by James Oswald
‘Oh, dreadfully. Always rushing around, never taking the time to do things properly.’ This time Miss Denton gave him a knowing smile as she answered, as if she were sharing a great secret. It was gone in an instant, replaced with her normal, businesslike facade as she began reciting what was obviously a well-rehearsed list. ‘He was on several committees at Holyrood, as you know. The Police Liaison Committee was one. And he ran his business, of course. Two charities he was chairman of the board for, a half-dozen others he was involved with one way or another. He had quite a busy schedule of after-dinner speaking, as well. I’ve been working through his diary to let everyone know.’
‘I suspect most of them have already heard the news.’ Grumpy Bob picked up his mug of tea, took a drink. McLean was grateful for the interruption; it was hard to get a word in edgeways when Miss Denton started.
‘Did Mr Weatherly have any worries? Anything out of the ordinary, that is?’
‘Andrew?’ Miss Denton almost laughed. ‘Andrew didn’t have a care in the world, Inspector. Worries were for people like me, who had to pick up the pieces.’
‘So you didn’t see anything different in him these last few weeks, months?’
‘No. Nothing at all. I was actually meant to meet him that evening. Went round to his flat, but he wasn’t in.’
‘You have a key?’
‘Yes. I expect you’ll be wanting to search the place.’
‘In due course. Does anyone else have access?’
‘The cleaner has a key. And Morag.’ Miss Denton frowned slightly, as if the thought of Mrs Weatherly gave her pause. She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think anyone else.’
McLean wrote ‘cleaner’ down in his notebook. When he looked up again, Miss Denton had pulled out a slim smartphone and was tapping at the screen.
‘Her name’s Muriel. Muriel Jenks. I can give you her number. She won’t have been round, if that’s bothering you. Only works Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I dare say she’ll have heard the news too.’
McLean added the information to his notes. ‘Who would you say were Mr Weatherly’s enemies, Miss Denton?’
‘Oh. Sharp change of subject there, Inspector. Hoping to catch me off-guard, were you?’ Miss Denton paused, as if expecting an answer. She didn’t wait long to decide one wasn’t forthcoming. ‘If you mean who might have wanted Andrew dead, well people always say such things, but they rarely mean it, in my experience. And besides, I thought he killed himself.’
‘So we believe, though it’s still to be confirmed. Mr Weatherly was a high-profile individual, though, so we have to be thorough. No stone unturned.’
‘Fair enough. Of course Andrew had enemies. He was a politician, and one with views a lot of people think extreme. He wasn’t a fan of independence, for one thing. Not shy of saying so, I think you’ll agree.’
McLean looked at his notes. He’d written a half-dozen questions earlier, but they seemed meaningless now. This whole interview was little more than a box-ticking exercise, really.
‘Perhaps you could tell me a little about Mr Weatherly’s business? He was a financial analyst and fund manager, I understand.’
‘A bit like saying the Pope was a Catholic, but broadly speaking, yes.’
‘I imagine he dealt with a lot of money.’ This from Grumpy Bob, leaning back in his chair as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
‘I doubt you could begin to imagine the amount of money he dealt with, Sergeant. At the last audit Weatherly Asset Management was responsible for well over three billion pounds of investments.’
Grumpy Bob let out a whistle. ‘That lot going south might put a bit of pressure on the boss man.’
Miss Denton looked at him with an expression mothers reserve for children who have just done something really stupid, but made no comment.
‘Sergeant Laird has a point, Miss Denton. Were you aware of any problems in the business? Any deals not working out?’
‘It would certainly go some way towards explaining why Andrew did what he did.’ Miss Denton paused, as if considering the possibility. McLean was fairly sure it was all just for show. ‘But no. There’s nothing horrible lurking in the accounts. Business was slow after the crash in oh-eight, but if anything it’s been booming recently.’
‘So what about his personal life? Was everything OK between Mr Weatherly and his wife?’
‘How would I be expected to know something like that?’ For the first time since the interview started, Miss Denton looked uncomfortable. A chink in the armour at last, and a very revealing one at that.
‘You worked closely with Mr Weatherly for twenty years. You must have known the family, how they got on together.’
‘I was Andrew’s PA. I wasn’t Morag’s shopping assistant, or nanny to the girls. If there were problems at home, Andrew never mentioned them.’
Not even when you were lying in his arms? McLean bit back the question. It was obvious now that he saw it, but the fact that Miss Denton had been Andrew Weatherly’s mistress as well as his PA was really not important. Whether Mrs Weatherly had known or not was equally irrelevant. Digging up the man’s history, his failings as well as his undoubted success, none of it was going to bring those two girls back to life.
‘Well, you’ve been very helpful, Miss Denton. I can’t begin to imagine what this must be like for you. Losing someone you’ve worked with for so long, a friend even. Having us poking around in his affairs can’t be helping.’
There it was, the slightest flinch at the word ‘affair’. As if screwing your secretary on the side was all that much of a sin in these modern times. Hell, it was almost a cliché.
‘You have your job, Inspector.’ Miss Denton gave him the slightest of nods. ‘And I have mine, so if you’ve no more questions.’
‘Detective Sergeant Laird will see that you’re taken wherever you need to go.’ McLean stood, extending a hand to be shaken. He waited until Miss Denton had taken it before adding, ‘And if I might trouble you for those keys?’
She paused a moment before asking, ‘Do you not need some kind of warrant?’
‘Technically, I suppose so. But who would it be served against? If you’d like to be present when we search the place, that can be arranged. But I’d rather do it sooner than later.’
Miss Denton stared at him with that impassive face, and McLean couldn’t help but admire her composure. Maybe she would go home and collapse in tears, or maybe she was simply the type who had no time for such emotional frippery. Did she have some inkling as to why Weatherly had committed such terrible acts? He didn’t think so. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do some digging into her own background. Or at least get DC MacBride to do it for him.
‘You’re right.’ Miss Denton opened her handbag and pulled out a bunch of keys, expertly separating two from the bunch before handing them over. ‘The alarm keypad is immediately behind the front door as you open it. Code’s Andrew’s birthday. All eight digits. Please try not to wreck the place.’
16
Andrew Weatherly’s city accommodation was not quite the house its Georgian builder had originally intended, but it was more than big enough for a family of four. McLean parked across the road, studying the other cars nearby for signs of the press, but for once they seemed uninterested. Maybe the lone uniform constable stationed at the front door was enough to put them off.
‘You got that number?’ he asked. Sitting beside him, DS Ritchie took a moment to answer, her mind somewhere else entirely.
‘What? Oh. Yes. Sorry, sir. Wrote it down in my notebook.’ She sounded bunged up, as if she were coming down with a cold. The constant sniffing suggested it might be a bad one.
‘Right then. Let’s go and see how the other half lives.’
The constable on watch duty looked half frozen to death. He had his hands shoved deep under his armpits, searching for any warmth that might be lurking up there. McLean was about to make a comment to Ritchie about not remembering to bring gloves, then realized he was hardly dr
essed for the weather either. At least he had a nice warm car to go back to.
‘They relieving you any time soon, Constable?’ McLean showed his warrant card, although by the way the PC had reacted on seeing the two of them approach, it wasn’t really necessary.
‘Shift change at noon, sir. Can’t come soon enough. Freezing my nuts off here.’
‘Well, you can come inside for a bit. Warm yourself up.’ McLean pulled out the keys he’d been given by Jennifer Denton. The deadlock was well oiled, and he was about to push the flat key into the Yale lock when he paused. DS Ritchie was staring off down the street, her back turned to him.
‘That number, Sergeant? Only I don’t much fancy the alarm going off and letting every journalist in the vicinity know we’re here.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’ Ritchie scrabbled around in her jacket pocket, fumbling the notebook and dropping it to the ground. She and the PC both bent down at the same time to pick it up, with an inevitable collision of heads.
‘Honestly. It’s like dealing with children.’ McLean waited for them to untangle themselves and for Ritchie to find the right page.
‘Twenty-two. Oh-seven. One. Nine. Five. Three.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yup. Checked it on Wikipedia this morning.’
Brilliant. The modern detective. McLean tried not to grimace as he turned back to the door just a little too quickly for his hip. Like the deadlock, the Yale was well oiled. The door hinges too. He pushed it open and stepped inside.
The first thing he noticed was the smell, but he was too busy searching behind the door for the alarm panel to really take it in. He’d been expecting a beeping as it counted down, too, but there was no sound. The panel was a modern device, touch screen showing numbers and a status readout. It took a moment to realize that the alarm hadn’t been set after all.
‘Come on in.’ He opened the door wide for Ritchie and the constable, and finally realized what it was that he was smelling. Old matches struck on sandpaper; hard- boiled picnic eggs, their yolks turning green around the edges; the tang of mustard seeds freshly crushed. The spare room when Grumpy Bob had crashed in it after a night on the beer and curry.
‘Ew. Someone forget to empty the bins? It’s fair mingin’ in here.’ Ritchie wrinkled her nose, the freckles across her cheeks dancing with the movement. Her eyes were red-rimmed and sore now he looked at her properly, and her lips seemed swollen. McLean sniffed the air again, but the smell had almost gone, as if the ghost of Auld Reekie had been trapped in the house and opening the door had let it out.
‘You sure about that, Sergeant?’
‘I …’ Ritchie sniffed again. ‘No. It’s gone. Strange.’
‘You smell anything, Constable?’
‘No, sir. Well. Not unusual. Some floor polish?’
‘Maybe just stale air. Opening the door let it out.’ McLean pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and snapped them on, watched as Ritchie did the same. The constable took up station by the door, apparently unwilling to venture further inside. It was fair enough; the hall was dark, lit only by the pale sun filtering in from the fanlight and down from the stairwell. Shadows hid every corner and painted strange shapes with the antique furniture. It reminded McLean all too much of the house in Fife.
‘Let’s start at the top and work our way down.’ He set off across the hall towards the stairs, stopped when he reached the first step and realized he was alone. Ritchie hadn’t moved from the threshold, and as he turned to look, her head was limned with a halo of misty light, her hands paused in the act of stretching one glove around her wrist. ‘Come on, Sergeant. We haven’t got all day.’
Ritchie started at the noise, as if she’d been sleeping, and snapped the latex. She scuttled across the hall and joined him as he began to climb.
‘Are you all right?’ McLean asked. ‘Only you’ve been kind of switched-off all day.’
‘Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.’ Ritchie smoothed the gloves over her fingers. ‘What’re we looking for?’
‘Anything and everything. I don’t really know. Let’s concentrate on the rooms Weatherly would have most likely used. Bedroom, bathroom, study. That sort of thing.’
The top of the stairs opened out on to a landing lit from overhead by a large glass skylight, oval and spattered with bird droppings. The doors revealed tidy, anonymous guest rooms, the beds made up but the cupboards largely empty. Down a short corridor to the back of the house, a room that had to have been for the girls sat directly opposite a large family bathroom. At the end, the master bedroom opened up with views on to the private gardens behind the terrace. It held a large bed, walk-in cupboards, a low dressing table, a couple of chairs. Nothing you wouldn’t expect to find. The bed looked like it had been made by someone in a hurry, a man on his own and not expecting company perhaps. And yet there was something about the place that had McLean’s inner alarm bells ringing. A bit like the transient odour at the front door, there was a wrongness he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
‘Someone’s been through here.’
McLean looked over to where Ritchie was standing. She had opened the top drawer of an old mahogany chest of drawers and was rifling through Weatherly’s socks.
‘What?’
‘Someone’s been through here. Carefully, and methodically. Searching for something, but not in a hurry like some petty thief.’
‘How can you tell?’ McLean crossed the room, looked down on a collection of Marks & Spencer’s finest Cotton Rich socks remarkably similar to the ones he had back home.
‘I’m going out on a limb here, sir, but I’d hazard a guess Weatherly didn’t do his own laundry.’
‘He had a cleaner. Probably did that for him when she was here. Or his wife, maybe.’
Ritchie shuddered, no doubt recalling the image of Morag Weatherly in her bed. ‘Still. When you’ve done a load of washing, paired up your socks as carefully as this.’ She picked out a perfectly folded bundle. ‘You put them away neatly. Not all higgledy-piggledy.’
‘They look pretty neat to me.’ McLean peered at the ranks of socks, nestling cheek by jowl like so many woolly beasts in a hosiery nest. His own socks tended towards the higgled, if not the piggled. But then he didn’t have anyone to do his laundry for him.
‘Neat, but moved.’ Ritchie picked out some more socks, then placed them back in a row. Once she had done that for one half of the drawer, McLean could see what she was on about.
‘Anything else been moved?’ He went across to the walk-in cupboard, pulled open the door. Andrew Weatherly had owned a great many suits, it would seem. And shoes.
‘Here.’ Ritchie leaned in past him and he caught the tiniest whiff of her perfume. ‘These are all pushed up to one end, as if someone’s gone through the pockets one by one.’
‘Or Weatherly was just trying to get to the one at the end.’
‘It’s possible.’ Ritchie crouched down and began pulling out shoes from their custom-made cubbyholes. She ran a gloved finger over polished black leather, scoring a line in a thin layer of dust on one. ‘You think he suddenly decided to wear a pair of shoes he’d not tried on in a while, too?’
McLean stepped back out of the cupboard and let Ritchie past. He cast an eye over the rest of the room, but without knowing how it had been before, he couldn’t really see whether anything had been touched. Should he be getting a fingerprint team in? He really didn’t know. No way of knowing if anything had been taken, anyway. ‘Let’s have a look in some of the other rooms, aye?’
There was nothing obviously amiss in the guest bedrooms, but then the drawers and wardrobes were mostly empty. The girls’ room was small, and packed with boxes of toys. Difficult to tell if they’d been messed around with, although the sheets on one of the beds were untucked in one corner. Hardly damning evidence, though.
Back downstairs, the constable had not moved from his spot by the front door. McLean nodded at him before heading through into what turned out to be a large dining room. For
a fleeting instant he thought he caught that unpleasant smell again. Perhaps the drains had backed up somewhere nearby. Again, it was gone almost as soon as he noticed it.
The room looked out on to the street, the windows slightly higher than pavement level so that pedestrians couldn’t gaze in on the important people inside. The curtains were drawn, but like most of the house it felt strangely dark and oppressive. Nothing in here looked out of place, except for a heavy silver photograph frame, lying askew on the sideboard near the door. McLean picked it up, almost dropping it when he saw the picture of two girls. It was an artfully posed shot, no doubt the work of a skilled photographer, but all he could see were dead eyes staring at him in accusation.
Putting the frame back down on the sideboard, he noticed that its surface was dimpled on one side, as if it had once been soft and someone had gripped it too hard. Or the silver had begun to melt like chocolate in a child’s hand. Part of the design? Again, he couldn’t tell. It felt wrong, though.
‘In here, sir. Think you should see this.’
McLean turned at Ritchie’s voice. She had gone through a door at the far end of the room, which on closer inspection led to Weatherly’s office. Ritchie was sitting at the surprisingly modern desk, her fingers hovering lightly over the keyboard of a slimline desktop computer. One of those fancy things which were all screen and no obvious electronics.
‘What’ve you got?’ He picked his way carefully around the desk until he could see the screen. It was dark, just a small cursor blinking on and off in the bottom left-hand corner.
‘It’s what I’ve not got that’s interesting.’ Ritchie tapped at some keys. Nothing happened.
‘Password?’
‘It’s not that. There’s no boot-up sequence, no operating system. Nothing.’
‘You tried switching it off then on again?’ That got him an old-fashioned look.
‘It was on when I found it, sir. Not sure switching it off would be a good idea.’
‘You think it’s been tampered with?’
‘I know it’s been tampered with. Look.’ Ritchie pointed at the edge of the screen, where a handful of sockets had been artfully designed into the casing. Most were empty, but one held what looked like a cheap USB stick. ‘I don’t think they meant to leave that behind. If I’m not mistaken it’s a wiper. Cleans out the hard drive and fills it up with noughts and ones. There’s this, too.’ She pushed herself up out of the chair and walked over to a pair of filing cabinets standing beside the wall. Pulled open a drawer.
