Alex Gray - A small weeping

‘Right, I’m away ben. Just give me a knock when you want me through,’ Chrissie told her and marched out of the room. They heard the front door close behind her.

‘She said to give her a knock?’ Solomon asked, puzzled.

Mhairi MacLeod smiled at him. ‘Aye, with my stick.’ She picked up a walking stick that lay at her feet and motioned with it towards the partition wall. ‘I don’t have the telephone, you see. A couple of raps and Chrissie knows I need her.’

The old woman leant forward and grasped the teapot with both hands then concentrated on pouring out three cups of tea. Lorimer’s instinct was to offer to do it for her but a glance from Solly warned him off. Mhairi MacLeod might be old and infirm but she was still the hostess in her own home. Lorimer watched her frail hand shaking as she passed him a cup. She saw his expression and pursed her lips together in a gesture of determination. Chrissie might have to make the tea but she was the one who would serve her guests.

She took a few sips of tea then placed her cup back on the tray, rattling the saucer. Her shoulders sagged as she leant back into the deep armchair and patiently folded her hands.

Mhairi MacLeod gave a short sigh. ‘Right, now. You’ve come to see me about Kirsty, haven’t you?’ Lorimer looked straight at her, returning her directness. He nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Don’t be afraid, Chief Inspector.’ Her hand was suddenly covering his own and he felt the warmth of its light touch. ‘May I ask you something first?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Kirsty,’ she paused to let the name roll off her tongue as if she’d become unused to saying it. ‘Did she suffer much? I never asked before.’

Lorimer saw her bite her lip to stop it trembling. ‘No. Not at all. She’d hardly have known what was happening. The Doctor said it was over very quickly. There were no signs of a struggle,’ he added gently.

For a moment Mhairi MacLeod stared at him, those faded eyes trying to outmatch his own blue gaze. Then she nodded, apparently satisfied that Lorimer was telling her the truth.

‘There are several things we’d like to ask you about Kirsty, your niece.’

‘Great-niece, Mister Lorimer.’ There was a faint smile around her mouth as she corrected him. He smiled back.

‘Did you know of any men friends that she’d made in Glasgow, anybody she might have written to you about? A particular boyfriend perhaps?’

‘No. Nobody special. She used to say she was waiting for Mr Right. But I don’t think he ever came into Kirsty’s life.’ She gave a sigh. ‘She wrote regularly and would have told me if she’d met a young man. Always started her letters, Dear Aunty Mhairi, I’m fine, how are you?’ Suddenly the old woman’s face crumpled and she groped into the depth of a cushion behind her back for a handkerchief.

‘Here,’ Solomon was immediately hunkering down by her side, offering a large white linen hanky. There was silence except for the blowing of her nose and a muffled sobbing from the folds of the handkerchief until Mhairi MacLeod shook her head at them. ‘So sorry. I’m just a silly old woman.’

‘No, you’re not.’ Solomon was holding her hand now and stroking it with some concern, his eyes fixed on the old lady’s face. She straightened up again and wiped her eyes.

‘What was I saying? Yes. Kirsty had nobody special down in Glasgow. She’d had a nice boyfriend up here, Calum, but he went away down to university and they only kept in touch occasionally; birthdays, Christmas cards, that sort of thing.’

‘Did she ever mention anything about her work in the letters?’

‘What sort of thing?’ The faded eyes were alert again.

‘Did she say if she was happy? Did she like the staff? Was she was coping with the patients, that sort of thing.’

Mhairi MacLeod frowned. Was she remembering something? Lorimer asked himself.

‘I sometimes wondered if Kirsty was suited to the nursing,’ she began slowly. ‘She took everything so much to heart. Became involved with her patients. Grieved terribly whenever one of them passed over. Oh, I know it’s a grand thing to be concerned about those who are sick, whether in mind or body,’ she said, waving a hand at them. ‘But you need to be a bit hard to be a good nurse, don’t you think? It’s the same in the police, I suppose,’ she directed her question to Lorimer who nodded silently. Her voice was quiet when she added, ‘Kirsty wasn’t hard enough, I’m thinking.’

They waited for the old lady to elaborate on that statement but apparently that was all she had to offer on the subject.

‘Did Kirsty ever talk to you about anything that was worrying her?’ Solomon asked.

The old lady looked at him, troubled, as if such questions had never occurred to her before. Her eyes drifted away from them and looked out over the view of the water beyond the shore. Solomon and Lorimer watched her intently. Was there something she recalled? They waited.

‘I don’t know. Maybe there was something. I felt a sort of sadness in her a while back. I thought maybe she was homesick. She was so good to me, you know. Always wrote cheery letters. Kirsty wouldn’t have wanted to burden me with her troubles.’

‘She kept a diary,’ Lorimer began.

‘Ah, yes. Her five-year diary. I gave it to her one Christmas.’ Mhairi MacLeod narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve been reading Kirsty’s diary?’ she asked, affronted.

‘This is a murder inquiry,’ Lorimer reminded her quietly.

‘Of course. It’s just…’ she bit her lip.

‘Just that we seem to be invading your great niece’s privacy,’ Lorimer finished for her.

Mhairi MacLeod nodded slowly. ‘Just that, Chief Inspector.’

Lorimer drew the red diary from his pocket. He’d read and reread the entries till the wee small hours but had found nothing enlightening in its pages.

‘She mentions someone named Malcolm. On the Hogmanay before last,’ Lorimer suggested.

‘Aye, she would. That’ll be Malcolm Munro from the store. He always brings the black bun. They were all here then, all the folks from Rodel.’

‘This Malcolm, he’s not an old boyfriend, then?’

Mhairi MacLeod’s eyes twinkled for a moment. ‘He’s sixty if he’s a day, Chief Inspector. Kirsty’s known Malcolm at the store since she was a wee girl spending her pennies on sherbet dabs.’

Solomon smiled and caught Lorimer’s eye. The picture of Kirsty MacLeod was beginning to take shape. Solly warmed to this island girl who had become a victim for no apparent reason.

‘There are several weeks missing,’ Lorimer opened the diary and showed her. ‘From May to late June.’

The old woman took the book from his hands and turned its thin pages, her gnarled fingers tracing the dead girl’s writing.

‘Why would she do that?’ Mhairi MacLeod asked, her eyes troubled.

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell us,’ he replied. ‘I thought something might have happened that she didn’t want to remember.’

‘Or let anybody else see,’ Solly put in.

‘Kirsty never did anything she’d be ashamed of,’ she said firmly. ‘And there were no affairs of the heart,’ she added, looking down at the diary. Solomon watched her stroke the pages as if she were giving comfort to a troubled mind. She wasn’t so certain of that, though, was she? What young woman was going to confide her most intimate secrets to an old lady? One she loved too much to burden with her own troubles, he thought, echoing the old woman’s words.

‘So there’s nothing you know that would have upset Kirsty to the extent of cutting up her diary?’ Lorimer asked.

Mhairi MacLeod shook her head slowly.

‘We think we know so much, don’t we? And all the time we really know nothing at all.’ She spoke softly to herself as if she’d forgotten their presence in the room. Then she turned and Lorimer could see tears in her eyes. ‘It’s not right, is it?’ she whispered. ‘Her mammy and daddy and now wee Kirsty. I should have been away long before them all.’ She lifted her hand as if in protest. ‘And here I am. An old, done woman taking up space.’