‘What are you looking for?’
‘White, single male. Thirty to forty. There’s possibly a history of being in an institution. I suppose he must have a car, too,’ Solly mused, stroking his beard absently as if he were seeing a shadowy figure in the recesses of his mind.
‘And the other murders?’
‘Ah. Now that’s more difficult. We’re dealing with somebody very clever indeed.’
‘Someone inside the Grange?’
Solly frowned before answering. ‘I’m not sure. It’s possible, but then again…’ he trailed off.
‘Look, why don’t we go for a curry? See if we can get into the Ashoka?’ Perhaps with some food inside him Solly would become more expansive, he thought. Besides, Lorimer wasn’t in the mood to go home just yet.
It was dark by the time the taxi drew up outside the house. Maggie stumbled a little in her high heels as she tried to tiptoe to the door. She failed to see the swish of curtains from upstairs as her key turned in the lock.
Her husband appeared to be asleep when she crept into the bedroom.
Maggie slipped easily out of her skirt and top, let ting them fall onto the carpet. She was unfastening her suspenders when Lorimer spoke suddenly, making her jump.
‘Been out on the town?’
‘Good God! You gave me a fright. I thought you were asleep.’ Lorimer half sat up, regarding his wife in the darkness. She saw him shake his head.
There was a silence as she finished drawing off the stockings and underwear, a silence that was charged with embarrassment as if he had no right to be watching her. She fished out a nightdress from under the pillow and slipped it hastily over her head. His eyes were still on her as she climbed into bed beside him. There was a continued silence that was full of unspoken questions about where she’d been, who she’d been with.
Heaving a sigh, Maggie gave in.
‘I was out at the Rogano having a drink with Sheilagh. OK?’
There was no reply. She turned her head towards him and in the darkness she could make out the smell of onions on his breath.
‘Been out for a curry?’
Lorimer gave a laugh. ‘Want to join my team, Sherlock? Or is it that obvious?’
Maggie giggled, the tension suddenly evaporating. ‘You stink! You always eat far too many spiced onions,’ she complained.
‘I was seeing Solly,’ Lorimer said, as if that was an explanation for the state of his breath.
‘And?’
‘He’s got this idea that we’re dealing with two separate killers.’
Maggie twisted towards him, interested in spite of herself. ‘And is he right?’
Lorimer lay back on the pillows, one hand behind his head. ‘I don’t know. If he is, though, I may have to start looking a lot closer to home.’
‘You mean someone in the force?’
Maggie could hear her husband sigh in the darkness. It was a sigh that went all the way through him. She snuggled up closer, her cold skin touching Lorimer’s warm body. He didn’t answer her question but wrapped an arm round her shoulders, pulling the duvet in tighter to keep her cosy.
There was nothing sexual in his action, it was a gesture of pure affection, the kind of thing she’d been missing for so long. After only a few minutes Lorimer’s breathing became heavier and Maggie knew he was asleep. Still he held her close, folded into his arm. So why did she feel that overwhelming sense of loneliness?
As Maggie laid her head against his chest she felt the tears hot against her lashes.
Chapter Thirty-One
It was already daylight and he’d only slept for about three hours but Lorimer felt wide awake as he lay on his back staring at the bright gap in the curtains. He’d been dreaming about the St Mungo’s case. In his dream he was being chased by a figure in the park that had somehow turned into to Maggie. He’d woken with a start, relieved to see her sleeping soundly by his side. But it had got him thinking.
He remembered the moment in that other case when he’d suddenly realised he’d been looking at things all the wrong way round. Maybe he was doing it again. Lateral thinking, he told himself. Open up your mind.
The image of the rusted railing leading to the basement of the Grange came back to him. If the killer had come in that way then how had he crept up on Kirsty? Lorimer traced the whole route in his mind from the stairs leading into the corridor and through the double doors leading to the main building. No. Wait a minute. There was something missing. The room where Phyllis Logan lay, her body full of tubes. Lorimer recalled those bright eyes. She couldn’t talk, he’d been told. But nobody had said she couldn’t hear, had they?
For a moment he lay quite still. They’d interviewed the other residents, but not her. Was it worth a try? If the woman had heard something maybe there could be a way of finding out what it was?
Phyllis felt the sun warming her hands. She observed them on the white cuff of the sheet, drained of colour in the brightness, thin membranes stretched over knobs of bone. Her nails grew hard and gnarled, pale ochre, the colour of an animal’s hoof. It was an irony (one of many she’d noted with a bitter smile) that she’d suffered split and brittle nails in her younger days when such small vanities had mattered, and now her fingernails grew strong and hard when nothing like that was of any importance. It was simply a result of the drugs she had to take. That’s what young Kirsty had told her.
Phyllis remembered her lilting voice and the way she’d made conversation as if Phyllis could actually answer her back. She’d felt easy and comfortable with that young girl. She’d longed to be able to talk to her, to share some of her own past, the way Kirsty had shared hers. She knew all about the drowned father, the loss of her mum, the growing up years she’d spent on the croft with her old auntie. They’d been kindred spirits in some ways, though she’d never been able to tell Kirsty that of course. Phyllis, too, had been a solitary child. No brothers or sisters. She wondered what life would have been like having siblings. Would they have cared for her at home? Or would she have ended up staying here, no matter what? The ideas she pushed around her head were totally objective. Phyllis was long past the stage of self-pity. Yet it was pity she felt for Kirsty. Pity and grief that her young life had been so cruelly cut short.
A spasm passed through her hand, making it flicker with a sudden illusion of life. It was a nervous shudder, no more. The sun must have passed behind a cloud for the warmth had gone out of the room and now her hands were like two dead fish, pale and untwitching.
Phyllis turned her eyes at the noise of swing doors opening and shutting a small distance away. She could hear voices. There were people coming along her corridor, a man and Maureen Baillie. She couldn’t mistake her voice. She was in and out of Phyllis’s room quite often these days, making sure everything was in order.
Mrs Baillie didn’t knock.
She watched the woman stride into the room, hands bunched into fists at her side. There was a determined set to her jaw as she spoke.
‘This is Chief Inspector Lorimer, Phyllis. He’s investigating the events that happened here. He’d like to talk to you. Is that all right?’
Phyllis’s eyes travelled over the man as he came into view. She saw a tall figure whose dark hair straggled over his collar. She focused on the face. There was a certain weariness etched into the lines around his mouth but the eyes that regarded her were a bright, unforgettable blue. It was him. The one who’d come before. That night. So he was a policeman, was he? That pleased her. She liked to know who was on her side.
Lorimer had noticed that the Director had failed to knock but simply swept into the room and now stood with her back to the window. He looked from her face, which was in shadow, to the immobile figure in the bed. The eyes looked back at him, unflickering. Lorimer saw a keen intelligence there.
Mrs Baillie folded her arms, looking as if she were waiting for Lorimer to begin. Just then there was a light
