They could whistle for their fine. It was just one more aggravation added to the inconvenience of having to remain here a while. A grim smile hovered across his mouth.
Someone was going to pay dearly for this.
CHAPTER 3
Once upon a time,' that was how stories ought to begin, Solly mused, walking slowly past the rows of books for the third time. Hadn't his own childhood reading been like that? Well, perhaps not, he smiled, recognising The House at Pooh Corner and a couple of familiar Roald Dahls. It was an interesting idea, though, that traditional phrases like 'Once upon a time' were somehow rooted in one's own consciousness. Perhaps he could use that in one of his seminar meetings for the second year students next term. The smile above the dark beard continued as Doctor Solomon Brightman, psychologist and expectant father, stopped beside a shelf of brightly coloured books for very small children.
Little blue men and flowers with grinning faces peered up at him. Shaking his head slightly, Solly picked out a cloth book that rustled as he touched its pages. Ah, this was more like it. He remembered a conference in Sweden where he had been in conversation with a fellow psychologist when the subject of tactile stimulation had been under discussion. Flipping the first page in his hands, Solly saw the black and white shapes, like petals, some large and some repeating a pattern. A young baby would receive visual information while being attracted by the sensual feel of its soft pages, crackling plastic portions cleverly concealed within. Quite without warning he blinked away a sudden tear. A baby. His baby. His and Rosie's. Standing still in that bookshop, oblivious to other people moving past him, Solly experienced a moment of revelation. He was well aware that fatherhood could produce such feelings in an individual. Hadn't he been teaching that for some considerable time now? His rational self might well be able to identify each chemical and hormonal surge producing a physical sensation having no name other than the abstract: joy. But that he should have such feelings in his own breast was nothing short of a miracle. Wasn't that what he'd heard grandmothers call a newborn?
A little miracle.
'Doctor Brightman!'
Solly spun around as his name was called out. A woman stood at the end of the aisle, a quizzical look on her face as though she wasn't absolutely certain that she had the correct person. Solly smiled tentatively, trying hard to recall the woman to mind. Too old to be one of his university students, and yet there was something familiar about that mane of red hair cascading down her shoulders, and those unwavering eyes.
'Fancy seeing you here,' she continued, sweeping her gaze along the row of children's books. Then she looked at him again, as though she were aware of his discomfiture and it amused her.
Head held high, she regarded him boldly, a smile playing around her mouth.
'Yes, indeed,' Sully remarked, struggling to put a name to a face that he felt should be familiar. Was she one of his mature students?
There were a few married women under his tutelage.
Could he remember their names, though? His eyes fell on to her hands: no wedding ring, no help there, then.
'It's funny,' she said, staring At him, 'I've often imagined running into you, wondering what I would ray if I did.' The woman regarded him steadily, her eyes dark with an unfathomable expression.
'I've got a lot to thank you for, you know,' she said, adding almost as an afterthought, 'See you next term.' Then, with a brittle smile and a wave of her hand she turned on her heel, disappeared around the row of books and was gone.
SoIly stood for a moment, strangely disquieted at the enigmatic remark. She knew him. She expected to see him next term, so she must be one of his students, surely? And what had she to thank him for? Passing the exams? He frowned. Her words had been spoken in a tone of sudden gravity. So why couldn't he conjure up her name?
A frown creased his dark brow as the psychologist stared into space, struggling to remember. Mhairi. Was that her name? Or Marie something… Hadn't she been the one with the funny surname?
Or maybe not. Names were not the psychologist's strong point but he did have a good recall for faces. But the woman he had just seen bore little resemblance to the student he remembered.
This woman seemed altogether more confident, more… alive than the person he had taught all of last session.
Solly bit his lip thoughtfully. Alive. That was the correct word to use, right enough. For the Mari something or other who had sat through his seminars and scraped a bare pass in her first year exams was a mere shadow of the woman who had spoken to him moments ago. That stream of Titian hair had been screwed up into a messy bun at the back of her head, often as not, her pale face devoid of makeup, Solly remembered, casting his mind back to the seminars in his office at Glasgow University. There was a vibrancy about this creature that was at odds with his memory of her; Mari (was it Mhairi?) had dragged herself to his classes, a permanent air of grey exhaustion about her. At one point in the session he remembered asking if she had been unwell. Her dull eyed expression had given the lie to her assurance that she was fine.
The psychologist hadn't expected the woman to continue her course. But she'd gained the necessary grades and now she'd be back in his orbit once again. Whatever had happened to make her change so dramatically had to be good, Solly thought to himself.
Love, perhaps? Or was it merely the escape from the drudgery of constant study? Shrugging his shoulders, the psychologist gazed at the spot where the woman had stood before resuming his inspection of the rows of little books.
In the weeks to come Doctor Solomon Brightman would have cause to consider this chance encounter and just what it had revealed. But for now his disquiet remained a temporary distraction, not the thing of darkness and despair that would come to haunt his dreams.
CHAPTER 4
He was really the only person in the world she could trust.
Brother Billy. Wee toerag, his da had called him often enough before he'd been thrown out of the family home. No sweat, though. He knew his da had been right in his assessment of him. Billy Brogan, class A toerag, dealer in illegal substances, now doing a runner before all the shit caught up with him.
Billy chuckled to himself. She'd given him the 10K in used notes, dead careful not to have them traced to her bank account.
Clever, she was clever all right, but not a match for her wee brother. No siree.
Billy swung the backpack onto his shoulders as he left the aircraft.
The heat from the fuselage mixed with something else, a warmth that you didn't get even in the best of Glasgow summers.
Man, this would be the life all right. A wee holiday in Spain first, since he had plenty of spending money, then off again to where the action was. Morocco, natch. Marrakesh. Where it all came from. He'd be the main man in no time at all, nae pushers coming in between him and the gear, giving him a hard time.
Billy strode up the corridor, glancing now and again out of the tinted windows. It was still daylight but the sky had a rosy pink hue where the light met the horizon. For a moment he slowed down, the bravado he'd been feeling lost in the realisation that he was in a different country now. Och, but it was Spain, Majorca, where Glesca folk came all the time on their holidays. They'd all speak English, eh? Billy tried to reassure himself. Then the corridor opened out into a large hall where loads of people were sitting waiting on rows of plastic seats. Waiting to go home again, he thought, seeing sun-reddened flesh and down-turned mouths.