The Darkest Goodbye

by Alex Gray

  Several of the envelopes were addressed to Miss Julie Gardiner but a quick look at the dates showed Kirsty that the more recent ones were for Rachel Gardiner, her sister, many of them bearing the letterhead of the South Glasgow University Hospital.

  Kirsty skimmed through the bits of mail, noting several appointments in Rachel’s name. Why Rachel? she thought with a frown. Why not the sister who was in a wheelchair?

  She sat back on her heels, mouth open as the answer was revealed in one particular letter from a consultant.

  … confirming our diagnosis of motor neurone disease, Kirsty read, scanning the letter and shaking her head as she read on. You were aware of the familial tendencies… she shook her head again, eyes flicking towards the body across the room… do everything in our power to support you and your sister…

  ‘Oh my God!’ Kirsty gasped, the reality of the situation dawning on her.

  Had Rachel Gardiner taken her sister’s life because she wouldn’t be able to cope with caring for her any more? How tragic!

  She thought of her mentor, DS Murdoch, and his wife who had probably suffered for so long. Had he been a good carer, seeing to her needs whenever he was home from a job that demanded so much of his time? What must it be like to live with someone whom you know is going to die before you? And what agonies had Rachel Gardiner gone through once she had known that she, too, was going to die from this horrible disease?

  ‘We’ll know what was administered once the tox tests have been done,’ Rosie said, packing her kit into the boot of the Saab.

  ‘Well, looks as if the sister gave her something, doesn’t it?’ Kirsty asked.

  ‘The scene of crime officers will be sending their report later on, too,’ Lorimer reminded her. ‘Evidence of other people having been in that room needs to be included if we are to form a complete picture of what really happened,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There’s still the problem of at least six hours between one sister’s death and the other. What was Rachel Gardiner doing during that time? And why did she fail to leave any sort of note?’

  ‘Bad day?’ James looked up from where he was sitting in the armchair next to the bay window.

  Kirsty nodded then yawned, tiredness suddenly sweeping over her.

  ‘Come here, you,’ James said, his lean figure loping across the room to where she stood in the doorway.

  Then she was in his arms, letting her body relax as he stroked her hair.

  ‘Not sure I like seeing so many dead bodies in one day,’ she murmured, settling down beside him.

  ‘Ach, remember what Lorimer told you,’ James replied. ‘It’s not the dead ones that you need to worry about.’

  Later, after a takeaway pizza and a shared bottle of red, Kirsty began to unfold the day’s events to James.

  ‘Seems as though the younger sister had been the other one’s primary carer,’ she said.

  ‘What ages were they?’

  ‘Julie, the one in the wheelchair, was thirty-three. Rachel two years younger.’

  ‘And neither of them married?’

  ‘No sign of that,’ Kirsty agreed. ‘We eventually looked through every bit of paperwork we could lay our hands on: birth certificates, passports, the usual, and no, there were no marriage certificates. But we did find their parents’ death certificates,’ she added. ‘And some old press cuttings.’ She shook her head. ‘Wait till you hear this. They’d lost both of them on the same day. Victims of that tsunami disaster in 2004.’

  ‘The one on Sumatra?’

  Kirsty nodded. ‘Their silver-wedding celebration, apparently. They were swept away. Bodies never recovered.’ She gave a sigh then bit her lip anxiously.

  ‘What must it have been like to lose both of their parents like that?’ she began. ‘Imagine if something terrible happened to Mum and Dad when they go off on this holiday of a lifetime they’re talking about?’

  ‘Won’t happen,’ James said firmly. ‘Don’t let yourself think such things, Kirst. They’ll have a brilliant time, just wait and see. Postcards from every corner of the globe, eh?’

  Kirsty shuddered. She couldn’t bear the thought of hearing such tragic news.

  ‘How could life ever have been normal for them after such a devastating loss?’ she whispered, snuggling closer to her boyfriend’s side.

  ‘Ach, must have been hellish, right enough,’ he replied. ‘What about the woman in the wheelchair?’

  ‘Julie.’

  ‘Yes. Was she already ill at that time?’

  ‘No,’ Kirsty replied. ‘The medical correspondence about Julie’s illness only goes back to 2014.’

  ‘Hellish disease,’ James said, his arm encircling Kirsty’s shoulder.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be,’ she said slowly. ‘Dr Fergusson told us about a friend of hers who managed to live a near normal life for more than two years before the end.’

  ‘But don’t they have breathing difficulties?’

  Kirsty nodded, her mind recalling the sight of that poor woman, head forwards in the chair, the tube still attached to her nostrils and snaking over her head like some mutant life form in an episode of Doctor Who. It had been that, more than anything, that had made Kirsty feel a sense of horror.

  ‘You’re not going to like this,’ Rosie told Lorimer.

  They were seated next to one another in Rosie’s office in the Department of Forensic Medicine, an inauspicious part of the University of Glasgow that rubbed shoulders with the old Western Infirmary.

  ‘Tox report shows a huge dosage of morphine.’

  ‘Enough to put her to sleep?’

  Rosie nodded. ‘She’d feel drowsy almost immediately then her heart would stop. No pain. No struggle to breathe.’ She shrugged. ‘Might have been a merciful sort of end compared to what could have taken place. But,’ she continued, ‘morphine is never prescribed to a patient who has difficulty with breathing.’ She looked meaningfully at Lorimer. ‘So someone brought it into the home.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be there as part of her ordinary meds,’ Lorimer said slowly.

  ‘No chance. Either the sister obtained it or someone else administered the drug.’

  ‘Okay,’ he nodded.

  ‘But that’s not the main thing,’ she went on, a grim expression on her face as she scrolled down to a different page on her computer screen. ‘The forensic report shows no trace of Rachel Gardiner’s prints or anything on Julie’s body.’

  ‘Washed clean?’

  ‘No.’ Rosie shook her head. ‘Worse than that. Our friends at the Scottish Crime Campus obtained traces and partial fingerprints that don’t fit anywhere else in that house.’

  The detective superintendent raised appreciative eyebrows. The labs out at Gartcosh, said to be the finest facility of its kind in Europe, delivered results in record time nowadays. ‘A stranger, then?’ Lorimer asked thoughtfully, sitting back and staring at the screen.

  Rosie shot him a look, her lips twisted in a crooked smile. ‘Not such a stranger to the forensic lab,’ she began. ‘They found fibres that match ones taken from Jane Maitland’s body.’

  Kirsty stood near the back of the room, looking towards the tall man at the front. Things had changed now, she thought. And, despite the grim findings from the two deaths, she was experiencing a surge of excitement.

  This was a big case, a real challenge. And she was going to be on the team led by Detective Superintendent Lorimer.

  All around her, men and women were concentrating on the senior officer’s words.

  ‘There is an assumption we could make,’ Lorimer began, ‘that these people had arranged for their own deaths to take place.’

  A small murmur went up as the men and women took in this statement.

  Lorimer stared out at them all, his blue eyes catching each and every one of the officers.

  ‘We don’t make assumptions in this job, however,’ he went on. ‘We deal in the currency of facts.’

  Kirsty nodded to herself. It was a phrase she had heard her own father use t
ime and time again. Now she knew where Alistair Wilson had picked that up.

  ‘Fact one,’ Lorimer began, turning to the wall behind him where several pictures had been secured. ‘Jane Maitland was given a lethal dose of morphine by some person unknown to the health authorities.’

  ‘But was he known to her?’ one of the male officers called out.

  ‘That’s something we still need to establish,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘And so it comes under the heading of assumptions yet again. Did the old lady arrange for her own demise?’

  ‘Or didn’t she?’ Kirsty whispered, quietly so that nobody could hear her remark.

  ‘Fact two.’ Lorimer turned to the wall again, pointing at the photographs of the two sisters, one slumped over in her wheelchair, the other dangling from the beams of the lock-up. ‘We know that someone administered a large quantity of morphine to Julie Gardiner. And, given the trace fibres found on her body, we can correctly assume that the same person was responsible for giving that lethal injection to Jane Maitland.’

  ‘Are we looking for some sort of end-of-life organisation, then?’ a female officer asked.

  ‘That is one of the lines of inquiry that we have to follow,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘It is a huge coincidence that each of these terminally ill women were given dosages that would kill them by the same hand. If we can show it was by the same hand,’ he reminded them.

  ‘And if it wasn’t a voluntary sort of euthanasia?’ the woman persisted.

  ‘Then,’ Lorimer said, his rugged features set in a serious expression. ‘We’re looking for a murderer.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The room was silent apart from the gentle breathing of the man in his bed. A single light shining down from the lamp angled above so that the figure nearby could see clearly enough to carry out this deed. The late shift had gone home now and the figure hovering over this patient smiled as he watched him sleep.

  One little injection into his arm and he would stay asleep for ever. No more frustration, no more battling to speak, no struggle to swallow his food as it was spooned into his slack mouth. It was a mercy to put him out of his suffering.

  David Imrie turned once in his sleep then groaned as the needle was inserted into his arm.

  Then, without warning, the patient’s eyes opened and an expression of alarm filled them as he saw the man bending over him.

  An incoherent cry gurgled in David’s throat, his hands trying desperately to rise, to fend off the stranger. But the sick man was no match for the poison spreading through his veins. The hands fell back, the eyes closing as the drug took effect.

  A sigh, then a silence reaching into eternity.

  ‘Goodnight, then, darling,’ the man crooned, taking the needle and wrapping it carefully in its original paper container, hands double-gloved just in case anyone should try to find out the identity of the person who had given David Imrie this medication.

  The glass doors opened silently then he slipped out into the darkness, leaving only shadows behind him.

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you, but one of your patients passed away during the night.’ Nancy Livingstone drew Sarah aside as she stepped into the nursing home.

  ‘Oh? Who was it?’

  ‘Mr Imrie,’ Nancy replied. ‘Such a nice man.’ She shook her head then frowned. ‘No sign of a stroke, though. Seems he simply slipped away in his sleep.’

  ‘Isn’t that strange?’

  Nancy shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know if you’d call it strange,’ she began. ‘But my sister doesn’t think a post-mortem will be justified.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Sarah said, as they walked side by side along the corridor. ‘I liked him. He was a nice man. Always trying to smile.’

  ‘And he appreciated you reading all these farming articles to him, my dear,’ Nancy went on, touching Sarah’s hand. ‘I’m afraid this is the downside of working here. Having to say so many goodbyes.

  ‘Anyway, I must love you and leave you. Have to see to all his paperwork before I go home today.’ She gave Sarah a tired smile as the nurse entered the staff lounge and took off her jacket.

  Sarah sat down heavily on one of the chairs, a sudden trembling making her legs weak.

  David Imrie was dead! Could it possibly have anything to do with that list she’d taken from the office several nights ago?

  Grainne breezed into the room and stopped dead.

  ‘Hey! What’s up with you? Not feeling sick again, are you?’

  ‘Mr Imrie died in the night,’ Sarah told her.

  ‘Och, Sarah, you have to toughen up a bit if you’re going to continue working here. Most of them are on borrowed time as it is, lassie,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Suppose so,’ Sarah agreed, rising to her feet and straightening her uniform.

  Yet as she began the preparations for her shift, Sarah Wilding’s every action was laboured. There was no reason for it, she told herself. But try as she might, she could not help being overwhelmed by a deep sense of guilt.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Maggie Lorimer? Annette Imrie here. I’m afraid I have some sad news.’ As Maggie listened to the woman’s voice she put out a hand to steady herself.

  ‘David?’

  ‘He passed away during the night, seemingly,’ Annette Imrie told her. ‘A blessing really.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Maggie replied slowly. Annette didn’t sound sorry at all. In fact, she sounded as though she was almost glad to tell Maggie about her cousin’s passing. ‘Though he wasn’t in any pain, was he?’ Maggie asked doubtfully. ‘Patrick must be relieved about that at least.’

  ‘Ha!’ The woman gave a short mirthless laugh. ‘He’s relieved about a lot more than that, I can tell you.’

  ‘Oh, of course…’ Maggie sighed, understanding the note of triumph that had so jarred with the breaking of this news. ‘The farm!’

  ‘Indeed. We don’t have to sell up and move into some grotty little council estate.’

  ‘Well.’ Maggie paused, not quite knowing how to respond. ‘You’ll let me know when… the arrangements are made for a funeral? Sad coming so soon after Uncle Robert’s death.’

  ‘We’ll let you know, of course,’ Annette said crisply. ‘Must go. Other calls to make.’

  Maggie put down the phone and sank into her favourite armchair. If only they had known about David’s stroke sooner, she and Bill might have visited her cousin more often. She shuddered, remembering the man’s wasted face, his once ruddy cheeks pale and wan, that muscular body so much smaller beneath the white sheets. Her mum had suffered a stroke and ever since then the idea of being even the slightest bit paralysed had filled Maggie with horror.

  And yet it was a different unease she felt at that moment. Not because of the news of her cousin’s death but rather the manner in which it had been related.

  When the telephone rang again she gave a jump.

  ‘Patrick? Oh, Annette just called to tell me… I’m so sorry…’

  ‘Maggie, listen to me,’ Patrick began, his voice low and serious. ‘There’s something I want you to do for me.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  Lorimer heard the voice of his wife on the other end of the line, her breathy tone alerting him immediately that something was wrong.

  ‘David’s dead,’ she told him. ‘Died in his sleep, apparently,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ Lorimer began. ‘Poor man. But he’d suffered so much, hadn’t he?’

  ‘David?’ Maggie sounded distracted. ‘Oh, yes, yes of course. But so had Patrick. I mean, losing your father and your brother in such a short space of time…’

  ‘Aye, that’s true.’

  ‘Darling, Patrick wants you to call in at the nursing home,’ Maggie told him.

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Well,’ Maggie replied slowly. ‘He says he’d like a post-mortem to be carried out. Sudden death, you know.’

  ‘Was it sudden?’

  ‘Patrick seems to think so.’

  ‘What about the Abbot
woman? What does she say?’

  ‘They weren’t going to involve the police,’ Maggie replied. ‘Patrick wants you to talk to her. Can you do that, darling?’

  The light was fading from the sky as Lorimer drew into the driveway of Abbey Nursing Home, his mind still on the case of the women who had died in their own homes. By choice? That was the question that had to be answered, he thought, stepping out of the Lexus and heading towards the front door.

  Pots of late annuals graced each side of the entrance, striped petunias and masses of trailing lobelia as blue as the twilight that was fast descending. A garden bench sat by the edge of a grassy lawn, facing west. Had Maggie’s cousin ever sat there, thinking about the green fields beyond? It was a nice enough place to be, he thought. If you had to be kept somewhere that was not your own home: next best thing to a hospice, more than likely. Poor David.

  The door opened and Mrs Abbot waved him inside. ‘Detective Superintendent,’ she began. Her expression was one that he recognised; the solemn, professional look of sympathy for the bereaved, something he’d had to wear on his own face far too often.

  ‘So sorry for your loss,’ she murmured, her words echoing those he had spoken to relatives of murder victims in so many past cases.

  ‘He seems to have slipped away very peacefully, however,’ she continued as they made their way along the same corridor that he and Maggie had taken on the day of her uncle’s funeral.

  ‘Mr Patrick Imrie called me,’ Mrs Abbott said, stopping outside the patient’s room. ‘I understand that he would like his brother’s body to undergo a post-mortem examination.’ She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  ‘I believe that’s right, Mrs Abbott. In a case of sudden death, however, it is up to the Crown Office to make that sort of decision.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it? I mean, one could hardly call David Imrie’s death sudden.’

  ‘He was expected to pass away?’