Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

The rattle upon the window panes made Maggie Lorimer turn to see the hail slanting sideways and she rose from her crosslegged position on the couch to pull the heavy winter curtains, shutting out the black night. Bill would be late again, meetings at HQ taking precedence over a peaceful night at home. Glasgow and Edinburgh weren’t that far apart but the weather had played havoc with his plans and everything in his diary seemed to have been pushed back so that Maggie didn’t know when to expect the sound of his key in the lock. Still, it gave her an opportunity to organise this party while he was out, didn’t it? She consoled herself with the thought that the Malmaison was near enough to Pitt Street that he could come straight from work, and they had been very nice about fixing her up with a lovely room to stay the night in as well. Bill’s birthday was on a weekday this year, she knew. The seventh of February seemed quite far off still and hopefully these major murder cases would be over by then or at least taking up less of his time.

William Lorimer had been born under the auspicious sign of Aquarius, and although Maggie derided all that star stuff in women’s magazines she had to admit that her husband did fit the profile of an intellectual whose honesty, loyalty and deep desire to right society’s wrongs were his greatest strengths. Maggie had never seen her husband in action very much, but on those rare occasions she had seen a darker side to him, qualities that seemed to be intractable and unpredictable. He had, too, a propensity to appear unemotional and detached, though Maggie knew that was a skill he had learned over the years of interviewing men and women who had been suspects for a variety of crimes.

As the radio changed to the more poignant tune of ‘The Ashokan Farewell’, Maggie curled into a corner of the settee, shivering as though something unseen and unearthly had crossed the room. Why, when she should be having fun preparing this party, was she suddenly having a strange feeling that it would all end in tears? As the wind gathered strength and began to moan, she gave a jump, her heart beating faster.

‘Stop being so silly, woman,’ she said aloud, as if to utter words would break this malignant spell that seemed to be creeping over her.

The sound grew louder but then turned into the more familiar noise of the Lexus, and Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. He was home! Shoving the notebook under a seat cushion, she smiled once again. It would be fine. He’d have a lovely party, she was determined to make sure that happened.

The morning sky was streaked with pink as Lorimer looked out of the kitchen window that faced east. He’d slept soundly despite all the thoughts fighting for attention in his brain and now, at this early hour, ideas about Pattison’s death seemed to be more clearly in focus. That he had arranged to see some woman or other was possible. Of course it could have been a man, he thought, remembering James Raeburn’s wistful tone as he realised his old friend had hidden something from him. As for Hardy’s innuendoes, well maybe the socialist politician had been closer to the mark. Blythswood Square was part of the drag, and a well known place to pick up a better class of street girl, if in fact that was what Pattison had been doing.

There was something … Lorimer frowned suddenly, taking a sip of his scalding hot coffee as he stared unseeingly at the garden outside the window. A pair of redwings foraging at the holly berries in next door’s tree failed to grasp his attention for once as he considered a possibility that had occurred to him. If Pattison had indeed been in the habit of soliciting prostitutes whenever his business took him to Scotland’s largest city, then was there a chance that he was already known to some of the girls who plied their trade there? The frustration of leaving Helen James’s case to concentrate on Pattison’s murder could be allayed if he had a legitimate reason to ask questions that might help find TraceyAnne’s killer as well. It was something of a coincidence that a top politician (who might or might not have been soliciting prostitutes, Lorimer reminded himself) had been killed so soon after the murder of Tracey-Anne Geddes. He wasn’t a great believer in coincidences and on this occasion there was absolutely nothing to link the death of a poor, junked-up street girl with Pattison’s shooting. Three businessmen in white Mercedes cars had been shot at point-blank range, all in lonely places far outside the city, whereas the murders of Carol Kilpatrick and Tracey-Anne Geddes had been vicious stabbings committed within its heart. Miriam Lyons and Jenny Haslet’s deaths had not fitted the same picture, although what Solly might come up with could change the perception that the two girls had been murdered by other hands. It was a sad fact of life that such vulnerable young women were sometimes targets for the more horrific excesses of violent men. Helen James’s file would undoubtedly show lots more examples from cases over the years.

A familiar ring from his BlackBerry alerted Lorimer to an incoming email and he turned from the window, his concentration broken.

It was, he was surprised to note, from that big girl, Detective Constable Barbara Knox, who had seemed so eager to join the team at Pitt Street. He read the email, amused to see that the DC had been keen to relay this information to him. One Mercedes dealer had already had a firm trade in and there had been two telephone enquiries from an out-of-town dealership from owners of white Mercedes sports cars.

DCI Mumby had been uncharacteristically effusive about Knox’s capabilities and Lorimer had wondered if the senior officer had been hoping to offload the woman permanently onto his team for some reason. It happened in all walks of life, this kind of promotion in order to be rid of an abrasive element within a team. But if Barbara Knox had a fault it was that she was super efficient. Emailing him routine information at this hour seemed a bit unnecessary and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was that could not wait until his arrival at Pitt Street in less than an hour’s time.

She listened to the message once again, drawing in her breath as the woman’s voice became edgy. Barbara was useful, that was true, but she wasn’t quite the pushover that she had expected. Sex, or at least the anticipation of it, was a powerful weapon. She had lured three men to their death like one of the sirens from mythology, the promise of sex leading them to their doom. But the policewoman posed more of a threat. She could keep her at bay for now but eventually she might have to give in to the younger woman’s sexual demands, a prospect that did not fill her with any sort of joy. So far she had learned what she could about the investigation under her chosen guise, a freelance journalist. Barbara had laughed with a childlike glee when Diana had told the policewoman that undercover work forbade her from keeping a website, an excuse she had thought out carefully beforehand. Anything that smacked of cloak and dagger stuff tended to be a turn-on for that girl, she thought, her lip curling in distaste. But it relaxed into a smile again as another thought entered her mind: DC Barbara Knox had no inkling whatsoever that she was being seduced by the very killer she sought.

DC Knox had come in early as usual, a habit that was partly to do with the fact she was fastidious about starting up her computer in complete privacy and logging on to a variety of websites before her colleagues arrived. But then, if she was absolutely honest, the lack of a social life was possibly what made Barbara immerse herself in work. The policewoman grinned as she considered this thought. Perhaps having a social life like most of her colleagues would be a possibility now that she had met her new friend.