slipped as he blinked, as though remembering. ‘The last I saw of him was when we were putting on our coats before I left to catch the train from Queen Street station.’
‘Did Mr Pattison have any particular friends in the Glasgow area he might have decided to see that night?’ Lorimer asked smoothly.
Raeburn’s eyes flickered and Lorimer could see that the implication behind his words was not lost to him.
‘Had Edward Pattison been seeing some woman behind his wife’s back? Is that what you’re really asking me, Lorimer?’ Raeburn bit his lip suddenly. ‘Well, perhaps he had been. But if that was the case, nobody knew about it. Not even me!’ He looked straight at Lorimer, meeting the policeman’s blue gaze with a stare of his own. ‘If Ed had been seeing someone then it was done so discreetly that no mention of it would ever have come out. No matter how thoroughly the press pack raked in various middens,’ he added sourly.
‘But he did have friends in the Glasgow area, surely?’ Lorimer persisted. He was aware that the man’s feathers had been ruffled. The detective superintendent, however, was determined to remain as impassive as possible. ‘Didn’t he used to visit Mar Hall sometimes for dinner?’
‘Perhaps he did,’ Raeburn countered, looking at Lorimer with suspicion. ‘But not with me. I’m an Edinburgh man, myself,’ he added. ‘Most of my socialising is done here in the capital,’ he went on. ‘And I can tell you,’ Raeburn lifted one finger and began to wag it as though he were giving the policeman a lecture, ‘Edward Pattison enjoyed this city more than any other in Scotland. Glasgow is all very fine, I suppose,’ he conceded, the finger still raised, ‘but unless he had a reason to go there, Ed was happy to spend his leisure time here among his friends and family.’
‘What do you think he was doing out in his sports car in the woods of West Renfrewshire, Mr Raeburn?’ Lorimer asked suddenly, sitting forward a little so that the smaller man shrank back, clasping his hands tightly.
‘I don’t know.’ Raeburn shook his white curls sorrowfully. ‘Truly I don’t. And,’ he continued, rubbing his thumbs together, ‘it pains me to think that there might have been some area of Ed’s life that he kept secret from me.’
The silence that followed this remark was probably his cue to get up and leave, Lorimer thought, but, as he bent forward to rise, his eyes were caught by one of a pile of books that lay askew on the carpet.
‘A hobby of yours?’ he asked, pointing towards the 2010 edition of The Standard Catalogue of Firearms: The Collector’s Price and Reference Guide.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact. I’m a collector,’ Raeburn told him, straightening his back. ‘Not a passion that Ed shared, I’m afraid, and before you ask, no, I have nothing missing from the locked case where my guns are kept. Lost quite a lot of them after Dunblane,’ he said ruefully. ‘And the ones that remain are all licensed. You can do a check on me if you like,’ he added testily, lifting up the book and placing it into his desk drawer. ‘I have nothing to hide.’
There was little more to be had from Raeburn after that and Lorimer had left the MSP at the door of his office, wondering at that tone of regret. Did Raeburn suspect that his friend had had a secret that he had chosen not to share with him? And, Lorimer thought, what sort of secret would a man in Pattison’s position wish to keep from his closest friend? Somehow the idea of a sexual liaison as suggested by Solly seemed more and more likely. Cherchez la femme, the psychologist had written in his text message. Well, perhaps his team would begin to do just that. And, he smiled grimly to himself, maybe the next person he was going to see would have a different sort of slant on this particular theory.
Zena Fraser was seated in her pod, a quiet sanctuary that each member of the Scottish parliament had been given, conceived as a place of contemplation by Enrico Miralles, the clever architect of this marvellous building. It was, in truth, only a raised seating area set at right angles to the narrow little room and next to a window barred with rounded poles of what might have been beechwood. Yet, as the word came to his mind, Lorimer dismissed it. Barred was the wrong term to