‘And the other woman? The nurse he killed in her own home?’
‘She was on duty the night Kirsty was killed. I think Tom Coutts was afraid she had seen him.’
Mhairi MacLeod shook her head sadly. ‘Such a waste,’ she sighed. ‘Such a terrible waste.’
Lorimer took her hand in his and felt its warmth. As they sat together in the midday sun the policeman felt strangely comforted by the old lady; her weight of years and greater wisdom a kind of solace to him.
‘He copied the methods of another killer,’ Lorimer began.
‘The flower and the praying hands. I remember.’
‘What puzzled us was how he knew exactly what that other man had done. Right down to the last detail. We hadn’t even worked it out at the end,’ he admitted.
‘And how had he found these things out?’
Lorimer shrugged. ‘Like most things, it was just too easy. Tom Coutts was in and out of the University even during his illness. He expressed an interest in the case. Even helped us with information about the clinic! What we didn’t know was that he had been in Dr Brightman’s office months before and had found that first forensic report. It was all there. Even down to the position of those praying hands.’
‘The poor man,’ she remarked. ‘To have suffered such guilt!’
Lorimer looked at her in surprise. Here was a large heart indeed that could feel for such a devious killer. Nothing excused the act of murder in his book, and never would.
‘And the woman in the clinic? How is she?’
‘Safe,’ Lorimer told her. It was perhaps the best thing he could say about Phyllis Logan. She was safe and well cared for as long as she remained in the clinic.
He recalled Maggie standing at the top of the stairs after he’d returned home, hugging her arms around her body as if she were shivering with the cold. She had asked the same question then promptly burst into tears when he’d told her it was all over.
‘Here comes Chrissie. We’d better go,’ the old lady told him. Lorimer helped her to her feet, handing her the walking stick as Chrissie marched along the path towards them.
‘Thank you, Chief Inspector. Thank you for everything,’ she whispered, leaning across to touch his cheek with her lips.
As the plane circled away from the island, Lorimer wondered if he would ever return. There was something about the place that he found beguiling. In some ways he envied Niall Cameron. It might have been his choice to work in Glasgow, but Lewis was still home. He’d been glad of his DC’s company today. It had made him feel less of an outsider. Niall had taken some leave. There were things he had to do, people he needed to see, he’d said. Lorimer suspected one of them might be a girl. His shyness whenever Kirsty’s name had been mentioned was merely a reminder of another lassie from home, he thought.
Then he considered Mhairi MacLeod, and her calm acceptance of all that had happened. If only they could all emulate that old lady’s wisdom.
This had affected so many lives. Maureen Baillie might never work again as a nurse, though he had a notion that she would be there until Phyllis Logan passed her final breath. Leigh Quinn was still there, too, watching over Phyllis as he and Sister Angelica had done during that troubled time since Kirsty’s death. Their partnership had been more than a bond of faith, they had kept watch over the MS patient, fearing for her life. Would this set Quinn back? Or would the incident give him a renewed confidence? Only time would tell.
His thoughts returned to Mrs Baillie. Who would have thought that the Director had spent so many years as the sick woman’s private nurse? She’d been fiercely protective of her relationship with Phyllis. And Solly had been right. Her cold manner had hidden a flawed, but caring, personality. Maybe time would heal her wounds, too.
Time, Lorimer thought. Time. Everything passed eventually. Even this year of Maggie’s would wind to a close. He smiled ruefully to himself. She wasn’t away yet and here he was trying to wish her back. Solly had said little when he’d told him about his wife’s decision, but he’d laid a friendly hand on his shoulder that Lorimer had found oddly comforting. Solly and Rosie were closer than ever these days.
He wished them luck. Rosie was just the balm to soothe any hurt the psychologist was feeling over his colleague’s revelations.
Two men were now in custody awaiting their fate. Would their cases ever come to trial, he wondered? Or would their acts be seen as some kind of sickness? Malcolm Docherty’s twisted sense of religion was a far cry from the faith he’d just witnessed down there, on that little patch of green that was fast disappearing into cloud.
And Tom Coutts? Solly could console himself that his final profile had not been so far out after alclass="underline" a highly intelligent man with some sort of personal motive for murder. At least he had succeeded in unwinding the twists of those two threads that had bound their victims together for so long. And the last piece of the puzzle had come from Coutts himself.
They’d known the details about the signature had to have come from someone on the team. Forensics had drawn a blank, though. Coutts had simply walked into Solly’s room and read the file on Deirdre McCann. And his supposed weekend in Failte had been cleverly timed so that he was the only patient not to have given a DNA sample. Lorimer looked out at the clouds banking up against the window. Such intricate planning! And yet there was still a chance Coutts would wriggle out of it all as unfit to plead. Well, his destiny was in other hands now, Lorimer knew. But it was a thought that gave him little satisfaction.
Chapter Forty-One
The preliminary hearing had been postponed again. Maureen Baillie knew she should have been pleased but the tension of those last months was finally get ting to her. Her post at the Grange would be terminated whenever a suitable candidate was chosen but her fellow directors were being surprisingly slow about finding a replacement. Mrs Baillie had her suspicions that a certain DCI was pulling strings on her behalf. There was no way she’d be reinstated once the case had come to court, but until then her duties continued as normal. Phyllis was still here too, languishing under that cruel disease. She’d been horrified when Lorimer had revealed the extent of the legacy left to her. As Phyllis’s nurse for so many long years she had been told to expect a ‘little something’. Shame had made her seek out Maxwell Richards. He’d been quite matter-of-fact about her problem. Now she was determined never to gamble again. No matter what happened.
It was some relief that she had been kept on after the arrest of that man, Coutts, especially when Phyllis was so poorly. The woman needed her, though she might not know it. The Director of the clinic had made it her personal business to have the Multiple Sclerosis patient nursed with extra special care those past few weeks. She knew from experience what that disease could do, remembering her own mother dying far too young, and had vowed that Phyllis should be given as much personal dignity as was possible. The Chief Inspector had become a regular visitor.
Mrs Baillie, who left Phyllis and DCI Lorimer discreetly alone at visiting times, often wondered what he said to her.
It was early morning. Phyllis could hear the blackbirds on the lawn outside her window. Their dawn chorus roused her from a shallow sleep every morning. Even with the blinds shut she knew the sunlight would be making the sky a pearly pink. It had rained last night; she’d heard it against the glass. Now she could imagine the sweet scent of newly cut, wet grass as the sun steamed it dry. Her shoulders felt cold. The bedclothes had slipped off her thin cotton nightdress some time during the night.
There was another new nurse on duty. Phyllis had rather wished that policewoman could have stayed on but of course that was impossible. She was all right, now. Just a knock on the head, Lorimer had told her.