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 tap on the door. PC Annie Irvine stepped into the room, a large square bag slung over her shoulder. The policewoman smiled then gave a nod to the Director. Lorimer stood aside to let her move into a position where Phyllis could see her.
‘You can go now, Mrs Baillie. My officer will let you know if there’s anything we need. Thank you.’ Lorimer held the door open as if to emphasise the point. She wasn’t wanted. Police interviews were conducted in private, no matter what the circumstances.
Mrs Baillie looked as if she might argue the toss but a glance at Lorimer’s face showed she’d decided against it. They heard the sound of her feet quietly padding down the corridor as Lorimer closed the door.
‘Here’s a couple of chairs, sir,’ Annie had spotted the grey stacking chairs and was lifting them over the side of Phyllis’s bed. ‘Is it OK, ma’am?’ she added, looking directly at Phyllis.
The woman in the bed gave a tiny nod and Lorimer saw a faint smile play about her lips. Maybe this wouldn’t be so impossible after all. He positioned his chair close to the bed so that the woman and he were facing one another.
‘Hallo again,’ he began. ‘You do remember me, don’t you?’ His tone was gentle but firm. He didn’t intend to insult her by being condescending. There was nothing worse for disabled folk than being talked down to like children. She gave that slight nod again and her smile deepened.
‘The last time I was here it was to investigate the death of a nurse, Kirsty MacLeod,’ he continued, still gazing at her face, her penetrating eyes.
She closed them and opened them again. Was she trying to blot out the memory of that night? He hoped she wouldn’t, for his sake and for Kirsty’s.
‘May I ask you about that night?’
Phyllis frowned at him as if he’d said something out of place so he added quickly, ‘Look, I know you can’t talk to me, but I’d like to think we can communicate all the same. Give a nod if you mean ‘yes’. Close your eyes if it’s a ‘no’. Can you do that?’
There was a tiny movement of the woman’s head that Lorimer took to be a nod. Lorimer turned to Annie, who was busy unpacking the video camera she’d brought.
‘We’d like to make a recording of this interview. It’s a little unorthodox, perhaps, but then your situation is, let’s say, a bit different.’
The woman had her gaze trained on his, he noticed. She could hear him, no bother, then. But just what was going on behind that steady expression?
‘PC Annie Irvine recording in the Grange clinic for neural disorders. DCI Lorimer interviewing Mrs Phyllis Logan. Date and time preset,’ Annie’s voice broke into his thoughts. OK, this was it.
He took a deep breath before asking, ‘We need to know exactly what took place in the clinic on the night that Kirsty died. And I’d like to know if you heard anything.’
The nod she gave was quite definite now and her eyes were staring at him, huge and fearful. She’d heard something all right. Lorimer edged his chair closer to the bed. He spoke slowly and deliberately, watching Phyllis’s every reaction. Her eyes flickered once in Annie’s direction then passed back to him as if she was indifferent to the presence of the camera.
‘Right, now. Did you hear anything unusual outside your door on the night of…’
Lorimer broke off. The woman in the bed was making high-pitched mewing sounds, as if she was trying to tell him something. Tears threatened to spill over from those huge eyes.
Lorimer leant closer. ‘You heard something?’
Phyllis gave a nod. Her eyes were round and staring.
‘Was it a sound like something being dragged past your door?’
Again that tiny jerk of the head meant yes.