Lorimer and Brightman - 08 - Sleep Like the Dead. By Alex Gray Read Online Free Page B

a shelf of brightly coloured books for very small children.
    Little blue men and flowers with grinning faces peered up at him. Shaking his head slightly, Solly picked out a cloth book that rustled as he touched its pages. Ah, this was more like it. He remembered a conference in Sweden where he had been in conversation with a fellow psychologist when the subject of tactile stimulation had been under discussion. Flipping the first page in his hands, Solly saw the black and white shapes, like petals, some large and some repeating a pattern. A young baby would receive visual information while being attracted by the sensual feel of its soft pages, crackling plastic portions cleverly concealed within.
    Quite without warning he blinked away a sudden tear. A baby. His baby. His and Rosie’s. Standing still in that bookshop, oblivious to other people moving past him, Solly experienced a moment of revelation. He was well aware that fatherhood could produce such feelings in an individual. Hadn’t he been teaching that for some considerable time now? His rational self might well be able to identify each chemical and hormonal surge producing a physical sensation having no name other than the abstract: joy. But that he should have such feelings in his own breast was nothing short of a miracle. Wasn’t that what he’d heard grandmothers call a newborn? A little miracle.
    ‘Doctor Brightman!’
    Solly spun around as his name was called out. A woman stood at the end of the aisle, a quizzical look on her face as though she wasn’t absolutely certain that she had the correct person. Solly smiled tentatively, trying hard to recall the woman to mind. Too old to be one of his university students, and yet there was something familiar about that mane of red hair cascading down her shoulders, and those unwavering eyes.
    ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ she continued, sweeping her gaze along the row of children’s books. Then she looked at him again, as though she were aware of his discomfiture and it amused her. Head held high, she regarded him boldly, a smile playing around her mouth.
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ Sully remarked, struggling to put a name to a face that he felt should be familiar. Was she one of his mature students? There were a few married women under his tutelage. Could he remember their names, though? His eyes fell on to her hands: no wedding ring, no help there, then. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, staring At him, ‘I’ve often imagined running into you, wondering what I would ray if I did.’ The woman
    regarded him steadily, her eyes dark with an unfathomable expression.
    ‘I’ve got a lot to thank you for, you know,’ she said, adding almost as an afterthought, ‘See you next term.’ Then, with a brittle smile and a wave of her hand she turned on her heel, disappeared around the row of books and was gone.
    SoIly stood for a moment, strangely disquieted at the enigmatic remark. She knew him. She expected to see him next term, so she must be one of his students, surely? And what had she to thank him for? Passing the exams? He frowned. Her words had been spoken in a tone of sudden gravity. So why couldn’t he conjure up her name?
    A frown creased his dark brow as the psychologist stared into space, struggling to remember. Mhairi. Was that her name? Or Marie something… Hadn’t she been the one with the funny surname? Or maybe not. Names were not the psychologist’s strong point but he did have a good recall for faces. But the woman he had just seen bore little resemblance to the student he remembered. This woman seemed altogether more confident, more … alive than the person he had taught all of last session.
    Solly bit his lip thoughtfully. Alive. That was the correct word to use, right enough. For the Mari something or other who had sat through his seminars and scraped a bare pass in her first year exams was a mere shadow of the woman who had spoken to him moments ago. That stream of Titian hair had been screwed up into a