Solly drew her chin towards him and kissed her lips, then, as Rosie wriggled to be closer to him, his arm folded her into his embrace.
‘Stay with me over Christmas. That could be a start. What do you think?’ he said softly as they broke apart and was gratified to see Rosie’s blonde head bob up and down in immediate agreement.
Flynn shivered as the frozen air hit his face. For ages now he’d imagined being outside, wished for it every day of this past week, but now, with DCI Lorimer by his side, he wasn’t so sure. The naked trees swayed in the wind as they made their way from the hospital, causing the boy to pull the parka hood over his head. It would hide the dressing as well, he thought, conscious of the pad still taped across his skull.
‘Hope you’ve got central heating,’ he remarked.
‘Aye,’ Lorimer grinned, ‘and an electric blanket for your bed. Don’t worry, it’s quite civilised even if the wife’s away!’
‘Good! Ah’m freezin’ out here!’
‘Come on, the car’s just over there. I got the last space opposite the main door.’
‘Jeez!’ Flynn’s eyes were round with astonishment as they stopped next to Lorimer’s car. ‘You got a second job, pal? What’s with the wheels, then?’ he asked, running his finger across the passenger door.
‘No kids,’ Lorimer answered, his standard reply to the perennial question. The old Lexus still raised a few eyebrows among the younger members of the Division. Somehow, as he’d once overheard a new PC remark, a luxury car like that didn’t sit comfortably with the other vehicles in the car park.
‘Must cost a packet to run,’ Flynn went on, bending over to peer at the dashboard.
‘In you go,’ Lorimer replied, opening the door for him. ‘It gets me from A to B, only quicker.’ He flashed a conspiratorial grin at the boy. For a fleeting moment Lorimer sensed that this was what it would feel like to have a son of his own, a lad he could share talk about cars and stuff.
Well, it hadn’t happened for them and there was no more they wanted to do about it. Maggie and he had gone down the IVF road more than once before deciding it just wasn’t to be.
‘Hey, man, pretty smooth,’ Flynn grinned at Lorimer as the car purred out of the hospital gates. ‘I could get to like this!’
Lorimer smiled. If Flynn was as easily impressed as this then he’d be OK about the house. He had done his best to make the place homely, even remembering to switch on the heating to warm up the rooms.
It was a fifteen-minute drive from the Southern General Hospital during which time Flynn had asked Lorimer things about the job.
Why had he become a Busy in the first place? How had he come to work in CID? What was his wife doing abroad? The questions seemed to cover everything except the murders in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the very reason for Flynn being with him at all. Strangely, Lorimer was grateful for that. The case had caused him too many sleepless nights lately. As he turned into the driveway a few flakes of snow were beginning to smudge the windscreen. The security light beamed on, revealing the red door of the garage and the white painted front door beyond the porch.
Flynn fell silent as he stepped out of the car and regarded his new home. It wasn’t quite what he’d expected, a two-storey house on the corner of a street full of similar properties. Somehow he’d thought Lorimer would live in a bigger, grander place, a house in keeping with the smart old car.
There was a brass nameplate by the side of the door with the single word LORIMER engraved upon it, and some evergreen plant growing up the wall, its tiny yellow flowers like wee stars shining in the overhead light.
‘This is it,’ Lorimer told him, turning a key in the lock. ‘Home.’
Joseph Alexander Flynn hesitated for a moment. It had been years since he’d stepped over any threshold that he could call home. What must it be like for Lorimer to come back here night after night, knowing a warm bed was waiting for him?
Interpreting his hesitation as reluctance, Lorimer put out a hand. ‘Come on in. It’s freezing out there.’
Flynn followed the tall policeman into a long hallway, pushing shut the door behind him. A waft of cold air crept up his back, making him step further into the house.
‘This is the dining room and the kitchen’s in here,’ Lorimer was saying, striding away ahead of him. Flynn looked around him. The room stretched from the front to the back of the house, divided by a pair of wooden doors that had been left wide open. Lorimer had disappeared into a kitchen beyond and he could hear the sound of a kettle being filled.
From where he was standing the dining room was at the far end, a round wooden table and four chairs placed in the centre. Here the two walls on either side were lined from floor to ceiling with books. Flynn’s eyes roamed up and down the shelves. How could anyone find the time to read all that in one lifetime? Then he remembered what Lorimer had said about his wife being a teacher. Well. They always had their noses stuck into a book didn’t they? There was a desk under the window by the door where he’d come in. It held a laptop computer surrounded by heaps of paper and a framed photograph beside a green reading lamp. Flynn picked up the photo. It was of a woman, her head thrown back, dark curly hair blowing behind her. She was laughing into the lens, looking at the photographer as if they’d just shared a joke. Flynn replaced it on the desk exactly where it had been, wondering what it must be like to have a woman look at you like that.
‘That’s Maggie,’ Lorimer had come up unheard behind him, holding a tray with mugs of tea and chocolate biscuits. ‘My wife,’ he added. Flynn glanced at the man, catching sight of something softening in these hard blue eyes as he looked at the photograph.
‘Come on upstairs. That’s where the lounge is.’ Lorimer pushed open the door with his foot and re-entered the hallway. Flynn saw the light suddenly flooding the hallway and heard him pad upstairs. He turned his attention back to the laughing woman and gently touched the frame.
‘D’you know ah’m here, missus?’ he whispered.
Lorimer sat nursing a glass of whisky, listening to the rain pattering steadily against the upstairs windows. Flynn had been asleep for hours now. He’d wolfed down the meal that Sadie Dunlop had thrust upon Lorimer earlier in the day. (‘Chicken broth and steak pie. Naethin’ tae beat it!’) Then the two of them had watched some television before the boy’s eyelids had drooped shut, signalling an early night. He’d left Flynn to decide whether to close his own bedroom door or not and had been surprised when the boy left it ajar. The hospital room had been open at all times for security. Perhaps he’d simply become used to that, he mused. Tomorrow he’d be off duty and there would be plenty of time to see to Flynn’s immediate needs.
For now, Lorimer realised, he needed a bit of quiet to himself to sort out his own thoughts. He’d been struck by how Flynn had reacted to Maggie’s photograph. OK, maybe he took her for granted, but seeing his wife through the eyes of another man made him realise just how lovely and desirable she was. Only three and a bit more weeks, he told himself. Then young Flynn would be happily ensconced in a wee flat of his own and he’d be off to sunny Florida.
But before that happened, would he be any further forward with solving this double murder? Perhaps that depended upon the boy sleeping across the landing. He took another gulp of whisky, remembering his recent interview with Derek Quentin-Jones. At least he still had a wife, he’d reminded himself, even if she was several thousand miles away. The Surgeon had been so terribly bereft, crying once more as Lorimer had revealed his wife’s infidelity as gently as he could. Had he known about it?
Lorimer pursed his mouth into a thin line as he recalled the man’s words.
‘I’m sterile, Chief Inspector. Now I know that man fathered not just one but both of Karen’s children.’ Seeing Lorimer’s scepticism, the Surgeon had assured him it was true. A urinary infection had led to other, more discreet tests, confirming that the Consultant Surgeon could not have been the father of the child he had believed to be his daughter. He’d never asked Karen for the identity of her lover, choosing instead to engage a private detective to have her followed. With no further signs of her infidelity, he had eventually settled back into what he’d believed to be a secure marriage.
Having the identity of Tina’s father made known to him was obviously a fresh blow and Lorimer had let him linger in his office until he could regain his composure.
Far from blaming the acting Superintendent for being the bearer of bad news, Quentin-Jones seemed positively grateful to have another man to talk to. All the anguished emotion poured out. Behind his words of sympathy, Lorimer was taking a professional note of the man’s behaviour: this wasn’t the kind of man who committed a crime of passion. He might be brave enough with a scalpel when it came to saving lives, but Lorimer would lay money on it that Derek Quentin-Jones was incapable of any act of violence.
