What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  ‘Means I can pass the paperwork further up the line. Spend more time actually trying to solve cases rather than telling other folk what to do, then telling them again when they do it wrong.’

  ‘Ha. As if you’d ever delegate anything important, McLean.’ Duguid leaned to one side and retrieved something from the floor. When he placed it on his desk, McLean recognised the box he’d found under the stairs in Cecily Slater’s cottage.

  ‘Grumpy Bob, on the other hand, has no such qualms.’ The ex-detective superintendent lifted the lid off and took out the top few items. McLean stepped forward for a better look as Duguid laid them out on the desktop. There were a couple of photographs of the house, one black and white, one colour; a series of letters written in neat but tiny handwriting; some newspaper cuttings, their paper yellow and brittle with age; and a small leather-bound diary with the date 1943 tooled in gold on the cover.

  ‘It tells an intriguing tale.’ Duguid picked up the black and white photograph. It wasn’t one McLean had seen in his cursory look through the box, but now he studied it he could see that the house was only a background feature. The foreground consisted of a group photograph, slightly blurred, of perhaps fifty girls lined up in rows. They varied in age considerably, the youngest sitting cross-legged at the front, the oldest on chairs directly behind them and a third row of teenagers standing at the back.

  ‘Burntwoods was a boarding school?’ McLean took the photograph and held it close, peering at the faces as if he might somehow recognise a young Cecily Slater even if the focus meant most of the features were blurred.

  ‘Not exactly, no. It belonged to a lady called Mirriam Downham. You’ll remember the Downham Trust?’

  It took him a moment to make the connection, coming as it did rather out of context. ‘The shelter for abused women?’ McLean thought back to the last time he’d worked with Vice, or the Sexual Crimes Unit if he was being formal. The Downham Trust had been occasionally helpful in getting sex workers away from violent and manipulative pimps, battered women away from their abusive husbands and boyfriends. They ran a women’s refuge south of the city, one of many dotted around the whole of the UK.

  ‘That’s part of what they do, and apparently it all began at Burntwoods. From this photograph it’s clear that they took in children as well, gave them some kind of formal education. According to this, though . . .’ Duguid fished out one of the newspaper cuttings ‘. . . the house burned down in 1930 and was never rebuilt.’

  ‘Really – 1930? But this photograph.’ McLean looked at it again, trying to find any clue that it had been taken in the forties, when Cecily Slater was supposed to have been there. Turning it over, he saw the neatly inked words ‘Burntwoods – Summer 1943’ in a stamped box that included the name of the firm of photographers, Carnegie and Sons, Dundee.

  ‘That’s a mystery in itself, although there’s no date on that newspaper clipping so it’s possible they rebuilt after all. Certain, I’d say, given the other photograph.’ Duguid passed it over, and McLean saw the house in colour this time, albeit faded like the few pictures he had of his parents. Like those, this one seemed to have been taken by an amateur, and it showed a young woman posing in the foreground. It was difficult to be certain, but he’d have put her age in the mid-twenties. He flipped the picture over to see the words ‘Cecily – August 1956’ written in heavy pencil.

  ‘Cecily Slater would have been what . . . twenty-five then, so that makes sense. I expect she went back to see someone, maybe? What about that?’ McLean pointed at the diary.

  ‘That?’ Duguid picked up the slim notebook and flipped through the pages, then handed it to McLean. ‘I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to read the daily outpourings of a twelve-year-old girl. Bob’s had a wee look, but the writing’s tiny and it’s hard to make much sense of any of it. Some’s written in a kind of code, too. There’s more in the box here. Every year from ’thirty-eight to ’forty-six. They’re all Cecily Slater’s, and they all have Burntwoods written in the front cover as the address.’

  ‘Eight years. And she was still going back ten years later. She must have had some attachment to the place. Might explain why she preferred to live alone, out in the woods. Never married or had kids. All the locals thought she was a witch.’

  ‘You think she was abused? As a child?’

  McLean shrugged. ‘It’s possible. Maybe I’ll ask Lord Bairnfather when I interview him.’

  Duguid grinned, not something McLean could ever recall having seen before.

  ‘Now that’s one interview I’d like to sit in on.’

  24

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Tony? We’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  Detective Superintendent Jayne McIntyre stood outside the door to McLean’s office as he approached along the corridor, somewhat giving the lie to her claim. Hands on hips like a fishwife, the glare she cast in his direction was more than enough warning for him not to point that out.

  ‘Down in the basement talking to Dagwood. CCU’s still my responsibility, as far as I’m aware. I asked Grumpy Bob to do some digging in the archives for me. Stuff we found out at Cecily Slater’s cottage.’

  McIntyre narrowed her eyes. ‘Trying to shift the investigation costs on to another budget? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were starting to learn how the system works.’

  ‘That wasn’t . . .’ McLean started, then stopped as he realised he wasn’t going to win that argument. He led the way into his office. ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s fascinating stuff, but probably irrelevant. There’s bugger all forensics, so we’re digging for motive. That’s why I had Grumpy Bob looking into the archives. Trouble is, she was such a recluse it’s hard to imagine her pissing off anyone. Not enough to do what they did to her, at least. I’m hoping her nephew might be able to shed some light, but I’m not holding out much hope. He’s not hardly rushed home at the news.’

  ‘That’s what I was hoping to talk to you about, actually. I wanted to catch you before you spoke to Lord Bairnfather. It’s only right you interview him, since you’re Senior Investigating Officer and he’d take offence if anyone of a lower rank did it. He’s aware that this is a murder investigation now, too. Just remember he’s rich and powerful and has the ear of many an influential politician. Your kind of person, Tony.’ McIntyre smiled wearily at the joke. ‘Oh, and he went to university with the chief constable. Apparently they were both in the Archery Club together, although I understand golf’s more their thing these days.’

  Which would explain why McIntyre was looking for him and not, for instance, Detective Constable Stringer to pass the message on. The chief constable had spoken to her directly. Always bloody politics.

  ‘What do you want to do about this morning’s unexplained death?’ McLean asked before McIntyre could warn him to tread carefully. She looked slightly taken aback at the sudden change of subject, but rallied swiftly.

  ‘The site’s closed for now, I take it?’

  ‘Health and Safety have got it locked down while they investigate. Sandy Gregg’s co-ordinating with them.’

  ‘Good. She’s a safe pair of hands. Keep on top of it, at least until we’ve got the pathology report. Might get some of those new DCs to review any CCTV footage they can lay their hands on, too.’

  McLean nodded. It was what he’d been going to do anyway. ‘It’s odd though, don’t you think? Two mysterious deaths in quick succession.’

  ‘You can’t possibly think there’s any link between the two, can you?’ McIntyre grimaced as if the mere thought of it were painful.

  McLean shrugged. ‘Apart from the fact they’re both dead, no. But you know me and coincidences. Something doesn’t feel right. I need to work out what, and how.’

  ‘There’s no point my trying to stop you from ploughing your own furrow, Tony, so I won’t even try. But please keep an eye on the budgets while you’re at it, eh? And I don
’t mean ask Grumpy Bob to do all the work for you.’ McIntyre walked to the door, but stopped before stepping out into the corridor. ‘Oh, and don’t forget the Safe Streets Committee function this evening. Gail’s very keen to get to know all the local civic dignitaries.’

  McLean had been trying to forget about it, and might even have faced the wrath of the new chief superintendent by not turning up and instead coming up with some lame excuse like investigating the murder of a ninety-year-old woman. That McIntyre was reminding him meant that it would be much harder to duck out of the invitation.

  ‘Is it really that important I have to drop everything and try to be sociable?’

  ‘It is, Tony. Gail fought your corner with Professional Standards even though she knew nothing about you. The least you can do is pay her back by being helpful.’

  McLean suppressed the protest he wanted to make, taking a moment to formulate his argument against the deputy chief constable’s request. But before he could come up with anything coherent, McIntyre had gone.

  The pool car smelled like someone had been using it for a stakeout for the best part of a week, and hadn’t bothered to give it a clean once they were done with it. McLean had suggested they take his Alfa, but DS Harrison had been nowhere to be seen, and DC Blane wasn’t all that keen on driving it. He said nothing for the first ten minutes of the journey, concentrating on negotiating the traffic snarled up at Tollcross. McLean was happy for the chance to gather his thoughts and try to put some kind of order on the tumble of events that had made up the day so far.

  ‘Did you attend the building site scene with Harrison this morning?’ he asked, as they moved slowly past another, different housing development. Edinburgh seemed full of them, every last inch of space being pressed into creating yet more tiny apartments.

  ‘No, sir. Heard about it though. Sounded nasty. Poor bugger just walking along and bam!’ Blane hit the steering wheel with the heel of one hand, causing the car to swerve.

  ‘It’s possibly a bit more complicated than that.’ McLean explained what Harrison had told him about the scene and the unlikely manner in which the accident appeared to have happened. Blane said nothing for a while, weaving the car through a complicated series of back streets towards the old Kilmarnock road, presumably in some misguided attempt to avoid the worst of the traffic. McLean would have gone straight to the bypass and round, but he knew better than to suggest it.

  ‘That’s going to make our workload a bit of a nightmare, isn’t it?’ the detective constable observed. Blane had originally trained as an accountant, McLean remembered. How like him to cut through all the horror of a man being slowly and painfully crushed to death, and focus instead on the logistics. He wasn’t wrong, though.

  ‘We’ll manage. Hopefully. The new batch of DCs will help, even if we’ll need to keep an eye on them for a while. Talk about in at the deep end. Three suspicious deaths to investigate, one a full murder inquiry. Not exactly what I’d want my first week in the job.’

  ‘You think they’re linked, all three deaths?’ Blane echoed McIntyre’s words earlier. McLean had considered it, but couldn’t find a way to make it work. Too little information, for one thing.

  ‘I don’t know. No reason to think the two men are linked to Slater. Hopefully Janie will come up with some useful information on Purefoy. You’ve done the background on Whitaker, right?’

  For once, Blane kept his eyes on the road as he replied. ‘Yes, sir. Not that there’s much to it. He started off as an unskilled labourer straight out of school at seventeen. Got his training on the job and then a diploma at night school. Same firm all the way, so I guess they saw something in him and took the time to nurture it. Not many firms would do that.’

  Something about the way Blane spoke made McLean think it was personal. He said nothing though. If the detective constable wanted to talk about it, there were better times and places to do that than driving across the city on the way to conducting an interview with a recently bereaved member of the aristocracy.

  ‘He married Miranda Keegan five years ago. Janie – DS Harrison – and I interviewed her the day we found his remains. She wasn’t exactly upset to hear he’d died. Not that I think she was responsible, mind, but it was a bit cold. Claims she found him abusing their wee daughter.’

  ‘I saw the briefing notes, aye.’ McLean stared ahead as they left the twenty mile an hour zone and Blane accelerated swiftly to forty. ‘That’s why he was living in that pokey wee basement, right?’

  Blane’s hands tensed on the wheel, the car shimmying in the road before he got whatever was going on with him back under control.

  ‘She was suing him for divorce. Hadn’t been finalised, but the interim ruling meant he couldn’t see his bairn and he had to move out of the family home. Only reason he wasn’t in jail was because he had a good lawyer on his side. That’s why he was living in that shithole. Sir.’

  McLean noticed that last ‘sir’. Along with DC Blane’s ill-concealed agitation at the perceived injustice. It jarred with the image he’d formed of the detective constable.

  ‘Who was the lawyer?’ he asked, unsure what else to say.

  ‘Tommy Fielding.’

  ‘What? The men’s rights guy? Weren’t you and Harrison looking into him?’

  Blane turned his head to look at McLean, something in the detective constable’s face he hadn’t seen before. Was it anger?

  ‘We weren’t looking into him, sir. We were responding to a complaint he made about a demonstration outside the hotel where he’s been holding his seminars. A bunch of protesters broke in and disrupted one of his meetings the other night, so I think his complaint’s fairly justified. Nobody seems to want to take him seriously though. Certainly not Janie. It’s almost like she’s made her mind up about him and won’t be budged. I thought we were meant to be all about facts, sir.’

  So that was what had been eating him. McLean nodded, in the hope that if he appeared to be agreeing then Blane would concentrate on the road again. It seemed to work.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Harrison,’ he said, which seemed to mollify Blane a little.

  ‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to speak out of turn. It just . . .’ He didn’t finish the sentence, simply letting whatever it was go unsaid. McLean let it go. If the big man wanted to talk about it, he’d find his time. Meanwhile they had more pressing business to attend to.

  ‘No need to apologise, Lofty. I’d much rather my officers came to me when they had a problem than let it fester and affect their work. Now, let’s see if we can’t find out a bit more about Cecily Slater, aye? We can worry about Tommy Fielding another day.’

  A squall of rain splattered across the windscreen as they parked up, Bairnfather Hall looking suitably Gothic against a backdrop of moorland and slate-grey sky. McLean hurried to the front door, Blane taking his time to lock the car but still catching up with him by the time he’d got there. Inside, they were greeted by a different flunky, who had clearly been warned they were coming. He escorted them to a vast and elegant room at the front of the building, all wood panelling and leather armchairs. Two fireplaces burned merrily, and opposite them the tiniest of bars looked almost like an afterthought.

  ‘I will inform His Lordship of your arrival, sirs. In the meantime, can I offer you something to drink?’

  McLean eyed the bar. There were no beer pulls or anything you might associate with a pub in the city. Shelves on the wall behind it held some interesting bottles of whisky. Too early for that, though, and he imagined paying for a dram here would make your eyes water far more than the alcohol.

  ‘A coffee would be nice. You want anything, Detective Constable?’

  Blane only shook his head, so the flunky gave them the most minimal of bows then turned and left. McLean had hardly enough time to scan the room and take a seat before a smartly dressed waiter appeared with a tray containing cafetiere, jug of milk, tiny bowl
of sugar, elegant china cup and, best of all, a generous plate of chocolate biscuits. He set about them with all the gusto of a hungry man, pausing only to pour himself some fine-smelling coffee.

  ‘You’re missing a treat, you know?’ he said to Blane, who still hadn’t sat down but instead was looking around the room as if he expected to be attacked at any moment. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. Just I had a lot to get done. Being kept waiting by someone referred to by a bloke in a penguin suit as “His Lordship” wasn’t how I thought I’d be spending the afternoon.’

  That wasn’t what was really wrong, McLean knew, but it did well enough for the detective constable. An obvious hook to hang his growing irritation upon. Now wasn’t the time to find out what was really going on, although their conversation in the car on the way over suggested it might be something to do with Harrison, and quite possibly her promotion despite her being younger than him. Add it to the list of things to deal with when there was time.

  ‘Detective Inspector McLean? A pleasure to meet you.’

  Wrapped up in his musings about DC Blane, McLean was startled by the words. He looked up to see a balding man in an ill-fitting suit approaching from the open doorway. He wasn’t exactly fat, but had an air about him of having gone to seed. His florid face spoke of a long and happy association with alcohol, but his smile was genuine as he held out a hand to be shook.

  ‘Lord Bairnfather,’ McLean felt a grip both firm and surprisingly soft, like being squeezed by a bag full of warm jelly.

  ‘This is my colleague Detective Constable Blane,’ he said, and Bairnfather looked up, then up again.

  ‘My, you’re a big one.’ He let out a nervous chuckle, a weirdly feminine sound coming from his jowly, masculine face. ‘I see they’ve brought you coffee. Good. Shall we have a seat and get on with this, then?’