Alex Gray - A small weeping

The feather wafted upwards, a fine wispy curve, and for seconds it sailed the air. Slowly, slowly it began its downward journey, tacking and spinning on the currents; slight, light, hovering and shimmering. The dust motes danced against the sunlight like a cloud of gnats as the white feather passed them by. It sank at last in a curtsey and settled on the bed, still as the body below the sheets.

There was something appropriate about the fog blotting out everything beyond the station, thought Lorimer as he made his way through George Square. It was as if the natural world was trying to obliterate whatever waited for him behind the swirling curtain of mist. The red surface below his feet was darkened to the colour of old blood, statues loomed out of the mist like silent sentinels and even the tops of buildings were obscured by the pall of dankness, giving an impression of walking through some subterranean chamber. He’d be doing that soon enough. The woman’s body had been discovered in the lift between the upper and lower platforms of Queen Street station. Who she was and how she came to be there at all were the questions uppermost in the Detective Chief Inspector’s mind.

Lorimer had been woken from a fitful sleep around three a.m. After the Transport Police had alerted the Area Control room in Cowcaddens, the call had filtered through to Lorimer as the on-duty DCI. Now he was rounding the corner of George Street, his eyes drawn to the striped scene-of-crime tape cordoning off the station’s entrance. No taxis would be plying their trade up here for a while, that was for sure, he thought, seeing the line of official vehicles parked on North Hanover Street. He’d deliberately left his own car across the square, wishing to approach the railway station on foot as a stranger might have done. Perspective, that’s what he’d wanted. But all he’d found was this Gothic landscape.

A spiteful little wind blew along the narrow, cobbled lane across the road. It caught the back of his neck, reminding him, too late, of his wife Maggie’s sleepy advice to put on a scarf. The uniformed officer standing outside was shifting from one foot to another, beating his gloved hands across his arms in an effort to keep himself warm.

‘Sir?’ The police constable came to immediate attention as he recognised Lorimer.

‘Been here long, Constable?’

‘About half an hour, sir. We were in the area,’ the PC explained, making a move to unlock the glass doors into the station. They opened with a sigh and Lorimer stepped into the light.

Inside was not much warmer, fog swirling along the tracks from the black hole beyond the length of a parked train. Lorimer stared out into the void, wondering.

‘What about Transport? Wasn’t there an officer on duty tonight?’

‘Supposed to be, but they don’t always stay in the station for the entire shift, sir,’ the constable replied, not meeting Lorimer’s eye. Someone’s head was going to roll for this all right, especially if the Press got hold of it. But the DCI didn’t seem to be in a hurry to lay the blame at anyone’s door. Instead he continued to stare down the track as if his vision could penetrate the tunnel’s hidden gloom beyond platform 7.

His eyes wandered back along the length of the platform, coming to rest on blue painted plywood sheeting that surrounded the lift area.

‘That was quick. Who rigged that lot up, then?’

‘It was like that, sir. The lifts are being renovated at the moment.’

‘So how do we gain access?’

‘It’s downstairs, sir,’ the constable replied. ‘We’ve got the area sealed off at platform 8 on the lower level.’

‘The stairs are over by the other side, aren’t they?’ Lorimer murmured, looking round but making no immediate move across the forecourt of the station. He wasn’t squeamish but part of him had wanted to see the station empty and open like this before the body downstairs took precedence in his immediate thoughts. He walked back along the platform towards the lifts then turned to face the building on the opposite side of the rails, the stationmaster’s office. Even standing on tiptoe, Lorimer was unable to see the upper windows for the train parked beside him. He nodded to himself, wondering who could have had access to the lifts during the night. There’d be plenty of questions for the stationmaster to answer.

A scattering of traffic cones surrounded the entrance to the lift, a device on somebody’s part, no doubt, to assist the Scene of Crime boys when they turned up. Lorimer approached the blue hoardings and peered in. The concertina doors had been pushed aside and he could see a single line of light from the shaft below. Voices murmured beneath his feet. Looking up into the empty socket of the lift mechanism, Lorimer saw only a tangle of cables. With a sigh he turned and headed for the stairs that would take him to the lower level platforms of Queen Street Station.

By contrast to the violet blue gloominess of the upper level, platforms 8 and 9 dazzled the eyes. The walls were wasp-yellow with a lip for seating and between the two platforms ran a central area supported by filthy, black pillars.

A huge bear of a man dressed in a British Rail donkey jacket emblazoned with orange fluorescent panels looked up as Lorimer approached the lift doors.

There was something like relief in the railwayman’s expression; authority had arrived in the form of this tall figure whose hand took his in a reassuringly firm grip.

‘This is Mr Gibson, sir.’

‘You’re the stationmaster?’

‘No, sir. But I was in charge tonight. I’m the supervisor,’ the man shook his head as if somehow he’d been responsible for the whole sorry mess within his station. ‘I, well…’ he tailed off, raising a hand towards the lift. Then, dropping it with a sigh, he stepped back as if to introduce the main character in this early morning drama.

Lorimer gave the railwayman an understanding nod and turned towards the light flooding out from the lift.

The woman lay in one corner away from the door, her head resting against the wall. For an instant she looked like a rag doll that had been flung down by some petulant child, her legs splayed awkwardly. Long strands were escaping from a plastic clip that skewered her hair. Lorimer could see the gaping mouth that had opened in protest as her last breath was cut off. But it was her eyes that would disturb his sleep for weeks to come. Their expression of terror made his head resonate with her scream. He could hear it echoing around the damp walls of the station.

Lorimer would be glad when a police surgeon came on the scene to close those eyes.

His gaze dropped to the woman’s neck. Two ends of a red chiffon scarf hung like banners either side of her chin. She’d been strangled. It was one of the commonest methods of killing that he’d seen in his career. Sometimes it was a domestic gone wrong, other times a crime of passion, but here? Just what had happened here?

He looked again at the red scarf and hoped to hell there’d be some traces for forensics. Lorimer stood back, taking in the dead woman’s clothing in one glance; the soiled white jacket, skimpy top and short skirt were like a badge of her trade. She wasn’t the first one on the game to be so brutally murdered in this city and she wouldn’t be the last. Lorimer had long since learnt to control the surge of pity and anger that threatened to overwhelm him in such cases but anyone observing that clenched jaw might see he wasn’t yet inured to either emotion.

Lorimer walked to one side of the body, oblivious to the stares of the two men standing outside, then stopped. He hunkered down closer, considering the woman’s hands. At first glance he’d thought they must be tied but now he saw that they had been deliberately arranged in a praying gesture, palm to palm, pointing towards her feet. Lorimer bent forward, his attention caught by the unnatural gesture. Was she holding something? Or was it just a shadow? Lorimer shifted his position so that the overhead light showed the woman’s hands more clearly. Fearful of disturbing the corpse before the arrival of the on-duty pathologist and the SOCOs, the DCI peered at the space between the flattened palms. Yes, there was something there. Lorimer drew a pen out of his inside pocket and gently lifted one white cuff.