‘Thank you … Miss?’ Lorimer beamed at her but did not yet enter the room, content to carry on a conversation in the corridor.

  ‘Fiona,’ she replied, a pink tinge reaching her cheeks. ‘Fiona MacKellar.’ She hesitated a little as she looked up at Lorimer. ‘You’re here about Derek, aren’t you? It’s just awful,’ she whispered in hushed tones.

  ‘Dreadful business,’ Lorimer said, a serious frown on his face. ‘I expect he’ll be badly missed by you all.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he was well liked,’ the girl agreed eagerly.

  ‘And his girlfriend … ?’

  She gave a frown and shook her head. ‘No. There wasn’t a girlfriend. I think you’ve got that wrong. I’m sure Derek wasn’t seeing anyone. He would have told us if there had been a new woman in his life,’ she assured him, wide-eyed. ‘Derek was like that, you see, never could keep a secret.’ She sighed. And, with that, Miss Fiona MacKellar left the two officers and disappeared back along the corridor.

  ‘Tea? Coffee?’ Lorimer asked, stepping into the room and glancing at Brownlee who had listened to the conversation with interest.

  ‘Er … ’

  ‘I’m having coffee. And those mince pies look good.’ Lorimer grinned, leaning across and lifting a plate from the silver tray.

  ‘Oh, right,’ Brownlee said at last, clearly nonplussed by the preparation that had gone into greeting their arrival. ‘Er, coffee, please, sir.’

  ‘They’re trying to soften us up,’ Lorimer laughed, pouring black coffee from a thermal jug. ‘But I can see it’ll take more than this to disarm you, DI Brownlee.’

  Brownlee gave a faint smile that failed to reach a pair of anxious eyes, but he came around to Lorimer’s side and waited until he’d filled two bone china mugs. Unlike his senior officer, Brownlee declined anything to eat but Lorimer munched on his mince pie and took a second, imagining what Burns would think when he saw the detective superintendent making himself at home.

  Relax, he wanted to tell the younger man. The lawyer they were to meet had deliberately left them here alone rather than meet them and escort them to the boardroom himself. He’d already spotted a tiny camera angled in one corner of the ceiling and guessed that someone was watching their every move. Was this a sign of the man they’d come to meet exerting authority over the police officers? And, did it bear any relation to the device found in Carter’s home?

  On the other hand, it might be standard practice to have security cameras in an office like this where confidential matters might be discussed. Perhaps leaving the two police officers alone for a while had no sinister connotation at all and they were simply too busy to discuss a case of murder? Or had he wanted to make a show of offering hospitality in order to ingratiate himself with them? Would Brownlee pick up on any of those ideas? Lorimer wondered, watching the DI sip his coffee and make nervous glances towards the open door.

  Lorimer hung back when Vincent Burns strode into the room, arm outstretched to greet them. Brownlee’s mug was on the table in a split second, his hand grasping the silver-haired lawyer’s.

  ‘DI Brownlee, we spoke on the phone,’ Burns said. Then, turning to the tall man who was wiping sugar from his lips with a paper napkin, he gave a slight frown.

  ‘This is Detective Superintendent Lorimer,’ Brownlee said, making the introductions. ‘Mr Burns is the senior managing partner here at Bryson’s.’

  Was that a flicker of recognition in those deep-set eyes? Lorimer wondered as Burns came around the table.

  ‘Great mince pies,’ Lorimer said, rubbing his hands together as though to shake off the crumbs. ‘Good to meet you, Mr Burns.’

  The man shook his hand and met Lorimer’s eyes, holding his gaze just a fraction longer than was necessary, something Lorimer squirrelled away for future scrutiny.

  ‘Please, take a seat, gentlemen,’ Burns said at last, ushering them both to the far end of the highly polished table next to long windows that overlooked the streets below.

  Brownlee sat opposite the lawyer but Lorimer fussed a little over the coffee pot, pouring himself another cup and grabbing yet another mince pie before walking round the table and sitting with his back to the window, his chair pushed out a little so that he was sitting at an angle where he could watch both men. From the corner of his eye he caught the detective inspector exchanging a glance with the senior partner, one that seemed to say, Don’t worry, I’m in charge here. Lorimer suppressed a grin, wondering if Brownlee had already cottoned on to his own dim cop act, allowing him to conduct the interview while the detective superintendent observed every little detail.

  ‘Derek Carter,’ Brownlee began.

  ‘Terrible business, just terrible,’ Burns responded, shaking his head as though the death of his junior partner was a personal blow.

  ‘Tell me how you came to recruit him,’ Brownlee said calmly.

  ‘Oh.’ Vincent Burns sat forward a little and folded his hands on the tabletop, a frown beginning between his bushy white eyebrows as if the question had thrown him somewhat. ‘Er, well, that wasn’t down to me,’ he said, shuffling uneasily in his seat. ‘Our human resources department would have all the information you need, however. I can ask them to come in if you wish … ?’ He began to rise from his chair, but a wave of Brownlee’s hand stopped him.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, sir. We can of course speak to your people in due course. Were you aware that Mr Carter had a police record?’

  ‘Well, of course not!’ Burns exclaimed, tossing his head indignantly. ‘That only came out after he was … ’ The rest of his sentence hung in the air as though Burns were reluctant to utter the word murdered.

  ‘What did you think of Mr Carter when you first met him?’ Brownlee continued.

  ‘Well … ’ Burns gave a sniff and looked away thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure I remember what I thought. He’s been with us for a while, you know,’ he said, looking at Brownlee as if that was a sufficient answer.

  ‘Was Carter a reliable employee?’

  ‘Oh, my goodness, yes! We only have staff here that can cope with our sort of work, you know. Never have time for hangers-on or time-wasters,’ he assured the DI. ‘No, Carter was fine, just fine.’

  Lorimer noted the man biting the edge of his thumbnail, his legs crossed and uncrossed as he sat a little back from the table. His body language was beginning to reveal a man that was rattled in some way and that in itself was interesting.

  ‘You told me on the phone that Mr Carter had taken time off,’ Brownlee continued. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Burns replied, his jaw relaxing a little, this sort of question evidently much more to his liking.

  ‘Was this a planned holiday?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Burns replied smoothly, examining his fingernails. ‘Not my part of the ship to deal with employees’ time off.’

  ‘So, he didn’t talk to you about any plans he had?’

  ‘No, not at all. Our relationship was purely professional, Inspector,’ Burns said. ‘We were not … friends.’

  ‘But not enemies either?’ Brownlee retorted with a knowing smile.

  ‘Ha ha!’ Burns raised an admonitory finger. ‘No indeed. None of our employees had any worries about their relationship with the senior partner,’ he laughed. But it was a mirthless sort of laugh and Lorimer noted a certain coldness in the man’s eyes. As if he did not appreciate Brownlee’s small insinuation.

  His designation of Carter as employee rather than junior partner was interesting, thought Lorimer.

  ‘Was there anything in Mr Carter’s manner recently that might have suggested he was worried about anything?’ Brownlee continued.

  ‘No, nothing at all. Derek was a happy-go-lucky sort of chap as a rule. A bit of a chatterbox, in fact. If there was anything to complain about, it was the length of time he spent blethering at the water cooler, I suppose,’ Burns replied, sitting back and folding his arms.

  ‘Would he have confided in you if there had been a problem?’

  ‘What sort of problem?’ Burns frowned again.

  ‘Financial difficulties? Anything that might have had him anxious about his safety?’ Brownlee suggested.

  Burns shook his head slowly. ‘No, I doubt very much if Derek Carter would have come to me with a personal problem. As I said, we were not on such terms. Good enough fellow, of course, but we didn’t see one another outside work, you know. Not really my type of golfing companion,’ he added carelessly, his attention drawn once more to his fingernails as though it were beneath his dignity to associate with a junior partner at weekends. However, that was possibly a ploy to avoid eye contact with either of the police officers.

  ‘When was the last time you saw Mr Carter?’

  Burns sat forward again. ‘Didn’t I tell you this already?’ he asked, his tone a trifle acerbic.

  Brownlee drew out a notebook from his inside pocket. ‘I think we established that it was the day Mr Carter was last in the office, sir,’ he said, apparently looking at a page of the notebook. ‘Late in the afternoon, I think you told me.’

  There was a silence in the room as Brownlee waited for an answer and Lorimer wondered just what was going on in the mind of Vincent Burns.

  ‘We have reason to believe that was the same date Derek Carter was killed,’ Brownlee said slowly and deliberately.

  ‘Oh, how dreadful,’ Burns replied, licking his lips nervously and glancing for the first time towards Lorimer. ‘You mean I may have been the last person he spoke to that day?’

  ‘Oh, no, sir, that would be the person who murdered him,’ Brownlee said firmly, drawing the man’s attention back to himself.

  Vincent Burns sat motionless, staring at Brownlee as though he could not think of a suitable response. Yet there was a muscle working on the man’s jaw that made Lorimer wonder just what turmoil of emotions was going through the mind of a man who claimed to have had no strong link to an employee who had become the victim of a horrendous crime.

  ‘Good work,’ Lorimer said as they reached the line of cars outside Blythswood Hotel. It had been two hours since their arrival at Bryson’s and Lorimer had listened as Brownlee had interviewed several more of Carter’s colleagues, including the human resources lady and Sylvie Maxwell. The undercover officer had not once glanced Lorimer’s way after the necessary introductions, he’d been pleased to see. Like Fiona MacKellar, none of the staff believed that there had been a lady in Carter’s life. Nor had Lorimer noticed any of the women wearing the expensive scent lingering on that scrap of card in his pocket.

  ‘That Burns is a hard nut,’ Brownlee commented grimly. ‘Think there was more going on between him and the deceased than he’s letting on.’

  ‘I agree,’ Lorimer said. ‘Any chance we can get a warrant to search the offices?’

  ‘On what pretext?’ Brownlee wanted to know.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something, Detective Inspector,’ Lorimer replied with a smile and one raised eyebrow. ‘I might be very interested in the paperwork you find. Especially anything relating to large sums of money.’

  Brownlee stared at the detective superintendent for a long moment.

  ‘You’re not just here to oversee a murder inquiry, are you, sir?’ he said softly. ‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’

  Lorimer tapped the side of his nose and smiled as reply.

  ‘Maybe we could have a drink some time, Graham?’ he suggested, his blue gaze fixed on the other man’s eyes.

  Brownlee nodded silently. ‘Yes, sir, I think that might be a good idea.’

  Lorimer sat in the Lexus, wiping a tissue across his mouth. Those sugary mince pies had been a bit much though they’d served to give an impression of a greedy cop who was more interested in stuffing his face than being part of that interview. And, it had worked. DI Brownlee had handled the interview well and Burns had seemed just rattled enough to commit more time to raking up his junior partner’s background. What sort of impression had that lawyer hoped to present to the police officers? Lorimer wondered, setting off from the city centre at last.

  *

  ‘They’ve gone.’ Burns turned to gaze at the closed door, telephone pressed to his ear.

  ‘And? Any awkward questions asked?’ a voice demanded.

  ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle,’ Burns retorted.

  ‘So, everything back to normal now?’

  The lawyer drew a hand across his white hair and blinked as a shaft of sunlight stole through the window of his private office.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said, hoping that his confident tone belied what he was really feeling, the acid churning in his stomach making him feel more than a little sick.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  He couldn’t help it, Daniel told himself as he stood once more outside the entrance to that cobbled lane. It was as if his feet had brought him back to this spot almost against his will and certainly against his better judgement.

  Once a cop, always a cop, he thought. If he’d been back in Harare with his old team, before it all went wrong, what would he have done in a situation like this? He’d have sped down that lane and wrestled the knife from the man’s hands, for a start. Daniel gazed along the lane, remembering the moment as though he were watching it on a screen, the replay facility of his photographic memory bringing the incident into focus.

  And now? He had no back-up team, no way of calling in an extra officer or two to charge into the building and see where that man had come from. Would he have found a blood-soaked person in that basement? Injured? Or dead?

  Daniel looked back down Hope Street, recalling the rain that had flooded the gutters that day, soaking through his trousers. Today was bright and cold, the sunlight filtering through the spaces between these tall buildings. There was nobody he could call, he realised. Nobody who would listen to his story.

  With a heavy heart, Daniel walked uphill again, keeping to the outside of the pavement, careful not to bump into any other pedestrians who all seemed to have bags full of Christmas shopping, some even wearing red Santa hats. Was it their splash of colour that made him think back to the birds in Blythswood Square Gardens? What was it the traffic warden had told him about the bird-loving cop? He was a senior officer somewhere else in the city, but perhaps Daniel could find him. Then, as if he had heard it spoken, the man’s name came back to him loud and clear: Lorimer.

  Daniel Kohi quickened his step, the decision made. Somehow, he would find this man and try to engage him in conversation. And then … ? Well, that would depend on what sort of man he was. After all, hadn’t Inspector Kohi been betrayed by fellow officers he’d trusted? He’d have to proceed with care if he wanted to remain here in Scotland, biding his time until he was granted settled status and could pick up some of the threads of his former life.

  The Mitchell Library was a lot larger than Daniel had expected it to be, the building looming up as he walked down the last few yards towards the pedestrian crossings. Its green copper dome rose proudly from pale grey stone, rows of windows gazing down on the noisy motorway below. A flight of steps took him up and inside then he paused to gaze at the winding marble staircase, the hush from the interior a welcome contrast to the traffic outside.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ A genial-looking man in a dark uniform stepped closer to Daniel.

  ‘I … just wanted a quiet place to look up some information … ’ Daniel replied.

  The man’s smile broadened. ‘Come to the right place for that, sir,’ he commented. ‘Is it your first visit here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The man smiled at him. ‘Biggest reference library in Europe, this is!’ he exclaimed proudly. ‘You’ll find anything you’re looking for here. Do you have a visitor’s card? Or do you wish to register as a borrower?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Daniel said. ‘Perhaps I can do that while I am here, but for now I just want to find a quiet corner.’

  The man nodded and pointed along a corridor. ‘Just turn right along there, through the swing doors and you’ll find plenty of wee quiet places. There’s a restaurant downstairs too. And the loos are along that way,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Daniel gave him a faint smile.

  ‘No bother. Anything else you need during your visit, just come and ask. There’s always someone on hand to give you help.’

  Daniel stepped along the wood-panelled corridor, his spirits lighter from the friendliness of the encounter. Not every official in this city was tired of being helpful. This was a place that people loved, he guessed, his attention to detail making him notice several things as he turned a corner: the black and white chequered floor, the gleaming brass handles on doors and the faint scent of furniture polish as he pushed his way through a set of swing doors.

  There were several people at desks and in small break-out corners, most with laptops open, the muted sounds in the big open area reminding Daniel of the university back home. He cast his gaze around until he saw a table in the corner, a pink padded chair next to it. That would do perfectly, he thought, heading towards it and noting that the people next to it would have their backs to him.

  Daniel sat down and took out his mobile phone and the small worn notebook that he kept beside his wallet. The search for Lorimer threw up a few surprises, like a famous Scottish architect and a football player of yesteryear, before Daniel refined his search to include the officers of Police Scotland.

  And, there he was, thumbnail photographs of a dark-haired man looking out at a camera, some showing him smiling, crinkles around his eyes, but most of them giving the impression of a serious police officer whose craggy good looks were marred by deep lines around his mouth and between those startling blue eyes. Daniel blinked as he gazed at one particular picture. It was as if the man himself was staring out at him, challenging him somehow, and he felt a shudder along his spine. Not a man to mess with, he thought.

  There were several press items about Detective Superintendent William Lorimer and Daniel read them slowly, his admiration for the man’s track record increasing as he scrolled down. There was one from several years back announcing the officer’s appointment to the Major Incident Team in a place called Govan. Such a strange name, Go-van, Daniel thought as he scribbled down a few details then began to search for the exact location of this MIT headquarters.