Alex Gray - Sleep like the dead

Yet again a furore had broken out, the redtops changing their stance once more, this time baying for the blood of Doctor Richard Thackeray. This had all taken place last year but now the killer was due for sentencing. Alongside the media fuss, the future career of Thackeray was being mooted. Several of the better papers had run features on criminal profiling, not always portraying it in a positive light. Was that it, then? Had police forces around the country decided that profiling had had its day? As a mere DCI, Lorimer was not party to the sort of policing politics that determined things like that.

Perhaps he might have a word with Her Nibs, as they all called Joyce Rogers, the Assistant Chief Constable. She was a fair minded individual and would at least give Lorimer a chance to put forward Solly's case.

Omar was staring at the open door of his locker. Instead of the clean grey metal interior there was a piece of A4 paper fixed with Blu-Tack. The scrawl of words jumped out at him.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE BLACK BASTARD

The officer felt the sweat prickle under his collar. Giving a quick glance to see if anyone was watching, he tore the page off the door and crumpled it into a ball then thrust it right at the back of the locker, behind his gym kit and the rest of his stuff. His fingers felt stiff and clumsy as he tried to shut the locker and, as he turned the key, Omar noticed that the doorframe now sat at a slight angle.

Someone had clearly broken into his locker. You didn't need to be a CID officer to work that one out. But that wasn't why the young Egyptian was having difficulty in controlling his trembling hands.

It wasn't the first time.

Racist slurs like this had been the officer's main reason for quitting Grampian region's police force. He'd thought to have put it all behind him now. But, unless this was some sort of fiendish coincidence, it seemed as if his unknown tormentor had followed him all the way down from Aberdeen.

'Okay?' Annie Irvine smiled at the young man who approached her, his eyes looking everywhere except in her direction. DC Irvine groaned inwardly. Had she come on to him too strongly?

Embarrassed the poor guy? She sighed. Och well, better get on with the job in hand, pretend it never happened. Like it was ever going to, a small voice whispered into her ear. Why imagine that he'd fancy you? 'Hello,' Fathy's smile was strained but he was still being the polite foreigner, Irvine thought, waiting for her so he could open the car door.

'Right,' Irvine said brusquely. 'Boss's orders. Let's get gitting, partner,' she attempted a smile to lighten the atmosphere but the man beside her seemed occupied in thoughts of his own, turning away and looking out of the window as she drove away from headquarters.

By the time they had reached the motorway Irvine had reconciled herself to a merely platonic friendship with this particularly attractive male specimen of the human race.

'Been to Glasgow befine?' she asked brightly.

Fathy turned as if he had forgotten there was another person in the car beside him. 'What? Oh. Glasgow. Yes, loads of times. We came here for quite a few cultural visits when I was at school.'

'You went to school in Scotland?' Annie's eyebrows shot up, her notions of the man as an exotic stranger suddenly disappearing.

'Sorry, it's just that you don't sound all that Scottish.'

'Oh, yes,' Fathy replied, his mouth twisted into a strange little grimace of a smile. 'Both my parents are Egyptian but I was born here.

Went to boarding school in Perthshire. Father was insistent that his sons all had the best education possible,' he continued. 'And St Andrews University was the natural choice after that,' he shrugged.

'What did you study?' Irvine glanced away from the road ahead for a split second, curious to see his expression.

'Philosophy and maths,' Fathy told her. 'Perfect degree for anyone wanting to be a copper.'

His tone held just a trace of irony and Irvine wanted to push a wee bit harder, to nosy in to the Egyptian's past to find out more, but something stopped her. Be cool, she told herself. Keep to neutral ground. It was something she'd learned from watching Lorimer with people in interview situations.

'Did you not go on to do honours, then?'

'Yes, actually. Got a first as it happens.' He shrugged again as if it was no great shakes or else he was shy of being seen as a brainy type.

Irvine kept her eyes on the road as she digested this snippet of information. 'Och, I just did an ordinary at Strathclyde,' she told him. 'Never could do maths.' She gave him a wicked grin. 'I'll get you to do my time sheets if I ever get stuck, eh?' She moved her elbow as if to dig him in the ribs, a gesture that said at once that she was only being a pal, a mate, nothing more.

Irvine drove on, her thoughts taking a different turn. Fathy's well-educated voice had made her think he'd received his education abroad, at an international school perhaps. Or maybe that he'd been sent to the UK by his family. It had never once dawned on her that he might actually consider himself Scottish. Don't be so small-minded, woman, she scolded herself.

What made you join the polis? she wanted to ask. But again, something prevented the words from being uttered. He might well ask her the same question. And Annie Irvine knew that her standard answer to such a question, to help the community, might not fool this man as it had fooled so many. No, better to keep these things to herself. She was doing okay now, wasn't she? CID might be a sideways move but it felt like progress. Annie Irvine could be proud of her career path so far. Joining up, for her, had been purely cathartic; a move to signal that she could face her fears head on, maybe even be rid of them for good, one day.

'Right, let's see what this lot have to say for themselves,' she muttered, turning into the car park of the call centre. 'See if anyone can throw a bit of light on Mr Scott.' Thoughts about Omar Fathy had to be shelved for now.

And any thoughts about her own past would be easily forgotten in the process of this investigation.

Amit drained the last of his coffee. It was the quiet part of the day when the staff had an hour to go about their own business.

Some, like Paramsit Dhesi, drove over to the south side of the city to spend a little time with families. Others drifted away from the restaurant in twos or threes, chattering in a Punjabi dialect that reminded him all too clearly of the streets of Lahore.

Visions of the city came to him like snapshots: the still lakes of water reflecting sun-drenched skies at noon; the market with people constantly coming and going, its smells of ripe fruit, cattle and dust wafting in the stifling air; the train cutting through the city, its open windows full of travellers staring out at the wonders of Lahore. He remembered the family house in Gulberg, its pink washed walls and curving windows: each sill and lattice detail decorated in the style of a Mughal's palace. Then there were the clubs, his father's meetings at the Moslem League, the polo matches. But these pictures in his mind were like something he had seen in a film or a dream, not part of his own history The images of bloody bodies, his mother's scream as the Inter Services Intelligence dragged his father away, these were the stuff of nightmares, locked away in some deep, dark part of his brain, never brought out willingly for examination.

The sound of crates being delivered to the back door made Amit stir from his reverie. He was in Glasgow now, safe in the place that he was beginning to call his own.

His mouth turned up at the corners as he recalled the first time he had sat at this very table. A coffee, that was all he had asked for, but that one request had brought him so much more.