Just as the solid wooden door swung away from her, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Brenda turned around with a start, surprised and instantly puzzled that she’d heard nobody coming up behind her. Her face, which had been tensed in alarm, relaxed immediately.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s you.’ Then, cocking her head to one side, she added, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Brenda’s eyes widened in disbelief as the figure lunged towards her, hands suddenly grasping her throat. Her mouth opened in protest, then there was a gargling sound as she struggled against her attacker.
As Brenda jerked backwards onto the hall carpet, her glasses flew upwards into the air. They curved in a perfect arc then broke with a tinkle against the rows of brass hooks screwed into the wall. For a moment the landing held its breath. Then several small sounds interrupted the silence. Wood clunked on wood as the golf umbrella was propped carefully against the door frame. Feet in wet shoes brushed back and forth, back and forth on the doormat; the sound of coming home; familiar, nothing to alert the neighbours.
The front door banged shut against the newly painted close, echoes spiralling down the stairwell. These were the sounds that everybody listened to at the time, but afterwards nobody remembered that they’d heard them.
Within the house, behind the solid door, Brenda Duncan lay sprawled where she had fallen, ungainly even in death.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Cross cafe wasn’t the nicest place to have tea and a chat, but it was a safe haven from the deluge outside. The rain had not stopped all day and runnels of water were swirling down the slopes of the pavement out side. Angelica sipped the hot brew, sighing with a mixture of pleasure and relief. It would be OK, now, she told herself. It was all over. Trying to make Leigh see things that way might be tricky but she had hopes.
As if on cue, the Irishman staggered into the cafe, his hair plastered black against his head. He gazed around him, lost for a moment in the sea of tables and chairs until he spotted her at the window. She’d sat there deliberately so he could see her but the window had steamed up, foiling her strategy.
‘Angelica.’ Leigh’s eyes softened as he sat down opposite her. ‘I thought…for a minute…you’d not come.’
‘I said I’d be here, didn’t I?’
‘Aye, that’s so.’
‘I haven’t let you down yet, my boy, and I’m not about to start now. Got that?’
Leigh nodded.
‘What d’you want? Tea? Coffee?’ Angelica asked as the waitress approached.
He shrugged as if it wasn’t important so Angelica gave the waitress an order for another pot of tea.
‘Now, down to business. The police were up at the respite centre in Lewis. That Chief Inspector wanted to know what you’d been doing the night of Kirsty’s death.’
Catching sight of Leigh’s sudden frown, she hastily added, ‘I told them that you were with me, of course. We’d been praying together. But somehow he seemed to think that was suspicious.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s the praying hands, Leigh. That’s what they can’t see past. You know and I know the significance for us both but they don’t look at things quite in the way that we do. D’you understand?’
The man nodded then flinched as the waitress set down a pot of tea on the table. Angelica poured it for him, knowing he was still too shaken for even a simple task like this. The man’s nerves were shot to pieces, she told herself. How he was going to stand up to that Lorimer when he came back from Lewis, only God knew.
‘You still keeping an eye on Phyllis?’
‘Aye.’
Angelica nodded her approval. That was something at least. She leant forward and patted his hand. ‘Now you’re not to worry, but the police will be coming back. They want to talk to you again.’
Leigh looked puzzled but said nothing.
‘Here’s what to do. Now listen. When they ask where you were the night Kirsty died, tell them you were with me. I’ll back you up.’
Leigh Quinn shifted in his seat, squirming around as he looked around the cafe. Suddenly every person there seemed to pose a threat. Angelica watched him intently, sensing his moods as she always did. She could almost smell the fear rising from him.
‘Look, Leigh, it’s going to be all right. You just have to trust me.’ Angelica fixed her eyes earnestly on the man’s white face until he looked at her. Then he gave a grudging nod.
‘Good. Now drink up your tea. We have plans to make, you and I.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lorimer’s eyes were gritty from peering into the swishing windscreen wipers hour after hour. He’d been reasonably circumspect on the journey through the Highlands, given the rain sweeping across the winding roads, but after that call on his mobile the car had hurtled down from Loch Lomond, breaking every speed regulation in the book. Now they were entering the city boundaries at last. Solly had slept a lot of the way from Ullapool, folded into his black raincoat like one of those cormorants he’d seen around the Harris coastline. Lorimer was glad of the silence between them. It had given him time to think, time to digest that phone call from HQ telling him to get himself over to the south side double quick, there’d been another death.
He’d called Rosie at the University to see if she’d be at the scene of crime. Yes, she’d said shortly, and not with Mitchison if Lorimer could get his arse into gear. Her tone expressed distaste for Lorimer’s boss that had made him chuckle. But his mirth was short-lived. There was nothing remotely funny about this.
‘Brenda Duncan,’ Lorimer spoke softly to himself. ‘Who on earth would want to do you in?’ It didn’t make sense. First a prostitute in Queen Street station, then a nurse working the night shift. Now another member of the clinic’s staff murdered in her own home. Had she seen something the night of Kirsty’s death? Had she been keeping something back from Strathclyde CID? Or had something happened that she’d failed to register as significant? Either way it took him back to the same place: the Grange. One thing was certain, though; neither Sam Fulton nor Sister Angelica could have committed this latest murder.
Lorimer braked sharply as the lights turned to red.
‘Here already?’ Solly turned to look out at the familiar urban landscape. ‘How long till we reach Govanhill?’
‘Another fifteen minutes, if we’re lucky.’ He stared ahead at the build up of rush hour traffic. It would take them at least that to cross town, he reckoned. Maybe he should have crossed the Erskine Bridge. Hunger was gnawing at his guts. He should have made more time for a lunch stop. Maggie would be home by now. Maybe even cooking something decent for him, he thought wistfully. God, he’d missed her these last few days.
The journey across town via the Clyde Tunnel was a nightmare. Lorimer fretted and fumed aloud, cursing each and every driver that slowed him down. To cap it all, the tunnel was down to one lane. Solly, sitting beside him, kept a tactful silence. The psychologist looked out onto the darkening skies. He’d already worked one thing out for himself. Whoever had killed Brenda Duncan had known exactly where she lived and when she’d be off duty. Someone she knew, possibly. A colleague? A patient? Again, Solly felt a frisson as he thought of the killer and the risks he’d taken. There was both recklessness and a sense of calculation about the man that seemed at odds with one another. More than ever Solly was disquieted by the three murders; it was as if they had been carried out by a different hand each time. Still, there was a new crime scene ahead and that might throw light upon the puzzle. Solly shivered. The sight of a corpse was not some thing he relished.
It was well after six o’clock when Lorimer turned the car into the street in Govanhill. Rosie Fergusson’s BMW was parked outside the close mouth, a squad car just beyond.