Alex Gray - Sleep like the dead

See what you can find out from the GP she was registered with, he had suggested. She may not have been fit to work for health reasons. If so, then there might be a trail of benefits paid in her name that they could source. And that would be another bit of the jigsaw that took time to find. He sighed again. Try as they might to make progress in a case as quickly as they could, there were always elements that demanded patience; lab reports, ballistics, pathology results… things that had to wait for their slot in another professional person's busy schedule.

The DCI stood up and stretched. It was time to go home.

Maggie had so few days of her holidays left and he suspected she had begun to do some work for school, having given up on the thought of them both enjoying a break away. At least their evenings could be spent together.

'Sir?' DC Fathy whirled round as the DCI entered the room.

'Working a bit of overtime, Fathy?'

'It's the sister, sir,' Fathy shrugged as he glanced back at his computer screen. 'Just can't stop thinking about where she might be, so..

'So?' Lorimer cocked his head to one side, interested suddenly.

'Well, I thought if we looked at all the students from last year's intake and next year's new ones to come whose forenames were Marianne, we might find something.'

'And have you?'

Fathy shook his head. 'No, sir, but I did wonder..

'Yes?'

'Well, what if we called on these women and asked about their backgrounds? Asked to see ID like birth and marriage certificates?'

Lorimer took a step backwards and laughed. 'Any idea how many man hours that might take? And can you see Superintendent Mitchison agreeing to extra bodies for an action like that?' The DCI frowned suddenly as he uttered Mitchison's name. There was no love lost between the two senior officers but that wasn't something that young Fathy needed to know.

'No, sir,' Fathy hung his head for a moment and looked so disappointed that Lorimer gave in to his natural impulse, reached out and patted the young man on the shoulder. 'Look, it's not a bad idea and in ideal circumstances we might even go that far. But until we have evidence that Marianne Scott is still in the country we'd be in danger of wasting taxpayers' money' `So that's still to be determined, sir?'

Lorimer nodded. 'Aye. There's no trace of the woman having worked, paid stamps or anything in the last year so chances are she's somewhere overseas.' His mouth pursed in a sudden thought. 'Or working at some occupation that doesn't require official papers,' he said with a sigh.

Fathy nodded. He knew what the DCI meant. 'You think the woman might have slipped off our radar because she was involved in criminal activity or maybe was on the game?'

'She has to have supported herself somehow since her marriage broke up,' Lorimer reasoned. 'And it might even give us a clue as to why that happened.'

'You mean she could be an addict?' Fathy asked.

'Who knows?' Lorimer replied tiredly. 'Brother Billy mixed with plenty of them. Wouldn't be the first time a lassie got hooked then had to resort to selling herself to fund her habit.'

'Do we have anyone looking in that direction, sir? Maybe checking the usual drop-in centres used by local prostitutes?'

Not as yet,' Lorimer continued, mentally adding that to his tally, wondering if Fathy was about to offer to take on that task.

'Why not pack up for the night and come back tomorrow with a fresh mind, eh? It's still a lovely evening out there,' Lorimer added, nodding at the pale blue space above the city skyline.

'Right, sir. And thanks,' Fathy smiled a little uncertainly. There was a momentary pause and Lorimer stopped, waiting for the DC to continue.

'Good night, then,' the young man said at last. 'See you tomorrow, sir.'

Lorimer was still frowning as he reached the foot of the stairs.

Had Fathy something else on his mind?

But as he reached the car park his thoughts were already heading homewards, all notions of what the newest member of his team had or had not been about to share already forgotten.

As he turned the car into the driveway, Lorimer slowed down.

Maggie was on her hands and knees, weeding the flowerbed under the dining room window. She looked up at the sound of the car and the way her face lit up as she caught sight of him made his heart turn over. `Hiya, you,' she said, straightening up and rubbing the small of her back as he stepped out of the car.

'Mm, hiya yourself. You smell lovely,' he added, sinking his face into her hair as he bent to kiss her cheek.

'Already showered twice today. This heat! Weather forecast says we're in for thunder before the night's out.' Maggie broke away from him, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked up at a pale sky already flecked with pinkish clouds.

'Red sky at night…' Lorimer began.

'Is a load of…'

'Mrs Lorimer!' He gasped in mock horror.

'Sorry,' she grinned. 'It's what the kids at school say. Think we can't hear them half the time and the other half they know fine well we can.'

'Itching to get back are you?'

Maggie made a face as they entered the house together. Not yet. Wish we could have had a bit of a holiday first,' she mumbled.

'Sorry about that.' Lorimer sighed. 'Maybe we could take off to Mull for the September weekend, though.'

The bright smile his wife gave in response was pasted on to cover up her discontent, Lorimer knew. But she wouldn't complain.

Maggie Lorimer knew that crime didn't take a holiday nor did criminals plan their misdeeds just to thwart her own spells of vacation.

'Good idea,' she replied. Now come through and fire up that barbecue. I'm starving.'

'One, two, one, two, up, down… you must be joking!' Rosie muttered, darting a black look at the TV screen where an enthusiastic young lovely in a pink leotard was encouraging viewers of her DVD to bend all the way down to the floor.

She picked up the remote control and froze the screen, leaving the instructress with her mouth open mid-command.

'Ooh,' she puffed, her steps becoming faster as she approached the loo. This pregnancy thing. You heard all the other women's moans and didn't believe them really, till it happened to you. Like needing to go all the time. `Ah,' Rosie exhaled a sigh of relief as she sat on the toilet. It was the baby's pressure on her bladder, of course. Any doctor could tell you that. But it had been happening ever since this wee one in here had been no significant size at all.

As she washed her hands, Rosie thought about her impending leave and what she might do in the days running up to the birth of their child. Solly was not back officially until the end of September when his students began their first term. He was already preparing stuff, of course. In some ways he never stopped, she thought, pulling the light cord and waddling back into the large airy lounge that overlooked Kelvingrove Park. Take this evening, for example. Instead of coming home, he was lecturing on a course for young offenders.

Rosie shrugged as she sauntered across to the window. Would it do them any good? It depended on their level of willingness to respond, Solly had told her. The pathologist sat on the rocking chair placed at an angle in the bay window so that she looked out on the park and over the Glasgow rooftops towards the west.

They were so lucky, she reminded herself. Their baby would be brought up by educated parents who were loving and caring. Too many of the inmates of these young offenders institutions came from dire backgrounds of deprivation and crime.

As she gazed at the sky, Rosie let her mind wander. The colours of the setting sun seemed more vibrant than usual, reds tinged with streaks of purple like bruised flesh; the horizon's pale lemon reminding her of the waxy pallor of a bloodless corpse. She shivered, suddenly wishing it was dark and she could be rid of the images scudding violently across the heavens.