through all the departmental records instead.'
'That's a lot of work for you,' Solly nodded then, looking at them both in turn, he asked, 'What does my good friend think?'
Irvine made a face. 'Lorimer thinks she's dead,' she told the psychologist.
And you don't?' Solly said, looking from one officer to the other.
Irvine shook her head. 'But he isn't being pig-headed about that, either.'
'Which is why you have come to talk to the secretarial staff?' `Yes, sir,' Fathy answered for them both. 'I just have this feeling. …' the young Egyptian broke off.
And feelings are important,' Solly replied immediately, encouraging the officer. 'They can tell us things that are not on the surface but are of value nonetheless,' he continued, wagging his head sagely.
Omar Fathy sat opposite the psychologist seeing eyes that twinkled behind their horn-rimmed spectacles. So this was the legendary Solomon Brightman? Solomon the wise, Fathy thought, noting the man's keen intelligence. Here was a man he felt he could trust. On impulse he blurted out, 'We're looking for a woman who called herself Marianne Scott. Was Marianne Brogan before her marriage,' he said, pulling the well-thumbed photograph from his inside pocket. He stopped suddenly, aware of the change that had come over the psychologist's face.
For a long moment none of them spoke, Solly staring at them owlishly as though he had retreated inside himself. The ticking of an old-fashioned clock on the wall seemed unnaturally loud.
'Marianne?' Solly said at last, swallowing as though the word stuck in his throat. 'Marianne,' he paused for another moment, sighing as if it were an effort to continue, 'is one of my students.
Or at least she was,' he tailed off, eyes gazing into space at something neither of the police officers could see.
'I've seen her,' he told them at last, still looking into the distance.
'And she was happy. Happier than she ever was last session.'
Turning to Irvine and Fathy Solomon Brightman's face grew serious once more. 'I would hate to think that anything bad has happened to that young woman.'
CHAPTER 32
C 'mon, doon here,' Geordie Mitchell beckoned his pals.
'This'll do fine,' he added, grinning as the other two boys picked their way carefully through the broken glass that littered what remained of the pathway. 'Here, Rab, gonnae you gie's a haun taste git up taste thon windae?'
'Ye cannae git up therr, Mitchell,' Rab replied. `Thur's way too much glass still in that one.'
'Well let's finish it off,' the third boy said gleefully, setting down his backpack with a clink that betrayed its contents. He was by far the smallest of the trio, a dark-haired boy, quick and otter sleek, but he had shouldered the pack manfully down the steep track that led from their village. 'Better inside where naebody can find us, eh?'
The three boys scrabbled in the tussocky grass, finding suitable sized rocks to aim at the already Ilroken pane of glass above them. `Geronimor Rab shouted('See thon wee bit up taste the left?
Got it a bull's eye so ah did!' `Ah'll finish it off fur youse n'all,' his pal boasted.
'Bet ye cannae, Chick. Ye're too wee!' Geordie scoffed.
The challenge flung out made the smaller boy's face tighten with concentration as he pulled back his arm then let the stone fly through the air.
With a tinkling sound the remaining shard fell inwards, leaving a blank hole big enough for them to scramble through.
'See!' Chick yelled in triumph, offering his open hand for a high five.
'Right, let's get in there,' Geordie told them. Who's gonnae gie me a leg up?'
Geordie Mitchell heaved himself upwards from Rab's clasped hands, scrabbling his feet to find some purchase. Then, seizing the edge of the windowsill, he thrust his body forwards into the gloom.
For a moment he could see nothing, blinded by the contrast from the sun's glare outside. Then his eyes began to register shapes beneath him. And a smell that made him wrinkle his nose in disgust.
'Three laddies, sarge,' the officer told the mobile phone in his hand. 'Down at Brockenridge's old place. Foot of Rowan Glen.
Aye, that's the place.'
The uniformed policeman turned to the boys sitting behind him in the squad car. 'You all right, lads?'
The three boys nodded in unison, silenced by the enormity of what Geordie had found in the old factory. Thoughts of being punished for dogging off school had long vanished. Fear of something more dreadful had made them scramble up the hill to the main road where, as chance would have it, they had managed to flag down a passing patrol car. Their earlier bravado had vanished; now they were three wee laddies whose natural instincts for what was right and what was wrong had reasserted themselves.
Breaking already broken windows and having a few bottles of Buckfast was nothing compared to what Geordie had found. That was wrong in anybody's book.
'Can you describe the man to us, Geordie?' the officer in the front passenger seat turned to ask.
Geordie Mitchell swallowed the bile that threatened to shame him before his mates. He'd never forget that sight as long as he lived. Yet trying to describe that body covered in blood with its dead, glaring eyes was beyond him. He shook his head, refusing to meet the eyes of his pals who were looking at him with unashamed curiosity.
'It's a deid mate he'd screamed, falling down on top of an astonished Rab.
There had been no time for discussion. Geordie had turned to run back the way they had come, the other boys following his lead, galvanised into action by the expression of horror on his chalk-white face.
Marianne wiped her mouth with the paper serviette and smiled at the man opposite. He'd been quieter than she had imagined an ex-soldier would have been, this Max Whittaker, but he had made up for that by being attentive and a good listener. She had told him lots about her first year at the university and as the meal had progressed, Marianne had even let slip her hopes for the future.
'Why America?' Max had asked, gesturing in the air with his fork. 'Aren't there enough opportunities here?'
Marianne had shaken her head, pretending to know more about that than she actually did. A gulp from her water glass had given her time to think up some spurious comment about psychologists being better paid and Max seemed to take her fantasies for the straight truth.
He hadn't said much about himself and Marianne's curiosity had been satisfied by the few comments about travelling around the UK as a consultant and the tedium of staying in travel lodges that looked the same no matter what city you were in.
She let her fingers stray on to the table, playing absently with the pair of white ceramic ducks twined together to provide salt and pepper. Years ago a friend who had worked for British Airways cabin crew had pinched one of them and sent photographs of the duck from places all over the world. Marianne pondered for a moment whether the staff had missed the lone duck and what they had done with its partner.
'Glad you came out with me today,' he said gruffly, breaking into her thoughts and putting a light hand over her own. It was the nearest he had come to an intimate moment and, absurdly, Marianne found herself blushing like an awkward schoolgirl.
'I've enjoyed it,' she said truthfully, looking at him with a new appreciation.
Max Whittaker wasn't drop dead gorgeous, but there was something appealing about these regular features and his light grey eyes, especially the way they held her own as though he wanted to say more but was too shy.
'Better get the bill,' he mumbled and began to reach into the inside pocket of the jacket that was slung on the seat behind him.
She felt a spasm of disappointment as keen as real pain. That was it, then. They'd drive back to the city and he would disappear from her life. Suddenly Marianne knew that she wanted more from this man, this stranger who had made her feel like a girl again, full of hopes and possibilities. Reaching behind her head, she unclipped the
