'So Brogan skips to avoid paying his debts.. `.. and just happens to have the bad luck to run into young Rashid when he's over in Mallorca.'
'But where does that leave us with Galbraith and Sandiman?'
Lorimer nodded and gave a sigh. 'Aye, that's one thing we know now Given the timing it's pretty certain that Brogan couldn't have killed them. And it probably means he didn't pull the trigger that killed Scott.'
'So, what…?' Fathy spread his hands in a questioning gesture.
'What it means,' Lorimer said slowly, 'is that we're looking for a professional hit man. Assuming Brogan was the killer, given his experience from his ex-army days, may have thrown us off on completely the wrong direction.'
'So, hunting for Marianne Brogan was all a waste of time?'
Disappointment sounded in the young man's voice.
'No, I don't think that at all,' Lorimer countered. 'She may well hold the key to her ex-husband's death. And to her brother's present whereabouts. Electing to vanish as effectively as she has shows that she has plenty to hide,' he nodded. 'And so continuing to locate her is still one of our top priorities.'
Fathy listened, noting his boss's words. It was almost as though Lorimer were rehearsing what to say to his own superior, choosing his words for maximum effect.
'Anyway,' Lorimer said suddenly, 'what did you want to see me about?'
Fathy smiled a tired smile and shrugged. 'Nothing that can't wait, sir. Thanks.'
The Hundi tipped back his head and swallowed the last of the whisky then set down the heavy crystal glass. He was sitting on the pale beige leather settee that was squashed to one side under the man's bulk, a deep frown creasing his forehead.
There had been no phone call. And now the Asian was beginning to wonder whose side this man called Smith was really on.
CHAPTER 34
'I'm worried,' Solly said, turning away from the window, the brightness from the setting sun's last rays making him blink owlishly behind his horn-rimmed spectacles.
'It's that girl, Marianne, isn't it?' asked Rosie, shifting her position on the easy chair. Despite the cushions wedged at her back the discomfort from the Braxton Hicks had continued all afternoon.
Her mouth twisted in a small grimace; nobody told you about the minutiae of pregnancy, did they? Until you read up on the baby manuals, it was all a bit of a mystery, even for a qualified medic like herself.
Solly stood with his back to the window, his face now in shadow. Sometimes, Rosie thought, he was too concerned about the frailties of human suffering for his own good. She smiled at him, a sudden tenderness welling up inside her. He was so generous and kind to her, caring for her every need. And he'd be a splendid father – anyone could see that. She reached out a hand and Solly came over to where she sat, cuddling in at her side, his fingers lacing in her own.
'I keep wondering if it was something I did. Or said,' he murmured.
'What d'you mean?' Rosie asked.
'She said she was grateful to me… no… what were her exact words?' Solly broke off, frowning. A minute passed then his brow cleared and he sat up, his eyes bright. He turned to Rosie, and as he spoke she could hear the edge of excitement in his voice.
'She said she had a lot to thank me for. That was it!' he beamed, wagging his head. 'I thought she meant that I'd been a good teacher, or something like that. But there was… how can I put it? So much more. It was as though she was saying that I had helped her personally.' He stopped, a faint expression of embarrassment on his face. 'That sounds rather egotistical, doesn't it?'
'Go on,' Rosie urged. 'If you don't probe more deeply into this encounter you'll never arrive at the truth.'
Solly smiled at her fondly. His wife's words were an echo of what he himself had said on many occasions and hearing them coming back was an affirmation of just how close they had become as husband and wife.
'I remember Marianne as a faded, sad sort of young woman. So much so, that I hardly recognised her in the bookshop. She was…' he tailed off, trying again for the right word to describe the memory in his mind's eye. 'She was so alive,' he said at last. 'It was as though something wonderful had happened to change her from that nervy creature who sat through my seminars last session into a lovely, confident young woman.'
Vas it just an emotional change or was there something different about her appearance?' Rosie asked.
'Her hair,' Solly said simply. 'She has long red hair and it used to be scrunched up in a tight knot as if she didn't care about how she looked,' he said slowly. 'But that day it was loose and flowing, like some Pre-Raphaelite figure. Even her clothes had more colour,' he murmured, remembering.
'Sounds like she'd found a man,' Rosie laughed. 'Love does that to a woman, you know,' she said, snuggling closer to Solly's side.
'But was not that man,' Solly said. And she told me she had a lot to thank me for..
'Didn't you lecture on love, maybe?' Rosie asked.
'Yes, the usual one I trot out on St Valentine's day,' Solly replied. 'But she was such a mouse-like creature all the way through the session. I don't think it could have been that.'
'What, then?' Rosie asked.
'I don't know,' Solly said slowly, 'but I'm determined to find out.' He looked at his wife who was beginning to yawn.
'Come on,' he said gently. 'Bed time for you. That child of ours is taking its toll tonight, isn't he?'
Marianne rolled over onto her side, listening. Max was breathing deeply and she watched him sleeping as his chest rose and fell.
The faint veining on his eyelids began to flicker and Marianne could tell he was dreaming. Rapid eye movement, she thought, remembering Doctor Brightman's lectures. What was her lover dreaming about? Was it something from his past? Or simply a collage of the day's events? She smiled, thinking about their day away from the city. Max had told her his business could take a rest for a few days and that he needed a holiday, but Marianne suspected that he simply wanted to be with her.
Yesterday they had stood on deck as the ferry crossed from Wemyss Bay to the Isle of Bute, wind blowing her hair into a tangle until Max had told her she was a wild woman. He had drawn her closer to his side, murmuring that he liked wild women. Her heart had beaten faster at that and Marianne had felt such a sense of abandonment and freedom as she had never known before. This man would take her away from all the things that held her to the city, just like this ship sailing to the misty island. Wouldn't he?
She gazed at Max's sleeping form, noting the twitching eyelids.
Perhaps, she thought fondly, he was dreaming of her?
Lorimer heard the tiny sigh that escaped his wife's lips and, though he knew she was sleeping, the sound made his heart ache for her. It was hard to think she would be undergoing major surgery so soon and his mouth narrowed as he began to imagine all the things that Maggie had not told him. She'd made light of the operation, telling him it was one of the most common procedures nowadays. But though she'd pasted on a smile, he had heard the fear in her voice. And not just fear, a despair that finally their hopes of having a family of their own would be gone for good. 'I'm too old anyway,' she'd joked, not saying what both of them knew, that mothers were becoming older and older these days as more women postponed the start of bearing children.
He'd wanted her to talk to Rosie but that suggestion had been met with a definite shake of Maggie's head. Seeing a friend who was carrying a longed-for child of her own was simply too much for Maggie to bear. Besides, his wife had reminded him sadly, Rosie should not be concerning herself with thoughts of the surgery to remove a womb; not when her own was doing what it was meant to do.
Lorimer sighed. It would all be over and done with in a few weeks' time, their lives continuing as before. Meantime he had other things to think about in the darkness of this night. Who had killed Sahid Jaffrey? And was that killing linked in any way to the men who had been shot in Brogan's flat? Ballistics had come up with some suppositions. One candidate for the murder weapon was a Glock self-loading pistol, possibly the model 19. The ballistics expert had given some details of a pistol suppressor, the Jupiter Eye, that was compatible to all 9mm
