had been doing.
There was something … Lorimer frowned suddenly, taking a sip of his scalding hot coffee as he stared unseeingly at the garden outside the window. A pair of redwings foraging at the holly berries in next door’s tree failed to grasp his attention for once as he considered a possibility that had occurred to him. If Pattison had indeed been in the habit of soliciting prostitutes whenever his business took him to Scotland’s largest city, then was there a chance that he was already known to some of the girls who plied their trade there? The frustration of leaving Helen James’s case to concentrate on Pattison’s murder could be allayed if he had a legitimate reason to ask questions that might help find TraceyAnne’s killer as well. It was something of a coincidence that a top politician (who might or might not have been soliciting prostitutes, Lorimer reminded himself) had been killed so soon after the murder of Tracey-Anne Geddes. He wasn’t a great believer in coincidences and on this occasion there was absolutely nothing to link the death of a poor, junked-up street girl with Pattison’s shooting. Three businessmen in white Mercedes cars had been shot at point-blank range, all in lonely places far outside the city, whereas the murders of Carol Kilpatrick and Tracey-Anne Geddes had been vicious stabbings committed within its heart. Miriam Lyons and Jenny Haslet’s deaths had not fitted the same picture, although what Solly might come up with could change the perception that the two girls had been murdered by other hands. It was a sad fact of life that such vulnerable young women were sometimes targets for the more horrific excesses of violent men. Helen James’s file would undoubtedly show lots more examples from cases over the years.
A familiar ring from his BlackBerry alerted Lorimer to an incoming email and he turned from the window, his concentration broken.
It was, he was surprised to note, from that big girl, Detective Constable Barbara Knox, who had seemed so eager to join the team at Pitt Street. He read the email, amused to see that the DC had been keen to relay this information to him. One Mercedes dealer had already had a firm trade in and there had been two telephone enquiries from an out-of-town dealership from owners of white Mercedes sports cars.
DCI Mumby had been uncharacteristically effusive about Knox’s capabilities and Lorimer had wondered if the senior officer had been hoping to offload the woman permanently onto his team for some reason. It happened in all walks of life, this kind of promotion in order to be rid of an abrasive element within a team. But if Barbara Knox had a fault it was that she was super efficient. Emailing him routine information at this hour seemed a bit unnecessary and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was that could not wait until his arrival at Pitt Street in less than an hour’s time.
She listened to the message once again, drawing in her breath as the woman’s voice became edgy. Barbara was useful, that was true, but she wasn’t quite the pushover that she had expected. Sex, or at least the anticipation of it, was a powerful weapon. She had lured three men to their death like one of the sirens from mythology, the promise of sex leading them to their doom. But the policewoman posed more of a threat. She could keep her at bay for now but eventually she might have to give in to the younger woman’s sexual demands, a prospect that did not fill her with any sort of joy. So far she had learned what she could about the investigation under her chosen guise, a freelance journalist. Barbara had laughed with a childlike glee when Diana had told the policewoman that undercover work forbade her from keeping a website, an excuse she had thought out carefully beforehand. Anything that smacked of cloak and dagger stuff tended to be a turn-on for that girl, she thought, her lip curling in distaste. But it relaxed into a smile again as another thought entered her mind: DC Barbara Knox had no inkling whatsoever that she was being seduced by the very killer she sought.
DC Knox had come in early as usual, a habit that was partly to do with the fact she was fastidious about starting up her computer in complete privacy and logging on to a variety of websites before her colleagues arrived. But then, if she was