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.