‘It showed up in the accounts.’
Mrs Baillie gave a resigned sigh. ‘So you know, then?’
‘We know that you misappropriated funds for your own use, yes. But we don’t exactly know why. Care to enlighten me?’
For the first time since he had met her, Lorimer saw a tremble in the woman’s face as if she might actually begin to cry. He could see her swallowing and heard her breaths coming in short gasps as she tried to regain some control.
‘I needed the money,’ she began. ‘I had debts to repay.’
‘Uhhuh. And just who were your creditors?’
‘Oh,’ the woman’s eyes flew to meet his suddenly. ‘Just one. A man called Joseph Harridan.’ She smiled a bitter little smile. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of him?’ Lorimer had. Harrigan was a notorious bookmaker in Glasgow who had come to the attention of the fraud squad on more than one occasion.
‘What on earth were you doing mixed up with someone like that?’
Mrs Baillie straightened herself up and looked Lorimer straight in the eye. ‘I gamble,’ she said. Lorimer saw the steady way she regarded him as if waiting for some condemnation. She wouldn’t get any from him. Other people’s weaknesses were not something he despised but pitied.
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ she continued. ‘I run a clinic for patients who have various disorders and I can’t even help myself.’ Lorimer nodded. Those bare rooms at the Grange made sense now. She’d whittled down her possessions as she’d gambled their worth away.
‘There is the matter of a legacy in Phyllis Logan’s will that I was hoping you would explain to me,’ he told her. Suddenly the woman’s face changed. Her smile was wistful as she shook her head.
‘Ah, yes, poor Phyllis. I did wonder if you would ask me about that.’
And then she told him.
Maureen Baillie looked down at the sheet of paper on her desk. She was surprised that her hand was so still, given the turmoil of emotion within. Her resignation as Director of the clinic would take effect from the end of the month in compliance with her terms of employment.
What would become of her after that? Lorimer had told her that there would be a court case pending. But fraud cases could drag on and on. Perhaps she’d have time to cut her losses and simply disappear. But it was her lack of assets that was holding her back, she thought with some bitterness. The car she drove couldn’t be turned into cash as it was on lease hire, her own house had long since gone, which was her main reason for taking up residence in the Grange. If they ever thought about it, which she doubted, the staff probably believed she was simply being over-conscientious in her duty to the patients.
Harrigan had fleeced her. There was nothing left at all, now that the police had discovered her secret. Her salary would be paid into the bank but that few hundred pounds wasn’t going to take her very far. Besides, where was she to go?
Mrs Baillie sat very still, fingering the pearls at her throat. They were all that she had left of her mother.
Her face twitched in an ironic smile. Sentiment had proved stronger than her compulsion to gamble. She could hear the chatter of two of the women as they passed by her room on their way to the television lounge. Her thoughts turned to Angelica who had been here so recently, providing an oasis for them all.
And, of course, there was Phyllis to consider. She wondered about Phyllis and that new nurse who was so determined to learn what she could about Multiple Sclerosis. Patients like Phyllis were so vulnerable, she thought. Always prey to infection. How long she could survive was anyone’s guess, but she’d seen other cases like hers before and knew that a sudden onset of pneumonia was the thing most likely to dispatch her patient.
Maureen Baillie’s fist clenched the paper into a ball.
No. She wouldn’t leave right away. She had a duty to patients like Phyllis, even if that duty meant a little bit of suffering.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They were all set.
Mitchison had been surprisingly cooperative all of a sudden. Maybe it was the lack of DNA evidence, though they’d never really suspected anyone from the team. Lorimer had feigned astonishment when he’d been told of Sir Robert Caldwell, the Chief Constable, proclaiming his desire to follow the criminal profiler’s advice. There were wheels within wheels. He knew fine that Solly had mentioned his case to the Professor of Psychology on the very evening when the Prof. was due to have dinner with Strathclyde’s finest. He must have taken the hint and bent the Chief Constable’s ear. It gave Lorimer some satisfaction to know that the Superintendent was not the only one capable of manipulating people. He wondered just what had been said between Sir Robert and the Professor. Still, it was enough that the Superintendent was giving them the authority to mount this operation without any hindrance.
Maggie had packed him a flask and a box of food.
There was enough to feed an army, not just the three men, he’d complained, juggling with plastic carrier bags. But then she’d reminded him that Solly probably wouldn’t even think about meals and he’d given in. It might be a long night.
The driver of the British Telecom van was DC Beattie, a lad who’d come into the force around the same time as Niall Cameron. He was dressed in the regulation navy uniform of British Telecom engineers, a mock-up badge clipped to his woollen jersey.
Lorimer and Cameron sat in the back amongst the paraphernalia of sound engineering and close circuitry, backs against the metal sides of the van with Solomon facing them. Beattie sat up front. Despite the cramped interior of the telecommunications van, Lorimer had a decent view of all the monitors. His eyes wandered over them all but kept returning to those fixed in Phyllis Logan’s room. If she were to have an unwelcome visitor they’d be the first to know.
The van was parked facing the crest of the hill that ran down towards Queen’s Park, only yards away from the entrance to the Grange’s driveway. Lorimer had walked around the area before giving his officers their various positions. There was some advantage in this road being a dead end, he’d realised; whatever vehicle came up this way would have to turn into the driveway or make a slow U-turn behind them before it could accelerate away again.
More than ever Lorimer felt that their killer was somewhere not too far away; perhaps, as Solomon had suggested, he was even inside the clinic already. Beattie was logging every vehicle that came up or turned to leave. So far his list included residents of the surrounding tenement flats as well as known members of staff and previous visitors to the clinic.
Lorimer’s eye was caught by a movement from one of the monitors. Pat Crossan, her slim figure hidden beneath the regulation overall, was bending over Phyllis. From what Lorimer could see, the police woman appeared to be checking the sick woman’s pulse. One of Pat’s credentials for the job had been her years as a Royal Alexandra nurse. She’d even seen action in the Gulf before coming home and joining the police force.
He saw her straighten up then give a small wink at the camera just to let them know she was aware of their presence. Below her, Phyllis lay inert, her eyes shut. it was impossible to know if she was asleep or not.
‘Do you have a list of who’s on duty?’ Solomon asked, suddenly breaking the silence in the back of the van. He nodded, handing him a copy of the paper that had already been circulated amongst his team. They’d tried to cover every member of staff from the director down. The late shift would continue until ten o’ clock, by which time the night staff would have taken over. Before the change of shift the visitors and day case patients would have come and gone. Mrs Baillie was there all day. Not only was she on duty but her off-duty time seemed to be spent more and more in her flat on the top floor of the Grange or wandering in and out of the residents’ rooms, according to the undercover girls.
‘Erica takes over in four hours,’ Solly noted aloud.
‘Right, but Pat will still be in the building. She’s going to be writing up her essay on the clinic’s computer. Or
