THE LALLYBROCH MURDERS

CHAPTER 26

The following day, Hank had contacted Clair’s father Robert Buchan. He had to do this legally to inform him that his car had been impounded. But before informing him of this, he had decided to ask him a few questions to find out exactly how much access Clair actually had to the vehicle and whether anyone else would have had the use of it. The answers he got were exactly what he would have hoped for. Clair would have been the only person to have had access to the blue station wagon currently sitting in the police compound.

Robert Buchan had explained that he had previously kept two vehicles, one was for weekends and personal use, while the station wagon had been used for driving to work and for carrying tools and equipment around. Now that he was looking at taking retirement, he had no need for the second vehicle. Knowing that Clair had some financial struggles, he had offered to give it to his daughter but being a proud independent woman she had refused the freebie.

So instead he had given her the spare keys and told her to borrow and use it as and whenever she needed. He would keep it registered and insured under his name and all she would need to do is fill the petrol tank until the time she could afford to purchase it from him.

While Hank was dealing with Robert, Liam was picking up all the things he needed from the office and headed down to the jail. He entered the visitor’s area and placed a vial of sedative on the small shelf in front of the window which Clair was looking through. Her eyes glanced to it then to him, nothing showing on her face.

‘We found it,’ he told her. ‘In the back of your father’s car, nice one. We would have looked there if we hadn’t had a witness point it out for us.’

‘Congratulations detective,’ she told him with a wry smile, ‘Looks like you got me.’

‘Do you need me to call your lawyers?’ Liam asked. Clair rolled her eyes at the question, the vibes and signals coming off of her in waves. Liam could see and sense that she was ready to admit defeat and finally come clean with everything.

‘No I don’t think there’s any point in that now. We both know I’m never getting out of here as may as well get on with it.’

Her comment and tone were snaky, letting him know she was over it already and just to go one with it, he was going too conceded to her on that.

‘Ok, so let’s start at the beginning shall we?’ he asked her, waiting for her to begin.

She took a moment, then a deep breath and began.

‘Well believe it or not, none of this was planned. I don’t really know why I did what I did but once I started I couldn’t stop.’

‘Ok so the sedative?’ he said shaking the vial in front of him. Her eyes dropped down to it and a shoulder lifted in a shrug.

‘Again not planned,’ Clair responded. ‘I had been helping James Fraser with a delivery and he needed a break. He went to sit down and well it was there. I don’t know why I took it but something inside me reacted, I took it off the truck and hid it in the warehouse with some towels and stuff.

When I saw James’s reaction and how much he panicked, I wanted to go and get it, but to do that would be admitting I took it and I would have lost a job so I kept quiet.’

‘So the job mattered to you?’ Liam asked.

‘Not really, I hated it to be honest. I just hoped that if I could get into the hospital and prove that my health was better than what everybody thought it was and that my memory was intact, I may have been able to transfer and work my way up. But when I saw HIM there,’ a look of anger immediately started to appear on Clair’s face.

‘Him being Dr. Morrison?’ Liam queried.

‘Yes HIM,’ Clair repeated her voice getting louder.

‘HE took everything from me and then to see him doing the job I should be doing…Something changed inside me that day.’ Her hands were clenched tightly and Liam knew he needed to step in.

I see,’ Liam said. ‘So anyway you were saying? You hid the sedative?’ Liam asked his tone softer as he tried to calm her back down again.

‘Ah yes, and then when James was doing his paperwork and filling in forms I decided to sneak out and move it to the back of the car. Where it stayed until …well until you found it!’

‘So once you had the sedative what did you plan to do with it?’ Liam asked.

‘I wanted to hurt someone, to take away their future the same way that someone had taken away mine!’

‘So how did you decide upon the first victim?’

Clair’s breath came out in a whoosh at that question and she leaned back in the chair before she spoke again.

‘It just kind of happened really. I overheard him and a few friends boasting about how he was going to become a DA one day and I knew what had to be done.’

‘So you killed him?’

‘Well yes, but that was never the plan,’ Clair explained. ‘Like I said I wanted to hurt him, I wanted to do to him what had been done to me. I fully intended to leave him in exactly the same condition that I had been left in. But once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was like I wasn’t in control. I mean I knew what I was doing but it was like someone else was controlling my hands. The next thing I knew he was dead.’

‘So you stripped him and left him there?’

‘Yes, just as I was left,’ she said bluntly, nothing in her tone to show remorse, just a resign for it being done.

‘Except you were alive,’ Liam frowned.

‘Apart from that yes, like I said, the death was simply unintended.’ She paused and looked down at her hands that were resting on the table. She finally glanced back up at him, her eyes being clear and bright, but no emotion in their depths. ‘The strange thing was though, I wasn’t sorry at all and I knew I was going to do it again.’