A small weeping lab-2 Page 6

  He’d dropped officer Lipinski at HQ for her scheduled lecture before setting off for the Grange. That was one talk he’d be missing. He grinned to himself. What a pity! The squad at Pitt Street would just have to get on with it without him. All in all, Lorimer doubted if he’d had three full hours sleep himself. Mitchison would be banging on about Working Time Regulations before he was much older.

  Lorimer was sitting at a table that had been pushed up near the huge bay window that overlooked the gardens. The morning light streaming in would show Lorimer and DS Wilson the full face of whoever came to sit on the other side of that table. Each person was going to be confronted by a pair of steely blue eyes that brooked no nonsense. It was just as well that Alistair Wilson was on duty. His sergeant’s knack of showing deferential politeness would be especially soothing to the damaged souls in this place.

  ‘Ready, sir?’ Wilson had brought in the file of current residents’ names.

  ‘If they’ve all had their breakfasts,’ Lorimer growled.

  He hadn’t even had a cup of coffee and no one seemed to be interested in offering him one. He looked at the annotated list. There were red asterisks against certain names. These belonged to residents whose rooms looked out to the front of the house. Mrs Baillie’s was amongst them. Her bedroom was right above this lounge.

  ‘Eric Fraser?’ Lorimer read aloud, ‘Let’s have him in first.’ The uniformed officer by the door disappeared.

  ‘D’you want to start, Alistair?’ Lorimer turned to his colleague. Wilson just smiled and shrugged. ‘Butter him up, you mean?’ Detective Sergeant Alistair Wilson was no stranger to his superior’s strategies.

  The uniform returned. ‘Mr Fraser,’ he said, retreating immediately to his post by the lounge door.

  Eric Fraser was a young man of medium height dressed in navy jogging pants and a matching hooded sweatshirt. As he approached, he ran one hand over his cropped bullet head and stared right at Lorimer with small, intense eyes. He hadn’t shaved for days, by the look of him, and his clothes hung loosely over a thin frame.

  ‘Mr Fraser, I’m Sergeant Wilson, and this is Chief Inspector Lorimer,’ Wilson had risen to his feet, come around the table and was shaking Fraser’s hand. ‘Thank you for coming in to talk to us. Please sit down.’ Wilson’s voice was all solicitousness. They didn’t yet know the nature of these patients’ illnesses. That was confidential, Mrs Baillie had insisted. ‘Meantime,’ had been Lorimer’s terse reply.

  ‘They told me about Kirsty,’ the young man began without any preamble. ‘She was nice. She listened to me. Not all of them take the time to listen,’ his voice held a querulous note and he looked accusingly at Lorimer although it was Wilson who’d begun the interview.

  ‘We’d like to know if you heard anything unusual last night, Mr Fraser,’ Wilson spoke firmly, trying to draw the man’s attention back.

  Fraser made a derisory noise. ‘You mean all that screeching and carrying on?’

  ‘What screeching was that, Mr Fraser?’ Wilson put in. Lorimer pretended to scribble something on a pad in front of him, avoiding eye contact.

  If Wilson could capture his attention then he’d be free to observe the patient’s body language. Right now he was sitting, hands clasped between his knees as if, despite the sun’s heat through the glass, he was feeling cold.

  ‘Mrs Duncan. She raised the roof with her racket. Came right up the stairs to fetch Mrs Baillie. I think anyone would’ve heard it through the partition walls. I certainly could.’

  ‘You don’t have any sleeping medication, then, Mr Fraser?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ he replied, sitting up a bit straighter as he spoke.

  Lorimer nodded to himself. A patient on his way to recovery, perhaps?

  ‘How well did you know Nurse MacLeod?’

  Fraser shrugged, crossing one leg over the other. ‘Not that well. She was nice. Nice looking too. She always made sure we were comfortable at bedtime. She’d go to the bother of bringing me up a hot water bottle. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Did she ever talk about herself?’

  ‘No. Not really. I’d asked where she was from. The accent made me curious. But she didn’t really tell me much about herself.’ Fraser looked hard at Alistair Wilson. ‘We’re a pretty self-absorbed lot in here, you know. Fragile psyches and all that,’ he sneered. Lorimer watched as his foot began to tap rapidly up and down, an involuntary movement, agitated. He wondered what the man’s blood pressure would be if he had it taken right now. A worm-coloured vein on Fraser’s temple stood out and Lorimer could imagine the beat of a pulse.

  ‘Where were you last night, Mr Fraser, from midnight onwards?’

  The foot tapping stopped abruptly and the man uncrossed his leg, looking towards Lorimer who had suddenly asked the question. For a moment he said nothing, simply stared at the Chief Inspector as if he had temporarily forgotten his presence.

  ‘In bed. In my bed in my room. All night.’

  ‘And can anybody verify this?’

  Fraser looked from one man to the other, bewildered at this sudden change of tack.

  ‘I don’t know. Kirsty and Mrs Duncan were the only two who would have been able to say I was in my room. They were the night staff on duty.’ He twisted his face into a frown. ‘But that’s going to be the same for all of us. Except…’

  He stopped, rubbing his hands up and down the thighs of his joggers.

  ‘Except?’ Lorimer prompted.

  ‘Some patients are on suicide watch. They have nurses posted along the corridor who sit there all night just in case.’

  ‘And you’d have had to pass them to reach the back of the clinic, I take it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fraser replied, something like relief in his face. ‘Yes. Any of them would have seen me if I’d passed that way.’

  ‘Mr Fraser, you’ve been very helpful. I’m sorry we’ve had to disturb you but it is important that we have some sort of input from all the people who were here last night. Do you remember anything else, perhaps? A strange sound from outside?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘No. Nothing I can remember.’

  ‘Well, if there is anything at all, please get in touch with us. We’d be most grateful for anything you might recall later,’ DS Wilson rose to his feet and slid a card across the table.

  ‘That’s the number to ring. We’ll be issuing this to all of the staff and patients,’ he smiled warmly and Fraser nodded, glancing warily at Lorimer before standing up again.

  ‘I can go now?’

  ‘Of course, sir, and thank you once more for your cooperation,’ Wilson’s smile was positively beatific.

  ‘Constable, would you ask Jennifer Townslie to come in, please?’

  At last Lorimer was downing a cup of coffee. The morning had been reasonably productive. They had been able to eliminate most of the residents from their inquiries. Some, as Lorimer had suspected, had been dead to the world having been given sleeping pills. These included a few women with eating disorders who were on the upper floor. None of them were currently on suicide watch. Some of the residents were pretty frail and Lorimer knew it would have taken someone of considerable strength to attack and strangle the young nurse.

  What most of them had heard amounted to very little other than the furore caused by the auxiliary, Mrs Duncan. It was time to wheel her in. Lorimer wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘OK?’

  Alistair Wilson gave a brief nod. They’d discussed this at some length. This was one witness whose statement would be crucial to the investigation. He just hoped she was in a better state than she’d been the previous night.

  Brenda Duncan was a portly woman in her fifties. She rolled slightly as she entered the room, a thick winter coat folded clumsily over one arm, her handbag clutched in two ungloved fists. As she sank into the chair in front of him, Lorimer could see that her eyes were heavy. It didn’t take much to guess that she’d been given some kind of medication after her trauma. She was smiling uncertainly and he wondered if
she’d ever had to encounter the police before.

  ‘Mrs Duncan,’ Wilson’s voice was all concern, ‘thank you so much for coming back in. We realise how bad this has been for you.’ He gave his most encouraging smile as if to say there was nothing to worry about, they’d take care of it all. Lorimer could see the woman’s shoulders visibly relax.

  ‘Just take your time and tell us everything that happened yesterday evening.’

  ‘Well, when I found poor Kirsty…’

  ‘No,’ Lorimer broke in, ‘before that, please. We’d like you to tell us everything that happened from the time you arrived for your shift.’

  ‘Oh.’ The woman looked from one of them to the other. Her mouth was open and her eyes looked vacant for a moment. Lorimer wondered just how much medication she’d been given. And by whom? a little voice asked.

  The mouth closed and the jaw became firmer. Her bosom heaved in a long sigh. ‘I start at ten so I was here at about twenty-to. The bus drops me off at the Monument and I walk the rest of the way. It only takes about five minutes or so. The patients are usually ready for their beds although there’s no strict rule. We don’t put out lights or anything like that. They can sit up and watch telly if they like. Some of them don’t sleep too well, either. But most of them are early bedders.

  ‘And which ones aren’t, Mrs Duncan?’ Lorimer wanted to know.

  ‘Oh,’ the woman looked confused as if unsure whether by imparting this information she might be implicating a patient.

  ‘Sometimes Leigh sits up late. He likes to watch the creepy programmes.’ She leant forward, speaking in a whisper of confidentiality, ‘I don’t think he should, mind you, but that kind of thing’s not my decision.’

  ‘Leigh?’ Lorimer was looking down the list of patients’ names.

  ‘Leigh Quinn,’ Mrs Duncan supplied. ‘The Irishman,’ Wilson added.

  Lorimer nodded. Leigh Quinn had been practically non-verbal during his interview, staring out of the window mostly. Afterwards they’d decided that a good look at his case notes would be required. The man didn’t seem quite on the same planet as the other patients.

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual during the earlier part of your shift, Mrs, Duncan?’ asked Wilson.

  Brenda Duncan chewed her bottom lip for a moment or two, her eyes fixed on the bag on her lap. Then she shook her head, still gazing down as if struggling to see the events of the previous night in her mind.

  ‘Nothing untoward, then. Just a normal night?’

  The woman nodded her head.

  ‘Where were you before you found Nurse MacLeod’s body?’ Wilson spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘Where was I?’ Brenda Duncan looked flustered. ‘I, em, I would be…’ her voice trailed off as she looked at the detective sergeant.

  ‘Just take your time,’ he told her. ‘Try to remember your movements. What you were doing on the normal night shift.’

  ‘I suppose I’d been round the doors. They leave some doors open for the patients. The ones that need a bit of watching, you know,’ she whispered again. ‘I chatted with Peter, he’s one of the nurses who sit with their patients at night. They all have designated nurses, you see,’ she explained, nodding to emphasise her point.

  ‘Can you remember what you chatted about?’ Wilson asked, an encouraging smile on his face.

  ‘He was telling me about his holidays. He’s just booked up a fortnight in Mallorca for himself and the family. I remember because it was such a windy night and I told him he was lucky to be getting away from all this horrible weather.’

  ‘And then?’ Alistair Wilson let the question dangle in front of the woman like bait. Lorimer had been watching her face with interest. It had become more and more animated as she’d continued, almost as if she was relishing the build-up to her discovery of Kirsty’s body. A dramatic event in a humdrum existence, perhaps? Sure enough there was a pause for effect and Brenda Duncan cast her eyes down. Lorimer watched her fumble in her handbag for a handkerchief. There was a loud blowing of her nose before the woman took up her story again.

  ‘I went to make cocoa for Kirsty and me. There’s a wee kitchen through the doors from where the patients’ rooms are. I was surprised when I saw Kirsty wasn’t there. She should’ve been down from checking the upstairs rooms by then. I thought maybe she’d gone to the bathroom, but I’d have seen her going past.’

  ‘It struck you as odd?’ Lorimer asked quietly, confirming the tone in the woman’s voice.

  She nodded, ‘Aye. Odd. You could say that. Anyway she didn’t come back and the cocoa was getting cold so I thought I’d better go and find her. She wasn’t in the loo and she wasn’t in either of the residents’ lounges.’ Brenda Duncan bit her lip. ‘I don’t know what made me go along the back corridor. Maybe it was when the light came on.’

  ‘What light?’ Lorimer demanded.

  Brenda Duncan frowned. ‘It was funny, now I come to think of it. The back corridor light just came on. I hadn’t noticed it was off until I was through the swing-doors then it just came on.’

  Wilson scribbled something on his notepad.

  ‘Go on, please,’ Lorimer pressed her.

  ‘I didn’t see anything at first. I just walked along the corridor. It was that quiet. Then I heard a noise. A kind of scraping sound. It was the door down to the basement. Someone had left it open and it was creaking in the wind. I pushed it open and switched on the light. And then I saw her.’

  This time the pause was for real. Lorimer could see fear loom large in the woman’s widening eyes and he could easily imagine her screams. But now her voice sank to a whisper as she stared past them.

  ‘She was lying on her back. I thought at first she’d fallen, so I hurried down the stairs.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Then I saw it. That flower. I knew then. I just knew she was dead.’

  ‘Did you feel for a pulse?’ Wilson asked.

  She shook her head and Lorimer saw her eyes staring into space, mesmerised by that image fixed in her brain.

  ‘Kirsty was dead and all I could think of was that she hadn’t had her cocoa!’ Brenda Duncan suddenly burst into tears. The woman PC who had accompanied her into the lounge was by her side now and looking quizzically at Lorimer for instructions. No doubt she was expecting him to terminate the interview. Spare the poor woman any further suffering. Well, that wasn’t always Lorimer’s way. There were still things he needed to know.

  ‘How long was it between the time you saw Nurse MacLeod alive and the discovery of the body?’ The question brought a halt to the flow of tears. There was a wiping of eyes and the WPC retreated to her post by the lounge door. Brenda Duncan looked distractedly around her for a moment.

  ‘I’m not sure, really. I remember it was after midnight on the alarm clock in one of the rooms. I’d seen Kirsty about quarter-past eleven, maybe. She’d been writing up some paperwork before she went upstairs. I went through the front to check the rooms. I put fresh loo rolls in, give the basins a wipe, that sort of thing.’ She looked nervously at Lorimer. ‘I don’t know what time it was when I made the cocoa. Not long after.’

  ‘So that was the last time you saw her alive. At approximately eleven-fifteen?’

  The woman’s lip trembled. ‘I just made her cocoa. We’d always have a blether. But she never came. She never came.’ Brenda Duncan clutched herself with both arms rocking back and forwards, whimpering softly.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Duncan.’ Lorimer was finished with her for the moment. He nodded to Wilson who rose and helped the woman to her feet. ‘If you would just follow the officer out. We have a car to take you home,’ Lorimer’s detective sergeant reassured her. ‘There will be a statement to sign later on but we’ll let you know about that.’

  ‘Oh, just one more thing,’ Lorimer’s voice stopped them in their tracks. ‘What about the patient whose room is at the back of the nursing home?’

  Brenda Duncan looked nonplussed. Then she gave a small shake of the head. ‘Oh. You mean Phyllis? She’s an MS pat
ient. Totally paralysed. Can’t speak. Poor thing. Mrs Baillie can tell you more, I’m sure.’ She looked uncertainly at Lorimer then added, ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Of course. Thank you for your help.’

  Lorimer stood looking out as the police car drove off. She hadn’t mentioned seeing to Phyllis Logan that night. Had anybody spoken to the owner of the Grange? Was she even aware that a murder had taken place under her own roof?

  Chapter Twelve

  Sometimes he let his mind wander back to the time when he’d been happiest. In his memory the days were always sunny, the cloisters full of friendly shadows. The work had been hard, especially all the studying, but the compensations of having his own vocation made up for everything. There were days like today when the wind blowing from the west reminded him of the gardens with their high walls clad with espaliers and creeping vines. If he closed his eyes he was back there once more, the mumbling sound of bees as they staggered from one lavender bush to the next making his head feel drowsy. The soil had been fine and black beneath his fingernails, a joy to cultivate. And they’d been so pleased with him, hadn’t they?

  A cold shadow crossed his face, making him look up as the sun disappeared for some moments. The nights, too, had been his. He’d plundered the hours of darkness, his footfall a bright echo on the stones of the chapel. A candle. He remembered there had been a candle, tall, the colour of honey, its flame bent side ways by the draught of his passing. The candle had stood for a sentinel on these special nights between midnight and dawn, flickering its pinpoint lights against the metal cross that lay within the coffin.

  The bodies were always carefully dressed in white robes, the faces of the deceased facing skywards. Sometimes, watching them for long hours at a time, he wondered if their eyes would open and see him staring. In dreams he saw their dead eyes glaze like pale gobs of jelly, their heads turn accusingly in his direction. Perhaps that’s why he had given them the flower, to appease them, stop their looks of disdain. They seemed to know everything, to understand his innermost thoughts. He’d decided that they were dangerous, these dead people, especially the very old ones with their wrinkled flesh hanging in folds, the candlelight magnifying each crease on the tallow skin.