aware of the liaison between Ms Fraser and her husband. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, he reminded himself. Had it been some sort of female spite to name Zena Fraser as a possible killer? His frown deepened. There had been something in Frank Hardy’s words that had suggested that the Labour MSP’s sympathies lay with not against Catherine Pattison. So what on earth would make the woman suspect that man of killing her errant husband? Cherchez la femme, Solly had told him, meaning something quite different at the time. But, he wondered, was there something worth searching for in Catherine Pattison née Cadell’s own background? Picking up the telephone, Lorimer dialled the 0131 ex-directory number.
Catherine Pattison put down the telephone, her fingers trembling. Had Frank said something? She bit her lip as she turned towards the window. Outside the snow had stopped falling and the garden was shrouded in silence. Once she would have gasped in girlish delight at the frosted leaves on her holly trees or the bare branches covered in glittering white against that powder blue sky. But years of waiting and wondering had robbed her of the capacity to enjoy such simple sights as this. She rubbed her thumb repeatedly across her forefinger as though to warm it against the chill outside, but her eyes had taken on a faraway look as if her thoughts were somewhere other than this Edinburgh suburb and its winter landscape.
She had given Detective Superintendent Lorimer Frank Hardy’s name as a double bluff. That was what they had agreed, after all. What had Frank told that policeman? She shifted restlessly as she recalled the tall man with those piercing blue eyes that had seemed to gaze into her very soul. Or, was that simply something she had made up since then? A false memory born of a conscience that one could only brand as guilty?
She turned at the sound of a door opening and blinked as her mother entered the room, bearing a tray laden with home-baked marmalade loaf and a small pot of coffee. Catherine looked up as the older woman laid down the tray and began to fuss with the pair of folded linen napkins.
‘Don’t,’ she said, more sharply than she had intended, seeing the shadow that crossed her mother’s face. ‘Leave it just now, will you?’
‘Thought you said you were hungry,’ Mrs Cadell murmured. ‘Who was that on the phone just now?’ she added.
‘Lorimer,’ Catherine answered, turning away from the buttered loaf that had been made as a treat for her. It was all she needed to say; one single word to explain why her appetite for her mother’s home baking had suddenly vanished.
‘Well,’ the older woman said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Did you tell him what really happened?’
‘Of course not,’ Catherine replied crossly. ‘What sort of fool do you take me for?’
‘The sort of fool that makes most women wish their husband was gone so they can make the same mistakes all over again,’ Mrs Cadell sighed, shaking her head wearily.
CHAPTER 22
Rosie lifted the lid of her husband’s laptop and was soon keying in his password. It was something that they had agreed on when they had moved in together, even before their marriage. No secrets, shared case studies, the lot. If Solly chose to ignore the gorier aspects of forensic pathology, that was up to him, Rosie thought with a grin. But the no-holds-barred policy meant that she had access to all his ongoing cases and she was curious to see what her beloved had made of the four prostitute murders. Reading through them on screen was like being back at work, Rosie told herself; or at least it felt like that while Abby was slumbering soundly in her crib. And, besides, hadn’t she performed the post-mortem on at least one of the women?
The telephone ringing made her shoot out of her chair and grab the nearest handset, panic filling her lest the sound wake her baby and make her lose this precious time she had set aside for herself.
‘Maggie!’ she gasped, hearing the voice of her friend. ‘What a surprise! Shouldn’t you be at school this afternoon?’
‘We were all sent home early yesterday because of the snow and the council has decreed in their wisdom to keep the schools shut until at least tomorrow,’ Maggie said, the unconcealed glee in her voice making Rosie smile. Outside the huge bay windows that overlooked Kelvingrove Park Rosie could see children playing on sledges,