Lorimer walked to one side of the body, oblivious to the stares of the two men standing outside, then stopped. He hunkered down closer, considering the woman’s hands. At first glance he’d thought they must be tied but now he saw that they had been deliberately arranged in a praying gesture, palm to palm, pointing towards her feet. Lorimer bent forward, his attention caught by the unnatural gesture. Was she holding something? Or was it just a shadow? Lorimer shifted his position so that the overhead light showed the woman’s hands more clearly. Fearful of disturbing the corpse before the arrival of the on-duty pathologist and the SOCOs, the DCI peered at the space between the flattened palms. Yes, there was something there. Lorimer drew a pen out of his inside pocket and gently lifted one white cuff.
There, like a blossom of blood, lay a single carnation, its stem fixed between the dead woman’s palms.
He let the sleeve of her jacket fall back into place, wondering what Dr Solomon Brightman might make of this murder. This looked like the hallmark of a ritualistic killing. Under his gaze the woman was being transformed from a flesh and blood creature to a victim whose death had to be solved. Lorimer had long ago learnt the need to detach himself from the horror of a killing. The victim, whoever she was, would become real enough in the days to come, but for now he must force himself to see her objectively. He was looking at a new and complicated case and not just a case for forensics, either. They’d be mad not to use Solly’s expertise as a criminal profiler.
Voices from the staircase made him look up. Two figures appeared out of the darkness carrying their kitbags. The cavalry had arrived in the shape of Dr Rosie Fergusson and Dr Roy Young, forensic pathologists. Between the two of them there should be some answers to the dead woman’s silent cry for help.
Gibson, the railwayman, caught Lorimer’s sleeve as he walked out to meet the two medics, ‘D’you need me for anything else?’ The man’s face took on a white glow under the fluorescent light making him look as sick as he probably felt.
‘Yes,’ said Lorimer shortly, ‘but I wouldn’t hover around here if I were you. Stay upstairs in the staffroom meantime.’ He glanced at the PC who had, until his arrival, been in charge. ‘Any chance of some hot drinks? It’s freezing down here.’
‘We can rustle something up in the manager’s office,’ Gibson told them both. ‘I’ll show you.’ He led the constable towards the stairs, his gait quickening. Lorimer smiled wryly. Even the biggest guys were still daunted by the sight of a corpse. Not so this pair, he thought, striding forward to greet them.
‘You do pick them, don’t you?’ Rosie glared at him as if Lorimer had manufactured the murder all by him self. ‘Here I was all cosy, tucked up with a good book thinking nobody would be daft enough to end it all on a night like this.’ The diminutive blonde was already delving into her kitbag and pulling out white overalls.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Roy Young laughed. ‘She’d be out of there like a whippet once the call came in.’ Lorimer grinned. Rosie’s grumbles would stop the minute she set foot inside the locus. Her professionalism was total. Even though she was the senior pathologist she didn’t pull rank and always took her fair share of duties. Looking at her now, pulling her hair back into a knot, Lorimer marvelled at how Rosie Fergusson revelled in the business of cadavers and their hidden secrets.
His thoughts were cut off by another voice commanding his attention.
‘You beat us to it, then,’ Alistair Wilson strode across to join him. In the wake of the detective sergeant was a tall young man whose padded jacket made him look like the Michelin Man. Maggie had joked that the boy from Lewis was so new to his role as a detective constable that you could still see the shine. Niall Cameron nodded to Lorimer but immediately looked beyond him, his eyes drawn towards the figures huddled within the open lift.
‘Want a look?’ Lorimer asked. Both men stepped forward and Lorimer heard Rosie’s ‘tsk’ of annoyance as she stood up to make room for the officers.
‘Bloody hell, we’ve got a right one here,’ Wilson’s voice echoed coldly over the deserted platform. ‘put to sleep with a flower in its hand. What d’you think, young Niall? Is it Ophelia or what?’
Niall Cameron glowered down at the detective sergeant, his pale cheeks reddening, aware of everybody’s scrutiny. Lorimer watched him, glad to note that the boy was wise enough not to rise to the bait.
‘She hasn’t got a name yet, Sergeant,’ Rosie snapped, ‘and if you don’t mind we’ll not find that or much else until you take yourself off!’
‘That’s me told, then,’ Alistair Wilson grinned at the pathologist, totally unabashed. He tried to catch Cameron’s eye but the Lewisman had already backed out of the confined space and was looking expectantly at Lorimer.
‘This your first murder case?’ Lorimer murmured, steering Cameron away from the scene of crime, one hand lightly upon his shoulder.
The lad nodded, a frown creasing the space between his thick, straight eyebrows.
‘Don’t mind Sergeant Wilson. It’s just his way.’
‘I don’t mind. I just don’t like to think of her as a thing, that’s all.’
Lorimer nodded. ‘I know, but sometimes it helps to keep a distance between the victim and the investigating team. A murder investigation is unlike any other. Emotions can run high.’
Lorimer shrugged then added, ‘She probably will be named Ophelia just for the record, you know, now that DS Wilson has given her a soubriquet. At least until there is a positive I.D.’ Lorimer could see that Wilson’s offhand approach had ruffled the lad but despite this Cameron was turning back towards the corpse as if he wanted another moment to see for himself.
‘I know Dr Fergusson would be pleased if you attended the post-mortem,’ he told the detective constable. ‘Only if you want to,’ he added, watching Cameron’s jaw tighten.
‘I don’t mind,’ he replied with a diffidence that earned him some points with Lorimer. This one was cool under fire, all right.
‘So,’ Alistair Wilson had caught them up now. ‘No handbag, no apparent identification. D’you think she was local?’
‘Who knows?’ Lorimer replied, thinking once more of the railway tracks that disappeared into the mist. ‘Depends what direction she came from, doesn’t it?’
‘Want me to ask about?’ Wilson persisted. ‘Try Waterloo Street, maybe?’ he suggested, mentioning one of the main haunts of Glasgow’s prostitutes. He had thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his raincoat and pulled it tightly across his body against the bitter chill, but his eyes were alight with the desire to be off on the hunt for whoever had put an end to this poor wretch. His detective sergeant might seem flippant at times but Lorimer knew it was just a front. Under the surface Wilson was as angry and disgusted as any of them at the waste of a young life.
‘Won’t do any harm. If any of them are daft enough to be out in a night like this,’ he added.
‘Oh, they’ll be daft enough if they need a hit,’ Wilson laughed mirthlessly.
‘Okay. It’s worth a try. But make sure you’ve got an accurate description from Dr Fergusson. We’d certainly be wasting our time waiting for a missing person’s report if she was on the game. Meantime, I think DC Cameron should take a statement from Mr Gibson. He was the one who found the body,’ Lorimer explained, pointing towards a door. ‘He’s upstairs in the staff room,’ he added.
As if on cue, a constable descended the stairs bearing a tray of polystyrene cups, their contents steaming in the cold air like alchemists’ potions. Lorimer retreated to the edge of the platform, observing the tableau around the open lift. An aura seemed to surround the group as though their breaths had clouded together. For an instant he thought about the dead woman’s spirit. Then he turned and walked back to the stationmaster’s office.
Lorimer was drinking his third hot chocolate of the night as he made his way back to the North Hanover Street entrance. The SOCOs had come and gone, the body was on its way to the mortuary and Frank Gibson had been driven home. His footsteps echoed across the stone floor of Platform 7. It was still as cold as the grave. He’d wandered around the perimeter of the station with DC Cameron, checking out the CCTV cameras. It was most likely the killer had come by car, parking in the car park at the back where no swivelling grey heads recorded the comings and goings of staff vehicles. There was so much to be done. CCTV footage from the area around George Square, North Hanover Street and Cathedral Street was being carefully checked by the night shift at Cowcaddens. The scene of crime people had gone over the area between the car park and platform 7. It was the only logical way a stranger could have entered the station unseen. The black cab drivers were being contacted to find out about any late night drops or uplifts from the rank at the station door. And what would DS Wilson find from his questioning of the girls along in Waterloo Street?
Gibson’s main concern had been for the minimum disruption to the trains. They’d keep the North Hanover
