within the sheltered haven of her own classroom, anyhow. She’d fought for months to have her own room, a place where she could keep papers and books, where she could work undisturbed. There was a poster opposite her desk, just above eye level. It was a souvenir from last year’s trip to Stratford. They’d taken the Fifth and Sixth Years in the slot after exam leave and before they all scooted off for the summer. It had been an idyllic interlude for the kids, and for Maggie. She’d felt a hundred years younger walking through the cobbled streets with those kids. The weather last June had been hot and breezy. If she thought about it hard enough she could still conjure up the feeling of her long linen skirt wrapping itself around her legs and her hair blowing free as they’d walked along the banks of the Avon. But the memory that stuck longest was the sense of disappointment at having to come home to an empty house.
As ever, her husband had been out on some police matter or other.
Maggie had wept that night in sheer frustration at having no one, no one at all to communicate her days of pleasure and nights of magic, transported by the spell of The Bard. It wasn’t the same to phone her old mum, even if she’d been awake at that hour. She’d wanted someone to talk to; a soulmate who would hold her in his arms and look at her in understanding of all she had to tell. She’d wanted Lorimer.
The clock on the wall told her it was high time she took herself out of there. The rush hour traffic would be its usual slow, gas-guzzling mass with motorists caught between rolling back the sunroofs or cooling themselves with recycled air. Maggie made a sour face. It was all right for Lorimer with his Lexus. Ancient it might be, but the comfort and air-conditioning were there OK. Still she sat on, torn between a desire to have it all over and done with and a fear at what he would say. What would he say? She’d gone over and over this question for days, steeling herself to come to this moment of truth.
Maggie stretched herself and pushed back the metal chair. OK. She’d do it. Now. Tonight. She was sure he’d be home tonight. After how tired he’d been he would try to come home at a reasonable hour. Surely. Maggie straightened her back and gave her dark curls a shake. She was going to America for a year and her husband would just have to accept it.
Jo Grant’s brow creased in a frown as she scrolled up the list of figures. Lorimer had been right. There was something out of order in the clinic’s accounts. At first she’d assumed that the Logan Trust had been responsible for the gaps, but they were way too frequent and didn’t tally properly. She could see that now. Jo gave a smile.
I.T. had a way of showing up things that could save hours of old-fashioned detective work. She pressed the print button. Lorimer would like this. There were several large sums of money missing from the Grange’s accounts. The patients’ fees simply weren’t covering the expenditure. Someone had been on the fiddle, she guessed. Her years in the fraud squad had given Jo a nose for that sort of thing.
‘We need to see the clinic’s own paperwork,’ Lorimer told her. ‘Mrs Baillie keeps the records. See what you can worm out of her.’
He watched as Jo left the room. She was good, that one; sharp as a needle. He’d felt there was something wrong about the finances and now she’d proved him right. But was there any link to the murders? Lorimer leant back in his chair, swivelling it back and forth as he pondered. Mrs Baillie had been so tight with information. She’d also shown little real remorse after the deaths of her two nurses. He’d like to be a fly on the wall when DI Grant started to ask more questions. The Procurator Fiscal had issued a new warrant to search locked premises so Mrs Baillie couldn’t refuse access to any of the clinic’s files. Lorimer smiled to himself. Something was beginning to unfold.
Maggie had prepared a pot of chicken broth. It was totally unseasonable but she had felt the need for comfort food and the soothing feeling that came from cutting up the vegetables as she’d listened to Classic FM. Now the soup was congealing in the pressure cooker as she waited for the sound of his car.
She’d rehearsed over and over in her mind what she would say to him, but she still jumped nervously as the Lexus braked in the drive below. She could hear him take the stairs two at a time as if eager to be back home.
‘Hey, something smells good. That wouldn’t be one of your brilliant soups by any chance?’
Suddenly he was there and Maggie shrank back into a corner of the kitchen as if seeking refuge by the cooker.
She turned to face him, tried to smile and failed miserably.
‘Mags?’ Lorimer reached out for her, immediately sensing her distress.
One moment she was in his arms and the next she was struggling to be free of him, angrily pushing him away. Lorimer took a step backwards, trying to see his wife’s expression but Maggie had turned away. He stood, hands helplessly by his side.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Maggie looked at him, seeing the puzzled, hurt look in his eyes then, she took a deep breath. ‘I think we’d better talk.’ She motioned through to the sitting room.
Lorimer sat on the edge of the sofa but Maggie chose the armchair opposite as if touching him would somehow weaken her resolve. He watched her chest heave in a sigh that made him want to fold her up into his arms.
Her eyes were cast down towards the carpet as she spoke. ‘I’ve applied for a new post. A temporary post.
It’s just for a year. An exchange, actually.’ Maggie’s voice rose in a squeak that betrayed her nervousness. She looked up to see her husband frowning at her, trying to figure out what she meant.
There was a tentative smile hovering around Maggie’s mouth as she told him.
‘I’m going to America.’
‘What?’ Lorimer stared at his wife in disbelief. He wanted to replay that last moment, let her words sink in. America? She hadn’t just said that, had she?
There was a silence between them that seemed to go on and on. In the silence Lorimer’s worst fears about his marriage were brought to the surface like scum on a pot of bubbling stock. What was she saying? He listened numbly as Maggie suddenly rattled on about teaching opportunities and career advancement. He wasn’t hearing this properly at all. All he could think of was that he felt like she’d swung a wet dishrag across his face.
‘Hang on. Let me get this right. You want to spend a year abroad. On your own?’ He heard his voice rise in protest. When he spoke again the words came out in a mere whisper. ‘Why? Why do you have to do this, Mags?’
‘For me. I’ve wanted to do something like this all my life. Can’t you understand? I’m tired. So tired. All the time I wait for you to come home. I feel as if I’ve spent, no let’s be truthful about this, I’ve wasted so much of my own life. You’re never here. I want to talk to you. I want to spend my evenings with you. Oh, I know all about the pressure of police work. Believe me I’ve tried so hard to put up and shut up.’
Lorimer flinched at the bitterness in her voice.
‘I need to do something for myself. Before I end up simply an appendage of DCI Lorimer.’
‘Maggie, this is beginning to sound all very midlife crisis to me,’ Lorimer began.
‘Don’t you dare start to tell me I’m becoming menopausal or whatever. Just don’t dare!’ Maggie’s eyes were so fierce with passion that Lorimer sank back against the sofa cushions wondering what on earth to say next.
‘What have I got that’s my own? Eh? Tell me that? A job. A house. OK we couldn’t have kids. No one’s fault. I’m not trying to lay any blame. All I want is a year to myself doing something I might enjoy.’ Her eyes were pleading with him now. ‘Don’t you understand? I want to be me. Do something on my own.’
What about us? Lorimer wanted to say, but something he couldn’t define stopped him from uttering the words. Instead, in a voice stiff with emotion, he asked, ‘And at the end of the year?’
Maggie shrugged her shoulders. Her eyes were focused on the pattern of the carpet again. ‘We’ll see.’
Lorimer took a deep breath. He spent a lot of his working life trying hard to put himself into the shoes of other people; victims of crime, hoods, murderers, witnesses too scared to speak. But it seemed he’d failed to empathise where it mattered most, in his own home. He gazed sideways out of the window at the still clear blue sky. America. Suddenly a thought struck him.
‘Why America? This wouldn’t have anything to do with that woman, Lipinski, would it?’
