Alex Gray - Five ways to kill a man

‘Here, take this, sir.’ The police officer handed Lorimer his torch and he scanned the doors to their left and right. They lay open, testament to the depredations of the local youth, no doubt. The next two floors were much the same and Lorimer’s hopes that they would find Alice here were rapidly fading.

When they reached the top floor, Lorimer and the police officer exchanged glances. One door was wide open but the other was secured with a bolt and padlock.

‘Has to be,’ the officer whispered. ‘Why else would it be locked?’

Taking a bolt cutter from his pocket, the policeman worried away at the metal hasp until it fell with a clink upon the concrete floor.

‘Alice!’ Lorimer called out, rushing along the narrow hallway, holding the torch aloft.

When he opened the door, he stopped short, unable to believe what he was seeing. Her head had slumped to one side, the torchlight making a halo of her white hair. Everything about her seemed bleached of life: the pallid face, the arms pinioned behind her.

Lorimer was at her side in a few swift strides, untying the bonds, one knee supporting the old woman’s body from falling off the chair. Gently, he lifted Alice in his arms, marvelling at how light she was. Then as he bent to feel her cheek, he winced. She was so cold. So deathly cold.

‘Is she…?’ the officer stood in the doorway, his face grim.

Lorimer nodded. ‘We’re too late,’ he said, hearing the catch in his own voice and holding the old lady closer to his own body as though he could transfer some of his own warmth to her.

Then he heard it. A tiny sigh, but it was enough to make him hope.

‘Here!’ he said, carrying his mother-in-law towards the policeman. ‘Feel her pulse for me.’

The police officer took Alice’s thin wrist in his hand, his thumb searching for any vital signs.

Then he nodded, relief transforming his face. ‘She’s alive,’ he said. ‘But we better get her to a hospital. Quick as we can.’

Maggie wondered if the nightmare that had begun this morning (was it only this morning?) was ever going to come to an end. She’d hoped and prayed that Mum would be brought back home safe and sound but now she was being driven by a police car across the city to the Royal Infirmary. The High Dependency Unit, Bill had said, not telling her much more than that. But she could sense from his voice that it was not hopeful news. Yes, they had found Alice after an extensive police search of some derelict buildings in Glasgow’s East End. That it had been her husband who had eventually found her was some small comfort.

As the car raced through the streets, its blue lights flashing, siren shutting out any other sound, Maggie felt as though she were floating above it all, a disembodied soul observing this chaotic dash to the hospital.

Inside the hospital she was met by a nursing officer and another policeman who whisked her away in a lift, then she was out in a daze of greenish light, being guided along a maze of corridors.

At last she was in the doorway, looking at the familiar figure of her husband sitting by a high bed where a patient was lying under a white sheet, tubes and wires leading to a variety of monitors that bleeped their rhythmic sound into the softness of the night. Maggie’s sigh became a stifled sob as she tried to move forward to the bed and the still figure.

Lorimer stood up, moving slightly to one side allowing Maggie access to her mother. She felt his touch on her arm as she passed him, heard his low voice murmuring words of comfort, but she only had eyes for the woman who lay so quietly upon that white bed.

Alice was asleep, her eyes closed on wrinkled lids. There was no expression of pain on her face, just a slight downturn to her mouth as though she were cross about something. It was a look that Maggie knew well. But she could remember her smiles and her laughter too, she thought, as the tears began to slide down her cheeks. She could remember the good times they had spent together. Taking her mother’s hand in hers, she stroked it softly, bending forwards so that Alice might hear her.

‘Do you remember the time we went to Skye, Mum? The mist was all down when we arrived and you said we’d have been better off staying at home. Then the next day everything was so clear we could see the whole of the Cuillins. And that sunset? D’you remember the sunset? Dad and you made me stay up to see it until the sun had gone right down, even though it was past my bedtime. You were always so good to me, Mum, always. The best Mum in the world.’ Maggie stopped then, unable to speak for the tears pouring down, clasping Alice’s hand as though she would never let it go.

Even when the sounds changed and the thin green line upon the monitor brought nurses into the room, Maggie refused to let go of her mother’s hand. Squeezing it gently in a gesture of farewell, she bent over and kissed the still-warm cheeks.

‘Goodnight, Mum,’ she whispered.

Then Maggie felt her husband’s hands upon her shoulders and she leaned against him, taking her hands away from the bed at last.

Detective Inspector Rhoda Martin waited until she was sure that the courtroom had finally emptied. An usher looked her way, a frown of enquiry on his face so she rose from her seat and made her way out. She turned up the collar of her jacket. If she kept her head down, looked down at the floor, maybe nobody would see her, or try to engage her in conversation.

Ever since that dreadful night, Rhoda had been unable to face her colleagues. The extended leave of absence was coming to an end and she would be moving on. A desk job, the psychologist had suggested, but Rhoda had demurred.

Stumbling through the wide hall, the policewoman pushed open the door to the ladies’ toilet and stood, gasping for breath. She would not let it happen. She would conquer the sudden trembling that threatened to overwhelm her whole body. Breathe. Breathe, she told herself, willing the shudders to subside.

Blowing out one long exhalation, Rhoda opened her eyes. Her hands still grasped the edge of the basin, the cool porcelain a relief after the stuffiness of that witness room. Above the basin the mirror showed a thin, unsmiling face, green eyes regarding her image critically. Yesterday she had gone to see James who had cut her hair. With every snip of his clever scissors, the hair stylist had shorn more than her blonde locks. Rhoda remembered how she had felt, gasping at her reflection in the salon mirror. James had handed her a tissue and she had blown her nose noisily, trying not to weep. ‘It’s wonderful,’ she had assured him, smiling tremulously through her tears.

And now that elfin shape hugging the line of her jaw belonged to the person she had needed to become. The foolishness of trying to emulate another person was over. But the shame of it still lingered.

And when had it all started? Her mind had played over so many scenes from school during the last months, wondering how the girl that had fascinated her for so long could possibly have become a killer. Had there ever been any manifestation of evil in the slight, blonde child who had beguiled her? It was hard to remember Serena as anything other than the perfect girl. Yet hadn’t she been the one to suggest the malicious little pranks that other kids carried out? Serena Jackson might have been on the edge of the action, but never at its heart. It was strange how she had such clear recall of events from her schooldays. The psychologist had given that some name or other, explaining how the trauma had triggered all these snippets of their shared past.

One memory stood out from all the rest. They had been in English class the period before lunch for a poetry lesson. Miss Michael had been in an inspirational mood, waxing lyrical about one of the best poems from a twentieth-century poet, as she had put it: Edwin Brock’s ‘Five Ways to Kill a Man’. They’d been issued with handouts of it and had stuffed them into their satchels, making a bee-line for the girls’ cloakroom to eat their packed lunches. She couldn’t recall who had asked the question first. ‘How would you kill a man?’ They’d giggled over their sandwiches, suggesting daft and even lewd ideas until Serena had spoken. ‘I’d burn him alive,’ she had said. The conversation had effectively stopped then and Rhoda could still remember the shiver that she had felt as the girl had uttered these words. Yet, until the night when her school friend had robbed her of every shred of dignity, leaving her drugged and trussed in the back bedroom, these words had been completely forgotten.