There was no mistaking the rage in the woman’s expression now as she began to rise. ‘Well…’ she began, but Lorimer did not allow her to finish.
‘Put the chair back where you found it, if you don’t mind,’ he said, in a voice devoid of any expression whatsoever then, indicating the door, he looked back at the file in front of him.
There was no sound of the door slamming behind her as she left and Lorimer gave a wry smile: at least DI Martin was capable of some self-control. But his smile disappeared at once as he realised that the gulf between him and this officer would only have widened. The little incident might have been fuel for a good story in the pub from any other officer. But Lorimer didn’t need the sort of macho boasting that sometimes went on among his male colleagues.
He let out a sigh, relieved to remember that he was only down here in Greenock for a limited time. Any awkwardness would have to be endured. Or simply ignored.
Rhoda Martin looked at herself in the mirror, hands gripping the edge of the basin. Errant tears coursed down her cheeks and she rubbed furiously with a paper hanky, smudging the carefully-applied mascara. Her green eyes narrowed into malevolent slits.
‘Damn you to hell, Lorimer,’ she muttered, throwing the tissue accurately into the waste basket. ‘I’ll get you for this,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Then you’ll wish you’d never been born.’
CHAPTER 15
Rosie drew one fingernail across the envelope, a smile hovering around her mouth. It was typical of Solly to have sent her the card at work, she thought, taking it out and turning it over. Yes, red roses on a highly embossed surface, the sort of extravagantly romantic Valentine’s card she’d never received from any of her former boyfriends. Inside she read the equally flowery words. She should have laughed at their message as over-the-top sentimentality, but somehow she couldn’t. Hand on her cheek, Rosie smiled properly now, thinking about the man who had won her heart. They’d met in such inauspicious circumstances; the scene of a crime where a young woman had been brutally murdered. She might have despised this strange man whose weak stomach contrasted so much with her own hardened professionalism. But that hadn’t happened. Somehow she’d found herself driving him home that night and hoping against hope that he would ask to see her again.
Now they were husband and wife. An odd couple, some might say, but their very differences seemed to suit them both. Rosie had left her card for Solly on the bedside table, hoping he’d find it after she’d left for work. February fourteenth or not, the consultant pathologist had to be in early at the office before her first appointment of the day. Being an expert witness for the Crown meant that Rosie often had to give evidence in high profile cases and today was one such. A son had murdered his mother in a fit of drunken rage. Photographs of the stab wounds were part of the evidence that would be presented to the jury of fifteen men and women in the High Court but Dr Rosie Fergusson’s verbal testimony would also be crucial in affecting the outcome. She was used to them but Rosie still took her court appearances very seriously indeed, knowing that shades of meaning might be derived from any answers she gave.
With a sigh, she placed the Valentine’s card on top of the filing cabinet where she would be sure to see it the moment she returned from court.
No Valentine’s cards for me today. Not that I expected any. Once there had been a little flurry of them and that had been amusing for a time. This omission wasn’t something to worry me, though. My mind was occupied with far loftier things than teenage fantasies. School kids might be biting their nails, anxiously waiting for the bell to ring so they could rush home and see what the postman had left. In my day the mail had arrived before breakfast. Now it could be delivered at any old time at all; another thing that irked me about this changing world where outside forces determined parts of my existence.
That was why I could breathe easily in the knowledge that what I was going to put into motion would never rebound upon me. I would have it planned to the last detail just as I had planned every one of the other deaths. Nothing would be left to chance.
And, besides, who was going to suspect someone like me?
Jean Wilson loved crime. It was her favourite section in the local library and the assistant always gave her the nod whenever a new title came in. Not real-life crime, though she had dipped a tentative toe into those murky waters. No, for Jean the crime stories of folk like Ian Rankin and Val McDermid were her abiding passion. She was on her way to the library now. The writers’ group had focused on romance today, of course, since it was February fourteenth. She’d tried to pen a wee thing to read out, but had given up and crumpled it into her bin. Others had managed fine: lovely poems that made Jean sigh. Such talent among her friends down at the community centre! Every week she walked from her home to the writing group, nodding a greeting to the old folk who were downstairs at the elderly forum, a club where the seniors of the district could be entertained by visiting singers and other folk. The old folk, she called them, but most were in fact a deal younger than herself. At eighty-one, Jean was the oldest member of the writing group that met upstairs in the community education room but nobody knew that little fact since she chose to keep her age to herself.
It was a windy day today and the clouds were racing across a sky whose weak winter sun managed only a faint appearance from time to time behind a mass of leaden grey cumulus. Jean paused for a moment before she crossed the road. She needed more second-class stamps to send off the articles she had finished for those magazines. Looking left and right, she crossed over to the post office, noticing as she did so the now-familiar figure of the hooded cyclist.
Jean grinned to herself. She’d seen him every week and had woven him into a story in her imagination. Not that she’d actually written it yet but it was there, percolating away inside her head. He had managed to find his way into her diary, however. Jean always wrote a few sentences last thing at night, just to record the day’s events and, given that most were fairly humdrum, she added details of anything that seemed unusual just to spice things up. So the mysterious cyclist had been given some lines already.
The rain had begun to spit and there was a rumble of thunder as Jean came back out of the post office. She struggled with her black umbrella, the wind catching it and threatening to turn it inside out. As she made her way along to the corner of the street and the library, Jean saw him again. He was standing across the road and she could swear that he was watching her from under that dark hood of his. Shivering, the old woman hauled herself up the steps, glad of the automatic doors swinging outward to welcome her. Once inside the warmth of the library, Jean left all thoughts of the cyclist behind. Overactive imagination, she told herself, her eyes already feasting on the rows of novels under the heading CRIME.
Once out in the rain again, the old lady was buffeted along by the driving wind, holding on to her bag and umbrella so hard that she was unable to see the dark figure following her from a distance. Nor did she hear the swish of bicycle tyres on the wet road as the traffic splashed puddles of rainwater towards the pavements and the thunder grew louder. A flash of lightning made her hurry along the street; it wouldn’t do to be caught out with her brolly held aloft. You heard such awful things about men being struck by lightning on the golf course and places like that.
It was a relief to be home again. Jean shut the door and pulled the chain across, glad to shut out the miserable afternoon. She took off her wet coat, hanging it on the hook on the wall, deciding to change her shoes later. First she needed warmth and light. She’d switch on the lamps in the sitting room, plug in her electric fire then make a nice cup of tea before settling down with that new writer they’d recommended at the library. Jean groaned, the aches in her body a potent reminder of her eighty-one-year-old bones.
The old lady was filling her kettle when she heard the scuffling sound at her back door. Was it some animal? Jean stopped and listened. The scuffling sound continued and she set the kettle down beside the sink and headed towards the source of the noise.
The door was whipped out of her grasp as soon as she opened it and for an instant she thought it must be the wind.
Then she saw the figure standing there, an arm raised above its head.
