by Alex Gray
‘You sound as if you’ve studied that sort of thing,’ Kirsty observed.
‘Aye.’ Mary shot her a rueful grin. ‘Dropped out of my economics degree. Decided the human race needed my tender lovin’ care not my mathematical brain.’
‘Snap!’ Kirsty grinned. ‘Same here. I joined the police after quitting my course at Cally,’ she admitted.
‘Caledonian University? That’s where I studied nursing,’ Mary remarked. ‘What made you do that?’
Kirsty’s grin faded. ‘Something happened.’ She shook her head. ‘Friend of mine was murdered,’ she went on, her voice dropping to a whisper.
‘So you’ll know all about murder, then?’ Mary began to look across the table and nod but her eyes slid away under Kirsty’s gaze, a sign of shyness at discussing such a subject? Or something else?
‘See, Kirsty, I think that’s what’s going on in the hospital. I think some of our patients are being… helped on their way, if you like… but, yes, murdered.’
Kirsty’s eyes widened and she wanted to protest that such an idea was ridiculous but the other woman’s expression was deadly serious.
‘Och, I know this sounds mad. But I think I’ve got proof,’ Mary hissed.
The two women drew back into their chairs as the waiter brought their coffees to the table and set them down.
‘Go on,’ Kirsty said quietly.
‘Well.’ Mary picked up her mug of coffee, nursing it in her hands as though to warm them, tilting her head to one side, considering how to begin. ‘There was this doctor. Real dishy, he was, I’m telling you! Hadn’t ever set my eyes on him before but that can happen. We have so many young doctors in that place and they change all the time, honestly it’s hard to keep track of who’s who sometimes.’
Kirsty sipped her coffee, never taking her eyes off the woman opposite.
‘Well, he comes to me the other day as I was looking at the stats, you know, the list of patients and my own notes about how I think there’s something fishy about so many deaths, right? Swans off with it in his hand, tells me he’s been asked for it by our consultant.’ Mary moved closer to the policewoman. ‘Only the consultant’s not been given it at all! See, I checked and our man never requested that document, never sent anyone to me that day.’
‘So who was he?’ Kirsty asked.
‘God knows.’ Mary shrugged. ‘A doctor?’ She pulled a face. ‘Good-lookin’ fella in a short-sleeved shirt, identity badge round his neck. Only it was turned t’other way so I didn’t see his name,’ she admitted.
‘Could that have been deliberate?’
‘I’ve thought about that over and over,’ Mary sighed. ‘And I’ve asked around to see if anyone knows the man I saw.’
‘And?’
Mary gave a half laugh. ‘As far as I know he doesn’t even exist,’ she said. ‘But, Kirsty, tell me this. How did he know I was making out that report? And what else do you think he knows about me?’
The woman’s eyes had widened as if in real fear now, her thoughts taking shape as words.
‘Have you got a copy of that report anywhere?’
‘Yes,’ Mary replied. ‘It’s on the hospital computer. Most of our department can access it any time.’
‘So other people could have made a copy?’
‘Not without our log-in password.’
‘But someone must have known you were anxious about this,’ Kirsty insisted. ‘And if it was someone inside the department they would only have to have printed out their own copy.’
‘I know,’ Mary said, her eyes dropping to the table.
There was something she wasn’t saying, Kirsty suddenly realised, something that Mary Milligan was holding back. Kirsty shifted in her seat, feeling a little less comfortable in this woman’s presence though she would have been at a loss to explain why.
‘And your consultant? Have you spoken to him about your fears for the safety of your patients?’
Mary shook her head. ‘He didn’t have time to listen to me,’ she said sadly. ‘They’re very busy people you know,’ she added defensively.
‘So, what is it you want me to do, Mary?’ Kirsty asked slowly.
Mary Milligan reached across to the chair and picked up her bag. Setting it on her knee she drew out a folded sheet of paper.
‘Here,’ she said, offering it to Kirsty. ‘That’s a copy of my report. I’d like you to take a look at it and tell me if I’m barmy.’ She grinned sheepishly.
‘And if I think there’s something worth investigating?’
Mary drew a deep breath before replying. ‘Then I’d want to make an official approach to the police about certain deaths that have occurred in my ward,’ she replied. ‘Including Irene Murdoch’s.’
‘What?’ Kirsty sat up suddenly, astonishment on her face.
‘Aye, I knew you’d react like that,’ Mary said, a tinge of anger in her voice. ‘But see, why d’you think I asked you to come here and not your boss?’
Kirsty shook her head.
The ginger-haired woman set down her coffee mug with a bang, spilling some of its milky contents across the Formica. Then she leaned closer, fists clenched upon the table as she lowered her voice.
‘That’s because Irene Murdoch’s husband is the only other living soul I told about this.’
Maggie Lorimer had thought long and hard about the poem. Was she simply being self-indulgent in the wake of her cousin’s death? Or was it that the conversation over the dinner table these past few nights had centred on the subject of assisted suicide?
Edwin Morgan, the poet, had lived a long time, hadn’t he? Ninety years old at the last and still so mentally alert that he had even published a book of poetry just before the end. Their very own Glasgow laureate, their Scots Makar, she would tell the pupils. They’d wrinkle their noses and frown, Makar? Whit’s that, Missus Lorimer? And she’d tell them about the ancient makars like Dunbar and Henryson, maybe even try them out with some poetry from these so-called Scottish Chaucerians. And of course she’d encourage them to find out about the ‘Big Seven’, poets whom she had studied at university. Out of them all she’d only ever heard Norman MacCaig and Edwin Morgan reading their poems. Maggie’s mind drifted back to her student days. Oh to be so young and carefree again! She smiled at her whimsy, shaking her dark curls.
Right, ‘In the Snack-bar’, it would be, Maggie decided, picking up her copy of Morgan’s work. The poem had been studied by countless school kids over the years but like Owen’s ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, that didn’t diminish its powerful message.
She began to read the familiar words, her mind forming pictures of the old blind man in the snack bar. She’d highlight some of the images, ready to make them think about what they portrayed.
He stands in his stained beltless gabardine
like a monstrous animal caught in a tent
in some story.
Then, of course, the way that the poet becomes involved with the man, asking for help to go to the toilet. The words made Maggie focus harder.
… I concentrate
my life to his: crunch of spilt sugar,
slidy puddle from the night’s umbrellas,
table edges, people’s feet,
hiss of coffee machine, voices and laughter,
smell of a cigar, hamburgers, wet coats steaming,
and the slow dangerous inches to the stairs.
She sat up suddenly, eyes moist with tears. Of course she would point out the figurative language. Of course she would show how Morgan evoked the senses, empathising with the old blind man.
But, as Maggie Lorimer wiped away the tear that trickled down her cheek, she could not help wondering what life had been like these last two years for her cousin, David, the man she remembered as ruddy cheeked and full of stories about the animals on his farm.
‘Tomorrow, first thing if you can be there,’ Rosie said.
‘Okay, I’ll be there. Kirsty too.’
‘By the way, how d’you think she’s coping
with the post-mortems?’ Rosie asked.
‘She seems fine. Not squeamish. Quite interested, I would think. She’s made of sterner stuff than you’d think to look at her.’ Lorimer laughed. ‘Not just a wee lassie any more, is she?’
‘No,’ agreed Rosie. ‘Okay, see you at the City Mortuary. Bye.’
Lorimer put down the telephone and thought about the young DC. Aye, Kirsty was shaping up nicely. She’d be a credit to her dad one of these days, follow in his footsteps all right. Might even see the day when other officers would be calling her ma’am. He smiled at the notion. It wouldn’t be long till Alistair Wilson’s retirement do, a party in the Arthouse, a hotel in Bath Street that had undergone several incarnations in its history and was now one of Police Scotland’s favoured watering holes for such events.
Thoughts of parties faded as the image of David Imrie came to the detective’s mind. His wasted face, the poor body wrecked by that massive stroke… what sort of life had he endured at the end? He bit his lip guiltily. Was that the way to think of him? As having endured his existence? The nursing home appeared such a pleasant place and that young woman, Sarah Wilding, had seemed genuinely sorry to see her patient pass away. It was as if she were mourning the end of a friendship. So who was he to judge whether David Imrie was better off dead than alive, even though his life had changed irreparably?
… And your loved ones will be at peace.
He stopped typing and sat back to read the words of consolation.
‘Hits the right spot,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Makes them glad to have spent some money on the dear departed.’
The man’s eyes wandered to the bulging briefcase by his side. So many well-intentioned people in this world were conspiring to make him very wealthy indeed. The medical bag with its phials and syringes was shut tight, its contents ready and waiting for his next visit. A thrill ran through his body as he imagined the scene. It was not just the money that gave him this sense of pleasure, oh no. He wrinkled his nose as though he could already smell the stuffy bedroom and the decaying body of his next victim. His heart raced faster at the thought of their last few moments, when he had the power of life and death in his hands.
And there was nobody going to stand in his way, least of all Pete Wilding’s doe-eyed sister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Corrielinn was in darkness, the house shut up for the night, curtains closed against the rising wind that threatened to rip the leaves from the trees in this first autumn storm. Inside, the two women slumbered, Nancy tucked under her duvet, hands folded beneath one cheek, Sarah curled foetus-like in her own bed, her long fair hair flowing over the pillows.
A rattle sounded at the landing window, the wind shaking the old frame. A whine as the wind gathered strength, filtering through spaces under doors, down the ancient chimney pots. And still the women slept on, both weary after their day’s work, deep, deep down in some unconscious realm where even dreams could not touch them.
The crash and thump made Sarah sit up with a start.
What the hell…?
Then the sound of tinkling glass had her running barefoot from the room out to the corridor.
A jagged dark space was all that remained of the waterfall, fragments of stained-glass tumbled on to the carpet below. Sarah stood, mouth open in shock as she saw the huge stone lying there, paper tied around with some sort of twine.
Quickly, she darted to the adjacent window and pulled back the curtains.
But there was nobody to be seen. No figure hurrying away. No sound of a car’s engine departing on the road outside. Just the wind howling like a banshee, the leaves blown up high against the yellow lamplight.
Sarah knelt beside the rock that had been thrown through the stained-glass panel. Hands shaking, she slipped off the string from the missile and pulled the paper away.
We know where you are
She let the message fall, blood draining from her face. They’d come back, that fearful scar-faced man with his crony. And now they meant to do her real harm.
‘Sarah? What…? Oh no, oh no, what’s happened? Was it the wind…? Oh…!’
Nancy Livingstone stood, hands on her cheeks at the sight of the damaged window. ‘Who would do such a thing?’ she gasped, kneeling down, pushing at the fragments of splintered glass on the floor then turning to gape at the jagged hole in the window. ‘My beautiful window! Oh, Eric…!’
Tears spilled down Sarah’s cheeks as she saw the distraught look on Nancy Livingstone’s face.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she whimpered.
‘It’s not your fault, dear,’ Nancy soothed, taking the younger woman’s cold hands in her own.
Sarah pulled away from her grasp. ‘Oh, but it is,’ she cried. ‘It’s all my fault, Nancy!’
‘You didn’t…?’ She looked from Sarah to the mess on the floor, a puzzled frown on her face.
Sarah shook her head. ‘Of course not.’ She bit her lip then whispered, ‘But I think I know who did.’
If she had been impressed by the woman’s kindness, Sarah Wilding was now somewhat in awe of the way she dealt with this crisis. Dressing hurriedly, Nancy went out to the garden shed to find tools and pieces of old hardboard, offcuts from a job that her late husband had carried out years before, she claimed. Instructing Sarah to find a dustpan and brush, Nancy busied herself in making a temporary covering across the window, the wood concealing not just the hole where the stone had broken the stained glass but the entire picture.
‘Can it be fixed?’ Sarah enquired hesitantly, but Nancy had shaken her head, not looking at the girl sweeping up the broken glass.
‘Doubt it. Need to see what the insurance company thinks. Now,’ she declared briskly, once Sarah had filled an empty cardboard box with the glass. ‘I think we both need a cup of tea.’ She shot Sarah a quizzical look, head to one side. ‘And you can begin to explain who you think did this horrible thing.’
For once Sarah would have been happier back in her silent cell at Cornton Vale and not sitting opposite this woman in her bright kitchen, the Portmeirion teapot sitting between them on the table. Yet, when she dared look up at Nancy it wasn’t to see a pair of accusing eyes staring at her but rather a tired-looking woman regarding her with sympathy.
‘What’s it all about, Sarah? Are you in some kind of trouble?’ she asked gently.
That quiet voice full of concern was too much.
Sarah covered her face and broke down in sobs, the sense of grief and loss overwhelming her so that she simply could not speak.
Then she was in Nancy’s arms, the woman patting her back as if she were a child, hushing her, telling her that everything would be fine, everything was fine…
Somehow they ended up side by side on the old two-seater settee, Nancy pulling a fleece rug over them both, the older woman cuddling the distraught girl as she howled in despair.
‘I killed my brother,’ Sarah gasped as the sobs subsided. ‘They knew that. They knew what I’d done…’
‘Sarah, listen to me,’ Nancy said firmly. ‘You are guilty of nobody’s death. Pete took an overdose. You know that. The courts know that. Goodness, Catherine Reid knows that! So why do you feel guilty about his death?’
‘It was me who got the drugs for him,’ Sarah mumbled into the edge of the blanket. ‘He told me they’d kill him if I didn’t.’
‘Who? Who told him that?’
Sarah shrugged then began shivering. ‘I don’t know. Maybe there were no drug dealers threatening Pete. Maybe he made that up to get me to steal the morphine from the hospital.’
She uttered a huge sigh then Nancy felt her trembling beneath the fleecy blanket.
‘I don’t know now.’
‘But you blame yourself.’
She nodded.
‘Listen to me, Sarah. I’ve read the court transcript of your trial. Your brother was a serious addict. Your defence lawyer said at the time that if it hadn’t been you who got him the drugs then it would have been someone else. Pe
te wanted that stuff. Wanted it badly and he didn’t care if it put his sister into any danger. Did he?’
Sarah shook her head, eyes cast down.
‘You were sentenced for theft, not for the death of your brother,’ Nancy continued.
‘They blame me,’ Sarah whispered. ‘Mum and Dad…’
‘… And you blame yourself,’ Nancy finished.
Sarah nodded silently.
‘Everyone is guilty of something,’ Nancy whispered. ‘And you’ve paid for making a wrong choice, haven’t you?’
There was no reply.
‘Well, haven’t you?’ Nancy insisted. ‘In the eyes of society you have served your sentence. It’s over. Now you have to come back to show that same society that you can live a good and fulfilling life, just as you have been doing since you started at Abbey. Hm?’
Sarah sat up and turned her tear-filled eyes to the woman who was looking at her with such loving kindness.
‘But that’s not all I’ve done, Nancy,’ she whispered. ‘And I still need to explain who threw that rock and broke your beautiful window.’
It was later, much later, after a second pot of tea and some buttered toast, that Nancy Livingstone stood on the landing, looking with sadness at the hardboard obscuring the damaged window. Sarah was asleep at last, the girl’s soft breathing letting Nancy leave her bedside and slip into the hallway. She moved towards the other window and peeped out, hands clasped together.
Dawn was showing, a pale bright light above a sooty horizon. The night would soon be over. And, whatever fears these men had instilled into that young woman’s heart, she wanted to assure her that sharp-edged knives and threats of violence were no match for the powers that held Nancy Livingstone’s world together.