Dead Men's Bones

by James Oswald

  ‘How’re you feeling?’ McLean couldn’t stop himself asking the question, even though he knew it was perhaps the most idiotic thing he’d said since he was a teenager.

  ‘Like that hankie.’ Ritchie dropped her gaze to the floor, then dragged it back up to his face with considerable effort. ‘Was sleeping. Dreaming. Woke up and it looked like you were going to kiss me.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Sergeant.’ McLean pulled up a chair, sat himself down beside the bed. ‘What were you dreaming about?’

  Ritchie stared up at the ceiling. ‘Not really sure. I was somewhere hot. Stifling. Couldn’t breathe properly, but that’s not really surprising.’ She coughed again, and McLean could see the effort she put into stopping it turning into another fit. He probably shouldn’t have been bothering her, but he had an inkling of an idea what was going on, and before he did anything rash he needed to know he was heading in the right direction. Or losing his mind.

  ‘You said you thought I was going to kiss you. I didn’t think I was standing that close.’

  ‘You weren’t?’ Ritchie’s eyes narrowed in concentration, the frown opening cracks in the dry skin on her forehead and cheeks. ‘No. You weren’t. That was someone else. The dream, maybe? I’m so fucking tired the whole time, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.’

  ‘What about your interview with Mrs Saifre? You remember that?’

  Ritchie’s brow furrowed again, the memories obviously hard to sift from the mess going around in her head. McLean hadn’t seen any doctors on his way here, just slipping down the corridors unchallenged, using his familiarity with the hospital and its staff to his advantage. He had no idea what was wrong with her, but assumed it couldn’t be that contagious otherwise she wouldn’t have been on an open ward.

  ‘Funny you should mention her,’ Ritchie said eventually. ‘Was thinking about that after your last visit.’ She coughed again, and struggled to free herself from the sucking embrace of her pillows so that she could give her lungs a good clearing. McLean wanted to help her, but didn’t know how. Not like him to be so useless. Maybe it was the delicate hospital gown she was wearing, the thinness of her arms and the curve of her neck. Whatever it was, touching seemed inappropriate, probably also inadvisable. So he sat like a lemon and waited for her to tell him what had happened. She took a long time to get her breath back, and when she did speak her lips were blue with hypoxia.

  ‘Must have blanked it.’ Ritchie gasped in a couple of shallow breaths before continuing. ‘The interview. Was weird. I asked questions.’ More shallow breaths, a pause for a coughing fit. ‘She answered a few, but nothing much. Then she started asking about me, about work, you. She was nice. Seemed nice, anyway. Something about her I couldn’t … She offered me a job. Can’t even remember what it was now, but it sounded too good to be true. ’Sides, I’m happy enough with what I’ve got, really.’ Ritchie coughed again, rattling loose something slippery. ‘Well, I was.’

  ‘This is going to seem like an odd question, Kirsty.’ McLean paused, knowing what he was going to ask was mad. ‘But did she kiss you?’

  Ritchie’s brow furrowed. ‘Kiss me?’

  ‘Mrs Saifre. Did she kiss you?’

  ‘She put her hand on my leg. I remember that now.’ The furrows on Ritchie’s brow grew deeper, the effort of digging up the memories bringing a damp sweat to her forehead. ‘Seems bloody weird now, but it felt perfectly natural then. But kiss? I … Why would she?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got a box full of pieces to half a dozen different puzzles. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get them to fit together.’

  Ritchie settled back into her pillows, weariness dragging her eyelids down. McLean sat silent for a while. He could tell himself that he’d come to see her because he was concerned, but the truth was he was looking for answers as much as anything. Or maybe just looking for someone to bounce theories off who wouldn’t think him insane.

  ‘I keep coming back to William Beaumont,’ he said after a while. Ritchie nodded her head almost imperceptibly to show she was listening, but said nothing in reply.

  ‘We know he was taken off the streets. We know he was prepared for some sick ceremonial sacrifice. We’re working on the assumption he escaped before it could happen. Now we’ve got loads more bodies, going back several centuries, but some in the last two or three decades. Looks like they’ve all been through the same thing.’

  ‘Cult?’ Ritchie’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘Cult. Secret society. Could be anything, really. But well organized, influential enough to remain unnoticed, and centred on the old mental hospital. That’s shocking enough in itself, but the unanswered question is: what were they trying to achieve? Duguid had it right, damn him. We really need to know why they were doing this. What were these men’s sacrifices meant to do?’

  Ritchie said nothing, and when McLean looked at her face he couldn’t tell whether she was awake or sleeping. Maybe it was easier if she was sleeping.

  ‘You’re wondering why I asked if you’d been kissed.’ His voice was low now, talking to the semi-darkness of the night-time ward. ‘Well, people keep turning up dead with badly damaged lips. I thought Weatherly’d maybe put the hot gun barrel in his mouth, but Barry Timbrel didn’t try to shoot himself. And Jack …’

  ‘Beaumont’s lips weren’t damaged.’ So Ritchie was awake. And listening.

  ‘He was the sacrifice. He’d have had his throat cut if he hadn’t escaped. No, the lips are something else. Something new.’ McLean paused again, not so much because he was bringing the strands of thought together as because what they formed was too terrible to contemplate. ‘What happens if the sacrifice doesn’t go as planned?’

  ‘Whatever they were sacrificing to gets angry? Stops protecting them? Comes after them?’

  And there it was; the link he’d been trying so hard not to see. Three hundred years or more they’d fed this particular beast. Was it any surprise its return was marked by chaos and carnage?

  It had been dark when he left the hospital, late enough that it wasn’t worth going back to the station. Nothing there but politics and paperwork anyway. So McLean had driven across a snow-frozen city, enjoying the relatively light traffic that made his journey home much quicker than normal. The V6 engine made a fat cat purring noise and the leather seat hugged him like a warm lover as he sat staring at the unlit edifice of his grandmother’s house, silhouetted by the orange and purple of the low night-time clouds. It was a good place to sit and think, the car. Enclosed and safe. Just a pity that his thoughts of late were taking him to dangerous places. Uncomfortable places, both physically and mentally.

  A trill from his phone broke the moment. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. A text message: Let’s try again, shall we? Dinner at eight. Will send Karl. Jane Louise. McLean let out a sigh; the woman never gave up. A quick glance at the clock at the top of the screen showed him that Karl would be around in a little over half an hour. There was no point hiding or putting her off, even if he knew he’d get it in the neck from Duguid when he found out. A company now owned by Mrs Saifre was under investigation, after all. He was SIO for the bloody crime scene. He shouldn’t be talking to her at all, except at the station, with legal representation and two tapes recording everything.

  But there was no way he’d ever get anything to stick to her. She was too powerful, too well connected. No, she wanted something from him and wouldn’t leave him alone until she got it. Well, two could play that game. He thumbed through his address book, wondering at the serendipity that had reunited him with an old acquaintance so soon before he needed a favour. A single call should do it.

  55

  Karl turned up in the Rolls-Royce twenty-five minutes later. McLean knew it was him, mostly because he wasn’t expecting anyone else that evening, but also because Mrs McCutcheon’s cat, which had spent the intervening time rubbing her head against his hand and arm, suddenly stiffened. Her fur stood up, not quite
on end like she’d been electrocuted, but certainly making her twice her normal size. She looked towards the door through to the main hall, and hissed a couple of seconds before the doorbell rang.

  ‘Don’t worry. I have a plan.’ McLean patted her on the head, left her on the kitchen table and walked out of the front door into the night.

  Karl was standing by the open passenger door. McLean nodded at him before climbing in, surprised to find Mrs Saifre already sitting inside.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’ She patted the seat beside her like a good seductress, and was dressed for the part, too. Her outfit was shimmering gold and black. It covered everything, but clung to her body like it was painted on, accentuating curves and casting shadows of allure. As he settled into the warm, soft leather of the seat, McLean caught a whiff of something expensive and fragrant. It might have been intoxicating, but then so was cyanide gas, so was brimstone. The thought surprised him and the merest hint of a smile must have brushed his lips. Certainly Mrs Saifre mistook it for encouragement, moving closer to him as he sat.

  ‘I probably shouldn’t. You are connected with an ongoing investigation, after all.’ McLean tried to relax as Karl closed the door, locking him in with the monster.

  ‘Rules are for the little people though, aren’t they, Tony?’ Mrs Saifre leaned forward, her tight clothing moving like a second skin as she opened up the drinks cabinet. McLean had to admit that she was in every way the most intoxicating woman he had met, and yet at the same time he found it easy to ignore that aspect of her, see it for the plastic that it was.

  ‘Drink?’ It was voiced as a question, but at the same time, she handed him a glass filled with champagne. McLean took it, raised it in salute as she did the same with her own, then pretended to take a sip.

  ‘I wanted to make up for … well, everything,’ he said as Mrs Saifre was still drinking from her own glass. ‘So I called in a few favours and got us a table at Chez Innes.’

  Mrs Saifre’s eyebrow arched at this, though whether with annoyance or incredulity, he couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, she accepted it after only a few seconds’ thought. Tapped the window and issued a command to Karl to change their destination.

  ‘Thought you couldn’t get a table there for love or money. I’ve offered Bobby the world and it’s still a three-month wait.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve been offering him the wrong thing.’ McLean settled back into his seat, cradling his glass to avoid spilling champagne on his suit as they motored back into the city. Round one to him; could he hope to keep it going?

  If he’d been hoping to get in unnoticed, he’d not counted on the tenacity of the local paparazzi. Even on a freezing night in early February, they were camped outside the restaurant waiting to see who might turn up. It was a sad indictment of society that pictures of rich people going into and coming out of what was just a glorified chippie with delusions of grandeur were more newsworthy than famine in Africa or climate change-induced natural disasters around the world, but judging by the artillery barrage of flashguns that went off as he led Mrs Saifre through the understated entrance of Chez Innes, that was the case. McLean hoped that they were just snapping everything that moved in the general direction of the restaurant, but he had a horrible feeling they knew exactly who she was, and probably a fair idea who he was too. Gossip would inevitably ensue. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been the brunt of it at work.

  ‘Tony. Finally you grace us with your presence.’ Bobby greeted him in the entrance hall, dressed up in his soup-spattered chef’s whites. He switched his gaze from McLean to Mrs Saifre, bowing theatrically. ‘And now I can see why you have waited so long. Madame de Saifre, welcome to my humble restaurant.’

  Eric appeared on the scene before Bobby could make a fool of himself, a half-scowl on his face as he welcomed them both. He led them across the restaurant to a small nook with a couple of comfortable sofas arranged around a log fire. McLean waited until Mrs Saifre’s back was momentarily turned before whispering to him.

  ‘You got the message, I take it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s all taken care of. I hope you know what you’re doing, Tony. She’s—’

  But whatever she was, he never said. Mrs Saifre had been studying the picture above the fireplace, but turned back to face them. ‘Is that really an original Elspeth McKenzie?’

  ‘Madame has a good eye. It is indeed.’

  ‘How on earth did you get it? She never sold anything. I thought she burned most of it before she died.’

  ‘All she still had, but that was a gift.’ Eric produced a couple of menus. ‘Your table will be ready in a minute. Would you like a cocktail before dining?’

  McLean could still feel the sensation against his lips where he’d raised the glass of champagne but not drunk. ‘That would be nice, Eric. A martini, perhaps.’ He turned to his companion. ‘Mrs Sai— … Jane?’

  ‘Jane Louise. The Scottish way. No hyphen.’ Mrs Saifre frowned for the briefest instant before smiling again. ‘Yes, a martini would be lovely.’

  Eric retreated, leaving them alone. He was barely out of earshot before she spoke. ‘How do you know these people? Have you any idea how long I’ve been trying to get in here?’ For a moment, she reminded McLean of a different person entirely; a young woman excited and impressed, genuinely thrilled at this new adventure and the handsome hero with whom she was embarking upon it. But she wasn’t young, for all she looked barely thirty. He knew that. She’d been a postgraduate electronics engineer in the early eighties, so had to be in her fifties now. Or she could be as old as time. That was the whole point.

  ‘Bobby was my fiancée’s flatmate, way back. We helped him set up his first place.’

  ‘Fiancée?’ Mrs Saifre raised a perfect eyebrow. McLean swallowed. This was always going to be the hard part.

  ‘She died. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Tony. You must have loved her a great deal.’

  ‘I did, yes. Still do, really.’

  ‘Is that why you live all alone in that big old house?’ Mrs Saifre took his hand, guided him to the sofa and sat down. He sat beside her, feeling the warmth from the fire, a deeper heat radiating from Mrs Saifre. Before he could say anything in reply, Eric returned with two martinis on a small tray. He set it down on the table in front of them, putting out two coasters and placing the glasses on them. One in front of each of them. Mrs Saifre took hers, lifting it in toast. McLean took his and did likewise.

  ‘To lost love and that still to be found,’ Mrs Saifre said, and took a long sip of her drink. ‘That’s a fine martini.’

  McLean sipped at his own drink, tasted only ice-cold water. ‘Indeed it is.’

  ‘Your table is ready whenever you are.’ Eric gave him a big wink, picked up the tray and sauntered off.

  It was a long time since he’d properly eaten out, at a fine restaurant, sitting opposite a beautiful woman who was both witty and intelligent. Not since before Kirsty had died. That was perhaps the only melancholy aspect to the whole evening, if you overlooked who it actually was he was dining with.

  For her part, Mrs Saifre was the perfect dinner date. Her conversation was interesting, she flirted with him every so often, smiled a lot. He found it strange that for all her obvious physical perfection, all her advances, he felt no attraction to her whatsoever. Every so often McLean caught a look in her eye that might have been irritation. He took a little satisfaction from that, but was careful not to let down his guard.

  The food was everything he had expected and more; there was no doubt that Bobby deserved his Michelin stars. Still, as the evening progressed, McLean found it harder and harder to enjoy. This wasn’t pleasure, he realized after a while; it was work. And work for which he wouldn’t be paid, nor receive any kind of recognition. More likely he’d be hauled over the coals for it. Mrs Saifre was linked to an ongoing major incident investigation, after all. Such was life.

  When it came to the pudding, an elegant concoction of chocola
te soufflé and rich dark sauce, McLean realized he’d quite lost his appetite, despite the intoxicating aromas rising from the plate. Mrs Saifre fell upon hers with greedy abandon.

  ‘This. This is why your friend is a genius.’ She spooned another mouthful between her lips, tongue flicking at the edges where melted chocolate bubbled and glistened. ‘I would pay anything to have him come work for me.’

  ‘You could offer, but I doubt he’d be interested. Bobby’s very much his own man.’

  Mrs Saifre smiled. ‘A bit like you, if what I hear is true.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ McLean raised an eyebrow. ‘Been digging up the dirt on me, have you?’

  ‘Just a few questions here and there. You know I’m on first-name terms with the Chief Constable.’

  ‘Does he even know who I am?’

  Mrs Saifre paused while she finished another mouthful of soufflé, devouring it in a manner that would make any man weak at the knees. ‘The great Detective Inspector Anthony McLean. Of course he knows who you are. And he worries about you.’

  ‘Worries about me, or that I’ll do something really stupid?’ Like taking the boss of a firm under investigation out to dinner, perhaps.

  ‘A bit of both, I’m sure.’ She placed her spoon delicately on the side of her empty plate, took up her napkin and dabbed at her lips once more, then dropped it on the table in an untidy heap. Then she slumped back in her chair, arms drooping by her sides in a parody of sexual exhaustion. Her face glowed in the candlelight, her ravenblack hair loose now, slightly dishevelled, as if it had grown inches in the time it had taken them to eat dinner. She reminded McLean of nothing so much as a cat that has just had its fill of mouse and now intends sleeping for eighteen hours while digesting it.

  ‘That was delicious. We should do this more often.’ Even her voice was languorous.

  ‘It’s not often I have the time.’ McLean put his own spoon down. He’d done no more than prod his pudding around a bit. ‘Work has a habit of interrupting at the most inopportune moments, as you know. Still, you look like you’ve enjoyed yourself.’