Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

The room was at the back of the house, facing a row of lock-ups. Even in the dark I could make out the shapes of their metal doors side by side, glinting under an adjacent street lamp.

A groan from the bed made me freeze. If I stood very still, the woman on the bed might not realise that I was there. I waited, holding my breath, until I saw her head slump sideways again. She looked so vulnerable lying there, hair spread out on that white pillow. My fingers twitched as a thought prompted desire. It would take only a few seconds for me to put a second pillow over her face and cut off that foul-smelling breath forever.

I would give her a chance of life, though, not just because her situation amused me.

She was still under the influence of the drug. Despite the vomiting she hadn’t managed to combat its effects and it would be some time before she would awake to find what I had done to her.

And wonder how the hell it had happened.

I suppressed a snigger. I wouldn’t be here when she woke up, of course, though it would be nice to see her face when she did. What would she think, seeing her wrists stretched out, fastened to the brass bed head by these handcuffs, her ankles tied with twists of red cord? Just for fun, I’d dressed her in a red basque, an Ann Summers outfit purchased especially for the occasion. No knickers, though. That was the nice touch, that and the Vaseline I’d smeared between her legs. The riding crop lay on the floor as if carelessly discarded.

Her imagination would leap to the obvious, I hoped.

When they found her (if they found her) it would look like she’d had a steamy night in. I resisted a laugh and felt my way back to the door, taking one last look at the woman splayed on the bed. Blowing her a silent kiss, I closed the door behind me.

Kate felt the pain first before the waters gushed out, soaking her legs and flooding the bed.

‘Towels,’ she moaned, digging her elbow into Dougie’s side. ‘Get me some towels. My waters. They’ve broken.’ She wanted to rise from the wetness but something held her back. Was it an irrational fear or the memory of the midwife’s injunction to keep everything as sterile as possible?

‘Dougie!’ she cried, ‘Get up! The baby’s coming!’

In the hours that followed Kate couldn’t remember everything, just certain events, like an edited holiday video where the highlights are preserved. She never remembered her husband’s calmness as he made a pad of her best bath sheets, only her irritation that he had failed to use the old ones she’d put aside just for this eventuality. The ride to the hospital was a blur of early-morning traffic, lights twinkling in the darkness before a dawn that was still hours away. And Dougie: she’d never seen him so serious yet so exhilarated. As the pains kept coming she blew her breath out, exhaling noisily as she had been shown at the antenatal classes.

Afterwards she would say that Dougie had been wonderful, letting her crush his hand as the contractions kicked in. And the midwives. They’d been brilliant, she told her friends. So unruffled, so controlled. Even when she’d begun to swear like a trooper they’d never batted an eyelid. Gentle words had continued to soothe until the pain had overwhelmed her and the world threatened to tilt off its axis in one enormous rush.

Then the cry. That wonderful sound that had brought tears streaming down her flushed cheeks; their little son come safely into the world. Kate would never forget that sound, not if she lived to be a hundred.

It was the other silly things that stuck in her mind: throwing up her breakfast of toast and tea into the cardboard sick bowl; the bunch of anemones Dougie had brought in for her; her awe at seeing Gregor’s little fingernails — perfect pink ovals curling into a tiny fist that struggled towards his bow-shaped mouth.

All thoughts that this was a Monday morning when she ought to be at work vanished as Kate cradled her son, Dougie’s arm around them both, cocooned in the filmy wonder of new motherhood.

‘Where the hell is everybody?’ Detective Sergeant Wainwright banged a fist down on his desk, making the pile of papers jump sideways.

Dodgson winced. The DS was in a foul mood and the non-appearance of both female CID officers this morning was threatening to make this a bad start to the week.

‘Have you tried her mobile, Sir?’ he asked.

‘Course I have!’ Wainwright stormed. ‘Not answering her landline and her mobile seems to be switched off.’

‘She was supposed to be going to some party at the weekend,’ Dodgson offered.

‘Whereabouts?’

Dodgson shrugged. ‘Don’t know. But she could hardly wait to get out of here on Friday. So maybe it was out of town somewhere. ’

‘God almighty, this is all we need. Our SIO’s gone AWOL, Kate’s not come in and Lorimer’s breathing down our neck,’ Wainwright growled.

‘Like dragon fire, perhaps?’ a voice behind them asked.

Dodgson and Wainwright turned around as one, the DS blushing furiously as he realised he had been overheard.

At that moment the telephone rang, sparing the man any need to apologise.

‘Ah, hello Mr… oh. Oh!’ Wainwright’s face broke into a broad grin as he spun round in his chair, pointing towards his belly with one hand and making a thumbs-up sign. ‘Brilliant news!’ he continued. ‘Aye, tell her we’re all chuffed to bits. Thanks for calling us.’

‘Kate?’ Lorimer queried, leaning against the filing cabinet in the officers’ room.

‘Aye, the wee fella was born this morning,’ Wainwright told them. ‘That was Dougie’s faither on to let us know. Whew!’ He took out a large handkerchief and mopped the beads of sweat that had gathered on his brow. ‘At least we know where our Kate is, then. Och, that’s nice for them,’ he added, ‘but a bit of a surprise being so early, eh?’

‘My sister’s first baby was three weeks early and she was fine. A good weight as well.’ Dodgson nodded, his face split in a smile. The hostile atmosphere had evaporated like a passing rain cloud with the news of Kate’s new baby.

‘We’ll have tae have a whip round,’ Wainwright told them. ‘One of the women can choose a wee thing for the wean.’ He rose from his desk as if to go out into the other rooms and spread the news.

‘I was looking for DI Martin,’ Lorimer said, before Wainwright could leave. ‘Do you know where she is?’

‘Haven’t a clue, Sir. I’ve been trying to get a hold of her all morning.’ Wainwright made a face. ‘She’s maybe been held up at some fancy house party. Too hung over to let us mere mortals know when she’ll grace us with her presence,’ he said with a twist to his mouth.

‘No email then?’ Lorimer asked.

‘Naw.’ Wainwright hesitated. ‘D’you want to have a look at her inbox, though, Sir? See if there’s anything urgent that needs doing? That’s her code up there.’ The DS nodded, pointing to a list of figures pinned above the DI’s desk.

Lorimer stared at the detective sergeant’s back. Wainwright was involved in a case with three murdered old ladies and yet was behaving as if he didn’t give a toss. Would the DS have been so cavalier if it had been three younger women? Lorimer asked himself, cynically. Maybe the man was just an example of a police officer who was inured against any sort of tragedy, he thought, giving the man the benefit of the doubt.

At least Dodgson had slipped back to his own desk at the other side of the room, intent on some work, leaving the Superintendent to boot up DI Martin’s computer.

It didn’t take Lorimer long to scroll down the messages in Martin’s inbox and find the email from Callum Uprichard. All thoughts of why the officer might not have made it into work disappeared as he printed off the report. This was more like it! he thought. A bit of superior forensic work might indeed help to nail the bastard who had murdered these three old women.