He had included Joseph, of course, and had gone on to relate his own knowledge of the Judaic ceremony hatavat halom. This was a ceremony where through ritual a rabbi could transform bad dreams, making them good. Not a bad ceremony to have, Solly thought to himself. If he had long since given up being a practising Jew, he still retained a strong respect for the traditions and felt it was important to include this snippet in his lecture.
He skipped the pages referring to REM sleep. Students new to the neurology of sleep and dreams loved this bit, especially those who craved empirical evidence. Solly chuckled, turning the pages until he came to the section on the psychology of dreams. So much of it was theory, of course, and students had to balance what many psychologists had said upon the subject, some of it quite contradictory. Were dreams an emotional preparation for solving problems? Did they create new ideas? Did they function as a mental dustbin for all the sensory input that had taken place before sleep? Solly read on, once again acknowledging his own fascination with the subject.
Rosie had told him of the vivid dream she had experienced when she had been in hospital. She had felt as though she were leaving her own body. The memory of that time still had the power to disturb him. That she had hung between life and death following her terrible accident was never in doubt. But had she been given some sort of premonition of the afterlife in a dream?
Or had the massive amounts of drugs been responsible for such pictures in her brain? It was interesting, he always told his students, that more women than men recalled their dreams. And also that those remembered dreams were more often than not associated with anxiety rather than with a feeling of well being.
Solly laid down the folder full of papers and gazed into space. To sleep, perchance to dream, Shakespeare had written. Distracted for a moment, he wondered if he ought to write a paragraph or two about characters from the plays. Undergraduates often combined the study of psychology with that of English literature. Hamlet was an obvious choice, of course. And Lady Macbeth, though she, poor woman, was often wrongly attacked as being a psychopath.
Such persons did not experience her level of guilt, he would have to remind his students. And did psychopaths have the necessary mental equipment to be dreamers themselves? That was another interesting question that might be worth including. The better students would enjoy following up that one.
A door closing shook Solly out of his reverie and he turned around to listen to the familiar sounds he held so dear; Rosie letting her keys fall into the porcelain dish on the hall table, then her voice calling him as she entered the lounge. `Hiya. I'm home.'
Solly rose from his chair, all thoughts of dreams and dreamers banished in that moment as he caught sight of his pregnant wife.
There was something that caught at his heart as he came forward to fold her in his embrace: a new vulnerability that made her seem fragile despite her robust shape. She was sheltering their child, keeping it snug and warm, protected by her body. Flesh of my flesh, Solly thought, the phrase coming to him suddenly.
'Here, sit down. I'll make you something nice. Lemon and ginger tea?'
Rosie slumped down in her favourite rocking chair, settling a couple of cushions at her back. `Ah, that's better. Yes, some of that nice tea would be wonderful. And maybe a wee ginger biscuit as well.I've been having horrible heartburn again. Wee rascal's probably lying up against my tummy. Oh,' she added in a sigh. 'All those poor bits of me squashed up. Can't think what a relief it'll be to be back to normal again.'
The pathologist closed her eyes, feeling the warmth from the early evening sunshine through the glass. Their bay windows faced west and it was a treat to bask in the last rays of the setting sun. Theirs would be an autumn baby, due to be born on the twentieth of October, Rosie mused. A Libran, Emma in the mortuary had informed her. They had chosen not to know whether it would be a boy or a girl. So long as it's like the world, her old aunty had said. And she was right, of course; a normal, healthy baby was what mattered. Solly's mum and dad didn't seem to care either way, or so they had said. Rosie sighed. It was such a shame her own folks were no longer here to see the next generation of wee Fergussons.
'Here you are,' Solly handed his wife a mug of tea and hunkered down beside her. 'Good day? Or shouldn't I want to know?'
'Thanks, love, not bad,' she replied, taking a sip from the china mug. 'I'll spare you the details,' she grinned.
Solly smiled back. Theirs was a strange union in many ways; a man who was squeamish about all things to do with blood and gore and a woman whose profession it was to delve into the innards of a human cadaver. Early on in their relationship Rosie had learned to be sensitive to the psychologist's weakness and was always careful not to dwell on too many particulars of her day to day work.
'Interesting case this one that Lorimer's got on just now.
Probably some gangland falling out, if you ask me, but ballistics are having some fun with it.' She turned away from the sunlight to look at her husband, sitting by her side. "I vo men gunned down in the flat of a known drug dealer. The flat belongs to the man whose former brother-in-law was killed by the same weapon. Or so they believe.'
Not very mysterious, then,' Solly shrugged.
'Shouldn't think so. The dealer is ex-army so as it stands things seem to point at him. Lorimer's team will likely turn him up then that'll be another case for the records.'
'Will you be required to give evidence in court?'
Rosie bent her head from side to side trying to ease the neck muscles that had stiffened up. "Spect so. But they have to catch him first and it'll only come to trial if he pleads not guilty.'
'Is that likely?'
Rosie snorted. `Och, they all seem to plead not guilty these days. Hope that they'll have one of our famous celebrity defence lawyers who'll get them off.'
'Well, at least you won't be performing any more post-mortems now,' Solly said, a hint of warning in his voice.
'No, 'spect not,' she replied casually. But as she drained the mug of tea, Rosie wondered if the recent post-mortems she had performed on the two drug dealers would be her last before going on maternity leave. It was becoming more and more difficult to lean over the operating table and sometimes she had experienced tingles in her fingers, not the best thing when wielding a scalpel.
Solly was probably quite right, even though it felt as if he were being a tad over-protective. Somehow this case had intrigued her.
The memory of that nice looking chap with a single hole to his forehead had lingered with her. Especially when Lorimer had expressed his surprise that Kenneth Scott had been targeted by a hit man.
Ah, well, it wasn't her business.
'Look!' SoIly laid a gentle hand across her belly as a ripple appeared, moving from one side to the other. And as both of them gazed at the tiny miracle that was their unborn child, all thoughts of dead bodies and gunmen were forgotten.
'Lorimer always tells us to look at the victim's home,' DS Cameron said, as he strolled down the corridor with Detective Constable Fathy. 'We didn't have too much chance of doing that with Scott so he wants me to take you back there today to have a look around.' `To see what isn't there,' murmured Fathy.
'Right,' Cameron replied. 'We seem to have reached a bit of an impasse with Mr Scott. Far too little known about him. Lorimer reckons we might turn up something back at his house.'
Fathy nodded, increasing his speed to match the other man's stride. 'And he's happy for me to tag along?'
'Of course,' Cameron said. 'Especially as your pal, DC Irvine, is off with DS Wilson to see Sandiman and Galbraith's families,' he added. 'Think we've got the better of the actions today, don't you?' he grinned.
Omar Fathy gave a smile in return. It would be good to have an opportunity to see the detective sergeant in action this morning.