pay dirt. Everyone had known her and her business, it seemed. From birth to death there didn’t seem to be a way of keeping secrets on this island. What was it the lad had said? It’s not gossip. Folks just share their lives with one another. That’s the way it is. And Kirsty MacLeod’s life had seemed just the same as any other young islander’s. She’d left home to board in Stornoway and attend the Nicholson Institute, like all the teenagers from these parts. And, like many of them, she’d made her way to the big city. For what was to keep her here? Unemployment was just as bad up here as anywhere else, Dougie had pointed out. That was why so many folk had wanted the quarry to go ahead. He’d been OK, his dad owned the hotel. That’s what he wanted, to stay here and live in Rodel. Kirsty had been no different from the young folk who had left the islands to work in Glasgow, Lorimer conceded. It was her death that made her stand apart from them. But there was still too much missing from what Dougie could tell him. There were no hidden depths, nothing to distinguish Kirsty from any other young island girl leaving home to train as a nurse.
He heaved himself out of the narrow bed and felt the floor cold beneath his feet. Today would bring him into contact with other nurses who cared for the Grange’s patients, and, of course, the patients themselves. Lorimer found himself speculating about the two who had been in Glasgow at the time of Kirsty’s murder; Sister Angelica and Samuel Fulton. They’d caught an early morning flight from Glasgow to Stornoway. Mrs Baillie had not been prepared to make any cancellations. The clinic would have lost money, she had claimed. Lorimer shook his head. Call him a suspicious beggar, but there was more to all this than met the eye.
‘This came for you, sir.’ Lorimer looked up from his bacon and eggs to see young Dougie holding out a long white envelope. He waited until the boy had gone then ripped it open. Solly glanced up inquiringly as Lorimer studied the message. It was a fax from Alistair Wilson. Suddenly South Harris was back in the twenty-first century, mused Lorimer. He scanned the opening paragraph quickly.
The Grange was trying to forge links with another expanding group of clinics, he read, and there had been a report ordered by their bankers into this group’s financial stability. Lorimer’s eyes travelled down the rows of facts and figures. There were sections on the group’s business profile, accounting systems, profit and loss forecasts and future strategies, one of which included the absorption of the Grange. The directors had borrowed heavily in order to expand and modernise their existing clinics. The report’s advice was that the bank would continue its level of lending meantime but wanted to know a definite date for the acquisition of the Grange. But how could that be? Phyllis Logan was the legal owner. Had the paralysed woman some legal representative who would advise her on such matters?
Lorimer frowned, remembering the woman’s argument that the clinic could not afford to waste her patients’ plane tickets. Mrs Baillie seemed to be more concerned with saving money than an investigation into the death of one of her staff. She’d not even told them about the existence of the respite home until then, this other part of the MS patient’s estate. Failte, it was called. The word was Gaelic for welcome, Lorimer knew. What sort of welcome would they have for a Glasgow policeman and a criminal profiler?
His car wasn’t built for roads like these, Lorimer realised as he pulled into a lay-by for the sixth time in five minutes. They had obviously met the ferry traffic coming from Tarbert. He paused to look out over the wide sweep of sands below them, then his eye travelled inland. The road was clear again and he turned back onto the grey strip that wound down towards sea level, glancing every now and then at the changing colours of the water.
‘Look out!’ Solly’s shout made Lorimer yank the wheel sideways as something white bounded towards them. There was a thud as the car hit the verge. He pressed the window button, cursing the object of their sudden stop.
‘Bloody sheep!’ Lorimer looked down at the offending beast that was now grazing frantically on the other side of the narrow road. He glanced across at Solly, who was trying to hide a grin, then he eased the big car off the grass verge and back onto the road. He’d have to be more attentive to these sheep meandering across his path.
The rest of the journey passed without incident though Lorimer had to keep his wits about him negotiating the twists and turns, especially among the rocky landscapes as they climbed into the hills north of Tarbert. The treeless wastes were bleaker to Lorimer’s eyes than even Rannoch Moor. No wonder so much of the population had left over the decades. Yet there would always be a core of islanders who stayed at home. There were signs of recent resurfacing to the road and Lorimer reminded himself that tourism kept many local folk in employment. He had to admit that there was a wild beauty about the coastline. And these slabs of black rock striped with silver crystals were amongst the oldest known rocks on earth. Lorimer passed a sign for Callanish. He’d love to bring Maggie here to see these legendary standing stones.
‘Who exactly runs this respite centre?’ Solomon asked suddenly.
‘A couple by the name of Evans. He’s a psychiatric nurse and she does the housekeeping and suchlike, I believe. They’re not locals. Came up in answer to an advert, in fact.’
‘What do you know about them?’
‘Not a lot. But I think we’ll soon find out,’ replied Lorimer. Roadside cottages were no longer solitary dots on the landscape but were now like joined up writing. ‘Civilisation,’ he muttered under his breath as he read the sign, Steornabhagh, though he wasn’t at all sure that he meant it.
‘Do you mind if we don’t go straight to the clinic? I’d like to pay a courtesy call to the local nick,’ Lorimer asked. ‘I feel the need to rally the troops, if you know what I mean.’
‘Do you think the troops will be on our side?’
Lorimer grunted. Solly had a point. Nobody liked officers from another division, let alone another region, encroaching on their patch. He’d just have to hope the natives were as friendly here as they’d been in Harris.
Stornoway came as a surprise. Fishing boats swung gently on their moorings along the harbour’s edge as Lorimer drove slowly towards the centre of town. He rolled down the window and breathed in the salty, fishy tang.
‘Fancy a walk?’ Solomon asked.
‘OK. I could do with stretching my legs,’ Lorimer replied. He parked away from the harbour in a designated area. For a small place there were plenty of double yellow lines and he wasn’t about to get on the wrong side of the local lads.
‘This is where she came to school,’ Solomon spoke half to himself as Lorimer locked the car.
‘Yes. The Nicholson Institute. One of Maggie’s friends came up here to teach languages years ago.’
He tried to visualise Kirsty as a teenager, giggling on her way from the hostel to the famous high school, then breathed a long sigh. The Stornoway air stinging his eyes had a purity that was suddenly at odds with his vision of the nurse, her hair scattered over that life less young face.
The local police station was in Church Street. From the pavement in front of it Lorimer spotted three steeples close by, a reminder that these parts were supposed to be full of God-fearing folks. Well, that remained to be seen.
‘Chief Inspector Lorimer, Strathclyde CID,’ Lorimer held out his warrant card carefully for the duty sergeant to see. The officer, a huge bear of a man whose grizzled hair still held a hint of red, raised his eyebrows but looked past Lorimer to the Jewish psychologist, who stood smiling his knowing little smile. Following the man’s questioning gaze, Lorimer stepped aside.
‘This is Dr Brightman from Glasgow University.’
Solly held out his hand to the sergeant who gave it an abrupt once up-and-down.
‘Dr Brightman is assisting Strathclyde with our double murder inquiry,’ Lorimer explained.
‘Aye, the MacLeod girl. Terrible thing, that,’ replied the sergeant. ‘How can we help you, sir?’ he said to Lorimer.
‘We’re here to visit a place called Failte. It’s some sort of respite home for recovered mental patients.’ Beside him Lorimer could feel Solly wince at the description.
‘Isn’t it for patients who have suffered some sort of neural disorder?’ the sergeant replied, frowning. ‘That’s what we were told.’ He sidled along behind the desk and tapped at the keyboard of his computer.
‘There, see.’ He swivelled the screen around for the two men to read.
Faille: Centre for holistic care and recuperation. Specialising in the aftercare of patients who are recovering
