A Pound Of Flesh Read online

  As the radio changed to the more poignant tune of ‘The Ashokan Farewell’, Maggie curled into a corner of the settee, shivering as though something unseen and unearthly had crossed the room. Why, when she should be having fun preparing this party, was she suddenly having a strange feeling that it would all end in tears? As the wind gathered strength and began to moan, she gave a jump, her heart beating faster.

  ‘Stop being so silly, woman,’ she said aloud, as if to utter words would break this malignant spell that seemed to be creeping over her.

  The sound grew louder but then turned into the more familiar noise of the Lexus, and Maggie breathed a sigh of relief. He was home! Shoving the notebook under a seat cushion, she smiled once again. It would be fine. He’d have a lovely party, she was determined to make sure that happened.

  The morning sky was streaked with pink as Lorimer looked out of the kitchen window that faced east. He’d slept soundly despite all the thoughts fighting for attention in his brain and now, at this early hour, ideas about Pattison’s death seemed to be more clearly in focus. That he had arranged to see some woman or other was possible. Of course it could have been a man, he thought, remembering James Raeburn’s wistful tone as he realised his old friend had hidden something from him. As for Hardy’s innuendoes, well maybe the socialist politician had been closer to the mark. Blythswood Square was part of the drag, and a well known place to pick up a better class of street girl, if in fact that was what Pattison had been doing.

  There was something … Lorimer frowned suddenly, taking a sip of his scalding hot coffee as he stared unseeingly at the garden outside the window. A pair of redwings foraging at the holly berries in next door’s tree failed to grasp his attention for once as he considered a possibility that had occurred to him. If Pattison had indeed been in the habit of soliciting prostitutes whenever his business took him to Scotland’s largest city, then was there a chance that he was already known to some of the girls who plied their trade there? The frustration of leaving Helen James’s case to concentrate on Pattison’s murder could be allayed if he had a legitimate reason to ask questions that might help find TraceyAnne’s killer as well. It was something of a coincidence that a top politician (who might or might not have been soliciting prostitutes, Lorimer reminded himself) had been killed so soon after the murder of Tracey-Anne Geddes. He wasn’t a great believer in coincidences and on this occasion there was absolutely nothing to link the death of a poor, junked-up street girl with Pattison’s shooting. Three businessmen in white Mercedes cars had been shot at point-blank range, all in lonely places far outside the city, whereas the murders of Carol Kilpatrick and Tracey-Anne Geddes had been vicious stabbings committed within its heart. Miriam Lyons and Jenny Haslet’s deaths had not fitted the same picture, although what Solly might come up with could change the perception that the two girls had been murdered by other hands. It was a sad fact of life that such vulnerable young women were sometimes targets for the more horrific excesses of violent men. Helen James’s file would undoubtedly show lots more examples from cases over the years.

  A familiar ring from his BlackBerry alerted Lorimer to an incoming email and he turned from the window, his concentration broken.

  It was, he was surprised to note, from that big girl, Detective Constable Barbara Knox, who had seemed so eager to join the team at Pitt Street. He read the email, amused to see that the DC had been keen to relay this information to him. One Mercedes dealer had already had a firm trade in and there had been two telephone enquiries from an out-of-town dealership from owners of white Mercedes sports cars.

  DCI Mumby had been uncharacteristically effusive about Knox’s capabilities and Lorimer had wondered if the senior officer had been hoping to offload the woman permanently onto his team for some reason. It happened in all walks of life, this kind of promotion in order to be rid of an abrasive element within a team. But if Barbara Knox had a fault it was that she was super efficient. Emailing him routine information at this hour seemed a bit unnecessary and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was that could not wait until his arrival at Pitt Street in less than an hour’s time.

  She listened to the message once again, drawing in her breath as the woman’s voice became edgy. Barbara was useful, that was true, but she wasn’t quite the pushover that she had expected. Sex, or at least the anticipation of it, was a powerful weapon. She had lured three men to their death like one of the sirens from mythology, the promise of sex leading them to their doom. But the policewoman posed more of a threat. She could keep her at bay for now but eventually she might have to give in to the younger woman’s sexual demands, a prospect that did not fill her with any sort of joy. So far she had learned what she could about the investigation under her chosen guise, a freelance journalist. Barbara had laughed with a childlike glee when Diana had told the policewoman that undercover work forbade her from keeping a website, an excuse she had thought out carefully beforehand. Anything that smacked of cloak and dagger stuff tended to be a turn-on for that girl, she thought, her lip curling in distaste. But it relaxed into a smile again as another thought entered her mind: DC Barbara Knox had no inkling whatsoever that she was being seduced by the very killer she sought.

  DC Knox had come in early as usual, a habit that was partly to do with the fact she was fastidious about starting up her computer in complete privacy and logging on to a variety of websites before her colleagues arrived. But then, if she was absolutely honest, the lack of a social life was possibly what made Barbara immerse herself in work. The policewoman grinned as she considered this thought. Perhaps having a social life like most of her colleagues would be a possibility now that she had met her new friend.

  Call me Diana, the dark-haired woman had said, a quiet smile upon her face as though they both knew that her identity was something worth hiding. This investigative journalist who had worked on so many top secret missions was not going to endanger her very existence by blurting out her real name to a stranger in a coffee bar, now, was she? But they were no longer strangers to one another, Barbara told herself, remembering the other woman’s distinctive scent and the delicious feel of those fingers tracing a line across her cheek. So, Diana was her secret, a secret that she was happy to hug to herself. That Diana was eventually going to be running a story about the case was a thought that Barbara Knox pushed to the back of her mind. Weren’t they both working for the same outcome, after all? It was well known that undercover journos sometimes helped the police, so why should it be any different to assist Diana in her investigation if, in the long term, their aims were the same? And it wasn’t as if she had accepted a bribe, was it? Keeping her friend abreast of what was going on had not compromised her position here at HQ. No, Barbara told herself; if anything, her liaison with the dark-haired woman might even result in new intelligence being passed back, with DC Knox gaining even more plaudits from her new boss.

  As though the thought had conjured him up, Barbara saw the tall figure of Detective Superintendent Lorimer through the frosted glass panel that separated her part of the office from the corridor outside.

  ‘Good work, Knox,’ he said, looking down to where Barbara sat at her desk. ‘Let me know if any other cars turn up, won’t you? I’ve arranged for officers to visit the owners,’ he added, dashing Barbara’s hopes of interviewing the mysterious-sounding Badica. Then, giving her a smile that lit up his blue eyes, he added, ‘See you’re an early bird like me,’ before heading back along to his own office.

  ‘Aye,’ Barbara whispered under her breath, ‘and we’ll see how many nasty wee worms we can catch between us, eh?’

  Professor Solomon Brightman was also an early riser but for the simple reason that baby Abigail demanded her feeds at regular intervals and some inner body clock seemed to have selected fivethirty a.m. as her first meal of the day. Warm baths and a cosy room had done little to solve this problem and both Solly and Rosie were resigned to early nights simply so that they could have sufficient sleep to keep going through the day. />
  ‘She’ll be better once she’s on mixed feeding,’ Rosie had sighed.

  ‘All my babies were the same,’ Ma Brightman had laughed, as though her son was making too much of a fuss when he had mentioned the baby’s constant wakefulness. ‘Sign of a clever child,’ his mother had added consolingly.

  The problem of broken nights was one that all parents had to endure, but the psychologist allowed his thoughts to wander during these nocturnal strolls rocking the baby up and down, cradled in his arms, until she went back to sleep again. Now, Rosie was asleep too, the baby tucked into the crib by the side of their bed, contented at last.

  The psychologist had spent much of the night thinking about what Lorimer had told him following his visit to the capital. Zena Forbes he could dismiss right away as she appeared to have a castiron alibi in the form of an old school chum who had been staying overnight with her. Hardy’s tale about seeing the deputy first minister kerb-crawling was more interesting. The socialist politician had had a grudge against Pattison and he lived in the area where the body had been found. Yes, the forensic experts might eventually be looking to match trace evidence found at the scene with Hardy, but something told Solly that this was not the man they were looking for.

  Of the three, Raeburn interested him most. Why should Catherine Pattison have named the best friend of the victim as his potential killer? An ageing bachelor, Raeburn was known as a patron of the arts in Scotland as well as a hard-working politician who had defended his party’s lack of progress in achieving independence for Scotland. And that was not all; of the three of them, Raeburn was the only one who had had any previous experience with small firearms. But logic dictated that everything else was wrong about the man as a potential killer, Solly told himself; unless Mrs Pattison knew more about the politician than she was letting on.

  Solly was standing at the large bay windows that looked down on Kelvingrove Park and across the city to its western edges. It was still dark outside and he could hear a fierce wind blowing. The lights from the street lamps outside seemed to waver and sway, blurred by the rain falling across his window. It was like a parody of his mind, he thought; wasn’t he trying to see through a sort of darkness? There were some things that were obscuring his vision, too; these three politicians amongst them. He had seen them all on television at one time or another and could remember the attractive woman, the Glasgow man, Hardy, and James Raeburn whose programme on contemporary art Solly had also followed at one time. The psychologist rubbed his eyes with both hands as though to erase the pictures of them from his mind, then turned from the windows to concentrate on the day ahead. He was still pursuing the case that Lorimer had been forced to abandon, meeting with any friends and family of the murdered street women, and today he had an appointment with Miriam Lyons’ father.

  I’ll come to your office, Jeremy Lyons had said when Solly had called up the number Lorimer had given him. Give me a time, the solicitor had added in a brusque tone that sounded as if he were already looking at his diary to check a slot that was free.

  Solly, who knew his own university timetable off by heart, had offered the man an hour mid-morning that he could fit between lectures. Now, in this time before dawn when sounds from the city were beginning to drift up to the houses above the park, Solly wondered why Miriam’s father had insisted on seeing him on his own without Miriam’s mother present and not at their address. Perhaps anyone who had business with their daughter’s death brought with them a sort of violation of their home. What sort of striving for normality must these poor parents have had? Not only coming to terms with Miriam’s death but its aftermath, the media poking and prying into every crevice of their personal lives. You didn’t have to be a psychologist to work that out, Solly reminded himself grimly.

  The Jewish lawyer was right on time, Solly thought, seeing the man in the dark overcoat who stood on the corner of University Gardens checking his watch. His navy scarf was wound several times around his neck, the fringed ends flapping as the wind caught it and Solly wondered how long he had been standing there in the cold. He came away from the window and, leaving his door ajar, headed down the flight of stairs, ready to greet his visitor. Lyons looked up from where he stood on the pavement outside the Department of Psychology and, catching sight of Solly, he nodded as though recognising something reassuring in the psychologist’s appearance.

  ‘Mr Lyons.’

  ‘Professor Brightman.’ Gloved hands closed over Solly’s for a moment as the two men regarded one another. Jeremy Lyons was a man of around fifty, Solly guessed, noticing the dark hair receding and greying at the temples. But those deeply set brown eyes pouched with heavy folds of skin suggested someone much older. Solly knew that look; it was a look of grief beyond normal suffering that Jeremy Lyons shared with others in the aftermath of violent death.

  ‘Please come up.’ Solly waved a hand at the open door and ushered the man into the building and upstairs to his capacious office.

  ‘Sit over here by the radiator,’ he urged, nodding towards the pair of comfy chairs that flanked the heater. Lyons sat down on the edge of the seat without unbuttoning his overcoat, the scarf still wound around his neck.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ Solly asked, lifting up a box of assorted teabags that he kept for his students.

  ‘No, no, I must get back … ’ Lyons hesitated.

  ‘A herbal tea, perhaps? Just to warm us up? I have some nice camomile,’ Solly said, flipping the switch on the kettle and pulling a pair of mugs off a shelf.

  ‘Well, all right, then,’ Lyons said. Solly turned away with a smile as he saw the lawyer take off his leather gloves then begin to unwind the dark blue scarf. A cup of tea to ease any tension in a subject was always good psychology. And this man looked as if he had long forgotten how to relax.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lyons said as he took the mug and looked up at Solly, his mournful eyes full of much more than mere gratitude for a warming cuppa. ‘You have a daughter?’ he began, after taking the first sip.

  ‘Yes,’ Solly told him.

  ‘I thought as much. You have a sympathetic manner, Professor Brightman. You understand about fathers and daughters, then?’ Solly smiled. ‘She’s only three months old,’ he said.

  ‘But that bond of love…?’ Lyons tailed off, looking at Solly as though no more words needed to be said.

  Solly nodded, wagging his beard sagely in agreement.

  ‘I’ve been asked by Strathclyde Police to talk to the families of four victims of crime, your daughter being one of them,’ Solly began softly. ‘Miriam’s death was not like the other three,’ he added, ‘but it’s my job to look for any points of similarity in case we can find a pattern that might suggest the same perpetrator.’ He chose his words carefully, not just to keep the conversation on a more formal basis but to avoid any mention of violence that could disturb this already harrowed father.

  ‘What do you need to know?’ Jeremy Lyons asked, his voice suddenly low and weary as though he had told this story over and over countless times, which perhaps he had.

  ‘Tell me about Miriam,’ Solly said.

  The psychologist listened, sipping his tea, as the story of a young life wrecked by drugs and wild excess was imparted. Miriam had been a studious girl at school, all set for a career in dentistry, when she had met up with a bad lot as Lyons referred to them. Then almost overnight it had seemed their perfect girl had become a rebellious teenager, staying out all night when she felt like it, missing school and eventually leaving home altogether to set up home with her newfound friends. Lyons had stormed at her, cajoled her, then in desperation offered her anything she wanted to come home to a mother and father who were at their wits’ end. But it had been futile. Miriam had changed so much, he told Solly with a heaviness in his tone that spoke of a final relinquishing of his beloved girl to the life she had chosen. On the few occasions when she did come home (always looking for money) they had been shocked at her appearance, how thin and gaunt she had become.

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nbsp; ‘She only came home looking for money to spend on drugs, of course,’ Lyons told him sadly. ‘And one day I simply said no.’ He passed a hand across his eyes. ‘We never saw her again until … ’ He stopped suddenly, biting his lip to prevent a sob issuing from his throat.

  The rest of Miriam Lyons’ history was known to Solomon Brightman. How she had become a prostitute to fund her drug habit, how the hostel where she had stayed had thrown her out and how she had been found, floating in the murky waters of the Clyde. But the final chapter was still unclear. And that was something Solly needed to know.

  ‘You stopped working after your daughter’s death?’ Solly said at last, changing the subject to bring the conversation back to a semblance of normality.

  ‘I resigned from my practice,’ Lyons admitted. ‘But I still work,’ he said. ‘Actually I work for nothing these days. Not the stereotypical image of a Jew, is it?’ he said, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face.

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘After Miriam died my wife and I wanted to find out much more about prostitution in the city.’ He shrugged. ‘It probably began as something that was purely cathartic, maybe still is if I’m truthful,’ he said. ‘Anyway, nowadays I’m a volunteer on the Big Blue Bus, have you heard of it?’

  Solly nodded. The project of the Big Blue Bus served to give street women advice and help about coming off drugs and finding places of safety to live. It had begun as a Christian outreach but was now funded by several different religious organisations. The prostitutes knew the bus would pick them up at various points along the drag during the wee small hours, times when the dropin centres were normally closed.