Free The Darkest Goodbye (William Lorimer) by Alex Gray Page B

herself.
    ‘Fine, sir,’ she answered.
    ‘Right. Here’s the preliminary report from the crime scene. SOCOs made a decent job of it.’ He handed her a pink folder. ‘Have a look,’ he added, motioning her to the desk beside his own.
    Kirsty opened the folder to reveal a pile of photographs taken at the Byres Road flat. Seeing the detailed images of blood-spray patterns and the still body was far less awful than actually being there. No foul stench. No wriggling maggots. She shuddered, remembering.
    ‘Upset you, does it?’ Murdoch’s tone was difficult to gauge. Was he being genuinely solicitous or was there still a sneer in that voice?
    ‘Not really.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I was just thinking about the smell…’
    ‘Ach, you’ll get used to that, Wilson,’ he said. ‘Everybody does.’
    My dad says the same.
Kirsty bit back the words. It was this man who was her mentor and she had to learn from him.
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Aye?’
    ‘I’ve seen a dead body before…’
    ‘The Swedish girl? Aye, I heard.’ His eyes slid over her for a moment, making Kirsty shiver. ‘A case Jo Grant would rather forget.’ He grinned suddenly.
    ‘Well, it worked out all right in the end,’ Kirsty said, returning to her scrutiny of the photographs.
    ‘If you want to make it in CID you need to become inured to the sight of death.’ Murdoch shrugged. ‘Doesn’t make you a lesser person. Just more able to cope with the job.’
    The sound of his mobile ringing made the DS stand up and walk away, his voice deliberately low as if anxious to keep his conversation private. Kirsty watched his back, curious to know more about this man, wondering once again how he had spent the hours since they had parted at Byres Road.
     
    Catherine Reid had advised her that it was a fifteen-minute walk from the railway station to Abbey Nursing Home and Sarah found herself enjoying the exercise as well as looking at the large houses on either side of the road, many of them grand properties partly screened by high hedges. It was a far cry from the home that she and Pete had grown up in, Sarah thought, admiring the different styles of architecture as she walked away from the centre of Bearsden. Theirs had been a childhood spent in a Glasgow housing scheme, rows and rows of tenement flats with back greens where mums could hang out their washing on the lines and children were free to roam. She and her best pal, Flora Clarke, had sat side by side on the pavement at the front of their block, playing with their toys, Sarah turning the games even then into hospitals, their teddies and dolls silently submitting to all of the little girls’ ministrations. And then there would be the rush and clamour of children at the sound of the ice cream van, its tinkling melody alerting them to rush and get
pennies for the van
then spill back out on to the street.
    There would be no such events here in this leafy suburb, Sarah thought, eyeing a large red sandstone house with mock turrets and a crow-stepped gable. And where was Flora Clarke now? she wondered, wistfully. The Wildings had moved away when she and Pete were in their teens, out of the city and into a new town on the south of the river. Would it have made any difference if they had stayed where they had once lived? Would Pete have still gone down that fateful road? Sarah’s eyes blurred with tears as she recalled her mother’s words.
    You’re to blame. Just you! We never want to see you again!
 
    There was a cough and the sound of footsteps behind her, making the young woman jump.
    Sarah turned, one hand at her throat but the man in the red jacket pushing a trolley was a harmless enough sight, a postman doing his rounds. She frowned for a moment, wondering at the state of her nerves. Was there anything other than the forthcoming interview at this nursing home to make her particularly jumpy?
    Sarah looked along the quiet street. She was imagining things. There was nobody following her. She was just