A Pound Of Flesh

by Alex Gray

  The idea had been growing slowly in her mind ever since Barbara had mentioned the daily press conference. Watching from behind a parked car, she saw them entering the red brick building, some singly, some in pairs, as though they were familiar with each other; the press pack, gaining entrance to this place and ready to question the man who had all knowledge of the ongoing investigation. Drawing a deep breath, she willed herself to follow them, fingering the laminated badge in her pocket. Diana Yeats, freelance journalist, had made a good job of faking the ID, but just how good a job was about to be tested. Would anybody recognise her? Hopefully not. The fluffy blonde that she had been all those years ago had been transformed dramatically into someone entirely different. Besides, there was something else, a feeling that she had carried with her ever since that first shot had been fired; it was as though she was invulnerable, safe from discovery.

  The dark-skinned man behind the desk looked enquiringly at her as she stepped towards him.

  ‘Press,’ she said as brightly as she could, her confident smile belying the nerves that were making her stomach turn over. What did this police officer see? A woman smartly dressed in a black, fur-trimmed coat carrying a leather briefcase as she waited for the plastic pass that would allow her to follow the others down to the press room.

  ‘First time here?’ the officer said, taking her business card and turning to his computer to type her name onto a piece of card.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, watching as he slipped the card into its clipon holder and handed it to her.

  ‘Just go downstairs and you’ll see them all gathering in the main hall,’ he said, leaning forwards and indicating the staircase opposite.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, still forcing herself to smile as she clipped on the badge and headed towards the darkened stairwell.

  There were perhaps forty people assembled in the hall waiting for the detective superintendent to make his entrance. Someone had failed to put on all of the lights and the large room was shadowy and cold as Lorimer walked on to the stage. The murmurs of talk from the assembled journalists ceased immediately as all eyes turned towards the tall figure spreading his notes upon the lectern.

  To someone who had never seen him before, Detective Superintendent Lorimer was an imposing man. He might have been a sportsman, had in fact played rugby rather well as a young man, but the strength of his physique was more than matched by a different sort of power; those unsmiling eyes and that granite jaw came from a man whose experience of life had hardened him into a formidable opponent of the worst sort of criminal. When he began to speak it came as no surprise to hear a clear, deep voice in an accent that was securely rooted in his native Glasgow. And, as he spoke about Edward Pattison, the ongoing investigation and the need for journalism to help and not impede the case, his eyes were roving over each and every member of the pack. Yet some of the seated figures had deliberately chosen corners that were in shadow, watching while not being watched in turn.

  When the question and answer session began it surprised the woman sitting at the back to hear how polite most of the journalists were to this man who was now gripping the lectern and leaning forward slightly as though to catch every word that was being said. There were none of the recriminations that might have been expected in a case that had not seen much progress. That, she thought, was some relief. Having Barbara as her deepthroat was one thing, but she was never completely sure if she was being fed useless titbits by the detective constable or not. Glancing round the room, the dark-haired woman knew that was an added risk of coming here. Okay, Barbara believed her story about being a freelance journo, but she still didn’t want to run into the girl.

  As she listened it was all about the deputy first minister. Pattison, Pattison, Pattison. She could have told them all they ever wanted to know, couldn’t she? But why was there never a mention of Tracey-Anne? And what about these other victims? The sensation in her chest that she had thought to be nerves deepened into a pain as she fought the desire to stand up and demand that the officers in this place get off their backsides and find these women’s killer. The rage inside her screamed so hard to be released that she turned her head a fraction, wondering if the man next to her had sensed it.

  Then suddenly the meeting was over and Lorimer was striding off the stage, as if to demonstrate that he was eager to be off to some other area of the investigation. The babble of talk resumed as they filed out, lining up at the front desk to leave their security passes.

  Once outside she walked smartly away from the building, not even turning to look behind her, and headed up towards the Malmaison. The hotel was becoming something of a refuge, she thought, as the twin bay trees flanking the main door came into sight. It was not until she was settled in the brasserie with a coffee that the woman who called herself Diana took out her reporter’s notebook and flipped it open.

  What had she written on that lined page? One short sentence that, reading it now, made her mouth turn up into a secret smile: He doesn’t know.

  Lorimer closed the door behind him, glad that the daily task of facing the press pack was over. It had been a much more subdued meeting than usual, perhaps the intense cold had made them want to scurry back quickly to the warmth of their offices. And there had been a new one in their midst, that dark-haired woman sitting silently at the back, listening but not asking any questions. That in itself had drawn him to regard her with a flicker of interest. Perhaps she’d been sent by her editor as a substitute for the regular news reporter; this weather was playing havoc with everybody’s travel arrangements, after all.

  Then, as the telephone rang, commanding the detective superintendent’s attention, all thoughts of the strange woman disappeared.

  Maggie Lorimer listened as the rain pattered onto the skylight window. It was well after two in the morning and the thaw that the weather forecasters had promised seemed to have arrived. If only it didn’t turn to ice afterwards, she thought, shivering as she closed the bathroom door behind her. At least the schools would be back today and they could catch up with all the missed lessons. Padding quietly back to bed, she paused for a moment, looking down at her sleeping husband. He’d not missed a single day at work despite the dreadful weather. Crime didn’t take off snow days, did it? Especially crimes like the vicious murders that concerned Detective Superintendent William Lorimer.

  Slipping into bed, Maggie let her thoughts wander. What would life be like if Bill hadn’t joined the police force? Would he have become an art historian as he had always intended? She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come, and drifted into a halfdream about pictures in a gallery, but they were all the same subject; a woman lying in the snow, blood spilled artistically from a wound beneath her curvaceous body. Then they were not flesh and blood people at all but pictures of a broken statue and the blood was not that bright red colour at all but a sickly brown as water coursed past, leaving the marble muddied and wet, its surface gleaming in a chiaroscuro light coming from somewhere that only the artist could see. Then she was falling off the edge of a pavement…

  Maggie woke up suddenly, aware of the dream but with it already slipping from her consciousness. She heaved a sigh, turned on her side and let her head sink deeper into the pillow.

  The Glasgow streets had been washed clean by the rain but there were still lumps of brown-tinged snow in car parks and untreated side roads where huge drifts had been piled up by the relentless snow ploughs. Lorries with their flashing lights had been a familiar sight, scattering their ever-diminishing supplies of grit like pebble dash onto the icy roads, sometimes flicking the tiny particles onto other vehicles as they made their lumbering night-time way along motorways and city streets alike.

  Jim Blackburn was listening to the request programme from Radio Clyde as his gritting machine moved slowly along Sauchiehall Street. He signalled right as the pedestrian area loomed ahead, then turned the wheel and headed uphill, across Bath Street and upwards into the shadows of the buildings that lay on either side of Blythswood S
treet.

  His eye caught the figure hovering near the corner of the pavement. She was not quite close enough to the kerb to be making a move to cross, yet neither was she lurking in the shadows, since the light from a street lamp let Jim see her clearly enough. In the moments it took for his gritter lorry to pass her by, he saw a skinny wretch of a girl. She was clad in a black jacket, a pale blue miniskirt that barely covered her decency (a phrase his granny had sometimes used in an offended Presbyterian tone) and kneelength boots. Jim’s glance took in the white of her bare legs. He swallowed, realising just what she was and why she was standing there at this hour of the morning. Not only would her legs be bare, he thought, but she wouldn’t be wearing knickers either. Somehow the thought did not arouse any other feeling than pity in the man; as he saw her in his wing mirror he realised she was about the same age as his own wee lassie, Kelly, a schoolgirl who was strictly forbidden from going into the town after a certain time of night. Jim’s mouth tightened in a grim line. What sort of life led a young lassie like that onto the streets? He sighed and gave a shake of his head at the thought, leaving the girl behind as he drove up to the square, letting the grit scatter over the icy tarmac.

  Jim Blackburn did not think much more about the prostitute that night but later she was to haunt his dreams for many months to come.

  Lily shivered as she stood on the pavement. It’ll be fine, the other girls had told her, you’ll make a fortune. For the first half-hour Bella had waited just across the road, nodding encouragement whenever she had looked up. Lily had smiled back but inside she’d been hoping against hope that it wasn’t really happening and that she might just be allowed to go back home again. But home wasn’t on the agenda any more, was it? Not since her mother’s boyfriend had come on to her…

  This bit of pavement was special, one of the others had told her; it had been another girl’s pitch. Lily thought she knew who they had meant: the dead girl whose face had been in all the papers. Her shivering became so bad that her teeth began to chatter. A spiteful little wind had begun to lift the debris from where she stood, swirling it into crazy patterns as Lily stared into the cobbled lane. That was where her body had been found, wasn’t it? She wrapped her arms around her chest, wishing she’d remembered to bring a scarf. You look the part, one of them had told her after they’d chosen her outfit and made her twirl before that big mirror in the bedroom three of them shared. The approving glance in her eye had made Lily smile then, basking in the glow that the pills had given her. The clothes had seemed quite glamorous, certainly a lot more expensive than anything she had ever owned before. But that feeling had dissipated as the night had worn on and now she saw herself for what she really was, a fifteenyear-old girl who had run out of options and needed to sell her flesh to survive.

  A car had stopped opposite and taken the other girl away so now Lily stood on her own, waiting and wondering. Would he be nice to her? Would he be gentle? Some of them were old enough to be her father, one of the girls had giggled. Her grandfather more like, another had hooted and back there in the flat it had all sounded like a bit of harmless fun. But there was nothing nice about being out here at the mercy of the elements, waiting for a stranger to offer her money for sex.

  Only the gritter lorry had passed in the last half an hour and Lily had begun to wonder if it would be safe to return to the flat, telling them she’d not had any custom, when a sleek grey Jaguar turned into the street and began to slow down. Lily stepped forward. Maybe he was a stranger in this city? Perhaps all he was going to do was ask for directions?

  A middle-aged man wearing an open-necked shirt smiled at her as though he could see what she was and didn’t mind. Lily could see a thick gold chain around his neck and a heavy gold signet ring on the hand that was beckoning her closer.

  She was supposed to ask him if he wanted to do the business, but the cold seemed to have frozen the little speech that she had been rehearsing all night.

  ‘Get in, girl,’ the man said, looking at her as though she was a girlfriend he’d been expecting to pick up. Some of them had that sort of fantasy, Lily had been told.

  ‘Car’s nice and warm,’ he added, patting the leather seat next to him.

  The door was open and she hesitated for the merest fraction of a second before scrambling in beside him.

  ‘Fasten your seat belt. Don’t want the cops to catch you,’ he told her with a complicit grin that made her smile back at him. Then, as the car accelerated into the night, Lily knew it was going to be okay after all. Perhaps it would only take a quick half an hour, maybe even in a nice hotel room? She pictured herself stuffing a wad of notes into her handbag. Easy money, the girls had told her, and maybe it was, Lily thought, settling back against the soft leather, glancing at the man who was to be her very first customer.

  CHAPTER 23

  The day began frosty and cold, ice concealed by the slick of rain that had cleared away the snow. A sliver of crimson peered over blue-black clouds in the east, then tentacles of flame spread across the sky heralding another day, but with the warning of further poor weather to come.

  Maggie filled the kettle at the sink as Chancer wound his furry body around her legs, his meows becoming more urgent as he waited for his breakfast. The central heating had been humming nicely for over twenty minutes and the kitchen was warm enough, but as Maggie opened the blinds she saw the morning’s rosy glow and shivered. These ink-black clouds surely held more snow? Well, Muirpark Secondary School was opening its gates once more and she’d just have to get a move on, have breakfast ready for them both and make time to defrost her car.

  Since Bill had been at Pitt Street, Maggie had tried to make this hour a time for both of them. Even having something as simple as breakfast together was a bit special after all the years of early morning rises and very late homecomings that his job had demanded. Maggie Lorimer had hoped that the new post might have given her husband more of a steady routine to his day but with Edward Pattison’s murder such hopes had been severely dashed. Bill’s face had appeared regularly in the press and even on television where he had made a statement following the politician’s death. Once such matters would have caused a frisson of excitement and led to remarks in the staffroom, but nowadays Maggie took them for granted, more used to her husband’s high profile. Sure, there had been a bit of chat amongst her colleagues, but Maggie’s reticence always stopped too much speculation. Even Lena Forsyth had kept her mouth shut for once. They all suspected that she knew much more than she was letting on, but in truth Maggie was not always given the details of every case. She smiled as she laid the two places at the kitchen table. If Bill wanted to tell her anything then he would, but sometimes she felt as though he wanted to spare her the grislier side of such crimes as murder, especially since it had touched their own lives. The smile slipped as Maggie remembered the case that had brought so many police officers into her home…

  Chancer reared up against her dressing gown, a gentle pat from his paws reminding her that his bowl was still empty.

  ‘What would I do without you, eh?’ Maggie grinned, bending down to stroke the soft fur on the cat’s head. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll get it right now,’ she added as he began to purr loudly.

  ‘Hi, you.’ Lorimer was behind her and his arms around her just as Maggie stood up from retrieving the cat’s bowl.

  ‘Hi, yourself,’ she grinned, then slipped out of his grasp to wash the bowl as Chancer’s meows became more frantic.

  Once the cat had been fed Maggie let her husband’s arms encircle her once more, closing her eyes for a moment, her head nestled in against his chest, luxuriating in the feel of his warmth, knowing that such caresses were fleeting as the clock ticked inexorably towards the time when they would both have to leave for work. But in that moment Maggie Lorimer felt completely safe and calm as she allowed her body to relax into his.

  Words from a poem she was teaching to her third-year class for next week’s Burns Supper came to mind, causing her to whisper them aloud:<
br />
  ‘But pleasures are like poppies spread,

  You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;

  Or like the snow falls in the river,

  A moment white – then melts for ever,

  Or like the borealis race,

  That flits ere you can point their place;

  Or like the rainbow’s lovely form

  Evanishing amid the storm.

  Nae man can tether time or tide:

  The hour approaches Tam maun ride.’

  Her sigh deepened as she extracted herself from his arms.

  ‘Neither time nor tide waits for any man or woman,’ she sighed. ‘Not that rascal, Tam O’ Shanter, or your good wife who has to be in Muirpark to teach her classes in just over an hour.’

  ‘Right, woman,’ Lorimer laughed. ‘And I’m at the beck and call of our first minister again this morning. Maybe see you later on tonight?’ His wry smile said it all. This life of his with long hours spent away from her side was so at odds with Maggie’s ordered day. While she was busy with classes that came and went according to bells ringing every fifty minutes, Detective Superintendent Lorimer could be asked to get himself over to the Scottish parliament at Holyrood or attend a crime scene anywhere within the vast region of Strathclyde. Yet somehow they managed to make it work, she thought, watching as he left the room.

  Maggie’s smile deepened as she thought about her preparations for the seventh of February. Bill being away so much had had the advantage of helping her bring her plans to fruition. She had invited most of his old colleagues from the city centre division as well as friends like Rosie, Solly and Flynn. Even the deputy chief constable had been invited, something Maggie had decided on so that Joyce Rogers would ensure the party was not spoiled by work. Maggie suddenly thought of another woman whose stern face appeared so often on the television screen; no, she certainly wouldn’t be inviting Felicity Stewart to Bill’s fortieth. And, hopefully, this case would be finished by then. Glancing at the calendar on her kitchen wall, Maggie realised that Burns Night was drawing closer and after that there would be less than two weeks until her husband’s party and the surprises she had planned.