him back to the city.
The party had been a great success, Maggie knew, looking around at all their friends. The dinner and speech-making now over, dancing had just begun. For a moment or two she had been terrified that he would have hated the whole idea but Lorimer had entered into the spirit of the party almost as soon as the lights had gone up. Now he was walking across to the toilets, having given her a promise of the next dance as soon as he returned.
‘Just going up to the room. It’s pretty busy in there,’ he told her, coming back a few moments later, nuzzling into her neck and making her laugh.
‘Okay, see you in couple of minutes,’ she replied, turning back as Flynn grabbed her hands and swung her into a dance.
‘C’mon, Mrs L., let’s show these oldies a thing or two,’ he called out as the tempo of the music quickened.
Lorimer smiled as he left their room, heading for the back staircase with its arrangement of gilt mirrors. It had been a great surprise, lovely of Maggie to do all of this, he thought as he began to walk along the narrow corridor.
Just at that moment a door ahead of him opened and a woman slipped out. Lorimer stopped for a moment, observing her with professional interest. She was dressed in a short skirt and fishnet tights, carrying her high-heeled shoes in one hand as though to effect some sort of escape. Had someone in the hotel been enjoying the services of a high-class call girl? Lorimer frowned. There was something familiar about the tall figure, her dark hair swinging loose around her shoulders. He blinked. Too much of the bubbly stuff, he told himself. Yet as he followed her along the carpeted passage he could not rid himself of the feeling that he had seen this woman somewhere before tonight.
The lamps were all lit above the staircase and, as he descended, he caught a glimpse of the woman’s reflection as she passed one of the gilded mirrors, the artificial light turning her dark hair to a halo of gold. The image of the woman in his dreams came back to him then, making Lorimer stop where he was.
‘Claire,’ he said suddenly, the name coming back to him like a dam bursting, bringing with it all those memories of the scandal that had tarnished the good name of Strathclyde Police for a time.
The woman turned and saw him looking at her; red lips parting in horror as she recognised the detective superintendent.
‘Claire,’ he said again, but she had sped down the remaining steps and was gone even before he reached the reception area.
Heart thumping, Lorimer pushed open the doors, anxiously looking up and down the deserted street. He knew now who she was. And in a moment of revelation he understood exactly why she was here.
Claire Johnson had been entangled in one of Helen James’s cases, hadn’t she? As he walked uphill towards Blythswood Square, Lorimer remembered the details of the scandal. How the lesbian officer had sued the force for discrimination and won: receiving substantial damages out of court as well, if the rumours were to be believed. But there had been other rumours too, rumours surrounding the Carol Kilpatrick case. DS Claire Johnson had been Helen James’s right-hand woman, someone the DCI could trust. Yet it had been pictures of Claire weeping at Carol’s funeral, not Helen, he remembered.
Pressing himself against the wall of the office buildings as he rounded the corner, Lorimer looked along the west side of the square. It all made sense now. An intelligent woman, used to firearms. Set on revenge. She couldn’t have known many details of the case, Carol had died during that night. But suppose she knew enough to chase after a man with a certain type of white car, a man who came from outside the city, his accent betraying his origins? And she’d been smart enough to infiltrate that press conference at Pitt Street, seeking out just what was happening in Lorimer’s cases.
Yet how could she have known about tonight? About the surveillance op? And about the full moon? With a groan, Lorimer remembered what Sutherland had told him about the papers they had found in Barbara Knox’s flat. Surely his faithful detective constable hadn’t … but even as the thought came to him, Lorimer knew with a certainty that Claire Johnson had beguiled his young lesbian officer.
He stood stock still, waiting to see where