What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  ‘A bit is being kind. The whole thing’s going nowhere. We’ve drawn a blank on forensics, CCTV in the area’s non-existent, the victim was a recluse with very little social interaction, so we can’t even find a motive. Unless we can come up with something to suggest the Bairnfather Trust wanted her out of the cottage so it could redevelop the land, we’ve basically got nothing.’

  ‘Is that even likely?’ McIntyre asked.

  ‘Not really, no. It doesn’t track right. If someone wanted the site, they could just have torched the house without killing the old girl. Or they could have simply moved her out. Not as if she’d be able to put up much of a fight. She’d have been looked after well for the rest of her days. Probably a suite in the hotel, or a care home in the city. Money doesn’t seem to be a problem for Lord Bairnfather, so it’s not that.’ McLean took a swig of coffee, marshalling the few facts he’d managed to unearth into some kind of order. ‘If I had to guess, I’d say it was a hate crime. It has all the hallmarks. They beat her black and blue before setting her on fire, after all. I just can’t work out why someone would hate a ninety-year-old woman living all alone and hardly ever interacting with society. Why her, and why then?’

  ‘Well, not to put a dampener on things, but you’ll need to come up with something fairly soon. I’m getting a fair bit of pressure to wind the whole thing up. Stick it in a cold case file and move on.’

  McLean took the last bite of bacon bap, nodded his understanding as he chewed and swallowed. ‘Thought that might be the case. Not that I like it much. Poor old girl deserves better.’

  McIntyre pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘Aye, I know, Tony. But we do what we can and we have to be realistic about when to stop.’

  ‘And if Lord Bairnfather isn’t happy about it? He’s well connected, you know, might kick up a stink if he thinks his sainted aunt’s being swept under the rug. If you’ll excuse me mixing my metaphors.’

  McIntyre smiled at the joke. ‘Touché, Tony. But you can leave the smoothing of ruffled feathers to Gail. It’s what she’s best at. Which reminds me. Aren’t you meant to be reporting in to her about now?’

  The way to the chief superintendent’s office took him past the major incident room, so McLean felt he could be forgiven for letting himself in and checking on the lack of progress before delivering his report on Galloway. A quick scan of the room revealed that DC Stringer and DS Harrison were head to head like thieves in the far corner. Possibly hearing the door close, or some sixth sense kicking in, they both stopped whatever it was they had been doing and turned to face him.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ Harrison said, a moment before Stringer could get his greeting in. ‘Heard you were at an unexplained death in Fountainbridge. Anything unusual?’

  ‘I take it your interest means there’s no progress on the Cecily Slater case?’

  Harrison had the decency to look sheepish. ‘Not as such, sir. We’ve extended the archive search, but the most recent mention of her name I’ve found is a newspaper report about her brother’s funeral in 1984, so we’re pretty much stumped for useful background information. Can’t find much motive in the financials, either. She didn’t care about money, and the only beneficiary of her will’s already rolling in it. Gains nothing from her death.’

  Nothing he hadn’t already known. McLean considered Detective Superintendent McIntyre’s words to him in the canteen, and the thoughts they had provoked. ‘Let’s go further back in her life then. See if we can’t wring something out of the Burntwoods angle. Only, don’t spend too long chasing it down.’

  ‘They’re closing the case?’ Harrison asked. So cynical for one so young.

  ‘Murder cases are never closed, you know that. They just get sidelined by other work and quietly slip down to the basement.’

  ‘Seems a bit early though, doesn’t it? We’ve barely scratched the surface of this one.’

  ‘I know. And I’ll fight our corner as long as I can. But unless we get a substantial lead from somewhere soon, we’re only going round in circles.’

  McLean could see that the two detectives weren’t happy about it, and the quiet that had descended on the room suggested none of the other officers working the case were either. A quick look at the whiteboard wall reminded him of the messy corpse that had been left behind by whoever had taken out their anger on Cecily Slater. He wanted to find that person, or persons, and put them away. He wanted justice for the old woman so that she could rest in peace. So that he could rest in peace, more like. And yet sometimes you had to know when to let go.

  ‘One other thing, Janie,’ he said, as the detective sergeant began to turn away. She immediately snapped her attention back to him.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I hear you were looking into an incident in the Old Town a few days back. Two drunkards falling down some steps and doing themselves damage.’

  Harrison wasn’t good at putting on an innocent face, but she gave it her best shot. ‘Aye, sir. Wasn’t really anything much. Just following up a complaint for a friend. Kir— DI Ritchie told me to drop it, so I did.’

  McLean knew there was a great deal more to the story than that; Kirsty had bent his ear at great length about his corrupting influence. ‘You spoke to one of the men, yes?’

  ‘Christopher Allan, sir. He confirmed the story about the accident. Nasty injuries, though.’

  ‘The other one. Was his name Brian Galloway, by any chance? Lives in Fountainbridge?’

  ‘Aye, sir. Downfield Street . . .’ Harrison’s voice trailed away, her mouth staying open as the implications caught up with her.

  ‘Well there’s no point in trying to talk to him any more. He’s dead. Possibly a bad reaction to his painkillers, but we won’t know until the post-mortem’s done. Of course it’s equally possible that he died of the injuries inflicted on him when he accidentally fell down the steps of Fleshmarket Close. If that is indeed what happened.’

  ‘Oh.’ Harrison joined the dots.

  ‘This friend of yours with the complaint. What was that about, and where are they now?’

  ‘I . . . Umm . . . She’s at mine and Manda’s place. She crashed there the night of the attack. I sort of said it was OK for her to stay a while if she wanted.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you.’

  ‘Aye, well she was staying with Madame Rose, but she said the house was doing her head in. That’s why—’

  ‘Rose?’ McLean interrupted. ‘How does she know Rose? Who is this friend of yours?’

  Harrison paused a moment before answering, and McLean could see the thoughts tumbling across her face. There shouldn’t have been any harm in him knowing the name. Even if it turned out Galloway’s injuries had proved the ultimate cause of his death, he was on record as saying he got them falling down steps in a drunken stupor. No point in trying to prosecute anyone for that other than himself. And yet something was bothering Harrison.

  ‘I need background on Galloway for the Procurator Fiscal. If you want me to keep your friend’s name out of that, Janie, I’ll need a good reason why. Better than Rose, for sure.’

  ‘Her name’s Izzy. Isobel DeVilliers.’

  Well, that was a better reason.

  ‘She’s Con Fairchild’s half-sister, sir. You remember, that nastiness with the evangelists back in the spring?’

  ‘I’m aware of who she is. What’s she doing in Edinburgh?’

  ‘Well she was part of the crowd protesting against Tommy Fielding. I’m guessing that’s why he set a couple of his goons on her. Pity they didn’t know she could more than look out for herself.’

  McLean sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in the hope that it would all go away. It didn’t.

  ‘Detective Sergeant,’ he began, then realised that the entire room was listening in avidly. ‘Can we discuss this in my office?’ He gestured towards the door at the exact moment that it opened and the c
hief superintendent stepped in, closely followed by DI Ritchie. Elmwood had a scowl on her face that morphed into a broad smile the moment she saw him. Not a hello old friend smile, though. This was more of an I’ve got you now grin of triumph.

  ‘There you are, Tony. I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.’ She patted Ritchie on the shoulder in the manner of a schoolmistress sending the admonished pupil back to her seat in the class, then turned her attention fully on him. ‘Come on then. I think you owe me a report?’

  36

  ‘What exactly is your relationship with Brian Galloway, ma’am?’

  McLean stood in front of the chief superintendent’s desk, much as he had done many times before over the long years of his career. This had been Duguid’s office once, then Detective Chief Superintendent Brooks had taken it over. That was before all the restructuring of Police Scotland had ended up with a deputy chief constable being assigned this station as their centre of operations, and of course the first one had nabbed the best room in the building.

  ‘That’s not really any of your business, Tony.’ Elmwood had sat on the business side of the desk the moment they had both entered the room, tidying up a couple of open folders McLean wasn’t at all interested in sneaking a look at. Now she stood up, smoothed her uniform. ‘Why don’t we sit down and discuss this like grown-ups, eh?’

  She indicated the corner of the room, where a couple of comfortable chairs and a sofa were arranged around a low table. Behind them a shelf unit held a more expensive coffee machine than the one McLean had inherited with his office. As he sat down, Elmwood busied herself with it, not having bothered to ask him if he wanted a cup. It would have been a stupid question, of course. But she wasn’t to know that.

  ‘Milk?’ The chief superintendent bent to a small fridge wedged under the counter, and McLean was reminded uncomfortably of some of the more risqué films he’d rented as a teenager. The woman wasn’t exactly subtle, although she was better at dialogue than the actresses in police uniforms he’d seen on those old VHS tapes.

  ‘There you go.’ She handed him a cup. McLean took it, ignoring the touch of her finger on his hand. He’d chosen one of the chairs to sit in, and Elmwood looked at him slightly askance for a moment before seating herself on the sofa opposite.

  ‘Well, this is all very nice, isn’t it?’ she said after a moment, and McLean began to reappraise her skill with dialogue. ‘So tell me what you saw at Brian Galloway’s place.’

  The chief superintendent didn’t seem overly upset at the death of someone she knew, so that suggested they hadn’t been close friends. There was a connection, though, and that in itself should have excluded her from having anything to do with the investigation. Even if it turned out Galloway’s death was entirely natural.

  ‘I spoke to his mother,’ McLean said, watching Elmwood’s face for any hint of a reaction. ‘She was the one who found him and called it in. She said he’d not been living in that house long. The state of the place backed that up. It wasn’t what you’d call a home.’

  ‘What about Galloway himself? I take it the pathologist saw him?’

  McLean nodded. ‘He’ll schedule the PM as soon as possible, but his initial thoughts were something interfered with Galloway’s breathing. No signs of strangulation, though, so his best guess is some allergic reaction. He was on painkillers, you know? He’d broken his nose and several of his fingers.’

  Elmwood seemed unsurprised by this knowledge, which set McLean’s internal alarms to a gentle ringing. It hadn’t been that long since Galloway had either fallen down the stairs as he’d claimed, or been soundly beaten by a young woman still in her teens. The former incident had been logged and filed away as needing no further investigation; the latter was knowledge not shared among a great many people. And yet the chief superintendent knew.

  ‘How did you find out about his death, ma’am?’ McLean tried again.

  ‘You really have to stop calling me that, Tony.’ Elmwood smiled that predatory smile at him. ‘Even Kirsty calls me Gail.’

  McLean put down his coffee cup, still as full as when the chief superintendent had handed it to him. He stood up, edged around the low table. ‘I’ll be going now, ma’am. Please don’t ask me to run errands for you when I’m in the middle of a murder investigation again.’

  He didn’t make it as far as the door before she called out, but he had gone further than he expected.

  ‘Detective Inspector McLean. I expect my officers to obey orders when they are given. Now come back here and report.’

  He fought against clenching his fists, began a quick, silent count to ten in his head, made it as far as five before turning swiftly to face the chief superintendent. The smug expression on her face only made things worse, which he knew perfectly well was why she had pasted it there.

  ‘With all due respect, Chief Superintendent, I am a detective inspector with over twenty years’ experience. A detective constable could have – should have – been despatched to that scene to make a preliminary examination. That order should have come from Control, not from one of my detective sergeants on instruction from you. And there was no reason to do everything so swiftly. It’s not like he was going anywhere. So I’ll ask you again. How did you know about Galloway’s death? Who brought it to your attention and why?’

  ‘Are you angry with me, Tony?’ Elmwood actually fluttered her eyelashes at him, which wasn’t a good idea when he’d been up way too early and only had the one coffee.

  ‘This is a waste of time, ma’am. I’ll email you a report once the post-mortem’s done.’

  McLean had his hand on the door handle before the chief superintendent spoke again. ‘Detective Sergeant Harrison shows a lot of promise, wouldn’t you say?’

  He grasped the cold metal but didn’t turn the handle. It was easy enough to see the threat for what it was. The chief superintendent knew she had no power over him; he could walk out of this office, down the stairs, get into Emma’s car and never come back. They could sack him, even find a way to deny him his pension, and it wouldn’t make a difference other than being petty. But Harrison was at the bottom of the ladder, just beginning to climb. She had a bright future ahead of her, and Elmwood would crush it if he didn’t do exactly what she told him to. Damn her, and damn all the bloody politicians getting in the way of just doing the job properly.

  McLean slowly released his grip on the door handle, let his shoulders slump in an overly theatrical show of defeat. Let her think she’d won – she had, after all. This time.

  ‘Galloway died of asphyxiation, most likely due to a reaction to prescription painkillers. There’s nothing to suggest his death was anything other than an unfortunate accident. Despite his rock and roll background, we didn’t find any evidence he’d been supplementing his medication with something illegal, so you needn’t worry yourself on that score. I’ll have the post-mortem results by tomorrow at the latest, and a report for the PF by the end of the same day. It will, of course, come to you first. Is that OK, ma’am?’

  Elmwood stared at him for long seconds, her face unreadable, but not friendly. Finally she nodded, once, and with the minimum of movement possible. It was enough for McLean. With an even more minimal nod of his own, he turned and left.

  His meeting with the chief superintendent still weighing on his mind, McLean strode back to his office and slumped into his chair. The reports and paperwork piled around his desk were things he needed to attend to, but it was hard to focus on anything. Not when he knew that woman was only a few tens of metres away.

  He should have seen the game she was playing from their first meeting. Looking back, it was painfully obvious, and yet also unbelievable. He’d been grateful to her for cutting through the Gordian knot of internal investigations, Professional Standards hearings and all the political pressure being brought to bear to punish him for the Anya Renfrew case. The demotion had been meaningless; a small pay cu
t he of all people would barely notice, and a big drop in responsibility when it came to strategising and forward planning. No wonder he’d ignored the warning signs; Gail Elmwood had ridden in like a knight in shining armour to rescue him.

  And now she was calling in the favour, since he was clearly not going to respond to her incessant flirting with him.

  Frustrated, he pulled the nearest folder to him and flipped it open. For a moment he couldn’t recall the details of the case, but then it started to fall back into place. The estate agent, Don Purefoy. Crushed to death by a rockfall on his building site. The post-mortem report confirmed that he’d died from asphyxiation due to the weight of boulders pinning him to the ground. His ribs had been cracked, but otherwise his body had been left remarkably unscathed. The few photographs in the report made that abundantly clear, as Purefoy’s head showed no signs of damage whatsoever. There had been no obvious sign of foul play, but it was clear from Angus’s terse prose that he considered the circumstances unusual. DS Harrison had conducted preliminary interviews with the two people who had found the body, and she had compiled this report on his death for the Procurator Fiscal. Which reminded him he needed to have words with the detective sergeant, both a ticking off and a warning to tread very carefully where the chief superintendent was concerned. He reached for his phone, about to call her, when something else caught his eye.

  Putting the report to one side, he flicked through the piles on his desk until he found another one. Steve Whitaker, spontaneous human combustion victim. The photographs in the report reminded him of the scene itself, and he could almost smell the burned flesh. Again, Angus had been cautious with his post-mortem results, although this time it was more obvious why. It was possible, given the right combination of circumstances, for a body’s subcutaneous fat to act a bit like the wax in a candle. That was the best available explanation for the extremely uncommon but certainly real phenomenon. His best bet, and the conclusion of the report, was that Whitaker had fallen asleep drunk and managed to set himself on fire in such a way that only his torso burned. Not his head, lower legs, arms or indeed the chair in which he had been sitting. Crucially, there were no obvious signs of foul play. Same as with Purefoy, and now with Brian Galloway.