The real problem is how they came to find out about the signature.’ Solly looked hard at the policeman. ‘Rape can escalate into murder. The women in Queen Street may well have been raped. Sexual activity was present in both cases.’
‘But they were prostitutes! Of course there were signs of sexual activity!’
‘But neither Kirsty nor Brenda were assaulted like that. He simply walked up and strangled them. The element of shock was that they knew their attacker and trusted him.’
‘Would they have trusted a patient?’
‘That depends. If they knew him well enough, yes. Still considering Leigh Quinn?’
Lorimer’s face twisted in a grimace. It fitted almost too neatly: a depressive who had some sort of flower fetish. But why would he have killed Kirsty? He’d liked her. And Brenda Duncan? What possible reason could he have had for stalking her home like that? Lorimer shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he sighed. ‘He had no grudge against either woman as far as we know.’
‘Interesting you should use the word grudge. Something may have happened to poison a mind already holding a grudge. Something that triggered off this chain of events.’
Lorimer reached forward to eject the tape. The MS patient had given them both plenty to think about.
Solly would try to develop his profiles while his own team would continue the painstaking work of crosschecking the background of every man connected to the Grange. And now that included every member of the team itself.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Father Ambrose let his spectacles fall on top of the evening paper. Four women had been strangled now and still he sat here worrying about them. Praying too, he admitted, but he would have done that anyway. The picture in the evening paper showed a young woman smiling into a camera. The headline had shouted out her crime, and his. Poor child, he thought, to have stooped so low. The journalist had painted a life of drugs and deprivation. Father Ambrose could imagine what that might have been like. One of his parishes had been in the inner city, long ago, before they’d torn down the sagging tenements and given people decent homes. He’d been party to some terrible confessions in those days, he remembered.
It was the flowers that had first bothered the priest. Red carnations slipped between the praying hands of a killer’s victims. There had been a shiver of unease to begin with until memories came flooding back, memories of other hands that had selected the choicest blooms. A vivid picture of a body in a coffin came back to him, the flower like a gash of blood against the whiteness of the shroud. The hands that had placed those flowers had been clasped in prayer each day, right by his side. Until the scandal that had shocked them all.
Father Ambrose picked up the paper with shaking hands. He knew what he must do. All along he had known it, but he’d suppressed that event over the years until it had almost ceased to exist. Now he had to face the truth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lorimer could have gone home but tonight he just didn’t feel like sitting staring at the television while Maggie was up to her eyes marking these interminable papers. So here he was, waiting to be served in the canteen. The fluorescent bulbs glared overhead, at odds with the spring light that poured into these upstairs windows. Mitchison could make a start by saving dosh here, thought Lorimer moodily. Like the waste of money Maggie was always going on about in her school where the heating was kept turned up all year round, even in the holidays. Maggie again. He must stop thinking about her.
Lorimer looked around the canteen. There weren’t many folk in tonight but he recognised DC Cameron sitting alone, hunched over a plate of spaghetti. Lorimer noted with interest that he wasn’t eating it. He was stirring the strands of pasta round and round his plate with a fork but was making no attempt to put any of it into his mouth. Lorimer’s curiosity made him watch the young officer.
‘Chief Inspector, what’s it to be?’ Sadie, a wee woman with a voice that could have scoured a burnt pot was standing, ladle in one hand, looking at him expectantly. Lorimer turned to give her his full attention. No one messed with Sadie.
‘Just some soup, thanks. Oh, and one of your brilliant Danish pastries, Sadie,’ Lorimer gave her his best smile as usual but this was one woman who was oblivious to the Chief Inspector’s famous blue eyes.
‘Wan soup, Betty!’ she shouted towards the kitchen. ‘Yer Danish is up therr, son,’ she added, jerking her head to the plastic-covered shelves that Lorimer had already passed. Lorimer nodded and turned to fetch his pastry, marvelling as he always did at Sadie Dunlop’s ability to make them all feel like school kids. She was wasted here. She should’ve been Governor of Barlinnie at least.
‘Mind if I join you?’ Lorimer grasped the back of the metal chair next to Cameron’s. The DC sat up with a start as Lorimer spoke.
‘Not fancy Sadie’s pasta special tonight, then?’
Cameron shook his head and attempted a smile.
‘How about a drink? I was going to drop into the Iron Horse. OK?’
Cameron’s pale face flushed slightly as he answered, ‘I don’t usually drink, sir. I’m TT, you know.’
‘Ah, the strict Hebridean upbringing,’ Lorimer teased. Then his face grew more sombre as the germ of an idea began to form in his head. An idea that might take root, depending on what Cameron could tell him.
‘Come on down anyway. The ginger beer’s on me,’ Lorimer’s voice held a note of authority that he knew Cameron recognised. The DC looked up at his boss then pushed the congealing mess of spaghetti away from him.
They were practically out of the canteen when a familiar voice stopped them in their tracks.
‘Haw, ye’s’ve left yer dinners. Ah thought ye wanted that Danish? Right waste of good food that is, ‘n’all!’
Lorimer glanced at Cameron who was dithering in the doorway. ‘Come on, before we get arrested for dinner neglect!’ Lorimer grinned conspiratorially and gave the DC a friendly wink.
It was quiet in the pub. Seven o’clock was a watershed between the quick after-office pint and quiz night. Seeing the bar staff polishing glasses and catching up with the day’s paperwork, Lorimer knew they wouldn’t be disturbed.
He had chosen a booth at the rear of the bar. On the table sat a pint mug of orange squash and Lorimer’s two preferred drinks, a pint of draught McEwan’s and a half of Bunnahabhain. Lorimer stretched his long legs under the table, feeling the heels of his shoes dig against the ancient wooden floor. The Iron Horse had made few concessions to modernity, which, for Lorimer, was part of its charm. He sank against the burgundy-coloured padded seat, feeling something close to relaxed. Pity he’d have to spoil the moment.
‘How are you settling in to the job, now? Glad to be out of uniform?’
Cameron shot Lorimer a wary look before giving a shrug.
‘You could tell me to get lost, but I think it might do you good to have a wee talk if there’s anything on your mind.’
‘There’s nothing, really,’ Cameron began in a tone that told Lorimer just the opposite.
‘Is it the case that’s bothering you? Still feeling bad about Kirsty MacLeod?’
Lorimer looked intently at Cameron. The lad’s mouth was tightly shut and he could see his jaw stiffen. If it had been anyone but Lorimer asking such questions he’d probably have been told to mind his own damned business. Except that Cameron didn’t even swear. The young detective constable had been looking past him as if intent on the framed engraving of James Stewart on the wall above their booth, but then he turned suddenly, meeting his superior’s gaze.
‘Yes, I feel bad. I thought I could handle it, but maybe I was mistaken.’
‘You handled yourself well enough at the mortuary. Dr Fergusson even commented on that.’
