For once the psychologist was on time for his meeting at Police headquarters. The snowfall may have caused some chaos early on during rush hour but his journey here had been without incident.
‘Doctor Brightman?’ A young WPC stood at the entrance to a corridor, holding back the door for him to follow her.
‘Terrible day. You got here alright, though?’ she commented.
‘As you see,’ Solly nodded, unwinding the knitted scarf from his neck. ‘It’s fine now. A trifle slippery underfoot, but that’s all,’ he smiled at the girl, considering the small talk that always centred upon the subject of weather. It might be an idea to throw that into a tutorial with the first years. Could be interesting to make them think about the ways strangers interacted with one another. He could use comparisons from other cultures too, he mused, as they entered the lift. Or he might use the idea of conversations in another way altogether. How did a murderer first approach his victim? By commenting on the weather?
The answer to his hypothetical question remained unanswered as the lift doors opened.
‘Superintendent Mitchison asked me to ask you if you’d like some tea or coffee, sir,’ the WPC told him.
‘Ah,’ Solomon replied, his mind shifting from the tutorial room to the matter of hot drinks. His tongue watered at the memory of strongly brewed tea. Police catering didn’t include camomile or peppermint, he was sure.
‘A glass of water, perhaps?’ he beamed at the girl who raised her eyebrows in surprise. He could almost hear her thoughts as she knocked on the door marked Superintendent M. Mitchison. Cold water? On a day like this?
‘Come,’ a voice commanded.
Solomon stepped inside the beige office. He hadn’t been here since that spring morning when Mitchison had requested his help with a case involving what had looked like stranger killings.
It had been Lorimer’s case, really, but he’d put in his tuppence worth to good effect. Now he’d been summoned here again and he was curious to know what the Superintendent’s request would be this time.
‘Do take a seat, Doctor Brightman,’ Mitchison stood up to greet him, the handshake just the wrong side of perfunctory. ‘I suppose you know what this is all about. Can’t escape it with all the media brouhaha.’
‘The murder in the Concert Hall?’
‘Murders,’ Mitchison answered shortly, ‘There’s been another one.’ He glared at the psychologist as if he were somehow to blame. ‘A body was discovered at the Concert Hall this morning. Lorimer’s there now,’ he added. He continued to look at Solomon, expecting a response, but the man across the desk merely nodded, the ghost of a smile hovering around his lips.
Mitchison leant forward in his seat, wagging a finger toward Solomon. ‘It’s been a shambles of a case up until now. The press have been out of line and so far there’s little in the way of forensic evidence to give us any leads.’ As the Superintendent spoke, Solomon wondered if there was a veiled criticism of Dr Rosie Fergusson contained in his words, a criticism that Mitchison intended to be communicated through him.
For a moment Solomon felt a heat suffuse his cheeks. His relationship with the pathologist was nobody’s business but his own. As he stared back at the Superintendent Solly experienced a sudden revelation. Not only was he acknowledging to himself that he and Rosie were in a relationship but he saw just how ready he was to protect and defend her. The insight made him smile. He decided not to respond, waiting instead for Mitchison to spell out the reason for his invitation to headquarters.
For a second time a cordon was flung around one of Glasgow’s focal points. But as yet it was an invisible cordon as there was no telltale scene-of-crime tape.
The Bath Street entrance to the Buchanan Galleries was closed off, much to the annoyance of its manager. It was a real inconvenience to all his shoppers, he protested, but neither he nor they had any knowledge yet of a body floating deep below the city pavements. Nor would they know if the Police Press office kept the news strictly to itself for a while, Lorimer told himself. All that was apparent was the presence of a Strathclyde Fire Brigade truck, its hoses snaking into the emergency exit at west Nile Street and down into the roots of the building.
Lorimer stood for a minute regarding the grey lines disappearing into the darkness. The steps down into the dungeon looked dank and unwholesome as if the triangular shadows in each corner held some poisonous muck. He could see flickering light from the firemen’s torches down below, somewhere out of sight. The beams they cast made ghosts dance upon the streaming walls. Lorimer’s mouth felt dry as he swallowed. This unnatural fear that had haunted him from childhood seemed to grip him by the throat, rendering his whole body useless for the task ahead. He gritted his teeth, cursing his weakness then forced one foot in front of the other as he began the descent down into the bowels of the Concert Hall. The soles of his shoes squelched against the sodden carpet, its blood-red colour blackened both by the flood and the many pairs of booted feet that had preceded Lorimer down into the lowest levels of the building.
As always the walls seemed to close in on him, and he had to fight the impulse to raise his hand to ward off their phantom approach. He swallowed once more and continued down each slimy step.
Round a bend in the staircase Lorimer saw with some relief that the dungeon was a fairly wide space though the roof, as he’d expected, was oppressively low.
As the stairs ended, Lorimer felt the water gather round his ankles. It took an effort to move forward, sloshing one foot after the other towards the middle of the plant room. As he ducked to avoid the metal cable trays overhead, the pencil torch he was carrying picked out red lettering on a bank of control panels: DANGER 440 VOLTS. Lorimer felt the sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades. There were electric cables above his head and all along the walls of this room.
One flick of a switch by a careless hand could send them all to eternity.
‘Keep back, will ye, sir?’ one of the firemen called. Lorimer, peering through the intermittent darkness could see that they were draining a lake of black water. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out two white-clad figures bending over what looked like flotsam washed up on the far shore of the pool. On either side of them were drive shafts that led up towards a flat ceiling where a dim rectangle of light illumined the activity below. Measuring the space between the pool and the roof above, Lorimer calculated he was standing almost directly below the stage.
He gazed back at the two white figures. Their ghostly appearance held no terrors for DCI Lorimer, who grinned as he recognised the diminutive Doctor Fergusson and Dan, her burly counterpart from Pathology. Looking down at his shoes, Lorimer gave a sigh.
‘Another pair for the bin,’ he muttered.
‘Aye, you should’ve brought your wellies right enough, Chief Inspector,’ one of the firemen grinned up at him. His face in the torchlight gave the man the look of a demented sprite, his eyes shining under the yellow helmet. ‘If ye wait another wee while we’ll have the place sucked out and ye can get across to your body,’ he continued. Lorimer raised his eyebrows and smiled in spite of the darkness that was pressing down upon him.
The man’s matter-of-fact words brought the situation into a new perspective. They were all just doing their jobs. That realisation often made the filthier business of death a lot easier to handle. Lorimer raised his hand in acknowledgement and stepped back against the wall as the hose threatened to sweep him off his feet.
Over on the far side he could see Dan and Rosie prepare a stretcher to carry out the half-submerged corpse. They moved slowly, their hooded suits making them look like astronauts attempting some grotesque ritual. The sound of water being siphoned away filled the space between them and Lorimer concentrated on the surface water. So long as he focused on the middle of the room he’d be OK. It was an old trick that helped keep the worst of his claustrophobia at bay, like watching the horizon to overcome seasickness.