jumper that looked hand-knitted, but for the life of him Lorimer could not recall having met her before.
‘And you are …?’ he asked, hoping she would give him some sort of clue as to her position in the administrative hierarchy. Was she a secretary? Or part of the civilian staff?
‘Don’t think you remember me, do you?’ she laughed. ‘We met once, a long time ago when I was on a course at Tulliallan. I’m Rita Livingstone, your IO,’ she smiled.
Lorimer’s mouth fell open for a moment. How could he have made such a mistake? Wasn’t he always lecturing other people about the need to distinguish a person’s appearance from the realities of their character and abilities? Rita Livingstone, he remembered the name now, but could not recall any previous meeting. His intelligence officer! And here he had been thinking she was some wee Glasgow wifie bringing in his coffee. Rapped knuckles, Lorimer, he told himself, noticing the two cups and saucers laid out on the tray.
‘Shall I be mother?’ Rita asked as Lorimer noticed the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile of mischief.
‘Thanks,’ he said weakly. ‘Please, sit here,’ he added, taking a seat on one of the easy chairs that flanked the coffee table.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, picking up a cup of steaming black coffee. ‘I really didn’t remember you from that course.’
Rita shook her head, still smiling. ‘No worries, sir. And sorry I missed you when you came in with Joyce Rogers. I was in and out of the office that day. You’d hardly have had time to take in who you’d met and who was missing amongst your new colleagues. Plus the fact that some of them were skiving off doing last minute Christmas shopping,’ she added, her eyes crinkling up at the corners. For a moment Lorimer smiled as Rita suddenly reminded him of a favourite aunt of his who had been a mine of information about so many things, both fascinating and completely trivial.
‘Did you have a nice time, yourself? I love Christmas, don’t you?’ she rattled on, eyeing him all the time as though she were here to take the measure of this tall man who had been appointed head of their department.
‘Yes, thanks. Probably quieter than for most folk,’ he told her.
‘We have no children,’ he added. Better to get that out in the open from the start, he thought, Maggie’s recent hysterectomy having sounded the knell on any fleeting hopes they might once have had.
‘They’re a mixed blessing,’ Rita told him with a canny look in her eye. ‘Better none than ones who go astray,’ she added in a certain tone that gave Lorimer the impression that his IO’s home life might not be picture perfect, despite her comments about loving the festive season.
‘I was thinking of having the entire team in tomorrow evening,’ he said, deciding that this was a woman he could confide in.
‘Good idea,’ Rita answered. ‘Tom and Duncan are away on that case down at Gairloch but most of the others should be able to make it for, what time did you have in mind? Seven-thirty, maybe?’
Later, once she had left, Lorimer drew out the personnel file from his desk drawer. Tom Armstrong was one of three detective inspectors on the team. Lorimer had met him, at any rate, he remembered, casting his mind back to a thick-set man with receding hair. Armstrong had greeted him in a friendly enough manner, he thought, recalling the day they had met. The others were DI Duncan Sutherland and DI Monica Proctor. His memory of Proctor was of a sharp-suited blonde who had seemed pretty young to be already at that rank. Sutherland he had yet to meet. Four detective sergeants and the same number of detective constables, plus the IO and several civilian staff that they shared with other departments brought the total of his working colleagues to more than a dozen.
He flipped over the pages, reading their résumés and wondering about the different skills each had brought to the job. It was interesting to note how few of them had been fast tracked after university. Most had chosen the police as a career in their twenties, having had different jobs elsewhere. Martin Gray, one of his detective sergeants, had been a PE teacher in Ross-shire before educational spending cuts had forced him to choose between leaving the area and finding an alternative career.
Lorimer sighed. There was something disquieting in having all of these officers off on