playground once again.
This last week had been earmarked by the DCI, however. One of the officers in the division had cancelled his leave and Lorimer had jumped at the chance to take Maggie away to their favourite hideout, a cottage miles from anywhere on the isle of Mull. Now, he reflected gloomily, even that small respite might be denied them.
The telephone rang out twice before he yanked it off its cradle.
'Lorimer,' he said. There was a pause before the voice on the line identified itself as Doctor Solomon Brightman.
'Um,' Solly said, then paused again. 'I have a problem. Not quite sure what to do about it.'
Lorimer leaned back in his chair, letting it swivel around from side to side as he smiled at the sound of his friend's voice. Despite his years in Glasgow, Solly's accent was still one hundred per cent that of a Londoner. A well-educated, Jewish Londoner who had the annoying habit of filling a conversation with lengthy blanks.
'Okay. Shoot,' Lorimer told him.
'I have had a letter from the Assistant Chief Constable,' Solly began. There was another pause and this time Lorimer stopped swinging in his chair and sat up, listening.
'It seems that there has been a change in policy and that my services may no longer be required by Strathclyde Police,' Solly said quietly.
'Good Lord! What else did it say? Does she give any reasons for that?'
'Only that there has been a change in policy regarding the use of criminal profiling,' Solly said.
Lorimer could hear the hurt and disappointment in the man's voice. Doctor Solomon Brightman had been instrumental in helping to solve various murder cases in which Lorimer had been the Senior Investigating Officer and the policeman had learned to value his insights.
'Did she hint at budgetary constraints?' Lorimer asked, wondering if the credit crunch had been to blame.
'No,' Solly said. There was a silence then the psychologist blurted out, 'Is it me? Are they not happy with something I've done?'
'Hey, don't even consider that for a minute,' Lorimer told him.
'You're well thought of around here, surely you know that!'
'Then why…?' Solly left his question unfinished.
'I really don't know, Solly. But leave it with me and I'll see what I can find out. Anyway, you've got enough to do right now, haven't you? A book almost ready for publication and a new baby on its way. Got that spare room made into a nursery yet?'
The psychologist's voice brightened up as he took Lorimer's lead and chatted about the changes he had made to the spacious top floor flat that overlooked Kelvingrove Park.
Lorimer put down the phone and looked at it, thoughtfully.
Why had Solly been so summarily dismissed from the police service?
Was it money? Or was it something to do with that case south of the border where an eminent criminal profiler had got things spectacularly wrong? Lorimer thought about the case for a few minutes.
Doctor Richard Thackeray (Doctor Dick, the less salubrious newspapers had taken to calling him) had profiled a young man with some pretty serious mental health issues as being the perpetrator of six prostitute murders. The man had been taken into custody, the southern police force thoroughly relieved to have found their killer. Or so they had thought. After being brutalised by his cellmate, the young man had committed suicide. The press had been less than charitable, hinting at justice being snatched out of the hands of the courts.
Then the whole shebang had collapsed with the killing of a seventh victim and the apprehension of another man, one who appeared to be, ironically, completely sane. The man's DNA was all over the other victims and so a confession of sorts had been obtained.
Yet again a furore had broken out, the redtops changing their stance once more, this time baying for the blood of Doctor Richard Thackeray. This had all taken place last year but now the killer was due for sentencing. Alongside the media fuss, the future career of Thackeray was being mooted. Several of the better papers had run features on criminal profiling, not always portraying it in a positive light. Was that it, then? Had police forces around the country decided that profiling had had its day? As a mere DCI, Lorimer was not party to the sort of policing politics that determined things like that.
Perhaps he might have a word with Her Nibs, as they all called Joyce Rogers, the Assistant Chief Constable. She was a fair minded individual and would at least give Lorimer a chance to put forward Solly's case.
Omar was staring at the open door of his locker. Instead of the clean grey metal interior there was a piece of A4 paper fixed with Blu-Tack. The scrawl of words jumped out at him.
GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE BLACK BASTARD
The officer felt the sweat prickle under his collar. Giving a quick glance to see if anyone was watching, he tore the page off the door and crumpled it into a ball then thrust it right at the back of the locker, behind his gym kit and the rest of his stuff. His fingers felt stiff and clumsy as he tried to shut the locker and, as he turned the key, Omar noticed that the doorframe now sat at a slight angle.
Someone had clearly broken into his locker. You didn't need to be a CID officer to work that one out. But that wasn't why the young Egyptian was having difficulty in controlling his trembling hands.
It wasn't the first time.
Racist slurs like this had been the officer's main reason for quitting Grampian region's police force. He'd thought to have put it all behind him now. But, unless this was some sort of fiendish coincidence, it seemed as if his unknown tormentor had followed him all the way down from Aberdeen.
'Okay?' Annie Irvine smiled at the young man who approached her, his eyes looking everywhere except in her direction. DC Irvine groaned inwardly. Had she come on to him too strongly?
Embarrassed the poor guy? She sighed. Och well, better get on with the job in hand, pretend it never happened. Like it was ever going to, a small voice whispered into her ear. Why imagine that he'd fancy you? 'Hello,' Fathy's smile was strained but he was still being the polite foreigner, Irvine thought, waiting for her so he could open the car door.
'Right,' Irvine said brusquely. 'Boss's orders. Let's get gitting, partner,' she attempted a smile to lighten the atmosphere but the man beside her seemed occupied in thoughts of his own, turning away and looking out of the window as she drove away from headquarters.
By the time they had reached the motorway Irvine had reconciled herself to a merely platonic friendship with this particularly attractive male specimen of the human race.
'Been to Glasgow befine?' she asked brightly.
Fathy turned as if he had forgotten there was another person in the car beside him. 'What? Oh. Glasgow. Yes, loads of times. We came here for quite a few cultural visits when I was at school.'
'You went to school in Scotland?' Annie's eyebrows shot up, her notions of the man as an exotic stranger suddenly disappearing.
'Sorry, it's just that you don't sound all that Scottish.'
'Oh, yes,' Fathy replied, his mouth twisted into a strange little grimace of a smile. 'Both my parents are Egyptian but I was born here.
Went to boarding school in Perthshire. Father was insistent that his sons all had the best education possible,' he continued. 'And St Andrews University was the natural choice after that,' he shrugged.
'What did you study?' Irvine glanced away from the road ahead for a split second, curious to see his expression.
'Philosophy and maths,' Fathy told her. 'Perfect degree for anyone wanting to be a copper.'
His tone held just a trace of irony and Irvine wanted to push a wee bit harder, to nosy in to the Egyptian's past to find out more, but something stopped her. Be cool, she told herself. Keep to neutral ground. It was something she'd learned from watching Lorimer with people in interview situations.
'Did you not go on to do honours, then?'
'Yes, actually. Got a first as it happens.' He shrugged again as if it was no great shakes or else he was shy of being seen as a brainy type.
Irvine kept her eyes on the road as she digested this snippet of information. 'Och, I just did an ordinary at Strathclyde,' she told him. 'Never could do maths.' She gave him a wicked grin. 'I'll get you to do my time sheets if I ever get stuck, eh?' She moved her elbow as if to dig him in the ribs, a gesture that said at once that she was only
