Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

‘Bit odd, don’t you think?’ he asked. ‘Should we make anything of it?’

There was a short silence before the reply came. ‘Lorimer will want to know. And, yes, check it out. Have a look to see if there was a passenger visible on the footage, will you?’

The senior officer frowned, puzzled by the message. The black Golf GTI was registered in the name of Rhoda Martin, an officer from K Division who was on Lorimer’s team. But the Detective Superintendent had let it slip that DI Martin hadn’t turned up for duty this morning. Something very odd was going on. And Lorimer ought to be told right away.

Chancer sprang to the floor and trotted over to Lorimer giving a small miaow of welcome. For once the orange cat was ignored as Maggie hurled herself into her husband’s arms and began to sob.

‘It’s all right,’ he soothed, stroking her long dark hair. ‘It’s all right. We’ll find her. I know we will.’

Behind them the family liaison officer lifted a two-way radio to her lips, affirming the message she had just scribbled down in her notebook.

‘Superintendent, that was traffic. They’ve spotted something,’ the woman began.

‘Mum? Have they found my mum?’ Maggie broke away from her husband, hope filling her pale face. Flynn emerged from the kitchen, his expression equally anxious.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lorimer. There’s no definite sighting of her yet,’ the woman replied. ‘But there was a vehicle seen in the vicinity that belongs to one of your officers, sir,’ the policewoman continued. ‘At approximately nine-thirty-five a black Golf GTI entered the main road from the junction along from here and headed towards town. It’s registered to…’ she squinted at her own handwriting, ‘a Miss Rhoda Jane Martin. One of yours,’ she added.

‘Was she alone?’

‘Traffic’s still trying to confirm that, sir. The footage might not be adequate to tell us if there was a passenger beside her.’

Lorimer nodded, his mind in a whirl. The car would have to make a right-hand turn against the flow of traffic at that particular junction and the camera might not see anyone but the driver. But Rhoda Martin? What the hell had she been doing at his house?

Suddenly all the thoughts about the case down in Inverclyde became sickeningly clear. Colin Ray’s case had been stymied from the outset and he’d always had a feeling that DI Martin had been instrumental in that. Add that to the fact that Rhoda Martin was a cyclist. Who lived near Kilmacolm. And hadn’t she’d been going to and from the police station on those practice runs? Easy enough to take little trips up to Port Glasgow, follow vulnerable old ladies. But this was madness! Why on earth would a police officer turn killer?

But even as he tried to dismiss the thought, Lorimer felt a cold hand on his heart. Rhoda Martin was a tall, strong young woman but was she capable of such acts of violence? And she had known the Jackson family for years. Was there something in her background that might give a clue to a motive for murder? Or was she one of those women Solly had been describing to them: a person who could change from being a seemingly upright citizen to one who had no qualms about killing in cold blood? Lorimer bit his knuckled fist. Surely the psychologist couldn’t have profiled someone like that?

Yet, hadn’t he been considering the woman’s strange mood swings only this morning?

‘Get on to Greenock,’ he told the woman. ‘Tell them to head for Martin’s home. Now!’

Maggie looked from the grim-faced policewoman to her husband, her mouth parted in a moment of incomprehension. Something was happening, something only the police could control. Maggie wanted to weep anew; it was her mother who was missing but she felt like an outsider, trapped within a dark and fearful place.

Lorimer’s BlackBerry gave the tone that told him a message was waiting. He flicked the button to hear it and Serena Jackson’s voice came through. For a moment he wondered what to do, torn between a desire to rush off down to wherever Rhoda Martin lived or to stay here with Maggie and wait. And yet… the Jackson woman might be able to tell him where Martin had gone after that party. Pressing the reply button, Lorimer waited until he heard the same recorded message for a second time that day. He cursed under his breath. Still, it wasn’t Serena Jackson’s fault that she was out more than once in a day. She’d have no earthly idea that they were desperately trying to track down her old school friend, after all.

‘Don’t go,’ Maggie pleaded, sensing her husband’s sudden restlessness. ‘Please stay with me.’

Across the room, Lorimer caught Flynn’s eye; the young man’s eyebrows were raised in a question. If he did have to go, then the lad would stay on here, his expression seemed to be saying. Lorimer nodded at him briefly before gathering Maggie into his arms once more.

Rhoda Martin lived in a maisonette on the outskirts of Kilmacolm not far from Port Glasgow Road. It had been built in the nineties on farmland sold for development and now the entire area had pockets of residential housing. These were far from the elegant mansions within the nearby village; the housing estate contained the sorts of properties more suited to the average family whose aspirations had taken them to a home in the countryside within a desirable school catchment area.

Number Twelve, The Steadings, backed on to a row of lock ups, their metal doors painted in a bright shade of turquoise blue, a colour, DS Wainwright thought, more suited to a continental residence than to this wee estate in Scotland’s west coast.

He’d taken young Dodgson with him; more because he wanted to show the lad just how things should be done than from any desire to curry favour with Lorimer. The Super had shown a distinct favouritism towards the police constable that rankled with the older detective.

‘Ach, this is a’ a waste of time,’ he said, heaving his massive frame out of the patrol car. ‘Rhoda’ll go ballistic when she sees us here. If she’s even at home.’

It seemed the DS was spot on. ‘Naebody at home,’ he concluded once they had stood at the door, his fat finger pressed on the bell for more than a minute.

PC Dodgson lifted the letterbox and peered inside.

‘Nothin doin, laddie. Just whit ah said. Waste o’ bloody time,’ Wainwright snorted, taking his finger off the bell.

‘Wait a minute, Sir,’ Dodgson replied. ‘Shush,’ he said, lifting a finger as Wainwright began to protest. ‘I think I can hear something inside. Listen!’

Sure enough a muffled sort of cry could be heard by both men; a cry that was certainly human.

‘What the…?’ Wainwright looked at his colleague in amazement. Then, taking a few paces back, the detective sergeant hurled himself at the door. It took only two more heaves till the wood splintered with a deafening crack, leaving the door sagging off its hinges.

The sound was coming from a room at the back of the house. Two pairs of boots thundered up the stairs, the detective sergeant puffing heavily as he followed the younger man.

‘Oh my God!’ Dodgson threw open the door of the room then reeled backwards, one arm protecting his face. Wainwright thrust past him. There on a single bed was a woman, her semi-naked body displayed in a red-and-black tart’s outfit, blonde head lolling to one side. Vomit had dried into her hair and streaks of putrid yellow had run down arms that were pinioned by the handcuffs. Her bare legs were criss-crossed in purple welts from some sort of sado-masochistic whipping.

‘Christ almighty!’ Wainwright stepped forward and knelt by the woman’s side, feeling for a pulse.

Then her eyes flickered and she groaned as she saw the policeman’s face.