But he had hinted that he could tell Lorimer something else about the late Leader of The City of Glasgow orchestra. Maybe, just maybe, he knew something that could lead him to the missing violin.
‘D’you expect him to sing for his supper, then? Is that your game?’ Wilson’s tone was cynical, breaking Lorimer’s train of thought.
Lorimer ran a hand through his hair. ‘Look, I know this is unusual. And yes, perhaps he will tell me more, but that’s not the real reason I offered him a place to stay.’
Wilson looked troubled for a moment. Lorimer wasn’t known for being soft hearted but he suspected there was a genuine sense of caring behind the man’s decision to take the boy into his home.
‘There but for the Grace of God …?’ ‘Something like that,’ Lorimer mumbled.
‘I still think you’re mad,’ Wilson told him. ‘But it takes all sorts,’ he shrugged, getting up and heading for the door.
‘Oh,’ he added, turning back for a moment, ‘Betty’s bound to tell me that you’re a star. God knows if Maggie will agree, though.’ He was out of the door before Lorimer could reply.
The Chief Inspector swivelled his chair round towards the window. What Wilson had said was probably true. It was a bit mad to take in a stray like Flynn without even telling Maggie what he’d done. But was that part of the reason he’d invited the boy?
Was he trying to prove that the house was his home and his alone? Was it the action of a man who secretly believed his wife would never return? Was he trying to tell himself that he could do what the hell he liked? Lorimer shook his head as if trying to clear away all this introspection. Psychobabble was for the likes of Solomon Brightman.
‘No he’s no’,’ Sadie Dunlop protested. ‘He’s as normal as you an’ me!’
‘Well, what’s he doin’ takin’ a wee lad into his hame, then? Looks guy fishy tae me.’
‘Aye, well a lot of things look fishy tae you, Martha McKinlay. Ah’m telling ye, Lorimer’s straight.’
‘Aye, well, it’s jist whit they’re all sayin’, know what I mean? Mebbe that’s why the wife up and left, eh?’ The cleaner finished rubbing down the glass shelving and dropped the paper towel into the waste bucket. The snap as she removed her rubber gloves seemed to reinforce her opinion.
Sadie Dunlop seethed as she watched the other woman waddle through to the kitchen. What a thing to suggest about Lorimer! OK he was on his own while that daft wife of his was off gallivanting in America but that was no reason to suggest that he had turned into a shirt lifter. Heaven sakes, the very idea was ridiculous! It was all the fault of the wee man who’d got himself killed in the Concert Hall. Now he’d been a real poofter, Sadie told herself and not the only one in the band, from what she’d heard. That was what all this was about, all this investigation into a homosexual murder. Sadie gritted her teeth. Once an idea had taken hold, though, it was hard to convince folk of its validity. Despite the current trend to recruit gay officers into the force, Lorimer would be in for a less than charitable time in the run up to Christmas if gossips like Martha had their way.
Chapter Sixteen
Maggie Lorimer put down the phone, her hand trembling. What on earth had possessed him? The lad could be into anything. Hadn’t he already admitted dealing in drugs, for heaven’s sake? Yet the sensible half of her had kept quiet as Lorimer related his plans for Flynn’s recuperation. Her husband was a policeman, after all; he knew the score better than any of them. Any error of judgement regarding this boy would be utterly out of character for him. So why did she feel so shaken?
It’s your home, that’s why, a little voice reminded her.
Suddenly the vision of her untidy lounge with its shelves of books on two walls came to mind. It would be dark there, now. Would the table lamp be switched on? She’d left it on a timer, but that was back in August when the nights had still been light. Maybe it was raining, the cold wind sweeping the rowan leaves over the grass at the front. would any of the neighbours have lit their Christmas trees at the windows yet? OK, it was still only November, but here the razzmatazz of ‘the holiday’ as they called it had been in force since Hallowe’en. Fairy lights flickered all along the street where Maggie lived, her own apartment windows blank. It was something they always left until the last minute, usually when school broke up at the end of term.
Then Maggie would fling herself into a frenzy of shopping and decorating, usually ending up asleep on Christmas afternoon.
She wanted to be there, she realised, preparing things for this stray that Bill had found. ‘You’re jealous!’ she whispered aloud, the truth of her feeling shocking her. This boy, this vagabond, who had usurped her home; she wanted to be there to provide for him, to make up a Christmas stocking, to see that he was warm and loved. But it was Bill who would be responsible for these things, if he thought about them at all.
‘Maggie Lorimer, stop all this at once!’ she scolded herself, recognising the latent maternal instinct for what it was.
Christmas. Christmas had always been home with Mum and Dad then just Mum and the two of them. What had Christmas been like for this Flynn person? And what, since Mum and Bill were intending to come over by December 25th, would it be like for him this year? Had Bill even thought this through? In their conversation nothing had been mentioned about where the boy would go when her husband left for Florida. Surely he wouldn’t leave him there alone? But then, where else would the lad go? Maggie asked herself fretfully.
Her hand hovered over the telephone once more then dropped. No. Bill would sort it out. She’d left him to get on with his life in Scotland. Somehow it robbed her of her rights to make decisions about their home. Maggie bit her lip. Not for the first time she wondered at the driving force that had taken her all the way across the Atlantic.
Lorimer pushed his foot against the cupboard, hearing a clatter as the vacuum’s nozzle fell against the closed door.
Well, at least he’d made up for all those weeks of indolence, he thought with some satisfaction, then smiled wryly as he recalled Maggie’s dictum that real housework only got done whenever they were expecting guests. It was true, he supposed. Flynn’s imminent arrival had catapulted Lorimer into a frenzy of vacuuming and cleaning. Several black bin bags were stacked by the front door to be taken to the dump, some full of bottles for the bottle bank. when Maggie had been here, she’d religiously taken stuff every week, papers and all, for recycling.
The spare room was tidy now, at least; the single bed made up with an extra cover over the duvet in case the boy felt cold after the heat of his hospital room. The weather had been bitter all through November. Lorimer had spoken to the social worker attached to the hospital about Flynn’s longer-term prospects. It was agreed that it ‘was not reasonable for the patient to continue to occupy temporary accommodation’ (i.e. Lorimer’s spare room) when the DCI was to be away in Florida. There would be a furnished flat made available to Flynn, well away from his old haunts and from anyone who might try to harm him.
The hostels were out of the question. All too often pushers from outside preyed on the vulnerable men and women who sought temporary refuge in the spaces provided by these bleak rooms. It was a moral dilemma for the case-workers attached to the Hamish Allan Centre. By law they had to find accommodation for these folk, but sometimes they knew only too well that there were pushers just waiting near the hostels to march some poor soul up to the benefit office for the handover.
And the movement of drugs within the hostels was rife; there were no locked doors, a double-edged sword that was meant to protect the men and women who tried to shelter from the streets but which could also make them a danger to one another.