THE LALLYBROCH MURDERS

CHAPTER 17

‘Ok Thank You!’ Barry sighed. ‘So when was the last time you spoke to her directly?’

‘Probably High School,’ she said, thinking hard and finally offering a small shrug. ‘By the time we were at college we hadn’t really fallen out as such, but we weren’t really friends anymore either. And we were taking completely different classes so I never really saw her.’

‘Now you said there were five or six from high school who went to the college her, would you know any of the other names by chance?’

She nodded and reeled off a few more names which Barry noted in his notepad before thanking Jenny for her help and making his way back to the station.

50 minutes later and Barry was in the station, which was unusually cheerful. Not quite a celebration but there were one or two smiles and a general feeling of hope around the place.

Barry over heard that while Clair was in custody, the forensic department had examined the shoes Clair had been wearing and discovered that they were a perfect match to the print they had found at the scene of Katherine Didi Nammio’s murder.

Not quite the case breaker they were still looking for but this would have at least placed her at the scene of the crime, or at least her shoes were. Was it possible that someone else had worn them? And if so why? Was she being framed? Or was she aware of what was japanning and covering for someone? Maybe even helping them?

Now, with all that being processes through Barry’s mind, the question that comes to play is, could Clair have killed the doctor at the hospital? With the scenes being similar, was it really possible that she was working with someone else? Could she be covering for them there too? After all, no one had actually witnessed the incident itself, only that she had been seen kneeling over the body on the floor, the exact position she would have needed to be in if she were checking for a pulse. However unlikely it would seem, it was possible that she had arrived during the attack and had tended to the victim while the real killer had fled.

On top of all of that, with the exception of the notepad, the search of Clair’s home had come up dry so there were no links to any other scenes or victims and there was still the matter of the missing sedative. There were way too many questions that needed answering and each one blew the case even further open. But up until recently they had nothing to go on at all. At least now evidence was starting to trickle in and that alone had given everyone’s spirits a much needed lift.

The captain emerged from his office, shaking his head and headed straight towards Liam and Hank’s desk. ‘Just heard back from Buchan’s legal aid team,’ he told them. ‘They’re pushing for reduced terms.’ Both Liam and Hank looked astonished by this.

‘Why?’ Liam asked, glancing at Hank at out of the corner of his eye that looked back at him in the same manner.

‘They’ve dug up evidence from her attack down by the river and are using that as motive for diminished responsibility. They’ve also got some neurologist on board who claims to have proof that the brain injury she suffered has impacted her ability to control her anger.’ Neither Liam nor Hank flinched an inch, both remaining in the same position with the same look of astonishment on their faces.

‘This isn’t good,’ Hank finally mumbled.

‘Right! So if we’re going to put her away,’ the captain continued, ‘we need to make sure we tie her to the victims. We’re not going to be able to rely on the Morrison case alone.’

‘You’re kidding, captain,’ Liam said, standing up from his desk, needing to get out his frustration someway and began to pace.

‘No, get on it now. That’s an order, detectives, or we lose this case.’

‘Wow, we have just over a week before the court case was due to begin, what do we do?’ Hank asked, resting his hands on his desk as he looked at his partner. They both knew they needed help and needed it fast.

‘Press, ‘they said at the same time, the same thought in their mind. They decided that the best course of action was to appeal to the public for help. So they contacted the local media and released a photograph of Clair Buchan. They stopped short of naming her or even revealing that she was a suspect, just asking if anyone had any information about this woman.

None of the details of the case were revealed either, only that they were after information relating to a case they were working on and that if anyone had any information to contact them immediately. Of course, it didn’t take long for the press to discover the attack on Dr. Morrison at the hospital and naturally they were asking question as to whether this was linked in any way to any of the killings at the park. And while the press was waiting on that answer, leave it to make their own judgment and give a confirmation on it.

And the flip side to being a good point and being helpful, there were bad sides as well; a result of which meant they had a number of ‘Time Waster’ phone calls claiming to have known her when they clearly did not.

Several had claimed to have been her partner despite not even knowing her name. More had claimed to have been work colleagues without having any ideas where she was employed.

There were even three call claiming to have been attacked by her although the attacks they each described had no similarities to the ones that had actually taken place and there were no records of any of them receiving any kind of medical treatment recently. It was times like these; the two men hated taking those phone calls.

There was, however, one name that stood out on the list of callers they had received, that of former prime suspect Larry Fisher. Now what link could he have had to Ms. Buchan? The call handler would have recorded the details of the call, of course, but this one they felt had warranted a closer investigation, so they both picked up their jackets and headed over to the engineering company where Mr Fisher was employed. It was time to have another talk with Mr Fisher.