Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

‘Ah said that already,’ McGroary replied in a tone of world weariness, as if this copper was perhaps a wee bit on the simple side despite his senior rank.

‘Who do you think would have set fire to that house?’ Lorimer turned in his chair suddenly, addressing DS Wainwright who had been listening with growing interest to the dialogue between the tall detective and their prisoner. Kate Clark had told him about Lorimer’s interview techniques and now he was enjoying them at first hand.

‘Oh, someone who didn’t have much of a conscience, I suppose, ’ Wainwright replied, playing along.

‘And someone who might just as easily knock a few old ladies down their stairs?’

‘Sounds the type to me,’ Wainwright agreed.

‘Ah didnae do it!’ McGroary roared at them, his fury igniting at being so suddenly ignored.

‘Do what, Mr McGroary?’ Lorimer asked him, his eyebrows rising in mock surprise as if suddenly realising there was another person in the room.

‘Whit ye said ah did!’ he blustered. ‘Ony of it. Nae old ladies ever came tae herm frae me. An ah nivver set off ony fires!’

Lorimer turned back to Wainwright as if the uproar across the table was a mere distraction from his conversation with the DS. ‘The prisoner’s record shows wilful fire-raising and assault to severe injury, plus the handling and supplying of drugs. Would you say that was concomitant with a person of no conscience?’ he asked, hand on his chin as though they were debating some ethical subject on Question Time.

‘Whit’s concom…?’ McGroary’s mouth was hanging open again, revealing one squint front tooth overlapping the other.

The smell of sweat was distinct now and Lorimer knew there would be damp smears on the tabletop where the man’s meaty fingers were making long streaks as he swayed back and forward in a steady rhythm, as if he were bursting for the toilet. Remembering the reason for his dismissal, Lorimer smiled again. A weak bladder might just work to their advantage, putting more pressure on the man.

‘What did you do when you knew the Jacksons were dead?’ Lorimer asked suddenly, turning his chair so swiftly that McGroary was taken off-guard.

‘What?’ The man ran a hand through a mop of already unkempt, greasy hair, making it stick up in cartoon spikes.

‘I’ll repeat the question,’ Lorimer began again, but this time he leaned forward, grasping McGroary with his eyes every bit as effectively as if he had laid hands on the man and shaken him. ‘What did you do when you knew the Jacksons were dead? Burned alive,’ he added, his face so close to the prisoner’s that he could smell the fear coming off him in waves.

‘I nivvir done nothin. I swear. Honest to God. I nivver done nothin. Aw Jesus, ye cannae think ah did that!’ he moaned, then, tearing his eyes away from Lorimer’s steely gaze, he buried his face in his outstretched arms and began to sob noisily.

‘DI Martin re-entering the room,’ a voice told them.

Lorimer stood up, pulling back his chair, leaving the prisoner to add his snot and tears to the tabletop.

‘A word,’ Lorimer whispered quietly to Martin as she approached the table. ‘Superintendent Lorimer leaving the room,’ he told the black box. Signalling to the uniformed officer outside to make his way into the interview room, Lorimer closed the door behind them.

‘Well?’ Rhoda Martin stood before him, arms folded across her slight bosom, an expression of reluctant eagerness in her green eyes.

‘Claims to have an alibi for the night of the Jackson fire,’ Lorimer told her.

‘So? Has to be corroborated, hasn’t it? Couldn’t you get him to confess?’ she challenged, head tilted to one side.

‘I doubt if he’ll confess to something he hasn’t done, Detective Inspector,’ Lorimer replied. ‘I take it he’ll remain here overnight in custody since you’ve got him on the drugs charge?’ he asked, already walking away from her. ‘Must be off now. I’ll see you in the morning,’ Lorimer said, heading along the corridor and waving a hand in the air.

Lorimer didn’t need to look behind him to know that DI Rhoda Martin’s green eyes would now be following him with pent-up curiosity. He’d leave it to her to make a case against McGroary if there was any evidence to suggest that he had indeed stalked and murdered three old women. But some instinct told him that the man had played no part in the Jackson murder.

‘ I’m telling you, it was murder!’ Sarah Smith pounded a tight little fist on the table top as nine pairs of eyes stared at her in amazement. ‘Jean’s daughter-in-law says her lad Gary’s been at the police station again. And,’ she added darkly, ‘they’ve found another body.’

There was a silent nodding from the other members of Port Glasgow Scribblers, the writers’ group that Jean Wilson had enjoyed for many years before her death.

‘My Andy won’t let me go out on my own now,’ one elderly lady confessed. ‘He’s picking me up after this. Any of you want a lift?’

‘Aye, hen, ah’ll come with you.’ Sarah nodded. ‘Cannae be too careful, what with a mad hoodie on the loose.’

‘Think the rest of us should all walk up the road together, eh? Just in case, I mean.’ A middle-aged woman by Sarah’s side bit her lip, trying not to voice what was on all of their minds.

‘She told us, didn’t she?’ someone else offered. ‘About the stalker, I mean.’

‘And we thought it was just her imagination running riot.’

‘Great at her stories, was Jean.’

‘Aye,’ Sarah sniffed into a handkerchief. ‘But she never expected to be the lead story in the local paper, did she?’

‘Good! That’s the stuff. At this rate we’ll have you out of here in no time!’

Alice Finlay stretched out to grasp the zimmer again. The first few steps were the hardest, the girl had told her. Now that she had managed to stand steady enough on that rubber mat, she was ready for the next important part of her physiotherapy.

The ward gym had plenty of equipment, like these huge footballs that the therapist made her catch so that they could test Alice’s balance. There were always two of them on hand, ready to grasp Alice’s arms if she wobbled and looked like falling. She gripped the metal edge of the zimmer, conscious of the strain on her shoulders. Oh, how weak she still was!

Alice Finlay gritted her teeth. This stroke thing was there to be beaten. And beat it she would.

‘That’s it, Mrs Finlay. Great!’ the girl encouraged. ‘Wait till your daughter hears how well you’re doing.’

Maggie waited by the lift. She recognised some of the other regular visitors standing around, looking at the red numbers flickering as they changed between floors. Her shoulders sagged as she stood there, mentally berating herself for being unable to drag her feet up those stairs. School had been particularly hard today, her five classes presenting her with differing challenges and her only non-teaching period being swallowed up by a ‘please take’ for an absentee teacher from their English department. Maggie was on her own for this evening’s visiting hour. Bill had left her a message to say he’d be late. Again. It was par for the course, she thought wearily, and when he did come home she’d be too full of her own misery over Mum’s condition to have much sympathy for a tired husband.

The lift clicked into life, the doors opening with a sigh, and Maggie followed the others in. She closed her eyes, remembering the words of MacCaig’s poem:

I will not feel, I will not feel, until

I have to.

Then the door opened again with a ping and the light from the corridors beckoned. Maggie blinked, the words of poetry dissolving as she entered the ward for a visiting hour of her own.