Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

‘Sit over here by the radiator,’ he urged, nodding towards the pair of comfy chairs that flanked the heater. Lyons sat down on the edge of the seat without unbuttoning his overcoat, the scarf still wound around his neck.

‘Would you like some tea?’ Solly asked, lifting up a box of assorted teabags that he kept for his students.

‘No, no, I must get back … ’ Lyons hesitated.

‘A herbal tea, perhaps? Just to warm us up? I have some nice camomile,’ Solly said, flipping the switch on the kettle and pulling a pair of mugs off a shelf.

‘Well, all right, then,’ Lyons said. Solly turned away with a smile as he saw the lawyer take off his leather gloves then begin to unwind the dark blue scarf. A cup of tea to ease any tension in a subject was always good psychology. And this man looked as if he had long forgotten how to relax.

‘Thank you,’ Lyons said as he took the mug and looked up at Solly, his mournful eyes full of much more than mere gratitude for a warming cuppa. ‘You have a daughter?’ he began, after taking the first sip.

‘Yes,’ Solly told him.

‘I thought as much. You have a sympathetic manner, Professor Brightman. You understand about fathers and daughters, then?’ Solly smiled. ‘She’s only three months old,’ he said.

‘But that bond of love…?’ Lyons tailed off, looking at Solly as though no more words needed to be said.

Solly nodded, wagging his beard sagely in agreement.

‘I’ve been asked by Strathclyde Police to talk to the families of four victims of crime, your daughter being one of them,’ Solly began softly. ‘Miriam’s death was not like the other three,’ he added, ‘but it’s my job to look for any points of similarity in case we can find a pattern that might suggest the same perpetrator.’ He chose his words carefully, not just to keep the conversation on a more formal basis but to avoid any mention of violence that could disturb this already harrowed father.

‘What do you need to know?’ Jeremy Lyons asked, his voice suddenly low and weary as though he had told this story over and over countless times, which perhaps he had.

‘Tell me about Miriam,’ Solly said.

The psychologist listened, sipping his tea, as the story of a young life wrecked by drugs and wild excess was imparted. Miriam had been a studious girl at school, all set for a career in dentistry, when she had met up with a bad lot as Lyons referred to them. Then almost overnight it had seemed their perfect girl had become a rebellious teenager, staying out all night when she felt like it, missing school and eventually leaving home altogether to set up home with her newfound friends. Lyons had stormed at her, cajoled her, then in desperation offered her anything she wanted to come home to a mother and father who were at their wits’ end. But it had been futile. Miriam had changed so much, he told Solly with a heaviness in his tone that spoke of a final relinquishing of his beloved girl to the life she had chosen. On the few occasions when she did come home (always looking for money) they had been shocked at her appearance, how thin and gaunt she had become.

‘She only came home looking for money to spend on drugs, of course,’ Lyons told him sadly. ‘And one day I simply said no .’ He passed a hand across his eyes. ‘We never saw her again until … ’ He stopped suddenly, biting his lip to prevent a sob issuing from his throat.

The rest of Miriam Lyons’ history was known to Solomon Brightman. How she had become a prostitute to fund her drug habit, how the hostel where she had stayed had thrown her out and how she had been found, floating in the murky waters of the Clyde. But the final chapter was still unclear. And that was something Solly needed to know.

‘You stopped working after your daughter’s death?’ Solly said at last, changing the subject to bring the conversation back to a semblance of normality.

‘I resigned from my practice,’ Lyons admitted. ‘But I still work,’ he said. ‘Actually I work for nothing these days. Not the stereotypical image of a Jew, is it?’ he said, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face.

‘What do you do?’

‘After Miriam died my wife and I wanted to find out much more about prostitution in the city.’ He shrugged. ‘It probably began as something that was purely cathartic, maybe still is if I’m truthful,’ he said. ‘Anyway, nowadays I’m a volunteer on the Big Blue Bus, have you heard of it?’

Solly nodded. The project of the Big Blue Bus served to give street women advice and help about coming off drugs and finding places of safety to live. It had begun as a Christian outreach but was now funded by several different religious organisations. The prostitutes knew the bus would pick them up at various points along the drag during the wee small hours, times when the dropin centres were normally closed.

‘Funny old world,’ Jeremy Lyons mused as he set down his mug on the floor by his chair. ‘There’s that politician been shot and I was only talking to him on the bus about three weeks ago.’

‘Edward Pattison?’ Solly asked, trying to conceal his amazement.

‘Yes, the SNP man. I’d had a meeting with him at Holyrood to discuss the possibility of government funding for a women’s refuge. He asked if he could come over to Glasgow and see what the project was doing.’

‘Pattison visited the Big Blue Bus when it was doing its rounds?’ Solly asked.

Lyons nodded. ‘He was great with the girls. Chatted away to them quite happily.’ He shook his head. ‘What a waste,’ he said, ‘a man with gifts like that. He had such charm, what is it they call it? Charisma, that’s the word. He had these girls quite enthralled, you know.’

‘You liked him?’ Solly asked.

Lyons frowned suddenly. ‘Funny you should ask that. I feel that I should have liked him but … ’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘He was a bit overwhelming for me, professor. A bit too charming, if that’s possible.’

Jeremy Lyons looked up at Solly and his dark eyes widened. ‘He was the sort of man you and I might have warned our daughter to avoid,’ he said slowly as though the idea had only just occurred to him.

Later, after his second class of the morning had trooped out of the lecture theatre, Solly had time to think over his meeting with the lawyer. Not only had Edward Pattison had contact with prostitutes but he had also been invited to assist the project that was designed to help these women come off drugs and leave the streets for good. Solly did not believe in coincidences any more than his friend, Lorimer, up at Pitt Street: Edward Pattison’s death seemed to be linked with more than those of the other two businessmen whose bodies had been found in their white Mercedes cars.

Had Solly now found a link between the two major cases that had been taken over by the Serious Crimes Squad? The chief constable had issued a command to Lorimer to concentrate on the senior politician’s murder. So, Solly mused, perhaps it was time to talk to someone who knew more about the deaths of these street girls than anyone else.

Helen James put down the phone with a sigh. The days since her operation had merged into one, with sleep and more sleep as the combination of anaesthetic and the recent punishing regime at work took their toll. He sounded nice, this professor. She’d heard of him, of course. Who in Strathclyde hadn’t? ‘Solomon Brightman,’ Helen said aloud, relishing the psychologist’s name. ‘Solomon the Wise.’ She smiled as she thought of the Old Testament king whose sagacity had earned him universal fame. Well, it would certainly be a diversion for the DCI in her enforced recuperation. She had nobody now in her division that she really wanted to see. Fairbairn had given her a ring, right enough, she admitted grudgingly, but that was out of courtesy, not friendship. And right now she would have welcomed visits from some old friends.