Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

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.

Wainwright smiled a slow smile as if he had kept the best till last. ‘It’s all there ma’am,’ he said, indicating the papers in her hand. ‘ And they include all the homes of the ladies who were killed,’ he told her.

‘Right. That’s as much as we need. Get forensics on to that bicycle as soon as Dodgson comes back with it. And I want McGroary brought in for questioning. Now. And you can all forget about going home for the next few hours. I want this cleared up tonight.’

Kate closed the door of the cubicle behind her, breathing a sigh of relief. She was in and out of the loo so often these days that nobody gave it a second thought. It was, she thought, one of the few places where she could telephone him in private.

She let it ring out then, just as she began to expect the voicemail to begin its spiel, Lorimer’s familiar tones echoed in her ear.

‘It’s me; Kate. Listen. There’s been a development in the latest case. A known offender, name of Davie McGroary, lives in the same estate as the three old ladies. And,’ she paused for breath, ‘he worked for Jackson Tannock as a landscape gardener. Now here’s the good bit. McGroary was slung out on his ear a few days before the fire. And guess who did the slinging?’ She nodded, listening to his reply. ‘Aye, spot on. Sir Ian himself. Now is that maybe something to consider? Maybe not enough to give you a motive but he was surely going to bear a grudge.’

When Kate heard the sound of the main toilet doors being opened she flushed the WC letting Lorimer know where she was. GOT TO GO SPK LATR, she texted, then clicked shut her phone.

Rhoda Martin barely glanced at Kate as she pushed open the door of an adjacent cubicle. The Detective Constable breathed a sigh of relief as she waddled over to the line of hand basins. Well, at least she’d contacted Lorimer to let him know. Nobody in the incident room had mentioned the review case or the Jackson fire and it was as if Lorimer had ceased to exist now that Rhoda Martin had her teeth into a murder case of her own.

Running her hands under the warm tap, Kate gave a groan. It was all very well pretending to use the loo, but Sod’s Law being what it was, she really did need to go now. And for a fleeting moment she could even feel some sympathy for Davie McGroary.

The thought was quickly dismissed as she remembered the mean-faced drug dealer, that foul-mouthed girlfriend always in his wake. She’d seen them in here on previous occasions. Had he really killed those old ladies? Kate frowned suddenly, considering. Why would McGroary do something like that?