Alex Gray - Shadows of Sounds

‘I’m looking for Karen Quentin-Jones. She was at your rehearsal last night, wasn’t she?’ Lorimer swung his chair away from the policewoman’s gaze.

‘Of course. What seems to be the problem?’

‘I don’t know if there is one yet. Her husband thinks she’s disappeared.’

There was silence on the other end as the Concert Manager digested this piece of information.

‘Sorry. She was here last night, all right. Had to be, seeing she’s taken over as Leader. It’s in her contract. Do you want me to ask around, Chief Inspector? See if anybody saw her after the rehearsal?’

‘Could you? I can rely on your discretion, of course,’ Lorimer replied.

‘Of course,’ Phillips answered, both men knowing full well that Lorimer was telling, not asking.

Lorimer swung back in his chair. Annie Irvine was still waiting by the door, her impatience barely concealed.

‘OK. What’s up?’

The policewoman moved swiftly towards Lorimer’s desk and, putting her hands on the edge, sat down in front of him without being asked. Taking a closer look at her, Lorimer realised that she was seriously agitated.

‘It’s Sergeant Wilson. He’s at the Southern General.’

‘What?’ Lorimer was half way out of his seat when the policewoman waved her hands at him.

‘No. It’s not him. There was an accident. That lad he was after. The one he spoke to at the Royal Concert Hall. He was knocked down. He’s in a bad way, seemingly. Can you go down, sir? Sergeant Wilson wanted me to ask you right away.’

But Lorimer was already on his feet, pulling his jacket from the coat stand.

‘Thanks, Annie.’ He noticed her white face and suddenly felt guilty. ‘Don’t know how you put up with me sometimes,’ he added, patting her shoulder as he strode past her.

‘Me neither,’ Annie whispered under her breath, closing Lorimer’s door behind her.

Being dead was the biggest buzz that Flynn had ever experienced. There was an absence of pain, an absence of any kind of feeling in his body but a real burst of fireworks inside his brain. He’d not expected it to be so white or that the white could be full of such brightness as if someone had switched on a 1,000 watt light bulb in his head. The sensation was of floating weightless in a sea of shining clouds. Flynn knew instinctively that this would go on forever. Eternity was here and now, moving slightly forward towards another light even more dazzling than the one he was leaving behind. It smashed against the optic nerves like molten metal and he felt the old sensation of screwing up his eyes against the brightness of the sun.

When he opened them the first thing he saw was another pair of eyes gazing down into his own. They were pale blue like a sky washed clean after a rainstorm and they held a question in them. Flynn was helpless in the blueness, his clouds of light melting under him as he answered the question. Yes, he was alive after all. Yes, he was here, wherever here might be. Flynn let the blueness wash over him like a blanket, surrendering to its strength, then a small sigh escaped him and he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

‘There was nothing I could do,’ Alistair Wilson shook his head in despair as the two men walked slowly down the hospital corridor. ‘He just took off like a rocket and before I knew it that van was screeching to a halt. It all happened so quickly.’

Lorimer gave a sigh and patted Wilson’s shoulder. ‘I know that and the folk that witnessed the accident know that but we still have to convince Mitchison.’

‘I suppose he’s got steam coming out of his ears, then?’ Wilson asked.

Lorimer didn’t answer for a moment, chewing the ragged end of a fingernail. ‘He’s got a bee in his bonnet about this case. I can’t quite figure it out.’

‘Money, probably. The resources on this one are phenomenal.’

Lorimer shook his head. ‘There’s more to it than that. He seems to be on a permanently short fuse. It’s as if …’ He stopped as a trio of chattering nurses passed them by.

Wilson looked up, noting the thoughtful expression that flitted across his DCI’s face. ‘As if?’ he prompted.

‘As if he knows something about George Millar. Or Poliakovski. Or Jimmy Greer,’ Lorimer raised his hands and slapped them against his thighs. ‘God! I don’t know. Maybe it’s lack of sleep. Imagination playing tricks on me. But I persistently get the feeling that the Super knows more than he’s letting on.’

Wilson raised his eyebrows. ‘Mitchison? No. I don’t buy that for a minute. He’s too goody-goody. Mr Do-It-By-The-Book. No. You just need a decent night’s kip.’

The two men turned out of the corridor towards the exit. Grey clouds that had built up all day were now leaden in the night sky. Lorimer zipped up his jacket against the blast of cold air that hit them as they stepped out of the warmth of the Southern General Hospital. It was the kind of wind that his mum had always described as ‘blowing off snow’. Looking at the weight of clouds above them, Lorimer thought she’d have been right. It was still only late October but it wouldn’t surprise him to wake up to a white world tomorrow.

The Lexus was parked beneath a street lamp. It had been hours since he’d left it there. Hours that had been passed sitting by the bedside of Joseph Alexander Flynn of no fixed abode, willing him to come back. The boy’s head had been swathed in bandages, his eyes two blackened masses. Lorimer had sat next to the figure beneath the sheets watching his stillness. The longer he remained the more compulsive it became to remain, waiting and watching. It was only when Flynn opened his eyes, screwing them up as if in pain that Lorimer knew he had reached him.

For a moment he wondered if that was what fatherhood felt like, that rush of protection for someone more vulnerable than oneself. Then the moment was gone and Lorimer knew it was time for them to make a move.

As he swung out into Govan road, Lorimer thought about Mitchison. Would he really throw the book at Alistair Wilson or would his Detective Sergeant convince him that there had been no dereliction of duty on his part? He remembered George Phillips, his old Super. Curmudgeonly, loud and sometimes irascible, the Superintendent had nevertheless dealt fairly with each and every one of his officers.

There would never have been this absurd feeling hanging over them, a feeling of uncertainty, as if every move made or initiative taken were somehow going to be judged.

For a time Lorimer had contemplated a move away from mainstream detective work. There had been a job going at Tulliallan for a training officer, but he’d never really got around to applying for it. He’d sent for details, right enough, but that was as far as he’d taken the matter. For now he was stuck with a boss he couldn’t respect and a job he couldn’t abandon.

Solomon Brightman looked out over the skyline of Glasgow as the taxi made its ponderous way through the slushy streets. It was a view he had come to love. He knew this from the first time his heart had lifted on returning from London all those years ago. The train pulling into Central station had crossed the River Clyde and Solomon had seen the cranes, the hotels and the familiar spire of Glasgow University. That was the time Glasgow had truly become home to the man with the black beard and shining eyes whose exotic appearance did not excite remarks more provocative than, ‘Y’all right, pal?’ or ‘Aye, son, another lousy day, i’n’t it?’

Today was a lousy day, right enough, but it had begun with a gasp of pleasure as Solly had thrown open the velvet curtains on to a landscape purified by the overnight snowfall. His windows looked out over the west of the city above Kelvingrove Park and the graceful curving terraces that marched up from Woodlands Road. The morning had brought two new elements to sour his outlook, however; a light drizzle had turned much of the snow into a soupy brown mess and Superintendent Mitchison’s ingratiating tones over the telephone had ruffled his senses with an irrational feeling of disquiet.