by Alex Gray
The knock and the smile as Kate Clark waddled into his room made Lorimer lose the thread of his thoughts.
‘Any chance of a wee dram after work?’ she asked, head to one side as if she were pretending to flirt and wanted him to share the joke. But it was a harmless sort of flirtation, friend to friend, quite unlike the DI who had made a fool of herself in this very room.
‘Aye, why not,’ he answered. Then bit his lip as he remembered Maggie’s mum in hospital. ‘Might have to be a quick one, though,’ he added. Kate Clark wouldn’t have come in to ask that question, couched as it was in a light-hearted tone of voice, unless . . . Unless she had something on her mind that needed to be shared with him. In private. ‘And I’m sure I can afford a double lemonade,’ he teased, nodding at her bump.
‘Och, see when this wee yin’s here, I’ll be ready for a double of anything so long as it’s alcoholic!’ Kate sighed, rolling her eyes theatrically. ‘See you down in the Harbour lounge bar at five-ish, then?’
‘Okay. Mind you both leave a seat for me, won’t you?’ Lorimer grinned, waved a hand in the direction of her abdomen and was rewarded by Kate sticking out her tongue at him. He might be the senior officer around here but they were old pals and it did his heart good to be reminded of that right now.
The Harbour was not the usual police howff since there was a bar dedicated to officers from K Division just on their doorstep. But perhaps Kate had wanted a bit more privacy, Lorimer told himself, carrying their drinks back from the bar; she might not want to be seen to be fraternising with the enemy. That’s maybe how some of the others saw him, he thought grimly.
It was happy hour here and he had to push his way through a press of bodies to get back to the table where DC Clark was sitting. She’d chosen a corner by the open fire, a secluded spot in the noisy bar where they might talk in peace and not be overheard.
‘So, when’s the baby due?’ Lorimer asked, putting down his half-pint.
‘End of March,’ Kate replied. ‘Six weeks and five days if he’s on time,’ she grumbled. ‘Hope it’s earlier, though. I cannae be bothered with this much longer.’
The woman shifted, obviously uncomfortable even with a padded tapestry cushion between her and the wooden seat.
‘Are you going to take some maternity leave early before he arrives?’
‘No chance. I’m staying put right till the last minute. My blood pressure’s fine. I’ve no reason to go home and rest and, besides, I want as much time off afterwards as I can manage.’ Kate grinned. ‘Slainte,’ she added, raising the tumbler of lemonade to her lips.
Lorimer nodded in reply as he lifted his glass. He’d allowed himself a half-pint of lager. He was driving and, besides, he had to watch his time if he were to reach the Southern General for visiting hour. But after the first swallow, he wished he’d made it a pint. He could do with a good drink right now - like the punters milling around the bar, their cares forgotten for this interlude between work and home.
‘Well, as nice as all this is, hadn’t you better tell me what’s on your mind? Other than the future of the Clark dynasty?’ Lorimer asked.
‘Ah, you sussed me out, then,’ Kate joked. ‘Aye, and you’re right. There is something I wanted to talk to you about. And I think it involves the case we had yesterday.’
Lorimer listened as Kate took him through her thoughts about Mary MacIntyre, Jean Wilson and their two very similar deaths.
‘You always said you didn’t believe in coincidences and I’ve just got this horrible feeling . . .’ She broke off, grinning. ‘Woman’s intuition. And don’t give me any of that stuff about a preggie bird’s hormones, eh?’ she warned.
Lorimer smiled. It was refreshing to have a junior officer like Kate who apparently didn’t give a toss about acknowledging his rank. Perhaps her pregnancy made the woman feel that there were more important things in her world than the hierarchy of the police. Whatever, it felt good to be sitting here listening to her theories.
‘Intuition should never be discounted. A friend of mine says that it can point to the subconscious working things out logically after you’ve obtained all the disparate facts,’ Lorimer told her. ‘And if you have seen similarities in two deaths then of course there’s justification for digging deeper. Though whether there’s enough evidence to suggest the deaths are suspicious is a matter for the Procurator Fiscal to decide. But DI Martin’s said she’ll look into it,’ he added.
‘Aye.’ Kate sighed as if she wasn’t quite sure that Rhoda Martin was going to do as she’d promised. ‘But . . .’ she tailed off, looking into the middle distance. Lorimer could tell she was struggling with something else. A lack of trust in her colleague?
‘See, if I was in charge of this,’ Kate began again, ‘I’d want to make inquiries about that cyclist. See if anyone had seen him around the area. How would we go about that?’
Lorimer raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, if it were a category A we could use Crimewatch. But there’s not enough evidence to suggest we have a serial killer after old ladies on our patch, is there?’
‘So what do we do?’ Kate asked, her eyes suddenly turned to his own, a challenge flaring in them.
Lorimer put down his glass again. ‘We? As in the investigation team? Or did you have something else in mind?’
Kate squirmed uncomfortably, a movement that Lorimer instinctively knew had nothing to do with her burgeoning shape. ‘I thought . . . well, that is, I wondered. Och, hell’s teeth, Lorimer can we no’ just sniff around and see what comes up?’
‘You have something in mind DC Clark?’ Lorimer asked, his face deadpan.
For a moment the woman hesitated, the use of her rank and his expression giving her pause.
‘Aye,’ she replied at last. ‘I have. How about putting feelers out among the local snouts? I’ve got a couple of lads in mind. One’s a taxi driver. Ex-con but a reliable sort,’ she told him.
There was a silence between them as Lorimer digested this; a silence that Kate Clark must have interpreted as his disapproval, for she sighed heavily.
‘Should’ve realised it was a bit much to ask,’ she muttered, beginning to gather up her coat and bag.
‘Wait on a bit,’ Lorimer said, raising a hand. ‘I don’t think you should give up that easily. DI Martin hasn’t warned you off this case, has she?’ And as Kate shook her head he added, ‘Well, then. Go with your gut feeling. See this informant and you never know. He might come up with something. But you know I can’t interfere in something like this.’
‘Okay.’ Kate gave him a half smile. ‘But it doesn’t feel like I’m doing very much.’
‘And you really believe these two old dears were murdered?’
‘Well, Jean Wilson’s son certainly believes his mum was killed. And I have a feeling he’s not going to let us sweep anything under the table.’
‘I have to go,’ Lorimer said, suddenly, looking at his watch. ‘Hospital visit. But keep me in the loop with this one, will you?’
‘Sure. And thanks for the lemonade,’ Kate replied, grinning at him as they stood up and he helped her on with her coat.
As Lorimer drove along the M8, thoughts of Kate Clark kept coming back to him. She’d wanted to talk to him and he felt flattered by her confidence. But it disturbed him too that she couldn’t put the same trust in a senior officer like Rhoda Martin. He was an outsider, only there to tidy up a particular case, not one of their own colleagues. And yet Kate had wanted his advice. He had to be careful. Feeling gratified about the woman’s faith in him could obscure the more important matter of what had gone wrong within the team under Colin Ray’s command.
Two old women were dead, though. What if it had been Maggie’s mum? How would he have reacted? As ever, Lorimer tried to put himself in someone else’s shoes. Maybe Gary Wilson had every right to protest that his old mother had been stalked and possibly murdered. Maybe, though, he was clutching at anything that would give him an answer to why it had to be his mum who’d died. Maybe he couldn’t a
ccept that accidents happened. Lorimer could see why DI Martin might not want to take this case any further. But Kate Clark’s sharp mind had brought the other old lady’s death into the equation now and Lorimer knew that he would be happy to encourage the DC, even at the risk of making himself even more unpopular.
CHAPTER 17
ON YER BIKE. The words above the picture of two cyclists racing downhill caught Lorimer’s eye as he entered the hospital foyer. It was the same poster they had pinned up at the public entrance in Greenock HQ. But for some reason he stopped now and read it properly. The race in aid of a cancer charity was to take place in just a couple of weeks and he’d already been asked to sponsor one of their own officers. It was a typical Glaswegian phrase, he thought, grinning to himself; the sort of throwaway line a lassie would give an unwelcome suitor. But somehow its slightly aggressive tone worked in this context of encouraging folk to sign up for the cycle race or at least to sponsor a willing participant. Bikes had never been one of Lorimer’s hobbies, though many of his fellow officers belonged to the police cycling club.
The light-hearted feeling that the poster had engendered disappeared the moment Lorimer set foot inside his mother-in-law’s ward, Maggie’s look of sheer gratitude at seeing him making him hurry to her side.
‘How is she?’ he asked, lowering his voice. Mrs Finlay was asleep, her head turned to one side of the pillow, mouth open and snoring quietly. For a long moment he simply gazed at the woman lying there. She’d become a real pal over the years, although she had been a formidable presence to the young man courting her precious daughter. And Mrs Finlay had given Lorimer plenty of well-intended advice concerning his future. He’d dropped out of university, a move that had not endeared him to his future mum-in-law. But his rapid rise within the police force had mellowed her attitude towards him and they’d developed a special bond. She was proud of her son-in-law and fiercely protective of any criticism that came his way, as it sometimes did in a high-profile case. And she’d been such a rock for them both during the sad trail of failed pregnancies. She’d never be Granny Finlay now, he thought, biting his lip as he watched the rise and fall of her breath.
‘She was asleep when I arrived,’ Maggie whispered. ‘I wanted to wait till you were here to speak to the duty nurse. See how she’s been today. If only I could see her during the day . . .’ she added wistfully; but they both knew that with Maggie’s full timetable at school that wasn’t going to happen except at weekends.
Letting his wife leave her mother’s bedside, Lorimer shifted closer to the old lady sleeping so peacefully in her hospital bed. Suddenly his thoughts turned to the visitor she’d had the other day, Joseph Alexander Flynn. He’d have to do something for the lad. He’d wanted Lorimer to act as a referee for a job he was applying for. How had that visit gone? he wondered. Flynn was a wee character, right enough. The thought of the youngster made him smile again. Mrs Finlay had taken him under her wing, her own brand of plain talking suiting the street kid. And they’d shared a similar sense of humour, Lorimer thought.
But this was silly, he scolded himself. Why was he thinking of the old lady in the past tense as if she was already lost to them? With a pang, the senior detective realised that this was exactly how it felt. Even if she survived this stroke and its aftermath, Lorimer knew he’d miss the woman she had been. Her usual bustling manner and cheery voice were gone and in their place was this old lady, a shrunken version of the person he’d grown so fond of since he’d first met her. Old age, decay and death: hadn’t he seen them all in his line of work? And shouldn’t he be inured to what was, after all, inevitable?
The bell sounded to signal the end of visiting just as Maggie appeared.
‘She’s still asleep?’ her voice was raw with disappointment. For a moment Maggie seemed to hesitate, then she bent down to drop the gentlest of kisses on her mum’s cheek and drew the cover nearer to her chin, a comforting gesture that a mother might make for her child, Lorimer realised, biting his lip.
He clasped his wife’s hand as they left the ward, neither of them speaking for a moment as the crowds surged towards the bank of lifts.
‘Let’s walk,’ he suggested, heading for the stairs.
Neither of them spoke as they left the hospital and it was only as the Lexus swung out of the main gate that Maggie looked at him. There were unshed tears in her eyes. Lorimer squeezed his wife’s hand in a gesture of solidarity. He understood what she was feeling. Didn’t he have the same hollowness inside? That fear of losing the person who was their only remaining parent.
Later, when he was certain that Maggie was asleep, Lorimer slipped out of bed and crept downstairs to the space that doubled as dining room and study. Despite the information they’d had from the medical staff, he wanted to know a bit more and so for almost an hour the detective trawled the Internet, scrolling down the various sites on the subject of strokes and stroke victims. As he hunched over the small screen of Maggie’s laptop, Lorimer’s mouth tightened. It all made pretty grim reading. And if he was correct in his assessment of his mother-in-law’s condition, the future looked fairly bleak. If her heart were to survive this sudden onslaught, she’d be dependent on other people for the rest of her days. It would change everything for them.
A thought of Colin Ray’s haggard face came to him then. He’d been through it with Grace, hadn’t he? And it was something that so many of his older colleagues had had to endure. Though, if he was honest with himself, the care of a sick or elderly relative usually fell to the woman in a partnership. How would Maggie cope? Could she contemplate giving up her teaching job? Her career was more than just a job, though, he knew. Teaching English was something that defined Maggie Lorimer and to give it up before she’d even reached her fortieth birthday would be a huge blow. Was there some kind of sabbatical she might be able to take? Lorimer sat back suddenly, rubbing a hand across his eyes. What was he thinking of? Making even mental decisions like that for his wife was just not fair. Surely they could afford to hire a professional person of some sort to come in and look after the old lady if she was to be consigned to their care?
He imagined a stranger here in his own home tending to the stroke patient in a wheelchair. They’d need to make loads of changes. Install some sort of a stairlift for a start or add an extension to the downstairs loo. His eyes searched the familiar rooms of his home, seeking practical solutions to the potential problems that could lie ahead. The garden was large and rambling; no problem in adding another room on at the kitchen side and the plumbing was maybe easier there anyway. But how were they to cope with builders about the place at the same time as a sick old lady was living with them? And he couldn’t take time off, not now when he’d been appointed as a review officer to this case in Greenock.
As the practical difficulties threatened to overwhelm him, Lorimer found his fingers tapping the relevant keys to close down the screen. Nobody had told them that Mrs Finlay was being discharged. Maybe she’d be in the Southern General for a good while yet, giving them time to prepare for her coming home to them.
A yawn caught him unawares, making his eyes water. He needed to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be another demanding day at work and he would simply have to put other thoughts on hold.
As he climbed the stairs, Lorimer paused to look out of the window on the landing. Down on his street some lights were still on. Were some of his neighbours awake, worrying and wondering about their own families? He was no different from any of them, was he? Life threw such things at you and you simply had to cope as best as you could.
Neither of them had spoken about Maggie’s mum before they’d left for work. Instead the radio had filled the silence between them with the morning’s news bulletin and the road report. Only Chancer had miaowed for his breakfast, a familiar yowl that had made them both smile. Animals and small children were immune from the problems of the grown-up world, demanding instead attention to the basics of life. As he’d passed the cat on his way out, Lorimer had bent to stroke the oran
ge fur, experiencing a pang of gratitude as the animal purred loudly and rubbed himself on his trouser leg.
That small incident came to mind as he stood at the entrance of the flats he’d come to visit. A large white cat was regarding him from a downstairs window, a haughty expression in its green eyes. A prized breed no doubt, he thought, noting the fluffy coat and delicate ears. But he’d rather have their Chancer with his doubtful pedigree any day.
Serena Jackson lived not all that far from the burned-out house in Kilmacolm, just a few miles further west, on Greenock’s esplanade. The flats were only a few years old, their raw newness contrasting with the neighbouring rows of fine dark-red sandstone tenements looking across the water. Given the choice, Lorimer would have opted for one of the older properties himself, but these gems rarely came on to the market. Each of these modern flats had a metal balcony facing west and he supposed it must be pleasant to stand up there on a summer’s evening, catching the sun’s last rays.
