by Alex Gray
‘No.’ He paused. ‘Sorry. Yes, there was one call but it rang off when I answered.’ He looked up at Lorimer as they both drew the same conclusion. ‘Not a wrong number?’
Lorimer shook his head. ‘I doubt it. How long after that call did it take for the doorbell to ring?’
Solly shut his eyes as if the effort of thinking hurt his head.
‘Sorry. I don’t have a clue.’
‘Okay. We’ll just assume for the present that you had a visit from an intruder. It may have nothing at all to do with the case. On the other hand,’ his blue eyes blazed with a light that made Solomon shiver, ‘it could be that we’re closer than we know to some guy who prefers female scalps.’
‘If it was … Why didn’t he kill me?’
‘Perhaps he thinks he has.’
Solly settled back on his pillows, exhausted.
‘I think I really will fetch that nurse now,’ Lorimer said softly and slipped quietly from the darkened room.
Alone with his whirling thoughts, Solly tried to remember. But all he could see was a giant shadow on the wall: a shadow with no substance.
Twenty-four hours later Lorimer, accompanied by his wife and Solomon, drew up outside the psychologist’s flat. Maggie had insisted on coming with him to the hospital.
‘He’s on his own, poor soul, and someone has to give him a hand.’
She had warmed to the younger man from the first, her woman’s sympathy bridging the gap of any possible strangeness. Solomon, a lifetime of Jewish mothering behind him, accepted Maggie taking charge without demur.
They had driven in silence, apart from asking the necessary directions to Solomon’s house in Park Circus, out of respect for his still throbbing head. Lorimer looked up at the graceful Victorian buildings then at the vista beyond and gave a low whistle.
‘Some view you’ve got here!’
Even from street level the panorama of the city was exceptional. Solly managed a weak grin.
‘Even better from upstairs.’
‘Top floor?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ Maggie broke in. ‘I need the exercise. Been sitting all day.’
Eventually they stood at Solly’s front door. Maggie and Lorimer exchanged glances as they noticed how the psychologist’s hand shook as he turned the key. Lorimer hadn’t exaggerated about the mess. A snowstorm of papers littered the living room carpet; desk drawers lay upturned on the floor. Even the bookshelves had been emptied, their contents now a jumbled heap.
Maggie’s face fell at the shambles but ‘Tea?’ she asked aloud, with a brightness in her voice that Lorimer was sure she did not feel. Solly responded with a grateful smile.
‘Camomile, perhaps?’
‘Just ordinary tea for me,’ Lorimer butted in.
‘You’ll find everything in the kitchen.’
‘Right-o.’
Left to themselves, the two men surveyed the room, wondering where to begin.
‘Is there any reason for this other than the Lucy Haining case?’
Lorimer clasped his hands and leaned forward, trying to read Solomon’s expression. The younger man sat staring impassively at the swirl of papers on the carpet. Lorimer waited. He had realised during his visits to the hospital just how little he knew about the young Jewish psychologist. His home and family background had been of no interest whatsoever until Maggie, with her woman’s instinct, had asked all the pertinent questions. He hadn’t even known if the fellow was married or not, for heaven’s sake. Now a dozen thoughts whirled around the policeman’s head.
Solomon sat back in the sagging armchair and sighed a small sigh.
‘I’m afraid not,’ he said at last. ‘I rather wish there were.’
‘No jealous lovers or belligerent students with a grudge?’
Lorimer’s tone was deliberately light and the young man smiled as he shook his head.
‘The students like me, it seems and, alas, there are no beautiful women in my life to be fought over.’
‘Well, there should be! I can’t imagine why they’re not queuing up at your door!’
Maggie set down a tray on the desk.
‘Thank you for these kind words, Mrs Lorimer.’
Solomon’s tone was self-deprecating though he smiled his sweet, boyish smile and Lorimer saw for the first time what his wife had seen immediately. Solomon Brightman was indeed a striking man, his pale face, dark beard and bushy hair at once exotic and intriguing.
Lorimer took the mug of tea from his wife and sipped before continuing with his questions.
‘Can you think of anything you had in here last night that someone might have wanted?’
‘Someone who knew we were working together. And someone who wanted me to think they were you,’ added Solomon, thoughtfully.
‘Right.’
‘I visited Lucy Haining’s tutor at the Postgraduate Centre,’ Solomon began slowly, his hands warming around the ceramic mug. ‘She gave me certain information that I was going to pass on to you today. Or was it yesterday? I’m afraid I’m rather losing track of time.’
He paused. Maggie was trying to catch her husband’s eye but failed, her gaze wandering back instead to the young man whose brown eyes still seemed fixed on a pattern on the carpet.
‘Janet Yarwood is not quite what she seems. Her statement described her as a fellow student of the victim but she’s a postgrad Art student, in fact. Specialises in life drawing and portraiture. She was’ – he paused once more then continued as if deliberately choosing his words – ‘a friend of Lucy’s. One of her tutors in her final year. It seems that Lucy had been helped to set up a children’s life-drawing class by this woman in order to make a bit of extra cash. Ms Yarwood apparently took a special interest in her.’
‘But I thought that Lucy Haining was a jewellery design student?’ Lorimer objected.
Solly nodded. ‘You’re right, and I thought that was a bit odd too. Janet Yarwood had asked specially to be Lucy’s tutor and help her with obtaining materials and things for her bangles and what not.’
Maggie smiled discreetly at Solomon’s description of the dead girl’s designer jewellery. She doubted if he had ever taken any interest in anything so worldly as the stones, settings and metals for female adornment. She glanced down at her own sapphire and diamond engagement ring, letting the gems flash against the lamplight.
‘I would say,’ Solomon frowned as he paused, ‘that Ms Yarwood’s interest in Lucy Haining was not altogether healthy.’
He glanced swiftly at Lorimer and Maggie.
‘Go on.’
‘She doted on that girl. Oh, I don’t know for sure what her sexual orientation may be but, allowing for that, her relationship with Lucy verged on the obsessive. In fact,’ his voice trailed off as he expressed his thoughts aloud, ‘I wonder if young Lucy had some kind of a hold on this woman.’
‘Could she have killed Lucy?’ asked Maggie then bit her lip as Lorimer flashed her a look of annoyance.
‘I think this woman is capable of anti-social behaviour. Murder?’ Solomon shook his head and sipped absently at the camomile tea. ‘She cherished Lucy. But I don’t believe she killed her. Solomon’s voice was sad and soft, as if remembering something Janet Yarwood had told him. ‘No. We’re looking for a man. The man Alison Girdley saw. The question that vexes me now is, was he – or is he – known to Janet Yarwood?’
‘And?’
Lorimer leaned forward to place his mug on the coffee table. Solomon pointed at the mess of papers on the floor.
‘I’ve made notes about most of the men known to Ms Yarwood and Lucy. Or at least the ones she’s telling me about. That’s what I was doing when you … or rather when my attacker arrived,’ Solly smiled weakly.
‘Right. Let’s get a move on.’ Lorimer knelt down swiftly, gathering up the papers and shuffling them into a neat pile. ‘You start with this lot.’ He handed them up to Solly then turned his attention to the tumbled drawers and their contents stre
wn further into the room.
Despite his aching head, the young psychologist leafed patiently through the sheaf of documents, sorting them into piles.
It was some time later that the three finished searching through all the papers, Solomon having checked and double-checked for missing information.
‘I can’t find that list of names. Male acquaintances of Janet’s. Doesn’t matter, though. It should be on the computer,’ he said at last. ‘Unless …’
He rose painfully to his feet and stepped across to his desk, switching on the word processor. Lorimer stood behind him, eyes fixed to the screen as Solly scrolled up the notes he had so recently typed in. It made interesting reading to the DCI. Solly’s scientific observations were peppered with comments which showed a deep understanding of the human condition. Reading the comments, Lorimer suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of pity for the woman who had lost her young friend.
‘Let’s see that list. It should be … oh, dear.’ He turned to Lorimer. ‘Deleted, I’m afraid. However, all is not lost.’ He pressed a tiny button on the side of the machine and when nothing happened he turned to Lorimer with an apologetic smile. ‘My back-up disk. He’s taken it.’
‘Hell’s teeth!’
Solomon swung round and gave his familiar shrug.
‘Now we know why I was mugged, at any rate. Someone knew what Janet Yarwood was telling me. Or she went on to let them know what she’d said.’ He frowned and looked up at Lorimer. ‘It must be someone who knows we are working together.’ He paused to let the implication of his words sink in. ‘She may well know who our killer is, without realising it. But,’ he added seriously, ‘he must also know that she could give us a lead.’
‘If it is him,’ Lorimer began then added impatiently, ‘– and we don’t know that yet – then he’s closing the net around himself. We narrow things down to those around the Art School who were close to both these women.’
Lorimer stood up suddenly, a frozen look on his face.
‘Do you have the Yarwood woman’s home phone number?’
‘Yes. Why?’ ‘Phone her.’
Solomon searched back through the piles of notes then pulled out a handwritten sheet. Maggie watched the two men intently as the number was dialled. Time seemed to stand still as the phone rang on and on.
‘Maybe she’s out,’ she suggested hopefully, looking at her husband’s grave expression. But even she was shivering with apprehension as Lorimer reached for his mobile to call Headquarters.
CHAPTER 24
Janet Yarwood had lived alone in a block of new flats five minutes’ walk from Glasgow School of Art. Now the entrance to the street was jammed with police vehicles and already some residents were finding it difficult to gain access to their own flats. Uniformed police officers were firm but polite with curious passers-by who had been drawn towards the street cordoned off from the adjoining main road.
Inside, DCI Lorimer and Dr Solomon Brightman waited for the arrival of the pathologist. Lorimer’s phone call had triggered off a chain of events leading up to the forced entry into Janet Yarwood’s flat. Her body, still clothed in the t-shirt and jeans which she had worn at her meeting with Solly, lay on the hall carpet. Blood had leached out in a huge stain, mainly from the gory mess of her scalp, and the white walls were spattered in dark red like some obscene action painting.
‘Guess what colour I’m going to have next?’
The voice on the tape echoed in Lorimer’s mind as he looked at the remains of the artist. Had he anticipated this killing even as he’d spoken? Somewhere, if he really did keep them, a grey scalp was now added to his collection.
Solly, still weak from his own ordeal, had covered his mouth and turned away from the horror on the floor. He had written about murder, thought about it, theorised, but he hadn’t expected it to be like this in reality, Lorimer thought wryly. There was a smell, almost a taste to it, as if the brutal act had left traces of death swirling unseen in the air around the mutilated corpse. Lorimer found him in the artist’s sitting room, arms clasped around his body, rocking back and forth as if trying to relieve a pain deep within. He put a hand on his shoulder but said nothing. His sudden fear about Janet Yarwood had been horribly realised. Swift enquiries had shown that after Solly’s visit to the House for an Art Lover, the woman had failed to turn up next day as usual. Lorimer had spoken to one of the postgraduates, a Christopher Inglis. He’d been a bit puzzled that Janet hadn’t turned up, he’d said, but it hadn’t worried him. Inglis thought someone had phoned her home to see if she was sick. But if she was ill in bed maybe she just didn’t want to answer the phone? After all, it was only a day since they’d seen her.
‘Hi, Bill.’ Rosie Fergusson’s voice broke into his thoughts as the blonde pathologist appeared in the doorway. ‘Just fill me in on this one, will you?’
She made a pointing gesture at Solomon, mouthing ‘Who’s that?’ but Lorimer steered her by the elbow away from the lounge and back into the hallway.
‘I’ll make the introductions later,’ he whispered, then began to run through the details about the body on the floor that had been Janet Yarwood, aspiring portrait painter.
‘Twenty-nine. Single. Lived alone. Bed hadn’t been slept in. Last seen by her colleagues the day before yesterday. Chap upstairs heard her radio on that night, so we might assume she was home. Over to you.’
Already the pathologist had pulled on gloves and was kneeling by the corpse. A few minutes later Lorimer had the answer he was looking for.
‘Yes. She’s been dead about forty-eight hours or so.’
‘But you can’t be sure until you’ve done more tests,’ Lorimer mimicked the young woman’s voice and she grinned suddenly, recognising the banter that often occurred on these occasions, lightening the grimmer reality of their respective jobs.
‘Well, one thing we can be sure of, and that’s the nature of the killing.’
‘And?’
‘She was stabbed several times. Look. See here and here.’
Rosie pointed with a pencil to areas on the corpse which were heavily bloodstained.
‘But her neck?’
Lorimer crouched over, indicating the wounds he had seen three times before in recent months. Rosie shook her head.
‘I can’t be certain yet but the scatters of blood look like she was alive when she was stabbed. Let’s see.’ She flipped back the dead woman’s eyelids. ‘No sign of any haemorrhaging.’ The mouth was examined gently. ‘There you are. Strangulation was post-mortem. That tell you anything?’
Lorimer nodded, his face grim. It was all adding up to give credence to Solomon’s profile. The too-deliberate signature of strangulation and mutilation. The killer had had a reason for doing away with Janet Yarwood, just as he must have had for the murder of Lucy Haining. Yet he was cocking a snook at them with the bicycle chain and the taking of another scalp. Had the old ambulance not been a burned-out wreck, doubtless the body would have ended up in St Mungo’s Park, he thought bitterly.
Leaving the pathologist to her task, Lorimer made for the victim’s bedroom. It was small and tidy, the bed made and a pair of felt slippers neatly placed beside the bedside cabinet. The sight of the slippers gave Lorimer his usual qualm. A living, breathing human had been taken away and that horror outside left in her place. His lips tightened in determination as he continued his search of the room. A jewellery box lay on the dressing table with various ceramic pots and tiny vases placed strategically around. He looked at the walls and again his glance fell on the bedside tabletop. There were no photographs. Perhaps a portrait painter had no need of them?
Lorimer turned to the dressing-table drawers and began to rummage. Underclothes, jerseys, socks … nothing much here, he thought. The bedside cabinet was more revealing. Notebooks and papers had been shoved higgledy-piggledy in the two sections of the cupboard. His hands searched delicately through the contents. Bank statements, insurance policies, all the usual paraphernalia of adulthood. There were several letters w
hich Lorimer scanned. He made a note of two names and addresses for next of kin then, realising that he would have to process many of the documents for further information, he took the pile out with him into the hallway. Leaning against the lounge door, one eye on Solomon’s back, he tapped out a number on his mobile.
‘Lorimer. Get me DS Wilson.’
There was a pause during which Lorimer glanced down the hallway. The pathologist, the scene-of-crime officer whose name was Fred, and the forensic biologist were working away methodically in the midst of all that carnage. This was just a beginning for them. Tomorrow they’d be back to find further samples.
‘Alistair? I want you to run a check on Lucy Haining’s bank accounts. Find out all you can as far back as, oh, let’s say the last year. OK? Right. I’ll be over shortly.’
He put the mobile back into his overcoat pocket then returned to the lounge where Solomon was still sitting.
‘Solly.’ The dark head turned in Lorimer’s direction. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
Solly rose to his feet as Rosie walked in briskly behind the DCI, stripping off the surgical gloves with a loud snap.
‘Ah, the famous Dr Brightman!’ Rosie exclaimed, extending her hand. ‘How do you do?’
Lorimer watched, amused to see Solomon’s first reaction to the petite blonde. Expert on human behaviour he might be but Lorimer enjoyed observing how swiftly the young psychologist had found his most charming smile. An eyeful of Rosie was a fairly good antidote to the horrors that Solly had seen elsewhere in the flat.
‘I’ve heard about you before,’ Rosie said mischievously.
Solomon stared blankly at the woman for a moment then his face cleared in understanding.
‘Of course. Glasgow University.’
She smiled, nodding. ‘I don’t spend all my time in the City Mortuary, though it feels like it sometimes. Lorimer tells me you’re profiling this guy.’ She indicated the area outside the room, as if the killer’s presence still contaminated the locus.
‘Yes. You know about my, um, accident?’
