal had not meant it unkindly and MacIntosh was not a man given to innuendo. It was what Lorimer had expected after all, and there was a sense of relief that he could no longer be in charge of this case while Vivien was staying with them. It meant, too, that he could concentrate on the death of the young girl.
She was Nigerian, Rosie had thought. The pathologist had travelled to Nigeria years ago and was familiar with the people there, though there were so many different ethnic groups on the great African continent that it was not possible to be completely accurate from the sight of a corpse alone.
‘Hi.’ Lorimer strode into the kitchen where his wife stood stirring something on the hob. Her face lit up when she turned to see him, giving Lorimer that momentary glow that he always felt on being home again. There was no sign of Vivien.
‘Is she upstairs?’ he whispered, eyes turned towards the ceiling.
Maggie nodded. ‘Think she took something to make her sleep. Said she’d lain awake all of last night, poor thing.’
Lorimer exhaled a huge sigh of relief. All the way home he had been composing what to tell her, but nothing had seemed right except the unvarnished truth.
‘What is it?’ Maggie asked, laying down the wooden spoon and giving her husband all her attention.
‘Doesn’t appear to be suicide,’ he told her, watching as her mouth opened in astonishment. ‘The investigation will seek to find whoever murdered Charles Gilmartin.’ He shrugged, as if actually saying it had released the weight of the burden he had been carrying.
‘Someone broke into the flat while Vivien was at the school reunion?’ Maggie’s voice was a whisper of disbelief.
‘There is no sign of a forced entry,’ Lorimer replied. ‘So it must be someone he knew or someone who had a key.’
‘What will you tell her?’ she asked, glancing upwards.
‘Just that,’ he replied simply. ‘Oh, and that I won’t be SIO on the case.’
Maggie nodded. She had been a policeman’s wife long enough to know all the procedures that her husband had to follow.
‘Right,’ she said, then turned back to the soup pot on the hob, hand shaking as she picked up the ladle. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll want any of this?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘It’s one of your favourites: mulligatawny.’
Lorimer sighed and nodded. He wasn’t hungry but she had gone to the trouble of cooking for him. ‘Give me a minute to get washed. I’ll be right back down.’
The fifth step on the staircase gave a creak as it always did, making Lorimer pause mid stride lest the sound awaken their house guest. He slipped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him, hoping that the noise of running water from their en suite bathroom would not disturb the woman sleeping across the corridor. A few minutes later he crept out again, careful to tread as quietly as he could.
‘Bill? Is that you?’ Her voice was sleepy and remote, more like the girl’s voice he remembered from school days than the sophisticated woman whose original accent was barely discernible.
‘Hi, how are you feeling?’
Vivien lay on the bed, the duvet swept to one side as though she had only just woken up. Was she unaware of the way her silky dress had ridden up, showing more of her thigh than was decent? Or did that not matter because it was William Lorimer standing there, looking at the figure of the woman he had once known so intimately? Her red hair spilled over the pillow making her look like a wanton creature from a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and for a moment Lorimer experienced a flare of desire.
‘Hi yourself,’ she replied sleepily, green eyes narrowing as she looked at him.
There was a silence between them as she studied his face as if looking for clues.
‘Maggie’s made some soup,’ he told her at last, wanting to break the spell that threatened to draw him in. ‘Coming downstairs?’
Vivien simply smiled and lifted one small white hand, gesturing for him to stay.
At that moment the telephone shrilled out.
‘Better go. Come down when you’re ready.’ Then, without another glance at the woman lying on the bed, he turned and headed downstairs, listening for the sound of his wife’s voice as the ringing stopped.
‘It’s for you. A Police Sergeant Clark?’ Maggie passed over the handset as soon as Lorimer entered the room.
‘Hello, Lorimer here.’
Maggie watched the changing expressions on her husband’s face as he spoke to the officer from Stewart Street. Clark was not a name that Maggie Lorimer knew, so this was nothing to do with either Vivien’s case or the one that had recently taken her husband to the mortuary. She could see the furrow on his brow deepen as he nodded, not speaking much, just asking an occasional question and listening to the reply, giving nothing away. At last he put down the telephone and turned back to his wife.
‘I’d love some of that soup,’ he said.
Maggie was putting the bowls into the dishwasher when she heard the woman’s voice.
‘Sorry. Must have fallen asleep again,’ Vivien was saying.
‘There’s plenty of soup if you fancy some,’ she offered.
Vivien was fully dressed now, dark tights cladding her shapely legs, a cashmere wrap slung artfully across her shoulders. She gave a delicate shudder. ‘Sorry, couldn’t face anything to eat. A cup of tea, though?’
Maggie nodded, turning to fill the kettle yet again. I have measured out my life in teacups and spoons, she said to herself, si
lently paraphrasing Eliot’s famous poem. Yet she did feel a rush of sympathy towards the red-haired woman for the news that her husband was about to impart.
‘Can’t you get this cat off my chair?’ Vivien was standing beside the rocking chair where Maggie’s mother had sat so often, Chancer purring loudly on her lap. She threw an angry look at Lorimer. ‘You know I hate cats,’ she said.
In three swift strides Maggie crossed the room, scooped up the ginger cat and walked back to the kitchen, cuddling her pet, heart beating with a fury that she could not voice. My chair, indeed! She had been here a few days and yet already Vivien was acting as though she owned the place! It was hard, Maggie thought, to feel sympathy for this woman, especially when, as now, she caught her smiling up at her husband in a manner that caused the schoolteacher a pang of dismay.
Soon have that wiped off your face, a bad little voice sounded in Maggie’s ear, making her feel shocked and guilty in equal measure. This wasn’t like her! What was happening to her normal kindly responses? She felt guilty tears spring to her eyes, and as she turned away to hide them, Chancer struggled out of her arms and fled into the garden. Maggie followed him into the dusky evening; she had no desire to witness the other woman’s anguish.
‘Vivien, sit down,’ Lorimer said.
The red-haired woman’s face paled even more as she sank into the rocking chair.
‘It wasn’t suicide,’ Lorimer said bluntly. ‘Charles did not take his own life.’
‘But . . .’
‘There are several aspects of your husband’s death that indicate he was poisoned. And not by his own hand.’
Vivien Gilmartin continued to stare at him, lips parting in a silent oh of disbelief.
‘A good friend and colleague of mine has been appointed as Senior Investigating Officer. Chap called Alistair Wilson. You’ll like him,’ Lorimer continued. ‘No-nonsense type of officer. Thorough.’
Traces of colour swam back into the woman’s cheeks as he spoke. ‘You won’t . . . ?’
