Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

Outside he could hear the clanging of doors as the prison officers made their way along the upper corridor of the remand block in Barlinnie. The sounds grew louder, making Colin stare at the cream-painted door that separated him from the new prison world that awaited him. Thoughts of other inmates and their brutality rushed through his brain. Would he be a victim of assault? Or was that just something that cop shows and paperback thrillers tended to suggest? He had been protected here on his first night, told that he would be sent into the main prison today: A Block, he thought the officer had said, whatever that meant.

Colin stiffened as the heavy metal door swung open. A thickset man in a black uniform stood clutching a bunch of keys in one meaty hand, looking at him without a trace of emotion in his large moonlike face.

‘Young. Come this way,’ he grunted, and motioned for Colin to follow him out of the cell where a second officer was waiting.

Above them Colin could see that the sky was still dark through the glass roof that arched overhead. It was nearing the shortest day, he remembered, and every day would be as gloomy as this one. Inside, though, the artificial lighting made the whole place a cavern of light and space, intensified by the echoing sounds from the metal stairs as he followed the prison officers down the steep flights right to the ground floor. A simile came into his head then: the stairs and the upper corridors were like ribs in a sunken ship… could he fashion something into a poem about his incarceration?

Then he was at a door and another, keys turned, bolts shot back and Colin found himself breathing fresh air once more.

Outside, the rain was just a memory in the wind, a faint dampness that cooled Colin’s upturned face, though he was glad of the rough blue windcheater that he had put on. The three men walked in silence, Colin between them, past high grey walls that loomed up into the winter sky. He listened, but there were no birds here, no singing before the dawning light, only the sound of their feet stepping onto hard ground.

It was a bit cheeky, perhaps, but Kirsty Wilson had decided that it was the only way that she could see to make things happen. She’d known him since childhood, of course, admired him from afar, listened to her dad as he told tales that made her shiver. William Lorimer had been in many dangerous situations in his police career, Kirsty knew; he had faced some of the most horrible criminal types, the mad ones as well as the bad ones , as her dad was fond of saying, and yet Kirsty had never seen a cynical hardbitten side to the tall detective superintendent.

It was dark in the late afternoon and, despite the light pollution from nearby street lamps, Kirsty was able to make out a few early stars as she walked down to the house where the Lorimers lived. Looking for the numbers on the houses, she pulled her scarf tighter as a gust of wind crept under her hood and across a bare patch on her neck. Some had names, others numbers but there were a few with neither and Kirsty had been counting the odds and evens since she had turned the corner into the avenue.

It was easier to spot than she had realised. The detective superintendent’s big silver Lexus was parked on the drive in front of a single garage and the house number was fixed to the wall at the side of the front porch. As she approached, a security light flooded the entrance, illuminating a swathe of greenery beside the doorway, the tiny yellow flowers of winter jasmine a warm note of colour in these darkest days of winter.

She pressed the bell but could not hear a sound from within, though there was a light shining from behind a thick curtain. Was anybody home? Had she steeled herself all the way over here just to find it had all been a waste of time? For a moment Kirsty felt a sense of disappointment tinged with relief. She wouldn’t have to do anything after all. Would she?

Then, as the door opened, she started, heart beating wildly as the man stooped down a little to see who was there.

‘Kirsty?’

And as soon as Lorimer spoke her name, the girl knew for a certainty that there was no going back now.

‘Come in, come in, it’s freezing out there,’ he said, opening the door wider and ushering her into a place that was bathed in warmth and sparkling light.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, catching sight of a Christmas tree on the upper landing.

Lorimer followed her gaze and smiled. ‘Maggie likes to put it up every year.’ He shrugged. ‘Some of the decorations are as old as the hills; stuff from our childhood,’ he said, looking up at the twinkling fairy lights.

‘We didn’t put ours up,’ Kirsty said in a small voice. The long sigh that followed was enough explanation. Who would feel like celebrating in the wake of a friend’s murder?

‘Come on through,’ Lorimer said. ‘Fancy a coffee? Maggie’s not in at the moment but I do know how to boil a kettle,’ he joked.

‘Thanks,’ Kirsty replied, following the tall man into a big open-plan room. A long stretch of breakfast bar divided the kitchen area from what looked like a study-cum-sitting room. An open laptop sat on a desk near the front window and Kirsty suddenly felt guilty that she had disturbed this man from whatever he had been doing. She trailed after him into the warmth of the kitchen, unbuttoning her coat and pulling off the scarf that had been wound around her neck, her eyes flicking over the neat cream-coloured cupboards and a shelf full of cookery books. She moved across to stand beside the glowing oven, bending down a little to see what was inside.

‘Smells good,’ she offered, seeing the cast iron casserole inside.

‘Maggie’s a great cook,’ Lorimer said, switching on the kettle and turning to give Kirsty a smile. ‘Think we’re in for one of her goulashes tonight,’ he added. ‘You can stay for dinner if you’d like. She’ll be back in an hour or so.’

Kirsty shook her head. ‘I’m working tonight,’ she told him. ‘And it was really you I wanted to see anyway.’

He had turned away to spoon instant coffee into a pair of porcelain mugs decorated with pictures of cats, so Kirsty failed to see the thoughtful expression on his face but he stood so still that she imagined that he must realise just why his detective sergeant’s daughter had come to visit on a Saturday afternoon.

‘Your dad says you’ve gone back to the flat. Isn’t that a bit hard for you?’

‘I s’pose so.’ She bit her lip. ‘But I keep mainly to my own room and the kitchen.’

She could almost hear that unspoken question: ‘How can you bear to enter that room again?’

Lorimer turned to look at her, a teaspoon held aloft. She saw the pity in his eyes but all he said was, ‘Sugar?’

‘Two please,’ she nodded, then they were sitting opposite one another beside a low coffee table, sipping the hot drinks. Kirsty noticed how Lorimer took his plain black and unsweetened, and now the policeman was looking at her intently, as though waiting for her to begin.

‘It’s about Colin,’ she said at last. ‘I wanted to see if you could do anything…’

Lorimer’s frown made her heart sink. Was he annoyed at her for coming to ask?

‘He’s not guilty,’ Kirsty said suddenly, lowering her mug of coffee onto a coaster. ‘I know Colin. He simply isn’t capable of something as terrible as that,’ she told him earnestly, looking up to meet his blue gaze.

Lorimer gave a sigh. ‘Oh, Kirsty, I’m really sorry about this. But tell me, honestly, can you really say you know a person that has only been your flatmate for what… barely three months?’

The girl nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, I can. I’ve got to know Colin Young better than all of the others,’ she insisted. ‘He’s a gentle soul, wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind… what someone did to Eva.’ She bit her lip, terrified still to utter the dreadful words. ‘Colin’s a writer,’ she went on. ‘He’s into poetry and things like that. A bit of a dreamer at times.’ She smiled as though she were already a grown-up mother remembering a favourite son. ‘He’s a nice person, Mr Lorimer. I just know he couldn’t have done it!’ she repeated.