Free The Darkest Goodbye (William Lorimer) by Alex Gray

number.
    Sarah had waited, listening carefully, not daring to raise any hope that this kindly woman could succeed in finding her a place to work.
    ‘Nancy? I have a nurse here with me. Newly released from Cornton yesterday. Miss Sarah Wilding.’ Catherine Reid had nodded at Sarah as she spoke. ‘Yes, she’s worked with all sorts, stroke patients too. Can I give you her details?’
    Sarah had listened as the background to her nursing career was given. Then her crime was explained and the guilt that was never far away resurfaced to swamp her once more.
    ‘She’ll take you,’ Catherine had said at last, putting down the phone. ‘Subject to an interview, of course. It’s a nursing home on the outskirts of Bearsden. Can you go there today?’
     
    On the other end of the phone, Nancy Livingstone opened her eyes and smiled. She knew that the Lord worked in mysterious ways, yet something told her that He had a plan for this young woman who had made such a dreadful choice in her past.
     
    ‘She’s getting on to a train right now.’ The man spoke into his mobile phone, watching the blonde woman as she stepped from the lower level platform at Queen Street station.
    ‘Aye, I can. What d’you want me to do?’ His eyes followed the woman as she entered the carriage then he slid his own ticket into the slot at the barrier and pocketed his mobile, the latest instructions concerning Sarah Wilding still resonating in his head.
    He sat further back in the same carriage, watching the girl as the train slid out of the station. She would do as they wanted. She had to, he told himself with a grim smile. It was either that or… his mouth twitched, making the scar that ran down one side of his face turn into a deep crease. Even just the threat of what he could do to her would make Sarah Wilding eager to play along with them.

C HAPTER T WELVE
     
    D r Rosie Fergusson looked at the list in front of her. Toxicology was in a separate department from her own within the Department of Forensic Medicine but thankfully they enjoyed a good working relationship. She glanced at the post-mortem arrangements for the rest of the day. One elderly lady whose demise was probably expected, nothing really for the Fiscal to worry about. Still, she mused, the report from DS Len Murdoch had been interesting. There was the matter of that odd visit from an unknown nurse in the early hours. Could it have been a case of voluntary euthanasia? These things happened. Doctors had to use their own judgement all the time, some of them only too willing to ease their suffering patients into an everlasting state of oblivion, everybody knew that. Could Miss Jane Maitland have made a private arrangement of some sort?
    The sun was streaming through the mortuary windows by the time Rosie began the elderly woman’s post-mortem examination. It was a routine that she had performed countless times, careful scrutiny of the external body before making that first incision that would reveal the inner parts of what had once been a living, breathing human being. Painstaking forensic work had already been carried out to search for fibres and hairs, anything that might give a clue to the identity of the mysterious nurse who had administered that final injection.
    Some time later, Rosie wrinkled her nose. There was nothing conclusive to see, nothing at all, unless you counted the bruising from repeated needles finding these tired old veins to inject painkilling drugs. And these had been expected, after all. Nope, she thought as the body disappeared back into the refrigerated cabinet, it was down to the Tox boys and girls to come up with their report. If, and it was a big
if
, they found anything out of the ordinary, then DS Len Murdoch would have a proper investigation on his hands. And so would Kirsty, she remembered, wondering just how the young woman was faring under the mentorship of the scene of crime manager.
     
    ‘How did it go on your first day, then?’ Lorimer smiled at