Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

Zena Fraser shot him a look then glanced beyond him to the door of her office. ‘I’m very much aware that this is a murder inquiry,’ she said. ‘But I need to know that anything I tell you will not go beyond these four walls,’ she added, glancing at the glass partition beyond them.

‘If you have had nothing to do with Edward Pattison’s death then you have my assurances that anything you say to me here will be kept completely confidential.’

She gave a huge sigh then licked her lips as though wondering how to begin.

‘Ed and I were lovers. Off and on,’ she said. ‘He’d been my first proper boyfriend and even after he and Cath were married we continued to have the odd weekend away together. Nobody knew about us, not our friends or our family. Though I often thought that Cath had her suspicions.’ She looked up as if to see some sign of confirmation in the policeman’s face but Lorimer’s expression remained one of mild interest.

‘What did she tell you? That I had wanted Ed to marry me? That I was the scorned woman?’

Lorimer did not immediately reply, but his thoughts turned to the old adage that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned . Was she a woman scorned? Not only for the wife of the man she had loved but possibly for a string of mistresses?

‘Where were you on the night that Edward Pattison was killed, Miss Fraser?’ he asked at last.

Third time lucky, Lorimer told himself as he approached the corridor that held the offices of most of the Labour party members of the Scottish parliament. Both Raeburn and Zena Fraser had been able to supply alibis for the night that Pattison had been killed, though these would of course have to be corroborated.

‘You’re Lorimer, I suppose?’ A Glasgow accent made the detective superintendent whirl around to find a stockily built man with untidy dark hair who was wearing a brown tweed overcoat and a striped scarf.

‘Coming to see me? Frank Hardy,’ the man said, shooting out his arm and giving Lorimer a swift once up and down handshake. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Don’t think I’m paranoid or anything, but walls have ears, know what I mean?’

His grin was infectious and Lorimer found himself smiling as the man tilted his head towards the row of glass and wooden structures that served as offices.

Before Lorimer had time to answer, Hardy was off along the corridor and heading for the stairs that would take them back out of the parliament.

This time Lorimer noticed things that had not caught his attention on the way in. There were several pictures upon the walls and one in particular made him stop and stare, Hardy lingering at his side as he gazed. It was an enlarged photograph of a woman and her goat inside what could have been a ‘but and ben’, the ancient style of rural cottage that served as shelter for both man and beast. The woman, however, was looking askance at the goggle-eyed creature as though wondering what had possessed her to let it in. Lorimer gave a tiny smile, remembering the story of the discontented old woman who had asked a wise man how to make her house bigger. The wise man’s advice had been to take in her animals one by one, causing her to doubt the man’s alleged wisdom. He had, of course, eventually told her to let them all out, at once transforming the house into a larger space.

The smooth feel of wood beneath his fingers as he trailed them on the banister was pleasing to the man who had forsaken art history for a career in the police. As were the polished granite floors and slate steps. It was, Lorimer thought, a great attempt to marry so many of Scotland’s natural resources into this building.

‘Bit of a nip, eh?’ the man said, turning his collar against the wind that was blowing straight off Arthur’s Seat. He looked up at the darkening clouds approaching from the east. ‘Maybe a good idea to find somewhere we can get ourselves some central heating before the next heavy shower, eh? Any particular howf you fancy?’

Bemused by the man’s eagerness to depart the Scottish parliament, Lorimer shook his head. ‘Don’t usually drink on duty,’ he murmured.

‘Ach, one wee dram’ll no’ do you any harm,’ Hardy replied, grinning. Then, looking down at Lorimer’s thick-soled shoes he added, ‘Come on, the pavements shouldn’t be too bad up the Canongate and there’s a nice pub with a good fire that I know.’

Lorimer fell into step beside the man who, he noticed, was wearing stout boots, as though he had decided beforehand that Lorimer would acquiesce to his suggestion of marching through the snow-covered streets of Edinburgh’s old town.

‘You represent one of the West Renfrewshire constituencies,’ Lorimer said.

‘Aye, it takes in Erskine, Bishopton and Langbank,’ Hardy replied. ‘Nice and handy seeing as I live in Erskine myself. Been there since I was a wee boy back in the seventies when the Scottish Special Housing Association built the place. Was a councillor for Bargarran before I became elected,’ he added, puffing slightly as the hill began to rise before them.

‘Were you at home the night that Edward Pattison died, then?’

‘Uh-huh,’ Hardy nodded, fishing in his coat pocket and drawing out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Do you smoke? No?’ he asked, offering the packet to Lorimer who shook his head. ‘Cannae think that Ed was just along the road from our part of Erskine when … ’ He stopped for a moment to light his cigarette then blew out a plume of smoke that lingered in the frosty air. ‘Terrible thing to have happened, eh? And him that well thought of, too.’

Lorimer glanced at him, trying to detect any trace of sarcasm and wondering if the words were at all sincere or merely an empty platitude. Frank Hardy’s quarrel with Pattison had been well documented in the press after Pattison had defected from the Labour party. The things that Hardy had uttered then had been far less gracious, Lorimer remembered.

‘Over there,’ Hardy said at last when they had marched well up the hill and past the crown-steepled church of Saint Giles. The politician was nodding to a pub on the corner diagonally opposite the crossroads where they now stood waiting for the traffic lights to change.

Deacon Brodie’s Tavern was, thought Lorimer, an interesting choice of pub for the MSP to bring the policeman. He knew most of the story: Brodie had been an Edinburgh worthy back in the eighteenth century, a town councillor and supposedly wealthy cabinet-maker by day but a housebreaker by night. His double life had ended when he’d been caught and he had been condemned to death on the gallows.

The warmth hit them right away as they stepped inside the pub. Almost every table was surrounded by men and women drinking and enjoying a late lunch and the vinegary smell of chips began to waft temptingly around Lorimer’s nostrils.

‘Bet you havenae had anything to eat,’ Hardy asked abruptly. ‘Listen, I’m not like these Edinburgh folk. You’ll have had your tea? ’ he said in a high voice that was intended to be a mimicry of an Edinburgh matron that made Lorimer grin despite himself.

‘I could murder a burger and chips,’ he confessed.

‘Well, come on upstairs. There’s a nice warm fire up there too,’ Hardy assured the policeman. Then, ‘Hey, Chloe, hen, can we have a couple of menus for the restaurant?’ he called to a young girl in black who was polishing glasses behind the bar.

‘Sure, Mr Hardy. Here you are,’ she said, picking up a couple of hefty leather-bound menus from a pile at the end of the counter. ‘Be with you shortly,’ she said, smiling.

‘You’re a regular here, then,’ Lorimer said as they headed upstairs past prints of Lord Byron and Robert Burns, poets both, perhaps favourites of the legendary Brodie.