by Alex Gray
‘Ah, we are merely mortals, often with revenge in our hearts and we know what it is to feel guilty about our own misdeeds. We would punish David, right? But God is greater than this. He can see into every heart and mind. He can seek out a contrite soul and take away all our sins. It is hard for us to forgive others; sometimes,’ he paused and Sarah was again certain that he was looking straight at her, ‘we find it hardest of all to forgive ourselves.’
Then it was over, a brief prayer giving thanks to God before the rustle amongst the congregation resumed and the uplifting of the offering was announced, marked by the organ playing a tune that Sarah recognised as ‘Amazing Grace’.
‘Did you tell anyone about me?’ Sarah whispered, coming close to Nancy, one hand cupped across her face lest anyone overhear her.
Nancy shook her head. ‘Of course not!’ she whispered back, a frown of disbelief on her face. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’
Then the collection bag was passed along the row, effectively stopping conversation as Sarah’s thoughts whirled. That man, the minister (who was now descending from his pulpit and coming towards the communion table), he’d definitely been looking at her, hadn’t he? Or had it just been her imagination? Were these words like arrows, finding their mark? For a moment there Sarah had thought they were just for her. But no, the sermon had been for everyone, not just the ex-con who sat in their midst. He hadn’t known, she told herself, the awesome truth beginning to dawn on her. What was it the man had said before beginning his sermon? God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be in our hearts and in our understanding.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Julie was cold. The pashmina that her sister had wrapped across her shoulders hours ago was now lying on the floor to the side of the wheelchair. And nobody was there to pick it up. Julie could see it out of the corner of her eyes, the blues and greens of the paisley pattern chosen to complement her navy trousers and pale jade cardigan. Rachel was always so fussy about selecting her outfits and Julie was grateful for her younger sister’s attention.
But where was she now?
A window behind her must have been left open earlier in the day for the young woman in the wheelchair could feel the draught as the breeze filtered in through the gap. Such little things were more noticeable nowadays, irritating, frustrating since her own legs would never again walk across the room, her own hands unable to perform the simple act of closing a window. With the loss of muscle control and then the inability to speak, Julie had learned to focus on things that everyone else took for granted or didn’t even notice.
Her world had shrunk so swiftly since the diagnosis. Was it only last year that they had travelled to Australia? She and Rachel laughing as they had flirted with those lads they’d met on Manly Beach. How could things have changed so much?
Julie forced herself not to panic, her ventilator tube was where it should be – over her head and secured to her nasal passages – her feet were set together on the footrest, her hands protected by the sides of the chair. Best not to think too much. Best not to remember…
The sound of the front door opening came as a huge relief. Had she been able to make them work, Julie would have made her facial muscles turn into a smile of gratitude.
Rachel was home again. She would be safe.
The current of air became stronger as the door of her downstairs bedroom opened.
But it was not Rachel.
As the man entered the room Julie gave a grunt, all that she was able to do in lieu of speech, slivers of saliva escaping from her open lips.
‘Hello, darling,’ he grinned at her, making Julie wonder if she had ever seen him before, his manner was so familiar. But she could not remember that face, those dark eyes.
And how could she ever have forgotten a good-looking guy like this one, coming towards her, his medical bag in one hand?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down, Karen Carpenter had sung. Her rich, low voice had not been enough to sustain the singer, Sarah thought sadly as she walked around the corner towards Abbey Nursing Home. Poor thing had died after losing her struggle with that dreadful eating disorder. The thought made her shiver, the ghostly outline of late afternoon sun sliding behind a bank of low clouds.
The day had begun well enough. Once Nancy had left for work, Sarah had wandered around the house, trying to imagine what it might have been like when Eric Livingstone had been alive, their daughter racketing about, as any teenager would do. But Nancy Livingstone seemed to have done an effective job of tidying most of their memories away. Only the photographs in the lounge (in silver frames on the polished sideboard and occasional tables) gave any hint that once the place had been home to other people.
It had, however, been a grey day from the moment Sarah had woken, a steady curtain of rain blotting out the hills. Now, shaking her umbrella as she stood on the threshold, she saw just how the weather reflected her own dismal mood.
Today was the day. She had to do what they had told her. Find the names and addresses of next of kin and photograph them on this phone. She fingered the small shape in her raincoat, making a mental note to slip it into the pocket of her uniform as soon as she could. Once it was done, she would be free of them, surely?
That scar-faced man’s words came back to her, menacing, the memory of his stinking breath as he’d told her what he expected her to do.
Sarah had been too afraid to ask why, the question that reverberated in her brain at this very moment. Why was she doing this? What was the reason behind it? Was some sort of fraud involved? The people who were funding their relatives here must have money, she reasoned, the fees were an enormous burden for any family to cope with.
Yours not to reason why, yours but to do and die. The old phrase came back, making Sarah tremble as she pulled off her raincoat and shoved the wet umbrella she had borrowed from Nancy into a plastic bucket in the corner of the staffroom.
She would do it as soon as she could, Sarah decided, then looked up with a start as the door opened.
‘Hi. Ready for our shift?’ Grainne smiled and Sarah watched as the other nurse took off her jacket and hung it on the coat stand. ‘Give you a lift home afterwards if you like?’ Grainne offered, putting a bunch of keys into her handbag. ‘Saves you having to wait for a taxi.’
Sarah hesitated for a moment. Did this kind offer spring from some knowledge of her circumstances? Or was the girl just being nice?
‘Thanks. Midnight, eh? Seems a long way off right now,’ Sarah remarked, glancing at the clock on the wall.
‘Well, better make a start,’ Grainne said, following Sarah’s look. ‘Want to take first break? Or is six-thirty too soon for you?’
‘That would be great, thanks,’ Sarah said quickly, her mind already moving forward to the opportunity that this might allow her. The nurses’ breaks were staggered so that only one nurse was off at any one time during the evening shift. And Nancy would be away home by then, her office left open in case any of the staff needed to consult a patient’s file.
The next two hours seemed interminable as Sarah saw to the needs of her patients, helping to feed them as well as undertaking the routine changing of catheters and ensuring each patient was clean and comfortable. Mrs Calder had rasped a few words in her direction as usual. Best to put me out of my misery, she’d moaned, eliciting a tut from Sarah and the extra degree of kindliness that was what they all knew this patient really yearned for. Mrs Abbott had warned her about Mona Calder. Don’t be surprised when she asks you to put a pillow over her face. Tries it on with every one of the nurses, she’d said.
Sarah shook her head as she closed the woman’s door. She had turned Mona Calder on to her side to face the television fixed to her wall, the Scottish News about to begin. The murmur of disembodied voices disappeared as she left the room, nervously biting her lip. Mrs Calder had paid not the slightest attention to the pair of medical gloves that Nurse Wilding slipped into her skirt pocket.
At
last she crept quietly along the corridor, eyes glancing each way lest someone see her stepping into the nursing home manager’s office instead of the staff lounge.
It was still light outside on this September evening. Light enough to take the photographs that she needed? She gnawed her lower lip as she looked around the office.
The filing cabinet behind Nancy’s desk seemed the obvious place to begin. She pulled on the pair of disposable rubber gloves. None of the fingerprints of an ex-con would be found in here, not if she could help it.
Slowly, Sarah pulled out the drawers, the sound of the sliding files rattling like her nerves. She felt her shoulders tense, fingers shaking as they picked through the dark green folders. A sigh of relief came as she spotted the patients’ names in alphabetical order.
Right first time, she thought, breathing hard. Trust Nancy to be efficient!
Yet the thought of her benefactress gave her an uneasy sensation in the pit of her stomach. Guilt had a sour taste.
Concentrate. Get it over with, Sarah scolded. How hard could this be? Twenty patients, twenty pages of names of next of kin in alphabetical order, she told herself, flicking through Jeremy Anderson’s file.
Page two gave all the information she was looking for. Next of kin: name, address, telephone numbers and email, all typed neatly and easy enough to photograph.
With shaking hand, Sarah drew out the mobile phone and set it to camera mode.
One click and the photograph was taken.
Conscious of the sweat prickling beneath the arms of her uniform, Sarah shoved the file back into its place and took out the next one.
Over and over she repeated the process, pausing to listen for a footfall outside the door, terrified lest she be taken unawares.
What would they do if she were found there? What lies could she invent? Panic threatened to seize her, and for a moment Sarah wanted to thrust the folders back into their drawer and flee from the room. Only the thought of that knife against her cheek made her continue to pull each patient file out, hasty fingers turning to the necessary pages.
She had come to the eighteenth file when the sound of voices in the corridor made Sarah shrink back in terror, holding her breath. But the voices soon died away again. She looked at her watch. It was almost time for her break to end.
Hurriedly, Sarah pulled out the remaining two files and turned to the pages she needed. A couple of swift clicks, then it was done.
She closed the drawer again, hands slick with sweat beneath the gloves, a feeling of nausea overwhelming her.
Once out in the corridor, Sarah fled into the staff toilet, stomach churning.
She just made it into a cubicle on time, retching over the pan, her whole body shaking as she fell to her knees.
Wrap it in this, Scarface had ordered her, giving her a black polythene envelope. Hide it inside the gates, got it?
Sarah dropped the parcel into a clump of heather and looked around, fearfully, but there was nobody to be seen, no dark figure lingering around the entrance to the nursing home.
It was done. Her heart thudded as she walked swiftly back into the nursing home, skirting the edge of the building to the back door to avoid being captured on the CCTV camera that was fixed to the front.
‘Two down. Bad advice from the bull. Three and five.’
‘What? How should I know?’ Kirsty asked peevishly. James gave a laugh and resumed his study of the newspaper crossword, his long legs slung across the arm of the chair.
It had been a long day in Stewart Street police station, mainly because the investigation demanded the sort of detail that only her computer and telephone could offer and now Kirsty’s head was buzzing with a myriad of facts and figures.
‘Bum steer!’ James grinned at her then wrote in the answer to the clue.
Kirsty smiled back, raising her eyes to heaven. James was a whizz with puzzles whereas Kirsty simply did not have the patience for things like crosswords and anagrams. Yet she had the ability to think out of the box, hadn’t Lorimer told her that one time before she’d joined the police force?
So far they had drawn a blank with the Jane Maitland case. The beneficiary was to arrive tomorrow from London and they would meet again at that lawyer’s office. Wonder what he felt when he was told about his real mother, Kirsty thought to herself. There were programmes on the TV reuniting parents with their long-lost children, most of them given up for adoption by single mums coerced by their own parents. What was this fellow’s story, she wondered. And how would his adoptive parents react on hearing that their son had inherited a small fortune? Well, she would know soon enough when Crawford Whyte (né Maitland) arrived in Glasgow.
‘You all right? You’re as white as a sheet,’ Grainne remarked as she entered the staffroom just after midnight.
‘I was sick earlier on,’ Sarah told her truthfully. ‘Something upset my stomach.’ She shrugged and gave the other young woman a wan smile.
‘You should’ve said,’ Grainne protested. ‘I could’ve given you another wee break.’
‘I’m fine now,’ Sarah said. ‘Just need some sleep.’ A simulated yawn turned into the real thing and Sarah felt her eyes stinging with fatigue.
Outside, the skies were filled with stars, shreds of clouds scudding swiftly as the autumn wind rose, scattering leaves across the forecourt of the nursing home. It would be winter soon, Sarah thought, remembering the previous winter that had been spent in Cornton Vale women’s prison. She would never go back there, she thought suddenly. Let them do their worst, she had had enough, she decided, pulling the seat belt across her body and clicking it in place. The mobile phone would be picked up where she had dropped it, wrapped in its black plastic envelope.
Only the late-shift nurses were about, their car doors slamming in the quiet of the early hour as Grainne drove out of the car park and headed along the road to Bearsden and Nancy Livingstone’s home. No other person was about, no late-night dog walker or any other solitary figure. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. She’d done her part, left the parcel where she’d been told. Surely now they’d go away and leave her in peace?
Thoughts of what they were going to do with this stolen information made Sarah’s head ache.
She was guilty, guilty as hell.
But, a little voice asked, what was the nature of her crime this time?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Margaret Fraser watched Sandy as he sniffed his way along the path that divided the row of houses from their lock-ups. The terrier stopped from time to time to cock a leg against a lamp-post, his owner alert to any possibility of the little dog crouching down, her hand searching in her anorak pocket for a plastic poop bag.
‘Och, Sandy, come away from there!’ Margaret called as the dog bent low, nose to the ground in front of one of the garages, its door tilted open at a slight angle.
But the dog was already wriggling his body into the dark space that had been left.
‘Sandy! Bad dog!’ Margaret scolded, quickening her pace as the terrier’s tail disappeared beneath the metal door.
‘Come here!’ the woman demanded. But Sandy did not heed her command and Margaret could hear snuffling noises from within the lock-up.
Looking swiftly around to make sure that nobody was watching, Margaret stepped forward and grasped the door handle, letting its weight swing it upwards.
‘Sandy…!’
The dog came bounding towards her, barking eagerly.
But Margaret Fraser could not move, the sight of that swinging body freezing her to the spot.
‘Rachel Gardiner,’ Rosie said, passing the dead woman’s driving licence to Lorimer.
They were both crouching by the body that had been taken down from the overhead beams, a forensic tent masking their activity from any prying eyes.
‘Suicide?’ he asked.
‘Probably, but there’s the complication of what else we found indoors,’ Rosie replied, tilting her head in the direction of the house beyond the path.
&nbs
p; ‘Think she killed the woman in the wheelchair then took her own life in a fit of remorse?’ a voice behind them asked.
Lorimer turned a serious glance to the young detective constable who, like them, was clad in a white forensic suit.
‘That’s what we need to discover. Dr Fergusson estimates Julie Gardiner’s time of death to be, what? Between four and six yesterday afternoon?’
‘That’s right,’ Rosie agreed. ‘And this one died some time before midnight.’
‘What was she doing all yesterday evening?’ Kirsty asked thoughtfully.
Lorimer stood up and nodded. ‘Go back inside and see what you can find, Kirsty. SOCOs will only let you into certain parts of the house,’ he warned.
The detective constable glanced at the brass nameplate on the door jamb: RACHEL & JULIE GARDINER. At least now they knew which one was which.
The scene of crime officers were still busily gathering what evidence they could. Kirsty watched them for a moment, marvelling at the painstaking methods that could indicate so many things: footprints in the dust of a floor, the tiniest traces of fibres left on or near a body, as well as any fingerprints that might be found and matched against those kept in the Scottish database.
Her job was to find more tangible evidence, stuff that could be used to build a picture of who these people were and what had taken place the previous day.
The lounge had been transformed into a bedroom for Julie Gardiner and Kirsty went straight to a large old-fashioned dresser against the wall, her eyes measuring up the row of drawers. That was where she would keep any papers, she decided, stepping carefully past the body and pulling out the left-hand drawer by its metal ring.
‘Right first time, DC Wilson,’ she murmured, pulling out a sheaf of assorted papers and bulky envelopes and taking them to a corner of the room out of the way of the SOCOs.
