‘Have you been into this room since Miss MacLeod left for work on Thursday?’
The landlady looked fearfully at him, shaking her frizzed grey hair.
‘Oh, no, Chief Inspector. I didn’t like…Well. You know. it didn’t seem decent,’ she trailed off, her hands wringing the flowered cotton overall. She hovered in the doorway, uncertain.
‘You don’t need to stay if you have other things to get on with. I’ll bring the keys when I’m done. All right?’ His face creased into the reassuring smile that he brought out of his stock expressions for the old and vulnerable. The woman nodded and disappeared along the corridor. He waited a moment until he could hear the sound of doors banging and pots being clattered before turning into the room once more.
Kirsty MacLeod would have kept the curtains shut whenever she’d had a night shift, he told himself. Security-conscious. Even when the windows looked out onto a brick wall, he mused, leaning over a wide desk and drawing the heavy folds aside to let in the daylight. He stood with his back to the desk taking in the contents of her room.
The neatly made up bed was up against one wall, a scattering of soft toys over the pillow. Lorimer recognised a rabbit with floppy ears and a stupid grin embroidered onto its face. It was a Disney character but he couldn’t remember which one. There was the usual tired-looking furniture that every city bedsit seemed to afford: dark varnished wardrobe, chest of drawers, bedside cabinet. At least they matched, he thought. A stereo system had been rigged up in one corner on top of a steel cabin trunk. Lorimer looked at the walls, expecting to see the usual wallpapering of pop posters but there was only one of a Runrig concert dating from several years back and a travel poster depicting the standing stones of Callanish.
Lorimer flicked on an angle-poise lamp that stood on the desk and gazed at the picture. The stones seemed to heave out of the Lewis earth as if they’d grown there from ancient roots. So, Kirsty had reminders of home. That was hardly surprising. Lorimer’s gaze continued along the line of photo frames on the mantelpiece. There was one of a laughing girl with her arms around an older, white-haired woman. It took him a moment to realise that it was Kirsty. Images of her body sprawled across that concrete floor flicked through his brain. He’d only seen her once, dead at the Grange. This was a younger, carefree teenager and the old lady might be a relative, the aunt, he thought, taking in the background of hills and sea. The other photos included one of her graduation, a close up of a collie dog, its tongue lolling, and an old black and white photograph of a man and woman outside a cottage. Her parents, probably. No young men were included in the line-up. A surprise, really, given that she’d been such a pretty girl.
An empty coat hanger swung from a discoloured brass hook on the back of the door. Her personal clothing had been taken from the nursing home to forensics for examination. Lorimer turned suddenly at the noise of a bluebottle buzzing at the closed window. It heightened his awareness of the silence in the room. No hands would come to switch on the stereo. Nobody would sing a Gaelic song as they tidied or made up the single bed. There was a feeling of utter emptiness, as if the room itself knew that Kirsty was never coming back. Remembering the landlady, Lorimer supposed that another tenant would eventually move in. He sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. Life went on. It had to. Someone would come to take the girl’s personal effects away later in the day. More forensics. More grief for the relatives, wherever they were. For now Lorimer had to gauge the sort of girl Kirsty had been and hopefully find some helpful documentation. A neat, tidy person; from the look of the room, she would have her paperwork somewhere to hand, collated and sorted.
The desk drawer was the obvious place and Lorimer was not disappointed. A red leather five-year diary sat on top of a sheaf of papers. He rustled through them. Payslips were clipped together, a plastic bag contained a pile of receipts and a guarantee for the stereo. Bank statements lay in order in a blue ring binder. Lorimer flicked through them. Nothing obviously wrong there. A floral paper file held letters with a Lewis postmark. It would all have to be taken away for close perusal. Suddenly it all seemed so intrusive to Lorimer. It didn’t stop with the killing. Even after death, the girl’s private life had to be dissected as thoroughly as her cold corpse.
His fingertips brushed against a small, metal object in a corner of the drawer and Lorimer pushed it into sight. It was a tiny key. Lorimer picked it up. Her key to the diary, surely? He fitted it into the lock and turned. The red book sprung open as if someone had breathed life into its pages. Flicking from the back, Lorimer noticed that the diary had spanned all of the last five years, its tightly written pages giving details of Kirsty’s life.
The final entry had been 31 December last year. Starting at the top of that page he read of five different sorts of Hogmanays.
1999 Ceilidh at the Halls. Didn’t get in till after two. What a night!!!!
2000 Working tonight. Watched the Rev. I. M. Jolly on TV. A good laugh. Wish Aunty Mhairi had the phone.
2001 George Square for the bells. Millions of mad folk but it was great fun. Bitter cold. Went to someone’s party in Hyndland afterwards.
2002 Great to be home. Chrissie and I stayed in with Mhairi as she had a bad cold. Loads of neighbours came in after the bells. Malcolm’s black bun went down a treat.
2003 Last New Year in Glasgow. Hope next year brings better luck.
Lorimer gritted his teeth. What bloody irony. All this year had brought her was a grisly death at the hands of some lunatic. He glanced over the five entries again, turning back to confirm his first impressions. Yes, she’d been back to Harris twice in those five years. Had she intended to go back for good? Last year in Glasgow. What had her plans been for the future? And with whom? Who was Malcolm?
He flicked back through the pages until the diary fell open of its own accord. Lorimer frowned. Cut neatly out of the centre of the little book were several pages, the remaining thatch of paper left to prevent the diary falling apart at its stitched seam. What had taken place to make Kirsty MacLeod obliterate several weeks out of a record of her life? And in which year had this event happened? A love affair gone wrong? Something so embarrassing that she couldn’t bear to reread it in the following years? Lorimer closed the diary, weighing it in his hand. He’d have to read the whole thing. Then ask even more questions. Slipping the diary into his pocket, Lorimer let his eyes rove around the room once more.
He’d had enough. The place gave him an impression of girlish innocence, of a Kirsty MacLeod who was doing her best to survive in this alien environment. As he looked again at the picture of the standing stones, Lorimer couldn’t help feeling that the nurse would have gone back to the islands eventually.
He turned on his heel. The boys would be back later to strip the place. For now, all Lorimer wanted was to leave the airless room to the fly trapped against the dusty windowpane.
Chapter Fourteen
Glasgow University sat high above the west end of the city on Gilmour Hill, its spiked spire a landmark for miles around. To the south it overlooked the Art Galleries and the river Clyde beyond. That particular morning Tom Coutts felt real pleasure in the view.
‘Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?’ he smiled at Solomon. They were sitting on a wooden bench by a strip of grass, warmed by unexpected sunshine.