CHAPTER 22
Rosie Fergusson stood back from the stainless steel table, scrutinising the body. She had to admit that the perpetrator of these attacks had left no visible clues as to their identity. There were no ligature marks, no defence wounds; nothing that might help the police find whoever it was that had shoved the old woman down the flight of stairs. Had it not been for the other deaths this would have passed her by and been filed as a tragic accident. And the fact that this old lady was under her care showed that she was being considered as something special. Freda Gilmour was to have the dubious distinction of being kept in cold storage whereas the other old dears were now either in a family urn or scattered to the four winds of heaven. A report was always sent to the Procurator Fiscal following any sudden death and it had been an easy decision for someone at the Crown Office to find that Mary MacKintyre and Jean Wilson had each died from a simple accident. They all had the same GP, though, Rosie had noticed. Wonder what he had made of the second death? Had Dr Bennie put it down to a macabre sort of coincidence? This third death wouldn’t allow that sort of conclusion, though, would it?
The pathologist’s report would of necessity be brief and to the point. The injuries were consistent with a fall from a height on to concrete paving stones: the skull fracture and damage to the arm and both legs showed signs of very recent injuries. The poor old thing hadn’t had much luck, Rosie thought, stepping forward and feeling the left leg. She could see another break that had been sustained not all that long ago. The pathologist shook her head, wondering. It might have looked just like bad luck: an elderly lady who had a history of falling, crashing to her death outside her own back door. One thing she wasn’t looking forward to was the part of her report that dealt with the time of death. For Freda Gilmour had not been killed on impact. Her injuries had gone unseen throughout the night as she lay alone. Rosie would write down that the victim might have been unconscious after the fall, hoping that, mercifully, that had been true. Death, she reminded herself, was a process. But few people ever wanted to think of that.
Glancing up at the viewing window a few feet away, Rosie could see the face of that tall Detective Inspector from Greenock. She was gazing intently at the corpse, interested no doubt to see what Dr Fergusson was going to do. She didn’t look the squeamish type, Rosie thought. And the pathologist was experienced enough to know.
For a moment her thoughts turned to Lorimer. The DI up there above the post-mortem room had not mentioned Lorimer’s name at all. Would he be in touch? Was this case to come under his jurisdiction now that he had been seconded to the divisional headquarters down the river? It was a fleeting thought. Right now she had to concentrate on performing a post-mortem examination on this latest statistic of violence.
With a straightening of her shoulders, Rosie motioned to her assistant and then reached forward to pick up a scalpel.
‘Davie! Well, well, what do you know!’ DS Wainwright rubbed his hands together as a uniformed officer handed him a clipboard with the names of residents living close to the late Freda Gilmour.
‘Just the sort of wee toerag we’ve been looking for. Pity you couldn’t have found him a bit sooner.’ He looked at the young police constable as if it were somehow Dodgson’s fault that the old ladies had died.
The youngster flinched but said nothing in reply. From the time he had given Lorimer the bijoux bottle, Wainwright had taken to shaking his head and looking at him as if he were some sort of traitor. It wasn’t fair. He’d tried his utmost to go by the book, making every effort to do exactly what he had been trained to do, but in the face of the older officer’s obvious disdain, PC Dodgson had begun to wonder if he should apply for a transfer out of this division. And it wasn’t only Wainwright. DI Martin had barely spoken to him since he had accompanied Lorimer to the locus in Kilmacolm. And any day now his one ally, DC Clark, would be off to have her baby. Why were they treating him like some pariah? Turning on his heel, the police constable vowed to keep his head down in future.
‘David Jonathan McGroary. Previous convictions for assault to severe injury. One of them against an elderly man who needed hospitalisation!’ DI Martin said, reading from the notes that the crime scene manager had given her.
There was a murmur of satisfaction from the officers assembled in the incident room.
‘Does he own a bike?’ Kate Clark piped up.
DI Martin looked hard at the woman, then raised her eyebrows. ‘Anybody? DC Clark wants to know.’
‘There was a cycle outside in the garden,’ Dodgson offered.
‘And we have to obtain a warrant to remove it from his premises, don’t we?’ Martin smiled, her eyes glinting with malice. ‘Suppose you do just that, constable. Eh?’
Dodgson shuffled his feet and said nothing.
‘Well, go on, get out of here and get one and don’t come back without that bike!’ she commanded. ‘And if we find that McGroary was anywhere near Mrs Gilmour’s house on the night in question, I want him in here so fast his mucky little feet won’t touch the ground, understood?’
Kate noticed DS Wainwright smirking at the constable’s retreating back, then catching Rhoda Martin’s glance. The chemistry between that pair was interesting. With DCI Ray retired, it was plain that the tall blonde officer was making a bid to step into her former boss’s shoes. And Wainwright didn’t seem too bothered by that. But he wasn’t ever going to make more than a detective sergeant, was he? So long as he had lads like Dodgson to bully, Robert Wainwright was happy enough. And being crime scene manager gave him as much kudos as he seemed to desire.
Kate Clark watched as the DI consulted the notes again. It was clear to them all that she hadn’t had time to read them over prior to the six p.m. meeting. And Kate knew that she hadn’t yet spoken to Wainwright for a rundown on the afternoon’s actions. Somehow the DC couldn’t imagine Lorimer coming into a meeting so ill prepared. It was a disquieting little thought that was soon banished by the DI’s next words.
‘The CCTV at the local shops isn’t working. Surprise, surprise. So no images of bikers anywhere near the scene,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to rely on witness statements to tell us what was going on the night of Mrs Gilmour’s death and they seem to be pretty thin on the ground,’ she continued, flicking over the pages on her clipboard.
‘What about the next-door-neighbour?’ Kate asked.
‘Didn’t find the body till this morning, remember,’ Wainwright offered. ‘And he seems to be pretty shocked by the whole thing.’
‘And there’s no neighbourhood watch scheme, I suppose?’
DS Wainwright snorted. ‘They don’t subscribe to things like that up there,’ he said. ‘They all just watch their own backs, depending on whatever gang’s on the rampage.’
Kate Clark nodded as she listened to the crime scene manager. It was true enough. The area was riddled with factions from different parts of the town that regularly broke out in fits of violence. Knife crime had been especially bad in the last few years despite initiatives that they had tried to implement within the community. Maybe that was why this part of the country was known as the Wild West.
‘We’ll have the pathologist’s report coming in tomorrow, hopefully, ’ DI Martin told them. ‘There were no defence wounds, nothing under the old lady’s fingernails that might have given us some DNA material. But if anything forensic does come to light, we’ll be looking to make a match with someone like McGroary.’
‘There’s something else, ma’am’. A voice from the back of the room made Kate turn around. ‘McGroary was employed as a gardener at Jackson Tannock Technologies last year. Got thrown out by Sir Ian. Just a week or so before the fire.’
‘And why was that?’ Martin asked.
‘He was caught taking a piss behind the technology buildings. Didn’t know he was being seen by a room full of Japanese visitors to the plant!’
‘And when did this come to light?’ DI Martin stared hard at the crime scene manager, intent on ignoring the guffaws of laughter breaking out around the room.
‘McGroary told us, ma’am,’ Wainwright supplied before the other officer could add any more. ‘Said he’d been looking for gardening work in the local area ever since. Seemed he’d done a leaflet drop round the houses in his own patch.’
‘Better than a trouser drop,’ another voice sniggered.
‘Do we have a list of the addresses he visited?’ DI Martin cut across the undercurrent of noise.
