Omar waved his hand as the policewoman said goodnight. She might raise her eyebrows at his staying on late, but he didn't care. This was something that he had to do. The university registry officer had given him a list of all last year's new students as well as those who were just waiting for freshers' week. The woman for whom they were searching might have gained enough points for entry but delayed enrolling for a year, he had told the registry officer. Even so, the list of every girl and woman in those categories whose first name was Marianne was surprisingly long.
If Lorimer okayed it, he and Irvine might be in a position to visit and interview every one of the forty-seven Mariannes on record.
He thought about James Lo. He had kept his first name all through the changes, hadn't he? But what if this woman had completely changed her name? Biting his lip in a moment of self-doubt, Omar wondered at the zeal that had kept him at this task all afternoon. What was he trying to prove? That he was a better officer than all of the rest of the team? Or that it was his endeavours, not the colour of his skin, that was of any significance?
Lorimer had taken away the photo of that red-haired woman he'd found in Brogan's flat. Could this be the sister? He'd let all of the members of the investigation team have a good look at it and then they had compared it with recent images of Brogan. There was not a shred of familial likeness and most of them had gone along with DS Wilson's suggestion: probably Brogan's bird.
Now he looked at the photograph on his desk. It wasn't evidence as such, so there had been no requirement to send it down as a production. The woman gazed out of the picture, that smile on her lips directed towards whoever had been behind the camera. Say cheese, his dad had always told him as a little lad whenever he had wanted another snap for the family album. And women liked nice photos of themselves so invariably they put on their prettiest smiles for the camera. There was nothing provocative about her, he thought. That bare shoulder was probably on show simply because it was a sunny day. No smouldering looks for a lover. And just because the picture had been in his flat did not mean that Brogan had taken it himself. So was this lady Brogan's girlfriend or not? Maybe he had a better snap of her secreted in his wallet, Lorimer thought, absently touching the pocket where he kept his own photograph of Maggie. Perhaps the drug dealer was at this very moment with this woman somewhere.
It's what's not there as much as what is, that we have to focus upon, Lorimer had insisted earlier that day. And apart from Brogan himself, there was a fair amount missing: passport, bank details, address books, all sorts of personal stuff. And Kenneth Scott's home lacked some of these things too, the DCI had reminded them.
Now, sitting at his desk, he wondered. Each of these killings had the same signature about them as far as the ballistics were concerned and had probably been undertaken by a trained marksman.
But now there were more links between the two cases. He closed his left fist and stuck his thumb upwards, counting. Marianne Scott was Brogan's sister; paperwork that one might expect to find in a home being used by its occupant was missing.
He raised his index finger then paused. Was that all?
His hand relaxed on to the desk as he thought hard about each of the killings. Maybe they ought to look at the differences too.
Scott's home hadn't been ransacked; he wasn't a known drug dealer (or user come to that); nobody in Scott's neighbourhood had heard or seen a thing. And one of the two men had been carrying a shotgun. Was that significant? Had the more recent killings happened in a chaotic situation? Where Scott's death bore the hallmarks of a planned attack, Galbraith and Sandiman's killer seemed to have stumbled upon them. Or was it the other way around? Had they come across the killer after they'd entered the flat? Traces of DNA in other rooms would help to establish an answer to that particular question.
Lorimer sighed. He'd asked for Marianne Brogan to be found as a matter of priority but was that really such a good idea? The woman had no police record of any sort and the very little he did know about her seemed to indicate that she had been an ordinary housewife before her marriage had broken up. DC Irvine had been adamant that it was weird for a woman to stop work like that after a wedding and most of the officers had agreed. Nowadays it usually took the combined salaries of a husband and wife to pay for the mortgage. And Scott hadn't exactly been rolling in money.
See what you can find out from the GP she was registered with, he had suggested. She may not have been fit to work for health reasons. If so, then there might be a trail of benefits paid in her name that they could source. And that would be another bit of the jigsaw that took time to find. He sighed again. Try as they might to make progress in a case as quickly as they could, there were always elements that demanded patience; lab reports, ballistics, pathology results… things that had to wait for their slot in another professional person's busy schedule.
The DCI stood up and stretched. It was time to go home.
Maggie had so few days of her holidays left and he suspected she had begun to do some work for school, having given up on the thought of them both enjoying a break away. At least their evenings could be spent together.
'Sir?' DC Fathy whirled round as the DCI entered the room.
'Working a bit of overtime, Fathy?'
'It's the sister, sir,' Fathy shrugged as he glanced back at his computer screen. 'Just can't stop thinking about where she might be, so..
'So?' Lorimer cocked his head to one side, interested suddenly.
'Well, I thought if we looked at all the students from last year's intake and next year's new ones to come whose forenames were Marianne, we might find something.'
'And have you?'
Fathy shook his head. 'No, sir, but I did wonder..
'Yes?'
'Well, what if we called on these women and asked about their backgrounds? Asked to see ID like birth and marriage certificates?'
Lorimer took a step backwards and laughed. 'Any idea how many man hours that might take? And can you see Superintendent Mitchison agreeing to extra bodies for an action like that?' The DCI frowned suddenly as he uttered Mitchison's name. There was no love lost between the two senior officers but that wasn't something that young Fathy needed to know.
'No, sir,' Fathy hung his head for a moment and looked so disappointed that Lorimer gave in to his natural impulse, reached out and patted the young man on the shoulder. 'Look, it's not a bad idea and in ideal circumstances we might even go that far. But until we have evidence that Marianne Scott is still in the country we'd be in danger of wasting taxpayers' money' `So that's still to be determined, sir?'
Lorimer nodded. 'Aye. There's no trace of the woman having worked, paid stamps or anything in the last year so chances are she's somewhere overseas.' His mouth pursed in a sudden thought. 'Or working at some occupation that doesn't require official papers,' he said with a sigh.
Fathy nodded. He knew what the DCI meant. 'You think the woman might have slipped off our radar because she was involved in criminal activity or maybe was on the game?'
'She has to have supported herself somehow since her marriage broke up,' Lorimer reasoned. 'And it might even give us a clue as to why that happened.'
'You mean she could be an addict?' Fathy asked.
'Who knows?' Lorimer replied tiredly. 'Brother Billy mixed with plenty of them. Wouldn't be the first time a lassie got hooked then had to resort to selling herself to fund her habit.'
'Do we have anyone looking in that direction, sir? Maybe checking the usual drop-in centres used by local prostitutes?'
Not as yet,' Lorimer continued, mentally adding that to his tally, wondering if Fathy was about to offer to take on that task.
'Why not pack up for the night and come back tomorrow with a fresh mind, eh? It's still a lovely evening out there,' Lorimer added, nodding at the pale blue space above the city skyline.
'Right, sir. And thanks,' Fathy smiled a little uncertainly. There was a momentary pause and Lorimer stopped, waiting for the DC to continue.
'Good night, then,' the young man said at last. 'See you tomorrow, sir.'
Lorimer was still frowning as he reached the foot of the stairs.
Had Fathy something else on his mind?
But as he reached the car park his thoughts were already heading homewards, all notions of what the newest member of his team had or had not been about to share already forgotten.
As he turned the car into the driveway, Lorimer slowed down.
Maggie was on her hands and knees, weeding the flowerbed under the dining room window. She looked up at the sound of the car and the way her face lit up as she caught sight of him made his heart turn over. `Hiya, you,' she said, straightening up and rubbing the small of her back as he stepped out of the car.
'Mm, hiya yourself. You smell lovely,' he added, sinking his face into her hair as he bent to kiss her cheek.
'Already showered twice today. This heat! Weather forecast says we're in for thunder before the night's out.' Maggie broke away from him, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked up at a pale sky already flecked with pinkish clouds.
'Red sky at night…' Lorimer began.
'Is a load of…'
'Mrs Lorimer!' He gasped in mock horror.
'Sorry,' she grinned. 'It's what the kids at school say. Think we can't hear them half the time and the other half they know fine well we can.'
'Itching to get back are you?'
Maggie made a face as they entered the house together. Not yet. Wish we could have had a bit of a holiday first,' she mumbled.
'Sorry about that.' Lorimer sighed. 'Maybe we could take off to Mull for the September weekend, though.'
The bright smile his wife gave in response was pasted on to cover up her discontent, Lorimer knew. But she wouldn't complain.
Maggie Lorimer knew that crime didn't take a holiday nor did criminals plan their misdeeds just to thwart her own spells of vacation.
'Good idea,' she replied. Now come through and fire up that barbecue. I'm starving.'
'One, two, one, two, up, down… you must be joking!' Rosie muttered, darting a black look at the TV screen where an enthusiastic young lovely in a pink leotard was encouraging viewers of her DVD to bend all the way down to the floor.
She picked up the remote control and froze the screen, leaving the instructress with her mouth open mid-command.
'Ooh,' she puffed, her steps becoming faster as she approached the loo. This pregnancy thing. You heard all the other women's moans and didn't believe them really, till it happened to you. Like needing to go all the time. `Ah,' Rosie exhaled a sigh of relief as she sat on the toilet. It was the baby's pressure on her bladder, of course. Any doctor could tell you that. But it had been happening ever since this wee one in here had been no significant size at all.
As she washed her hands, Rosie thought about her impending leave and what she might do in the days running up to the birth of their child. Solly was not back officially until the end of September when his students began their first term. He was already preparing stuff, of course. In some ways he never stopped, she thought, pulling the light cord and waddling back into the large airy lounge that overlooked Kelvingrove Park. Take this evening, for example. Instead of coming home, he was lecturing on a course for young offenders.
Rosie shrugged as she sauntered across to the window. Would it do them any good? It depended on their level of willingness to respond, Solly had told her. The pathologist sat on the rocking chair placed at an angle in the bay window so that she looked out on the park and over the Glasgow rooftops towards the west.
They were so lucky, she reminded herself. Their baby would be brought up by educated parents who were loving and caring. Too many of the inmates of these young offenders institutions came from dire backgrounds of deprivation and crime.
As she gazed at the sky, Rosie let her mind wander. The colours of the setting sun seemed more vibrant than usual, reds tinged with streaks of purple like bruised flesh; the horizon's pale lemon reminding her of the waxy pallor of a bloodless corpse. She shivered, suddenly wishing it was dark and she could be rid of the images scudding violently across the heavens.
That was another thing about this state of pregnancy. Her imagination seemed to be working overtime. Hormonal activity making you ultra sensitive, she told herself wryly. Wait till the baby's born, a colleague had warned her; your mind becomes like a vegetable. Rosie smiled. Well, she'd be off on maternity leave for a good enough spell to let her brain recover from the shock of the birth.
The telephone ringing made her turn around. Clutching both arms of the rocking chair and heaving herself up, Rosie wondered who on earth wanted to call on a week night. She was no longer on call at nights, but had somebody forgotten that? 'Maggie!' The pathologist's expression changed from apprehension to delight as she heard her friend's voice on the other end of the line.
'We're having a barbecue out in the garden. D'you fancy coming over?' Maggie asked.
Rosie made a face, glad that the policeman's wife couldn't see her. 'Sorry, His Nibs is out and I feel too fat and squashy to be bothered driving over on my own tonight. Do you mind?' She felt a sudden pang of guilt. Maggie had never managed to carry a baby to term, had never known what it felt like to have a burgeoning bump cavorting inside her. `Och, that's okay. Maybe you can make it over at the weekend.
If you feel okay?'
'Yes, I'm sure we can do something. Just a bit hot and bothered tonight. They said on the evening news that it was to be thunderstorms later on.'
'Right, well we better get on with it before we're rained off,' she heard Maggie reply.
Rosie put down the telephone then looked back out towards the west. The streaks of cloud were moving a bit faster now, driven by an unseen wind. Lorimer was home with his wife, then. No late nights chasing after murderous gunmen. Gunman, a little voice corrected her. It looked all the more likely from the ballistics report that the three men had been shot by the same weapon. Some kind of automatic pistol. Brogan, the man in whose flat the two drug dealers had been found, was ex-army. Had he killed them? And his former brother-in-law? Rosie sighed. Such matters were not really her business, but it was something that all her colleagues did regularly: speculate on the types of persons responsible for the damage that they saw down in the city mortuary The pathologist rolled her shoulders, feeling a sense of restlessness that made her get up and walk about the room. As she paced back and forwards, past the open door of her husband's study, Rosie noticed a mess of papers strewn upon the floor. Rosie glanced at the curtain blowing inwards. She had opened that window earlier to let in a draught of cool air. Tim,' she sighed, 'better clear that lot up, hadn't I?' Crouching down, she gathered up the loose sheets, not really paying much attention to what they were – lists of students' names, she thought – more intent on collecting them neatly together and placing them back on his desk.
She gave a quick glance around, searching for the large Caithness glass paperweight that they had been given as a wedding gift.
There it was, just beside a basket full of journals. Rosie placed it on top then smiled. He'd never know they'd been scattered around now, would he?
As she wandered back into the lounge Rosie forgot all about the papers. Behind her, the topmost sheet was rippled by the breeze as if it sought a means of escape from the weight of the pale purple glass, the name Marianne flickering back and forth, tossed in the power of the gathering storm.
When the first drops began, the woman turned towards the window, suddenly awake. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but there was no dream lingering in her thoughts, nothing to make her sweat in such fear. The noise had been enough; a drumming on the window pane like a scattering of pebbles flung by some unseen hand. Marianne shivered, remembering. He had done that often enough, hadn't he? Woken her up to let her know he had found her again.
But that could not happen any more and this was simply a storm beginning. Marianne turned on her side, tucked the sheet close about her chin and closed her eyes, willing sleep to return.
Across the city lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the streets below in sudden flashes as if daylight were breaking through the inky darkness. The hit man rolled over in his narrow bed, listening as the rains coursed down the gutters outside his rented room.
A sudden flash made him open his eyes, the unfamiliar shapes of the furniture giving him a sense of where he was and why he had not yet returned to the place he called home. For a moment he lay still, wondering. The shooting of those two men had complicated things. Why not simply get into the car tomorrow and leave? ()n a night like this it was a tempting prospect to simply cut his losses for once. He rubbed his eyes as if rubbing the idea away. Ten thousand pounds was too much money to forfeit. Besides, he had his reputation to consider and nobody was going to pull a fast one on him, least of all scum like Brogan.