Alex Gray - A small weeping

‘Two nurses were killed on those dates. They were strangled and somebody left a flower in their praying hands, Malcolm. Just like you did.’

‘What?’ Docherty suddenly sat up, a horrified look on his face. ‘But that’s terrible! Who’d do a thing like that?’ The man’s expression was almost comical, thought Lorimer, one serial strangler condemning another. But then his expression changed as the awfulness of the news sank in.

‘You don’t think…? No. Oh, just a minute, hold on now,’ Docherty rose from his seat, fists clenched, his face a mask of fear.

‘Mr Docherty has got up from his seat,’ Wilson intoned into the listening tape.

His words seemed to calm the man for he sank back down, a look of horror still on his face.

‘Do you deny strangling Kirsty MacLeod and Brenda Duncan?’

‘Of course,’ he whispered. ‘I never killed them!’

Lorimer believed him. But would Mitchison expect him to grind the man down in order to elicit a confession from him? If so, he’d be sadly disappointed. That wasn’t Lorimer’s way. The DNA results might confirm what they were hearing and what Solly had suggested. For a moment Lorimer wished that he could have the psychologist here with them. He might know how to tune in to Malcolm Docherty in a way that would prove his innocence as well as his guilt.

A tap on the door made all three men and the uniformed officer turn round. DC Cameron’s face appeared, signalling for Lorimer to join him outside.

‘DCI Lorimer leaving the interview room.’

Lorimer stopped in his tracks. Beside Cameron was the familiar figure of the psychologist. It was as if his wish had suddenly spirited Solly there. Was the man psychic as well as everything else?

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wasn’t asked to come in, if that’s what you mean. I just wanted to be here,’ he explained with his usual little smile.

‘Well. I’m not sorry you did,’ Lorimer told him. ‘We’re in the middle of interviewing the suspect. He’s already confessed to the two station murders but says he knows nothing about the other two.’

‘And you believe him,’ Solly said. It wasn’t a question. He could see his answer in Lorimer’s face.

‘Will you come and sit in?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Chief Inspector Lorimer re-entering the interview room accompanied by Dr Brightman,’ Alistair Wilson told the tape recorder.

‘Malcolm, this is Dr Brightman from Glasgow University.’

Docherty stood up and took Solly’s outstretched hand in his large fist. ‘But I’ve seen the doctor already,’ he muttered, giving Solly a dubious look. ‘Why do I have to see another one?’

‘Dr Brightman is here to keep us company, Malcolm,’ Lorimer reassured him. It was like talking to a wee boy, he thought, except that most wee boys of his acquaintance were a dash sight more streetwise than Malcolm Docherty appeared to be.

There was something otherworldly about this man that had nothing to do with his experience as a failed novitiate. Lorimer had seen so many criminals whose lives were lived in a world so different from his own, yet all worlds impinged on each other, he thought. There was never really a place to hide from the evils that existed. Not even in the Jesuit Order.

Solly had listened as Lorimer and Wilson took turns to ask the man questions. His behaviour intrigued the psychologist. It was as if he were a perfectly normal citizen in his own eyes, assisting the police with their enquiries. Any minute now, he thought, and he’ll get up and ask if he can go home. There was no remorse, no worry at all about the crimes he had committed, nor any awareness of the boundaries that he had trespassed. That was the real difference between the criminally sane and those criminals who were mentally ill. Culpability was indeed a state of mind.

As he heard the questions and answers about Docherty’s methods of strangling the two prostitutes, Solly’s stomach turned. To dispatch these poor women as if they were so much dross! Lorimer and Wilson kept their feelings well under check, he noticed, though he knew well what they thought. Any murder is an affront to humanity, he remembered Lorimer insisting. And he agreed. But this man, this huge man who looked like a farmer with his weather-beaten skin and massive shoulders, he had no sense of humanity at all. Only a warped brain that took twisted messages from a false god.

Malcolm Docherty was well capable of murder. The man’s physique was such that it was no longer difficult to imagine a swift strangulation at these hands. Rosie had worried about that, he knew. How could someone kill these women with no sound of a struggle?

The same applied to Kirsty MacLeod’s death, though, a little voice reminded him. She’d been dealt with swiftly, too. But there was no way on earth that Solly could believe the man in front of Lorimer was responsible for that death. Nor for Brenda Duncan’s. Solly was still a way from completing his profile but he knew the mind that he sought was altogether sharper and clearer than Docherty’s. That was a calculating, reasoning person who was not quite in focus, yet. And it was not Malcolm Docherty.

Rowena sighed as the pickup gathered speed. She could see the new man’s hair curling sweetly around the curve of his ear and over the brown cord collar of his waxed jacket. Dad was wittering on about the flight and telling the man how much he was going to enjoy Failte. Give Dad his due, it sounded so sincere and welcoming, but Rowena had heard the same spiel each time a new one arrived at the airport.

She was glad that last one had gone. Sam Fulton had given her the creeps. Dad had kept a real good eye on him, though. Mum had insisted on that. After Sister Angelica’s abrupt departure, the Glasgow man had sought out Rowena’s company just a bit too often. She’d been pretty uncomfortable with him, not liking the way he joked about women as if they were all an inferior species. it was all a bit of fun, he’d told her. No harm meant. But Rowena had kept her distance from him all the same. Dad never told any of them what a patient’s background was. She understood how it was important to maintain their privacy. She wouldn’t like any of them to know all of her secrets either, Dad had once pointed out. Still, she had the feeling that Mum knew more about Sam Fulton than she was letting on. And this fact alone had increased her uneasiness. Still, he was gone now, back to Glasgow, supposedly over the worst of his depression.

Rowena smiled to herself. The new patient had shaken her hand as if she was a proper grownup, not some silly wee schoolgirl. She recalled his grave eyes and that tired, kindly smile. She’d maybe ask him to come for a wee walk up the road with the dog after dinner, though Dad liked his guests, as he called them, to have complete rest after they arrived. Still, this one was only here for a long weekend.

Funny about the other man, though. They’d waited for him yesterday with a placard that said Failte in bold lettering, but nobody from the Glasgow flight had acknowledged them. Dad had phoned Mrs Baillie who had shrugged it off but there was always a worry that somehow a patient would simply slip past them and roam about the island, unsupervised. it hadn’t happened yet, but there was always a first time, Mum had warned them. Still, they had another new one now.

Rowena settled back to enjoy her thoughts. She’d rehearse what to say before they went out. Then maybe she’d be able to slip in questions about that Dr Brightman. Had they met at the Grange? Was he married? Her fantasy continued down towards the house, the passing landscape a familiar blur of greens and blues.

‘You want what?’ Superintendent Mitchison’s voice rose in a squeak that might have been funny in other circumstances.