Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

Call me Diana , the dark-haired woman had said, a quiet smile upon her face as though they both knew that her identity was something worth hiding. This investigative journalist who had worked on so many top secret missions was not going to endanger her very existence by blurting out her real name to a stranger in a coffee bar, now, was she? But they were no longer strangers to one another, Barbara told herself, remembering the other woman’s distinctive scent and the delicious feel of those fingers tracing a line across her cheek. So, Diana was her secret, a secret that she was happy to hug to herself. That Diana was eventually going to be running a story about the case was a thought that Barbara Knox pushed to the back of her mind. Weren’t they both working for the same outcome, after all? It was well known that undercover journos sometimes helped the police, so why should it be any different to assist Diana in her investigation if, in the long term, their aims were the same? And it wasn’t as if she had accepted a bribe, was it? Keeping her friend abreast of what was going on had not compromised her position here at HQ. No, Barbara told herself; if anything, her liaison with the dark-haired woman might even result in new intelligence being passed back, with DC Knox gaining even more plaudits from her new boss.

As though the thought had conjured him up, Barbara saw the tall figure of Detective Superintendent Lorimer through the frosted glass panel that separated her part of the office from the corridor outside.

‘Good work, Knox,’ he said, looking down to where Barbara sat at her desk. ‘Let me know if any other cars turn up, won’t you? I’ve arranged for officers to visit the owners,’ he added, dashing Barbara’s hopes of interviewing the mysterious-sounding Badica. Then, giving her a smile that lit up his blue eyes, he added, ‘See you’re an early bird like me,’ before heading back along to his own office.

‘Aye,’ Barbara whispered under her breath, ‘and we’ll see how many nasty wee worms we can catch between us, eh?’

Professor Solomon Brightman was also an early riser but for the simple reason that baby Abigail demanded her feeds at regular intervals and some inner body clock seemed to have selected fivethirty a.m. as her first meal of the day. Warm baths and a cosy room had done little to solve this problem and both Solly and Rosie were resigned to early nights simply so that they could have sufficient sleep to keep going through the day.

‘She’ll be better once she’s on mixed feeding,’ Rosie had sighed.

‘All my babies were the same,’ Ma Brightman had laughed, as though her son was making too much of a fuss when he had mentioned the baby’s constant wakefulness. ‘Sign of a clever child,’ his mother had added consolingly.

The problem of broken nights was one that all parents had to endure, but the psychologist allowed his thoughts to wander during these nocturnal strolls rocking the baby up and down, cradled in his arms, until she went back to sleep again. Now, Rosie was asleep too, the baby tucked into the crib by the side of their bed, contented at last.

The psychologist had spent much of the night thinking about what Lorimer had told him following his visit to the capital. Zena Forbes he could dismiss right away as she appeared to have a castiron alibi in the form of an old school chum who had been staying overnight with her. Hardy’s tale about seeing the deputy first minister kerb-crawling was more interesting. The socialist politician had had a grudge against Pattison and he lived in the area where the body had been found. Yes, the forensic experts might eventually be looking to match trace evidence found at the scene with Hardy, but something told Solly that this was not the man they were looking for.

Of the three, Raeburn interested him most. Why should Catherine Pattison have named the best friend of the victim as his potential killer? An ageing bachelor, Raeburn was known as a patron of the arts in Scotland as well as a hard-working politician who had defended his party’s lack of progress in achieving independence for Scotland. And that was not all; of the three of them, Raeburn was the only one who had had any previous experience with small firearms. But logic dictated that everything else was wrong about the man as a potential killer, Solly told himself; unless Mrs Pattison knew more about the politician than she was letting on.

Solly was standing at the large bay windows that looked down on Kelvingrove Park and across the city to its western edges. It was still dark outside and he could hear a fierce wind blowing. The lights from the street lamps outside seemed to waver and sway, blurred by the rain falling across his window. It was like a parody of his mind, he thought; wasn’t he trying to see through a sort of darkness? There were some things that were obscuring his vision, too; these three politicians amongst them. He had seen them all on television at one time or another and could remember the attractive woman, the Glasgow man, Hardy, and James Raeburn whose programme on contemporary art Solly had also followed at one time. The psychologist rubbed his eyes with both hands as though to erase the pictures of them from his mind, then turned from the windows to concentrate on the day ahead. He was still pursuing the case that Lorimer had been forced to abandon, meeting with any friends and family of the murdered street women, and today he had an appointment with Miriam Lyons’ father.

I’ll come to your office , Jeremy Lyons had said when Solly had called up the number Lorimer had given him. Give me a time , the solicitor had added in a brusque tone that sounded as if he were already looking at his diary to check a slot that was free.

Solly, who knew his own university timetable off by heart, had offered the man an hour mid-morning that he could fit between lectures. Now, in this time before dawn when sounds from the city were beginning to drift up to the houses above the park, Solly wondered why Miriam’s father had insisted on seeing him on his own without Miriam’s mother present and not at their address. Perhaps anyone who had business with their daughter’s death brought with them a sort of violation of their home. What sort of striving for normality must these poor parents have had? Not only coming to terms with Miriam’s death but its aftermath, the media poking and prying into every crevice of their personal lives. You didn’t have to be a psychologist to work that out, Solly reminded himself grimly.

The Jewish lawyer was right on time, Solly thought, seeing the man in the dark overcoat who stood on the corner of University Gardens checking his watch. His navy scarf was wound several times around his neck, the fringed ends flapping as the wind caught it and Solly wondered how long he had been standing there in the cold. He came away from the window and, leaving his door ajar, headed down the flight of stairs, ready to greet his visitor. Lyons looked up from where he stood on the pavement outside the Department of Psychology and, catching sight of Solly, he nodded as though recognising something reassuring in the psychologist’s appearance.

‘Mr Lyons.’

‘Professor Brightman.’ Gloved hands closed over Solly’s for a moment as the two men regarded one another. Jeremy Lyons was a man of around fifty, Solly guessed, noticing the dark hair receding and greying at the temples. But those deeply set brown eyes pouched with heavy folds of skin suggested someone much older. Solly knew that look; it was a look of grief beyond normal suffering that Jeremy Lyons shared with others in the aftermath of violent death.

‘Please come up.’ Solly waved a hand at the open door and ushered the man into the building and upstairs to his capacious office.