The Darkest Goodbye (William Lorimer) Read Online Free Page A

they’ll all be there, won’t they?’
    ‘Mm.’ Maggie nodded in reply. ‘I expect so. Haven’t really kept in touch.’
    ‘Two boys, right?’
    ‘Well, hardly boys now. David must be my age at least and Patrick a couple of years younger,’ she mused, settling back and watching as the landscape unfolded before them.
     
    The wind had freshened by the time Lorimer and Maggie left the crematorium and made their way back to the line of waiting cars. Leaves skittered along a narrow pavement, a fine cloud of dust following their progress. It had been a short service with many empty spaces in the small chapel, so many of Uncle Robert’s friends and family already awaiting him on the other side, as the minister had told the small congregation. It had been a life well lived, according to the eulogy; Robert Imrie had been a man of the soil, a man close to the pattern of life dictated by the seasons, and the policeman found himself regretting that he had not really known his wife’s uncle.
    Lorimer had shaken hands with a dark-suited man whose face he scarcely remembered from Alice Findlay’s own funeral: Uncle Robert’s son Patrick, one of Maggie’s cousins.
    ‘Sorry for your loss,’ he had murmured, words that had come to his lips so often in the progress of murder cases when he’d had to talk to members of the victim’s family. And Patrick Imrie had nodded in reply. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he’d said, darting a glance at his cousin Maggie’s husband as if reminding himself that Lorimer was someone important in Police Scotland.
    ‘Where did he say the hotel was?’ Maggie asked, fastening her seat belt.
    ‘Middle of the town,’ Lorimer replied. ‘Up towards the castle. Used to be Stirling Royal Academy before it was changed to a hotel. You’ll feel right at home.’
    Maggie gave a short laugh. ‘Typical. Away from that lot for a day and where do I end up?’
    Lorimer smiled back, knowing that she wasn’t serious. If ever anyone loved their job it was Mrs Lorimer. And the kids loved her back, that much was evident from the way she spoke about them. Teaching English was a genuine vocation for his wife and she never tired of finding different ways to open up the glories of literature to her pupils.
    ‘Funny David wasn’t there,’ she remarked. ‘I would have thought he would have been by Patrick’s side after the service.’
    ‘Maybe someone has to stay and see to the farm,’ Lorimer suggested.
    The hotel was located up a steep narrow street and, as he drove through a stone archway, Lorimer had the impression from the old building that he was travelling back in time. The stories these cobbles could tell…
    The interior of the hotel was modern and warm, though part of the building’s past still remained in the gilded names on the doors: Latin Room, Geography Room.
    ‘The Imrie family is up in the Headmaster’s Study,’ the girl behind the reception desk told them. ‘That’s up at the top of the stairs,’ she added with a sympathetic smile, glancing at their black clothes.
    Maggie and Lorimer began climbing a curving staircase then she stopped suddenly. ‘Look at that view!’ she gasped, and Lorimer looked out of a small window set into the thick white wall to see a vista over the Stirlingshire countryside, the rooftops of nearby buildings hazy as the sun cast its rays through the clouds.
    There were a few black-suited people gathered in the room next to the bar when he and Maggie arrived to be greeted by a waiter proffering a tray of complimentary drinks. Lorimer chose orange juice, mindful of the need to drive back to Glasgow, and Maggie did the same.
    ‘I better speak to Patrick,’ she murmured.
    Lorimer followed his wife to where her cousin stood, whisky glass in hand. Patrick Imrie had the look of a country farmer. Lorimer guessed that his ruddy cheeks and stocky frame were more at home in tweeds and a flat cap than the formal black suit.
    Maggie took her cousin’s hand in hers.
    ‘And