Never Somewhere Else lab-1

by Alex Gray

  What on earth did this mean? he wondered, reaching for the telephone.

  A few minutes later he replaced the handset and sat motionless, fingertips together, staring unseeing at the drift of spring flowers outside. Forensics had not matched this particular fibre with any of those given by the boys in the band. Surprising, really, mused Lorimer, when the fibre had come from a wig. Performers might have been expected to dress up a bit. But no, the hair had come, like so many of the intact fibres, from beneath the corpse, whose dead weight had been instrumental in preserving these traces from the flames. Kanekelon was a fibre only manufactured in Japan and used in the most expensive of modern hairpieces and wigs. So. Was he to infer that the killer had used a disguise?

  Lorimer frowned. Alison Girdley had given a reasonable description of a dark-haired man with close-cropped hair. It just didn’t make sense. There was something tickling the edges of his mind, an irritating tic that wouldn’t go away. From experience he knew that plodding routine work brought more results than flashes of brilliant insight. Nevertheless he kept going over the murder cases, visualising the girls’ last walks in their city, trying to see who had leapt out at them with that deadly chain. Lorimer closed his eyes, letting the heat from the window soak into his face, enjoying the sleepy peacefulness for a moment. Then with a sigh he stood up to twist the rod, closing the vertical blinds, and work once more in the shade. He looked back over the list and the purple-circled word.

  Suddenly Lorimer recalled the locus of the burnt-out ambulance and his conversation with the Procurator Fiscal. Had there been an accomplice on that occasion effecting a get-away from that bleak spot? And had it been a woman, perhaps? Lorimer tried this possibility on for size and felt a frisson of excitement with the thought that it might just fit. During briefing sessions the team had thrown about the suggestion of an accomplice but this had been rejected on several counts. Added to that, Solomon Brightman had been most insistent that the killer worked alone. But what if he had used someone on only this occasion?

  Lorimer replaced the report on his desk. Like most of the traces, this hair fibre would have to lie dormant until — or if — a suspect could be found.

  Lorimer looked back at the calendar. Circled in black with felt-tip pen, like a bad omen, was the date of George Phillips’s party. The DCI was ambivalent about his superior’s retirement. There was a fair chance that he’d be in line for the job of Superintendent himself, and he didn’t know if that’s what he really wanted. When he had time to think about it, which wasn’t often, Lorimer knew he’d hate to be passed over for the job. And there was Maggie. She had always made a big thing of his promotions. All the same, it would take him further away from hands-on detective work and deeper into the world of management. His present job had plenty of that already, and Lorimer sometimes felt as if he were pulling against the forces that bound him to this office. The other circles on the calendar stared out at him. Red for murder. Red circles around these dates when three young women and an old derelict had met their untimely end. There was no way he’d even be considered for George Phillips’s job if they remained unsolved.

  Solomon remembered his first trip to Glasgow when he had remarked with some surprise on how green it all was. His expectations had been limited to a city of brick and stone but now he was as proud of his adopted city as many of its lifelong citizens. He had quickly realised that although Glasgow’s accolade as European City of Culture had been thought risible by some envious cynics, that same city could well have won an award for being the greenest, having more parkland within its boundaries than any other in Europe.

  St Mungo’s Park was only one of many large expanses where the public could stroll, walk dogs, listen to bands on a summer evening or bed down for the night, like Valentine and his fellow dossers. Solomon himself enjoyed the daily walk from Glasgow University, along Kelvin Way and across Kelvingrove Park on his journey home. The outrage of murdered girls being dumped in one of the city’s dear green places went deeper than simple horror at the killings. The concealment of these corpses in a public park had offended Glaswegians as strongly as if they had been left in their own back gardens.

  Several times the psychologist had deliberately walked through St Mungo’s Park, squirrels rustling below the laurels and rhododendrons. A vehicular road ran through from west to east and Solomon had paced along the route that the ambulance must have taken, trying in his mind to locate its destination.

  High-rise flats bent their shadows over the main road opposite the park gates. They were a legacy from the sixties: pre-stressed grey concrete towers, like streets up-ended. Other tower blocks had been obliterated by the demolition squads a mere three decades after they themselves had replaced streets of Victorian tenements.

  The residents in St Mungo’s Heights had been questioned during a door-to-door exercise by Lorimer’s team but their responses had been fruitless. Despite this Solomon had found himself standing on the path by one particular clump of laurels, no longer cordoned off by police tape, staring at the high flats as if they held a secret. Their geography was right. With Lorimer, he had discussed the possibility that their killer could have been making for the flats after disposing of the bodies. Lorimer had been convinced enough by his argument that killers tend to live near the area where they leave their victims. There was plenty of statistical evidence to back this up. It was only later in the careers of multiple killers that they travelled further afield. Solomon felt certain that somewhere not too far away was home to the person who had taken the lives of those three girls.

  One of Lorimer’s unanswered questions still plagued the psychologist, however.

  ‘Where did he park the ambulance?’

  Nobody in St Mungo’s Heights admitted to any sight of the old vehicle and a thorough search of lock-ups had yielded nothing. Its whereabouts had remained a mystery until they had stood beside its blackened wreck miles away from the park and the city.

  It was not to St Mungo’s Park that Dr Brightman directed his taxi cab that spring morning. Reading Week had given him the luxury of several hours to play truant from his office and he headed south of the river to the elegant suburbs of Pollokshields. The trees were still bare but colourful patches of polyanthus brightened the well-tended gardens and the daffodils were just beginning to nod yellow heads from the verges, coaxed by the unexpected warmth of the sun.

  Solomon stood at the gates of Bellahouston Park where the pathway forked upwards. A sign indicated the dry ski centre to his left and another showed the way to the House for an Art Lover. Reflecting that the City Fathers catered for all tastes, Solomon made his way along the tree-lined path that curved up and around to reveal the house that Charles Rennie Mackintosh had never built. It was over a century since the celebrated architect had submitted his designs for that German competition. His submission had come too late for him to win the major award but he had been given a special prize nonetheless. Now the house was built, thanks to the efforts of a few determined men and women, and stood serenely looking towards the hills of the west.

  Solomon gazed up at the clouds scudding across the blue spring sky and had the sudden impression that the chimneys and pillared gables were soaring through space. His gaze drifted back to the house and wandered along the front, searching for the entrance.

  Janet Yarwood was waiting for him just inside the café door. She looked much older than he had expected. Her clothes sagged awkwardly on a thin frame and the psychologist was absurdly reminded of a moulting bird with its neck feathers missing. She came towards him, unsmiling, and thrust out a skinny arm.

  ‘Dr Brightman.’

  ‘Yes, hello. Miss Yarwood?’

  ‘Ms.’

  She gestured that he should follow her and led the way out of the reception area and through a white door.

  Solomon stared about him as he was ushered up to the Postgraduate Centre that was part of the School of Art but located away from the city centre and housed on the upper floor of this building. He n
oted the familiar Mackintosh features all around him. What would the celebrated architect, who had died in such poverty, have made of all this? Watching Janet Yarwood’s thin ankles disappearing up the stairs ahead brought Solomon back to the matter in hand. At last he was shown into a brightly lit office. Sweeping his glance over the partitioned desks and pinboards that were cluttered with notes and cartoon drawings, he realised it was used by several of the students, not just Ms Yarwood.

  ‘Please sit down.’

  The woman dragged a chrome and blue swivel chair from under a desk and Solomon sat. She pulled another from the empty desk opposite and perched on it, nervously rubbing her fingers as if they itched. Solomon smiled politely, wondering if he wanted to put her at her ease or not. Her agitation at his visit was understandable yet there was more than normal tension here.

  ‘It isn’t easy for you to be asked questions again, is it?’

  His voice was gentle and reassuring but the restless fingers were scratching her face now and the small bird’s eyes never left his gaze.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ The words were rapped out harshly.

  Solomon wanted to say Tell me about Lucy but he held back the question that seemed to shout aloud into the room.

  ‘Perhaps we could have some tea?’ he suggested gently.

  Janet Yarwood’s mouth fell open in surprise, then, without a word, she slipped off the chair and fetched the kettle that Solly had spotted amongst the discarded mugs beside a filing cabinet. She continued to stare at him with undisguised hostility as he smiled serenely in her direction. At last her head turned away as she prepared the tea, banging the mugs loudly on the metal surface. The psychologist studied the grey hair cropped severely above a scrawny neck. He knew from Lorimer that she was a mature student in her late twenties, but a stranger would have assumed her to be at least forty, he thought. Her blue jeans, which were several sizes too large, were secured by a thick leather belt, and the baggy t-shirt served only to emphasise her lack of chest and stick-like arms.

  ‘There.’

  The mug was put in front of him so violently that the tea slopped onto the varnished desk. Janet Yarwood stared at the pool of liquid helplessly. It was as if the act of bringing the tea had finally used up her reserves of energy and she could do no more. Solomon mopped up the spill with a hanky then took a sip of the sugarless tea.

  ‘She was very special, wasn’t she?’

  The gentle voice and the question were too much for the woman and she began to sob; harsh, racking sobs that made her thin shoulders heave. Solomon watched as she clutched the edge of the chair. He had seen grief like this before in mothers who had lost a child. He waited until the sobs subsided, until Janet Yarwood gave a shuddering sigh and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. He sipped the tea again and this time it was a command rather than a question.

  ‘Tell me about Lucy.’

  The night sky was broken with fast-flying clouds and the silhouettes of starkly bare trees whipping this way and that. Against the sodium glow from the city, their curving branches were like dancers’ arms, swaying in some frenzied Highland fling. Solomon rarely closed his curtains in the bay-windowed living room, preferring to look down over the park at the city lights twinkling in the distance. That evening, however, contemplation of the skyline had given way to the mess of notes scattered around his feet. Lucy Haining, Janet Yarwood, the killer seen by Alison Girdley … pieces of an indeterminate jigsaw puzzle were nevertheless beginning to take on some shape and form.

  Janet’s revelations were now committed to paper: both what she had told the psychologist and what she had so patently failed to say. As Solomon was bent over his word processor the door buzzer sounded.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘William Lorimer.’

  ‘Oh, right, just come up.’

  Solomon activated the button releasing the main door of the close then went across to the window, looking down to the street below. There was nobody there. Evidently Lorimer was already on his way up the three flights of stone stairs. Solomon padded barefoot through to his front door, his dressing gown flapping against his legs. He unlocked the door, letting it swing open, then turned back to the kitchen, ready to play host to his unexpected visitor. He had filled the kettle jug and switched it on when he heard the footsteps in the landing.

  ‘I’m here,’ he called out, opening a wall cupboard and rummaging for some chocolate biscuits that he kept for such occasions.

  Afterwards, talking to Lorimer, Solomon could not recall exactly what had happened. He had had the impression of a shadow rising on the wall to his left and, as he turned to greet his visitor, the shadow had engulfed him.

  His neighbour across the landing, seeing the open door later that evening, had called out then come in anxiously, finding poor Dr Brightman sprawled on his kitchen floor. Ambulance and police car had arrived in rapid succession and, in the dark hours long before dawn, Lorimer had been alerted to the incident.

  ‘It’s Solly. He’s been attacked,’ he told Maggie briefly, already reaching for his clothes.

  For several hours Lorimer sat looking grimly at the pale face of his fellow-investigator. A blow to the head had caused concussion but the medical staff assured him that there was no serious damage. The constable who had taken a statement from Solly’s neighbour had called in to brief the Chief Inspector on the incident. The psychologist’s home had been ransacked but until he regained consciousness no one could tell if anything of value had been taken. Certainly the usual hardware prey to the average burglar was still in place.

  At last the thick dark eyelashes fluttered and Solly stared at the figure seated beside him.

  ‘What happened?’

  His voice came out in a whisper, the glazed look in his brown eyes showing that he was still some distance away from reality.

  ‘Some bugger whacked you over the head.’

  Solly stared blankly, the words apparently not registering, then he turned his head slightly and groaned as the pain thudded through his skull.

  ‘But it was you!’

  Lorimer smiled indulgently, shaking his head. The poor fellow was still confused.

  ‘I’ll fetch the nurse.’

  Lorimer rose to go but Solomon tried to raise his head from the banks of pillows.

  ‘No. Wait.’ His voice, though weak, held a note of urgency. ‘You came to my flat tonight. You spoke on the intercom.’

  Lorimer stiffened. This was not the rambling of concussion. The psychologist’s eyes were fixed on him now, waiting for an answer. Lorimer sat down again.

  ‘I’ve been at home, my friend. A rare occurrence, my long-suffering wife would tell you.’ He paused. ‘Whoever came to visit you tonight, it wasn’t me.’

  ‘But he said …’ Solomon trailed off, trying to clear the fog in his brain. ‘He said William Lorimer.’

  ‘Then it certainly wasn’t me. I only use my Sunday name in court.’

  A light dawned in Solly’s eyes and Lorimer noted the sudden tension in his face muscles.

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘I hate to think,’ replied Lorimer. ‘But once you’re fit to go home you can go through your things and see if there’s anything missing.’

  ‘Did he make much mess?’

  ‘Afraid so. Oh, nothing disgusting, thank God. Just pulled stuff out of drawers and dumped it. Seems he was looking for something.’ Lorimer looked at the white-faced figure under the covers and his eyes narrowed in speculation. ‘What can you remember about your own movements during the evening?’

  ‘I had supper, soaked in a hot bath, then sat down to type up my notes.’

  ‘Did you have handwritten notes, then?’

  ‘Some. The rest are in here, I’m afraid.’ His grin was weak as he indicated his sore head.

  ‘Did you have any phone calls, or any other visitors?’

  ‘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 sam
e 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.’