‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Not him. Carol Baillie.’

  ‘What? Carol?’

  ‘She was a community nurse in Glasgow before she retired and moved here. Remember Sam telling us he had the impression it had been on her husband’s insistence, that Duncan had confided in Bill that Carol had been under great pressure in Glasgow and he wanted to get her away “for her own good”? I wonder if he knew. He brought her here, but then he had a stroke and became reliant on her, unable to communicate. And so Carol started again. She even got herself a nice job, delivering prescriptions to the old and infirm around the local area.’

  ‘Carol Baillie killed my granny?’

  ‘I believe she did,’ Anna said. ‘We will check, but it’s perfectly possible Carol delivered prescriptions and went into her house, and that she visited her that day.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘With an injection of adrenaline. It would be enough to cause a heart attack or stroke in a frail, already unwell, elderly patient. I’ve just spoken to a woman in Glasgow called Grace Phillips – her number was on one of Ellen’s bits of paper. Her father died shortly after Carol Baillie attended him at home when she was their community nurse. A lady called Brenda Deegan alerted her to this and managed to get a police inquiry, but it fell apart. Ellen called her last week.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Jo managed. It was more of a gasp. ‘I need to talk to my mum.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll take you to her and I’ll talk to her. I’m going to take you off the case, immediately.’

  ‘No! No, I don’t want that. I meant I need to talk to her so I can ask her what happened the day Granny died. Granny lived with my mum and dad, you see. That’s where they lived, in Torinturk. They sold the house and moved to Tarbert after she died. But Mum was there when Granny died. She’d know. I’ll ring her.’

  ‘Is she in Tarbert now?’

  ‘Yes. She’ll be at work. She works at the Co-op.’

  ‘Let’s go together,’ Anna said. ‘We’ll go to her work and ask to talk to her at home.’

  Doreen McLean, sitting shaking at her kitchen table, her daughter at her side, asked, ‘How likely is it this is true?’

  ‘Quite likely,’ Anna said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  Doreen nodded and took her time to gather herself. She was clutching a tissue and wiped angrily at her eyes.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ she said. ‘Carol Baillie brought Mum’s prescription that day. She was there.’

  ‘When Granny died, you mean?’ Jo asked, amazed.

  ‘Yes. The three of us chatted. I made us tea. I took the cups through to wash. I came back and Carol was chatting away to your Granny. Then she left. Mum took a funny turn soon after. She died within the hour. Oh Lord… She was so kind to me afterwards too. She came to the house and was so upset. She even came to the funeral. Do you remember, Jo?’

  ‘No,’ Jo said. ‘I was so upset. I don’t remember very much.’

  Doreen looked Anna hard in the eye. ‘Will you have to dig her up?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Anna said. ‘I spoke to Dr MacCorkindale. He thinks it would be pointless. A drug like adrenaline wouldn’t leave any trace, not after so much time has passed. We’ll try to avoid it at all costs.’

  ‘Good,’ Doreen said. Then she nodded. ‘It’s horrible to know, but now we do we have to stop her. You can stop her, can’t you?’

  Jo was looking at Anna with such pained appeal that Anna felt a twinge in her chest. ‘I fully intend to,’ she said.

  She made Jo stay at her mum’s house, which Jo didn’t want to do, until her mum told her fiercely to stay put. From the car she rang Sam Stewart and told him to meet her at the village hall.

  Sam was amazed when she told him.

  ‘My God. Carol?’

  ‘The problem is, we don’t have any proof,’ Anna said. ‘No proof at all. Only evidence of what Ellen believed. I’ll talk to Carol in the hope she’ll confess. If she doesn’t, I’ll seek a warrant to search her house and car. There’s a vial of adrenaline somewhere – at least one – and a syringe too, if I’m not mistaken. I think she was about to kill someone else, except fate, in the form of Ellen McIver, intervened. Sam, I believe Ellen saved Wullie Cameron’s life. I feel sure he was supposed to die on Thursday afternoon.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I don’t know it. But if you put the pieces together, they all fit. Listen: Ellen McIver suspected Carol Baillie of murdering elderly people on her delivery round. She’d made the connection with a spate of suspected poisonings in Glasgow. She was even reading up on Harold Shipman, the GP who murdered his patients and about nurses who’d done the same. She followed Carol on her round one day – though Carol had a story ready to bat that away. She called a private detective, a woman I used to work with called Lola Harris, and told her the convoluted story. So convoluted Lola didn’t really believe her, though she insisted she go to the police. Ellen got angry and hung up.

  ‘Later the same day she contacted a freelance journalist, Marcus Jones. She also rang her niece, whom she was seldom in contact with, and warned her she thought someone might try to kill her and, if they succeeded, to make sure all tests were done on her body. In other words, she was expecting to be killed in a way that might be overlooked. The niece was about to jet off so rang Morag at the pub and asked her to go check on Ellen. Morag insisted on taking Carol because she found Ellen so difficult. She and Carol called round, and Ellen was frosty with them. Morag saw phone numbers on Ellen’s pad. Carol says she didn’t, but I think she probably did – and that she recognised some of the names written there. And that panicked her. She already suspected Ellen was on to her. She knew she was in danger.

  ‘Now, according to Morag, Ellen told the pair she was planning to walk into the village to get provisions at the shop. Normally she’d drive, but her car was in the garage. She said she was going to do this late morning. I think Carol then drove to Slipway Cottage to retrieve something from the stash she kept hidden there, unbeknownst to the owner – namely syringes and vials of adrenaline. Perhaps she knocked at Ellen’s to check she was out. But if so, then Ellen didn’t answer. I believe Ellen was in and saw Carol drive to Slipway Cottage and back and realised the significance of the trip, because what reason would Carol have to visit an empty house? She might walk there, for fresh air, but to drive there – that meant something.

  ‘After that, Ellen waited, possibly until she believed Carol would be on her delivery rounds – she started those around one every Thursday afternoon. Ellen must have been on tenterhooks. Just before three she phoned her journalist friend and told him to meet her in an hour, in the village, because she didn’t like men coming to the house – though I suspect the real reason was in case Carol might come home from her rounds early and see him there and put two and two together. She put on her jacket and set off, making for Slipway Cottage. She didn’t know exactly what she might find, but I believe she found it, bagged it and headed for the village the quickest way, which was over the dunes and through the lanes. And Carol was waiting for her there.’

  ‘But how would Carol know she’d be there?’ Sam asked.

  ‘This is conjecture again, but I think we might be able to prove it by looking at Carol’s delivery rounds for the day,’ Anna said. ‘When I was at the Camerons’ farm yesterday, I asked to see the old man. Tess took me up to him. On the landing she found a bag of medicines. She seemed to think they were in an odd place and mentioned so to her husband later. But their house is so untidy, I assumed one of them had left the bag there absent-mindedly. What if Carol was delivering the bag? If she’d taken it up to the old man’s room, she would have had a view over the fields of Back Lane, of Slipway Cottage and of the dunes. What if she saw Ellen there, leaving the house and making for the dunes? What if she dumped the bag and ran – ran to get the tractor?’

  ‘Why would Carol go into the house and upstairs?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Can’t you work it out?’ Anna asked him. ‘I believe she went there with the tools she’d collected earlier in the day, with the intention of injecting adrenaline into Wullie Cameron in order to kill him.’

  ‘My God…’

  ‘She’d told Morag she believed the old man wasn’t long for this world. I think she was boasting.’

  ‘But why has she been doing this?’

  ‘I think she enjoys killing,’ Anna said. ‘She enjoys the power it gives her. She was out of control in Glasgow. I think her husband maybe suspected and moved her here to keep her from doing harm. But then he got ill, and she was free to pick up her old hobby.’

  ‘Surely Carol doesn’t know how to drive a tractor,’ Sam said.

  ‘Lots of the villagers had a go of driving it round an obstacle course at the summer fair a few years ago. I notice there’s no evidence of Carol driving the thing on the village Facebook page, but she’s an administrator and could have removed it at any time.

  ‘So, according to my theory, Carol drove down to the end of the lane to wait for Ellen, and then ran her over, and no doubt enjoyed herself immensely. She took Ellen’s black book from her pocket, ripped pages from it and threw it in the sea. The boxes she took with her back to the farm, and from there she drove to Ellen’s place, took the pages off the telephone pad and had a good scout around. I think she removed the library books in case they gave us a clue. Then she went off to complete her delivery round. I believe that when we check the times people received their items on Thursday, we’ll find discrepancies.’

  ‘I’ll do that gladly,’ Sam said. ‘But what about Marcus Jones?’

  ‘He was arrogant and cared only about the story. We’ll never know for sure, not now he’s dead, but he was waiting for Ellen in the village at the top of the lane. I wonder if he saw Carol driving out. I wonder if he made the connection and approached her. He was foolish – and drunk – enough. I suspect she might have agreed to meet him in the night. She’s friendly with Morag and knows the pub. She might have known where to find a sharp enough knife.’

  ‘But how?’ Sam said now. ‘How could Ellen have realised Carol was killing people off? Yes, she was nosy and suspicious, but she wasn’t psychic.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Anna said. ‘Not yet… Maybe Carol will tell us herself.’

  ‘What, we’re just going to ask her?’

  ‘Why not?’ Anna said. She got up. ‘Let’s pay her a little visit. She likes visitors.’

  25

  ‘How lovely!’ Carol Baillie cried when Anna got out of her car. She’d driven into the driveway, uninvited, in order to block in the little Fiat.

  Carol was wearing her peach fleece again and had a pair of secateurs out. She’d been cutting back roses, and dead flowers lay like severed heads in a line along the edge of the border.

  ‘No Jo today?’ she asked.

  ‘No Jo,’ Anna confirmed. ‘Just me and Sam. Can we go inside, Carol?’

  Carol’s expression changed fleetingly. She blinked and recast her smile. ‘Yes, of course.’

  She led the way.

  ‘No tea, thanks,’ Anna said, when they were inside. ‘And we’d like to talk to you away from Duncan, if that’s all right.’

  More blinking. There was panic in her eyes now.

  ‘Is this the dining room, through here?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Yes. Please, be my guest.’

  Anna went through and sat. Sam sat beside her and took out a notepad. Carol hovered until she could resist no more.

  ‘Carol,’ Anna began. ‘You were seen in the early hours of this morning emerging from behind the Baldrishaig Inn in a flustered state.’

  It was a lie, one she’d pre-arranged with Sam. A roll of the dice… But it worked. The panic intensified. Her eyes darted and her jaw trembled.

  ‘What? What nonsense! I was here! I wasn’t anywhere near the inn.’

  ‘You were. The witness is sound. Plus, the journalist you knifed to death left a note for us.’ Another lie, another push towards a confession.

  A hand fluttered to her mouth. ‘I— What are you saying? That I knifed him? How could you say this? I⁠—’

  ‘The note said he saw you drive out of the lane from the beach into the village while he was waiting for Ellen to come and meet him. He realised that meant you were the one who killed Ellen McIver.’

  Carol’s mouth opened. ‘That’s insane!’ she cried. ‘Completely insane.’

  ‘We know you murdered Ellen and Marcus Jones. We believe you murdered Angus McCrae in July last year, shortly after Duncan’s stroke. We also believe you killed Kathleen Lennon of Cairnbaan and Bessie Baker of Torinturk. We believe pharmacy records of deliveries will show you were in those places, at those people’s addresses the same day they died. We believe you injected them with adrenaline.’

  Carol watched her for a long time, as long as a minute. Then she said in a small voice, ‘Lies, it’s just lies.’

  ‘You killed a number of people in Glasgow and East Kilbride too, didn’t you?’

  Tears were in her eyes now, welling there while her face went puce and her bottom lip quivered. She looked for all the world like a frightened little girl.

  Anna changed her posture and her tone too and became the kind confessor.

  ‘You must have been so frightened, Carol. I can only imagine. Were you at the Camerons’ when you saw Ellen?’

  The nod was small but definite. Her posture changed. Her head drooped and she seemed to slump into herself.

  ‘Why did you go there?’ Anna asked, kind and interested.

  Carol took a big, deep sigh and seemed to relax, perhaps for the first time in an age. ‘I went to finish that silly old man off,’ she said, as if she was admitting only a small peccadillo – a petty theft, perhaps. ‘Hanging on, month after month, and poor Tess run ragged. Using up so much medication, so much… effort. I knew I had to act, you see. I’d realised earlier that day that Ellen knew. She’d hinted as much. She’d even followed me on my rounds. Then she started mouthing off in the tearoom on Tuesday. I was in the stock room, doing the stocktake. She knew Tuesdays were the day I helped Morag. She shouted, knowing I’d hear her in the next room. I don’t know how she cottoned on, but she had. So I waited till she was out. I knew she was going into the village. I knocked to check and she didn’t answer, so I went to get some supplies.’

  ‘From Slipway Cottage?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Adrenaline,’ Anna said. ‘Syringes too?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Where did you get them from originally?’

  ‘From the hospital, of course. Adrenaline isn’t controlled. It’s often on trolleys. I helped myself when I was in there staying with Duncan. No one would notice. Things go missing all the time in hospitals.

  ‘Anyway, after I got what I needed, I drove to the farm. Except Glen and Tess were there, so I came back to the village and drove to Torinturk and parked for a bit. I was in a stew then. I didn’t know what to do. But then I saw Glen drive past and Tess was with him! So I drove back to the farm as quick as you like. I took the old man’s medicines in, just in case anyone asked. And then… and then I saw Ellen from the window, just as you said, coming from Slipway Cottage, heading for the dunes. I could see, even at that distance, that she was carrying something. I just knew what it was… I had to stop her. You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘I do, yes,’ Anna said. ‘What then?’

  ‘Well, I panicked. I thought about running down to the beach to meet her. I thought I could maybe drown her or hit her over the head with something. But then I had a better idea. I remembered the tractor. I thought it would work well. People would think it was the old man. He was forever driving about. I knew where Glen kept the key. Everyone knows that. I think Bill told Morag and she told me. I’d even driven the thing at a fair once. It was just like my car, but bigger. More… effective.’

  ‘What happened to the photo of you driving it at the fair?’ Anna asked lightly.

  ‘You are a clever girl, aren’t you?’ She smiled. ‘I took it down later that day. Just in case. So I started the thing. It was thrilling! Really very exciting. I was giggling as I drove it down the lane. I parked at the end. I turned the engine off. Wullie had left his cap in the cab, so I put it on.’ Another beam of pleasure. ‘And then Ellen came. I waited until she was some way up the lane before I started the engine. When it was done I hurried back to the farmyard and drove to Ellen’s cottage. I wanted to get hold of anything that might give me away. So there you have it,’ she said. ‘Now you know.’

  ‘Not quite, Carol,’ Anna said. ‘It was you behind the mischief, wasn’t it?’

  Carol shifted awkwardly in her chair. ‘There doesn’t seem much point denying it, does there?’ she said grudgingly.

  ‘You let down Johnny Clark’s tyres.’

  A smirk crept onto her lips. ‘I may have.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t like him. I thought it was funny. He really is the most pompous fool.’

  ‘And then you smashed your own jam jars?’

  The smirk grew.

  ‘Why, Carol?’

  She shrugged. ‘I was bored of doing it. It had been Duncan’s idea. “It’s what they do in the country. People make things and sell them.” When he got ill, it was yet another chore. I smashed the jars on Christmas Eve. I had Scott McKellar remove the hutch in the New Year.’

  ‘And the hanging baskets, the bird feeders? You emptied them?’

  ‘Fun,’ she said lightly.

  ‘The razor blades in the stile into the woods? Was that for fun too?’

  They held each other’s gaze for a long time. Placid eyes in an owlish face that hid unfathomable spite and lethal malice.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Carol said.

  ‘No,’ Anna agreed.

  ‘The fire at Dr MacCorkindale’s?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘That’s a yes, is it?’

  A nod.

  ‘And what about Morag’s cat?’

  ‘What about it? It survived, didn’t it?’