‘Such a waste,’ Lorimer murmured. ‘Wee lassies on the game because they had to stick that stuff into their veins.’ His voice was low but Solly could hear the outrage in his tone, an outrage that any right-minded citizen would surely share.
‘Were they all very young, then?’ Solly asked, the phrase wee lassies commanding his attention.
‘It began more than eighteen months ago,’ Lorimer said, choosing not to answer that particular question directly. ‘First victim was a twenty-year-old woman name of Carol Kilpatrick.’ He held out a photograph and Solly looked at the picture of a thin girl with badly dyed blonde hair, dark roots showing either side of her parting. She was smiling at the camera, pink lips curled as though saying cheese for the person behind the lens, but that smile had not reached her light blue eyes where an expression of sadness made Solly wonder what sort of suffering this girl had endured in her young life.
‘She was found in a lane just along the road.’ Lorimer jerked his finger at the door. ‘Less than five minutes’ walk from this place.’ He let the implication of his words sink in. Pitt Street might represent the bastion of law and order but there were plenty of dodgy areas close by; the juxtaposition of light and darkness, good and evil, in this city was something that was not lost on the detective superintendent. Nor was the savagery of some of the city’s killers.
‘Raped and then stabbed several times. But she was still alive when she was discovered at the scene,’ he added, taking more photographs from the file and handing them over to Solly. ‘Died in hospital later that night.’
Solly took the copies of the various photos, blinking at the images of a young female: some were close-up shots taken by the pathologist, a ruler placed strategically to show the extent of the stab wounds and vaginal bruising, while others depicted various angles of the cobbled lane where the attack had taken place. There were no aerial shots, he noticed, probably too difficult to obtain in a narrow alley like that.
It was a horrific way to die; alone, vulnerable and no doubt gagging for her next fix. He made himself examine the photographs once more, concentrating on what she must have felt as much as who had wanted to make her suffer like this.
‘Any leads at all in this case?’ Solly asked, looking up.
Lorimer shook his head.
‘No. But not for lack of hard graft on the part of DCI James and her team, I can promise you that. Still, there isn’t much in the way of forensic evidence. The killer had evidently worn gloves and taken the precaution of using a condom.’
‘There was nothing useful at all, then?’
‘There were traces of sweat found on the victim’s body that might be usable should we ever find a suspect,’ Lorimer conceded.
The psychologist nodded his dark head, his bushy beard giving him the look of an Old Testament sage. He knew what the detective was thinking. Making a match was what this particular science was all about. Even if they had found loads of useable DNA it amounted to nothing until that vital equation was made. Now his own branch of scientific thought would have to come into play as he sought out something that might have been missed, or strove to see a picture that might have been obscured by other matters.
‘You can have a copy of the crime file notes,’ Lorimer told him. ‘See things like the history of the victim and where she usually stood waiting for punters.’
‘And where she lived,’ Solly added.
Lorimer gave a grimace. ‘Afraid that was a women’s hostel. They come and go in places like that and according to the files there was nobody who could tell the investigation team very much about the victim.’
‘What about her family?’
Lorimer shook his head again. ‘That’s another tragic thing. Her family apparently disowned her when she became a heroin addict. The formal identification was even made by another woman from the drag. So there is very little in the way of information about the victim’s background. Parents didn’t even attend the funeral,’ he added, pointing to a paragraph in the notes.
‘But surely…?’ Solly bit his lip. What had he been about to say? Surely anyone would want to see their loved one put to rest? Well, perhaps all this family had wanted was to block out the horror, especially in the wake of what