He found it in one corner under a pile of scattered magazines, shards of glass sticking out from the splayed pages of FHM and GQ. A framed picture of a woman, smiling back at the camera. She was in her late twenties, perhaps, with a distinctive sort of pallor, her alabaster skin tone reminding him of some of the PreRaphaelite paintings. That long red hair cascading down upon one bare shoulder might have come from any era. But the background to the picture was entirely modern and Lorimer recognised the building at once: it was the library of Glasgow University, a place he had frequented during his time as a student. Dusting away the remaining fragments of glass, he let his finger linger on the glossy photograph. 'Who are you?' he whispered softly.
'Probably between nine and midnight,' a familiar voice intoned, making Lorimer straighten up, pocket the photograph and step into the hallway once more. The white-suited figure crouching beside the bodies paid him no attention, looking instead at her colleague who was busily taking notes.
'Never one to give us an exact time of death,' he said, shaking his head in mock despair as he noticed DC Fathy who was evidently absorbed in the pathologist's examination.
'Sir,' Fathy said, straightening up and looking guiltily at his senior investigating officer.
'It's all right, Fathy. Watching this one will teach you plenty,' he chuckled.
'That you, Lorimer?' Rosie turned her head a fraction, trying not to overbalance.
'Aye, and shouldn't you be the note taker these days?' he answered, smiling at the woman below him whose figure was now quite altered by her pregnancy. `Och, just this last one… well two… then I'll leave the nasty stuff to the rest of them,' Rosie replied.
'Dedication to duty,' Lorimer explained to Fathy in a loud whisper behind his hand that Doctor Rosie Fergusson was meant to hear.
Any idea when the PMs will be done?'
'Well, seeing this is the first murder since your pal Kenneth Scott, we might just be able to fit them in today. That all right for you?' Rosie asked waspishly.
DC Fathy looked from one to the other, mystified by the bantering between his SIO and the consultant pathologist.
'No worries, son, Rosie and me, we're old pals,' Lorimer explained. 'She just likes to give me a hard time of it.'
'Aye, and that's because you want everything done yesterday,'
Rosie shot back. 'Right, give me a hand up, that's us all done for now.'
Lorimer reached down and helped the pathologist to her feet, allowing the detective constable to see a fresh faced woman with curly blonde hair escaping from her white hood. Despite the voluminous overalls, Rosie's pregnancy was evident for all to see and Fathy noticed her eyes crinkle in a friendly smile as she regarded his boss. For a petite and pretty young woman like this to be involved in something as harsh as the examination and dissection of dead bodies was a novelty to the detective constable, whose experience of such folk had so far been limited to much older and much less attractive practitioners.
It was well after noon when the team reassembled at divisional headquarters. The rain that had earlier washed the streets had eventually disappeared in a haze of rainbow colours and now a glaring sun was shining through the dusty windows.
'The car's registered in the name of Fraser Sandiman,' Irvine told the officers assembled in the muster room. `Ah, dear old Fraz, wondered what kind of a sticky end he'd come to,' murmured DS Wilson. 'Known drug dealer,' he added for DC Fathy's benefit, giving the young man a wink.
There was a murmur amongst the other officers, some of whom were only now being brought up to speed on the latest murder case. Stuff like this happened not infrequently within the Strathclyde area. Drug dealers falling out, men gunned down for reasons that only became partly known, if ever, in a court of law.
'Galbraith was identified from his credit cards and Brogan's not been seen in his flat for a wee while, according to the neighbour who called us,' Irvine continued, her voice rising above the noise.
'His place was really trashed when we saw it this morning,' DC Fathy put in. 'Someone doesn't like Mr Brogan very much.'
Naw, son, he's no very well liked by a lot of folk,' Wilson explained as a ripple of laughter rang out, leaving the young officer red faced.
'Okay,' Lorimer raised a hand and immediately all talk ceased as they turned to look at the senior investigating officer. 'The post-mortems have still to take place but our initial impression is of a professional who knew what he was doing all right. There was a shotgun inside the flat, registered to Sandiman, and I believe we will find that victim's prints on it.'
The word victim served to remind the officers that, yes, these were Glasgow dealers who may have made hundreds of lives miserable through the supply of drugs, but they were still citizens whose murders deserved to be investigated. Some mother's son, DS Wilson was fond of saying, whenever a fellow officer became cynical about such deaths.
'The injuries to their chests and heads suggest a marksman, maybe a trained sniper. So one immediate line of investigation has to be into any known associates of the deceased who are or were regular army. Alistair, you knew Sandiman from the past, can you take on this action?' Lorimer nodded to DS Wilson. 'We've still to get the ballistics report as well as other forensics from the scene of crime, but until then it's a case of asking questions of neighbours like Bernardini, local shopkeepers and,' he fixed Irvine and Fathy with a stern eye, 'relatives of the deceased.'
Annie Irvine swallowed. This was becoming a habit. She was accustomed to being picked for this sort of action: dealing with the victims' families fell to a female officer all too often. You've got that sympathetic touch, she'd been told. But this was a little different from giving bad news to the relatives of an accident victim.
Sandiman and Galbraith's families might well be a tough lot, not easy to handle.
'What about Brogan?' someone asked.
Lorimer's face creased in a grim smile. 'Finding Billy Brogan is our top priority. It's looking likely that he's the man who can answer all of our questions. Billy's ex-army remember,' he added, raising one eyebrow suggestively. 'There's plenty of reasons for thinking he could have been the one behind these deaths.
Something tells me he's in for more trouble than a fight with his insurance company.'
Marianne spread out the books on her bed. She had enough to keep her busy until the beginning of the new term. One by one she lifted the volumes, reading the back covers where the various psychologists had been given their accreditations by the marketing departments of different publishers. Some were written in a more academic style than others. The last book she looked at was the one she wanted to read most. A slim black volume with the author's name picked out in silver: Doctor Solomon Brightman.
The woman smiled. The psychologist would never know just how much he had turned her life around, would he?
When the phone rang she paused before rising to answer it, almost as if she had an instinct of bad news. Marianne's stomach lurched. Something had happened to Billy!
But when she lifted the handset and said hello, the voice on the other end was not that of her brother at all.
'Yes?' she asked, leaning back on the bed.
'Still no sign of my pal Billy,' the voice said ruefully. 'And here I am all on my lonesome, no one to hang out with. Thought we could at least have a pint in that place he likes so much, what's it called? The Scotia?'
Marianne suppressed a laugh. If that wasn't an invitation to meet up, then she didn't know what was. 'Well…' she began, then paused, listening. The woman frowned, sitting up suddenly.