Alex Gray - A Pound Of Flesh

‘What’s with the Mercedes?’ a voice asked. ‘Surely we’re not looking for another link to the Pattison case?’

Lorimer stifled a sigh. Duncan Sutherland was always going to play devil’s advocate, wasn’t he?

‘We could be doing just that, Duncan,’ Lorimer admitted. ‘If what Dr Brightman thinks is correct, then we have a scenario where a female perpetrator is picking off punters in a white Merc in revenge for the prostitute killings.’

‘A prossie shooting three innocent men?’ Sutherland’s tone was full of derision.

‘Perhaps not a street woman, but someone close to them,’ Lorimer replied evenly. ‘As we have seen, this series of murders has required an organised mind and a lucidity that would probably not be found in most of these women.’

‘Too doped-up to see straight, never mind hit their target,’ someone else added.

‘Right,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘So we have two concurrent cases.’ He curled his fist, sticking up his thumb. ‘One, we see four prostitutes murdered in our city over a period of less than two years, all of them known to have worked the drag. Two,’ he lifted his index finger, ‘during that same period three men are killed in their Mercedes cars, one of them, our deputy first minister.’ Lorimer swept his gaze over the room of officers, each one focused on his words.

‘Now for the third part of this series of coincidences,’ he said quietly, raising a third finger. ‘It had initially escaped our notice, but each of the women just happened to have been murdered on the night of a full moon.’

There was a rustling of diaries as some of the officers checked the date.

‘Last night wasn’t a full moon, sir,’ Rita Livingstone said at last.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ Lorimer said. ‘But Lily wasn’t murdered, was she?’

‘Are you seriously wanting us to believe that some head case is out there baying to the moon?’ Sutherland asked.

‘It has been documented that patients suffering some types of mental disorder can be more seriously disturbed on the nights of a full moon.’

‘Looks like we need to be careful next week, then,’ another voice chimed in. ‘Tuesday the seventh is the next one.’

Lorimer gave a start. That was the date of his fortieth birthday, an evening he had promised to keep free to spend with Maggie for the celebration dinner she’d arranged.

‘Once we have circulated a photofit of this man,’ he pointed to the picture behind him on the screen, ‘there might not be any need for extra vigilance on that particular date. Maybe we’ll have caught him by then,’ he said grimly.

All eyes turned to the black and white image behind the detective superintendent. A man with dark hair and high Slavonic cheekbones stared back at them. It was not the picture of a monster some of them might have expected to see; in fact the technician responsible for creating the e-fit had shown the suspect’s features to have a certain boyish charm. That, thought Lorimer, was one of the enduring things about chasing criminals: many of them look just like you or me , he continued to tell his junior officers. And this lot here knew that full well, even hardened cynics like Sutherland who saw junked-up street women as simply worthless and killers as evil monsters. The truth was usually far more subtle than that.

‘What are you going to tell the press?’ a voice asked and Lorimer turned to see DC Barbara Knox, her eyes bright and eager as though this was something that concerned her.

‘I think we have to tread warily,’ Lorimer answered. ‘If we give them this photofit then that could drive the man underground.’ He turned back to point at the image. ‘I think you’ll agree that there is a slight hint of Eastern European about him. And we don’t want him to head for those particular hills. So,’ he went on, ‘officers at all airports and seaports will be given this picture and a briefing, but the press will be kept out of it for now. If we fail to make any real headway, it might mean a nationwide alert, though. So, it’s back to some of our original ground. If we are right, and this man was responsible for attacking Carol Kirkpatrick and Tracey-Anne Geddes, then someone in the city may have supplied him with the weapon he used. So, let’s see if this picture can jog a memory or two.’

As Lorimer entered his room he could hear a ‘woooooo!’ coming from the far end of the corridor, no doubt some clown (Sutherland?) mimicking a wolf howling at the moon.

He scratched his cheek thoughtfully. The Malmaison Hotel where he was to dine with Maggie wasn’t too far away from headquarters. If he had a surveillance team organised for that night, would the man in the white Mercedes make an appearance? Or would it be better to have special officers focused on the CCTV cameras around the drag? Perhaps undercover police officers might be required to take the places of the Glasgow street women that night? These and other questions filled the detective superintendent’s mind as he considered his strategy.

‘I need to see you,’ Barbara whispered into her mobile. ‘Things have started to hot up at this end.’

‘Meet you at our usual place. Seven o’clock?’

‘I’ll be there,’ Barbara replied, breathing hard. The Starbucks cafe on Bothwell Street had become something of a howf for the two women; Barbara preferred to see it as a romantic location, since it had been the scene of their initial getting together, rather than a convenient stopping point between Pitt Street and Central Station.

She glanced at the clock on the office wall, calculating how long it would be before she saw Diana Yeats again, then sighing at the long hours between. Still, if she could finish all this stuff about Andie’s Saunas and get on with the meatier details of the new lead, the time should fly by. It was strange, Barbara thought to herself, how this case had revolved around one man, Edward Pattison, but that now it had turned and twisted in ways she could never have envisaged. That, Barbara, is why you joined up, the detective constable reminded herself with a grin.

The tall dark-haired woman glided into a booth near the back of the crowded cafe, placing her satchel on a seat beside her. The place was busy enough to preclude any intimacy and noisy enough to drown out whatever it was the policewoman wanted to tell her.

Diana Yeats swallowed a mouthful of coffee and set down her espresso cup. The night when she had almost got on the Big Blue Bus had given her plenty to think about, not least a persistent image of that tall man with the piercing blue eyes. Diana shivered. She had come so close to the very man who wanted to hunt her down. Yet perhaps it was the killer of the street women who had haunted his thoughts too, not just the person who had shot dead three punters in their fancy white cars.

She saw Barbara through the plate glass window, hurrying along to the entrance, her coat flapping untidily around her, revealing her flabby figure. The new hairstyle had only served to emphasise those chubby cheeks and layers of flesh beneath her chin and to Diana it only underlined the girl’s desire to make an impression. That was all to the good, she thought. She’d caught her now, like a greedy fish mouthing its way towards a tasty fly and DC Knox was being slowly but surely reeled in.

‘Hi.’ Barbara sat down beside her on the leather banquette, plonking a chaste kiss on Diana’s cheek.

Resisting the urge to rub it off, Diana turned to her and smiled. ‘Lovely to see you, darling. Had a good day?’

Barbara felt a rush of pleasure at those words. ‘Wait till I tell you … ’ she began.

Diana placed one finger to her lips then glanced around as though to check if anyone was listening to their conversation, a simple enough ruse to heighten the cloak-and-dagger atmosphere that this policewoman loved.