What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  ‘With respect, Gail, that’s not the way I work. That’s not the way murder investigations work either, especially not ones like this, where there’s no obvious motive and no forensic evidence.’

  The chief superintendent reached out and placed a hand on his knee, just briefly. More the lightest of pats than anything else, but McLean did his best to hide the flinch at her touch. He was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it was hard to ignore the evidence, especially when he’d been trained to notice such things. The deputy chief constable was a welcome change from her predecessor in many ways, but at least McLean had understood Teflon Steve.

  ‘Why is it that whenever someone begins a sentence “with respect” it’s actually the complete opposite that they mean?’

  ‘Probably because it’s considered rude to be frank.’ McLean focused his attention on the chief superintendent where before he had been doing his best to avoid her gaze. The expression on her face didn’t fill him with great joy. This was a game for her, he could see, and right now he was doing exactly what she wanted him to.

  ‘I’d be horrified if I thought my officers were holding back on me, Tony. Be frank. I won’t be upset.’

  OK. If that was how she wanted to play it. ‘You’ve never been a detective, have you, ma’am?’ He posed it as a question, even though he already knew the answer. Neither did he give her time to speak before he carried on. ‘I know we can have a bit of a reputation for being difficult, us plain clothes coppers. We don’t keep an eye on the budgets as much as you’d like, I’m sure. And we’ve a tendency to get a bit fixated sometimes. It’s part of the training. So you can imagine how anything that distracts us from the task in hand can be a bit annoying. Especially if there’s no obvious good reason for it. Like today’s trip and last night’s so-called function.’

  Something like irritation flickered across the chief superintendent’s face then, but she kept it well hidden. For a while there was nothing but the roar of tyres on road and the whistle of wind around the car’s wing mirrors. Then she hitched a smile on to her face that would have done a politician proud.

  ‘I can sort of see your point, Tony. Really, I can. But you hit the nail on the head right there. Specialist Crime has a tendency to think of budgets as a distant second priority, if it thinks of them at all. But we live in a world of finite resources, sadly. Cuts are everywhere, and they’re only going to get worse.’ And now she leaned in close, her hand back on his knee but not lightly this time. ‘And that’s why I need you by my side. So I can fight off the accountants and the Police Authority when they come demanding we keep chipping away at the costs. I need someone who’s been at the coal face to remind them that it’s not pounds and pence, but people’s lives.’

  It was a good speech, he had to admit. Even if it was all bollocks. McLean held the chief superintendent’s stare for a moment longer, then looked pointedly down at her hand. She followed his gaze and a moment later removed it, sliding away to sit more comfortably in her seat with the faintest flicker of a smile playing across her lips.

  ‘Think about it, Tony. You and me, we could do great things together.’

  McLean let his head tip back and stared at the cloth lining the roof of the car. He didn’t need his years of experience to hear the unspoken threat. Sure, they could do great things together, but she could also make his life hell if he continued to spurn her advances.

  31

  ‘What exactly are we here for, Janie?’

  Detective Sergeant Harrison sat in the driver’s seat of the pool car and watched the house across the street. Beside her, Detective Constable Jay Stringer wasn’t exactly fidgeting like a bored child, but it came close. They’d been parked up for half an hour now, and he either needed to go to the toilet or had actual ants in his pants.

  ‘This, according to our records, is the house of Christopher Allan,’ Janie said.

  ‘Aye, I know that. An’ I know you want to talk to him. So why are we sitting here staring at the place and not chapping on his door?’

  It wasn’t a bad question, although Janie didn’t feel she needed to answer it straight away. Instead she posed her own question. ‘What do you make of it? The house?’

  ‘The house? How?’

  Stringer’s comment wasn’t particularly helpful, but it was also accurate. Christopher Allan, it appeared, lived in a nondescript semi-detached bungalow on the outskirts of Colinton where it bumped up against Dreghorn to the south. A row of near-identical pebble-dash harled bungalows arced in a shallow curve towards the main road. Each of the buildings had a short stretch of front garden, many of which had been paved over to provide off-street parking. Judging by the cars, it was a relatively affluent area. More expensive than a detective sergeant’s salary might stretch to, certainly.

  ‘It’s not exactly the kind of place you’d expect a mugger to live, is it?’ she said.

  ‘Not a street mugger, no,’ Stringer conceded. ‘Maybe a banker though, and they’re a bit like muggers, when you stop and think about it.’

  Janie smiled at that. Jay wasn’t bad company. A lot less surly than Lofty Blane these days, for sure. She hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble when someone higher up the command chain found out what she was doing here. Unless, of course, what she was doing here went well, in which case they’d probably get away with it.

  ‘So this is where your man lives? With the broken bollocks?’

  Janie was about to explain what a ruptured testicle actually was, wondering all the while how a man might not know that when she did. Before she could speak, the front door opened and a woman stepped out. From a distance she appeared to be in her late thirties, maybe early forties, although it was difficult to tell given her long raincoat and wide-brimmed hat. She didn’t look back as she set off up the street towards Colinton Village, and neither did she notice the two detectives sitting in their unmarked car as she walked past. Janie watched her in the mirror until she reached the end of the road and disappeared around the corner.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  She climbed out of the car, waited for Stringer to do the same, then locked it. Together they approached the house, Stringer stepping to one side of the door as Janie reached out and rang the doorbell. Inside the house it chimed a cheery ding-dong that echoed away to silence.

  ‘You want me to go round the back?’ Stringer asked.

  ‘He’s got a blown knee and a ruptured testicle, Jay. He’s not going to leg it anywhere.’ Janie rang the doorbell again, and this time as the ding-dong faded away she saw movement in the textured glass sidelight. She waited patiently as a person moved very slowly across the hall and unlocked the door.

  ‘If you’re trying to bring me good news from the Lord, forget it.’

  ‘We’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses, don’t worry,’ Janie said in her friendliest voice. ‘Would you be Christopher Allan, by any chance?’

  Leaning on the door frame for support, the man glowered at her. Like the woman who had recently left, he was perhaps pushing forty. He was dressed in baggy jogging pants and a hoodie, face sporting a day’s worth of stubble, hair tousled as if he’d not showered recently. Bloodshot eyes suggested he’d not slept much recently either.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Harrison.’ Janie held up her warrant card just long enough for him not to be able to focus on it properly. ‘And this is my colleague Detective Constable Stringer. Might we have a word, Mr Allan? It’s about the accident you had last night.’

  She could see the thoughts play themselves across his face as plainly as if they’d been written in a little bubble above his head. Fear widened his eyes and the colour drained from his cheeks. Unable to run, and certainly in no position to put up any kind of fight, he was trapped and he knew it. His gaze slipped briefly past Janie towards the street beyond, but the woman wasn’t coming back any time soon. When he finally resig
ned himself to the situation, it was almost as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

  ‘Aye, you’d best come in then.’

  The inside of Christopher Allan’s house wasn’t much more inspiring than the outside. It didn’t appear to have been redecorated since it had been built, sometime in the fifties if Janie was any judge. When he opened the door fully to let them in, she saw that Allan was walking with the aid of a single crutch, and the leg of his jogging bottoms on that side had been neatly cut open so that the brace on his knee could fit. He led them at a snail’s pace to a pleasant living room at the back of the house, French windows opening up on to a long, thin garden with a half-decent view of the Pentland Hills.

  ‘My sister was just here.’ He lowered himself into an armchair with much effort and a great deal of grimacing. Even once he had settled he didn’t look particularly comfortable.

  ‘That’s OK. It’s you I wanted to talk to. About the accident.’

  ‘It’s just that I’d offer tea or coffee, but it takes me a while to move.’

  ‘We’re fine, thanks.’ Janie perched herself on the edge of the sofa and took out her notebook. ‘Unless you’re wanting one yourself? I’m sure Constable Stringer can find the kitchen.’

  That seemed to cheer Allan up no end. ‘You sure? I’d love a coffee then. Milk, no sugar. Kitchen’s that way.’ He twisted as he pointed towards the front of the house, then winced as the motion sent a spasm of pain through his groin.

  ‘I’ll no’ be long,’ Stringer said. ‘You wanting one, ma’am?’

  Janie suppressed the laugh that would have spoiled the mood. ‘Aye, go on, Constable. Same for me.’

  She watched him go, then turned her attention back to the injured man. ‘We’ll not keep you long, Mr Allan. I can see you’re in quite some discomfort there.’

  Allan squirmed like a little boy who’s wet himself. ‘Aye. They’ve given me some painkillers right enough. But they don’t seem to do anything.’

  ‘As I understand it you fell down the steps at Fleshmarket Close. Got a bit tangled up with your mate . . .’ Janie left the sentence unfinished, hoping Allan would fill the gap and not being disappointed.

  ‘Brian, aye. Brian Galloway. We’d been having a few drinks in the Malt Shovel, see? Maybe one too many. Cannae remember if I tripped an’ grabbed him or he tripped an’ grabbed me. All I know is one moment we was at the top of the steps moaning about life, an’ the next we were at the bottom covered in blood.’

  ‘It’s been wet lately, so I guess the steps were slippy, right enough.’ Janie flipped a page in her notebook, even though so far she’d not written anything down. ‘So, you and Brian. You go drinking together often?’

  A ghost of alarm flickered across Allan’s face at the question, as if he wasn’t sure how relevant it might be. ‘Aye, mebbe once every week or two. Have a blether about the old days. We’ve known each other since we were bairns. You know how it is.’

  Janie didn’t, but then she was considerably younger than Allan. She glanced around the room as he spoke, taking in the details that showed what kind of life he lived. It was tidy, but perhaps not clean, and there weren’t many personal touches. One corner of the room was dedicated to the god of big screen telly, complete with Blu-ray player, Xbox and a jumble of cables. The shelves behind it were full of games and discs, no books to be seen anywhere. On the other side of the room, the original fireplace had been boarded up, one of those electric fires made to look like a fake wood-burner in front of it.

  ‘Do you always go to the city centre? The Malt Shovel?’ Janie stood up and walked over to the mantelpiece as she asked the question. There were two photographs in cheap wooden frames sitting on the dusty surface. One showed a younger Allan, his arms around two young boys who must surely have been his sons. The other showed a slightly older Allan being presented with something by an old man with a heavy gold chain of office draped around his neck.

  ‘Aye, usually. I work in the Old Town, an’ it’s no’ as if we’ve much to go home to, either of us.’

  ‘Your boys?’ Janie asked, indicating the photograph.

  ‘Wi’ their mother in Australia. I tried to stop her taking them, but the courts—’ Allan’s words cut off abruptly as DC Stringer re-entered the room bearing two mugs of coffee.

  ‘That must be very hard. Not being able to see them often.’ Stringer handed Allan his coffee with a sympathetic smile.

  ‘Hardly even get to speak to them these days. I can video call, but that’s not much good if their mother’s filling their heads wi’ all kinds of shite about me so’s they don’t want to talk to me any more.’

  Janie could hear the anger in Allan’s voice, but it was a tired, old anger, beaten down by harsh reality. What could he do, after all, if his children were on the other side of the world? If their mother had turned them against him? But then again, why had she left him, and why had the courts let her take the children so far away? She shook the questions away. Not relevant, but then this entire visit was not relevant. And skating on thin ice.

  ‘Are you likely to want to take this up with the council, Mr Allan?’ she asked, waving her hand at his leg to explain the sudden change of subject. He stiffened, as if suddenly realising what was happening to him.

  ‘That why you’re here? To gather evidence? Make out me an’ Brian were so pished we’ve only ourselves to blame?’

  ‘Far from it. The incident was logged, so we have to follow it up. Paperwork, you know? It’s the bane of our lives.’

  From the narrowing of Allan’s eyes, Janie knew that she’d blown it. Of course there had been no incident logged; there’d been no incident to log. She put her untouched coffee down on the side table and stood up swiftly. At least Allan wasn’t able to do the same.

  ‘We’ll not trouble you any more, Mr Allan. I can see you’re in a lot of pain. We’ll see ourselves out, aye?’

  ‘Can we get on to the court records, find out what grounds there were for Mr Allan’s divorce? I’d like to know who represented him. I’ve a suspicion I already do, though.’

  Janie drove slowly along Morningside Road, mentally kicking herself for not taking the bypass and coming back into town at Burdiehouse. Traffic backed up Bruntsfield Place all the way from Tollcross, the aftermath of the previous evening’s car crash combined with yet more roadworks. In the passenger seat beside her, Stringer pulled out his PDA and started tapping at the screen. Not that he’d be able to access the information she wanted on it, but he could get someone else back at the station to make a start.

  ‘What was all that about, though?’ he asked after he’d finished and they’d moved another couple of hundred metres closer to their destination. It would have been far quicker to walk.

  ‘To be honest, I was making most of it up as I went along. Much like he was, too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t think he really ruptured a bollock and blew out his knee falling down the steps at Fleshmarket Close, do you?’

  Stringer paused a moment, head tilted slightly in thought. ‘I’ve seen folk do worse when they’ve had a skinful.’

  ‘OK then. Why were the two of them walking down the close anyway? If they’d been drinking at the Malt Shovel and were looking for a cab, they’d have walked down Coburn Street to the taxi rank outside Waverley Station. No, the whole falling-down-the-stairs thing’s nothing but a cock and bull story to cover up what really happened to them.’

  ‘And you know what that was?’

  ‘I have an inkling.’ The traffic started to move again, the lights for once working in their favour. ‘Need to speak to his friend, Brian Galloway. Only, I reckon poor Christopher there will have been on the phone to him soon as we left. Getting their stories straight and all that.’

  ‘You seem to be forgetting he’s the one with the injuries, Janie. Bad enough losing his kids like that, but now h
e’s going to be off work for a month. Probably won’t ever be able to walk properly again.’

  ‘He got those injuries when him and his pal tried to assault a teenage girl, Jay. More fool them for not knowing she was trained in self-defence and harbouring a great deal of anger towards all men.’

  Stringer opened his mouth to say something to that, but clearly couldn’t think of anything. He stared at her, gaping, for a good twenty seconds.

  ‘Careful you don’t swallow a fly,’ Janie said, and he closed it with a hollow clunk. Moments later her phone rang, DI Ritchie’s name appearing on the dashboard screen. She tapped the button to accept the call on hands free but didn’t even have time to say hello before the detective inspector started shouting.

  ‘Where are you, Janie? And what the hell are you up to?’

  ‘Ma’am? I’m on my way back to the station now.’

  ‘Don’t you “ma’am” me. I’ve just fielded a call from a weasel lawyer by the name of Tommy Fielding, asking why you’re harassing one of his clients.’

  The pieces, so close to fitting together, all began to click in Janie’s mind. ‘I think harassing is a bit strong. We went round to see if he was OK. Poor chap took a nasty tumble yesterday. Sustained some serious injuries.’

  The line went quiet for a while, although the screen on the dashboard assured Janie that DI Ritchie hadn’t hung up. By the time she spoke again, they were being waved into the car park by the poor uniformed constable who’d been landed with the job of manning the chain stretched across the gateway.

  ‘You’ve been working with Tony McLean far too long, Detective Sergeant.’ Ritchie’s tone was terse, but perhaps not as annoyed as it could have been. Janie knew better than to make any response. She didn’t think she’d get such a soft dressing-down from Detective Superintendent McIntyre.

  ‘Find me as soon as you get in. I want to know everything you’ve been doing. And I want to know why.’

  Janie started to say ‘Just parking, I’ll be there in a minute’, but before she could even open her mouth, Ritchie had hung up.