Alex Gray - A small weeping

As he stood looking at the basement door he knew there would have to be much more data before he could create any sort of profile. The signature of the praying hands with the flower conjured up a picture of a person who had remorse for his actions. Was the killing a compulsion motivated by some deep-seated problem in his past? Something that therapy had failed to resolve? Solly looked from the basement door back towards the street. Opportunity might be a starting point but it only led him back to the clinic itself. Clasping his hands behind his back, Solomon walked thoughtfully round the far side of the building. His shoes crunched on the pale golden gravel that served as a pathway. Was that another form of security? Did the staff listen for wayward feet outside the walls of the clinic? The killer had opened the basement door and left it swinging in the wind that night. But where had he gone afterwards? That was a puzzle indeed.

‘Dr Brightman? Mrs Baillie’s gone out but she said you could stay as long as you needed,’ Ellie Pearson told him.

She looked at him uncertainly as if this exotic looking man were not to be trusted and that the director was slightly crazy in letting him loose among their patients. Her white slacks and short-sleeved tunic gave the woman an extra air of briskness. Round her neck dangled a pair of half-moon spectacles. The woman was probably about his own age, Solly guessed.

There was something intimidating about medical personnel in uniform, Solly mused. Not that he could be easily intimidated. Such observations impinged on his consciousness without making him react to them in the slightest.

‘Thank you. I have a note of the clinic’s layout somewhere.’ He searched in several pockets before drawing out a much-folded piece of paper.

‘Here we are. So I won’t need to keep you from your duties, Sister,’ he added, nodding wisely at the name badge on the woman’s chest. He turned slightly away from her and opened the makeshift map. There were red highlights showing the basement and related areas. To reach these he would have to pass the residents’ main lounge and the long corridor where their downstairs rooms were located. Through an open door to his right he saw Sister Pearson making for a staircase. He looked back at the plan. That led to Mrs Baillie’s own apartment. What else might be up there? Anyhow, she seemed to be satisfied that the psychologist could be left to his own devices. Perhaps they’d become inured to strangers crawling all over the place since Kirsty MacLeod’s murder. Just as the thought came to him, Solomon was aware of an emaciated figure shuffling out of a nearby room on his left, pushing a Zimmer frame in front of her. His heart sank as he took in the woman’s face with its cadaverous hollows. She wasn’t old at all, but wracked with whatever eating disorder had ruined her body. She stopped and looked up at him as Solomon drew level with her.

‘Good morning,’ he smiled politely, giving a nod in her direction. The woman smiled back at him showing red exposed gums. At least her hair showed some signs of care, a shiny grip held its wispy strands back tidily from her brow. China blue eyes regarded him hopefully for a moment then looked away as if failing to find the face that they sought.

As Solomon passed her by, he noticed her hands clutching the zimmer’s metal rail. Despite the blue veins standing up on her hands, the fingernails were trimmed and polished. There were some signs of care here, at any rate, thought Solly. Some attractive prints on the wall, bright pastel scenes of Tuscany depicting gardens and arbours. Restful, he mused, good choices for a place like this. Somebody had put plenty of thought into the details and Solomon was impressed.

The corridor came to an end with double doors that swung away from him automatically and Solomon stepped into an area that had the unmistakeable smell of a hospital. His map wasn’t needed here. There were signs on the walls indicating an upper level of residents’ accommodation and another door marked Staff Only. There was no window on either side of the corridor, the only light coming from overhead strips that glared down on the pale linoleum flooring. A door to one side was slightly ajar. Remembering Lorimer’s description of the multiple sclerosis patient, Solly paused. Whoever had killed Kirsty MacLeod had passed by just here. There was a faint mechanical sound from within but nothing more. Not wishing to disturb the patient, Solly crept past quietly. Beyond the stairs was the door leading to the basement. He pushed it open.

Rosie had described exactly where the murder had taken place. The floor was clean now, but there was a red cross on the paper that showed the spot where they thought Kirsty MacLeod had been killed. Solomon stood looking back down the corridor. The swing doors would have muffled any sound the girl might have made. Only one person could have heard her had she cried out. Once more he looked towards the room where a woman lay wasting away with that awful disease. She was completely paralysed, Lorimer had told him, and had no power of speech. No threat to a killer, then.

The basement door creaked as Solly turned the handle. Darkness met his gaze and he fumbled for the light switch as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Only the first few steps were visible. His hand felt the switch yet he resisted the instinct to flood the place with light, trying instead to see through the shadows; trying indeed to imagine what the killer would have seen. Had he thrust the young nurse’s body down the steep flight of steps? There would have been a thud as her corpse hit the concrete floor below. Or had he dragged her step by painstaking step into the boiler room?

Solomon tried each idea on for size. The victim’s tights had been ripped, suggesting she’d been pulled rather than pushed. But if she’d been dead, the weight would have been considerable even to drag downwards. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, Solly counted the seventeen metal steps that separated the boiler room from the upper floors of the Grange. Perhaps he’d pulled her down the first few steps where definite traces of fabric had been found. The door opened outwards so there would not have been so much effort needed to manoeuvre a body through in the first place. Had he given up after the first few steps before sending her corpse tumbling down? Had something panicked him? He must have made sure she was dead.

Forensics found nothing to suggest that he had interfered with the body. His only need had been to pull her hands flat together and then add his final touch, the red carnation.

Solly switched on the light and the room below was suddenly visible. it was smaller than he had thought it would be with its fluorescent strip hanging on a long wire suspended from a fitting on the ceiling. The wire had been looped and fastened to one side, presumably as an aid to changing the light fitting.

‘How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?’ Rosie had teased him. Her voice came unbidden into his mind. He was suddenly very aware of her presence there in that basement room where she had examined the young nurse’s body. Solly had seen her at scenes of crime before and marvelled at her clinical, detached manner. He stared down into the basement room. Had the killer walked calmly out of the back door, stepping over the girl’s dead body? Had there been a quickening of his pulse as he’d climbed the stairs out into the back gardens, escaping from the sight behind him? Or was there another explanation altogether that involved someone staying behind in the Grange? And Brenda Duncan had come on the scene so soon after that, hadn’t she?

Solly stroked his beard thoughtfully. Whatever scenario he came up with, one thing stood out clearly: it had taken a very cool and determined person to carry out this attack. Whoever had planned this had expected to get away with it. They’d known the layout of the clinic and had knowledge of where the nurses would be on duty. Or had they? Was this just a random stranger killing after all? Solomon closed his eyes. Had the killer known about the MS patient, too? Try as he might his vision of this killer was of a figure that had disappeared back into the labyrinth of doors and corridors, a killer who had brought a red carnation for a pretty lady.