Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

The white-coated scientist grinned in a moment of quiet triumph: there was now a massive link between each of these murders, since he had been able to match DNA from particles found in the Tracey-Anne Geddes case with traces from the crime scene productions concerning Jenny Haslet. The traces picked up from the more recent victim might be minute but they were sufficient for this particular forensic biologist to be confident that he could stand up in a court of Scottish law and state that there was a strong probability that whoever had murdered Jenny Haslet had also killed the prostitute who had been working the drag. The scientist shifted his spectacles from the bridge of his nose and smiled again as he rubbed his eyes. He knew at least one police officer who was going to like this.

‘You beauty!’ Detective Superintendent Lorimer whispered under his breath as the voice on the telephone outlined the latest forensic discovery. It was usual for forensic reports to take days, or even weeks, to come through, but the men and women working on these cases were savvy enough to let him have any fresh information as it came in. He might no longer be officially involved but a word here and there had let his friends in the forensic sciences know he wanted to be kept in the loop.

‘Thanks, thanks a lot,’ Lorimer said warmly. ‘I owe you big time for this one, believe me.’

It took only a matter of seconds to forward the email report to Solly and Helen James. Lorimer’s smile faded as he thought of the case that he had been ordered to shelve; there was something about these street women murders that needed more attention, not less. Failure to make any headway could see another bloody corpse flung into the dark corner of a pend. Well, if Maggie could endure his absence for a few nights, then he’d be rooting about in the city, seeing what he could find by himself.

Meantime he had instructed the Lothian and Borders officers to keep a sharp watch on Catherine Pattison, not merely for her own protection from the press pack, but because, as he had warned his counterpart on the Edinburgh force, he suspected that she might be impeding her husband’s case by deliberate time wasting. The three supposed suspects she had named had been passed over to Lothian and Borders now and there was a general feeling that both Zena Fraser and James Raeburn had nothing whatsoever to do with their colleague’s murder. It was partly a matter of eliminating them from the scene of crime, Lorimer had assured them. Frank Hardy, though, posed a different sort of problem. Living so close to the murder scene meant that Hardy’s movements on the night of the murder would have to be examined in greater detail.

Lorimer drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk, trying to recall the tone of voice the MSP had used when he had mentioned Catherine Pattison. Cathy , he’d called her. And had there been a slight wistfulness there or had Lorimer imagined it? Perhaps the enmity that had existed between the two men had its origins in something much more basic than politics. He sat back for a moment, wondering. If Hardy and Catherine Pattison had been having an affair then that would have given one or both of them a reason to want Edward Pattison out of the way. There had been no love lost between man and wife, if the woman’s reaction to his death was anything to go by. A serial philanderer, Pattison was not going to be mourned greatly by that dark-haired beauty in her Murrayfield mansion. Lorimer thought back to Solly’s enigmatic text : Cherchez la femme , he’d written. Well, that could mean one of two things, couldn’t it? Femme in French did not only mean a woman — it could also refer to a wife.

The road was endless as is the way in dreams. A shroud of mist seemed to surround him, giving no hint as to what lay ahead as he walked along the wet pavement. His feet, he noticed, made no sound and there was an unnatural quietness in what he knew to be a busy city. Just a little ahead was a street lamp and under it, a woman who smiled at him as he passed it by, her fair hair tied back in a thin black ribbon. As he passed she opened her mouth as if to laugh and he saw her tongue emerge like a snake’s, thin, forked and red as though to strike. But when he looked again, sweating and fearful, she was only a little girl swinging on the lamp post and singing some foolish song. The sudden sound made him start as though he would awaken from the vision that held him but something stronger than fear urged him on.

From behind a stone column another woman emerged, thin and dark, her eyes boring into his. She lifted her hand and beckoned him and it was then that he noticed her fingernails painted scarlet and filed into cruel points. Some force beyond his power compelled him towards her and then she was opening her mouth and swallowing him whole, a throbbing darkness taking him into that confined space that always made him scream in terror.

Lorimer woke up and felt the sweat trickle down his chest. It was all right. Everything here was familiar; Maggie’s sleeping form a source of comfort in the darkened room. He took several deep breaths, trying to stifle the remnants of the images that had disturbed his sleep. Then, blinking hard, he stopped. He had seen that woman’s face before, the dark-haired female who was, in this dream, also the blonde who had appeared before her. There was something, something that he could not remember from the past. A case, perhaps?

Frowning, Lorimer looked at the luminous digits on his bedside clock. It was past two a.m., a time when a different sort of life was happening in the city. Clubs could be emptying by now, hotels disgorging the last guests from late-night revelries. Maybe the dream was a way of telling him to get out there and see for himself just what was happening in the heart of Glasgow? Being there, maybe asking some of the street girls questions about Tracey-Anne, would bring him back to the reality of the case.

Yet, as he dressed, Lorimer could not rid himself of the image of that woman’s face and her eyes as she lunged towards him.

The drag was quiet tonight, Lorimer thought as he left the warmth of the Lexus. He had decided to park outside the Blythswood Hotel close enough for any CCTV cameras to note his presence. It was, he felt, important not to be seen skulking around but making his presence felt as openly as possible lest anyone misinterpret his motives. The file he had created was in the possession of both Helen James and Professor Brightman and so he felt reasonably assured about his movements should he ever be asked to account for them. He had his warrant card in his pocket so any questions he might ask the girls tonight would be official enough, he supposed. Combining both of these cases would be frowned upon by the top brass, he knew. Still, it was worth it to see what he could make of Pattison’s relationships with the Glasgow street girls, other than his public involvement with the Big Blue Bus project.

His initial impression of quietness was broken by shouts coming from across the square soon followed by a group of men and women laughing and screeching as they rounded the corner from West George Street. It didn’t take a detective’s skills to realise where that lot had been, he thought, seeing the men’s kilts and the women dressed up to the nines; Burns Suppers tended to be pretty flexible, stretching both sides of the bard’s birthday on January 25th and on into February. This group were singing and making what looked like an attempt at a sort of reel along the pavement and, as they approached, Lorimer noticed one man in particular detach himself from the group and stare at him for a moment. His red hair shone like a beacon under the street lamp and Lorimer groaned inwardly as he recognised DI Sutherland.

‘Out on the batter, eh, Lorimer?’ the man said as he approached. ‘Good night for it, an’ all,’ he remarked, looking his boss up and down as if to remark on the lack of dress clothes appropriate for the occasion. ‘Or maybe ye’re after somethin’ wi’ a bit mair flesh on its bones, eh?’ He hiccupped as he lunged forwards drunkenly, taking Lorimer by the arm.