The Gathering Dark

by James Oswald

  ‘What about the victims?’ DCI McIntyre asked. ‘Have we been able to identify all of them yet?’

  ‘Not all, no.’ McLean shuffled his copy of the report he and the detective constables had put together for the meeting. There were a few preliminary photographs from the scene at the back of it that didn’t make for comfortable viewing. ‘Some of the bodies were quite badly disfigured. Chemical burns, crushing and dismemberment mostly. City mortuary are pulling in extra help to work through them all, but I reckon some will need DNA for identification.’

  ‘That bad?’ The chief constable leafed through his own copy of the report, his face paling as he reached the end. ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘I’d like to make a start on speaking to the survivors as soon as possible. We’ve contact details for most of the uninjured nearby as well, but it wouldn’t hurt to put out a media call for witnesses. Lots of people with camera phones there, so a trawl of the usual internet sites should help fill in the blanks, too.’ McLean paused, aware that all eyes were on him again. ‘That is, if you want me to lead the investigation.’

  ‘Looks to me like you already are, McLean.’ The chief constable checked his watch, pushed his chair from the table and stood up, leaving his copy of the report behind. ‘Now I suppose we’d better go and speak to our friends in the press.’

  ‘There’s one more thing, sir. That you should know, I think.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The tanker. It was supposed to be carrying harmless sewage. That’s what the cargo manifest said, and the hazard-warning panel on the side of the bowser. You’ll have seen from the photographs that it wasn’t. We’re still not exactly sure what it was carrying, but some nasty industrial solvent would be my best guess. Something that can melt skin and bones.’

  ‘Oh Christ. The press are just going to love that.’ The superintendent from the anti-terrorism task force had kept his copy of the report and was peering closely at one of the photographs. He put it down on the desk and pulled out his phone, started to place a call. ‘This changes things. If someone’s using improvised chemical weapons then we’re in deep shit.’

  McLean played the scene back in his head again, seeing the truck turn, its trailer jackknife and roll in slow motion on to the crowded bus stop. Could that have been deliberate? He really didn’t think so.

  ‘I’m still not sure, sir. Even an empty container truck would have caused just as much damage. This seems like a complication too far. And it would require too much planning, surely? You’d have heard something, wouldn’t you?’

  The head of the anti-terrorism task force scowled at him, but put his phone down without making his call. ‘So what are you suggesting, then? Illegal transport of waste goods? Just happens to crash in the city centre?’

  ‘Something along those lines, aye. We’ll know more once we’ve examined the truck and seen the PM report on the driver, but I honestly think he was doing everything he could to avoid hitting anyone. This is just an unhappy accident.’

  ‘Unhappy.’ The chief constable growled the word like a poked bear. ‘Aye, that’s about the size of it.’

  6

  ‘How can you be so sure this isn’t a terrorist attack? Shouldn’t we be putting the country on alert?’

  The smell of the crash still clung to him, a faint but sharp odour that threatened to bring the headache back every time McLean caught a whiff. No one had mentioned it, but he could barely smell anything else. It was in the weave of his jacket, the collar of his shirt, his hair, released whenever he moved. He should have gone straight home from the accident scene, showered and changed before heading in to the station. With any luck the investigation would have been handed to another detective that way. With any luck. He laughed silently, mirthlessly. Sat at the top table in front of the media, the only luck McLean had going his way was that the chief constable and Chief Superintendent Forrester were more senior and more interesting targets for questioning.

  ‘It’s Nicky, isn’t it?’ The chief constable peered over the top of his spectacles into the crowd in the general direction of where the question had come from. He paused a moment, as if expecting an answer, then continued. ‘It’s true this bears some of the hallmarks of a terrorist attack, and, believe me, the anti-terrorism task force is hard at work already trying to find out who might be responsible. It’s also possible that this is no more than a tragic accident. We had no intelligence of an impending attack, and, believe me, we know far more about what’s going on than you would suspect.’

  ‘Didn’t the truck contain corrosive chemicals though? Surely that just confirms this is terrorism.’

  ‘I rather think you’re reading too much into this.’ The chief constable shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘We’re not discounting terrorism, of course, but lurid speculation helps no one and scaremongering simply feeds the agenda of the terrorists anyway, doesn’t it?’

  Nicky the journalist didn’t respond to this, which McLean considered a small victory.

  ‘Our first priority is to identify who is responsible for this and prosecute them. We have teams investigating where the truck and its cargo came from, teams identifying the dead and injured. We’re reviewing all the CCTV footage we have, and would appeal to the public to come forward with any personal videos they might have. We’ll be providing regular updates as things proceed, but rest assured we won’t leave any stone unturned until we’ve got to the bottom of what happened here this morning. Thank you. No more questions.’

  No stone unturned. It was a strange expression, and as its oddness rolled across his thoughts, McLean realized he’d zoned out of the press conference, the grating, nasal tone of the chief constable. No one had noticed, of course. All attention was on the top brass in their shiny uniforms; the boss man and the senior officer in charge of the area where everything had happened. Quotes from them would keep the editors happy, and made for far better telly than a bleary-eyed plain-clothes inspector trying not to yawn too much. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, bringing another headache-inducing chemical onslaught as the senior officers filed out past him. Chief Superintendent Forrester put a hand on his shoulder as he went past, stopping McLean from standing up himself.

  ‘You look like shit, Tony. Get yourself home and an early night. I’ll deal with his nibs and the others.’ The chief superintendent winked awkwardly, trying to co-ordinate the motion with a nod in the direction of the departing chief constable. ‘Reckon this shit-show’s still going to be here in the morning.’

  McLean tried a smile, but it only made the dry skin on his face ache. ‘Think that went well enough.’ He wasn’t sure if he’d meant it as a statement or a question. Forrester opted for the latter.

  ‘Oh, it’s given them something to chew on. For now, at least. But they’ll be back. That’s the problem with the press. They’re never satisfied.’

  ‘Thought you were going home after the press conference, sir.’

  McLean could have slipped into his old office at the back of the station unnoticed, but the route to the new one took him past too many other rooms. He’d forgotten, too, that he had pressed it into service as an interim incident room. Detective Constables Stringer and Blane had gone, but DC Janie Harrison was still there, sitting at the conference table, peering at her laptop and scribbling notes down on an A4 pad.

  ‘I was. Well, I will do. Just need to get my thoughts together. Maybe grab some coffee before I try to drive home.’ McLean sat down more heavily than he had meant to, the chair tipping backwards and almost dumping him on the floor. Grabbing the edge of the desk toppled stacks of papers and he watched them tumble through puzzled eyes.

  ‘You sure you wouldn’t be better getting a taxi home, sir? Or maybe I could ask one of the squad cars to drop you off. You look done in.’ Harrison closed down her laptop, stood up and walked over to the far corner of the room. A moment later she returned with a mugful of coffee from the filter machine that was another perk of this office. It had been sitting on the hotplate fo
r too long, but it still smelled better than the dull chemical reek rising from his clothes.

  ‘You know you don’t have to wait on me,’ McLean said as he took the mug in both hands. It was milkier than he would have liked, and laced with enough sugar to cause a riot at a toddler’s party.

  Harrison smiled. ‘Aye, I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t if I want to. I’ll have a word with the duty sergeant, too. See if there’s a patrol headed over to your part of town.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ McLean drank deeply, the coffee only lukewarm. Its sickly sweetness washed away some of the taste of the lorry crash and soon enough the caffeine would get to work on his headache. At least he hoped so.

  ‘You get anywhere with the hauliers?’ he asked.

  Harrison frowned. ‘Jay and Lofty went out to see them but the yard was locked tight. Nobody about. We managed to get on to the boss though. Said he’d called all the other trucks in as soon as he heard about the crash. Going to have his mechanics look over them all before they go out again.’

  ‘Sounds pretty dodgy to me.’ McLean reached for his phone, stabbed at the screen to bring it to life. That was another thing about this room; it had a reliable mobile signal.

  ‘Aye, I know. Had a chat with Grumpy Bob about it since you were all in the press conference. He’s got a patrol car sat outside the compound gates. Anyone goes inside and we’ll hear about it.’

  ‘They’ve checked there’s no other way in, I take it.’ McLean put his phone back down on the desk, no longer needing to make the call he’d been intending to. Harrison gave him a look that was far too old-fashioned for one so young.

  ‘Mechanics usually start about seven in the morning. All the drivers have been told to stay home. I’ve arranged to go and interview the boss first thing. Manda should’ve had a chance to look at the crashed truck by then, so we’ll know whether or not we need to shut the place down.’

  McLean leaned back into his chair, slowly this time so that it wouldn’t try to kill him. ‘Sounds like you and Bob have got everything under control. That’s good work, Constable.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I took the liberty of scheduling a morning briefing for six o’clock. Figured we’d need to be quick off the mark with this, seeing as how the chief constable’s involved and everything. Didn’t think overtime’d be a problem, at least to start with.’

  McLean glanced at the clock above the door, even though he’d only just seen the time on his phone. Almost seven in the evening. Well past shift end for sergeants and constables. An age since he’d headed out of the station to walk across town for a meeting in the West End. He stood up, swaying only slightly. The coffee had woken him enough, though how long it would last was anyone’s guess.

  ‘Six, you say? Guess we’d both better get home then. I’ve a feeling tomorrow’s going to be another long day.’

  The flash of the indicators and quiet ‘plip’ of the central lock disarming echoed across the car park as McLean stepped out into the evening warmth. A gentle breeze helped to take the chemical smell away and he stood for a moment just breathing in and out, staring sightlessly at his car.

  His new car. The old Alfa Romeo was still sitting in the corner of the forensics service vehicle compound, under a heavy-duty tarpaulin. A mess of ripped steel and broken glass all too reminiscent of the truck crash. Deep down, he knew it wasn’t going to be economical to repair. He could buy one the same colour and year that had already been restored, but it wouldn’t have been the same. Wouldn’t have been his father’s old car, owned since new almost fifty years ago. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it. Amanda Parsons would never forgive him if he scrapped it, though what else he could do with the wreck, McLean wasn’t sure. Perhaps it could be carefully dismantled, its organs donated so that another might live a little longer.

  It was the forensic scientist who had suggested this new Alfa and DC Harrison’s uncle who had sourced it for him. Brand new, impossibly shiny in metallic black, it had the same model name as his old Giulia, but was a different beast altogether. He’d only driven it between his house and the station in the month since it had been delivered, barely taken it over forty miles an hour, but the noise from the V6 engine suggested it would happily go a lot faster than that. More often than not he’d find a group of young uniform constables standing around staring at it with mouths slightly open. It had that sleek, powerful look to it that would be useless for a stakeout. There was no one about this evening, though.

  The drive across town took longer than normal, the roads busier than he was used to. Had they managed to remove the truck yet? If not that would explain the traffic. Nothing like closing down one of the main city arteries to bugger up everything else. McLean found himself looking for a place to turn around, go back to the station and find out. The incident room should have been up and running by now, calls coming into the accident hotline, names of the injured and dead collated. Things he needed to know, answers to the thousand and one questions left hanging when he’d walked out of the station. He shook his head to dislodge the stupid idea, winced as the squat chemical headache flared again. It made no difference whether the crash scene had been cleared or not. Other people were looking after that, and other people would be manning the phone lines. He didn’t need to micro-manage everything. What he needed was a shower, a change of clothes, some food and his bed.

  Traffic finally began to ease as he neared home, cruising slowly past the church, slowing down almost to a crawl at the point where his old car had died. McLean still couldn’t understand what had happened. An empty road, no other vehicles, and yet somehow the Alfa had been ripped apart, its front smashed in as if it had hit a tree at fifty miles an hour. He’d been drugged at the time, which added to the confusion, but even the forensics experts were baffled.

  The kitchen lights were on as he parked alongside Emma’s blue and rust Peugeot. McLean found himself gripping the top of the car door as he climbed out, the world swaying slightly. Perhaps Harrison had been right to suggest a taxi or a lift in a squad car, but he was home now. Safe.

  Except that there was something strange in the air. Stranger than the way breathing in noxious chemical fumes could account for. He thought he could feel the weight of many eyes upon him, and sure enough when McLean peered deep into the rhododendron bushes that lined the gravel driveway, he caught a glimpse of them. Feline, unblinking. Looking around, he noticed a tabby cat lying on the roof of Emma’s car, another on the wall that separated the courtyard from the garden, a third sitting in front of the coach house door, cleaning its ears with a licked front paw.

  ‘Back again, are you?’ McLean shrugged, releasing another whiff of chemical headache into the darkening air. ‘Well as long as you don’t all expect to be fed.’

  He pushed open the back door, stepped into the darkened utility room. The kitchen door beyond lay slightly ajar, light spilling around its edge and bringing with it the muted sound of voices in low conversation. Even without being able to understand the words, he knew who the visitor was. Something about the deep yet feminine tones. The cats were a bit of a giveaway, too. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, McLean opened the door and stepped through.

  Emma sat on one side of the kitchen table, dressed in baggy clothes so as to conceal her barely noticeable bump, their child growing inside her. Across from her, massive hands cradling a delicate china cup as if it were as fragile as a tiny bird, Madame Rose, the transvestite medium, turned to greet him with a smile that had more than a hint of worry about it.

  ‘Tony. You’re home. I’m so very pleased to see you again.’

  7

  McLean couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something different about the old medium. How long was it since he’d first met Madame Rose? Three years? Four? It had been around the time Donald Anderson had died and all the horror that his killing had unleashed. Jayne McIntyre was the one who’d suggested he speak to her, hadn’t she? How had the detective chief inspector come into contact with a tr
ansvestite fortune teller and antiquarian book collector in the first place? For some unaccountable reason, he’d never asked.

  They sat at the kitchen table, a large pot of tea in between them. Madame Rose was as improbably large as ever, dressed in her finest twinset and pearls. Her hair had gone from grey to white and on into blue rinse, but was still as full as ever and perfectly coiffured. Her flawless makeup, war paint so thick it could hide the ages from her face, spoke of long hours in front of the mirror before ever venturing out into public. She held her cup with a delicacy quite at odds with the size of her hands, and that was when McLean noticed the slight tremor in the extended little finger. The tiniest of things, but as he saw it, so he saw other small signs of ageing. Of frailty. In the years he had known her, Madame Rose had been many things, but frail had never been one of them.

  ‘It’s so nice to see Emma back to normal.’ Rose placed her cup down on the table, reached out with a hand that completely engulfed Emma’s own. ‘You know, my dear? I think travel suits you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I’m going to be heading off anywhere soon.’ Emma patted her stomach with her free hand.

  ‘Indeed no. You must rest, conserve your strength. Take regular exercise but nothing too strenuous. Your child is the future. She brings me much hope.’

  ‘She?’ McLean raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘You seem very sure.’

  Madame Rose released Emma’s hand, lifted her own to her face and tapped at her nose with a fat finger. ‘I have my ways, Tony. Same as I knew Emma was back in town even though neither of you thought to tell me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s been …’ McLean was about to say busy, but the first couple of months after Emma’s return he had been loafing around at home, suspended while Professional Standards looked into the death of poor Heather Marchmont. The truth of the matter was he’d completely forgotten how Madame Rose had helped Emma recover from her coma and subsequent memory loss. But then he’d forgotten that it was Madame Rose who had sent her off on her worldwide travels, too. Split the two of them apart when they had barely got to know each other.