Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

‘Hey lads, here’s ma boss, Detective Super-intendent Lorrrimer!’ Sutherland roared out, pulling a reluctant Lorimer towards the others in his group. ‘What d’ye say we buy the man a drink?’

‘Thanks, Sutherland,’ Lorimer murmured, pulling his sleeve out of the other man’s grasp. ‘Got some business to attend to. Official business,’ he said sternly, hoping that his words would not rebound on him once Sutherland had gossiped about meeting him outside the Blythswood.

‘Oops, sorry, boss,’ Sutherland grinned at him then laughed and winked as though he knew exactly what sort of business a man got up to at this time of the morning in this part of the city. Waving, the DI rejoined his pals and Lorimer watched them disappear over the brow of the hill and on down towards Sauchiehall Street.

Cursing under his breath, Lorimer made his way across the now empty square and down towards Pitt Street. There was no sign of any woman waiting for custom tonight so he pulled up his coat collar against a sharp wind that had begun to knife his face and started to trace a circuit around the square. Shadows from the darkened streets fell across his path and, looking up at the street lamps ahead, Lorimer could almost imagine the female figures from his earlier dream. But there was no flesh and blood female here tonight to take the place of these spectral figures. Sighing, he decided to take a stroll downhill just in case he ran into any of the regular girls before turning back for his car.

Lorimer was almost level with the entrance to police headquarters when he slowed down to look up at the building. The street might be deserted but lights from one of the offices above shining into the night showed traces of a human presence. Someone was doing a spot of overtime. His eyes followed the levels back down to the reception area and the darkened stairwell that led to the main hall where he had addressed the men and women from the press.

Suddenly his feet came to a halt. He had seen that woman in his dream before. And it was inside this very building. She was the stranger amongst the regular journalists who came daily, gathering for titbits like the rude starlings clustered around his bird table.

Lorimer frowned, making twin creases between his dark brows. Something wasn’t right, though. He was now certain that he had seen her in a different context, though where and when was a mystery. And, for some reason that he could not explain, it was the image of the first woman wrapped around that street lamp, her blonde hair tied back, that kept coming into his mind.

Maggie Lorimer groaned in her sleep as her husband slipped back into bed. Pulling the sheets over his body, Lorimer wished he could cuddle in to her warmth, but that would mean waking her up and he didn’t want to be so selfish. Tomorrow was not just a working day for them both: Maggie had all the preparation and work for her school’s Burns Supper. She’d mentioned that new woman, Lena or something her name was, trying to muscle in on what was for Maggie a pleasurable activity. She’d not been too happy about the supply teacher staying on, had she? Well, you couldn’t always choose your colleagues, he thought, remembering the drunken DI grabbing his arm in the street. Sutherland would have a whopper of a hangover in the morning and with a little luck would have forgotten all about seeing his boss in the passing.

‘Best idea is to speak to the warden at Robertson Street,’ Helen James told him. ‘Mattie Watson. Want me to square it with her?’

‘That’s probably a good idea,’ Lorimer replied. The warden was known to keep her charges under her wing like some sort of mother hen and Helen James had spent months cultivating a friendship with the woman.

‘Do you feel well enough to come along with me if she okays it?’ he added suddenly.

‘I don’t think so,’ the DCI replied. ‘The girls can be a tad unpredictable and I don’t feel strong enough to cope if any of them become nasty.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well,’ James continued, ‘not all of them look kindly towards the police. See us as out to get them, if you know what I mean.’

‘But you’ve done such a lot to help them,’ Lorimer insisted.

‘Aye, well, not all of them know that, do they? And there are girls coming on to the scene all the time who don’t know me from Adam. Look, why don’t I ring you back once I’ve spoken to the warden? Then you can talk to her yourself. See if you can use some of your legendary charm.’

She chuckled as she put down the telephone, wondering if the man who had been chosen to head up the Serious Crimes Squad had any notion of how his presence might go down at the drop-in centre. Who wouldn’t be charmed by a big, bonny lad like Lorimer, she thought dreamily, thinking of the missed chances she had had in her own love life. Ach, it’s all this stuff you’ve been reading, woman! Helen told herself, flinging down her magazine with its pages devoted to romance. Fair addled your brain! Time you were back at work, your mind on real life not stories. She flicked the ‘on’ button for the television and surfed between the channels. The velvet tones of the actor, John Cairney, made her pause and listen as he recited one of the more amorous poems of Robert Burns. Smiling despite herself, Helen James settled down to enjoy the programme. It was Burns day after all, she told herself, then wondered idly what sort of reception the bard would have got from the girls who frequented the drop-in centre.

‘Bet you never paid for it in your life, Rabbie,’ she said aloud, then stopped. Was that behind all of those brutal killings? Had some man refused to pay a woman’s price? Out of … what? Some warped sense of pride? Or some notion that he was above that sordid sort of transaction? Helen blinked, trying to imagine such a scenario, the words of poetry lost to her now as she gazed past the television screen. She rose, pressed the mute button to banish the actor’s lovely voice and lifted the telephone once more. Sooner Lorimer got over there and did some digging the better.

‘Mattie? It’s me, Helen James. Yes, okay DCI James. Listen, I wonder if you could do me a favour?’

The warden in the Robertson Street drop-in centre looked at the tall policeman from narrowed eyes. They were sitting in a back room that served as an office away from the main area frequented by the street women.

‘You don’t like me being here, do you?’ Lorimer asked candidly, his smile crinkling the corners of his piercing blue eyes.

‘The girls are happier with women around,’ Mattie Watson retorted.

‘Less of a threat to them?’ he suggested.

‘Something like that,’ she replied grudgingly. ‘You know many of them prefer to live with women, don’t you?’

Lorimer nodded. It was hardly surprising, given the way that so many of Glasgow’s prostitutes had been treated, that they had become lesbians. One familiar pattern was of early abuse at the hands of a father or father figure, then a decision to go on the game and earn money for the sexual favours that had already been stolen from them for nothing.

‘Men, for some of them, are merely the means to an end,’ Mattie said, breaking into his thoughts.

‘A punter for a hit,’ he mused.

‘Exactly. So, given that we can’t do as much as we want about getting them clean and off the game, we have to have a place where they can at least get some practical help.’

Lorimer nodded. Beside Mattie Watson’s desk were stacked boxes of leaflets that he knew would contain information about sexual health and advice on housing; probably the same as the posters fixed on the walls in this very office.

‘Do you encourage them to go on the Big Blue Bus?’ he asked. ‘They hand out stuff like that, don’t they?’ He pointed to the flyers displayed on the walls behind the warden.