What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  Harrison shook her head. ‘She took a bit of a turn. Kirsty— DCI Ritchie said to send her home with a constable after I’d spoken to her. We’ll follow it up once the doctor’s given her the OK.’

  ‘Is Ritchie in charge then?’

  ‘Aye, sir. She’s upstairs wi’ the pathologist. Think they’re waiting for you to show up, actually.’

  Intrigued, McLean followed the detective sergeant up the next two flights of stairs and out on to a wide hallway. There were only two apartments on this level, Fielding’s being the one with its door wide and a couple of uniformed officers standing outside. One of them held a clipboard, and the other handed him some paper overshoes and a pair of latex gloves ‘just to be on the safe side’.

  ‘I’ll wait out here, sir,’ Harrison said as McLean signed himself in. He pulled on the overshoes and snapped on the gloves, glad not to have to go for the full paper overalls, hood and mask. Then with a last glance over the hallway, he stepped inside.

  From his encounters with the lawyer before, McLean had come away with the impression of a man who spent money to show that he had it, rather than from any innate sense of taste. The apartment only served to reinforce that appraisal. It was expensive, largely open-plan and filled with sleek, modernist furnishings that were a vulgar expression of wealth over comfort. The wall opposite the entrance was glass from floor to ceiling, looking out on to the street through vertical blinds. Across the road, an old church stood empty, its windows boarded up, its walls scrawled with graffiti. From this height, he could see down into the remains of a graveyard, which perhaps wasn’t the nicest of views, but at least meant the neighbours were quiet.

  Noises from an open door reminded him of why he was here. McLean turned slowly, taking in the room, looking for anything that might have been out of place. Then he remembered that the cleaner had already been through this main space, so it was unlikely there would be any clues to be found. It certainly looked like a room that nobody really lived in.

  The bedroom would have been large by modern city apartment standards, but with several people in it including the deceased, it felt small. Sharing the same glass wall as the main room, the blinds on this side of the divider had been closed, leaving only the light from an overhead fitting and a couple of bedside lamps. All attention was on the king size bed and the figure lying sprawled on it. As McLean took in the scene, it wasn’t hard to understand why.

  Tommy Fielding lay naked on top of his sheets, one hand spread limply over his crotch, as if covering his modesty even in death. The other hand reached up behind his head, where a silk tie had been fastened round his neck, then looped over the bed frame, the free end draped over his half-curled fingers. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Well that’s not exactly how I imagined starting my day,’ McLean said. All eyes turned towards him, except for the pathologist, who was bending over the body, peering at Fielding’s head.

  ‘You got the message then, Tony.’ DCI Ritchie stood on the other side of the bed, arms folded, face sombre.

  ‘Aye, I was out talking to this one’s boss.’ He nodded at the body. ‘Was going to be speaking with him next, but I guess that’s not happening now. What’s the story? He do this to himself?’

  Cadwallader stood upright with a great deal of groaning, then turned slowly to face McLean. ‘Hard to say without having a more detailed look at him in the mortuary. Certainly looks like a bit of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong. I think Kirsty has other ideas, though.’

  McLean looked to the DCI for clarification. ‘How so?’

  ‘There’s just a couple of problems. Here.’ Ritchie led him to a half-open door, beyond which was an en-suite bathroom. The large mirror above the basin was clear until she reached a latex-gloved hand for the tap and turned it on. Steam billowed up from the scalding hot water, misting the glass and revealing letters, words.

  ‘. . . ying breath I cur . . .’ McLean turned his head to one side as if that would make more of the message readable.

  ‘With my dying breath I curse thee.’ Ritchie switched off the tap. ‘Don’t want to upset the forensic techs any more than necessary. We’ll get them to analyse that. Maybe pull some prints from the glass.’

  ‘You said a couple of problems. I take it that’s only one of them, then.’

  ‘Aye, and not the worst.’ Ritchie gave a nod of her head to indicate they leave the room. ‘Come on. I’ll fill you in.’

  McLean followed Ritchie out through the bedroom, casting one last glance at Fielding as he went. The words on the mirror could have been a sick joke for all he knew, more than likely a misdirection. But something about them struck a chord, as did the fact that Fielding, like his three associates Whitaker, Purefoy and Galloway, had died in what appeared to be an unlikely and unfortunate accident. He didn’t like coincidences at the best of times, but four deaths went far beyond that.

  He wanted to ask who had found the message and how, but Ritchie led him to the far end of the apartment’s main open-plan living space before he could speak. Fielding’s work area was sparsely furnished around a modern steel and glass desk and a chair that looked like it couldn’t possibly be comfortable to sit in. A slim laptop computer lay open on the desk, a few reports and printouts beside it. Fielding’s briefcase sat on the floor, open, and McLean could well imagine this was an area the cleaner might have been told to leave alone. Either that, or the lawyer would normally have packed all this stuff away and taken it with him to work. If he’d not been dead, and all.

  ‘What’s going on here, Kirsty? Why’s nobody want to talk in front of civilians?’ McLean tapped a latex-gloved finger on the desk, partly distracted by the names printed on the report folders.

  ‘Fielding did have a visitor last night. But it’s complicated.’

  ‘Complicated how? Why haven’t they been brought in for questioning already?’

  Ritchie gave him a look far more old-fashioned than her years. ‘Because his visitor was Gail, Tony.’

  ‘Gail? Wait. Gail Elmwood?’ McLean asked the question even though he knew it was stupid.

  ‘I know. It’s mad, right? But they were seen. The two of them came back here last night. Together.’

  ‘But she hates him.’

  That got him a raised eyebrow, or what passed for an eyebrow on Ritchie’s face. She’d lost both of them rescuing him from a fire several years ago and they’d never really grown back afterwards.

  ‘Hates him? Who have you been talking to?’

  McLean gave her the briefest of rundowns on what he’d found out, first from Dalgliesh and then from Simon Martin. ‘Of course, it might all be bollocks, and I can’t believe she’d have got the job in the first place if she was as corrupt as some folk think. Martin’s got an axe to grind, even if he says it’s all water under the bridge. It’s fair to say she’s known Tommy Fielding a long time, though. Now you’re telling me they met last night and that’s him dead. Does she know?’

  ‘That’s the million-dollar question now, isn’t it, Tony?’ Ritchie ran a weary hand over her short-cropped hair, let out a sigh. ‘I’ll have to speak to her. Or maybe ask Jayne to.’

  McLean nodded his understanding. As long as it wasn’t him breaking the news. He glanced down at the reports on the desk.

  ‘I’ll speak to his colleagues, will I?’ He remembered to phrase it as a question to his DCI, reaching out and picking up the top folder as he spoke. Someone was going to have to take on Fielding’s caseload anyway.

  ‘Aye, might as well. Let’s get an idea of what he was doing in the past forty-eight hours.’ Ritchie smacked herself on the forehead with the heel of one hand. ‘Fuck, he’s mates with the chief constable, isn’t he? We’re going to have to make sure this is done absolutely perfectly.’

  McLean only half noticed. The writing on the front of the second folder had been obscured until he’d picked up the first, but now he co
uld read it quite plainly. A name that was almost too convenient to have been left here by accident.

  Cecily Slater.

  By the time he made it back down to the ground floor of the building, the door to the security room was slightly ajar and light shone from within. McLean tapped on the wood, before sticking his head through the gap to find DS Harrison and an elderly gentleman in the ill-fitting uniform of a private security firm. The detective sergeant stood while the man was seated, both looking at a couple of flat-screen monitors showing security camera footage.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ he asked as Harrison looked around to see him.

  ‘Aye, sir. Harry here was just making a copy for us.’

  The elderly security guard twisted in his seat, greeted McLean with a smile and a nod, then went back to what he’d been doing.

  ‘It helped that your lovely colleague here knew what time Mr Fielding and his friend left the Scotston Hotel.’ The guard tapped a couple of buttons and the right-hand screen flickered to reveal an image of the lobby, a timestamp in the corner ticking up from half past nine the night before. It didn’t take long before the image showed the front door swing open and two people walk in. If he hadn’t been able to see their faces, McLean might not have believed that it was the same Tommy Fielding and Gail Elmwood he had heard such lurid tales about. They clung to each other like teenage lovers, almost stumbling to the lift and chatting animatedly as they waited for it to arrive.

  ‘Nothing much happens for about an hour.’ Harry the guard tapped the keys again, the only thing on the screen that changed being the timestamp. After a moment, the lift door opened and Elmwood stepped out alone. She paused for long enough to straighten her jacket and roll her shoulders, then walked to the door and out of the building.

  ‘Is that the only camera? There’s nothing on the landing upstairs?’ McLean asked.

  ‘Oh, aye. I’ll put that up next, but it’s much the same thing.’ Harry the guard tapped his keyboard with two crooked arthritic fingers. The screen jumped, this time showing the wide corridor that served the two flats on the third floor. McLean watched as the couple went to Fielding’s front door, and then inside.

  ‘Again, there’s nothing happens until about an hour later.’ Harry tapped and the screen jumped once more. A couple of seconds, and Fielding’s door opened. Elmwood stepped out, pulled the door closed behind her without looking back, and headed for the lift. It must have still been sitting at the third floor as she barely had to wait at all before it opened and she stepped inside.

  ‘Well, at least we know what time she left. And he didn’t wave her off or anything.’ McLean stared at the screen, the scene unchanging save for the slow ticking timestamp in the corner. ‘What about the other flat on that floor? Nobody come and go last night? Have we spoken to them?’

  Harry tapped his keyboard a final time, reached forward and plucked a memory stick from the slim box underneath the screens. As he handed it over, McLean noticed it bore the same logo as the one on his uniform.

  ‘Nobody there just now, sir. Terrible story, it was. Young lad, nice chap but more money than sense. Seems he lost control of his car up the road there.’ Harry the guard nodded his head in the vague direction of the Lothian Road and Tollcross. ‘Such a terrible waste.’

  53

  ‘News coming in of the death of leading lawyer and men’s rights activist Tommy Fielding . . .’

  Gary stares at the screen, mouth open in disbelief. It’s got so bad now he hardly gets up before ten in the morning, slouches about in his boxers and a hoodie against the cold. Can’t afford much heating, can’t afford anything better to watch than the crappy little screen on his knackered old laptop. At least the neighbour’s too stupid to put a password on their Wi-Fi, otherwise he’d not even have that. Clicked on the news and this was the first thing he saw.

  ‘. . . Senior partner of DCF Law, Fielding was apparently found dead in his Fountainbridge apartment by a cleaning lady early this morning. Police have yet to issue a statement other than to confirm the death and that they are looking into it . . .’

  Fuck. He was there. Just last night. He sat with Fielding and his two lawyer mates in the bar. Drank with them. And then that bitch came along and ruined it all. No. Not just her. There were others. All those polis bitches spying on him, spying on Fielding. Waiting ’til he was alone and they could fuck him over. Just like Bella fucked him over. Like all those women thinking they were better than him, better than all of them.

  ‘. . . Colourful and controversial career, first in London, where he came to prominence following . . .’

  Gary shuts off the noise by closing the laptop lid. He doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t need to know anything about Fielding’s past. The lawyer was there when it mattered. He was helping. Going to get Gary back with his wee girl. Get him his job back too. Now that’s all gone to fuck and they did it. Those witches killed Gary’s hope. Killed him. She killed him.

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  Gary should be surprised. He’s alone in this pokey wee one-room flat. Hasn’t had any visitors since Bazza helped him move in. Only the wart-faced old witch of a landlady constantly pestering him for rent. Well fuck her. Only, not fuck fuck her. That’d be gross. She’s like, eighty or something. And hideous.

  Gary shakes away the thought, looks around. There’s nobody here, and not exactly anywhere they could hide anyways. He can even see into the wee shower cubicle toilet space that’s probably not health and safety compliant. He’s left the door open because otherwise the smell gets so bad you can hardly breathe in there. Better to let it out, isn’t that what Bazza always used to say?

  ‘You just going to sit here moping, Gary?’

  The voice is in his head, but it sounds like Tommy Fielding. Well, not exactly like Tommy Fielding. It’s like the way the lawyer used to speak to him, only with a different accent.

  ‘Tommy’s no use to me any more, Gary. He let them in and they destroyed him.’

  ‘Let them in? Who’s them?’ Gary speaks the words out loud, even though there’s nobody to hear him.

  ‘The witches, Gary. The evil hags who sold their souls to the devil. Fornicated with him in exchange for ungodly power over men. You know who I am talking about.’

  And Gary does. The young redhead screaming at him, calling him disgusting names. The queer pair in the pub, one a cop, the other who the fuck knows? And the queen bitch, head of the polis.

  ‘Yes. Her. She’s the one you need to focus on, Gary. The one you need to destroy.’

  ‘I . . . Destroy?’

  ‘Would you let her get away with it? With everything she has done? Her and all the others?’

  With the words come images, feelings, sensations. Gary sees Bella holding a wailing Mary, body turned away from him as if he’s some kind of monster. Bella’s poisonous lies already infecting Mary’s innocent soul. He sees a woman he’s never met before but instinctively knows is Jim’s wife, the woman who took his twin daughters from him and persuaded the judge their father was a child molester. He sees other women and knows who they are, what they have done, the scheming, the lies and injustice. They stand in rows, their numbers swelling, all screaming at him like the protesters at the meeting. All baying for his blood. And in that moment he knows that they are a cancer growing in the heart of good society. They are not women, but witches. An evil abomination that must be swept from the face of the earth lest good men like him drown in their terrible filth.

  There is no rumble of thunder. No drum roll or magic explosion. There is only Gary, but changed. Something has opened his eyes to how things really are. Without another thought, he stands, turns and walks out of the shithole that is all the witches have left him. He knows what needs to be done.

  54

  ‘How is it we didn’t know that the young loon who stole my car lived in the same apartment block as Tommy Fieldin
g? The same bloody floor.’

  McLean stood in Detective Superintendent McIntyre’s office, back to the window wall and the grey winter skies outside. For once the office door was closed, the only officers present him, McIntyre, DCI Ritchie and DS Harrison. They’d seen Fielding’s body off to the mortuary an hour earlier, Cadwallader promising he’d get to it as soon as was practicable and let them know the outcome. His initial estimate of time of death, given as grudgingly as ever, had been sometime around midnight, which took a bit of the heat off Elmwood, but not all of it.

  ‘We haven’t been watching Tommy Fielding, Tony. He’s not been part of any investigation until you suddenly started taking an interest.’ McIntyre sat at her desk, leaning back until her head almost touched the wall. ‘I’m still not entirely sure why you did that anyway.’

  McLean looked to Harrison for back-up, then realised that was unfair. ‘We should have been watching him, though. We should have interviewed him and the other partners in his law firm the moment we knew they were handling Cecily Slater’s affairs. He had her file in his apartment.’

  ‘Which you’ll get to look at in due course, Tony.’ McIntyre was annoyingly calm where McLean felt agitated. Something was about to break, he could feel it. Even if he couldn’t say what, or how he knew.

  ‘The more important question right now is what we’re going to do about the chief superintendent.’ Ritchie sat at the conference table, Harrison next to her. McLean knew he should take a seat too, try to calm down and look at the situation rationally. For some reason he was finding that hard to do right now.

  ‘Where is she now?’ he asked.

  ‘Gartcosh, sweet-talking our friends in the NCA. She’s not due back until late afternoon, so we’ve a bit of time to work out our strategy.’ McIntyre stood up, crossed the room to the conference table and pulled out a chair. ‘Sit down, Tony. You’re looming. If you start pacing, I’ll start calling you Dagwood.’